NofNA, "Syconium" page #219

Syconium
219

November 13th, 2017

40 .	by: Zack	November 16, 2017, 12:18 pm
Hey Furrama, Thank you for your crisp drawing of XY, now trapped in his own maze.

39 .	by:	November 16, 2017, 11:11 am
@32, there was a bat in the 10%+ addendum that had a style that played back things spoken in the past around the user's location. Maybe this bat uses something similar for his messages, or maybe he just has a really good memory. @36, isn't it great when a piece of media teaches you something so important? That's the power of Art. @37, looking good!

38 .	by:	November 16, 2017, 10:53 am
That looks awesome Furrama!

37 .	by: Furrama	November 15, 2017, 8:48 pm
I have drawn the little scientist man. URL : http://furrama.deviantart.com/art/Lost-715296821

36 .	by: Botany	November 15, 2017, 8:45 pm
... I think, not know, but might want to believe, that you just described a lot of me and so many others when you said that. A lot of fucking everything, really. And maybe I was a little harsh to Smooth in my vector... But not wrong about the destination. I just don't want to come off as Blaming him. All I've said about Streak applies to him, Fig... Pretty much everyone I've ever known in real life. We're all just the mangled up, deafened and blinded mess of society's. Going through it from one angle or another and going out another. ...I'm probably just a little emotional right now and sure, I don't need to excuse something when there's nothing wrong about it that makes me have to quantify it, but, Just love everyone when they least deserve it. That is when they need it the most. Might be hard advice, but whatever, whoever made us, would want us to save ourselves. URL : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cAxLZpelmQ

35 .	by:	November 15, 2017, 7:25 pm
@Botany i like your comment. Someone who Sees her art, but refuses to see her sexuality (literally, with him refusing to look at her) is still someone who doesn't know her. He can't know her. As much as a customer only sees her sexuality, and refuses to see her as an artist, doesn't know her. In my opinion, to the same degree and end. She feels hurt and halved, she feels rejected. She cannot be one or the other, as much as he wanted her to be the half he admired. She can't find peace or self-acceptance with anybody who does not make an effort to understand both of those parts of her, and their intersection that is her true self. He has in the past, called her XX instead of Fig, and been corrected, twice in fact. However anybody feels about the personifications of her struggle, that is a part of her, and she chooses to consider herself as Fig. He has always rejected her. You can't choose to accept only the parts of someone that you find agreeable.

34 .	by: Botany	November 15, 2017, 7:06 pm
And all the gambler tried to teach her, undone in one swift fold of his cards within an earshot of the bet. Whatever he had built up to this point, torn back down to the foundation that never could've supported it. I'm going to mirror what others have said up to this point: Fig shouldn't get with Smoothie. She deserves someone, the same as everyone deserves someone. But not like this. Not with a virtue signaller. She deserves to be Known.

33 .	by:	November 15, 2017, 4:59 pm
bet that the bat*

32 .	by:	November 15, 2017, 4:59 pm
Bats use echolocation so I bet that the bet is using some kind of cool echo style to "replay" messages. I want a story about a bat courier now!!

31 .	by: Witticaster	November 15, 2017, 4:21 pm
I just can't stop laughing at the bat's expression... "Dude what the hell, my job is to help people coordinate their lunch dates not to be a therapy log book." It must be fascinating and sometimes hilarious to be responsible for ferrying around other people's random verbal letters. I imagine messengers are a big part of this society; wonder if the bat knows a special style to help facilitate the job? Well, now Fig knows about the bet. Smoothie is a noble person to so frankly own up to his failure. The phrase "Maybe love is just an excuse my body makes for itself" is just so sad to read and Fig's expression is heartbreaking. I wonder if Fig will come to some new revelations about sex now that she's experienced "making love" as compared to her other sexual experiences. I loved reading that interview. I knew right off that the cars in Lycosa were full of symbolism, but I didn't have the car knowledge to fully unlock their secrets. I kept waiting around for some car aficionado to show up and write long explanatory comments about them so I wouldn't have to go to the trouble... but that person never showed up. Maybe I'll just have to bite the bullet and do it myself.

30 .	by:	November 15, 2017, 12:20 pm
"My job on that page was to find eight makes and models roughly equivalent to her adversaries, and then have her adversaries perish in the same way that those vehicles did. In this way, the characters become a reflection of the meaning of the story, the junkyards of ourselves." That is awesome. I guess its time to read Lycosa again, and maybe learn a thing or two about some cars. Thanks for posting that 25, and thanks for doing that interview Zack.

29 .	by: Downhill	November 15, 2017, 9:44 am
@25 Oh wow this is cool to read! Dammit, with all this new context now I want to reread everything. Again.

28 .	by:	November 15, 2017, 6:50 am
"One of the things that I strongly dislike about modern character design, is that many characters are engineered to wear their hearts on their sleeve—to be instantly recognizable and evident of their pasts and passions, through both their actions and appearances." THIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS

27 .	by:	November 15, 2017, 5:00 am
@25 thank you for the link!

26 .	by: Furrama	November 15, 2017, 12:09 am
@25 Thank you! CONSUMES WITH GREAT FEROCITY I was right about a couple of things long suspected. I'm intensely curious about what scenes were extended or added in in this comic to clarify stuff. There's one scene in particular that feels like it got punched in because of the comments and now I wonder....

25 .	by:	November 14, 2017, 10:52 pm
Zack linked to this interview he did, it's really fun to read :) URL : http://www.tcj.com/people-are-very-deep-an-interview-with-zachary-braun/

24 .	by: Furrama	November 14, 2017, 6:59 pm
Oh... and I guess a bit of an echo from page 169. And I like this quote: "Even if our bodies haven't changed, we shouldn't just be a slave to our bodies forever. That's why society exists. Because it reflects how our minds are changing. Or... how they want to change."

23 .	by: Dani	November 14, 2017, 5:44 pm
@22: Naked and Dismayed

22 .	by: Nobody	November 14, 2017, 4:09 pm
i agree 18... maybe smoothie thought fig left by herself, but why doesn't he have any clothes on? how long has fig been brooding in his hallway for him to have enough time to call a messenger and recite a message for the bat completely in the nude? smoothie probably crawled out of the window (retrospectively, they might not have a cultural difference between big windows and doors) and his full body cloak was right there next to him, so it's not like he couldn't have made himself decent.

21 .	by: Furrama	November 14, 2017, 3:34 pm
Echos of page 132 and 133 are here. Surrender.

20 .	by: 18 AGAIN whoops	November 14, 2017, 11:11 am
lol, oh, I get it now. The window XX is eavesdropping at IS the window on page 147, and Smoothie and the bat are outside (hence all the tree branches).

19 .	by: 18 again	November 14, 2017, 11:10 am
Oh never mind, this IS still Smoothie's house (which means he summoned the bat here somehow? How long did that take?) I was thinking of page 147 that showed the outside, although I'm not sure that's what I'm looking at anymore. Anyway, page 210 shows the same hallway as this page so we haven't moved anywhere.

18 .	by:	November 14, 2017, 11:04 am
When I first read this page I thought these were two incongruous events; a little bit of a flash forward. XX going home and Smoothie writing a letter after some reflection. But after reading @8 and comments I realize this must be directly after last page, and it's boggling my mind a bit. Why on earth would Smoothie choose to dictate this message before taking/sending XX home? Maybe she was supposed to be leaving in panel 1? I don't know if this is still Smoothie's house; we saw a picture of the front door of that once and it went right outside, no tunnel involved. Is this the bat's "office building"? If it is it's even more perplexing, why stop here BEFORE Fig Trees and not after? Making Fig wait to go home while he writes a quick letter just seems really rude no matter what is specifically happening here.

17 .	by: Starry	November 14, 2017, 9:12 am
man did Fig hear all that D: ? I'm guessing yes

16 .	by: Blazic	November 14, 2017, 9:00 am
Also, is it just me, or has Smoothy's tail gotten fluffier since the, ah, incident?

15 .	by: Blazic	November 14, 2017, 8:58 am
I feel the next series might have to be bat-centered, given the feedback.

14 .	by: Bluefan	November 14, 2017, 8:07 am
@13: ooh, if intended, that would be an awesome symbolism! Random pun: I wonder if the bats scent is called BW.

13 .	by:	November 14, 2017, 4:31 am
Not sure if coincidence or symbolic, but bats are pollinators for night blooming cereus.

12 .	by:	November 14, 2017, 2:01 am
BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

11 .	by:	November 14, 2017, 1:41 am
oh my gosh i love when bats appear in the stories haha

10 .	by: Bluefan	November 13, 2017, 11:58 pm
The scene is so serious, it will have consequences for everything to come... And all I can see is the bat, wearing a scarf :3

9 .	by:	November 13, 2017, 10:13 pm
8 again, yeah, I get what's happening now, when the text is small she's hearing it from a distance, but then she approaches the window to eavesdrop.

8 .	by:	November 13, 2017, 10:12 pm
@7 Fig is still in Smoothie's house, that's all his art lined up on the walls, and I think you can see his wilted flower in the first panel? My question is, is Fig hearing this? In a few panels it looks like she's crouching below his window, and presumably he's right outside talking to the bat.

7 .	by:	November 13, 2017, 9:52 pm
Are the first few panels Fig hesitating to enter Fig Trees again, before reluctantly entering at the second to last panel?

6 .	by: Tenka	November 13, 2017, 9:08 pm
He's so humble. I don't feel like Smoothie is broken, he's lost his bet but he didn't bet his life on it. He's coming to terms with this very quickly, it looks like. Now I think that Fig will ache for longer. Just... nobody crash, please find your ways.

5 .	by: Dani	November 13, 2017, 8:00 pm
@1 When I tilt my laptop screen, it's the same color. Optical illusion! But that's an interesting concept all the same.

4 .	by:	November 13, 2017, 7:57 pm
@3 the question is... will he stay that way; like her?

3 .	by:	November 13, 2017, 7:08 pm
He's just as blank as her, now.

2 .	by: Vulli	November 13, 2017, 6:48 pm
@1 I checked on my art program, and the speech bubble in the last panel is the same exact color as it is in the other panels.

1 .	by:	November 13, 2017, 6:44 pm
Did Smoothie's text block finally go black in the final frame or is it an optical illusion? I've been suspecting it'd go black for a while. Is the bat committing this all to memory? I love the bat. The bat is my favorite now.