‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 708

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That didn't go quite as planned.

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Actually, it is entirely possible she never did, and Jake’s inadvertedly bringing up a sore subject here.

“I recognised her big head during the deathmatch”

Personally panel 2 is my favorite but 3 is nice as well.

why doen’t he just say she hacked the challenge so it’d miss her? And he recognizes her style, and whether he was uncertain, before, now both he and She knows it. And she’s afraid of what he might do with that info.

And out her as a hacker? Yeah, no.

Aside from the whole outing her as a hacker to one of the few people to trust her, there’s the whole issue that *that* is exactly what Kleya’s worried about.

Much easier to go this route, as even if Danni had no friends before, she’d likely recognize her parents in the game even as different characters, or her trainers.

Certain tells would make it really easy to catch a person you didn’t know how to find.

Like irresistible urges to hack. ^_^

Not the example I would expect Jake to give Danni, but…yeah, that one. :p

Solid point, thanks.
It’s easy to forget that hacking is seen as super bad IMHO.
To me it always depends on why and what is hacked.

He might be able to say he recognizes her as a PROGRAMMER, because he saw her special, and that he realizes she’s scared of being called a hacker.

The fact that scared people essentially held a witch hunt and killed programmers because they were scared of hackers and that’s why a lot of technology doesn’t work anymore is well established knowledge. And that’s something that Danni could understand; after all, she KNOWS Kleya’s got skills with specials, and it’s implied that the skill needed to make specials translates into skill with other, much more useful to Reality things. All Jake has to do is say “she knows I used to be in charge of finding hackers, and she is skilled enough to be called a hacker, so she obviously decided she couldn’t be around me for long”. It also has the advantage of giving Danni a reason why her friend didn’t ditch her because she thought she was hopeless immediately after she did something really cool.

Oh Danni, always so sassi with the hands on the hip!

I like Dannie in that last panel! 🙂 Both her pose/expression and text.
Nice perspective in panel one too, Aneeka!

No, no she doesn’t :-\

For anyone who wants to refresh themselves on context, the page where Bandit mentioned he was looking for someone is http://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-656/

(Gosh, have there really been 708 pages already? We must be coming up on NAV’s 7th birthday pretty soon, if it hasn’t already passed.)

Actually, NAV turned eight last October 🙂

Thanks for that. Upon rereading that conversation, and seeing that this is the same day, he can definitely build on that to try to explain himself here.

He could tell Danni that he already felt confident it was Kat before today, which is why he wanted her to come. He could also tell her that Kat was afraid he might find out who she was, and that she thought he would be opposed to her because of how some things happened last time they saw each other, which led to a lot of people not trusting Kat.

He could then remind Danni that he already told her that he is very set on keeping Kat alive. He could add that he wants to keep her hidden from others that want to find her, because he also believes she is a good person, like Danni does.

He can then tell her that Kat did something that wouldn’t normally be noticed by most people, but that he recognized, while Danni was busy focusing on the scenario. Now he needs Danni to convince Kat that he is on her side, or Kat might completely disappear again, and his search will have to start over, with Kat trying even harder to stay hidden.

I don’t think Bandit wants to tell Danni that there’s other people looking for Kat. It would open up a bunch of questions he’d have to not answer like, “Why?”

Once Danni gets around to asking for a reason why she ran away so suddenly and why he needs Danni to convince her that he’s on her side, the approach I’d take is, “We had a falling out. Her mother died in the catastrophe, and her father blamed her. Back then, I took his side, and she’s never forgiven me for it.” Maybe mention that she became an Outsider because they she left the city to get away from them. All technically true, but not mentioning anything about her being a hacker, nor revealing that it’s anything more than personal issues between the two of them. …And playing to Danni’s worries by implying that helping him now means that Kat could stop being an Outsider.

Just a few pages after the page you linked, Bandit says to Danni (about Kat): “I want her to live just as badly as you do. And while a lot of what I’m doing doesn’t make sense to you, I *swear* it’s in the pursuit of keeping her alive.” (Page 659)

That already indicates that things need to actively be done to keep Kat alive, and that he is working hard to do it. (At the time, he just referred to the ratings, but he can explain more, now.) With how secretive Kat acts, and the low profile she wants to keep, and how hard Bandit was searching for her, it would make sense to Danni that others are searching for Kat, too, with less kind motives.

I think that, if he is trying to get Danni to deliver a message to Kat to get Kat to trust him, he has to not try to deceive Danni with the truth, because otherwise Kat will believe he is just “saying the right things” (refer to page 668) to get what he wants.

He has to show Danni how genuine and sincere he is, so while there are some things he can’t tell her, and others he doesn’t want to, he has to be as transparent as possible with Danni, because he has to assume that Danni will report everything he says to Kat.

He knows that Danni strongly believes that Kat is a good person (and he just had strong proof, himself, that he was right in thinking Kat is a good person), and that she doesn’t want Kat to die. Danni has a very protective personality, especially when it comes to Kat, so he can reveal a bit more about Kat to her (without specifically saying she is a hacker). If he wants Danni and Kat to trust him, then he has to show that he trusts Danni (and Kat).

He could have went with “I didn’t find out today”, and with a couple more details, it would have been a much better explanation.

All he really has to do is tell her most of the truth. “When she knew me, I worked for the people who are in charge of catching hackers. I recognized her because of how good she is at making specials. I can totally understand why she’d think I’m out to get her, just look at the witch hunt that didn’t differentiate between programmers and hackers that got us all into this mess. I know she isn’t a hacker, but she doesn’t know I know that.”

The only thing that isn’t true in that statement is, Kleya really IS a hacker. But Danni doesn’t know that, and it doesn’t sound like a ridiculous dumb reason.

The main problem with him telling Danni that information is that Kat is paranoid that if Bandit tells Danni the information he thinks is right, it’ll lead to Danni taking the President’s side, since the whole issue is Kat thinks Bandit *is* on the President’s side, and last time, that went badly for her.

So…in order to get Danni on Kat’s side without risking that blowing up in his face for his chances to get to be on Kat’s side, he needs to not reveal why she distrusts him so much, as it reveals that he’s…not exactly above releasing information that Kat wants to forget and not have to deal with everyone siding against her again.

It’d also save him from Danni’s inevitable next question: “Why didn’t you recognize her sooner.” Bandit’s probably got a plan for that, though.

If he found out earlier, why didn’t he say earlier? And if they are old friends, why did she run away? It still looks really bad…

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 708