The Gaming Den

Stahlseele wrote:Just 40 hours a Week. For those of the people reading not currently eployed fulltime, this means she has 8 hours of surgery a day. And the rest of the day, which is then all of 16 hours, for sleeping it off and maybe if she is fit enough going outside for a bit.

Why does Super Not!Wolverine even need sleep? Sleep is, to my understanding, how the body repairs itself and recovers energy. Regeneration ostensibly takes some kind of energy, but usually isn't depicted as tiring, so it should be able to refresh her just as sleep would. I could see her needing more food, but that's about it.

hyzmarca wrote:

Judging__Eagle wrote:Chiming in on SFP, re: Max's total lack of intelligence (or creativity) with the power to buff other supernatural characters.

Appreciably, the fact that it's possibly a "highest" tier power means that his ability to buff would not only grow with practice, but would develop new powers; possible the sorts of powers that would impress as stupid and rockheaded a character like Max. Finally, there's a good likelihood that his "useless" power could catapult even "tier 4" Biodynamics to tier 1 capabilities.

That was my thought, as well.

We've already seen that powers develop as they're used, based on the actual mechanisms by which they work. Alison has a skin-tight forcefield that makes her highly resistant to damage and gives her super-strength. And that eventually evolves into flight. Moonshadow had invisibility by bending light, and that eventually grew to include complex illusions by bending light.

If Max can manipulate powers, then he can manipulate powers. He might start off as just a buffer, but pretty soon he's likely develop the ability to take powers away, giving him the most effective anti-superhuman power.

Possibly also power-mimicry. If I found out I had the super power to boost super powers, literally the first thing I would do is boost my own power and see what happened.

In theory, power boosting could also result in power locking/burnout/ overload that's as bad (potentially worse) than shutting down a Biodynamic human's powers. We already have the example of what constantly developing powers looks like with Not!Juggernaut, whose (super resiliant) internal organs are being cut apart by their own micron-edged cancer. Applied to say Not!Superman's "telekinetic" skintight field, it could conceivably freeze her from making any movement at all.

Prak wrote:

Stahlseele wrote:Just 40 hours a Week. For those of the people reading not currently eployed fulltime, this means she has 8 hours of surgery a day. And the rest of the day, which is then all of 16 hours, for sleeping it off and maybe if she is fit enough going outside for a bit.

Why does Super Not!Wolverine even need sleep? Sleep is, to my understanding, how the body repairs itself and recovers energy. Regeneration ostensibly takes some kind of energy, but usually isn't depicted as tiring, so it should be able to refresh her just as sleep would. I could see her needing more food, but that's about it.

Sleep is the bit of your day where you write long-term memories to disk, so to speak. So the bits of circadian rhythm wetware that result in a sleep cycle probably aren't turned off in Not-Wolverine.

Ah right, forgot about that.

edit: Started reading SFP today (yesterday). Goddamn, Patrick is the most terrifying, nicest person ever.

Patrick's gotten less terrifying since then.

Interestingly, there are *still* people harping on the whole scene with Max (based on the comments section) - and I still can't fully wrap my head around the debate of Max's bodily autonomy (which isn't just a Randian stance, pro-choice advocates as well) vs boosting Feral's organ donation program.

Mostly-baseless SPF speculation: It's stated that everyone's powers are growing. I assume it's because Max is always touching himself.

His belief that his powers are useless and the author's habit of reversing things makes me want to think everyone's powers somehow come from him.

Damn, got to the last page of SPF... draw faster dam...

NSFW recommendation:
Rock Cocks, a rock band/couple have sexy adventures as they try to make it. It is pornographic.
Alfie, the sexy adventures of a halflingHavlin from a small town seeking bigger and better things. It is pornographic, but there are pretty long stretches between shtupping. Drawn by noted pornographer InCase.

I love Alfie!

Prak wrote: Alfie, the sexy adventures of a halflingHavlin from a small town seeking bigger and better things. It is pornographic, but there are pretty long stretches between shtupping. Drawn by noted pornographer InCase.

If you like Alfie, check out http://www.irovedout.com/ (very nsfw) and http://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/hex-lovers (sfw)

I'm intrested to see where WillSaveWorldForGold.com goes since the sorcerer bit it.

Alfie. If you haven't read it (and aren't put off by pictures of sexy times), go read it!

Maybe alfie goes long stretches between schtupping later but damn if it is only like one for every three sfw:nsfw for the first many chapters. Sad since the best scenes are the sfw ones. Like the deviant male halfing joining the celebration after a day in the stockades. I find myself fast forwarding through the fucking just to get to the good stuff.

[edit: and now I'm caught up. The latest story arc where it goes to color panels has a marked uptick in story to porn ratio. But that is just one chapter. The vast majority is many sequential pages of porn with very brief interludes of non-porn pages.]

That's true of a lot of NSFW comics. Bill Willingham (of Fables fame) did a sort of adult D&D comic called Ironwood, and he complained that all the fucking he put into it really killed the pacing.

Judging__Eagle wrote:Chiming in on SFP, re: Max's total lack of intelligence (or creativity) with the power to buff other supernatural characters.

Appreciably, the fact that it's possibly a "highest" tier power means that his ability to buff would not only grow with practice, but would develop new powers; possible the sorts of powers that would impress as stupid and rockheaded a character like Max. Finally, there's a good likelihood that his "useless" power could catapult even "tier 4" Biodynamics to tier 1 capabilities.

The fact that someone who comes from asymmetric financial power; and can't see a and purpose in a value multiplier as a means to create even greater asymmetric financial power... is more a product of the writer's lack of understanding of... well... humans. Especially the mindset of capital gain focused humans. If you have an advantage over everyone else in the business or financial sector, to ask the audience to believe that they won't not leverage it is cognitively dissonant content.

The idea that the ability to make super powers more super is an "advantage" that can be leveraged is idiotic. Especially if it's a permanent boost from a one-time interaction. He can't take it away or control how they use it. He's basically living super-soldier serum. Every C-list supervillain who heard about him would be after him for a boost to A-list status, and probably would be willing to go beyond arm twisting and ocean dumping to get it (then probably kill him afterward so no one else gets boosted). Every Darkseid or Apocalypse would want him dead rather than have him around with the potential to create a rival.

If he could boost people for an hour, or a week, or only if he's touching them, he'd have leverage. But "hey dude, I'll give you phenomenal cosmic powers but you have to pinky promise not to murder me after I do it" is not leverage. Even if he could boost his ability to the point that he can take away or blow out powers wouldn't give him leverage, it just increases the size of the target on his head a thousand fold. If his ability became public, the best case scenario would be spending the rest of his life imprisoned in the Hall of Justice. The cushiest prison cell with the nicest guards in history, but a prison nonetheless. That's probably the right thing to do to Max, honestly, but you can't fault him for wanting to avoid it.

Allison proves all of his fears to be true. His power doesn't put him on a throne, it puts him in a prison at the mercy of any thug who has an idea about how he can benefit them. The fact that she was right to do it and the result was about as morally pure white as possible with zero drawbacks doesn't change that. What if the next person to show up is Amanda Waller? What if Walller puts a gun to his head and forces him to boost her stable of telepaths so they can read every American's mind and root out terrorism once and for all?

He's allowed to be sad about his power. He wanted flight, or shapeshifting, instead he's the most dangerous piece of gym equipment on the planet.

You joined to post that!

Ancient History wrote:You joined to post that!

I joined for the t shirt.

Jesus Christ, Shatner, that's one hell of a comic.

Sex. Everywhere.

Prak wrote: Drawn by noted pornographer SameFace.

Fixed that for you.

Remember when Erf World updated with actual comics about a miniature war game instead of 2 pictures with 17 paragraphs of cryptic naval gazing?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Double post lyfe yo.

Not really, I couldn't get past the stupid baby talk.

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Not really, I couldn't get past the stupid baby talk.

Do you mean the word substitution with *boop* instead of shit or fuck? That goes away, and isn't really a big deal.


@Hicks- that was before Wizard of Oz became the prelude to the story. And some fuckery with artists, and with the author just not really putting the work in any more. The first thing back after a three month hiatus is to announce he'll randomly declare no-comic days without warning, and then immediately does. Despite the Kickstarter, patreon and random donations, that's just the new normal now.

But yeah. The text is pure word salad waffling that goes nowhere. I honestly think he got lessons from the order of the stick guy in how not to progress the plot.

Depending on where he's going with the actual story (and I have honestly have no clue- they might kill the Wizard, click their heels together or have Parson stay, lead a side and fuck tiny women), but conceivably the storyline could be wrapped up by summer. The basic goal (of some people) of 'unite the Tools' doesn't seem viable, since Dorothy took the Shoes with her back to reality before the comic even started.

Voss wrote:

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Not really, I couldn't get past the stupid baby talk.

Do you mean the word substitution with *boop* instead of shit or fuck? That goes away, and isn't really a big deal.

Probably even moreso the Erf=Earth, Dwagon=Dragon, Spidew=Spider, etc.

Voss wrote:The basic goal (of some people) of 'unite the Tools' doesn't seem viable, since Dorothy took the Shoes with her back to reality before the comic even started.

But Parson knows where those are - in the Smithsonian display case! Just use the scroll to go home, gather up his gamer buddies, steal some swank slippers and come back with his team.

And yeah, I'm surprised at how so many writers lose the ability to progress plot. I do wonder in the case of webcomics especially, if they worry they don't have more of a story to tell so they stretch it out foreverrrrrrrrr. I guess it's a living.

Hicks wrote:Remember when Erf World updated with actual comics about a miniature war game instead of 2 pictures with 17 paragraphs of cryptic naval gazing?

Pepperidge Farm remembers.

Yeah, it's pretty bad. He just seems so unable to cut the wheat from the chaff in terms of what's interesting and relevant and what isn't. The way Thinkamancers view the world is just different enough that he feels he has to spend pages and pages explaining it, but not interesting enough that anyone actually cares, and at the end of the day it's just an elaborate lead in to their one line or contribution to the plot. I feel like their motives could be made clearer to the audience without having to spell out every fragmentary half-moment that ever led to them making a particular decision.