Blink, Blink, Blink – Chapter 8, Act 1, Strip 34

Yeah, the new Year of the Ox isn’t really off to a great start for Mopey.

Although it might be a fitting start for this particular year – after all, one of the hallmarks of the Ox is persistence, and Mopey is quite persistent right now. At least in as far as she seems to be in a persistent vegetative state, or something very akin to that…she’s not recoiling away from the scepter generously offered by Latho, but she’s not exactly embracing the offer, either. She still needs to wrap her mind around the whole concept that is tied up with that offer, and her mind isn’t terribly willing to bend right now. Mental rigidity isn’t a positive trait, in general, but sometimes your brain just has to grow a spine…to use an oddly distorted, but perhaps also oddly-not-entirely-incoherent metaphor using the central nervous system.

Anyway, Mopey’s attempts to get mental gymnastics started might yet take a while, so I fully endorse Latho’s decision to give up for the moment, and reroute his efforts toward one of the others first – Latho is a patient creature, as it has demonstrated just recently, but there are limits. After all, it has a job to do – and, assuming that there’s a schedule or something for that, it probably is trailing that schedule pretty badly by now. So off it heads to accost some other team member – with the appellation “blondie” indicating either Biff or Gregory. Or Snuka, if uttered in a highly sarcastic mode.

More on Thursday.

4 Replies to “Blink, Blink, Blink – Chapter 8, Act 1, Strip 34”

  1. Make a contract with me and become a magical girl.
    Because it never ever backfired on anyone.

    1. Yeah, people are getting more and more reluctant about this kind of thing, in our cynical and distrustful times. That’s why Latho has had the fine print engraved into the scepter, where it basically can’t be seen at all until it’s too late.

  2. It really doesn’t help that from that camera angle it looks like Latho is handling a “Rod of Kingly Might” that’s longer than Latho is tall.

    Also poor Latho, it had the misfortune of landing in the wrong genre. It landed near some teenagers-or-older who then proceeded to setup a horror movie motif. Then was shipped to a research facility mainly ran by young-adults. There was never an opportunity to present itself to a pre-teen-to-early-teen to jumpstart a magical girl plot.
    And that itself is tragic because in those plots, the older you are, the less effective you are as has been clearly demonstrated thus far. If you’re a magical girl finder/trainer, you want them as young as possible. The young ones seem to NEVER get hurt, just scuffed up at worst; almost as if violence against children is a thing that’s heavily censored. Teens tend to get hurt every now and then but fortunately beauty is never tarnished and likewise wounds are never grievous enough to cause scars. Adults can end up getting obliterated (especially if the bad guys look like adults).

    1. Yeah, that’s true – one of the main reasons that Latho finds its job a bit more difficult than usual, in this case, is the fact that the team is quite a bit older than the people it usually has to deal with. Which makes a difference not only with regards to the likelihood of injury, but, naturally, also with regards to how persuadable they are – especially if the creature that’s trying to persuade them looks like a pinkish, plushy bear/rabbit. That looks just doesn’t tend to appeal to people beyond a certain age, at least not when it comes to appearing serious and trustworthy. XD

      That being said, in Mopey’s special case the reaction might not have been much different if Latho would have encoutered her at a younger age. And if it had been different, chances are that would have only meant more violent, not more positive. So perhaps Latho was even a bit lucky, there…

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