‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 351

Danni's manager cried when Danni retired.

26 Comments

Well there’s the reveal I recall someone wanted last comic XD

I hope Danni get an exception for the Citizen rule and lands a dancing job. It’s funny, I’m guessing the Ending was a second chance for her, when it was an ending for most.

I wonder if Danni is leaving because her time ran out (seems too early for that) or because she REALLY doesn’t want to talk about what happened…
Seems like the latter, and it’s not a smart move. I think if the authorities discovered she was talking to her fans they could have allowed her more time in Life – she wasn’t “wasting” it, after all, she was putting it to good use regaining connections.
But it’s probably still too hard for her to talk about with someone who knew her back then )=

Could this mean whatever happened to her was before the ‘end’ of the world? Perhaps she broke her neck somehow? That… could be plausible. Paralyzed from the neck down shed have to be on a ventilator to keep breathing as shed have no control over any of her muscles including to her lounges!

But that would raise some questions. If that was so shed have no use of her hands, how does she play the game? Plus people with such can still speak even when hooked to a ventilator although it’s very raspy.

I think back to Christopher Reeve in this. For those who don’t know or recognize the name he played Superman in the old classic movies. He became paralyzed from the neck down after a horse riding accident broke his neck.

actually your forgetting something about how the games (Bouth L.i.f.e and “The Game”) works, they had mentioned this back when Sandra tried to get Kat some help, because she thought Kat was using a keyboard and visor type setup at first. Sandra said she was amazed that kat was able to keep up in the preliminaries of “The Game” since it wasn’t designed for that kind of interface but instead what’s called a “Kido” and only those using one can make their characters move fast enough to keep up in the game. Because it’s some sort of direct nerve connection. And apparently these things aren’t to uncommon because every contestant in the game obviously has one. I think the main difference between the more common “kido” and the one that Kat has is that Kat’s is Mobile, while the others have to basically tether themselves in, as shown by the fact that bandit wasn’t able to use his kido when he needed to play but wasn’t back at his place irl.
So It’s actually quite plausible that Something happened to Danni, and now she’s no longer able to Dance, maybe not even able to walk any more irl. but with the aid of a Kido that is able to still read her signals even if her actual muscles can’t, she can still move and do everything she used to online but offline she’s rather confined. and thus why she’s so keen on staying online where she doesn’t have to think about the accident and what she lost.

And now you can shake cause you can’t get germs in computers?

Haha, There better not be!

Double check that dialogue. I suspect that the fan’s words were changed, but Dani’s didn’t get updated.

The dialogue is fine and makes sense. While there better not be any germs in a computer to get sick from, a computer virus can sure cause a lot of trouble.

I don’t see a problem with it. The flow of natural speech often ignores parts of previous statements, so it doesn’t always seem to follow exactly when in written form. Danni focused on “germs in computers” and replied with respect to that. I.e. “There better not be germs in computers.”

Man, I didn’t notice until I read that comic. Now it messes with me every time I read it XD

i don’t get it

Did she have an accident? It would explain a lot. Why she needs life, her retirement..

Could have been an injury, could have been something like muscular dystrophy, though if she requires life support, its probably something fairly nasty. When she mentioned not even touching other people for fear of getting sick my mind jumped to some form of immuno-deficiency as while performing and travel is highly taxing, it usually doesn’t engender that level of paranoia unless there’s something else going on.

As for how a quadriplegic could play the Game and LiFe, Jake or Kleya mentioned being neural linked at one point, referring to whether or not you could exit the VR environment by just pulling the plug or removing a peripheral. With a neural link, your hands and the rest of your body aren’t really doing anything (ultimate coach potato), the interface is around the cerebrum or somewhere along the spinal column. Depending on which version and/or where along the spinal column the link was, it could bypass the problem entirely but would be very dangerous to terminate abruptly or even impossible without outside help. This also explains Mina’s sister, as its fairly clearly stated that she is paralyzed or otherwise immobile irl so she spends most of the time she’s not eating or sleeping in LiFe.

I’m thinking the Kiddo is a cerebral interface type, very much like a high end version of the EEG based interfaces being worked on now. A helmet supporting the electrode web of the EEG with HD class vid screens in front of each eye and HiFi (if you’re a audiophile like me) headphones and a microphone built in to round out the rig. The unique Hakiddo used by Kleya looks like a spinal version, possibly dispensing with the other peripherals entirely and relying on something like ASIST (artificial sensory induction system technology, can you tell I love Shadowrun?) to function. I’m not sure Kleya could remove the Hakiddo if she wanted to, and honestly, I think its a bit more than a man-machine interface. After all, when you start playing with neural interfaces, you don’t really need a levitation system to isolate the user from their environment. And this comment grew far beyond what I expected, I apologize for the wall of text.

There’s an ebay ad at the top of the page that is adding “line-height: 0” to the page and messing up the style. You might want to block that ad or contact contextweb and tell them to prevent that from happening.

The curious thing about being in a universe where neural interfaces exists is the possibility of creating an android pseudo-body for those whose bodies have failed them. With a robot body (say made by IHI) Dani would have had a future, but the hacker attacks using mechas probably put an end to that. In fact as a mecha pilot she could still be useful to her city in RL now if only her city had a mecha and could get over their fears.

Curious. That posture and the heart monitor aren’t images I’d normally associate with years of paralysis. Maybe a sudden accident or a serious injury, but the ending happened, what was it, 2 years past? And if she “retired” before that, Danni must’ve had at least a few years to connect other images to the trauma.

I looked back at a couple pages I could remember being relevent to the issue and I don’t think she’s ever mentioned anything about speaking to her city officials herself… or really anyone for that matter, besides her parents of course, which she clearly does through L.i.F.e. Could Danni actually be comatose?

The idea running through my mind is she’s paralyzed from the neck down, that would mean needing to be on a ventilator to breath. She wouldn’t be this aware in Life if she was in a coma.

Bingo! The picture in panel 4 pretty much confirms that.

That all begins to make sense now. Why is it that she can’t work the gardens? And she spends all her time in LIFE dancing. Why keep her alive if she’s only taking up valuable resources and can’t give anything back?

Heh. Yeah, I know my theory’s kinda far-fetched, but in a world where a VR pod can be modified to let a guy see the proverbial matrix, why not some kind of coma therapy?

For that matter, what could have caused this paralysis without being gradual enough for her performances to suffer, making her retiremnet not so surprising, or violent enough to at least make a circuit around the blogs? I guess anything explanation’s gonna fall in that trap, but I feel some more and some less than others.

Or maybe we just need to sit tight and let the author tell their story 🙂

Heh, the last part for sure. But no harm in speculating if you can not take your own theories too seriously.

Me, I am on board for the paralysis theory. It would explain what exactly is wrong with her as well as allow her to be conscious of the outside world. After all she is aware that her parents are practically killing themselves to keep her alive.

It was pretty obvious from the beginning that her Reality form could no longer dance (or she would be doing that instead of dancing in L.I.F.E.). From the university sequence, it was equally obvious she was preparing to die when she abruptly got another chance.

Since natural skill apparently carries over into avatars, it’s possible to exploit that by lowering the avatar’s supposed agility in exchange for more strength, and then compensating for the reduced agility with her dancing skills. In fact, I suspect Kleya did exactly that for her Special in the preliminaries, and note that the only people who beat her were Jane and Kleya herself (and Kleya would have lost too if she hesitated a moment more).

I’m getting suspicious of fangirl. She keeps dropping hints trying to get the location of Danni’s real body; previous strip and this one. 🙁

Noooooo. Dani, tell your fans about your situation! They will pay for Kido use at least short term!

I wonder if there was something about the neural connection that was used by the hackers to injure people. This would explain why some like Danni and Mina’s sister are totally (or almost) incapacitated. This might also explain people’s overly paranoid fear of hackers (in a society that is dying from the lack of technical expertise required to fix their machines).
So maybe Kleya does have a chance at redemption, if she can just find a way.

“what happened”

…looks like she touched somebody she shouldnt have and got sick?

what’d she have super aids?

Didn’t Paddy think that Daniella Moretti had died?
It’s weird because the way her real body is shown on this page here, it is usually associated with a laid out corpse than a paralyzed person.
Random thoughts, because apparently she CAN’T be dead, dur.

That face.. it speaks so many things..

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Not A Villain Webcomic

Webcomic of a semi- reformed hacker trying to redeem herself in a post- apocalyptic world she may have created.

‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 351