@gruntman14  
Large packs of them can actually kill you on legendary if you’re careless, though.

@Background Pony #C607  
They’re useless in any situation in general other than being useful cannon fodder and providing witty dialogue.

@Cirrus Light  
Yes, but that mostly just comes down to that grunts are useless in any situation involving explosives. Be they grenades, fuel rods, their own methane backpacks….

@gruntman14  
Grunts with fuel rods… They tend to kill eachother off faster than a Pelican gunship could XD

@Cirrus Light  
Demon wouldn’t be so intimidating to a squad of grunts carrying fuel rod cannons. Also maybe having him stand about 30 feet away from said squad of grunts…. armed only with a plasma pistol.  
_{Even then they wouldn’t stand much of a chance.}

@gruntman14  
Says the Covenant punching bag XD  
(often not even worth the ammo, grunts make great punching bags for Master Chief)

@Background Pony #6CE3  
I do vector, actually :q
 
Currently doing a short little mostly-comedic Elite Dangerous crossover. Well aware it’s a very tiny, niche audience, so it’s just a one-time short little thing.
 
I generally write instead of comic, though, because I like to create story at a pace that my vectoring can’t possibly keep up with >.<
 
I’ve always wanted to try my hoof at a comic sometime, though.
 
Heck, actually, that’s a rather old dream of mine that goes back at least… 4, 5, maybe 6 or more years?

@Cirrus Light  
Still was worth it.

@Cirrus Light
 
Holy Shit dude.  
Way better than what I see here…  
Why Can’t Gashiboka recruit You as Writer

@Cirrus Light  
After that facepunch and going to this page doesn’t it feel like a page is missing?  
Not even her guards are reacting or try to subdue Fluttershy after that punch.  
She magically summoned an iron wolf on the table a couple of pages ago… Why didn’t it react?  
Why are no guards standing between Fluttershy and Twilight.  
That’s why I find this page anticlimactic. It feels like a page is ripped out.  
He may have made a sketch draft of Twilight reacting violently or her guards violently pinning Fluttershy down but seeing some negative feedback popping up in his DA comments at page 119 Gashiboka may have had to improvise.

@Cirrus Light
 
Hah. I can imagine her losing her cool with the stress and the indecision. In the morning she goes to watch, but as they’re led to the gallows, before they mount the platform, she shoots the nooses off in a fit of rage with her magic, and screams at her guards for getting the knots wrong and tells them to try again tomorrow, just as a pathetic excuse to put off their deaths, because for all her coldness, yet inner turmoil, she just can’t get herself to kill them.
 
I’m getting some neat ideas here about her motives and character. Facing wars and infestations, with no close friends by her side in future years, she’s grown to become a cold, heartless calculating machine. So when her friends re-kindle some of her warmth, it starts an inner war in-between those two sides of her; the ruthless dictator who believes she must do anything and everything to preserve the kingdom against its powerful enemies that constantly attack it, and the soft dork that just wants her old, innocent life back. The cold side of her is horrified at how illogical and weak the dork side is, and the dork side is horrified at how cold the other side is, and she can’t decide who she is of the two.
 
That’s also why she wants them dead - the cold side of her is violently struggling against the soft side of her, and sees their lives as a threat to its continued survival. It’s a rejection of the past’s “lies,” in favor of her “realistic” calculating and cold, aloof attitudes.
 
It’s “the end justifies the means” vs. “never compromising.”
 
Eh, much as I like it, it’d kinda be stealing this. Or maybe it’s just inspired by it? I dunno. It’s all derivative works of MLP, anyways. But I got enough story ideas on my plate :q

@Background Pony #6CE3  
Hmmm. Now you got me wondering what wouldn’t have been anti-climatic…
 
Twilight smacks Fluttershy back, but because Twi is so much bigger it sends Flutters across the floor.
 
TS: “Ages twist memories. I should’ve known better than to think those rosey lies bore any semblence to reality.  
(As Fluttershy struggles back up, Rarity rushes over to help her.)
 
TS: “Just as I feared; ‘the Element of Kindness’ throws a punch?  
(A bitter “I knew it” expression is on Twilight’s face, which sits in the foreground, with Rarity and Fluttershy blurred in the background)
 
TS: “There’s nothing special about you five. Nothing but old and rose-colored memories.  
(Same shot, but focus switches to Flutters and Rares, as guards seize them again and are more thorough in their restraints. It’s difficult to see because of the blur, but there is a little water building in the corner of Twi’s eyes, right next to the punch mark)
 
(It’s her looking out the window, her back to her friends who are being dragged away)  
TS: “The prophesy said I wouldn’t outlive my friends. Have them executed in the morning. All of them. These ponies aren’t my friends.”
 
[Some part of her is hesitant and has doubts, hence the specification “in the morning.” And some part of her hopes the prophesy may still apply to them. The coming night will be just as troubling and restless for her as for them]

@Background Pony #020F  
The way he designed Spike was already a give away.  
Spike’s design sticks out like a sore thumb when compared to the rest of this comic universe and it looks like he could feel at home in the Digimon or the Monster Hunter universe.  
And this page is SOOO anticlimactic.
 
Well in terms of writing at least Gashiboka isn’t BLEEDMAN whose story writing actually induces Nosebleeds.

@Exedrus  
*And suspense

Huh, for all the surprise packed into Flutter’s punch, it doesn’t really seem to have amounted to much of anything.

@Background Human  
Dictatorships, I think, are held together about like a Penrose staircase. Everyone does their thing because they’re afraid that if they fall out of line, they, or their loved ones, will either disappear or be executed, whether privately or publicly.
 
Who would arrest and do the executing? Other people who are only doing it for the exact same reason.
 
That’s the frustrating thing about it. It’s all a mind-game, and if people would only realize this, then no dictatorship could ever work. But, as it is, people only see their immediate surroundings and very rarely see the bigger picture, and sadly, don’t cooperate as well as they should sometimes.
 
Let’s play a game. Each team has the same number of players. Players can either keep 1 token, or give 2 tokens to their teammates. If everyone in a team keeps 1 token, then they will be the poorest, yet individually, that is the best decision to get the most tokens. But if everyone on a team gives 2 tokens, even though it is individually the worst decision, everyone doing it collectively means that everyone will end up with 2 tokens instead of 1. If, however, you’re the only one to give tokens on your team, then you will individually end up with zero tokens.
 
Dictatorships work because people don’t want to risk their lives, or the lives of their loved ones, in refusing to, say, arrest and execute other peoples’ loved ones. They keep their single token.
 
Sometimes, though, like the Soviet Union or the recent fall of Egypt where the military refused to fire on the populace - sometimes, people will give 2 tokens, when switching from giving 2 (holding fire) and keeping 1 (firing on the people) takes active effort. Then it only takes one to act to make everyone do it. But if nobody is that one, then the military doesn’t fire on the populace, and the regime falls apart.

As long as we’re not getting a resolution to… uh… anything, I kinda want to know more about those guards.
 
“Hey, Iron Knuckle, you ever get the feeling our boss is a bit of a tyrant?”  
“You ever get the feeling I need the money? Thirty bits an hour, I’d work for Tirek himself.”  
“I wouldn’t. Stalfos, down in accounting? He used to be with Tirek. I’ve heard stories.”

@Background Pony #020F  
ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS ASK ME WHAT IT MEANS!!!

@Background Pony #13AD  
Well you know what’s even stronger than the Magic of Friendship? An authors power to write an established character as an evil shmuck just for the sake of making another look good. To paraphrase the Nostalgia Critic “ I can just see Gashi dancing in the background screaming “ I am so edgy and deserved to be talked about”.

@Background Pony #13AD  
You’d need way more than this comic to get that train rolling.

@Meanlucario  
Outside of the story…yeah, he and his little cult are pricks too, for different reasons. In story he’s DER BRAEV RESISTENZ FIGHTERZ LIEK DER AVERLANCHE, cuz Gashi seems to think this is 1997 and Final Fantasy 7 is still fresh territory.

I just hope Spike isn’t this level of A**hole.

@Krek  
He claims he will soon, but I doubt it. Part of me is just really, REALLY tempted to get everyone on the Twilight hype train to piss him off.

@Background Pony #13AD  
That she may actually be a changeling in disguise?  
I know there’s been alot of back-and-forth debating whether or not this Twilight is an imposter, but I’m just hoping the author does address the issues of the portrayal of Twilight here soon.

@Background Pony #13AD  
I don’t know what friendship magic has to do with prophecies and shit, but I’m still on the ‘changeling’ boat.