PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
PS238 by Aaron Williams
Ps238: The School for Metaprodigy Children
66 thoughts on “2018-06-26”
xel unknown
Heh, love this argument over an open coms…
LokiTheDarkGod
I love her reaction to the kids quarrel.
Leapfaith
I really like Gravpulse! I hope she finds better things to do that are part of the PS238 storyline in the future.
Jesse
I love Curtis, but I’m not sure I’d trust him with *any* dangerous equipment.
Jesse
Cecil, I mean. Oops.
Sabreur
True, but this is a kid who managed to get an eldritch horror cloak on his own. Giving him dangerous devices might be the *safter* option, all things considered.
Simon
Yep… if you don’t give him dangerous stuff to play with, he’ll find his own. And he’s *good* at finding dangerous stuff.
Flushmaster
Also, the Revenant tends to have a “learn by doing” approach to teaching things like swinging from grapple lines, flying a jet, etc, so I see Cecil getting some new gadgets pretty soon. Probably not exactly like Moon Shadow’s though, in order to maintain brand recognition between heroes. I can easily imagine Cecil flinging around classic flying saucer shuriken with various tech built into them.
Jacen
Ok, so he wasn’t out the window quite yet. My mistake.
Not that it was very hard to distract the guard and get out, mind you…..
Nobody
8714 Ambonnay Drive
Segev
Note that Cecil has admitted to still being IN the vent. “He wasn’t; I am.” So Cecil hasn’t escaped and has – barring lying – revealed where to look for him.
Rockphed
She isn’t being paid enough to go after either of the kids at this point. Also, the whole conversation is confusing if you don’t already know who Cecil and Moonshadow are.
Faust
Also she has been told to guard the vent so she shouldn’t chase either of them but should really pass on the new information.
Veritas
Cecil has a shrink ray. Whatever measures Pistonic might try to put in place, thinking he’s “packed in there like a one-person mosh pit”, might well not be enough to actually constrain him.
Flushmaster
It took me a minute to work out what just happened, and I know all the characters so Gravpulse is probably a bit confused, thus explaining her apparent “screw this, I quit” decision. When I realized that it was Cecil’s coat that was seen disappearing into the vent, not Moon Shadow’s cape, it made more sense.
Faust
He can still go invisible to escape if he wanted to.
CCC
No, he can’t. His cloaking device is in the locker; he’d need to escape before he can get it back.
Zech Judy
Pray that Cecil never meets the Von Foggs. His gadget-lust would doom him to pawn-hood.
Rockphed
I foresee Cecil having to submit a report titled “why I thought it necessary to shrink half a zeppelin-city to foil a plot to conquer the world”.
Rockphed
I know it is unlikely to get adressed, but I think “cell phone cable-cutting boomerangs” is confusing. Swapping it around to be “cable-cutting cell phone boomerangs” feels slightly less confusing. Alternatively, putting a comma after phone, so “cell phone, cable-cutting boomerangs”.
Veritas
That would probably be a clearer way to write it, but this is not only dialog, but a kid’s dialog. Even more than most people, kids don’t always pause to think of the clearest way to say something.
Russell White
I’d go with “cable-cutting, cell-phone, boomerang”….simply putting the most important descriptors at the end…it’s a boomerang first, a cell phone second, and a cable cutting device last
Guilty
Yeah, my first thought before reading the full line was ‘Cell phones don’t have cables’
Rockphed
As was mine (hence the comment). The best solution is probably putting in a comma. They are, after all, cell phone boomerangs and cable-cutting boomerangs, so a comma between the two adjectives nicely separate the equivalent adjectives.
wardenrt66
We need a catchier name for them. “In English, adjectives go in this order: Opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose-noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. (Mark Forsyth)” I would write it ‘cellphone cable-cutting boomerang’. But I would also bet that they also can be used as a tracking device and a listening bug. So really, describing them by what they do isn’t optimal; we should have a simpler name for them … but ‘crescent dart’ is already taken. Maybe ‘moon dart”?
CCC
“A lovely old little French green rectangular silver whittling knife” sounds perfectly sensible to me, apart from the slight ambiguity around whether ‘silver’ is a colour or a material.
=Tamar
It might be “French silver”, as in “silver alloyed according to French standards” – which in the case of a knife, might be the lower of the two French standards for copper content in silver alloys.
TBeholder
He’s obviously wrong. The knife would only need to not be silver. 😄
Kytross
It should read cable cutting boomerang cellphone. It is either a “boomerang cellphone” or a “cellphone boomerang.” Those are it’s two functions, and without a proper name, the function defines the object. Their word placement is interchangeable/irrelevant.
The adjective is ‘cable cutting.” “Cable cutting” modifies boomerang so they should be next to each other for clarity.
What kind of boomerang cellphone is it? It’s a cable cutting boomerang cellphone.
Robert Haynie
Just call it a Shadowrang. It’s going to happen anyhow.
Ed Rhodes
OK, Cecil. When Moon Shadow gets his eldritch horror coat and a shrink ray, then you can complain because HE has high tech boomerangs and you don’t!
Nealithi
Okay comparison.
Moon Shadow: Magno-grapple gun. Utility belt with smoke bombs and cell capable throwing discs.
Agent Cecil: Eldritch long coat, shrink ray, alien captain’s chair with computer hookups, cloaking device. And an actual super power.
Thinking if he stands for equality then Moon Shadow needs more toys.
Psiberkiwi
Don’t forget the ‘pet’ starship…
Sweeper
Greener Grass Syndrome that every kid has, I suppose. Doesn’t matter how cool your stuff is compared to the other kid’s, if they have something you don’t, life is just not fair.
TemperaryObsessor
Yup although a part of it might be that R only gave him the shrink ray and a cell phone and everything else he took for himself.
Ed Rhodes
And Tyler gave him a cloaking device. Tyler doesn’t have a cloaking device!
TemperaryObsessor
If I remember correctly Vance the ship that came with the cool chair he stole gave him a cloaking device Tyler was the messenger.
LeapFaith
I think they should be called, “Moonerangs!” Yes, I definitely think Moon Shadow throws Moonerangs, or maybe Moon-erangs. But I can see his classmates deciding to call them, “Shadowrangs,” or even “Soul-Slivers” (since Moon Shadow has the power to see the guilt in your soul, naturally!). Also, I can imagine an argument (or several) breaking out at the next recess about what they are called.
Faust
It gets more complex if you add he can converse through them.
How collectible will those be. Everyone has his business cards but those are rare.
TBeholder
“Moonerangs” sounds silly enough to most likely win.
Flqr
Is it wrong of me to dislike Cecil more than about anyone else in the cast? The boy is entitled, selfish, prejudiced and greedy. Damn.
Segev
He’s a kid. He wants cool stuff. His sense of “fair” is centered around whether others have stuff he wants and he doesn’t. And he’s learning basic pattern recognition while having an extra sense that gives him a category he can easily identify that others cannot.
He’s not actually prejudiced at all. He jumps to conclusions based on fictional tropes, but that’s not nearly the same thing. Once he learned the “aliens” weren’t a unified body out to take over the world, he stopped prejudging all metahumans based on the fact that he could “tell they were part of the alien conspiracy.”
If anything, he thinks a lot of metahuman stuff is cool. Which, again, isn’t prejudice; it’s preference. There is a difference.
Flqr
Meh, he may be a kid, but considering most of the cast is composed of kids, and that they are all more likeable, I say this is not an excuse. When your greed (“others have stuff he wants”) is worse than Zodon, and you’re less likely to see reason than von fogg, there’s a problem.
As for prejudice, it’s exactly “jumping to conclusions”, he’s like that with girls, lately. And no, “kids” aren’t like that, only him is like tha among the cast.
Marie
I think this is an unusually whiney moment for him. He does have more stuff than Tyler already. (and doesn’t have soul-crushing parents) So he is way ahead with having a power AND gadgets.
Gene
I do not remember meeting Cecil’s Parents, and as a kid he has learning to do as he grows up.
TemperaryObsessor
R got their permission for something before testing if Cecil had the ability to sense super powers. He also offered to help Cecil with his alien delusions which they were grateful for.
Segev
I think you’re just showing your personal dislike of him, and inventing reasons to dislike him, Flqr. He’s not exhibiting any unusual amount of greed. Note how he’s not in any way trying to take them from Tyler; he’s just complaining that he doesn’t have his own. Zodon would try to take what he wants. Von Fogg would, as well. I don’t know where you get the “less reasonable than von Fogg” business; that seems like your personal distaste for the character coloring your perceptions.
Zodon is a difficult one to use as a metric, because his greed is untempered by a respect for others’ property, but at the same time, he has generous urges he actively tries to pretend don’t exist and find excuses to indulge by claiming they’re selfish. Zodon’s self-image is wrapped up in being a villain, but his core nature is actually closer to Tyler or Julie’s.
Cecil is hardly exhibiting a level of greed even remotely comparable to what Zodon regularly is shown to be doing, however. Zodon steals, often with a great deal of effort. Cecil, at worst, scavenges things that were already going to be “unclaimed property.” He doesn’t go out of his way to make them such, either, though he’s not above looting his conquests when said conquests made themselves valid targets.
In all, I think you just dislike his schtick as a conspiracy theorist and super-geeky kid. Or something about his personality and character. Because your accusations against him are not objectively accurate.
Kytross
I think his background justifies his attitude. He’s a single kid who spent most of his life with no one who took him seriously. Especially not his parents. Before the supers came to town he had one friend, Alex, and Alex was humoring him about his conspiracy theories, the most important thing in Cecil’s world.
He’s a loner. He’s got poor social skills. Cecil does not fit in.
I also think his complaining about not having weapon parity with Tyler is also about fitting in. He wants to be an equal, he wants to be included. For the first time in his life he has friends and they take him seriously. I think he would do nearly anything to keep that going on.
But he’s growing. We’ve seen him be selfless and put his wants aside for the mission. He’s making new friends. Like the Flea, and now Ron.
The group we saw playing video games were all outcasts. Ron, who lost his powers. Tyler, who never had powers. Cecil and Flea are the kids who don’t fit in anywhere. The difference is, Flea doesn’t want to fit in, Cecil doesn’t know how to fit in. But those kids hanging out together is going to be good for all of them.
TemperaryObsessor
Cecil also found out that Tyler pretended to believe him and let him in on stuff in order to keep him in the dark and R took Tyler’s lies and ran with them, essentially using him as an operative while keeping him in the dark until his fear of aliens drove him crazy.
Cecil later found out all the “trust” that Tyler and R placed in him was lie to keep him placated. I think that might make Cecil wonder if every little thing is proof that they are still keeping stuff from him.
TBeholder
Cecil is no stranger to paranoia, indeed. 😁
Stephen Bierce
I think Cecil is overdue for a visit to the Castle’s Hall of Mirrors (as seen in “Time After Tyler”). Maybe that can be arranged.
Nightmask
I can’t even begin to imagine what Cecil’s alternates would be like (we never see that any exist in the universes Tyler viewed, and evil Tyler that we see first would have never been friends with a ‘normal’ like Cecil in his universe if he does exist).
Stephen Bierce
Who says that the continuua the mirrors display have to be the same ones every time? Number of the Beast.
Nightmask
Well certainly I never said that, I simply pointed out that we never saw what any of his counterparts (if they existed) are like in the three universes Tyler viewed. Although we can assume that in the last universe he’d be the same as all of humanity since they’re effectively drones of the group mind Ultimate Tyler created but can never be part of.
andrewhopkins2004
What kind of boomerang cellphone is it? It’s a cable cutting boomerang cellphone.
But is it.?…How do we know that it isn’t an electric stunning,cable cutting,exploding,moon shaped boomerang cellphone.?
TBeholder
She didn’t even react on name-dropping Revenant.
Or decided it only confirms that all this can only end in headache.
Wanderer
Alternatively, naming Revenant as an associate may be why “I’m not getting paid enough” comes into play. He evidentially give major leaguers headaches; someone who sees herself as a minor leaguer could well react by opting out on the basis of no winning against him.
Andrew_C
Just had a thought. Revenant is more skilled, versatile and competent than 95% of the supers out there (and 99% of the so called superheroes), who just skate by on sheer power. That must drive supremacists like the Powers nuts and be the real reason why so many hate and fear him.
TemperaryObsessor
If he didn’t succeed so hard they might actually like him in a he Daaww he thinks he’s people way. Or they may still hate him but to a lesser extent. Also if he actually looked up to them instead of disliking them.
Rens
“Tricked by two twelve-year-olds” isn’t going to look great on your resume either, lady…
Rockphed
I’m pretty sure that the main cast is in the 8 – 10 range. They are still in elementary school, which typically runs to grade 5, where kids might be 12, but probably are no more than 11. Also, when 84 and pre-Toby end up in the street, 84 mentions that juvenile heroes used to wait until they were really old, like 13 before they started working in public. An 8 – 10 year-old might think that 13 year-olds are really old, but a 12 year old will not.
Nobody
8714 Ambonnay Drive
TxGator
True. But how much time has passed in the comic since then? The impression I’m getting is that the kids are no long 8-10 year olds. That some of them are closing in on the preteen years.
Nobody
8714 Ambonnay Drive
Nobody
What is going on? Why are my posts being replaced with gibberish?
Rockphed
I was about to ask why you were giving us directions to a place in Tennessee, but since you don’t know I suppose there isn’t much point.
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