Snake reflexes
Silent liondog, quick snake xD
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Cleo just about whacked Jin in the face when her tail jerked up. Now I’m kind of curious if any hybrids taking martial arts actually employ tail-slapping if they have appropriate tails to slap with. Like, Jin’s tail seems pretty soft and non-commandable, it probably wouldn’t be much for a fight (especially considering his martial art is throw-focused), but Cleo and the twins could probably do some serious damage with theirs.
Most likely, having another angle of attack never hurts when you have to use your skills. Might take a while for tail techniques to be officially codified, but it would be a tactic for those who can
I hear that many animals use their tail for balance, so if anything it might put them off-balance if they tried to use it as another limb to attack with.
But then again, that’s mostly for quadrupeds or bipeds that have a haunched-over gait like many lizards, not sure how that would apply to a human body shape.
Balance is already important point in martial arts. Using tail for balance somewhat limits what you can do with it, but you can STILL attack with it.
Daniel here. I’d say tails would mainly be used as a counterweight, allowing different postures to be used during certain moves than normal Humans wouldn’t be able to do, which would possibly let them move in unique ways, maybe even combine attacks/moves normal Humans could never do. Having a counterweight behind you means you can reach out further with that punch or kick, extending your attack range. Maybe even use them to regain/keep their balance by temporarily placing them on the ground like an additional leg while they twist their bodies, again moving in ways normal Humans could never do…
Although, if the tail is articulated [enough individual bones & joints] enough, maybe even prehensile [flexible enough to grab & hold things like a monkey], I can see them being used offensively too. At the least, they could be a distraction, causing a flash of movement which distracts the enemy & controlling where they’re focused. However I can see others with more flexible tails actually striking their enemies with them, though whether that will be more than a slap will depend on tail strength & flexibility, how well it hits, etc, but even a well placed slap can throw someone off their game. Grabby prehensile tails could pull feet out from under bodies tripping them or pull arms “out of position” stopping an attack/block…
In Jin’s case, I can see him using his tail primarily as a counterweight, possibly as a distraction too by wagging/shaking it. It doesn’t seem too flexible, but with all that fluff it might have some air resistance & weight he could use to help his balance, while the……. extent of the fluffiness could also trigger the other person’s “movement over there” reflex if it suddenly came into view, leaving an opening for Jin to use. We know he throws like a Greek at a wedding [“plates go SMASH :P” Yes Screwball, traditional and fun], but I’d be exceptionally surprised if his style of Martial Arms doesn’t use punches & kicks, and having your opponent leave a nice big opening just because they twitched to “block” your tail which suddenly flicked into view is just asking for a well placed punch…
I could also see using a tail for improved balance to allow for otherwise unworkable attacks being more effective than using it directly, because we look at substantial tails like Cleo’s and the twins’ and think “weapon”. I’ve played a bunch of video games featuring enemies with tails, and none of them do this. Admittedly, I don’t know how many of those games employed actual martial artists to critique and advise on their martial arts engines.
Jin has claws, not fingernails. I’d guess that strongly reduces the chance of punching being part of Jin’s style, due to how claws attach to the fingers. He could still possibly utilize a karate style fist, but that depends on the joints of his hands complying with that form.
He has claws on his feet; that is likely to be even more strongly prohibiting kicks. Sure, heel-kicks aren’t particularly affected by the toes, but with barefoot combat, it would be fairly easy for a mistake to cause a bleeding injury to ones opponent. While that might not be considered problematic to some martial arts forms, it feels like it would be considered a problem in his grandfather’s dojo.
sure, there are those with fluffy tails that use it mainly for balance…. but ever seen someone (or something) getting tailended by a crocodile? those are brutal, scaly heavy appendages of death 0.o
so, in the twins case especially i can totally see those to do quite some damage.
There were at least two dinosaurs that used their tail for defense. One had spikes on the end of the tail – officially named “the Thagomizer”. Another had a hammer head on his tail.
Ah yes, the “Thagomizer,” named after the late Thag Simmons. And the Far Side comic strip where he originated. It’s a good thing the Twins (and any other Hybrid with a tail) don’t have Thagomizers, otherwise that would cause a lot of painful accidents… especially caused by Kaya or by someone just as or even more clumsy than her.
I think Jin would duck without problem.
You could say… Jin nearly scared Cleo out of her skin! Or at least a section of it!
Nintendo reflexes, eh, Cleo? I’ve dropped a lot of things in my time, and years of video games training me to recover from my mistakes have made me pretty adept at preventing such a mistake from leading to destruction. (Unfortunately, knocking something over because you tripped on a cord is a lot less recoverable than knocking it over with, or letting it slip out of, your hands.)
I’ve learned, when tripping because my leg got caught on a cord, to kick back, losing the cord and THEN put the leg in front. While something can still be knocked down, the chances are somewhat reduced compared to trying to kick to front.
Most of the cords I trip on are connected to handheld game consoles. There’s not a lot of margin for error.
Jin enjoyed that.
So did I! 😉
Love the banter between Cleo and Benji. I guess he can trust in her.
Don’t know Humans that well, but yeah, these 2 are pretty good friends it seems… 🙂
Our Cleo jokes with Benji
after Jin pops up behind;
showing skills and trick
because she doesn’t mind.
There’s no trouble here
at least there isn’t yet
but, as with any tale
trouble is good bet.
The Jin and Benji team
will hand out the flyers
and any who say he’s not cute?
They’re probably liars(!)
Rest assured; we all think Benji’s cute. 😉
Something tells me that Benji and Jin will get along just fine, wouldn’t it be funny if Benji could also see Kasumi? I wonder what his reaction could be if that was the case
thats what i´ve been wondering as well – if maybe seeing her is a dog/canine thing…..if it is, then rex should see her as well
Benjii: Hey kid, (Jin is it?) why did you bring the big dog for?
It would also be funny if Jin thought Benji was a girl or vice versa. Though that depends on what Robin intends for his characters to sound like, for some reason I imagine Kai and Benji sounding like Aang from Avatar the Last Airbender as well as Rex sounding more like a preteen.
Catching both the book and the pen at once is well done.
Jin needs a collar with a large bell on… Although, a friend of mine put one on his cat since she always did stealth attacks against peoples feet, took her a week and she could run, jump around and sneak attack without making a sound with the bell o.O
Like Mr. Popo in Dragon Ball.
Ours managed to mangle and destroy their bells rendering them inoperable.
I misread this comment because I was scrolling through on mobile, and for a moment I thought your cat went through quite the painful experience.
I’ve heard of one cat that did that, by holding the bell in place with its chin – they solved that by putting a second bell opposite the first one, so that there was always a bell out in the open.
Her bell was dangling freely, she just learned to move in such a way that it didn’t make any sounds.
I have no idea how, but I think she was a ninja assassin in a previous life.
Heh, cute jump scare!
Love the little dialog with Benji & Cleo! Sort of a continuation of what passed between her and Rex at the museum, just considerably less grumpy!
Benji: “Don’t you have an apple to give to someone?”
Cleo: “I’m done giving out iPhones all the time. Besides, I’ve already ruined paradise, but not with the apple…I paved it and put up a parking lot.”
Cleo: “My next step is to take all the trees and put them in a tree museum…”
And charge the people a dollar and a half… ? ~
Just to -see- them??
-_-
*sharpens knife*
A funny thing should be Benji being unable to see Jin , for any reasons ^_^”
I wonder if anyone else got that the ‘apple and ruining paradise’ joke was an Adam and Eve reference? 😛
And a call back to “A day at the museum.”
I thought that snake was a dude.
Nah. Often wears business clothes though.
The snake with the apples? Casey thought so too.
Have you not read through the older pages? The entire series is posted here, and there’s an archive right at the top of the screen.
I think “that snake” refers to the one in the Garden of Eden story, not Cleo.
Ah, okay.
I got confused too. But I imagine ‘that snake’ can appear however they like.
@Welsh Rat: “that snake” certainly can appear however they like, and are semi-frequently depicted doing so – just infrequently enough to keep surprising people with it. That doesn’t stop some people from assuming that “that snake” is a dude. Catching people off-guard is kind of “that snake”‘s thing, you know?
This is a great page, Robin! I now like Cleo twice as much as I already did, just from this one scene. 🙂
I really love how their friendship is comfortable enough that they can play on each others’ hybrid traits without getting offended. One knows it’s just teasing and not to be taken seriously; but, even so, the other knows not to take it too far. That is a fun relationship! 🙂
I find it great that they can just joke around with each other. Just that friendly camaraderie that they can roll/shrug off their shoulders. Also, I like panel 4, Jin kinda reminds me of myself. Small, does material arts, and am quiet, like ninja! I used to spook my friends by sneaking up on them.
Another sign of the positive influence being friends with Kai, Kaya, and all the rest has been for Cleo. She’s in a lot better state of mind now then when we first met her, allowing her to engage in the kind of friendly casual banter we see here and think nothing of it.
Heh, the ribbing between Cleo and Benji in the last two panels was amusing. (Though I don’t remember if they teased each other like that previously).
This actually makes me wonder if using animal slang/terms like this to a hybrid would be considered offensive or something. I mean, I imagine in most cases a dog hybrid woulden’t really appreciate being talked to in terms of an actual dog. Then again…. we also have a dog hybrid named Benji, that’s one step away from having a dog hybrid named Lassie…
They would definitely not like if you would mean it. As a joke, it may work, until it gets repeated too often to be funny.
Fun fact: most snakes (as in all I can think of, but I want to cover my bases just in case) are deaf, lacking outer ears, but many (again, all I know of, but there are lots of snakes I don’t know) can feel vibrations through the ground tolook fro danger and/or prey.
Daniel here. Pretty sure that is all of them. That’s a thought, would Cleo be able to do that too? I’d imagine she’d have to basically lay on the ground, but it might be a snake trait she inherited from her snake Hybrid side…
If it were me I’d rather have the thermal vision than a sonar belly. Than again if I couldn’t turn it off… Be right back!
Some furious Googleing and cross referencing later it seems like it’s more of a hyper specialized tactile (touch) sense. There’s so e conflicting studies, but that one sounds the most reasonable to me anyway. So it wouldn’t be thermal vision so much as a heightened awareness of heat signatures in front of her. (Assuming she has thermal pits)
A big part of being able to “see” with the heat-sensing pits is that the body temperature of the snake has to be significantly below the temperature of what it is trying to see, like a nice warm mouse. If the snakes body temperature was about the same as the prey, then their own body heat will mask any warm stuff they want to see. My thinking is that Cleo is just too warm to use heat pits.
This is really late, but that is a good point
I love how Benji’s response to Cleo’s Dog Calling is to use a Christian Genesis story reference instead of the story/myth of Queen Cleopatra with the Asp/Snake. They’re definally friends since the Catacombs & Drake session. We need more C&D stories, even if it’s a Side-Comic like the Gamer Dragons one is.
Just have the Gamer Dragons play C&D! 🙂
Gamer Dragons seems to be video games focused, a sudden tabletop gaming sequence might be a little left-field. If Robin’s gonna do more C&D stories, either having them as sparse arcs of the main comic or starting a new side-comic might be better – whichever puts less of a load on him.
Business snek being cute.
Have a nice break, Robin. You’ve earned it!
I just found this comic the other day, and this is one of the cutest things I’ve seen in a long time. Really, really needed the smiles this week with what I have going on, and it meant a lot to have them. Thank you. <3
Welcome aboard Zeta. Now you just have to wait like the rest of us for the Next button to work again.
*rewatches ‘Lair of the White Worm’.*
>:)
Is very nice to see how Cleo have gotten more relaxed after getting new friends. In the start of the series she was a bit more “closed up” now she engages in friendly teasing.
I guess jokes like that is allowed among hybrids and they ‘might’ take offence if a non-hybrid says it. Unless is someone close, like family or really good friend.
Easy Benji, at least Cleo hasn’t seen your baby pictures yet, then she’d be giving you grief on how cute you were as a little puppy. Though I don’t think she would tease you about the times you scooted your fuzzy butt across the floor… in public at least. And be goad the rest of your friends haven’t seen the albums either, I’m sure Kaya would end up blabbing about the various embarrassing photos of you as a baby even if she didn’t intend to.