‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 440

Colors by Audrey. Everything else is by me.

Too slow, Bandit.

Last time we saw the HA! Special.

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Oh boy, something is happening! I don’t know what it is, but it sure is about to happen. Just look at all that happening.

So, wait, that means… we did see both Nice and Hero Smiley, but we never actually saw Ha!

…it’s got non-Kat-made graphics now, right? Right?

Yep, and second we did technically see it, just the name HA! So what do you think it’s going to look like?

If I were to guess, based upon the rules of Erbana & the roundabout methods that Kat is thus far known to use, I would assume that it’s something that causes it’s target’s avatar to laugh uncontrollably for some period of time. Basically incapacitating it’s target for some seconds, to either allow Kat to escape the area, or to allow teammates time to set up their own attacks.

Oh, a Man Eater reference. I just looked up the lyrics and I’m surprised at the many passages that match Kat:

The woman is wild
A she-cat

[…]

I wouldn’t if I were you
I know what she can do
She’s deadly man
And she could really rip your world apart
Mind over matter
Ooh, the beauty is there
But a beast is in the heart

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/halloates/maneater.html

Btw: Did you have time to check your donations yet? 🙂

It’s not Man Eater, it’s Mean Eater. I suspect that it will create some kind of Venus Fly type plant that attempts to swallow anyone in it’s range that attacks someone else. In this way, Kat doesn’t have to attack anyone directly, much like the Nice special; but she can flee it’s proximity before it causes too much damage to it’s victim, thus protecting her Erbana status.

The name suggests either of two things: the plant eats jerk*sses, or the plant eats averages.

Ebil Kat mikng sum ebil plat 2 mik em lices ech other

Debating on what speacils she set. Could this be a trap to see if she is hacking and could see the chat?

Dunno if it happens to anybody else, but the home page (navcomic.com) is directing to comic 435 like it’s the latest (forward buttons greyed out).

This was happening to me to. For some reason I fixed it by going into my browser history and deleting the most recent time I had visited.

…did she just rewrite her special on the spot?

I was wondering whether she simply switched one special out for another, but the other one totally sounds like something she’d have no problem doing, either.

Perhaps “HA!” is the cover name for “Mean Eater”, so if anyone pokes around somehow & finds her Specials list, they would still have no idea what her custom Special is…

I’m guessing it’s her only custom special, since we know the “Endless Plant Bag” is pre-programmed as well as being normal, while “Friendly Aura” is the same (no random attacks I’m guessing), while “HA!” it in italics…

Actually, it looks more like a bend to me than it does italics. Also, the bends are in different directions. I think they may signify the type of special (like random).

I’m pretty sure she’s just scrolling through her Specials, as there’s a little “flick” onomatopoeia on the screen.

Ooh, are we going to see an Erbana special? And will this be Patrick art or Kat art?

so when danny wasn’t replaced in http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-191/ does that mean not only do several outsiders not make it to the city(and possibly die) but one who could make money in game for food also probably dies and the city is worse off 😛 no winning. next we’ll find mina’s family sad they almost got invited or something. no win in escalating to apocalypse to avoid loss. only lose

I wonder what will we see the next page…

And, considering “Ha!” was already said to be an Attack Special, I’m surprised Kat equipped it.

But hey, we actually got to see what her third Special is!

Everyone is going to rapidly get used to Kat being able to do things faster than anyone else and smoother than anyone else.

I really adore her, but I’m confused with the rest of the mob about what’s going on right now. My current guess is that there’s a deer to tame.

I’ve been rereading the comic since that last mention of Ha link
the comments on old pages aren’t working so I’m saying this here
I really really want Jake to get a girlfriend.
Or better yet, a boyfriend.
IT SUDDENLY TURNS OUT HE’S GAY whoops guess Dude’s teasing was off the mark that entire time
they are /siblings/, okay? he cares about her because they grew up together, not because he wants to bone her
ugh

So Kat saw someone sneaking up and switched out HA for a special that she felt would be better at defending against the attack?

It seems the most likely culprit is Jane comeing back to find them, and Kat needing to defend against Jane attacking the group again, though I don’t rule out the possibility that this is an entirely different person.

Now what does mean eater do? Best I can guess is it somehow messes with someones hunger stats, maybe incapacitate them by making them too hungry to move or forcing them to eat all the time? Neither really seems right, she can’t exploit states like that again from a story telling perspective, she needs to come up with a new and interesting hack each time to keep us engaged. I wonder if this is an attack special at all, or one that responds to some stimulus, like a surprise attack?

Most likely it just modifies eating a consumable or a plant, enhancing its capabilities or making them last longer. I bet that’s why she’s holding a plant in her hand now, she’s about to eat it. 🙂

Okay, now that I reread the comic back up to here, I finally parsed that Kat switched out Ha! for Mean Eater, whatever that is – probably another one of her unique ones. And sounds like it works with emotional stats, too, although probably not remotely as OP as Nice – that was just for non-Erbana deathmatch, after all.

Plant Bag and Friendliness sound like necessary-for-being-Erbana passive effects, so she effectively has only one ‘attack’ slot… which, if she can switch it mid-battle, is still not going to limit her much, I’m guessing, and she probably can. Quick reflexes and interface familiarity seem like much of her thing.

Friendly Aura would be the “no random attacks while traveling” I think.

Yep, that’s what I’m thinking too. She can’t really turn it off without letting her Erbana alignment fall (as her teammates would murder those random encounters for sure). So with the plant bag, it leaves one slot for a custom special.

I’d make a wild guess that mean eater is something that reduced the anger or aggression stats. Something that would really mess up the combat plans of Jane or somebody else like that, since I bet their damage output is linked to that stat.

I bet mean eater modifies eating a consumable or a plant, that’s why she’s holding in it her hand. Maybe it makes the effects stronger.

*Watches Ket activate “Mean Eater” on stalking person behind them, stalking person then starts just stuffing their face with what ever’s around, the Special giving them 1 mean appetite…* 😛

Probably way off mark but maybe Mean Eater is like the “Pacifism” card in M:TG. If emotion stats still exist at this level – although she implied the earlier special took advantage of an oversight, so maybe not. Wouldn’t it be a great Erbana special, though, if you could disable other players “aggression,” maybe via disabling attack stats?

I could totally see that.

Emotion Stats are in the main game where they are now, it’s just a case of the trials used the basic coding, including the oversight “Nice” took advantage of. Not sure about this “Pacifism” thing, but we’ll see soon enough…

Hmm, I’m gonna bet Mean Eater is a plant that engulf those with negative intentions, stopping them and draining stats. Also… Kat, while I’m sure committing crimes for the sake of ‘good’ is acceptable, you could do to enjoy the act, a little less. Yunno?

Yuno*

Heh, not something I expected to be corrected about. But really, it depends on who you ask, Ms. Gasai,
“Want to” becomes “wanna” because of the English rule where a vowel, followed immediately by another or with one consonant between it and another vowel, is pronounced like it’s name. So “wana” would be pronounced “W-Ae-nah” where as “wanna” is pronounced “W-ah-nah”. Some people (myself included) chose to do the same with “You know”/”yunno” even though it the letter U doesn’t necessarily follow the same rules as other vowels (not that the English language follws it’s own rules half the time).

…And just so this post isn’t a waste of space, I’m betting Ha! special will be a deus ex machina, that we will not see for a looong time yet.

Okays, I’m not sure what just happened but here’s what I *think* happened. Kat used her “special senses” to detect specials. The first she found was a “bottomless herb bag” that either can hold all the herbs she can find, or when she finds one provides endless supplies of it. The next thing she found was an herb called “MEAN EATER” (not “man eater”)… which we dunno what it does yet but I’m sure it’s very ERBANA.

Which of course will amaze and astound the rest of the group, because she actually did something while they’re standing around talking (which in most games implies sitting-duck for wandering monster time).

Wait, what? I think you are confusing specials (basically magic spells) and plants (items) here.

Endless Plant Bag is a SPECIAL, that she accessed by virtue of being Erbana alignment. It lets her hold PLANTS, which she finds here.

Mean Eater is another SPECIAL, either another pre-made Erbana one, or, more likely, her own, like Nice, Ha and Hero Smiley.

And there are no wandering monsters that can attack them when they are together, because of yet another SPECIAL, Friendliness Aura. Whoever that is is very not random, most likely another player, most likely Jane.

And… thinking on it… MEAN EATER very likely eats all the “mean” from an intended attack or attacker, turning them passive and possibly even nice… which would tick Jane off royally.

Or… rather than finding specials it could be she’s flicking through her specials to see which one to use next, based on her detection of what’s coming. That makes more sense, in fact.

Does she even need to flick?

It’s already been established that most commands in The Game are based on gestures, so even if Kat can do things without them, she [i]should[/i] to keep up appearances.

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 440