‘Not A Villain’ Webcomic – Page 843

Sandra is probably the only one focused right now.

Next update: Oct 13

27 Comments

Between Jane, Kat, Dude and now Danni I can’t help but picture Sandra thinking: “Women”

Ohhhh, secrets codes. Maybe people are actully going to communicate 😮

So… I’ve got some guesses

1) She’s speaking in code
2) She’s speaking in code in the sense that she’s freezing the entire server to have a private chat with Jake
3) She suddenly got a throat sore
4) She suddenly got a seizure and the next panel is a white sentence on black background – THE END
5) She looks really good in pink and yellow
6) No, number 5 wasn’t a guess

I am glad someone else has ideas, because I am flabberghasted, and can’t wait to find out what’s going on ^^;

I love how “code” in this contexr can either be secret code or computer code. Amusing list of guesses, thank you for sharing!

Regarding computer networking, an ack is an acknowledgement that a packet of data was received. This could be Kat indicating to Jake that she heard him and is open to talking, but it seems a little … deep in computer terminology to be a likely explanation for the limited depth that NAV has gone with technical details.

To me that seems like a good guess actually.
ACK = Acknowledged, but not everyone in the group would realize; Kat herself, Jake, probably Sandra’s husband if listening in, maybe Sandra herself, and Dude.
Crucially, not Danni. Which expands on the meaning. “I acknowledge reception of the signal that you are sending (being willing to talk) but I don’t want Danni to be part of that talk and I am probably not eager for anyone else to be part of it either and by the way I am am -not- giving you a yes right now either so can we drop this for now?”

It’s a lot of context for one ACK to carry but well humans are context-carrying entities.
-OR- I am reading way too much into it of course; also a human trait ^.^

Thank you for the page!

I should have noticed this pages ago, but I guess I’m glad I finally made the connection: Kleya is catasthrophising a lot about the situation and she has no one to pull her back to what people are actually saying and feeling. And that sucks.

Hopefully the people around her manage to get her to focus more on what people are actually doing (or, perhaps more importantly, not doing)!

A C K. Could be “ack!”, but I rather doubt it. Is it a secret message to Jake?

Thanks for the new strip, Aneeka!

Old internet person here!
I don’t yet know if it’s what Aneeka (or Kat) intends, but “ACK” is part of the TCP protocol “ACKnowledging” that a connection has been made. In a world where hackers are very rare, saying “ACK” aloud the way you’d type it (one letter at a time) would be a _very_ effective secret code for “I see you and I’m open to further communication”.

Thank ya J—s, I thought I was the only one here that remembered that.

I like this idea! That would be pretty cool if that’s what’s going on 😀

I suppose these comments are proof of that, in a way 😛
Some people who have no idea what it means and some who recognize it immediately

(That said, it probably comes across as weird to everyone else there, so I guess she’ll need to have some sort of explanation for why she’s saying letters… or perhaps more likely, she just refuses to elaborate and everyone shrugs and puts it down to her general weirdness lol)

Now that you mention it, that does sound like she is responding to what Danni said to the Kat A.I.:
“Proxy a request to mastermind”.
https://navcomic.com/not-a-villain/page-836/

Aha, good point. I hadn’t put the two together, but it makes sense.

To go along with that, because of how the TCP protocol works, she would be telling Bandit “I’m listening. Say what you want when you have it ready.”

She also needs to be subtle, because her paranoia might have clued her into my suspicion that Sandra is holding Jane’s children hostage in order to control Jane. Sandra seems to want control over the most skilled players of the Game in order to take control.

Of course, given how the AI controlling Kat’s avatar was behaving, I suspect that D already knows what Sandra is up to. How far ahead is D thinking? And how much info has he given Kat? He seems to do more than Kat knows about at any given time. Which means the potential for an interesting conflict scenario.

I’m thinking “ACK” is being used here as the computer network shorthand for “Acknowledgement”, but idk whether it’s intended for Bandit, for D, or for both.

Agreed, as in SYN ACK. I doubt it’s D as Kleya seems to have out of band signalling to him. My bet is something from her and Bandit’s’ past.

😀

Once again, Danni continues to be my ABSOLUTE hero!

That looks like a code to me, but if Jake acknowledges it he risks revealing that he has a history with Kat to Sandra and Jane

@Seii and @MauveCloud I think you are on to something.

Oh I see, ACK, Acknowledged. Because Bandit tried to send a message to her, ‘Proxy a Request to Mastermind’… and that’s her acknowledging it. That’s good, that’s good; they are finally going to start speaking.

hello, i wanted to let you know that on the older pages, the pages are displaying multiple times in a row

Alright, everyone is reading into “ACK” a lot. I really just thought it was the “shy person trying to say something but not really speaking clearly” thing you see in manga a lot. Thinking the next page will feature something like:
Sandra: What was that, Kat?
Kat: I’m glad to be back now.
or
Kat: Actually, I wanted to….

something like that anyway.

Predictions:

Option 1) If ‘ACK’-knowledged is Kat’s response to the proxy, Jake’s next step is to announce a private but hackable (by kat) location he’s heading to next, without advertising that it’s a private but hackable (by kat) location. (Kathackable? Katable? Hackatable?)

Option 2) Jake continues offering training for Danni, which Kat is still invited, and the two of them talk code and euphisms around Danni. Although unable to decypher the code, Danni’s smart enough to pick up on the weirdness, and might encourage them to ‘get a room’ or leave early to give them alone time. Followed by nagging Kat right after to check if Jake was mean to her.

Option 3) The gunshy doofuses don’t directly communicate, instead continuing to make innocuous coded comments to eachother over everyone else’s head. Confusion and misunderstandings ensue, especially when third parties without context notice but misinterpret the coded comments.

Option 4) All of the above.

I like all of those, especially the #3 part during teamwork 🙂

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 843