Hope everyone had a good holiday. I loves me some Christmas but I think I love National Clearanced Candy Day almost as much. :3
Also, because I’ve been trying to do more with the line work and because arts and crafts are fun, here’s a lineart “coloring book page” version of this strip. 
The quote about fleeing comes from sarnothi hand-to-hand combat traditions. Meaning, yes, there IS mermaid karate. The techniques don't do much on land though. XD
When you have fangs, claws, swimmer’s muscular density and a predator’s speed you don’t need much karate to deal with humans
Inara: It takes less than a pound of pressure to cut skin…
This quote is shiny
That’s the gorram truth.
4 ounces of pressure actually, if you have sharp object.
or 10 oz if you have a blunted sword.
Do people just say “pressure” when they mean “force”? Because the (low-confidence, high-variance) numbers I’ve found quoted for the pressure required to pierce human skin tend to be on the order of a few megapascals, or tens of atmospheres of pressure.
I have spent an unseemly amount of time puzzling out what the unstated “per unit area” unit might be when people quote “pressure” quantities with units of force (or mass, since the quoted units don’t usually differentiate), because “pounds of pressure”, taken as a literal description, makes exactly as much sense as “gallons of height”, and I have never been in a position where I could ask people for clarification on what they meant.
And only 2 lbs of pressure to shove someone’s nasal bones up into their frontal sinus (which only takes ~1.5 lbs of pressure to break the inner wall of).
Incidentally, my favorite fanart of Francine (American Dad) and Lois Griffin (Family Guy)=> http://spoopty23.deviantart.com/art/2-Pounds-396393570
A human can easily bite clean through a human finger…we just don’t because we get all grossed out thinking about it…but give us some bath salts and that’s a completely different story.
They’re a bit better adapted to fighting under water, naturally. One imagines “Sarnathi Kung-Fu” has few impact blows (less effective in water), more claw slashes, few if any “stances” (what would one stand on while floating?) Throws might be present, but could not function as a finishing move, only for changing positions relative to your opponent (see Sai Fen’s adage above).
All in all, they would probably have considerable difficulty adapting an underwater fighting style to fighting on solid ground. A Sarnathi soldier who found himself in a fight on dry land would find himself falling back on a few basic, simple attacks, and half his trained reflexes would react the wrong way and mess up his defense.
You could probably train a Sarnothi in a human fighting style though, particularly if you started them young. I’m thinking a more open-handed style stressing avoidance and counters (still keeping Sai Fen’s adage in mind) would suit them best (not sure if trying to throw a standard punch would drive their claws into their own hands or not). That would be Aikido.
Although, I also find myself thinking that the big sweeping motions and rotations of Capoeira would be a natural fit to them also.
I’ve spent too much time thinking about this, haven’t I? Don’t think Dave is going to write “The Karate Kid: Part Selkie”.
I love the in law comment. Keep up the amazing work this coming year!
Will do, thanks! 😀
This made me giggle probably a lot more than it should’ve. I totally want Sarnothi fangs now. I would give sooo many people big friendly smiles ^.^ Like, rawrrrrrr!
My mother, who does’t have (literal) fangs, does this all the time. 🙂
The Joker was right… Just SMILE! I need to remember the “Gentle Discouragement” speech for my DnD Character. Love the comic.
Web? Isn’t that a bit terrestrial as similes/metaphors go? Or does Sai Fen mean “net”, or is this a translation for Selkie’s benefit?
She is, of course, correct about the in-laws.
Not sure on the terrestrial-ness. “Web” refers to the webbing on their hands and feet though, for clarification.
Ah! Fair enough, Maestro, I am instructed.
2nd to last panel, I thought of this:
1:05- 1:15 mainly O_O
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CB11ZWSGCM
OH GOD NO FACE! XD Been ages since I read Yu+Me
Yay! This brings warmth to my vascular pump and terror to my think pan. Terror on a level of Susan’s “KITTY!”.
Also, this is very good advice, and I make that face sometimes despite not having fangs. Although very close-lipped smiles also work.
I’ve found the real trick with the big, toothy, wide eyed smile, is to focus a good 10 feet beyond the person you’re aiming the smile at (while still looking RIGHT AT THEM) Nothing like being stared through to unsettle someone to the point of really wanting to be anywhere but under your gaze.
Or even better, start grinning at them while they’re facing away from you, so that when they turn around…
An even better trick is not to let the smile get up to the level of your eyes. Mouth only.
I love how your name, your comment, and what you’re commenting on combine to reference three different webcomics that I read, all at the same time.
P.S. Sheldon’s “supportive” smile.
“YOU’RE NEVER FULLY DRESSED WITHOUT A
SMIIIIIIIIIIILEEEE”
first damn thing I thought of. A la creepy Mary Poppins.
It’s from Annie. But point taken.
Of course the quote’s from Annie! But in this case my mental image here is it being said creepy the way the creepy Mary Poppins video is. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T5_0AGdFic
While absent of sharp pointy teeth, I have a predator grin myself. I find it useful to have my head pointed down ever so slightly in a “Kubrick Stare” and then slowly start breaking into a grin as the mirth slowly drains out of my eyes. Then smile beyond what people accept as their comfortable smile level and meet them in the eyes with what appears to be barely restrained rage.
We are the only mammals that smile as a form of encouragement and friendliness, every other mammal smiles as a threat, “these are our weapons” and all that. So sometimes it’s more powerful to remind the primitive man in a person that teeth are not comforting that an actual threat.
At first I thought she was encouraging Selkie to attack someone and I was like, “No you dumb ***** don’t get her into that sort of trouble!” And then realized she was employing the whole, “I can hurt you way worse if I really wanted to” tactic and I relaxed a bit. Personally I feel like Selkie should realize that someone (1 out of 10 people for example) will always feel fear or disgust when they see her and she should get used to it. Try and befriend them and make them realize you aren’t so different and if they want bo part of you still? Ignore them. If they attack you and try to beat you up? Avoid them, get an adult or get the police involved. It sucks that people get bullied and it sucks more isn’t done about it to prevent it, but I feel like a lot of the times it’s pretty harmless and people overreact and blow the whole thing out of porportion. Selkie’s incident is not this sort of case at all. But things where someone teases you about braces or your hair or calls you a mean name shouldn’t even be worried about unless they escalate it to physical violence, extreme mental and emotional distress or mass isolation. Cause if someone wants to tease me about my freckles I’m not gonna cry or hate my freckles because I have this thing called a (metaphorical and physical) spine. I feel like bullying isn’t taken seriously because of small incidents like this being constantly drawn to attention when it’s really nothing. So bigger incidents like isolating someone or jumping someone get taken less seriously because they assume it was something harmless!
Trouble is, the little can be big. When you multiply the one little comment by 30 kids by 180 school days by 12 grades…well, speaking from experience, it becomes utterly crushing over time even if they never lay a hand on you. And worse, because it IS individually little things, it’s hard to make an adult or someone else understand just why you’re so devastated over “one little name call”. *sigh* Actually being jumped and beaten on at one point was in a bizarre way almost a relief…it was at least something tangible that for once an adult seemed to understand was awful.
Half the time I’m being bothered, I can’t tell if they’re actually doing anything on purpose, or if I’m being paranoid.
Nice in theory. Horseapples in practice. The police won’t do anything about bullying. “Involving an adult” might work or might just set you up for more and worse as a snitch. Avoidance works for one-off encounters. It is a worthless strategy in the long term or when you are in a situation where you are forced to be in proximity with the bullies.
The problem with threats is that the person you threaten has to believe them. The teeth and claws? Yeah. Those will work, especially since she’s already primed the pump by forcefully setting limits with a bigger although probably not stronger attacker.
Great work on the linework! Their expressions actually seem more vivid and they seem to convey more emotion than in the colored panels, I think.
You have given me ideas for dealing w/ one of my sisters-in-law… 😉
Heh … just noticed the size of Selkie’s eyes in the last panel … nice touch.
Brief thought, are we going to eventually learn the source of her lisp?
I think I love Sai Fen XD
That smile was friggin….gah! I don’t even know, but this comic was just the best 🙂
I want to see Selkie’s DOOM SMILE now.
I love this page. So much.
I can’t wait to find out why she lisps, and I can’t wait to see her smiiiile.
And, yay! Finally made it through the archives, up to speed now! Yaaaay. What a great story! The whooooole thing.
The smile of complete and total evil is in animation if you look back and forth enough.