You don't have to trust him, you just have to work with him.

By all means, Hemlock. Go by yourself. Let the marten go with the squirrel. Let's see how that ends.

Yep, my line of reasoning, exactly.

GO RASK!! I believe in you

Hemlock- the ultimate karen of the stone hollow.

Karen X 1 000 000 000 and MORE lol

You know there was a headline a while back: researchers were stunned to find the huge drop in babies named Karen

To be fair, Hemlock isn't totally unreasonable. She lives in a very primitive culture where decisions can mean life or death. Not how long her espresso takes the barista to finish. =P Doesn't quite qualify for Karen status to me.

Hemlock needs a HEMLOCK TO TRY TO GET THAT BONE OUT OF HER THROAT!
GEEZ, I fully understand the pain and lost..but not everyone is THE SAME PERSON BECAUSE OF THEIR ORIGINS!

I think it's actually worse than that for her. I think now she sees any gathering of prey in one place as being like when her clan were gathered into that hole. Effectively she's viewing Stone Hollow as a giant larder.

You are probably more than right...in that case I CAN'T HELP BUT THINK "WHY are you even THERE AND DIDN'T RUN AWAY?!"

She says it on page 129 after relating her story. She's tired of running; she wants to fight.

so, basically, she wants to DRAG EVERYONE DOWN WITH HER...

If you remember what she did to Egg (and how everyone reacted), I doubt that she or very many of them would see it that way.

yeah...but she still seems at least as dangerous of a pred...

Given the 'tooth' she always carries, I suspect that's the point. (pun always intended )

oh I bet it was. lol

You don't have to like someone to work with them, hell you don't even have to trust them. You can be "overly cautious" however, I suspect Hemlock being a bit...mad, an I don't mean her fur's ruffled

I understand her, but to the same I hope eventually she can have some growth. Not all can.

Sounds like it's time for Hemlock to be banished. She's full of such blind hatred and will become a poison to all that are near.

They could banish her sure.

But she's literally the only one amongst them bar Oren who has fought and killed predators, so they'd be getting rid of their best defender to make a predator happy. Not going to happen.

Agreed. Oren probably won't do it, and there's others that agree with Hemlock. Hell, she's named after a deadly plant. That killed a well-known philosopher, mind you.

Hemlock, there is cautious, then there is paranoid to the point of delusion, jumping at shadows. I understand you don’t trust him, you are well within your rights not to trust Rask.

But your paranoia is going to get an innocent animal killed! You don’t have to trust Rask, or like him. You just need to work alongside him for JUST however long it takes to get this killer out of the hollow. That’s it.

Sprig is right, no one wants to die.

You have to love Sibyl's expression here when Hemlock goes off. Serious "what is wrong with you?" vibes.

I still think, somewhere down the line, there's gonna be a reckoning with Hemlock. It doesn't matter what Rask does, Hemlock's been through too much, been hurt too badly, to ever be able to change her mind on this. At some point, she's gonna try and kill Rask, and when that happens, it's gonna threaten to tear the Stone Hollow apart. There's probably more than a few animals that would side with Hemlock over Oren.

I agree. The schism is already there, we'll have to wait and see how many will choose which side in the future.

in a world of prey animals avoiding death by predator, even if those lines are blurred sometimes, having a prey animal (try to) kill another for reasons other than food would honestly be a super interesting plot point. i dont think youre wrong that thats probably where its heading

Fine..go alone Hemlock...with that attitude who would want anything to do with her....let alone who would want to help her. I wouldn't.

I imagine just about any of the other herbivores would rather go with Hemlock, she has killed predators before after all and she's a known quantity to them.

Rask? Rask is a predator, his /scent/ freaks them out, much less everything else.

I know they probably would...but I was saying I sure wouldn't if I was one of them..I'd go with another non-carnivore instead :)

Right but none of the other herbivores bar Oren have Hemlock's experience in taking down predators and Oren probably ain't going to be one of the people running about in the woods given he's the leader and if they lost him they'd be 'eff'd. Going with Hemlock is the sensible option for surviving, there's no escaping that.

Yeah true

Anyone else think that Hemlock really needs to get laid?

She had kids, which is sort of why she's like this to start with. She might even have others. Lack of sex is not her problem.

I never said she hadn't. I said she needed to to now. Seriously, she's wound up tight. There's a whole trying-to-hard-to-be-hard thing going on with her.

The main issue is that we know a lot more about Rask as a character than she does. It's an easy trap to fall into, but there's a huge difference between reader knowledge and character knowledge. Remember, from her perspective things are thus:

1) She and her whole family were captured by cougars employing pack tactics and ropes, kept in a larder, and killed off one by one. Her daughter was tortured before being killed and she had to kill her own son to spare him a similar fate before barely escaping. Literally all her relatives are dead.

2) Rask comes into their area. He is a pine marten and thus a predator. Somehow he has a spark, so she lets him in but does not like it. From her perspective all predators are dangerous and one living where there's an abundance of prey is just smarter than others. She's been in a larder before and she now sees any gathering of prey in one place as a potential feast for carnivores if said carnivores are not dealt with immediately.

3) The fact that Rask eats fish does not ease her worries about the future. While we know that Rask would rather starve than eat someone she doesn't know that. All she knows that come winter fishing will be difficult or impossible and she has no good reason to believe Rask would rather starve than eat someone. Her mind will always go back to her experience with her family. The concept that a hunter would want to do anything but eat people is completely alien to her.

There are other things we do not know, and won't until  blackteagan addresses them either in comic or comments:

1) Are carnivores obligate or not? In real life there are very few species that literally can't digest plant matter and the only mammals are felines. All other mammals can and do eat plants for nutrition. If the anthro predators here are more like real life ones then all except maybe felines can and will eat plants and could supplement or replace meat with other high-protein meals (like eggs). We can't even be sure felines are obligate here since they're anthros and thus could have the capability to digest plants.

2) How long has Egg been there? This information is very important. If Egg has been there through at least one winter then they found some way to keep her alive. Since her canines have been removed, she's been living off eggs and I just can't imagine that working well in winter. More or less this would answer question 1 as well, since if she was capable of subsisting on plants through the winter Rask should be able to as well.

Your argument treads a lot of already covered ground, and at length, so I don't feel the need to discuss those portions.

What does concern me is that in this dissertation you've written there are many assumptions made that you haven't bothered to shore up with evidence. This leaves little to discuss because assumptions veer hypothetical, a territory we're not seeking to explore.

Also, we're discussing character design, not plotlines and story branching. Supposition isn't called for at this point in the discussion. Your argument that we know more about Rask than Hemlock is irrelevant because it is early in the story, and we know little about everyone. Hemlock has been in a flashback and we know comparatively more about her than Oren. However, Oren is even more nuanced than Hemlock because of his deeper motivations.

And none of this is to say that Hemlock is a poor character, detracts from the story, or isn't interesting in her own way. I can appreciate a finely crafted baseball bat despite it having only one real use. If it does its job well, then it has a place. If it doesn't, then it should be replaced or revised.

Hemlock is, so far, doing her job well. She is the voice of doubt, the obvious anger at the injustice of being foodstuff, and the impotent rage given the means to strike back blindly. This can only go one of a few ways. She attacks Rask without actual justification (in her mind being a pred is reason enough, but it isn't for anyone else) at a poorly timed moment that ends up getting a lot of others hurt/killed. She continues the haunt/taunt Rask until he does something that hurts someone, seemingly proving her point about him, but only until her part in it is revealed. Or she gets cornered by press and Rask could save her, but she won't take his help and dies/is grievously wounded, and she/others blame/s Rask for it. Or some variation on those themes. I've not read the story on which this in based, so I'm just deducing.

The only place I can think of where I have covered something not in evidence is in my speculation about the dietary abilities of hunters in this setting. If you can specifically point out elsewhere assumptions not in evidence I can probably provide backup for my line of reasoning.

It seems to me that the initial start was "Hemlock really needs to get laid" and my disagreement to this. I'm not sure how this deals with character design, exactly. The second is in response to "Seriously, she's wound up tight. There's a whole trying-to-hard-to-be-hard thing going on with her." and I'm just pointing out why she is as wound up and hard as she is towards Rask. People like Rask because he's the protagonist but they seem to keep forgetting that what they know about him isn't the same as what she knows.

Nor am I making that argument. I think that if we got to see more of Hemlock outside of her interaction with Rask we'd like her a lot more. We never get to see the gentler side to her.

Well, there's not many paths that lead to any sort of reconciliation between her and Rask, A more potential danger I see is her either rebelling against Oren or, when Oren dies, her taking over and doing what she will with both Egg and Rask, no matter what may have happened before.

I'm going to have to apologize here. I have multiple conversations going in multiple pages for this story, and I *might* have gotten a little confused which thread we were talking about. Combined with not paying attention to it because I was writing this on my phone before, and... yeah.

It's okay. I think this happens to everyone sooner or later.

Hemlock is deadset in her ways, nothing will change them, whether this mindset gets her killed or try to get rask in trouble is up in the air.

Arguably both.

fair enough

I,,,I have a bad feeling Hemlock will die

I'm starting to sense a possible relationship between Rask and Hemlock. Right now, Hemlock is too much of a tsundere to see it actually happening. However, if Rask saves her life things could change.

Can't say that I like Hemlock.
But I'm curious how this will play out.
The way she acts, makes it clear that she will not change her mind anytime soon.
But who knows what comes with the future.
I really liked how Sprig told Rask in Page 113, that he himself, had similar thoughts of hurting and killing Egg at first. But he changed his mind and he is now even supporting Rask after he saw the "spark".

However, there would be the need of strong experiences and much time to turn Hemlocks fanatic mind.
But seeing Rask saving a life (maybe even hers) might be a good start to put her a bit at ease. Obviously that would not suddenly turn her friendly, but it would slightly calm the waves.

...in an alternate universe... or a century or two in the future... (blame my DM mind) ..that atittude would make Hemlock a LG Paladin... and Rask a TN Rogue.. all the shine in her armor and blade and seemingly is blinded by so much light...

..also the DM in me thinks she will be proven wrong.. and not (yet) die by her own righteous anger..

Miko Miyazaki from Order of the Stick. It's always important to remember that being LG doesn't have to mean being a knight templar.

..also.. the lattest(-ish) from "all things dnd" regarding an exchange between a rogue and a paladin.. though that would fit more then knight templar part of thy comment... and not the page above.

She's one of those types who should not hunt monsters because eventually she'll become one.

Gotta say, Sprig is my fave character so far for his sass, design, and even-minded temper. But Oren, Rask, Egg, and Sybil are definitely up there and tied for second!

Same here! I kind of see Sprig as the pragmatic model character, someone that the audience can latch to.

I honestly cannot blame Hemlock for her current mindset after all that she's been through. You honestly cannot hold her at fault for what she went through. She watched her whole family get slaughtered around her in the most cruel of ways. She killed her son out of mercy and love so he wouldn't suffer the way her daughter did. Shit like that leaves you screwed up for a very long time if not permanently so goddamn, cut Hemlock some slack.

theres literally some vampire grizzly right nearby and they are bickering over what when why? lmao
-k i can help, been talking about this for.some time now
-ooh, do you really want to?
-yes
-really, really, really,?
-yes!
-are you super sure? prove it by .. running to that tree and back real fast
-what?
-its my porcupine ways to tell.
-..
*meanwhile hemlock foams from mouth because muh pumas*

Hemlock has issues that make her totally unreasonable. As said before she would see everything burn just to get her revenge done, even sacrifice the whole Hollow just to get rid of predators.

I have this feeling... Hemlock is gonna eat those words; Rask may just save her hide.

Can someone tied up Hemlock and lock her up? Pleaase?

Maybe this is how he will get to meat. By eating the predators that intrude the territory. Win/Win I'd would say.

I just want to say that I'm in love with this comic. Thank you so much for making it!

Honestly I see her one day killing one of her own.

I dont know if anyone has mentioned yet, but i really like the way you write those dialogues. :>