PS 238

I guess the previous thread was Archived To Elsewhere too, so I'll be the one to restart it.

Just to say I like the villain in this page.

...Arcade, I presume?

Other people are reading this? Yaaay! It's a shame the archives are so broken.

I love this series... going to have to order the back issues that I'm missing sometime soon, although at the moment I have neither the money nor the time to read them anyways >.O

There's always been something appealing about the Revenant's quiet cynicism, I have to admit...

There's something I don't understand about the current casino arc: Counting cards in blackjack is illegal now?

I thought the only illegal thing was getting some help doing it...

I'm pretty sure if the casino thinks you're counting cards, they are legally allowed to toss you out.

They are, actually.

Wow. I thought that was the very point of Blackjack: Since you can't bluff, you have little other measure of skill.

If that's not allowed, you may as well play war.

(besides, I learned yesterday that Roulette was even more of a fraud in the States than in France)

edited 19th May '11 12:15:22 AM by Medinoc

Blackjack isn't Poker. It's not a competition between players, but you trying to get money from the house. Like a slot machine, it's not supposed to be about skill, but about luck. And properly estimate your chances, I suppose.

Now, if the Casinos would bother to just shuffle the cards right, there would be no problem.

edited 19th May '11 3:04:50 AM by Kayeka

IIRC, they do shuffle them, but not between each trick. Which I see as an invitation to count cards.

Which is why I say 'shuffle right'. Didn't they have those fancy shuffle machines these days? Put one of those one the table, play a game, put the deck in the machine, play another game with another deck, take out the first deck and start from the top.

How hard is it?

I should check, but I think the rules of Blackjack stipulate not to "shuffle them right". Which, if it was not written for the explicit purpose of encouraging card counting, would mean somebody hasn't been doing his job right.

Of course, I haven't checked yet, so this is to take with a grain of salt.

edited 19th May '11 4:34:31 AM by Medinoc

Huh... What Did You Expect When You Named Him?

^A LOT.

Hmm, so was this whole event planned by his parents or the chaos minions?

Now that was well played, Moon Shadow.

Huh, I was wondering what happened to this series.

Must've been a website change.

How far behind is the webcomic from the printed version?

No idea, to be honest. :)

Looks like everyone wants the slice of Atlas fame... I don't know whether the fact that they're all teams is a sign of pragmatism or a hint that the adults have as much issue with super-teams as the kids do.

Probably the former, really. Not everyone gets to be a definite A-lister like Atlas, so if a threat the likes of Veles comes around, they might want to have a few guys at their backs. The fact that they seem to have teams based on powersets points towards a sense of tribalism/superiority complex that's a lot more worrying, really.

Love those two FISS hovering in the background of panel two. You can just see them debate the question of "where did there bozos come from all of a sudden?"

A propos, I'm pretty sure that, ever since the series made the jump to colour, it's all new content. Hence the shaky schedule, with with the juggling this with Full Frontal Nerdity and Use Sword On Monster. Man, these series could use a little more discussion around here. They're good comics.

It's pretty obvious that 84 is gonna become the new Atlas, just like Tyler is becoming the new Revenant.

I'll admit that I'm really wondering who Julie brought in.

I was rereading the archives and hit upon this page. Every time I reread this, I wonder whether Tyler made a misstep, or if there was simply nothing he could have done for Ron.

Well, let's be fair. The glimpses into Atlas' marriage had suggested that there were long-term problems and that it was crumbling regardless. My parents separated when I was five; I've been there. There's a lot of dark thoughts and feelings that a kid in Ron's situation go through, and I say that from experience.

What Ron needs is a professional counselor that can help him deal with all of his issues... and it's starting to seem like there's nobody who's trained on how to deal with the combined pressures of how to reconcile superpower use and how to avoid lashing out while dealing with your parents' divorce.

For Tyler's part... I mean, he's also a kid. I don't want to say that he made a misstep because he's in way over his head, and damn it, he's trying. Saying he made a misstep here really does him a disservice. I strongly suspect that there is no single person who could help Ron at this time, and I think Tyler should be commended for at least trying. So many people can't or won't reach out in situations like this.

{nods} Agreed. There's just something about that scene where Tyler gives his best advice and then Ron slams the drawer hard enough to break the wall... of course, that's also part of Ron's World Of Cardboard angst, that he can accidentally hurt people without meaning to (even before Charles, we have it set up by Zodon informing him that, if he were to be sucked through a jet engine, he'd destroy it), something which The Praetorian Academy seems to truly be helping him with.

By the by, has the webcomic caught up to the books? The pace seems to have slowed down lately.