SFP

Kid Chaos

So, we know two things; 1) Furnace is totally self-centered, and 2) his powers are getting harder to control. This fits in with a general theme of “SFP”, mainly that superpowers aren’t stable; they will change over time (“mutate”, if you will). Very interesting…

Pol Subanajouy

Here’s the thing, given the writing we’ve seen in this comic, I totally see Furnace being changed to a very well rounded character over time. Still a jerkface mind you, but still well rounded.
- KatherineMW
  
  Based on this page, I agree.
- Jerden
  
  A well rounded jerkface.
  So, does that mean he’ll put on weight?
  - Kid Chaos
    
    A grossly obese jerkface? I can live with that.
  - Pol Subanajouy
    
    The weight of characterization!
KatherineMW

Also that, based on the last panel, he’s adopted or foster care (or from a sperm donor, I guess, but that’s less common).

And also that he’s scared by how his powers are changing and his lack of control, but doesn’t want to admit it.
- Gryphonic
  
  Or possibly, just hasn’t met his father in a very long time. Say, since his biodynamism manifested. We know that there’s very strong prejudice against biodynamics in some quarters. Perhaps his father cut ties with his ‘mutant’ kid, and later regretted it and wished to reconcile: “didn’t want to meet your father” makes it sound like the refusal was on Chris’ end, which is understandable if the initial rift was due to him ‘coming out/being outed’ as biodynamic. I’m sure Alison has peers this happened to.

Subbak

I love the description of Furnace’s politics by Dr Marley…
It also works with many conservatives, mind you.

RobNiner

Makes me wonder if Moonshadow’s powers have mutated as well, as if so, into what?

Shino

Reread the part where she kills the rapist soldiers, outside of just invisibility she can project her image where she isn’t.
motorfirebox

We’ve already seen it. Originally, her powers just made her ‘hard to pay attention to’. Now she can go full on invisible, create illusions, and possibly more.
- RobNiner
  
  I did not remember that, good point!
- ampg
  
  I’m pretty sure she was always “full on invisible” – Allison puts her in that category when discussing her with her doctor. The illusion thing seems to be new, though.

fairportfan

Can he perform his true destined story function and provide a corpse for the Good Guys to investigate?

One thing this comic needs a lot more of is a lot less of Furnace.

motorfirebox

Groucho quote from yesterday, repeated with emphasis.

Some guy

So he was relatively safe before this?

It must really suck having control over something as dangerous as ‘Fire’, and then not so much any more.

Scar Man!!!

Yeah.

Charles M. Hagmaier

He started out as a massive strawman. There’s now at least the rudiments of a person visible, packed inside the straw.

Mystery girl

If I only had a brain!
masterofbones

Not really. His personality hasn’t changed in the slightest, he just had some bad things happen to him.
- Charles M. Hagmaier
  
  “Conflict builds character!” Or, at least, reveals it. One of my favorite authors likes to say that her plot-engine is “what is the worst thing I can do to this character”, but in retrospect, she didn’t really mean it. As others have pointed out, the absolutely worst thing an author can do to a character is make them do something contrary to their own selves.
  
  It’s one of the reasons that rape is such a problematic narrative tool – it takes a character and makes him or her an object, takes away their agency, makes them, for however brief a time, not themselves. A significant part of why Veronica Mars was so queasily fascinating was the way they started with the rape of the protagonist, and sort of worked backwards from that demolition, with a protagonist who is sort of taped-back-together from a character viewpoint. It was a tightwalk, and that precariousness made it an uncomfortable, uneasy viewing experience. They made it work, at least in the first season, but it’s not something I’d care to see again and again.

Pol Subanajouy

Wow, he’s just a class act isn’t he? But seriously, fuck ups happen, but try to take precautions at least. Jeez.

Some guy

Giving fire powers to a guy made of straw is a bad idea.

Loranna

Fearful prediction. Furnace and Moonshadow cross paths, in the not-so-friendly way . . . and Furnace’s new tendency to explode when faced with deadly attacks kills Moonshadow, just as Alison finally manages to track Moonshadow down. Cue angry Alison and frightened Furnace getting into a . . .

(forgive me)

. . . heated debate.

>.>

<.<

– Loranna

Some guy

If that happens, I bet it ends in a fight since Alison can conveniently fly now.
- Hawthorne
  
  Just putting 2 and 2 together…Furnace is suddenly more powerful and Alison can suddenly fly. I think we should watch whether every hero is suddenly evolving.
Scar Man!!!

or he freaks out when she tries to knife him in the middle of a crowd

Rod

Ok… finally, confirmation that he’s not just going to be a two-dimensional punching bag. Whew!

Kid Chaos

Yes, he’s going to be a *three*-dimensional punching bag! Thanks, Molly & Brennan!

Seraph4377

An American citizen who’s kinda sorta an officially sanctioned vigilante accidentally interferes in a Mexican federal investigation that he didn’t know about while making an incompetent, but good faith, effort to rescue human trafficking victims?

Maybe the Mexican government could make some hay of that if they wanted to, but I can see why they wouldn’t want to go to the trouble, especially because all they’ll get is a PR nightmare.

Putting in some kind of official complaint and request that he learn how to do his damn job is probably about the end of it.

Rod

While I agree that Furnace seemed as if he was just going to be a sloppy caricature at first… yes, including the characterization from the last two pages, people like this actually exist, and if you had to ask, then probably in higher numbers than you’re imagining.

strongfemaleprotagonist

The first book is about 220 pages, we’ve got about 120 pages of new material so far, so we’re going to hold off until we have enough for a new book! Thanks for your interest though. The next Kickstarter will probably launch early in summer 2016 🙂

Rod

“No, I’m… very clear on your pro-police & military, anti-government politics, Chris. A little perplexed, but clear.”

Ha! Thank you, thank you, thank you for pointing out this common, modern-day contradiction.

*Keeps eyes open for a pointing out of the inverse contradiction.*

MrSing

It’s not as contradictory as you might think.
I suspect that what Furnace mostly wants is a strong military to protect people against outside threats and to help during natural disasters. And a strong police force to keep down the criminal element.
He sees them as defending people from the obvious threats and crimes that most people recognise. Don’t steal, murder, etc.
The reason he most likely hates a large goverment is because they bog down the police force and population by introducing less obvious laws that stifle the world for little reason. Like, to buy a turtle you have to pay three different taxes and give it a bi-monthly check up at your local fire station and nonsense laws like that.
This is, of course, difficult to implement because of the very nature of goverments, and the military and police do need a form of goverment to function properly and responsibly.
But ideals usually don’t survive the real world.
KatherineMW

My views are the inverse contradiction, but I don’t see them as contradictory: I trust folks who aren’t allowed to kill people more than folks who are.
- Lostman
  
  I like to point out that it’s not a matter of if your allowed or not, it’s one of is the person willing to go though with it.
- Rod
  
  The government IS allowed to kill people. Where do you think police and military get their orders and approval of standards of conduct from?
Kid Chaos

“I’m a superhero, not a bomb-on-a-leash.” So, you’re a bomb *off* the leash, that can go off anytime, anywhere, without warning? [sarcasm]Way to inspire confidence, Furnace.[/sarcasm]

Rod

Similar to with Alison, it’s handwaved away because he’s a superhero, and addressing it, or pressing the issue to the point of conflict could be… problematic.

Rod

Which, as much as I want to give the guy a break now, just highlights the fact that he should NOT have gone on that rescue mission. He wasn’t directed to do so, and *knew* his powers were getting harder to control. His FIRE powers. I’m not saying he should be crucified, but at least hung by hooks for a while (metaphorically.)

Potatamoto

As his character develops and we find out more about him, he becomes more human than the caricature he presents to the public…but he’s an awful, awful human being.
Ian Osmond

Why do you think that he KNEW that? It’s something that appears to be taking a lot of supers by surprise — Alison wasn’t expecting to start flying, and she already got a heads-up that stuff like this was happening. I doubt Furnace was listening if someone told him that, and this may well have been the first time he had that sort of power surge.

Mind you — he’s still completely responsible for whatever happened, and would have been responsible for what might have happened. If you’re doing something wrong, and something unusually bad happens, you’re responsible for it, whether it was your intention or not. But still, I don’t see any reason to think that he WASN’T totally shocked by what he did.
- Rod
  
  The 4th Panel of this comic is enough for me. It strongly suggests he knew about his power increase, by describing how he used to do things and comparing to how he has to do things now. And then basically waving the problem off by insisting that it’s not always a bad thing.
  
  If he *didn’t* know, then that’s some pretty misleading writing.

Mechwarrior

In the real world, there’s an entire political movement made up of such people.

Rod

I’d say at least two such political movements, maybe more.

Mechwarrior

*Sigh.* I was hoping that the author wouldn’t go with something as cliche as “Furnace didn’t get enough hugs as a child.”

Marika Oniki

You’re extrapolating a lot out of a single page of dialogue, and even if it turns out correct, well… If you do it right, using cliches doesn’t have to be a negative thing.
- masterofbones
  
  The thing is, it is a shortcut for empathy. Instead of giving stuff about furnace himself that we should care about, it merely drops in an external force that makes us empathize with him.
  
  His *personality* is still the same, he is still a very two-dimensional character, but “stuff” happened to him.
  
  Sure, it helps us understand why he acts that way, but it doesn’t make his actual character any more likable or interesting.
- Kid Chaos
  
  Avoid cliches like the plague.

Jesse Cox

“Being right needs no excuse” is, I think, the quote — you need a real kick in the head to realize that you’re “right” may have different, or even better value than someone else’s, but is far from perfect. Self-change is *hard*, which is a real reason Alison is so damn impressive.

ukulady7

So you don’t consider it self centered to burst into a dangerous situation he’s not equipped for with no intel and almost incinerate everyone because he wants to be the hero? Putting his own fear before the lives of a dozen people sounds pretty selfish to me. Emotion didn’t excuse behavior.

Mindsword

If I saw someone being grappled by someone, I hope that I will react to defend the individual. If it turns out the attacker was trying to stop a thief, does that make me a bad person for interacting without knowing what’s going on?
- Stephanie Gertsch
  
  How likely are you to incinerate both the attacker and the thief? 😛
  - Jerden
    
    Let’s assume that in this scenario you’re armed only with a flamethrower.
    It happens.

Jesse Cox

Yeah, I suspect he could keep the superheat next to his skin, even when surprised from behind. Flight requires some pretty fancy heat manipulation, if it’s not just a separate power.

So he could “blow up” at a radius of a quarter of an inch or something, fine for taking out bullets without collateral damage. Losing control of your major defensive power, when your identity is “that guy who goes into dangerous situations and makes it better?” Is this doesn’t kill him, he’ll be different afterwards.

chaosvii

Calling the (non-executive branches of the) U.S. government an institution to be treated with suspicion is a great way to forget that they are made up of people.
Calling the Police & Military a group of people is a great way to forget that they are institutions of the government which make power plays against the other institutions by design.
Political viewpoints become rather wonky once ideological notions cross with individual fears. Not that there’s nothing to fear, just that fear is not exactly among the best ingredients to an appropriate evaluation of nuanced problems.

KatherineMW

Good analysis.

I’m basically the exact opposite of Furnace, politically. I generally like and trust the parts of government who don’t have guns or the right to kill people (health care, teachers, librarians, folks who run the national parks, policymakers, administrators). I generally distrust the parts of government that do have guns and the right to kill people.
- chaosvii
  
  Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug 😛
  - Ryan
    
    Also, it is great and everyone should try it.
- Rod
  
  Some of them just wield the guns indirectly, but thats all government effectively is: a huge gun mandating that money be collected and that things be done (or not done.)
  
  If your kid’s teachers dislike how frequently they miss school, they are likely to call upon the men with guns to express their dissatisfaction
Shino

As an anarchist I don’t trust ANY institutions, and exactly BECAUSE they’re made and run by people who are often neglectful, nepotic, power hungry or bigoted. Yay, I’m internally consistent!

Ryan

Yes, they do. Lots of them. Only instead of fire powers they have firearms.

masterofbones

>mildly homophobic joke

That joke isn’t necessarily homophobic.It would work just as well if the doctor was female. As far as I could tell, he was making a joke about how the doctor seemed to be going a bit past his role as physician.

>And he’s been told off in public by women

I think the bigger emotional impacts would be the “almost killed people” and the “losing control of his already dangerous powers”. Getting told off by a woman might be short-term upsetting, but unless he runs into them personally again(alongside additional rebuking) I doubt that is going to play a major role in his explodiness.

Shino

The joke is homophobic, the entire point relies on the idea that talking about feelings is “gay”. It would make no sense if doctor was female.
- masterofbones
  
  that is *one possible* interpretation of the joke. There are non-homophobic interpretations. Seriously, did you not read my comment?
  - Shino
    
    He called him gay, meant as an insult. That alone is homophobic. Stop being intentionally obtuse. There’s nothing I hate more than smug, fence-sitting people going constantly “well, it might’ve NOT been homophobic!” during absolutely anything, even when someone calls gay person a “faggot” they will still defend that person for no reason at all. And right now you’re that person.
    He used being gay as something negative. That’s homophobic, on *some* level, and I frankly don’t care about a throwaway line in a webcomic enough to try to analyze it any further.
    Furnace entire point in the comic is to show us insight into mind of a privileged self-righteous jerk – he started essentially as a strawman of one, and is now closest thing to a villain in this comic – and I think you should wonder a bit about your life if you defend even *fictional* jerks. For what purpose? Why?

masterofbones

that doesn’t make it a good thing.

masterofbones

Anyone else curious as to how Menace is going to get buffed?

Lostman

Pretty much a all powerful hivemind

fairportfan

Which doesn’t make him any less a character whose absence would improve the world.

Jerden

Yeah, but without those characters there isn’t much of a story.
- fairportfan
  
  No – by definition, characters whose absence would improve the story are detriments to the story.
  - Jerden
    
    You didn’t say story. You said world, so I thought you were referring to villains. I guess you were actually referring to characters that you personally don’t like.
    My point is: If there are no characters to make things worse, then there’s no real conflict, and thus no story. I personally think Furnace adds a nice contrast to Alison, which makes SPF more interesting. Furnace represents everything that Alison is opposed to.
    - fairportfan
      
      “World” and “story” are synonyms when discussing a comic.

Lostman

Makes one wonder if their own powers will kill them one day.

Kid Chaos

Cleaver certainly seems to be more than halfway there already.

Shino

And Furnace is a superhero, so secret identity thing probably worked similarly to internet anonymity, but without the clear distinction so he probably started behaving like this all the time.

Perlite

Furnace started a heated debate in the comments section, who’s surprised? But I suppose this did raise a few burning questions. He sure has been a hot topic these days.

Kid Chaos

I’m still not warming to him.
Mistress Dizzy

You all need to cool down with these puns.
- Perlite
  
  I’m just getting warmed up.

Jerden

He’s not a nice person, but at least now we have a better understanding of Furnace. It’s important to remember that even the most dislikeable people think they’re doing the right thing. In fact, their conviction that they know what’s best is probably the thing that makes them so infuriating.

Jerden

She still needs to breath. Good luck doing that without any oxygen.

Ryan

I keep looking for reasons to sympathize with Furnace, but I’m not finding any. He’s obviously in way over his head, and I could have maybe felt bad for him about that, but now we find out that he went in alone with no plan, not even at the request of a government or anything. He really needs someone to call him on his bullshit, but you’d have to be crazy to do that without, say, nigh-invulnerability and super strength.

Perlite

Probably because it’s FRYday

Kid Chaos

“That’s a bit crass, isn’t it?” Teh internets is a crass place, and fairportfan isn’t even close to crossing the “GIFT” line.

TheGonzoMD .

The funny thing about caricatures is that they have to work hard to stay more ridiculous than real people.

fairportfan

I don’t wanna eliminate undesirables, as such.

I want to eliminate people who are aggressively and willfully jerks -at least the ones who have the power to harm others while being jerks.

S.I. Rosenbaum

Ah. Pro-police and military, anti-government. So, the Tea Party basically.

Darkoneko Hellsing

Stop being (sorta) more human, Furnace.

Mistress Dizzy

Theory:

Furnace is what Mega Girl would have been if she didn’t have an awesome family and a lot of support.
* very destructive powers
* well-known biodynamic
* constantly in the media
* has caused injury/death trying to protect themselves/others
* they look very much alike (coincidence?)

Basically, the only thing separating the two is that ‘not enough hugs’ which cannot be so rapidly dismissed.

What I want to know is… just when did Chris/Furnace lose his father? I have a horrible notion that Chris got ‘dropped off’ at superhero camp when his powers started to manifest. His father, perhaps, thought he was too much effort and never came back. That shit can destroy people. Heck, even having parents that are alive and physically present, but emotionally horrible can destroy people. It’s not so easily dismissed, and I can’t wait to see where this comic takes it.

Lostman

I’m just going speak here and say that any number of things that can break people; Mary(or who we believe is Mary at this point) is on a killing spree for some reason, Alison almost went ax-crazy on a protest because some guy tried to her friend (reasonable… a little). The differences between them and the other nuts who break is fact they have superpowers. You can’t find Mary and it’s hard to kill Alison.

It’s the small evils in the world, the ones they are trying to solve; it’s getting to or have gotten to them.
- Mistress Dizzy
  
  Small evils. What’s that called, an… an oxymoron? One of those. Well said.
masterofbones

Alternatively, Furnace is what Allison looks like to anyone who doesn’t see her every waking moment. Look at her major actions without seeing the context behind them, and Allison is pretty much as insane as furnace.

Threatens innocents because they are upset and the innocents have different political views? Check.

Goes into situations uninformed and causes major collateral damage? Check.

Major emotional baggage leads them to make idiotic choices? Check.

People should be using Furnace as a reality check here. Allison is most definitely NOT a good person. Both Allison and Furnace try to be, but they fail A LOT.
- Mistress Dizzy
  
  That… actually makes a lot of sense to me. If we weren’t following Alison, what would we think of her from a distance?
Ian Osmond

Heck, “not enough hugs” is the primary difference between MegaGirl and Cleaver.

Kid Chaos

Someone obviously tipped him off, although who and why I can’t begin to guess.

Jerden

If you get it hot enough, air burns. Ever heard of nitrogen oxides?
Anyway, what the heck is Furnace combusting when he makes his fire anyway? Is he spontaneously generating burning gas? SCIENCE MUST KNOW!

Aaron J. Shay

Can Furnace burn hot enough to convert air gases into plasma?

So many questions for science to answer.

Kid Chaos

Yes; yes, you are.

fairportfan

…and many are created with the express purpose of being killed off for one reason and another.

Can you tell which is which?

Then be not too eager to preserve the life of all characters, for only the author can see the (planned) end.

Kid Chaos

Burning down the house!

Mistress Dizzy

..Did… Did you just make a Space Jam reference?

Iarei

Hah. I completely missed that. You guys are alright.

fairportfan

Yeah. When you leaving?

fairportfan

An additional thought. What was the ultimate reason that the character that was said of was in the story?

Why to die dramatically, at the proper moment.

Rod

I was being more literal than that: being pro-government, but anti-police and anti- military. Just as perplexing.

Rod

Out of curiosity, would you say Mary is an example of toxic femininity?

Aaron J. Shay

I would not.

Toxic masculinity is when someone embodies traditional masculine gender-roles so radically that they become a danger to themselves and to others.

Mary, though, is not embodying traditional femininity. The traditional roles for women in most patriarchal societies, like our own, are passive and non-violent roles. Mary rejects all of that. She is taking an active, violent role in her life and in her society. She has rejected traditional femininity. Perhaps even the very concept of the Feminine.

I’m not sure what toxic femininity would look like, if it can be said to exist, but it definitely wouldn’t be Moonshadow’s campaign of vengeance.
- Mechwarrior
  
  Toxic femininity would be if you had a culture that was matriarchal to the point that men were second class citizens who were seen as weaker, less intelligent, less capable of taking care of themselves, given value based primarily on their physical attractiveness, told they couldn’t be many occupations because they just weren’t good at the required skills, derided as “shrill” or “hysterical” when in authority positions, told to accept sexual harassment as “complements,” subjected to harsher grading in school in subjects like science and writing… basically if there was a 180 degree flip of gender privilege.
- Rod
  
  “I’m not sure what toxic femininity would look like, if it can be said to exist”
  
  That’s kind of what I’m getting at. Seriously, an entire gender can be toxic, and the other can’t? How does that not immediately smell suspect?
  - chaosvii
    
    I’m of the mindset that “toxic femininity” would be something to the effect of reinforcing roles which are passive to influence the behavior of others via social pressure rather than implications of violent reprisal.
    Shame-based disparaging of masculine pursuits & traits for some whilst promoting it in others based on the “correct” gender roles. Disparaging of feminine pursuits & traits for some whilst promoting it in others based on gender roles. As well as disparaging a lack of *enough* pursuit of a person’s role, or a lack of an extreme enough expression/demonstration of these traits. Not being “manly enough”/”womanly enough” in other words.
    Public dismissal of a man’s opinion regarding a subject which women are supposedly specialized in by virtue of being a woman, as well as the converse dismissal of a woman’s opinion in fields that they are presumed to be lacking “a man’s touch” in.
    Strongly implying through social finagling that somebody is failing society by not wanting to have children/be a parent fast enough. Whipping up a public panic over a private social arrangement that some people are having simply because the arrangement is not in line with the gender roles of those people.
    Again, no threat of violence, only the threat of social ostracism for not getting with the program.

Rod

Well, with corporations, since everyone (from the members of the corporation to the U.S. Supreme Court) *acts* as if they are entities unto themselves, they kinda become one. A sobering reminder that belief truly can affect reality.

Marc Whipple

The same is true of many large groups (the IRS, the Army, the Catholic Church, etc.) The other fascinating thing about this phenomenon is how it, like pretty much every other cognitive activity, is so easily swayed by tribalism. 🙂

ApostateltsopA

The beliefs are tied togeather not independent. Smoke does not always mean fire but they corelate often.

As to the rest I think you agree with me. While we might not need a government in an ideal senerio that situation is unlikely to put it mildly. Roads without government don’t get to small or poor places.

Governments need power to administer big public works force tax compliance and monitor natural monopolies. I’m all for more effiency and less beuracratic corruption but that comes more from citizen involvement than government structure.

rpenner

He wanted to be a Bogart-esque film noir detective. But when you set a deep, dark brooding look ON FIRE it looks a lot more like a sulky pout.

Scar Man!!!

Really? This is starting to make him look ridiculous. I don’t want to completely justify his actions, but I wish there was a bit more maturity in Furnace’s portrayal. It’s coming, but it’s pretty slow, and this “pro-police and military, anti-government” line about his views is not helping. If Brennan Mulligan can give a human character to that guy with the blade-hands without excusing all of his actions, I definitely think he has the capacity to make Furnace as memorable a character as any of the other characters here.

Scar Man!!!

no more simplistic than most people on the internet today. He’s just got the power to take his personal “social justice crusade” into the real world.

Scar Man!!!

You get the feeling that Furnace would have flunked out of a police academy or boot camp because he can’t keep cool (heh) under fire (heh heh).

Mechwarrior

He does tend to get a little hot under the collar.

But that’s bound to happen: he’s burning his candle at both ends, after all.

Ryan

Even, if we imagine that there wasn’t already a sting going on and that his powers didn’t misfire, his attack was still a terrible idea that was likely to get innocent people killed. What if the guys with guns had run into the room where everyone was being held captive and taken some of the captives as human shields? Furnace couldn’t do anything about that, or any of another hundred possibilities.

There are certainly productive ways to use fire powers to help society, but they don’t make superhero movies about them, so Furnace will never know about them.

Ian Osmond

The thing is: once you’ve got, say, a group of people with enough power to pressure other people to, say, not dump their garbage into other people’s drinking water, you’ve now got an organization which you’ve given the right to use some form of force to enforce compliance.

And you’ve now recapitulated government.

Basically, if you don’t have a government, a government of some sort will develop. And there’s a good chance that it will be a worse government than one you would have created on purpose.

Charles M. Hagmaier

Monopoly of force is the simultaneous flaw in garden-variety libertarianism, anarcho-syndicalism and bien-pensant progressive liberalism. On the one hand, sovereign government must retain the legitimate, defacto monopoly on force to avoid endless cycles of civil war or street unrest, while on the other hand, all laws, regulations and statutes are inherently underwritten by the same threat of legitimate police force.

Or, to put it another way, yes, there does have to be a police, armed constabulary, or other central armed arbiter, but at the same time, ask yourself whether you want to see somebody in body armor swinging a door ram with a stack of armed SWAT behind him because of that little law/statute/regulation you want to see enacted.

Government is armed force, however we refine it. It’s why I want as little of it as possible, engaged at as close to the people as possible, as locally as possible. And I definitely don’t want to see it outsourced to corporations, no matter what nonsense the minarchists like to gin up in their contract-ridden fantasies.

Perlite

Don’t worry. I’m not the type to go in with all guns blazing.

Kid Chaos

I want some hot stuff, baby, tonight…

masterofbones

A lot of his potential martial prowess depends on whether muscle memory is one of the things he can “copy+paste” from other people’s minds. If he can, then the obvious result would be that he is a master of most forms of martial arts. That alongside his ability to read minds(and of course emotional manipulation) would make him a formidable opponent indeed, though a speedster or a brick would still trounce him unless he had some form of backup.

Graeme Sutton

The skill-vampire thing would be an interesting way for his Anomaly to develop. As for his potential against a speedster or brick it would depend on how overmatched he was physically and what weapons he had access to, and how well he can react to the input from his power. If you know exactly what someone is going to do ahead of time it makes it much easier to pull off tricks like maneuvering them into a mine or causing them to hit their own allies (Patrick is a fan of Looney Toons right?) or just overcoming their speed or strength advantage by predicting where they will be and aiming there. Another interesting possibility is using his power to track people’s locations, he described it as being like a sense of hearing and as it stands he could probably use it to “screen-cheat” people (i.e. deduce where they are from what they can see or their own thoughts about where they are) but if his power actually provides him spatial information on his target’s location then it effectively renders any stealth, invisibility or illusion powers useless against him.

masterofbones

True enough. But “daddy issues” is a common enough trope that it makes me roll my eyes a little. Handled well it isn’t a huge issue, but it essentially makes the arc far more likely to be mediocre.

masterofbones

That’s what I’m saying though. We haven’t seen any character development yet. It might happen, sure. But this scene is only character development if he is just an object to be acted upon.

Ian Osmond

Understanding someone doesn’t mean forgiving them. I agree with you on his psychology; I disagree that it’s a reason to forgive him.

Mistress Dizzy

…*hugs~*

Shino

What you’re describing is called “internalized homophobia”.
So nope, stlil homophobic.

Shino

What? Calling someone gay as insult is homophobic pretty darn unconditionally, what are you talking about? And he wasn’t freaking flirting with him, he was saying he can talk to him, what are you even on.
Just what are you even talking about. I don’t think I understand any of your points. Like, what.