Behold The Risen – Chapter 8, Act 1, Strip 44

Well, Latho has successfully managed to railroad everyone into undergoing transformation into, for lack of a less gender-specific word, magical girls. For which it deserves kudos, there were definite obstacles to overcome in that process.

And it’s probably that recent success that lets Latho face the new obstacle that has popped up without undue concern. It probably has seen this very situation countless time throughout its career – unlike the audience of magical girl shows, of course, since these shows tend to leave this phase of the process lying on the cutting room floor. But, really, you can practically derive the inevitable existence of this phase from first principles: when a whole team undergo their first-time transformations as a group, it means that every single member not only has to deal with the unprecedented changes that are going on with themselves, they’ll also concurrently be assaulted by first glances at the bizarre results of the transformation of each of the other team members.

Really, every single one of those transformations would be enough to justify staring with mouth agape for a prolonged period of time – let alone four such transformations at the same time, one of which you only feel instead of seeing it.* So, yeah, it’s inevitable that the result wouldn’t be “pose as a team”, but rather “gawk as a team”. >_> Can’t blame the average magical girl show too much for mercifully covering up this awkward step, though.

But Latho’s laid-back attitude might well be justified. Such shock and awe is necessarily transient, and the team has already gotten faster at overcoming such shock effects, thanks to making it through all of the recent incidents of that nature. Despite this being a four-engine shock, chances are good that they’ll get over it reasonably quick. The small issue of heavy (in more ways than one) enemy presence should help with that, as well.

More on Thursday.

* Which might also cause something of a feedback loop: Seeing your colleagues changed beyond recognition can’t help but heighten the anxiety about your own appearance resulting from the changes you only felt instead of seeing them.

2 Replies to “Behold The Risen – Chapter 8, Act 1, Strip 44”

  1. This is why you A) Have a standardized design for a team and B) Try to cover up as much as possible with the design (bonus because it means you don’t have to be picky when hiring stunt doubles). It cuts down on the initial shock as you see everybody is wearing the same thing so you know you can only look AS ridiculous as everyone else and not more so. It also helps you feel hidden in a crowd since you are basically a recolor of what everyone else looks like.

    Also man, Latho got some junk in its trunk this scene.

    1. Plus, there’s the long-established psychological effect of uniformity on unit cohesion and combat morale – not something you should give up on frivolously. On the other hand, though, there’s a negative cohesion and morale effect of uniform character designs on your unit of character designers, so you have to weigh that choice carefully. XD

      And, yeah, Latho is quite rotund in its neither regions – a natural tendency if you’re filled with foam fragments, not really connected to your diet. XD

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