‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 422

Colors by Jemma and Audrey. Everything else by me.

Danni does have quick reflexes.

47 Comments

Anyone else get the urge to re-read the comic just to count how many times the Dude does something stupid? 🙂

We should start a little “Dude Owned Count”. It can be in the bottom of the page in a corner with a silhouette of him superimposed over the “no hackers” sign that’s everywhere in L.i.f.e.

Is it good of bad that I get that reference?

If you mean DBZ abridged then it’s a good thing, because you have good taste. 🙂

But man I really want to finally see him do some fighting, because he did win his spot after all and a purely clumsy guy can’t get this far.

It’s good cause it means I’m not a hopeless NEEERRRD! Plus DBZA is amazing and funny as all get out..

Danni, if she ever bothers to review her playing, will probably be mortified to discover her panicked kick lacked perfect form AGAIN!!! 🙂

Couldn’t help referencing the comments of the page you referenced.

This kick was actually alot less awkward then the last, still at a funny angle but it looks do able. I think only a ballerina like her could do that last one, (especially considering how high the kick was) I sure couldn’t.

Hm, actually for me the kick from the older page looks a lot more straight forward than the one on this page, what with her not completely turning around and sort of kicking behind her.

I definitely couldn’t do that either.

And here I was wondering when will he catch up.

My first thought on the first two panels was that they saw Kat doing something breathtaking xD

Dude! We are like, the worst TEAM ever!

…Dude just can’t catch a break, can he? Not that I would judge Danni…

If she didn’t have a hurting leg, I’d encourage her to kick him a lot more.

Dude, this just isn’t your day. Or week. Or Game, honestly. The Heart of the Cards just isn’t with you, my friend.

Was it really just an accident or is Danni trying to reduce her mortorating on purpose?

I doubt it was intentional, but it probably is a good way (from a plot perspective) for her to find out that attacking and not killing will reduce Morto alignment. Granted, since it doesn’t increase anything else, it’s still not to her advantage to do so… unless she’s asked to, in which case it would do Kesti, I guess? Heh, I can picture it now: Kat says “kick Dude for me,” Danni does so, does nothing more, gets Kesti points for completing Kat’s quest and loses Morto points for not killing Dude. Repeat. (The Dude might be a little annoyed at this alignment-grinding, I suppose.)

Can Kat give out Kesti quests?

I doubt it’s actually possible, to prevent exactly that kind of exploit. That said, perhaps it could happen whenever Dude annoys an NPC… would probably lead to just as much alignment grinding.

Don’t worry Danni, he probably deserved it. If not for his evil plotting with Bandit, then definitely for his pirate shirt.

Ok – this is weird. Dude just got nailed in the head and presumably hurt bad (“That could have knocked me out!”). No passive defenses kicked in. He made no attempt to dodge. He didn’t even think about retaliating after the fact (no battle stance – no specials activated).

WHAT DOES THE DUDE EVEN DO?!

Somehow he annihilated all of his competitors in the game’s qualifying tournament (apparently without much effort based on his demeanor) so he’s clearly not as much of a pushover as he seems.

On 136 even Kat commented that his special is simple, but remarkably well made.

But he never actually fights. He never even tried to fight Kat – he just surrendered with a wry smile on page 137.

And in the tutorial he’s the only one we didn’t get to watch (except lots of running on 294 and 295).

He’s soooo incompetent. But he’s made it this far with no apparent effort. What is his deal?!

Well Danni was to fast for Dude to be able to dodge not to mention she caught him off guard. Also since he doesn’t WANT to kill his team of course he wouldn’t retaliate. Also another reason he probably won his qualifiers was because of his immense popularity. SO he would receive more votes than his opponent.

Dude pretty much said before the tutorial that he would be helpless without an esone, due to lack of specials. Presumably he relies primarily on specials to kick butt.

Think of him like a wizard in a traditional MMO. Take away his magic (like in the tutorial) and he’s going to make a bad showing because that’s what he is optimized to handle. In situations like this comic he takes damage easily and likely doesn’t dodge as well because he doesn’t know how to handle melee fighting. In a real fight he could break out his specials to be a real threat presumably.

Plus, he didn’t think of Danni as an enemy. It’s easy to be sucker punched when you aren’t in ‘fight mode’. I have years of martial art’s training, but if a friend suddenly attacked me I would not be blocking that blow. I may, at best, be able to slide away to minimize the force of the blow I sustain, but I’m still going to be hit. And that’s coming form someone who has always been predominately a defensive fighter.

He also talks up how he wants to be the card alignment but only got a low score in it so far, enough to keep it his top alignment if he has something else with a decent percentage hidden behind it.

And we see him always playing that chess set.

Maybe he is secretly doing or going to jump onto the manipulation alignment and he is hiding his strengths for now.

Maybe the Dude is getting kicked around here but is secretly going “exactly as planned”.

I’m starting to wonder if Dude is Saisuke in disguise.

I refuse to believe that Saisuke is anything but an off-brand Sasuke Uchiha. I’ve been wanting this for awhile.

So how does the damage system work in the Game? It actually keeps track of the stress you’re applying to a damaged area?

With those kinds of quick reflexes, do you think she’ll be able to Dual-Wield swords? Maybe she’ll also reach the 100th level of the game and kill the final boss who-
Oh wait, wrong series.

P.S. First

I don’t know about that. Wouldn’t Kat be a more obvious choice as a beater?

I dunno, I’d think the Bandit would be more like a bludger type than the Dude.

Yep, get her a black coat.

or purple and red colours, beats kat and dude in duals and dies in kat’s arms surrounded by a field of flowers

and now i’ve made myself sad :'(

Quick thought on esones, we know from the tutorial that there was a power level difference between the one on the island and the one in the village (island esone being stronger). Jane’s dolls not moving could be a sign that her current esone isn’t strong enough to empower that particular special (it is a powerful one, damage-wise, due to the multiplication factor). We also know now that the first esone can empower 3 specials.

Kat gave Danni 1 special and has her select 2 more from the standard list (many of which are morti thanks to her current alignment percentages). We know that Kat gave Danni 1 special so far, but I don’t think she’s given her more than that one. So if an esone can accept any special up to its maximum…does that mean it can accept up to 3 handcrafted specials?

Kat would definitely cram all her own stuff into the 3 slots if that’s the case. And she’d know the load-bearing ability of her current stone, and wouldn’t overload it. But what if a special could super-empower itself by taking up 2 slots instead of relying upon a more powerful esone stone? Would it be better to have 2 handcrafted specials or 3, either handmade or premade?

I’m thinking 3 would be better, at this stage. The flexibility afforded by three choices instead of two, even premade choices, would be more useful.

This gave me an idea… Didn’t Kat mention earlier that Janes special looked like a bunch of specials thrown together? Maybe the system is seeing it as more than 3 specials, and that’s why her esone can’t handle it?

If that were the case then she wouldn’t have been allowed to use it in the tournament to decide who’s on the team.

I do believe that there’s no limit to how many handmade specials a esone can accept other than how many specials it can hold at all. However, Kat needed at least one of the pre-made Specials because it was useful, and there was no need for her to make something when it’s already available.
Why construct a new bike, when the bike perfect for you has already been made and is free?

Because then you have a spare, and you know how to make a bike.

In a perfect world, no rhetorical question would go unanswered.

Ha! Nice one Danni! Good kick!

Like the lady says, don’t sneak up on her, especially when she’s paranoid about the crazy lady killing her!

Not sure if this has been said or not, and it’s a little late to suggest specials. But maybe for Questi (Don’t remember how it’s spelled sorry) A special could be the more quests you have/finished the faster/stronger you get?

It’d have to be successfully completed in a row to prevent being overpowered. Maybe also within a certain time period. Also, maybe it could be like a reputation kind of thing that gives bonuses to the quest rewards.

Dude the hacky sack.

THIS Dude…does NOT Abide. >.> This Dude gets KER-POWWIED.

I love how the Dude yells his own name when you kick him. Everyone else would yet the name of the person that kicked them. Also Danni needs to become less right leg dominant. I know its a quick response, but I cant see a ballet dancer limiting themselves to only jumping on one leg.

Yes; panel three is waaay cool! Oughta do wonders for Danni’s confidence too! 🙂

I was just re-reading the archives and suddenly began thinking about the alignments. There are six, and even number. Three are good, three are bad. Hypothetically, it would be reasonable to assume each to have an antithesis(and Kesti has been bugging me). Morto is entirely focused on killing while Erbana cannot allow anyone or anything to even die. There are a few ways to go when trying to figure out opposites, but, like I said, Kesti was bugging me. Either kesti is the opposite of Mani, which is all about manipulating others, and is about doing the bidding of others, or it is the opposite of Demoli. The way I see it, Kesti is the opposite of Mani. This would leave Cardista as the opposite of Demoli. Demoli is destructive and with Cardista, you have to collect card, or BUILD A Deck.
In short, each alignment made sense and had a central theme to me except Kesti until I tried to find its opposite. Kesti, in a weird way, is about being manipulated. This makes its central theme of questing make a lot more sense to me.
I could be completely off my rocker and this maybe isn`t the best place to post this, but, MAAAAAAN! Kesti was just bugging me to no end. Someone please either validate or refute my idea.

I swear that I did break for paragraphs there…
Sorry

That “Whap” effect might be better off moved slightly since it covers the leg, my first impression looking at that panel was that Danni slapped Dude.

Well you not wrong, Danni DID slap Dude. Just with her foot instead of her hand.

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 422