SFP

sfp 6 134 for web

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  • Lysiuj

    SLEEP

  • Abel Undercity

    Dumplings, trashy TV, and sleep. The universal curatives.

    • Jared Rosenberg

      You’ve discovered the secret to Feral’s powers! Congratulations.

  • Lostman

    She had a long three days Feral, rest is something she needs.

  • Haven

    Are you kidding, Feral? I absolutely want birds to fight crime.

    • I’m picturing Falcon/Captain America with the “look of disapproval” face..

      • Rando

        I am imagining Angel with a “look of disapproval”…

        Oh wait, he was mutilated, turned into a warrior slave embodiment of death, killed by his lover, had his now dead body brought back to life with a new soul, became a brain dead mind controlled killing machine (again by his lover), old soul combined with new soul into a new personality, oh and had his younger self forcibly pulled out of his own time line and stranded in the future.

        Angel probably agrees, that fighting crime with just wing’s is a bad plan.

    • GreatWyrmGold

      A flock of birds would be great at fighting crime. (Assuming they took inspiration from Skitter or something.) One bird, less so.

      • Oren Leifer

        Remember the orphan Aiden (one of the ones Skitter took in)? That’s what he could do. Interesting to see if he’s mentioned in the sequel.

        • GreatWyrmGold

          I’d be surprised if he wasn’t.

          But it wasn’t Taylor’s power that made her powerful, it was how she used it. Aiden might not have the right mindset to properly squeeze every bit of usefulness out of his power the way Taylor did, and his inability to control and see through birds at the same time would be a significant handicap.

          • dragonus45

            Aiden also has less fine control than she did.

          • juleslt

            There’s this bit from the end of Worm about the nature of her power that’s burning my tongue, but it’s rather spoilerific: her “way of using it”
            is *part* of her power

          • GreatWyrmGold

            That might be true the way you’re using the term “how she used it,” but not for the way I am.

        • Skitter was terrifying because she was clever, inventive, and resourceful; if I had that power set, I’d pretty much be a really good exterminator. “Get rid of bugs in one day or your money back.”

          • Oren Leifer

            I feel like there is also a large amount of family and class background that differentiates Alison and Taylor (Skitter), and that in turn dictates their methods.

            Alison grew up upper-middle class in what is basically a nuclear family. The death of her family dog was loss that hit her hard, and her father’s cancer is a recent development that is a looming threat, but not yet fatal. She lives a pretty good life, and even the way she was shaped by others into becoming Mega Girl was with a velvet glove, not iron fist. Frankly, much of this story has been about Alison discovering the impacts of her actions, the amount of power she does and doesn’t have, and the ways problems in society can and cannot be solved by her application of force and power(s).

            Taylor grew up solidly middle class, going on working class after her mother’s death. She was socially isolated, but also viscerally aware of many of society’s problems and how powerless she was against them (unemployment, poverty and its effects, drug abuse, racism, etc). This means that when given any power, Taylor realizes immediately that she has to leverage it rather than use it directly, and means that she needs to really think about what she can do with her power.

            Cutting myself off for now, but if people want to discuss this more, I’m “Zarohk” on Spacebattles. Honestly, I find Alison and Taylor fascinating contrasts because of their backgrounds and what it says about class and society as much as everything else.

      • scarvesandcelery

        Or Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”.

      • Haven

        Have you ever met a goose? :p

        • GreatWyrmGold

          Yeah. There’s a reason that armies with guns have always defeated those which rely on trained geese.

          • Haven

            That was a joke and I was joking, as denoted by the :p

            Although this does put me in mind of the Emu Wars.

          • However, a flock of geese used as an auxiliary sentry force is REMARKABLY effective in detecting intruders. They can’t take on more than one or two people on their own, but they’re real good at alerting people about the presence of invaders.

      • Lysiuj

        I’d cast my bets with an ostrich over most single humans…

        • Dave M

          Yeah, or Australia’s favourite prehistoric death bird, the Cassowary. Smaller than an ostrich, but extremely territorial. At least one Cassowary refuge in Queensland has signs posted stating “Warning: Cassowary’s CAN and WILL kill humans who enter their territory, especially during mating season.”

          Tried playing a were-cassowary in a GURPS campaign many years back. The GM refused first, because they thought I was being silly. After showing them the facts, they refused on the grounds I’d be too overpowered compared to the rest of the party. Any wonder Cassowary’s have attitude. 🙂

        • GreatWyrmGold

          Sure, if you can find the ostrich. And the human doesn’t have superpowers…or a gun, for that matter.

          • Lysiuj

            I’ll just assume the ostritch already volunteered to fight crime.

        • Tylikcat

          Ostriches are scary. “We are dinosaurs and we would like our planet back, okthnx.”

        • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
          and
          http://thedollop.libsyn.com/111-the-emu-war-live
          “If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world… They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks. They are like Zulus whom even dum-dum bullets could not stop.”

          Australia fights emus, using vehicle-mounted machine guns, and loses.

    • Scott

      I mean, he’s a villain but isn’t this pretty much the exact description of Vulture from Spider-Man? I know they’ve probably added more power to him over time but I thought he began as just an old man who built a big-ass pair of wings.

      • Preacher John

        which was why he was rubbish at super-villainy! 😉

        • Scott

          Don’t tell Sony. I’m pretty sure he’s the antagonist of the new Spider-Man film.

          • Which shows that Michael Keaton’s superhero career is just going backward. Batman to Birdman to the Vulture. That’s the opposite of the order you want to go in terms of superheroics.

          • Scott

            Wow. I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out.
            Although I think you could make a whole comic based solely on a character with that exact arc. From the brooding hero that, let’s be honest, has a ton of issues to the mental patient to the cooky old villain getting trounced by the young guy.

          • Zorae42

            He started out as Beetlejuice. So his arc is more of a circle 😛

      • He also had enchanced strength from the harness he wore, otherwise he’d be too physically frail to fight Spiderman. Hell, he even beat Spidey in their first fight until Spidey built a device to screw up the suit.

      • AshlaBoga

        The big thing about the vulture is that he is a genius inventor and could teach aerodynamics at MIT. That allows him to do far more than someone who just has wings.

    • Shjade

      If ever there were a time for Philosophy Duck to make their debut, this is it.

    • Hawthorne

      *Angelica takes off her mask after a long day of crimefighting, goes back to newspaper reporting*

      Angelica: Brois, are we still having dinner tonight?

      Brois Lane: Not a chance! I’ve got a date with Birdwingwoman! If only you were a *real* woman like she is, but you’re such a wimp!

      Jenny Olsen: You ever notice we never see Angelica and Birdwingwoman in the same room at the same time?

      *Angelica winks at reader*

      • commander frostwolf

        you need a better nqame for her, superhero names are things that kinda latch on yet fits thematically, see falcon,angel,surge,medusa and rescue(tried to keep a degree of vareity)

        • Hawthorne

          Well, if she’s really as bad-tempered or b**chy as she appears on TV, you could always call her Redwings.

          • commander frostwolf

            taken already, by falcons bird/drone(depends on wich version)

          • Hawthorne

            Y…yeah…I think you’re reading way too close into this. First I made an old Superman comic reference. Then I made a period joke.

          • commander frostwolf

            i missed that but still i like finding suiting names, Swallow migth work(i think it isnt taken, also its a bit of a joke on shallow)

    • deebles

      Fighting crime would not be my choice if I had flight alone. Working as an emergency medical technician plus mountain rescue volunteer would seem a much more natural way to play to my new strengths.

      But some people just want to be on TV, which is, in d&d ethics terms, a neutral choice, rather than an evil one. Not something to get too hung up on.

  • Seeing Feral so happy in a normal life kind of breaks my heart a little, in a good way.

    • Hawthorne

      No worries, she can grow you a new one.

      • Wife: What are you laughing at?
        Me: It’s really funny. You should read a couple years of the back issues of a web comic so I can share the joke.
        Wife: …. I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.

    • Merle

      She just has the most infectious smile.

  • lij

    Really, now she is judging someone for choosing not to fight crime when their only power is a pair of bird wings? It’s amazing she can even see all these other morally inferior people, sitting on her high horse of invulnerability and super strength. Talk about privilege blindness.

    Also bravo on throwing in another “Look, rich people are terrible” jab to the story.

    • Lostman

      I have to wonder were Alison sites on the political spectrum at times.

      • bta

        Idealists naively getting upset that people aren’t up to their standards isn’t a left or right thing, though it’s true the right has this worldview where ordinary mistakes and accidents are pretexts to cold indifference. I think that Allison understands on some level that you can’t keep expecting people to be something they aren’t, but she hasn’t fully interiorized it and is tragically unable to apply this to her own failures.

        • Lostman

          The problem is that choices she made in live have effected her more ways then one. That, and she litter the top of the food chain when it comes to supers.

          • Beroli

            …Alison EATS other biodynamics? Max has no idea how lucky he is to still be alive!

            (I know you didn’t mean that kind of “literally the top of the food chain,” I’m just amused.)

      • AshlaBoga

        All over the spectrum.

    • Nightsbridge

      Yeah, I think that this is a pretty clear cut case of Allison flubbing? Like, maybe Angelica has a chip on her shoulder, we don’t know her that well, but . . . criticizing someone whose powers aren’t suited for fighting for not fighting?

      That’s a load of nonsense.

      • thebombzen

        Keeping up with the Kardashians is a thing.

      • Tylikcat

        And getting bitchy because people on the show have chips on their shoulder is a thing.

        • Shweta Narayan

          why would we pay attention to real people frailties when we could demonize al instead tho doncha know we gotta save that kind of benefit of doubt for max

      • I’d say her powers are probably at least as appropriate to crimefighting as Brad and Moonshadow’s.

        WRT sniping at the wealthy, are we starting to see a pattern? The poor and middle-class biodynamics got pressured into policing/being child soldiers, the wealthy bios skated by and got to be the beautiful people.

        • AshlaBoga

          The difference is that we know Moonshadow is a highly capable fighter, we’ve seen nothing of Angelica that indicates she’s a capable fighter. For all we know she can’t even fly.

          • Dean

            Moonshadow had to learn to be a capable fighter, because she got into so many fights as a member of the Guardians. She mentioned how, in the beginning, she felt completely out of her depth as a superhero.

          • One of Hector’s points to Alison about why the Guardians broke up was that Moonshadow kept trying to make up for Alison’s absence and getting hurt. She knows something about fighting, but how capable a fighter she is when she hasn’t been able to set holograms to mislead her opponents is an open question.

            Feral likened Angelica to a bird, which suggests she can fly, and if you can fly, you can drop things on people*.

            *I’m convinced ‘Shitehawk’** is one of the great unused superhero names.

            ** British slang for seagulls.

          • Seagulls are one of my favorite birds; I may be one of the only people in the world who likes them.

            And even I have to admit that “shitehawk” is the best name for them I’ve ever heard.

          • juleslt

            *Angelica flying above people trying to drop stuff on them*
            *Gunshot*
            THE END

          • Investigating officer: And then you fired the grenade launcher at them?
            Angelica: They fired first.

            (It’s no different to any other kind of air support, you suppress the air defences first).

          • juleslt

            It’s quite different, in that a big bird is slower, doesn’t have guiding systems and can be downed with a single bullet.
            Also, you’re letting the other guy shoot first.

          • It only takes a single bullet to bring down an aircraft if it hits in the right place, and having actually been involved in the development of combat aircraft flight controls they won’t in general keep you from flying into the ground. As for speed, a lot of combat helicopters actually engage from the hover, so Angelica could potentially be the faster of the two.

            WRT letting the other guy shoot first, I was just riffing on the general scenario being postulated. With someone waving a gun around, US law enforcement standards would generally accept firing first. Personally I’d train Angelica as a sniper and let her use her wings to access unexpected firing locations, but flying overhead and dropping flash-bangs, or fragmentation grenades, is just as valid, especially if you position yourself so they have to look into the sun to see you.

        • Jovial Contrarian

          >The poor and middle-class biodynamics got pressured into policing/being child soldiers
          Well, that never really happened. The gov rounded up all biodynamic kids in a fit of organisational panic, some of them had a bright idea to put on masks (not surprising, when you put a few hundreds kids with superpowers in a single place and tell them to stay put while grown-ups will sort it out), and then the gov just kind off… rolled with it. There might have been social pressure to become a super-hero, and it was even harder to stop being one, but there wasn’t any evidence for children literally being drafted against their will.

          I guess when one day you wake up with wings sticking out of your back, you’re more inclined to become a super hero if an easy life of money and parties isn’t a certain thing in your foreseeable future.

          • The government enabled the Guardians, and presumably the regional teams, their support organisation was the Department for Biodynamic Research and Defence, not Biodynamic Research, and toys like Pintsize’s jet and it’s AI don’t come cheap. The difference between ‘you’re in the army now’ and ‘we’ll give you all the guns and planes you need, and point you in the right direction’ is a fairly trivial one. They were 14, kids of that age aren’t legally capable of making good decisions on their own*, it’s the adults’ jobs to say ‘we’ll talk about this when you’re 18’.

            *Our resident seaslug wrangler excepted.

        • Walter

          Buh. Angelica’s power is as good for fighting as Moonshadow’s? That doesn’t seem right…

          • Moonshadow has the advantage of stealth, but mostly uses that to get in close and attack from surprise.

            Angelica has the advantage of wings. That can also lead to surprise if people aren’t looking up, but if they do look up then it means they have to divide their attention, which is a big advantage for the team as a whole. Wings also mean she can hit and run, which will keep her out of trouble from a lot of brawler-type biodynamics – Cleaver would be helpless against her. She has advantages in reaction speed, she can flit across the battlefield to help whoever is in need, and spot that that they’re in need in the first place. And wings also make her very useful as a scout, able to spot ambushes and the like.

            Just think of everything we do with modern fighter aircraft and helicopters. A flying hero opens all of that up to a hero team.

    • Lysiuj

      This is actually kind of consistent for her – people are apparently obligated to fight the world’s ills if they have extraordinary abilities, whether it be Angelica, or herself… or Max.

      • bta

        You’ll note that this is something that she already demonstrated prior to the discovery of her power, within her soccer team. Along with her mother encoauraging her to fulfill her potential. A good message, sure, but dangerously warped once you factor in superpowers.

        • Lostman

          That can be said with power in general.

        • Arkone Axon

          Her parents also reprimanded her for looking down on her teammates and classmates. It makes me wonder how many actual friends Alison had, even before she got her powers.

      • 21stCenturyPeon

        She’s not the first to think that way – after all, with great power comes something something.

      • Walter

        Sure, Alison has definitely demonstrated this belief before. Love it or hate it, Alison definitely has this mindset.

    • shink

      I think your response here is a bit overblown. She’s so tired she can barely think straight and basically falls asleep immediately upon hitting a resting position. These are the ravings of someone who hasn’t slept for like a day and a half, if she started hallucinating here it wouldn’t be that out of place.

      • lij

        Alternatively, she is so tired, that her filter is down and she is talking how she truly feels.

        • Nightsbridge

          Filters are an important part of how we view and interact with the world. You take someone’s filters away, you’re not even talking to the same person.

          • juleslt

            I’ll quote you on that +++

        • Hawthorne

          #AlternativeFeels

    • Elaine Lee

      “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime” – Honoré de Balzac

    • LordErnie

      Good thing you’re here to defend the rich

    • Elaine Lee

      And there are people in trailers all over America watching shows about rich people acting like idiots. When you have next to nothing, watching people who have everything make fools of themselves is attractive. It’s why these shows sell. However, Feral merely described the characters on the show. She never said that all rich people are dumb. She just said that the people in this particular show were both rich and dumb.

    • Psile

      I thinks it’s more of a mirror of how people of a minority judge others of a minority if they believe they are trying to claim oppression without being oppressed. Like all those fruit stereotypes about people who are ‘minority’ on the outside but ‘white’ inside. I don’t know that it’s supposed to be positive, it’s just kind of a part of having a character who has both noble and ignoble views. I think Alison is saying ‘she has a chip on her shoulder, but she never had to put on a mask and put her life on the line like I did’ which is not really a great thing to do but is a realistic way someone might think.

      • Shweta Narayan

        there’s at least 4 ways her statement could be read in this context, but it’s not surprising that some folks want to take the one they can hate most and claim it’s the obviously true one and al is clearly 100% clear and unambiguous in her current state.

    • Yeah, crazy, what would make people think rich people are terrible. Oh right, the WORLD.

      • lij

        Yeah, Warren Buffet is just an absolutely awful person, right?

        • Akiva

          Look, I’ve got class privilege (though I’m no Warren Buffet) and I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to defend wealthy people. Wealthy people can stand to be made uncomfortable with our privilege, as a change of pace from being worshipped for our superior intelligence, skill, virtue, and deservingness* day in and day out? It’s not like it actually hurts us at the end of the day.

          If you have class privilege and you’re made to feel bad about it, that’s your conscience speaking to you. Get connected, get informed, and start changing the way things are. Resource Generation is a pretty good place to start.

          * hint: all lies!! the prosperity gospel is some truly evil shit.

          • lij

            I don’t have class privilege, and it has nothing to do with defending the rich.

            It is the fact that people do the same things, that they like to denounce people for being such intolerant aholes for.

            “Yeah, crazy, what would make people think *insert any other group here* people are terrible. Oh right, the WORLD.”

          • Hawthorne

            If you’ll pay for an Iron Man style suit, I will fight crime in it for the rest of my life.

        • yeah, it’s not like two billionaires bribed and bullied their way into control of two of the nuclear superpowers. Oh wait, they did that too.

        • Shweta Narayan

          do you … actually think this is a counterargument… to anything?

          • juleslt

            The point is that overgeneralisation makes people wrong.
            The rich might not be downtrodden, but you can still overgeneralise and be wrong about them.

          • Shweta Narayan

            …That is *a* point, and by itself it’d be merely kind of naive. But given that the only overgeneralization in this thread was made by lij themself, it seems nonsensical.

            Note that Henrik’s response was not “rich people are terrible”, it was “people think rich people are terrible”.

            Now either this is implicitly “[all] people [including rich people and lij] think [all] rich people are terrible” — which is so nonsensical that Warren Buffet is irrelevant, or else “[many] people think [many] rich people are terrible”, which is a *far* more plausible reading if you’re not trying to straw man, and … not an overgeneralization. And again, Warren Buffet (or what we THINK about Warren Buffet) is simply irrelevant.

            So the options I can see are 1. lij is saying these things in earnest, and reasoning in confused ways, 2. lij is playing a what-about-this-cultural-hero card to make anyone who argues with them look bad, which is to say not arguing in good faith, or 3. lij had an actual point, which I missed.

            I dislike assuming (1) or (2) about people before they prove it to me conclusively, but if that’s the point then well. It ain’t (3).

          • juleslt

            You can indeed charitably take Henrik’s comment to mean that it’s *natural* rather than *justified* to think that, without any qualifier, “rich people are terrible”.

            Lij was reacting to the idea that it would be justified, and giving an exception.
            And I did not see that overgeneralisation by Lij that you’re talking about.

    • Arkone Axon

      I love how Feral (the one who truly came from an impoverished background) is rebuking Alison (the comfortably middle/upper-middle class kid) for sneering at the rich people for not becoming child soldiers. :p

      • Zorae42

        She rebuked her by saying the rich person wasn’t strong enough to become a soldier. It’s not like she was standing up for their choice to not help people.

        • Arkone Axon

          More like saying that Alison shouldn’t hold someone in contempt for not putting on a costume to emulate those who had the benefit of invulnerability or regeneration. So… she kinda was standing up for that choice.

          (or to be more precise, to be nonjudgemental and not criticize others for not making similar choices. I REALLY like Feral. She’s been where Alison is now – the atoner repenting for her misdeeds. Only now she’s gone through the guilt to the other side, and found some peace. It’s beautiful to see)

    • Well, she appears to be wealthy. Maybe she could fight crime by starting a youth intervention charity?

      Or maybe she could only fight criminals who are allergic to birds…

    • Ben Posin

      I’m willing to give Alison a little bit of benefit of the doubt that there’s something relevant about the “chip on [birdwoman’s] shoulder” that makes her comment more reasonable than it seems. Not reasonable in the sense that birdwoman SHOULD be fighting crime, but reasonable in that it’s possible birdwoman has said and done some stuff related to her life as a whatchamacallit (bio-dynamic?) personthat sounds a bit tacky for someone who has only used her special status for fame and PR purposes.

  • TFW

    If this were a soap opera, the letter Allison wrote to max would still be in her coat and conveniently fall out, and Feral would be unable to resist opening and reading it.

    Fortunately, this isn’t a soap opera.

    • GreatWyrmGold

      Watch that happen next page.

      • The Improbable Man

        Oh god, that’s going to happen isn’t it? Feral finding out about what Alison did to Max is the worst (or best, depending on your perspective) possible thing that could happen.

        At least she’s finally getting some sleep.

    • Magma Sam

      You know, my guess was going to be “some kind of policy event screws everything up” at the event and it’s genuinely braking news of some kind, but yeah that sounds way more plausible.

      (Or that this was going to be a fitting kind of ‘issue-end’ for closure.)

  • Jimsham

    HAHA I love the attention to detail in the drawings but I never pictured Feral as being the kind of girl to sit at home chilling to the tv with take out and care about wearing a bra (1st frame exposed bra strap). I know my wife doesn’t. It’s the first thing she gets rid of as soon as she walks into the house… lol

    • Jim Heath

      I think Feral is just enjoying being “normal,” gorging herself on takeout food, booze, cigarettes and trashy TV. In a few weeks, she’ll probably get the itch and want to go hike the Rockies or something.

    • bta

      Feral, who shrugs off bullets reducing her to mush, caring about an itch? The irony would be precious.

  • Walter

    Let her sleep Feral. She’s had a big day.

    • Shweta Narayan

      yeah it was like, 60 hours long at *least*

  • HanoverFist

    Once again Alison demonstrates that she only cares about biodynamics when they use their powers to help CS people. It appears she doesn’t respect those who choose to use their powers for something else, or not use them at all. Never seems to occur to her that maybe some of them have other goals in life. I’d really like to see her demonstrate some more respect for personal agency.

    • Actually, mainstream superhero comics are like that too, they always go on and on about “great responsibility” like you’re morally obligated to go get yourself killed for people you dont like. Granted, the REAL reason for that is so there’d be conflict and make the stories exciting and not screw up the status quo too much. The Green Goblin even talked about that in one issue of Spiderman, but he’s a mass murdering psychopath, so he’s not a very good spokesman.

      • Weatherheight

        There is a saying:
        “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then.”
        You can be bat-crap crazy and still, on occasion, make a valid point – granted, probably not on purpose, but hey…

        • The closest we’ve gotten to superheroes actually charging for their services are Luke Cage, Ironfist and Jessica Jones (and technically, Jonescharges for her P.I work, not having powers). Of course, part of the problem is the way heroes operate, just prowling around looking for crime, you cant save someone and THEN invoice them.

          • Zorae42

            Isn’t that what Hospitals do?

          • Weatherheight

            You can, but the contract lawyers are going to ruin your groove. 😀

  • RobNiner ♫

    I would watch The High Life, it sounds ridiculous but fun.

  • Pol Subanajouy

    Feral, low key dissing Hawkman, Hawkgirl, Angel from the X-men and Swift from the Authority. That’s okay, I still love her. <3

    • Hawkman and Hawkgirl are trained police officers from a military goverment though, they’re hardly just dudes with wings. They’re like Nazy SEALS with wings.

      • Pol Subanajouy

        Oh no, I have respect for the Thangarians. The Nth-Metal gear is wicked too. But on their character sheets, that’s more under gear and training than power intrinsically.

    • Weatherheight

      Swift is a bit more than just wings, too. Apparently she’s pretty tough, has wicked reflexes, and nasty pointy claws. Granted, all that and she’s still weaksauce compared to the rest of the team.

      • Pol Subanajouy

        The Authority is so ridiculous. They have a Superman style flying brick pastiche that sterilized the moon with his eye beams. They have a Batman pastiche with tactical super computer wetware for a brain and redundant organs. They have grey goop nanotech nightmare except she’s a good guy. They have a guy who wore Tokyo as a battle suit once. And that’s not counting the reality warper and the magic user who might as well be a reality warper. As far as winged superhero goes, Swift is indeed a cut above, but come on, the power difference was always nuts. I’m shocked that her being lower powered than the rest of the team never became a plot point.

        • Skylar Green

          Even Angel from the X-Men, physically, has low-density 150 pound body mass distributed over a 6+ foot frame, combined with enhanced physical capabilities and a 27 foot wingspan. Even his natural wings are powerful enough to knock the average person several feet away. He’s basically Captain America with feathers and a sweet-ass inheritance.

  • Tsapki

    Hm, I think Alison’s comment on panel 4 about masks may need clarification, as I seem to be interpreting it differently from other commenters.

    My basic interpretation was that she dislikes the show because the main starlet is constantly upset with not clear or defining reason beyond “Things didn’t go exactly how I wanted them to” and then qualified it further by stating she never took part in heroics which might have made it understandable for the starlet to be upset to such a degree.

    • The Elsewise

      I think she’s implying that Angelica has no reason to have a chip on her shoulder, because she was never a hero so why should she? Almost like, having been a masked hero in some way justifies the behavior, to a degree.

      If so, it’s certainly a believable stance, though maybe not exactly correct.

      • Mechwarrior

        I think it’s more a jab at Angelica being a vapid individual who hasn’t done anything in her life besides looking pretty and has a huge entitlement complex.

        • Tylikcat

          Yeah, I figured it was specifically aimed at her fame coming from her anomaly (though feral is correct that she’s probably not the best hero? OTOH, it sounds like she’d be no worse than many.)

          • Shweta Narayan

            ..Does “I hate X” when talking about someone on TV mean something
            a lot more literl and emphatic and serious these days?

            When I was their age it was a
            casual statement and meant something more like “X annoys me, gah”, and
            if I really thought a show or person was vile I’d have been way more
            nasty and specific. And I would have been pretty pissed off if my
            friends continued to push them into my environment.

            So to me
            Al’s comment sounds like the kinda trivial pseudo-argument friends *do*,
            and it’s very weird to me that even the “Al is the Devil” contingent
            could read it as more serious than that, or read Feral’s response as serious rather than whimsical/silly. Am I just super out of touch & missing something?

          • Tylikcat

            No, that’s how I’m reading it.

          • Shweta Narayan

            I figured, but a lot of commenters seem not to be, and I have been wondering if it’s possible to read it their way in good faith.

            …Between this and a couple other threads, I’m reluctantly coming to the conclusion that there’s a lot more bad faith in the comments here than I’d been willing to believe :/

          • Tylikcat

            I wonder how many of them even understand the concept of good faith or bad. The disintegration of the discussion area post moderation has been notable – and I think it’s just about the lack of introduced lag, really (though perhaps Molly was filtering out more than I realize? Still, it wasn’t sustainable.)

      • Shweta Narayan

        Another possible reading: having been raised as a child soldier miiight make you a bit short-tempered with a rich person who got a tv show instead

        and keeps complaining about how ~hard~ the anomaly makes their life, on said tv show

        …given how hard it has *actually* made the lives of most people you now know.

        You might be especially grumpy about it if you haven’t slept since you last dealt with a biodynamic who got an out for being rich, from the stuff you went through, and was whining about how hard the anomaly was on them & feeling entitled to your sympathy.

    • Danygalw

      I assumed she was half-asleep and thinking of Max.

  • Amanda

    i’m glad alison finally got to relax enough to get some sleep :’)

  • AshlaBoga

    It’s Kim K. with wings instead of a large posterior.

    I can understand why our protagonist would rather sleep than watch the vain musings of a human commercial.

  • The Dread Pirate Steve #812

    I actually laughed out loud at ‘you home early’. Anyone else thinking it was a cute meta-jab at people who thought the previous scene taking up too many weeks?

  • S.I. Rosenbaum

    Feral is the best friend.
    And I love this Kardashianesque detail about the SFP world. Superpowers w/o using them = born rich and just using the money to party. And the same arguments over that in the comments that we have over RL.

  • elysdir

    My theory: this whole storyline has been Patrick’s way of running an experiment to find out the effects of sleep deprivation on biodynamics.

    • elysdir

      (Hmm, now I’m not sure whether someone else already said that. Apologies if so.)

      • Lysiuj

        It’s all an experiment by Patrick to find out the effects of sleep deprivation on attention to the comments.

  • I’m guessing she cant even fly with them unless she also has a drastically different skeletal structure. It’s not like humans become more aerodynamic because you graft wings to them. Even DC had to make stuff up with Hawkman about him having magic metal in his blood or something.

    • Mechwarrior

      Given what that dress reveals of her body, I doubt she has either the aerodynamics or the muscle structure necessary for powered flight.

      • Zorae42

        That’d be a pretty sad waste of a pun for the show title if she couldn’t actually fly.

        • Mechwarrior

          She might be able to fly, but it’s not going to be from pure muscle power. And lamer names have happened.

    • Weatherheight

      Assuming she can fly…
      TK lifts her and provides most of the propulsion.
      The wings flap because she thinks they can (again, TK).

      ref. Peregrine from Wild Cards books (practically the same character, based on surface appearance – except Peregrine had light brown hair…)

  • Stephanie Gertsch

    As an introvert who struggles with insomnia I am giving major side-eye to Feral for waking up a sleeping person. What, can’t spend another few minutes alone with your thoughts so you disturb someone’s rest to ask them to join you for a stinky smoke session? No thank you.

    Also loling at how they pointed out the uselessness of wings as a super power.

    I’m interested that they mentioned charity events. Maybe the wings lady is a total prima donna, and also donates some money and raises awareness for legit causes? (But she could have picked a less obvious name than “Angelica.”)

    • Shweta Narayan

      I’m in the same camp (insomnia *and* non-regenerative sleep! wheee!) but.. she has no idea that Al hasn’t slept lately, does she? It’s only been a minute or so since Al last said something so maybe she just hasn’t realized yet that Al already conked?

      …I’m hoping it’s that anyway 🙂

      • Stephanie Gertsch

        In my opinion, if someone’s sleeping they probably need it. But maybe they are people out there who fall asleep all the time when they don’t want to and aren’t disoriented by being woken up. I dunno.

        It’s also that I wouldn’t wake someone up unless I needed to tell them something that couldn’t wait. Even if I’ve been alone all day, I’m not the type to recruit a buddy for something random.

        • Shweta Narayan

          Yeah I’m hoping she’ll leave Al alone once she realizes :/

      • Beroli

        Yeah, I’m pretty sure as far as Tara knows, Alison slept 8+ hours of the sleep of the untroubledly virtuous last night and is falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon for no reason.

        (Tara also might not really “get” fatigue, depending on how it interacts with her anomaly.)

        • Shweta Narayan

          Yeah I’m thinking also, Tara may not realize immediately that Al *is* asleep? We see the little zs but they look quiet to me, and Tara doesn’t see them and the TV’s on.

          I

        • Shweta Narayan

          Yeah, plus she may not immediately realize that Al’s asleep? We see the zzs but I assume she doesn’t have that particular power 🙂

  • JohnTomato

    “Pull!” -BANG!!!-

    “Breast or thigh, sir?”

    • Weatherheight

      “They are my people! I am their sovereign! I LOVE Them. Pull!”
      “Drifting to the left, sire.”

  • a person

    “she basically just a bird” I love Feral so much

  • Weatherheight

    That’s it, Tara – keep Alison awake longer. What could go wrong?

  • magabzdy

    Damn it all, now all I can hear when reading Feral is Cooch from SuperMansion. Mocking the big bird only reinforced the new voice-over in my head.

  • Eric Meyer

    Ah. Feral’s one of those friends.

    The ones who’re absurdly chipper, really nice, friendly, outgoing, to the point that you just want to [i]strangle them so you can get some rest[/i], but know you’d miss them when they’re dead, so restrain yourself.

    It’s a good thing Al’s more extroverted than in- I don’t think I’d have been able to resist doing bloody harm to a regenerator.

    • AshlaBoga

      You could always learn how to remove organs and get to let off steam via doing so once a month without anesthesia.

      • Shweta Narayan

        pretty sure Al knows how to remove organs. “In one piece”, though, probably not 😀

  • Hiram

    Feral – “Come get some a this!”
    Alison – ” . . . ”
    Feral – “Oh, yeah. There’s some food here as well.”

  • Well, she almost talkin’ Yat, cher.

  • pleasechangemymind

    OH FFS FERAL LET THE KID GET SOME SLEEP

    I mean, man, I’m glad Feral’s happy and not in a constant state of suffering, and yes she’s kind of the best ever, but Alison Really REALLY needs some sleep.

  • Nathanaël François

    I’m assuming some crows somewhere must be territorial. If that’s the case, then we definitely do have crows that fight murders!

  • Aresius

    Why do I have a terrible feeling that an accident is going to happen to Feral while Al sleeps? I’m sure the Harmony Council won’t stay quiet after Megagirl hurt one of their children, and that they’ve been thinking a way to get rid of world-changing Feral permanently :/

    • Vigil

      Which page showed Max’s mother to be in the secret cabal?

      • Kifre

        *whispers* none of them…

  • MartynW

    Even if you discount the thousands Feral is saving, just Feral alone being saved by Alison’s actions is not inconsequential.

    Angelica reminds me of Peregrine from the Wild Card novels.

  • David Nuttall

    It looks like a lot of people are assuming that Angela can actually fly. Most mammals are too dense to fly. Part of the reason that birds can fly is that their bones are less dense than that of mammals. The biggest flying birds (albatrosses) are a lot bigger than the largest bats (flying foxes), in part because of their lower density. A 20-pound wandering albatross uses about a 10-foot wingspan to get airborne and fly. A 100-pound woman will need a lot more than a 12-foot wingspan (estimating her to be about 5’3″ tall) to get airborne. Her power might just be to have the wings, but be much to heavy to actually fly, kind of like an ostrich.

    • Mechwarrior

      Alison can fly and she doesn’t even have wings. Assuming that Angela’s flight ability or lack thereof should not be limited to the laws of physics.

    • Darkoneko Hellsing

      “most mammals are too dense” would make a pretty good shirt 😀