Rachel finally reveals her communist leanings. Now we know where loving equally comes from not to mention all those red robes and scorched earth tactics.
Please, Michael. E-Merl’s Stalin-grad was the best of his class, all along his magical education. (Starts to sing “Stalin wasn’t stallin’ “, http://www.6thcorpsmusic.us/) ;-)
Three guys are sitting in a gulag, talking about why they’ve been imprisoned.
The first one says “I was late to work, so they arrested me for not showing enough communist spirit.”
The second one says “I was early to work, so they arrested me as a foreign spy.”
The third one says “I was on time to work, so they decided I must have a Swiss watch and arrested me for hoarding luxuries.”
Pff, he could probably save everybody without losing that even-tempered expression on his face. So he’s clearly lying about that to quicken Rachel into action.
lol, its always the biggest fail in programmed pathways too…”escort the helpless, one legged little old lady with 1 hp through the forbidden death-forrest, whilst it burns with abyssal flames due to the warring barbarian demon tribes.. oh and she’s senile and just stands looking about every 3 seconds when she isnt heading around in circles or standing between you and an enemy just as you release the spell/arrow…but its a compulsory, storyline mission. have fuuuuuunn XD”
I heard you can actually take out your eyeballs with a teaspoon and put it back without getting seriously injured.
Well, guess Tamara proved that urban legend wrong.
Hey, it’s good information to have. You might just accidentally pop out an eyeball sometime by sneezing without close your eyes quickly enough, or encounter some situation where kids were playing and had an accident and one has a dangling eyeball. Then you’d know what to do, which is good.
uh, I don’t think “put it back” is really adequate advice when faced with that situation. So, other than “try not to panic and do your best to keep the kid from panicking,” I still don’t know what to do in that situation. Possibly keep it moist as you hightail to the ER?
Basically. Fortunately, the eyestalk is almost pure muscle, and doesn’t stretch much. It’d take an insane amount of force to do that, and the ER is definitely the best response.
OhGodwhatiswrongwithyoupeople??Pleasestoptalkingabouteyeballspoppingoutandstuff!Iamsquikkingout!
Eearrghh!!
Squik!
Squik!
Squik, squik, squik, squik!
…
I am sure that that is also the sound eyeballs make in all of your scenarios.
And, Anonymouse! (I am laughing, not shouting.) What category of sanity would cause a person to go through the pain of stabbing and cauterising one’s own eyeballs over the scooping method?
I’m guessing that these former cronies of Rachel’s are ALL nuttier than a Squirrel Nut Zipper, and whichever method Tamara chose is pretty far off the scale of normalcy.
Just some stats on this –
In the 93 pages in which he appeared Scipio has been in 190 frames had 66 bubbles** and said 662 words
In those same pages E-Merl has 145 frames 92 bubbles and 862 words***
Scipio is at almost 3.5 words per frame while E-Merl is at almost 6.
Words per bubble, Scipio is at 10 and E-Merl at almost 9.4
Only about 35% of Scipio’s frames have him speaking where for E-Merl the number is at about 63%
Granted they are different characters but they are at about the same status(supporting characters) and both appeared at the same time and are part of the same group
It could be interesting to compare Scipio to Gravedust as far as words go but i’ll pass on that unless i get insanely bored or annoyed again, though I suspect he’ll still turn out less talkative of the two
Going through all these does give a nice perspective of his selective use of words (including an explanation from the horse’s mouth) and he can shoot quite a bit of them out at a time when needed(passes the 50 words per page 7 times and another 45), but usually he keeps quiet 56 out of 93 pages of complete silence(60%)(though some are covers 2 or 3)
His cast page says: A man of few words.
I think this supports his case.
*not counting guest strips.
**connected bubbles were counted as one bubble.
***keep in mind he has also been in about 50 more pages that did not feature Scipio and is not present in all 93 Scipio pages(E-Merl is not in 26 of these(he is in 72% of the pages)) so he probably has some more words dropping down in there as well.
This whole sequence is tight. I especially love that everyone involved is competent. Nobody so far has been a weight on their group (even Scipio’s assertions are slightly exaggerated, but Rachel needs to get her head in the fight). Everybody is pulling their weight.
You said it, but E-Merl particularly amazes me. Most mages would be helpless in such a situation. Not only did he escape his bonds, but he’s covering his own escape.
And if he actually remains at the tree while Blair, Hestia and Tamara chase his illusions, I’ll be doubly impressed.
Am I the only one who thinks he’s still tied up but just invisible? He just sent four (five, counting the E-Merl-shaped signal flare) illusions out, but he wasn’t actually able to get himself free.
In a fit of teary-eyed rage, Rachel instinctively dashes towards the “true” E-Merl, and passionately kisses him. This makes a massive holy-energy explosion radiate out from her – one that knocks all of the baddies out, and instantly cures Frigg.
When the dust settles, we can see that Rachel has become Super-Rachel(tm). She has not one, but /three/ cigars in her mouth. Clapping her hands together but once, she instantly summons a unicorn. All of the friendlies climb up on it, as happy as they’ll ever be, while their unicorn steed gallops off onto a rainbow, and into the sunset.
Well yes, the unicorn steed will have spoilers on it to reduce drag, but since they come standard on unicorn summons we figured it went without saying.
One problem: how is The Frigg going to get near the Unicorn? Just look at how much trouble Princess P-cups (from Exiern) has around the Unicorn that allows a barbarian man-changed-into-a-woman-whomayhavebeenbornawomanbutcursedtobeaman ride it
Not very smart on the cultists’ part: they didn’t go that far away to have their heated discusion about why it’s okay to kill their sisters when they question you about killing your sisters
time for some forgotten lore/knowledge in 2.5 ed of Dnd there was a mage class called the “mage of masks” one of its class abilities aloud it to mimic a domain ability or spell a god 1 alignment different then you as long as it was an equal trade off of lvl per lvl but with empowered spell casting you could cast a prepared spell upto two levels higher then you currently posses. usually this is used to do more damage but in the “mask mage” case it could be bent to cast spells you have no reach to use normally, and if the mage in question chose the shadow domain he could cast mirror images improved form “shadow image” which can act and use items as if they own’d them without losing any actual charges not only do the act but react as if the actual person, now you could also since they had a physical component cast perminstion causing them to exist as part of you, but still being part shadow they could be stored in a shadow weave cloak. nasty surprise huh?
“You are my broth- comrades!”
Rachel finally reveals her communist leanings. Now we know where loving equally comes from not to mention all those red robes and scorched earth tactics.
Also these reds are the first ones to send an elf into orbit. To glory comrade Мерл!
So we should Marx them as commies. I thought they were Lenin in that direction!
Unfortunately, I think E-Merl’s magical deception is only stalin his inevitable demise.
he might be okay if Rachel can be honest with herself. Right now she’s just a kgb.
U S’s R getting on my nerves.
Man, you guys are really russian those jokes…
In Soviet Russia, jokes tell you!
She might need a new Khrushch-ev things go poorly for E-merl.
Too many puns today…To the Vladistock-ade with you all!
Those Sisters should Yuri over to the cliff, Andropov.
Please, Michael. E-Merl’s Stalin-grad was the best of his class, all along his magical education. (Starts to sing “Stalin wasn’t stallin’ “, http://www.6thcorpsmusic.us/) ;-)
Meh, his Lenin-grad was better.
Cracked me up beyond all wit. Jean-Luc, your comments are made of win!
There is hope for her yet. She said “broth-comrades” so there’s the chance that she will see the light of capitalism yet.
Now, if she had said “borscht-comrades”…..
Actually, she calls them her broth-comrades because she has seen the light of cannibalism.
Nah. She was just being stewpid. She opted for the souperior title a moment late.
Old joke about the USSR:
Three guys are sitting in a gulag, talking about why they’ve been imprisoned.
The first one says “I was late to work, so they arrested me for not showing enough communist spirit.”
The second one says “I was early to work, so they arrested me as a foreign spy.”
The third one says “I was on time to work, so they decided I must have a Swiss watch and arrested me for hoarding luxuries.”
I knew that one. It’s a good one.
so now i guess we have to call him e-MIRV?
Since each version of E-Merl can make evaise maneuvers, he’d rather be named E-Marv. ;-)
Wait… Scipio can’t save him on his own?
Pff, he could probably save everybody without losing that even-tempered expression on his face. So he’s clearly lying about that to quicken Rachel into action.
Well, his cigar left to do greatness, and it was the cigar who had all the strenght, merely granting some of it to Scipio.
Wait; like Samson and his hair? So who’s Delilah in this? No-one’s asked him to quit smoking, so… Urghh! This analogy is too confusing.
Self-heals will only ever get you so far; even the best tank needs his healer.
Killing the enemy is easy, saving hostages is a bit more difficult.
Damn escort missions.
lol, its always the biggest fail in programmed pathways too…”escort the helpless, one legged little old lady with 1 hp through the forbidden death-forrest, whilst it burns with abyssal flames due to the warring barbarian demon tribes.. oh and she’s senile and just stands looking about every 3 seconds when she isnt heading around in circles or standing between you and an enemy just as you release the spell/arrow…but its a compulsory, storyline mission. have fuuuuuunn XD”
“Eyestalks”? What exactly is Tamara, then?
An eyestalker, obviously.
(Actually when you see the eyes on a CAT scan you can see they do have stalks)
So instead of just stabbing her eyes and cauterizing it like a sane human being, she decided to scoop the whole thing up.
Ouch.
I heard you can actually take out your eyeballs with a teaspoon and put it back without getting seriously injured.
Well, guess Tamara proved that urban legend wrong.
I did not need to know that.
Hey, it’s good information to have. You might just accidentally pop out an eyeball sometime by sneezing without close your eyes quickly enough, or encounter some situation where kids were playing and had an accident and one has a dangling eyeball. Then you’d know what to do, which is good.
uh, I don’t think “put it back” is really adequate advice when faced with that situation. So, other than “try not to panic and do your best to keep the kid from panicking,” I still don’t know what to do in that situation. Possibly keep it moist as you hightail to the ER?
Basically. Fortunately, the eyestalk is almost pure muscle, and doesn’t stretch much. It’d take an insane amount of force to do that, and the ER is definitely the best response.
OhGodwhatiswrongwithyoupeople??Pleasestoptalkingabouteyeballspoppingoutandstuff!Iamsquikkingout!
Eearrghh!!
Squik!
Squik!
Squik, squik, squik, squik!
…
I am sure that that is also the sound eyeballs make in all of your scenarios.
And, Anonymouse! (I am laughing, not shouting.) What category of sanity would cause a person to go through the pain of stabbing and cauterising one’s own eyeballs over the scooping method?
I’m guessing that these former cronies of Rachel’s are ALL nuttier than a Squirrel Nut Zipper, and whichever method Tamara chose is pretty far off the scale of normalcy.
Just the MENTAL image of that gave me a case of http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EyeScream
I like the E’Merl-shaped signal flare to let them know where he is.
I actually thought that was him rocketing away.
One of him.
E-Merls how do they work?!
Scipio is a man of few words–so when he speaks, LISTEN.
…well that picture just fits perfectly.
It’s so perfect I must second that.
Indubitably.
Whenever someone uses the word “indubitably,” I imagine it in Daffy Duck’s voice.
I don’t buy any of that “man of few words” nonsense. He speaks about as frequently as any other supporting character.
Nono, that was the cigar. Scipio himself never spoke until the last few pages.
He infrequently is the main speaker, stays almost meticulously on-topic, and rarely elaborates. It’s not really nonsense.
Just some stats on this –
In the 93 pages in which he appeared Scipio has been in 190 frames had 66 bubbles** and said 662 words
In those same pages E-Merl has 145 frames 92 bubbles and 862 words***
Scipio is at almost 3.5 words per frame while E-Merl is at almost 6.
Words per bubble, Scipio is at 10 and E-Merl at almost 9.4
Only about 35% of Scipio’s frames have him speaking where for E-Merl the number is at about 63%
Granted they are different characters but they are at about the same status(supporting characters) and both appeared at the same time and are part of the same group
It could be interesting to compare Scipio to Gravedust as far as words go but i’ll pass on that unless i get insanely bored or annoyed again, though I suspect he’ll still turn out less talkative of the two
Going through all these does give a nice perspective of his selective use of words (including an explanation from the horse’s mouth) and he can shoot quite a bit of them out at a time when needed(passes the 50 words per page 7 times and another 45), but usually he keeps quiet 56 out of 93 pages of complete silence(60%)(though some are covers 2 or 3)
His cast page says: A man of few words.
I think this supports his case.
*not counting guest strips.
**connected bubbles were counted as one bubble.
***keep in mind he has also been in about 50 more pages that did not feature Scipio and is not present in all 93 Scipio pages(E-Merl is not in 26 of these(he is in 72% of the pages)) so he probably has some more words dropping down in there as well.
… :-o
I’m in awe.
“He speaks about as frequently as any other supporting character.”
Of course he doesn’t. Read the entire comic, and you’ll see how wrong you are.
Again, no Frigg voice balloons. I’m gettin’ kinda worried!
Meanwhile, Rachel’s getting ticked. Finally.
She’s pining for the E-Merl.
“Tortured to death from the inside” implies a slow poison. So there’s that.
Scipio really seems to be browbeating poor Rachel.
At least he doesn’t beat around the bush
That’s reserved for Syr’Nj
no, that’s reserved for Byron >.>
Well, in fact, it’s available for Scipio too, in that case.
Scipio is with Fr’nj. Byron is with Syr’Nj.
seems there is some confusion here.
Yeah, Scippio is still working around the edges, while Byron’s already got it in his veins. what’s to be confused about?
Working around the hedges, surely…
Sounds like everyone’s fencing…
But you just know the relationship is in trouble when either Byron OR Syr,Nj gets the hedge-clippers out…
Frak. I even went back in the archives to try to get the name right because she’s not on the character page and I still copy the wrong name
*Facepalm*
I’m horrible with names, lucky I remember my own sometimes. OK, OK, everyone move along
Name you’re looking for is Fr’Nj. ;-)
I get the feeling Tamara isn’t fooled by the illusions. Hopefully she has a change of heart.
She was fooled the first time she encountered them. Tried to kick E-Merl in the face, but it was an illusion.
Well the thing is these illusions have a vocal component as well, so that works on any attuned hearing she might have.
This whole sequence is tight. I especially love that everyone involved is competent. Nobody so far has been a weight on their group (even Scipio’s assertions are slightly exaggerated, but Rachel needs to get her head in the fight). Everybody is pulling their weight.
You said it, but E-Merl particularly amazes me. Most mages would be helpless in such a situation. Not only did he escape his bonds, but he’s covering his own escape.
And if he actually remains at the tree while Blair, Hestia and Tamara chase his illusions, I’ll be doubly impressed.
Aye, I finally feel like he’s living up to his “nah, I’m from the /streets/” statement from when we first met him.
Am I the only one who thinks he’s still tied up but just invisible? He just sent four (five, counting the E-Merl-shaped signal flare) illusions out, but he wasn’t actually able to get himself free.
last panel from previous page and 3rd panel from this page. the ropes are toast.
edit: 3rd panel from previous page.
Scipio does not talk much, but when he does… well, better listen to him!
He talks about as often as anyone else!
Am I the only one who got the batman thème song when reading the alt-text ?
“E-meeerl ! nananana nananana, E-meeerl !”
I got more of the Iron Man theme actually. The whole flying through the air with trails from his boots bit did that for me.
Nah, he’s Tony Stark right at the beginning. Hurt, captured, uses his brains to escape on jet powered boots.
I absolutely adore Merl using that old Dr. Strange/Mandrake the Magician escape and confuse trick. :) It keeps being classic every time!
1. The only way that speech could have been anymore awesome? With a cigar in his mouth.
2. E-Merl: International Half Elf of Mystery.
…and now the Iron Man theme in my head has become the 007 theme.
I think I can see where this is going:
In a fit of teary-eyed rage, Rachel instinctively dashes towards the “true” E-Merl, and passionately kisses him. This makes a massive holy-energy explosion radiate out from her – one that knocks all of the baddies out, and instantly cures Frigg.
When the dust settles, we can see that Rachel has become Super-Rachel(tm). She has not one, but /three/ cigars in her mouth. Clapping her hands together but once, she instantly summons a unicorn. All of the friendlies climb up on it, as happy as they’ll ever be, while their unicorn steed gallops off onto a rainbow, and into the sunset.
Dude! Spoilers…
Well yes, the unicorn steed will have spoilers on it to reduce drag, but since they come standard on unicorn summons we figured it went without saying.
…The only thing that got spoiled for me is the idea of a competently-written plot line…
One problem: how is The Frigg going to get near the Unicorn? Just look at how much trouble Princess P-cups (from Exiern) has around the Unicorn that allows a barbarian man-changed-into-a-woman-whomayhavebeenbornawomanbutcursedtobeaman ride it
Exiern you say? Consider it Googled.
If you like it, tell ’em Guesticus sent ya :D
When tanks talk…
Yah fucking listen.
Hang on, you have a group that listens to the tank and doesn’t rush ahead blindly when the tank says ‘wait’ or ‘remember to dodge when X’?
That speech, you can really feel it’s intensity
Seriously. I was trying to find a word for that last panel. Can’t get any better than that. Love the writing here.
Notice the numbers of ‘!’ above the evil cultists’ heads? Hestia has !!!, Blair has !! and Tammy only has !
Does that mean there are actually 6 E-Gurls, but we can only see 5?
Not very smart on the cultists’ part: they didn’t go that far away to have their heated discusion about why it’s okay to kill their sisters when they question you about killing your sisters
You can tell Scipio really care for his friends. He wouldn’t said any of that if he never gave a damn. Loving the development here.
hmm, only one e-merl is trailing ropes with him, good trick or the real one?
time for some forgotten lore/knowledge in 2.5 ed of Dnd there was a mage class called the “mage of masks” one of its class abilities aloud it to mimic a domain ability or spell a god 1 alignment different then you as long as it was an equal trade off of lvl per lvl but with empowered spell casting you could cast a prepared spell upto two levels higher then you currently posses. usually this is used to do more damage but in the “mask mage” case it could be bent to cast spells you have no reach to use normally, and if the mage in question chose the shadow domain he could cast mirror images improved form “shadow image” which can act and use items as if they own’d them without losing any actual charges not only do the act but react as if the actual person, now you could also since they had a physical component cast perminstion causing them to exist as part of you, but still being part shadow they could be stored in a shadow weave cloak. nasty surprise huh?
Sounds like Harem from Grrl Power :D
I keep getting this ‘Thundercats’ vibe off of Scipio’s sword and color scheme.
“Sword of Bro-mens”?
You saw her judge us … and so what ? You judge the others, don’t you ?
*Claps* A solid point indeed.
Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!