update – bdprequel

SPOILER ALERT – This is 100% PURE PREQUEL UPDATE SPOILER post. If you haven’t read it yet, don’t dare continue. Besides it wouldn’t make much sense to you. I’ll stick a bunch of blank space and a little unrelated rant on my bad luck first before I get into it too much though.

here so you can go there:
http://prequeladventure.com

I just realized this post is List-Heavy. Owell.

That feel when you:

1. Record over an hour’s worth of narration for multiple chapters to get as much done as possible while you have the time.
2. Miss the best Prequel update ever. (well, I didn’t really miss it. Just didn’t see it till I was done recording.)
3. Go hoarse.
4. Stay up waaay too late.
5. Load up the recording and you had the mic too close and it’s full of breath pops.
6. Realize that it would be faster to re-record than try and fix them all.

Yes. That was me. Well, you live and you learn – and one of the things you learn is “Don’t put the microphone so friggin’ close”! (Or use a windscreen).

So… Good morning! Is this the best day evar? Why yes. Yes it is. Because the update is the best update evar. Why is it the best update evar you ask? Good thing you did so, because that’s what I want to talk about and Comments just won’t do it justice – plus I get to pontificate here without much chance of anyone refuting me.

First, the ‘best’ updates previously IMHO were:
1. Telekenesis Learned: http://www.prequeladventure.com/2014/07/katia-extrapolate/
Because Katia just achieved something she never thought she could do. And Aggy helped.

2. Second Fuckup: http://www.prequeladventure.com/2011/04/304/
Because it’s such a relatable situation. She knows better. All the voices in her head tell her no. But she’s hurting that bad.

Getting through dinner with the countess ranks high. Naked rained on Katia’s night in the chapel is up there. Gaius’ meeting with Vaermina. Imp murderboss. But I’d still say the above are the best. Till now. Because, at least in the arc since Sigrid has been involved, this is the climax. Now finally we know why Sigrid is such an asshole. We really know WHY.

Self-charmed. And it makes sense with the nondescript Sigrid that is seen in Oblivion. She’s no longer self-charmed. Totally didn’t see that coming, and it is the most perfect resolution to this arc I could have imagined. Coming up with that was pure genius in storytelling, even if it took years to get here.

As for the future, this COULD be the peak of the comic, but I see another villian on the horizon – faceless CairnCorp. But here’s some things that probably won’t happen. Sigrid won’t become bestest buddies with Katia, and she won’t share her gold with her. Katia’s character can’t win TOO much. We’ve still not figured out the nightmares either. But hey, one down it looks like! Woohoo!

Now, here’s some other reasons this is #1 Prequel update of all time. (Sorry Infiltrate. You didn’t even make the list, though you were fun as hell. But as for story progression, not so much.)

1. Multiple artists and styles.
I’m not sure that would work for most updates, but IMHO it really works here.
2. The countdown timer. Gives a sense of urgency. Hell I think I tried to read through it faster because of that. Something psycological going on there.
3. The back-and-forth betweein Katia and Sigrid is both funny and clever. When I finished, I had some questions, but after thinking about it, they don’t matter. Like the “Don’t Attack Me” footstomp. How? Doesn’t matter, it’s cool as hell.
4. That Dispel animation sequence. I both didn’t understand it, and yet understood it perfectly. Which is what any story involving magic damn well better do. You’ll never understand it, but it better have rules that make at least vague sense! Plus the smoothness is just… special.
5. Sigrid redeemable at the end. I have ALWAYS loathed the concept of villains who are evil for evil’s sake. There has to be some reason. Sigrid was never exactly evil – she just loaded up on charm spells so much she charmed herself.

Okay, now… frame breakdown! I’m not going to embarass myself by trying to guess who did which frames because I’d inevitably be wrong and feel… douchey.

#1 – Classic Kaz with the background. Love the glitchiness. Can’t really quite make out what backgroud Katia is saying there, but I get the gist. Internal conflict.

#2 – Timer started. And that makes sense. Surely eating a bunch of imp gall can’t keep your charisma that high for long. 12 seconds sounds just about right.

#3 – First introduction of what I call Elmer Fudd Katia design. It’s okay. I like Elmer Fudd Katia. She’s cute. Also later on the style really plays off well against Evil Sigrid. And nice to see a Red Herring. Looks like that sword will serve no useful purpose. For now anyway.

#4 – Ah yes, the fabled Writing With A Foot Stomp. The lineless style has been seen before but it’s still effective for the coolness factor.

#5 – More Elmer Fudd Katia. The design works well to show desperation tough.

#6 – Sigrid still at full confidence level. This one looks like standard Kaz style.

#7 – Badass Katia style. Good to see it introduced so when she goes full badass later it’s not too jarring. And the word says “PAP” by the way. “PAP”. Just in case you thought it said something else.

#8 – Katia Fail. Well, we can’t expect her every idea to be a winner.

#9 – Badass Katia, though not sure how she told Bones to do that, but obviously there’s some connection between them, evidenced by the sight thing, so close enough. I think I looked at this at least 5 times before I figured out “No Pen” though. I kept wanting to read “No Bien”

#10 – Humans love corn. There’s always some freshly cooked corn within easy reach that you can nibble on when you need it.

#11 – Now this one is the one that bothered me for a while. How is Katia “saying” No fancy enchanted clothes? I asked someone else and he was thinking eyebrow morse code. But now I think it’s simpler than that. Her expression is just saying “take your clothes off”. I mean, compared to random corn and footstomp writing, that’s certainly reasonable! Also return of Elmer Fudd Katia.

#12 – If there was any doubt on how she is able to see, there is no longer.

#14 – (13 blank) – and the payof for Elmer Fudd Katia. Compare poor innocent Katia here, her charm run out and now totally vulnerable after all she’s done with…

#15 – The most badass Sigrid ever. Though they’re obviously Convenient Censorship, SLEEP fire letters are still best at conveying raw power. This is Galadriel’s Temptation level. Elmer Fudd Katia is doomed.

#16 – Switch to Sleepy Katia, but the style is still badass Katia. Obviously fighting the command but losing.

#18 – (17 blank). Awake again. Sigrid never said she had to STAY asleep. I figure she was out for a millisecond, to comply. Or it may be that Sigrid’s power wasn’t that strong anymore due to:

#19 – Note the text mentions “spell resistance” too. That’s important, because Katia blew the friggin head off a certain Imp Murderboss. She could do the same to Sigrid now. And that’s clear in the next frame.

#20 – Badass Katia realizing she could kill Sigrid outright. And she looks like she’s ready to do it too. Before…

#21 – The Katia style we know returns. The implication is that she’s fighting against the charm that Sigrid already mentioned, but I also like to think something in her said that Sigrid isn’t an Imp Murderboss, and Katia’s not a murderer. Good time to return to the Katia style we know too. She isn’t THAT Badass.

#22 – Katia realizes she can do something finally. The voices actually have ideas she can use.

#23 – Badass Katia is about to do something major. She’s confident. She can do this.

#24 – I’d love to analyze this one frame-by-frame. I have to assume this is Kaz’ work. The animation here is unbelievably smooth. This is a friggin 3 pages of text in a story summarized in a 9 second animation. I had to watch it a few times to catch everything that happened there. Bones and Tumblespider are gone. Not quite sure why Bones would be gone, but doesn’t matter. Magic is Dispelled. By the tail. I feel like I want to see the animation without the blue magic lines over the top. How is Katia holding onto the cage there? But again, not really important. Most Activated Katia Evar. Culmination of the culmination. Katia In Charge, if only for a second.

#30 – Remember round-head Katia? She’s BAACK. Perfect expression as usual. Stunned confusion. “What?”. Nekked Sigrid is nekked. Well yeah. But more importantly she’s not fighting anymore. She looks like she’s done.

#31 – Katia looks at Sigrid as if to say. “Yeah. After all that I’m still locked in this cage. What are you gonna do?” Sigrid looking away realizing something…

#32 – Redeemable Sigrid FTW.

There are certain things that are too obvious to even bother submitting a command for. Someone WILL tell Katia to take Sigrid’s clothes and charms. They’re right there. Because some people will think we’re still fighting Sigrid. But those people are wrong. Katia should pick up the clothes and charms and hand them back to Sigrid. Who really shouldn’t put them back on if she realizes what has happened.

Although, I would dearly love to see what Katia looks like in Sigrid’s clothes.

Just once.

I’d been hoping for a change of outfit – but with Kaz’ new Hoodie of Grey Tomorrow, I’m afraid Katia is stuck in that thing for a while yet. 🙂

Anyone reading this knows what Prequel is, and probably has already read the update. But I wanted to talk about it a bit since IMHO (In My Humble Opinion. Anyone who thinks that means anything else is just dead wrong) it’s the best update in a long, long time for multiple reasons:

1. Something HAPPENED. Katia’s not just sitting helpless in a cage any longer. She has (and I think I hate this word but it works) AGENCY. Some, possibly minor, control over her own destiny again.

2. Though she’s now mind-controlled by Sigrid again, she also has Sigrid mind-controlled. So at least she ends on almost equal footing.

3. She now has gladiatorial calcium in her corner so she’s not totally alone.

4. We can actually SEE her again. She’s no longer invisible! (

5. The last two panels.

Before I get into the meat of what I want to say, just a shout out to Kaz for that double-text “Don’t say anything!”. Clever use of CSS and text to indicate they are both making the exact same command. I doubt most people will think about that, but it’s a cool method of conveying that rather than the more expected two-lines.

1.
Ever since the end of Infiltrate (way back in SEPTEMBER 2017 BTW!) Katia has been invisible and stuck in a cage. She had no ability to affect her destiny. Everything she tried failed. Sigrid just appeared to be too powerful to touch and had anticipated her every move. Frankly, it’s been a slog. Throw in slow updates (sorry, but… they are slow.) and you have waning interest. It just hasn’t been a good story.

However, at the end of the last update, things were picking up. She was doing SOMETHING, even if I could see little way it could help significantly. But I was definitely interested again, and that’s a good thing. Problem is we’d seen Sigrid counter every move and I was scared she was just going to counter this one too. If that would have happened, there would have been a mass exodus I think. (Not me. I’m friggin hooked for life. Sometimes it pisses me off, but I am anyway.)

On that topic, here’s why I think Katia, though still in a cage, has the upper hand anyway. First, she overcame Sigrid’s musk last time unusually fast. That’s what Sigrid’s been asking her about for all this time. How did she do it? I don’t think even WE know how she did it – but it implies she will likely get over it before Sigrid does. If that happens, she can just borrow some perfume and keep the upper hand. Kaz would never let that happen, but still it offers hope. Second, though Sigrid has her tumblespider, it’s not intelligent (probably). Katia has summoned skeleton that is, and is working on her behalf. (I wonder if he knows the skeleton that was cleaning up QWs room?). Plus there’s that sword that is obviously not there for no reason. Actually that’s probably not good for Katia. She’d screw it up. Like having a loaded gun around. Still, it APPARENTLY is a good thing.

2.
However, are they both actually CHARMED like Katia was when she was with Sigrid before? Silenced obviously, but CHARMED? If so, neither Katia nor Sigrid would want to do anything to hurt the other. If they’re both just silenced, but still are enemies, things get problematic. Katia is blind which limits what she can do a lot. But then, if they’re actually charmed, then neither will react normally till one gets un-charmed. So this actually could be the end of conflict between them for some time. Hopefully Sigrid will let her out of the cage and share some ice cream. And if the charms are identical in power, Katia has proven she can break out of it abnormally quickly. So I’m hoping for the Charmed outcome, even though that means less conflict for awhile.

3.
Assuming the skeleton sticks around and doesn’t get destroyed, Katia may have found her first real companion. Okay, hired gun, but still. In the long run though, what’s the cost of that? Cairn-Corp probably doesn’t mess around. They may end up her biggest enemy yet – faceless (flesh-less) corporation. But hey, if the alternative is coercion or death by Sigrid, good choice anyway. I do wonder if this skeleton might know the one Dimitri had cleaning up the bedroom though. That might lead weird places.

4.
It’s so good to see canon Katia again, even if she is blind. And those last two frames… I’m sure that was Cider work, at least partially. Even Sigrid is cuter than normal. But Katia is downright adorable when she screams! Of course, her paint is peeling a bit. That got me wondering… is Kaz going to try to track exactly what parts of her paint are peeling so he can keep it consistent? Jeeze, that would be just like him – to worry about something so inconsequential. As for her being nekked… always good to throw the fan-service in. Unfortunately I bet her clothes are stolen if she ever gets out of here anyway. I say good riddance. I never liked em. She needs a new outfit anyway. I wonder if Sigrid would lend her something?

5.
These are just so good. I feel kind of bad to say that, because those complex .gifs undoubtedly took a hella lot more work. But… I even like Sigrid here! Probably because for the first time, in the last panel she’s not completely in control. That’s a nice thing to see.

Anyway, that’s it. I just felt like ranting on the new update. I’m finally looking forward to the next scene. Mostly to find out if they are really charmed with each other, or just obeying each other’s commands. I hope for the charmed outcome really. I’d love to see Sigrid being as nice as can be to Katia AND vice-versa. No, I’m not shipping them. Katia belongs to Quill-Weave regardless of the stupid author. What does he know?

Tag: update

The Best Prequel Update Ever.

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