Trixie Slaughteraxe for President

[Welf]

Now I wonder if she is a real witch or she just did her tricks herself.

[Welf]

I wonder no more.

How can they get out of this one? I hope they did a philosophy major and can argue themselves out of this. I only know my Rene Descartes and can only prove my Cogito-Ergo-Sum. Which is exactly what they want.

[Thorsby]

In the latest strip, weird creatures and violence.

[Mabn]

I wonder no more.

How can they get out of this one? I hope they did a philosophy major and can argue themselves out of this. I only know my Rene Descartes and can only prove my Cogito-Ergo-Sum. Which is exactly what they want.

Technically, they don't need to prove anything. It is a more useful line of argument to say if a given impossible one is real, then __. Throwing the vase was an example of this, if an impossible one has a vase for a head, impacts could make their head shatter. If an impossible one has a beach ball for a body, pricking it should make it deflate. You paint a given impossible one into and ever smaller disadvantageous corner by looking into the conditions that would be true if they did exist. If it turns out for example that the impossible one's body was make of flesh and only resembled a beach ball, then the odd one could not bounce back at you when you throw it into a wall, because that isn't how flesh works. Since they can't exist, determining how they do must diminish their abilities and eventually render them unable to function.

[Welf]

We did get a fight of logic and reason.

And looks like the found a way to stop Samantha from doing magic. Trixie's rules lawyering and Lyndon's useless useful spell saved the day. Now I wonder how he will lose the spell again.

[Haven]

Does Thorsby have a Patreon or something?

[Dodom]

The comic itself doesn't have comments enabled. Does the author read this thread sometimes? If so, I have a message:
This comic is surprisingly good. The art style looks like a lot of those beginners' comics so at first glance one expects clumsy writing, but that's not the case at all. The plots are clever and the twists unexpected, the monster designs are novel, and the characters are funny and well individualised. The whole comic is unique in many ways, I don't see artwork this creative every day.

[Thorsby]

I'm the author. Thank you very much, Dodom! No patreon, Haven.

[Welf]

The comic itself doesn't have comments enabled. Does the author read this thread sometimes? If so, I have a message:
This comic is surprisingly good. The art style looks like a lot of those beginners' comics so at first glance one expects clumsy writing, but that's not the case at all. The plots are clever and the twists unexpected, the monster designs are novel, and the characters are funny and well individualised. The whole comic is unique in many ways, I don't see artwork this creative every day.

The writing of Thorsby's comic is stellar. In fact it's better than OotS or Erfworld since it doesn't fall into traps of meandering story lines and padding. In particular the crafting of singular scenes is great. The old Lies, Sisters and Wives comic is a great example and quite short. Or read all the comics.

[Dragonus45]

So for me the big thing about these comics is how farcical they can be. And a proper farce is kind of a lost art form in modern writing.

[Haven]

I'm the author. Thank you very much, Dodom! No patreon, Haven.

You should consider it! Or something similar. I know there's at least a couple of people who would be interested if you got one.

[Thorsby]

A new chapter begins. It's called "The Last Cupcakes".

[Welf]

New comic.

I have a really bad feeling about this. Like in, "main character maimed or killed" bad.

Also, more frog people? I wonder if we ever get more details on this.

[Thorsby]

In the latest trip: A hand related problem.

[Lissou]

I wanted to say that I love your stories, Thorsby. The stories are compelling, the cast is diverse and WOW you're great at creating various aliens. And the comedy is pretty vaudevillesque and I love it. Please, never stop! :D

I do wonder how you come up with all the different biology and culture though... any tips you're willing to share?

[Thorsby]

Thank you very much. Here are some ways to come up with creatures:

1. Use a real animal that has some weird trait, change the animal so it is either a threat to humans or intelligent to enough to talk and have technology. What if termites were big enough to eat people? What if termites were intelligent? If you read about biology, there are lots of really weird animals to use.

2. Think of some part of a creature’s body and think how it could be different. How could camouflage be different? How could the sense of smell be different?

3. Think of some weird creature. Now try to come up with a way that creature could have evolved. You might end up with a more interesting creature. I had an idea for an alien that could remove and reattach its limbs. How could that have evolved? The limbs are actually other creatures that are symbiotic with the alien. If you can’t think up a realistic way a creature could have evolved, coming up with a joke way can still be fun to read.

4. Start with a bizarre environment, then think how creatures evolved to live in that environment. In a story I had a zone that turned creatures invisible. I came up with lots of creatures that lived in and around that zone.

5. Similar to 4. Start with a magical creature. Think up non-magical creatures that evolved to live in an environment that has those magical creatures.

6. Think up some way a trait of human psychology could have evolved. Think up some environment or whatever would have caused this trait to evolve to be much stronger. Make up a species that has a very strong version of this trait.

7. Or the reverse from 6, think up a way that the opposite trait could have evolved. Make up a species that is in some ways the opposite from humans.

To make up an alien culture, start with a different biology and base the culture around that. Try to think several steps ahead. If a culture has X that means it must also have Y. Then it must also have Z. And so on.

When writing about an alien culture there are (at least) three ways to do it. The first is to have it be similar to human culture. I find this boring. It’s also arguable unrealistic, but I don’t care much about that. The second is to have the culture be different and to explain to the reader how the culture works. The problem with this is that it leads to lots of exposition. The third way is to have the culture be different, and to not explain how it works.

Of course authors don’t stick to just one of the methods, they use a mix. I tend to focus on the parts of the culture that is different, and explain them. The rest of the cultures tend to be similar to human cultures, but I don’t dwell on those parts. Then I might add a few unexplained things that are not important to the plot. Like maybe there is some weird machine in the background of a room, and I don’t explain what the machine does.

[Lissou]

Thank you so much! It's great to read about how you came up with creatures I read about. I like how you also have it so that invisibility makes you blind consistently across your stories.
Still, even with these methods, it's impressive how much stuff you come up with. I loved the story about the space agent because of that and the whole different cultures aspect, it was great.

[Thorsby]

Another chapter begins. The election is approaching fast.

[Welf]

Well that was a technically legal way to win the election. That Veepee was useful in the end. I wonder what brutal way he will be killed.

I notice Prudence Lavagargler doesn't have a bottle next to her, and the blue spider has a cup but no wine next to him.

[Lissou]

Yeah, my guess is not all of them drank wine and so the plan won't be foolproof.
Interesting that the results are so long after the election, though, I'm use to same-day results, I wonder why it's a week later in that world.

[lopa12]

Between scheming 1 and scheming 3 were 45 days, and she lost 2 vice presidents. with 120 days left she probably will run through another 6 of them.

[Welf]

Yeah, my guess is not all of them drank wine and so the plan won't be foolproof.
Interesting that the results are so long after the election, though, I'm use to same-day results, I wonder why it's a week later in that world.

I don't think 1 week is that long; we usually get preliminary results on the first day. The final official result usually takes longer. They probably count, recount if there is any issue and then have to send the results to the capital for collection.

So it's Barbara, spider guy and old hag. My money is on spider guy. He'll be a bad president, but at least he means well.

[Lissou]

I wonder if they'll do a new election or just decide all the votes for other candidates are void?

I guess maybe it's a huge country. When I counted ballots it only took a few hours per office (and since every office was doing it at the same time, the final results were available the day of, even with recounting). But if you add time zones within a country, or give time for people to vote by mail, it could take longer for sure. I thought maybe it was part of establishing the universe but who know?

Spidey would definitely be the best president of the three, and he would probably take advice from Trixie if she offered it.

[Welf]

Spidey would definitely be the best president of the three, and he would probably take advice from Trixie if she offered it.

He does take advice, but unfortunately not from Trixie. And Audrey and Lyndon betrayed Trixie for nothing.

[Lissou]

He does take advice, but unfortunately not from Trixie. And Audrey and Lyndon betrayed Trixie for nothing.

True, he takes advice from just anyone :( That's sad. So what do you guys think the papers are? I'm thinking maybe asking for a new election or something?

[Ibrinar]

You know this is one case where I don't want the team to reconcile. Murderous girl is a bad person and while he isn't as bad he still sucks.

[Lissou]

Yeah, he betrayed his friend, and well, she's bad all around. I agree with you, they're probably better off if they don't reconcile. Although he seems to be remorseful at least.

[Welf]

To be fair, Audrey wasn't wrong. Even with the money Trixie would have lost because of Barbara's dirty tricks. She is as cynical as she is correct.

[Welf]

Good to see Trixie took the initiative again. I hope this wakes up Zoozo. Unfortunately now that the election is over the Traditionalists have no more reason to not snuff her out. And the Scepter of Death predicted she would die rather soon from an illness.

Also, I'm on my thir re-read of the comic. Knowing how it ends (so far) with Lyndon and Audrey makes it more interesting. The original pairings were an extrovert and an introvert, Trixie / Lyndon and Audrey / Klara respectively. Now it's Trixie / Klara and audrey / Lyndon. And the new pairings did change Klara and Lyndon. In the first comic basically only Trixie and Audrey talk and negotiate, Klara only gives factual statements. Lyndon doesn't talk before the second comic, both are rather passive. Early Lyndon is pretty stiff and rather arrogant. Both change. Klara clearly falls in love with Trixie and takes initiative when she pretends to gamble away their fortune to stay near Trixie and help her. Before that she was clearly dominated by Audrey who took care of both of them. By now she is pretty independent. Lyndon acted quite superior around Audrey before he fell for her and realized he isn't better than her. And by the end of the last story arc he even betrayed Trixie for her and ate the cake. Earlier when he and Trixie met the ambassador he wouldn't drink wine because it was forbidden.
So both grow, but it comes at a cost for them.

[Thorsby]

In the latest strip: a press conference and some advice.