NofNA, "Syconium" page #223

Syconium
223

November 27th, 2017

42 .	by: Botany	November 30, 2017, 7:44 pm
No, there is everything good about Sex, many things understandable about one's own prostitution, but nothing good about the very brothel itself has facilitated. All of the sex workers deserve society's tolerance and support of their truest hopes and wants. Under these working girl facades are the artists that deserve to be heard through the burden that this gilded age society has projected onto them. This is not about playing the game of power, but overcoming power to return to the very best they have to offer for the society that has rejected them. Lemon deserves to be a Comedian. Pomelo, if she is still alive, deserves to be a Poet. Streaks deserves to finally know he was wrong about power and repent against it, and Fig? Fig? Fig deserves to finally overcome the path her mother's repression of sexuality wrought upon her, and if not become the artist, then become the teacher of art in University that sets the next generation at it's crossroads on the path of their own realization. The subjective definition of Power, in all the cowardice of it's supposed strength, is that it is a requirement to subjegate to not be subjegated, yourself. That is the trap Streaks fell into. It was not Fig's loins, nor an abuser's grip or pimp's control, it was the fraudulent gospel that he needed to power to become free. That was his slavery. If Fig, in the greatest position she could be, to become that fulcrum to gain leverage against it, can renounce power itself in her victory over Streaks, can renounce the very power of society itself to teach it the one true gospel of art against capture, Then she, along with everyone else, can become the indefatigable dreadnoughts to be the captains of their own courses.

41 .	by: Dani	November 30, 2017, 7:29 pm
When you summarize it like that @38...Greenie really does seem to be escalating his control! To what end, I wonder. Would control of the brothel finally satisfy him? Can he ever be satisfied on his current trajectory? People can learn from their mistakes if they are open to it, or see them as mistakes. From what we have seen from Greenie so far in the story, I don't know if he is receptive to reflecting right now.

40 .	by: Seven	November 30, 2017, 6:53 pm
Fig needs to off Greenie and Battery and co-run the brothel with Acai.

39 .	by: Botany	November 30, 2017, 6:12 pm
I want to believe that noone really had to die before and that noone has to die now. There is a concept to destroy here, that cannot be destroyed by penalty. I want to have faith in Fig being able to preach art's gospel.

38 .	by:	November 30, 2017, 4:23 pm
@36 you're absolutely right, but depending on how dead battery is now he might actually start killing people himself now. he's been escalating the entire comic, from exerting control over his girlfriend, to selling her into sexual slavery, to manipulating her into killing someone for him. this could very easily be the point where his ego swells enough to let him flaunt his stolen power.

37 .	by: Furrama	November 30, 2017, 4:10 pm
Zack said she wouldn't die near the start of the comic after someone ribbed him for making a new little wide eyed innocent that we'd all grow attached to only to kill her off later. But Zack is king of the bittersweet ending, (I think the original Secretary was the only real tragedy), and one needn't die to have one of those. Everyone else seems to be fair game though.

36 .	by:	November 30, 2017, 9:58 am
@32 my money's on Streaks getting someone else to kill her, because that's really the kind of person he is.

35 .	by: Teenage Mutant Sarpah	November 29, 2017, 8:55 pm
Oh...All the Earthling's Died...Guess that was just me not knowing what exactly I was looking at. Regardless Lycosa ends with the protagonist unambiguously triumphing so my point is...This webcomic tells many different stories, you can't always determine who will win. This entire series premise in some ways reminds me of Osamu Tezuka's Phoinix Saga

34 .	by: Botany	November 29, 2017, 8:45 pm
33, No, all of the Terran crew died. Their hope in sacrifice being the reference point needed to awake the sun. But it was a good death. Tragic as it was that noone ever learned that SV renounced Malice in the end, even he had at least that. But #32, regardless of that... Fig has demonstrated her articulation already to Smoothie. This entire story has so far been about the labyrinth of power's ebb & flow. Through sex, without it, via and opposite of gender. In direct representation and in abstraction What better way for the falsehood of power to be revealed than by renouncing it as a means to an end?

33 .	by: Teenage Mutant Sarpah	November 29, 2017, 8:13 pm
Lycosa ended with the protagonist triumphing and in Solar System one of the Earthling Crew...Died (Kind of hard to tell with that story) The rest survived

32 .	by:	November 29, 2017, 7:55 pm
@30 my money's still on him killing her because that's the kind of person he is and that's how all of these stories have ended so far.

31 .	by: Furrama	November 29, 2017, 3:41 pm
Another red thought, I guess it also pares nicely with the idea that red is an unseen color to most of the mammals. A concept that can't be seen, but that has real consequences.

30 .	by: Botany	November 29, 2017, 3:30 pm
...If this all ends with Fig being able to give her former lover an art lesson, where she explains to him just how much he has perfectly validated her own abstraction... And that leads him into the full realization of his faults and sins... Without having to kill him, maim him, nothing, that would be such an amazing triumph. To get him to truly accept the truth of his fighting against power through it's own abstraction. Defeating his hubris without any power at all. Like Saturn's superweapon.

29 .	by: #18	November 29, 2017, 3:28 pm
oooOOOH, after a lot of staring i FINALLY see the guard's face on the right there! i was looking in the wrong place... i was trying to interpret the ear/brow line as a splayed out arm...and reaching to interpret the "scarf"-y part of the cape around the guard's neck as the face. lol... thanks, 19, for confirming that there was an actual face for me to look for there! it probably didn't help me that i've only been looking at this page on mobile so far. on another note, now i'm wondering: if a bolt does come through the node, what if it hits Fig and chars her coat? she's recently gotten blood and pigment on it up to this point. third time's the charm.

28 .	by:	November 29, 2017, 8:20 am
@26 dang, how did I miss that, it's not even subtle. Thanks!

27 .	by: Furrama	November 29, 2017, 1:24 am
It's also interesting to go through the start of the brothel up to now and note when/where bright red shows up. I know I've been focused on blue and purple more than red. It's mostly in her dreams. Which is neat if it's reflecting this "real" lightning. Also (E)XY's lightning starts as white/somewhat blue, progresses to purple, and now it's red/pink.

26 .	by:	November 29, 2017, 1:01 am
25, it's on page 88.

25 .	by:	November 28, 2017, 11:28 pm
When did he say he thinks about his past to power his attack? :o That's an interesting detail I missed.

24 .	by: Witticaster	November 28, 2017, 8:58 pm
@Furrama I keep forgetting about the hatch blush! @23 NO DON'T YOU DARE GIVE ZACK IDEAS

23 .	by:	November 28, 2017, 8:48 pm
Oh no, is RG going to (try to) deflect it and get killed instead?!

22 .	by: Furrama	November 28, 2017, 8:44 pm
Well, she can make hatch blush thorns I guess if she really really wanted to. (USE YOUR HATE OF ARTLESSNESS TO PIERCE YOUR FOES) But she's not a combat character so I'm thinking whatever she does is going to be more internally transformative perhaps? I WAS going to make a "taking out the trash" joke in reference to their capes but I wanted to wait and see if all the trash got taken out or just some of the trash. And hey Fig, I see you down there, you wanna get involved in the B plot now or later?

21 .	by: Witticaster	November 28, 2017, 7:45 pm
Daily reminder that according to Word of God these tough guy stoats are wearing capes made from garbage bags. The scathing commentary writes itself. I was thinking about it last page... Greenie's version of the alembic actually validates the things that Fig speaks about abstract art: how one's thoughts and beliefs can hold just as much power as a physical body. He took the pain of his past and transformed it into a physical force that can "move" just about anyone. Fig gaining telenoia when!?

20 .	by:	November 28, 2017, 5:59 pm
God, it's a lose lose situation here. Both of them are terrible options to run the place.

19 .	by:	November 28, 2017, 2:23 pm
@18 I thought it was his cape getting shot off but if you look closely you can see the face of the other (marten?) guard. You can see them on the left in panel 2 of the previous page, for their location reference. It's confusing because: Panel 2 here shows Battery's cape prominently on the left side (his right), but "missing" on the 7th Panel 8 shows what could be seen as a singed edge on the cape that has billowed back onto Battery's right side.

18 .	by:	November 28, 2017, 1:39 pm
i honestly can't tell if that's someone getting hit with the "lightning" or if it's just half of Battery's cape blasting off. i'm leaning towards the latter... but also i just wanted to say: i keep reading Battery's one line as "What a knob" and laughing.

17 .	by: Dani	November 28, 2017, 11:50 am
Ohh, I forgot that there was a third sentry stoat in the room! That explains who Battery is looking back at. @15 It sure looks like it! Good grief, who is going to get it this time...

16 .	by: Papeipou	November 28, 2017, 7:40 am
Or RG is gonna catch it and get fried..

15 .	by:	November 28, 2017, 5:27 am
is Green bleeding from his mouth in the 6th panel, or...

14 .	by: Kaidona	November 28, 2017, 5:18 am
Battery does a fantastic job of making himself look like an idiot while causing trouble. Also, that falcon(?) shielding the mouse! I wonder what the sentries think of Streaks' lightning, whether it too is not real? URL : http://kaidona.deviantart.com

13 .	by: K	November 28, 2017, 3:32 am
I read secretary again recently, and I'm getting some malice vibes from the hit me first followed by my turn .. Also the fact that Greenie has always said thinking about his past makes the lightening as powerful as it seems.

12 .	by: Trustthapo	November 28, 2017, 3:10 am
Love how he looks like he has a head of horns in the fifth panel. Wonder if he's gonna knock out all the nodes? RIP Fig, she's about to get some serious electroshock therapy

11 .	by: natoon	November 27, 2017, 11:15 pm
Do you think Battery's friend has something to do with his alembic ability? Furrama (7):D :D :D I love your comments.

10 .	by:	November 27, 2017, 10:53 pm
There will be no brothel to run if you kill or maim every single person jesus fucking christ.

9 .	by: Botany	November 27, 2017, 9:23 pm
...Streaks isn't about to just light up battery. He either never learned how to not do it, or never cared to learn, but I think he's about to send bolts through every node in the brothel.

8 .	by:	November 27, 2017, 9:20 pm
@4 God, he really is at this point. I hope the younglings will be all right.

7 .	by: Furrama	November 27, 2017, 9:01 pm
Hey hey hey. So that other (martin?) that was almost always with Battery. Please tell me his/her name is Assault. And ooooh you do dramatic lighting so much better than me. Someday I shall learn! Just gotta... stop being so lazy.

6 .	by: Seven	November 27, 2017, 8:33 pm
No, wait, not Anakin. Kylo.

5 .	by: Seven	November 27, 2017, 8:32 pm
I need fan art of that.

4 .	by:	November 27, 2017, 8:18 pm
Greenie is such an Anakin Skywalker

3 .	by:	November 27, 2017, 8:17 pm
What were you guys saying about collateral damage last time, looks like that "bolt" is heading for Fig now.

2 .	by:	November 27, 2017, 8:15 pm
or, uh, whoops. Hit that guy back there, actually.

1 .	by:	November 27, 2017, 8:14 pm
aw Streaks u shot off his cool scarf