Hey all! As you can see, things are a-changing around here after I hired someone who knows what she’s doing to work on the site. And yes, I stand by that statement; even the most knowledgeable coder will have little hiccups in the system while fixing stuff. The difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional can work through the problems and fix them, while the amateur ends up with cobbled code and baling wire to keep things together. ;)
In the meantime, now that links have been restored (even if the Theme that has been used forever and a decade is currently hiding in the corner while sulking) I want to direct your attention away from the lovely lady behind the curtain and toward little updates I’ve done in the meantime. By which, I mean I’ve added proper links to the “Fiction” and “Meta-Review” sections, and all Meta-Reviews are coded into the system (well, all the Meta-Reviews I was able to track down, that is – and the thumbnails and links in these reviews haven’t been fixed).
Hopefully additional features will be added in time; I’m not going to jinx things by mentioning particulars, however.
So please, feel free to check out the Meta-reviews (which are mostly old and haven’t been updated to the new Review template yet) and Fiction while waiting on reviews. They’re well worth reading.


Skin Horse
But first I need to rewind a little to a previous storyline in which Sweetheart was upset that her coworker and subordinate Unity was busy gorging on lab-grown brains… and in doing so, becoming more intelligent. She would become downright dismissive of Unity and do her best to ignore Unity’s perceptions as to what was going on; as a result, the Skin Horse team failed to realize what was going on until it was nearly too late.
Looking forward to the latest update, and I noticed this pattern was unfolding once more. Sweetheart was dismissive of Unity’s perceptions concerning WhimsyCorp (which Unity either hallucinated or was visited by). Further, the moment Unity comes up with a logical and reasonable reason for Skin Horse to try and save WhimsyCorp (in that corporations are persons but not human… and thus under Skin Horse’s jurisdiction), Sweetheart accuses Unity of being on brains.
This is the moment I realized Sweetheart is threatened by other people’s intelligence. Nor is this a recent thing; when Tip first joined Skin Horse, Sweetheart was threatened by his obvious intelligence (and disdainful of Tip’s eccentricities, despite the fact these “non-professional” tendencies have helped the group on multiple occasions). Similarly, when Unity becomes smart, Sweetheart immediately becomes dismissive and brushes off any suggestions Unity may make. This distrust of other people’s intelligence even can be found in her opinion of their boss, the sentient bee swarm Gavotte.
As to why Sweetheart is so distrustful of other intelligences, I have to wonder if part of it lies with the fact Sweetheart is just an intelligent dog. She’s not even necessarily brilliant by human standards; she seems to thrive in a structured environment where there aren’t a lot of surprises. Within that setting, she does quite well. Outside it, however, she becomes defensive and unwilling to consider the opinions of others. And she’s aware of her limitations… and may very well be afraid that if she’s revealed to be just ordinary, she’ll lose everything she’s built.
The question ultimately is, what’s next for Sweetheart? What are her motivations? Is she afraid of being shown up by Tip… and later by Unity? Does her rank as team commander mean so much to her? And if so, why? In time, Garrity and Wells will likely expand on this and on Sweetheart. In the meantime, it’s clear Skin Horse has room to grow, even as the Skin Horse team slowly learn more of the subversive elements operating in the background of their world and why the massive cover-up on the Old War. And perhaps along the way we’ll learn more about Sweetheart… and see if she can overcome her fear and disdain of other intelligences before it’s too late.
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Posted in Webcomic commentary
Tagged Character development, Humor in comics, Mad science