Chapter 4, Page 2

Poor li’l thrip!

Sorry for the small gap in updates, I took a vacation and didn’t work on a single thing for the first time in about 3 years. It was amazing, and I am feeling as refreshed as I can possibly feel given that our country is like, imploding… have been feeling like drawing totalitarian stuff a bit more than adventure stuff so you can always check out The Meek for those updates. My comics tend to be kind of out there in content, so imagine my dismay when one of them started to become actually relevant to actual events :| I mean, until they discover the subterranean oceans on Mars for real

In other news, my restored vitality is also presenting in progress pages and development notes that go along with every page, shop talk for this page and more is up for Patrons.

Okie dokie back to flicking water on all the things that are currently on fire…

52 Comments

  • spottedspeck

    So I guess it’s safe to say that Bex and Mike have been down there for more than 24hrs…

    • charlesw81

      Certainly looks like a pretty established camp but we know her and mike fell down. Mike was out of commission for however long it took thigh-friend to grow (could have been more time than you think when you look at how long the stuff on his head has taken to grow). Then he was asleep on the beach for a period of time thats probably more like a regular rest and finally he had a sleep after discovering LEVi was wrecked and woke up to dumplings. There’s a possibility he rested for more than a day before now and some time may have passed since she caught LEVi

      Bex could easily be more of a survivalist and appears to have had the added benefit of no injuries. So I can easily imagine that she assessed the situation more rationally, determined she had no way to contact the surface and alien life to worry about, then went into the survivalist mode of establishing a base camp she could rest in safely, water supply and food/hunting with self-defense possibly in the mix thanks to whatever run-ins she’s had.

      I could imagine her getting to a stage such as this in 72-120 hours

      • shingworks

        charlesw81 is also on fire today (but in a good way)

      • Pylgrim

        Hmm what if Mike actually died and the Martian system rebuilt him (wow, It’s Walky deja-vu), so even more time than we expect has passed?

  • Sorry if this has been answered elsewhere, but do you have a voice in your head for what LEVI sounds like?

    • actuallyartisan

      To me, LEVI has always sounded like Wheatley from Portal 2

      • Let’s hope he doesn’t share his, uh, personality.

    • shingworks

      Yeah, he sounds like the voices I gave to our stuffed animals when me and my brothers were kids… ie high pitched cute voice. If this isn’t dignified enough feel free to swap it out with a voice you like better XD

      • foxorian

        Exactly how I was already imagining him lol

        also by this point I’d be so sick of wearing that suit after so long. They better be comfy.

      • Linebyline

        James Earl Jones.

        Doing a high-pitched cute voice.

      • J.A Kooistra

        In my case it’s George Takei. Oh my!

      • Sheridan

        David (of Aliens:Prometheus) to me. very ‘proper’ in an upper-class English way.

    • CosmicStresshead

      I always heard Levi speak with a voice somewhere between Kitt from Knight Rider and HAL from 2001, seems to fit Threvi here as well, only a bit more organic? I’m conflicted about whether his voice as an organic being would be anywhere near his robotic voice though, so I’m thinking it would be high-frequency clicks which would approximate human speech.

      ~shrugs~

    • Evan

      I’m cursed forever to hear all funny robot voices as claptrap from Borderlands.

      • DukeBG

        Yeah, I was trying to imagine a different voice and all i got was a mix of Claptrap and Portal 2 Wheatley.

    • Edmund

      C3PO

      • Edmund

        else morgan freeman

        • shingworks

          haha

    • Martin

      I like reading Levi’s lines using Darth Vader’s raspy voice.

  • *staaaare*

    • AGV

      *tail flaps frantically*

  • Vert

    “You don’t exist. You are a hallucination.”

    “…”

    “…”

    “Do I exist now?”

    “ARG!”

    • Lloyd

      @vert lol! This is worthy of being put on a T-shirt.

  • Green thing

    Are the bones on the back wall Callie’s?

  • AGV

    “You deathstare me, I tailslap you” Poor ThrEVI

    Glad that you had REAL vacations after so long
    And Mare Internum confirmed for real! Can I have a link to that?

  • Evan

    Yeah vacations are amazing. I could never make it 3 years without one, so props to you for stamina.

    • shingworks

      It was a bad idea I think, to go so long without a real break. I had a ton of good ideas when not working and certain aspects of my art improved with the improved concentration… for self-employment there’s a lot of stress to never stop working, but not as efficient in the long run.

  • Margaret Hogg

    Here I am looking at the camp and wondering how much of that stuff is made out of Kalla. D:

    • Caroline

      Same!

    • AGV

      Oh my, please no

  • zeb

    Hey! Take all the time you need to update! You always deliver great content!

  • B N

    #thriplives

  • MinJaBen

    Those things hanging on the back wall look suspiciously like pieces of Kallakore. :(

  • Solanuma

    :< sad thrip face

  • Rose

    First she kills Kallakore then she sticks LEVi in a tub thing. I’m really starting to hate her.

    • Vert

      I think she and Mike are both control freaks in their own way, but she wants to control reality, Mike just wants to control his path *through* reality.

  • Cthulhufish

    That had BETTER not be armshark meat…

  • Toothy

    It’s been months and I’m still having a hard time coping with Kallakore’s death.

  • Android 21 3/7

    Don’t test her, ThrEVI! Otherwise, she’ll boil you alive and serve you with butter!

    (Don’t ask where she gets the butter while trapped in an underground cavern on Mars! You don’t wanna know!)

    • shingworks

      She’s been busy milking the bluethrips, haha

  • Jay

    Don’t worry, they won’t find water on Mars. NASA will be defunded and dismantled for the free market way before that ever happens.

    • Jay

      *subterranean oceans, not water. Sigh, #AmericanCoup is getting to my head.

      • shingworks

        I was going to correct your post for you, but decided to keep this here for the hashtag/ to help future archaeologists studying the downfall of our society.

  • JJ

    Have you read The Obelisk Gate? It has nice moments of childrearing experience being useful in existential crisis moments, too.

    • shingworks

      No, never heard of it, I’ll take a look.

  • Jirenta

    Well, I just recently found this, and it is amazing!

    Some thoughts/theories, tough:
    Even if Kallakore forget what happened shortly before whatever resurrectet/cloned him/her (?), Levi in Disguise would not or could not talk. As soon as Bex was -tragically, in means of own survival- killed Kallakore, she could understand what Levi was trying to say.

    So, is there an option, I wonder, that -however possible- Kallakore did willingly or unwillingly kind of block the communication between Levi-Thrip and others, or “just” communication between Michael and Levi?
    If it was indeed willingly, was it so Kalli could get info out of Michael? Not because Kalli´s evil, yet out of curiousity?
    On the other hand, Kalli mentionend that Levi-Thrip was making noise so he/she would find Michael in the first place.
    But then, it could be either the truth, a lie or a false memory from the system, a theory I read when browsing some other comments on here.

    Am I close to right in any of this? I am so eager to read more of this wonderful, amazing story! (And I do hope that Bex is not crushing poor Levi-crab! She is kind of making soup out of Kalli´s remains… well, she wants to survive, too. Kalli was making soup out of Dumplings… it´s only natural to eat. Yet, poor Kalli!)

    • shingworks

      Nice theories XD We’ll be finding out a lot of answers soon. And, thanks for reading :]

  • Jirenta

    Oh, and what is with the other female doctor Bex was mentioning in the first chapter? All we have is a name and gender, and maybe the woman sitting next to Michael in that dream/resurrection sequence was her. Who knows? ^.^

    • shingworks

      Haha, yeah that’s her (it was a flashback), Dr. Braid was the scientist paired with Mike at Devotion Base. I have to go back and clean up the text a little because people thought she was killed or something, she was actually just transferred to a different team/ site after Mike was fired a few months ago.

      • JJ

        tbh, if Dr. Braid & Dr. Fisher’s adventures in fun activities for grownups ever become Patreon bonus content, I’m gonna be broke.

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