gaining actual quasi-omniscient insight into the universes mechanizations behind a loved one’s eradication from reality is a horrific mind breaking ordeal.
Or in this a Frigg ton of bricks. Play on words here. Free inter-webs cookie to who gets it right first! And by inter-webs cookie I mean death. SO FREEEEEEEEEEE DEAAAAAAAATH! Whoo!
Seriously, one has to wonder how this translates into the “real world” with her “player”.
Does she get a message that her character file has been deleted?
Probably more like corrupted files, as the information would have just been ripped out of the system haphazardly. Odds are Rachel’s player will have to reinstall the game, if not her entire operating system, depending on the extent of the Beast’s influence.
It has been implied that, normally, a character that is killed, is gone. You make a new PC, and move on. The main characters, however, somehow came back, and this is part of what pushed H.R. into insanity.
So what is rather than a paladin of the Heart of All, Frigg is the Heart of All? Much has been made of the idea that Rachel worshipped Frigg, but what if it was literal and nobody realized it until her death?
Hey! You might really be on to something, there! What if each of the Five is bringing something “human” into the game?
Frigg – the heart (passion, all the feels, the sense of right and wrong – free of rules and legal mumbo jumbo)
Gravy – the soul (the essence of what makes a person a person, the afterlife
Syr’Nj – the mind (politics, planning, foresight)
Byron – the spirit (the fire, the rage, the team spirit)
Best – the pride (sense of self worth, goals to strive for)
And, though not officially part of the five:
Bandit – spunkiness, slyness, cleverness, in the field leadership
I’m sure someone else has better words to describe what each of them brings. But, if this is true, what will the people who get put in the two new tanks bring?
The story almost seems like a twist on The Wizard of Oz. The characters aren’t just finding the missing parts of themselves, they’re bringing those parts into the game.
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
Oh, geez. When Rachel died, it didn’t really seem real. I don’t know why. Maybe because we didn’t really see it. But now, seeing Frigg react, it seems a whole lot worse.
I’m not sure if PCs other than the Tube Five don’t normally come back. After all Bandit came back without Mystic cheating. But even then the beast seems to delete your game data, meaning Rachel is still gone for good.
Hmm… She had two axes chopped far into her body, I’m unsure how she survived that… Also with the arena and surrounded by enemies… I’m kind of unsure how she’d ever escape/survive.
The axes were drenched in Harky’s super regenerative blood, at the time she was chopped, so there’s a chance that she was just mostly dead. And, thanks to Miracle Max from Princess Bride, we know that mostly dead means a little bit alive. And, I’m too lazy to look up the whole quote, right now.
Of course, it could be that Bandit’s player works for Hurricane Software or is a hacker, and made their character immortal.
OK, so Frigg does know. But what does she mean by “I just know she’s gone and not in the stupid way that we did but the real way that works and I just…”
What stupid way like who did what? Is she referring to the Five’s dying and returning?
I think it’s the ways of knowing that’s stupid/real. “The stupid way” is looking/seeing – it gets you the surface appearance of things. Frigg knows it “in her gut” – without having even been conscious, she ‘somehow’ knows, at a level that’s deeper and more real than merely having seen it.
I don’t know if this is “friendship is magic” or “glowy hammershit is magic.” With her character arc, it could go either way.
IKR! Thanks a lot, T! Thanks a lot, Phil! Thanks a lot, Waltrips!
I mean, it’s not like I didn’t already feel guilty enough for the characters I’ve deleted. If I’m ever able to get back into gaming, I’m gonna have to buy a new character slot, every time a character doesn’t turn out the way I like.
And, don’t even get me started on the guilt that’ll be piled on me, every time I frag a mob! Did they have family? Children? Did I just slaughter a pregnant abomination? How is a gamer supposed to sleep at night, after reading this awesome, amazing, touching, heart-wrenching work of art dreck? What has this webcomic done to me?!?! And, why do I love it so much?
Just as a certain god has felt the loss of his followers and is filled with his ever growing rage, so to does Frigg feel the loss of her follower. Only she feels a deep sadness that will fuel her anger well past the immediate sensation of simple rage.
And we all know what amazing…talents…Frigg brings to a chess game. The Knight of the Heart of All does not yield. The Unyielding Open Heart does not perish. Frigg’s senechal will return. One needs only a little…faith…as Rachel might have said, or WILL say…
I wonder if Frigg understands that without that “fuckin drum”, she never would have been able to get close enough to the beast to hammershit it’s eye to ded?
She now owes her life to the worst two kinds of people, one, someone who has, up till now, been a sworn enemy (Penk) and two, someone who is dead (Rachel).
For the one, it presents an almost unsolvable ethical conflict (Frigg has no morals, but ALL the ethics) and the other is literally a debt she can never repay. That’s gonna be fun later.
I don’t think Frigg is pissed about the drum itself but rather that Penk did nothing until he got his drum, and it took so long. If he’d ran and got it himself, rather than taking the opportunity to be inspirational to a couple kids, he’d have had it a lot sooner, and would have been in the fight sooner, and Rachel may not have had to die, I’m sure is the way that Frigg would see it.
Under the circumstances, I doubt Frigg gives a shit that the drum was necessary. She is grieving, she is angry, she will lash out at everyone, there is nothing useful to be said at a time like this.
Luckily for all involved I think that Penk will see this as mourning, not as a personal insult. I am also now a member of the Frigg/Penk shipdom. And if we see an iceburg…. RAMMING SPEED!!!
You need to put a bloody warning header on this sort of strip. Holy hells. I flipped to this in the middle of a brief pause in a business call and almost started bawling. ;_;
Ouch, right in the feels… Poor Frig hasn’t got a clue how to handle emotions that don’t fall under righteously pissed-off. Price of impending divinity, I guess.
on the bright side it was a meatspacer who got deleted(granted she just lost like…2/3 of her life from a 4 year period there but) not an npc or vat dweller
so she basically has like…a videogame version of a soul
that can either reincarnate or ragequit and just show up at emeral’s player’s door(only to get all depressed when he turns out to be a 500lb woman who was only roleplaying and is now calling the cops)
Rachel was doomed, as soon as she was seen using her glowy “iron fist”. Someone from Marvel saw it, and their lawyers sent Hurricane Software a decease and cyst order. (Trust me, you don’t wanna know what the “cyst” part involves)
“Well, speaking of my drum as you so eloquently did, I figured out that if you put one end of my drum up against your crotch, and pound on the other end… it’s pretty awesome.”
“(remind me to try that sometime)… But… Rachel!… Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
gaining actual quasi-omniscient insight into the universes mechanizations behind a loved one’s eradication from reality is a horrific mind breaking ordeal.
Eschew obfuscation.
Eh… you get over it….
Watching your buddy get disintegrated is heavy stuff.
They’re called emotions. They hit you like a tonne of bricks.
Or in this a Frigg ton of bricks. Play on words here. Free inter-webs cookie to who gets it right first! And by inter-webs cookie I mean death. SO FREEEEEEEEEEE DEAAAAAAAATH! Whoo!
Anyone else notice a ‘KA-FEELS’ hitting them?
“And my eyes are leaking.”
~The Grinch
I have read this a few times over the past years, and it still “makes my eyes pour”…. Rachel😭
When you suffer from emotional constipation giving a shit is hard.
Then you feel like a turrd. Then you feel flushed.
Frigg’s just realizing it’s time for her dumps.
Even though it will all probably work itself out in the end, let’s keep this streak going!
I don’t know, it already looks kind of stained and may well be circling the drain
Why do I get the feeling that someone’s going to try finding a lawyer to sewer?
Others around Frigg: No words are appropriate. Not right this second.
Just be there … be there for her and suffer with her.
Or serves as punchingballs for Frigg while she get it out of her system. :p
I winced as I read “punchingballs.”
For some reason this makes me think of Bandit.
Something was really off about the way she came back. And we have learned nothing about that.
Bandit was just killed by your regular run-of-the-mill foaming-at-the-mouth ax-wielding berserker. I’m guessing she respawned as any MMO player would.
Rachel, on the other hand, was derezzed, whatever that means. She’s almost certainly coming back.
*not
Um, yes, there’s a “not” inexplicably missing in the last sentence. Sorry.
If she does come back, though, she’ll be different. Maybe even unrecognizable. Who KNOWS how Frigg’s gonna work through that.
She comes back as a guy. Frigg is happy, but E-merl’s brain melts. xD
Frigg. ;__;
Frigg… you break our hearts ;__;
So…
When does she re-spawn?
Seriously, one has to wonder how this translates into the “real world” with her “player”.
Does she get a message that her character file has been deleted?
Probably more like corrupted files, as the information would have just been ripped out of the system haphazardly. Odds are Rachel’s player will have to reinstall the game, if not her entire operating system, depending on the extent of the Beast’s influence.
It has been implied that, normally, a character that is killed, is gone. You make a new PC, and move on. The main characters, however, somehow came back, and this is part of what pushed H.R. into insanity.
Considering the way not-controlled-by-test-tube-people characters react to death, I wonder if the death system in Arkerra is permanent.
And all the players get really into roleplaying.
Actually that sounds really cool.
I actually really thought Rachel was an NPC.
She can’t even.
So what is rather than a paladin of the Heart of All, Frigg is the Heart of All? Much has been made of the idea that Rachel worshipped Frigg, but what if it was literal and nobody realized it until her death?
*if, even.
Hey! You might really be on to something, there! What if each of the Five is bringing something “human” into the game?
Frigg – the heart (passion, all the feels, the sense of right and wrong – free of rules and legal mumbo jumbo)
Gravy – the soul (the essence of what makes a person a person, the afterlife
Syr’Nj – the mind (politics, planning, foresight)
Byron – the spirit (the fire, the rage, the team spirit)
Best – the pride (sense of self worth, goals to strive for)
And, though not officially part of the five:
Bandit – spunkiness, slyness, cleverness, in the field leadership
I’m sure someone else has better words to describe what each of them brings. But, if this is true, what will the people who get put in the two new tanks bring?
The story almost seems like a twist on The Wizard of Oz. The characters aren’t just finding the missing parts of themselves, they’re bringing those parts into the game.
Byron is also bringing self control. I wouldn’t be surprised if the anti-zerking serum that Syr’Nj created was a placebo.
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
Hmm, I wonder if Rachel really is dead, did the beast delete the character from the game?
Poor Frigg :(
Pardon me, neeks. But I must ask, what is your gravatar icon from?
Oh, geez. When Rachel died, it didn’t really seem real. I don’t know why. Maybe because we didn’t really see it. But now, seeing Frigg react, it seems a whole lot worse.
I wonder if Rachel will send her guildmates an E-merl to let them know what her new toon will be named?
Dammit derpherp… don’t make me chuckle at work.
People look.
She has to wait for a new chapter to find out, just like the rest of us.
I’m not sure if PCs other than the Tube Five don’t normally come back. After all Bandit came back without Mystic cheating. But even then the beast seems to delete your game data, meaning Rachel is still gone for good.
Bandit never died.
Hmm… She had two axes chopped far into her body, I’m unsure how she survived that… Also with the arena and surrounded by enemies… I’m kind of unsure how she’d ever escape/survive.
The axes were drenched in Harky’s super regenerative blood, at the time she was chopped, so there’s a chance that she was just mostly dead. And, thanks to Miracle Max from Princess Bride, we know that mostly dead means a little bit alive. And, I’m too lazy to look up the whole quote, right now.
Of course, it could be that Bandit’s player works for Hurricane Software or is a hacker, and made their character immortal.
And that is called character growth. /slow clap
Did Frigg just say she has a “GUI”? As in a Graphical User Interface?
…Yes, I know I don’t have a soul. I exchanged it for cookies the other day, if you must know.
She feels it in her GUT.
It’s just the way the font looks.
*No player named *xX66Rachel99Xx found, removed from friend list*
OK, so Frigg does know. But what does she mean by “I just know she’s gone and not in the stupid way that we did but the real way that works and I just…”
What stupid way like who did what? Is she referring to the Five’s dying and returning?
Yes. The difference between being dead and still belonging to the universe and being derezzed, unretrievable.
She logged out of the Matrix permanently.
I think it’s the ways of knowing that’s stupid/real. “The stupid way” is looking/seeing – it gets you the surface appearance of things. Frigg knows it “in her gut” – without having even been conscious, she ‘somehow’ knows, at a level that’s deeper and more real than merely having seen it.
I don’t know if this is “friendship is magic” or “glowy hammershit is magic.” With her character arc, it could go either way.
Friendship is not magic. It is difficult and inconvenient and confusing and often heartbreaking. Especially when they’re still alive.
Do what I do. Kill all your friends. Much less trouble then.
Also, if you know a good taxidermist you can still go to movies and things with them, but they won’t do annoying things like talk.
All those descriptions you gave apply fairly well to magic too. Ask any wizard who miscast a fireball.
But, friendship is like magic. It always comes with a price. ;)
You’ve gotta do a cost/benefit analysis, even when you don’t know what the costs or benefits are.
I think I will never delete a character again.
IKR! Thanks a lot, T! Thanks a lot, Phil! Thanks a lot, Waltrips!
I mean, it’s not like I didn’t already feel guilty enough for the characters I’ve deleted. If I’m ever able to get back into gaming, I’m gonna have to buy a new character slot, every time a character doesn’t turn out the way I like.
And, don’t even get me started on the guilt that’ll be piled on me, every time I frag a mob! Did they have family? Children? Did I just slaughter a pregnant abomination? How is a gamer supposed to sleep at night, after reading this
awesome, amazing, touching, heart-wrenching work of artdreck? What has this webcomic done to me?!?! And, why do I love it so much?I….crying Frigg makes me very, very sad.
Warn the taverns. I see large bar tabs and much broken furniture in the future
Great strip today, folks. This arc has been terrific.
Man, you said it. One of the best chapters ever. The last panel is one of the best panels ever. This chapter IS the best ever!
2nd sentence wuz s’posed t’ say PAGE, not chapter.
I’m not crying. You’re crying! Shut up! Don’t touch me! ;_;
Just as a certain god has felt the loss of his followers and is filled with his ever growing rage, so to does Frigg feel the loss of her follower. Only she feels a deep sadness that will fuel her anger well past the immediate sensation of simple rage.
Hey, Grave… I think she needs a long hug.
And we all know what amazing…talents…Frigg brings to a chess game. The Knight of the Heart of All does not yield. The Unyielding Open Heart does not perish. Frigg’s senechal will return. One needs only a little…faith…as Rachel might have said, or WILL say…
I wonder if Frigg understands that without that “fuckin drum”, she never would have been able to get close enough to the beast to hammershit it’s eye to ded?
She now owes her life to the worst two kinds of people, one, someone who has, up till now, been a sworn enemy (Penk) and two, someone who is dead (Rachel).
For the one, it presents an almost unsolvable ethical conflict (Frigg has no morals, but ALL the ethics) and the other is literally a debt she can never repay. That’s gonna be fun later.
I don’t think Frigg is pissed about the drum itself but rather that Penk did nothing until he got his drum, and it took so long. If he’d ran and got it himself, rather than taking the opportunity to be inspirational to a couple kids, he’d have had it a lot sooner, and would have been in the fight sooner, and Rachel may not have had to die, I’m sure is the way that Frigg would see it.
Under the circumstances, I doubt Frigg gives a shit that the drum was necessary. She is grieving, she is angry, she will lash out at everyone, there is nothing useful to be said at a time like this.
“If you look long enough into the void the void begins to look back through you.”
Is…is her armor crying as well?
Seeing Frigg cry is brutal. :-(
Brutal? Then will we soon have a Metalocalypse song about it?
Luckily for all involved I think that Penk will see this as mourning, not as a personal insult. I am also now a member of the Frigg/Penk shipdom. And if we see an iceburg…. RAMMING SPEED!!!
You need to put a bloody warning header on this sort of strip. Holy hells. I flipped to this in the middle of a brief pause in a business call and almost started bawling. ;_;
Oh, Frigg. If I didn’t have an aversion to getting punched in the face, I would hug you.
I’ll just stand silently over here.
-_-
Frigg’s last memory of Rachel is a chaste kiss upon the forehead and a magicked, healing touch.
Just think on that, and feel, if thou have (unyielding heart) to feel.
“Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O you
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death.”
This is an excellent character moment. I applaud you on Frigg’s reaction to Rachel’s loss. Very well penned and drawn.
Aaaw man… when Frigg breaks down, all the feels.
Ouch, right in the feels… Poor Frig hasn’t got a clue how to handle emotions that don’t fall under righteously pissed-off. Price of impending divinity, I guess.
Wait, what?! I thought everyone had forgotten it’s all a webcomic…
Meant that as a reply to Constable. Oog.
on the bright side it was a meatspacer who got deleted(granted she just lost like…2/3 of her life from a 4 year period there but) not an npc or vat dweller
so she basically has like…a videogame version of a soul
that can either reincarnate or ragequit and just show up at emeral’s player’s door(only to get all depressed when he turns out to be a 500lb woman who was only roleplaying and is now calling the cops)
but she seems good, so I’m sure she’ll be spared enlightenment/hell and opt for reincarnation
Frigg has been assaulted by the Cutting Onion Ninja’s and lost.
Rachel was doomed, as soon as she was seen using her glowy “iron fist”. Someone from Marvel saw it, and their lawyers sent Hurricane Software a decease and cyst order. (Trust me, you don’t wanna know what the “cyst” part involves)
“Well, speaking of my drum as you so eloquently did, I figured out that if you put one end of my drum up against your crotch, and pound on the other end… it’s pretty awesome.”
“(remind me to try that sometime)… But… Rachel!… Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”