Broke: Do It For The Vine Woke: Do It For The Symbol

Will we get a backstory montage for each mall goth, I wonder?

A healthy attitude! The healthiest attitude!

I suspect she could make a lot of money with her weight-loss program if she could just make those markings invisible.

I mean, she’s got a screw loose, but she’s got guts, and I hella admire it, but she’s using her talent for the wrong reasons, and that’s helping people that don’t have Zimmy’s best interest at heart.

Noa would do well to work on her self-image as much as she does on her glyph.

Obsessive.

Hope everyone had a happy holiday ^-^ Reminds me of Sam Neil's character at the end of Mountains of Madness, or Sam Neil's character at the end of Event Horizon... Probably not Sam Neil's character at the end of Jurassic Park/World but I haven't seen all of them. • "These long flashbacks should've been woven into the story" I don't disagree but this is the only way to tell Noa (and Jack, Jenny, Omega, Tony & Surma)'s story as Annie never interacted with her before this moment - that's the limitation of having one POV character (most of the time and even then Kat and Rey never met her either). Actually, unless Noa's telling her story to Annie & Co. this might be the one of the few times a flashback wasn't used to give info to Annie, the others being "Spider Legs" and Rey's flashbacks to Surma flying and him using Coyote's eyes.

wait. so she's like. sacrificing PROGRESS to the symbol? is it like a thing of—she's put a ton of POTENTIAL POWER into the symbol, somehow? that magic sounds cool as hell even if it's completely insane.

ah yes, the very theoretical extreme of what she was doing. its interesting that she keeps getting gains despite training very poorly and shoving it away too. not entirely sure how this is better than learning to do genuine magic but okay! you do you Noa

Wow, she makes Jack look sane. At least his obsession was over a person.

Power ups with no particular purpose except to generate more power ups. and there seems to be a point of no return. She can no longer pack enough physical energy to power them.

“I'm wiry.”, Nigel 'The Leg' Gruff on those doubting his athletic appearance.

She’s fashioning some kind of strength Gease.

I'll be sure to add Complete Mental Break to my 2026 workout routine.

ok not the direction i was expecting but this looks just as bad

It is the purpose of teaching to identify this kind of behaviour and intervene. I am disappointed with them.

She lives for her glyphs? Not healthy at all.

Noa's off the deep end, but... respect.

Yikes. Self loathing much? Someone must be helping her, given the location of some of those glyphs.

Obsessed much? Nothing good can come from this.

Going to 100% backfire during the fight.

Every indestructible witch gangster until someone pulls out a coyote's tooth

Oh my god girl that is not healthy. Yeah that tracks for her personality though. Fuck doing things the normal reasonable or even effective way lrts do some convoluted shit to get to something approximating the original intent

So Parley's physique and skills result from performing years of physical work and training with Eglamore, whie Noa's physique results from pouring all the results of her physical training into glyphs instead of into her body. I suspect Noa gave Jack his etheric knuckles because she is indeed the Coven's "strength", but I don't think she will prevail on her own, because teamwork wins.

..oooooh boy.

Tom, I'm scared. Aso, good job everyone who said she sent away her gains.

Noa thinks she’s immune and whatnot, but she’s not. She just created herself MANY WEAK SPOTS.

Oh, I’m sure this is healthy

Oh my. I'm interested to see where this is going to go.

Well that looks healthy...

Fanatics are always dangerous.

Parley's gonna get her ass kicked isn't she.

This is fine.

Reminds me of that Tool lyric, "The only way to fix it is to flush it all away"

That sounds extra bad. Like, even worse then the previous "send away the pain and fatigue"

And here we recognize that Jenny is the biggest villain in the piece.

Aaaaaah, okay. This is an awesome concept. So she really is a gym rat.

A couple of points of interest here. The glyphs aren't just on the parts of Noa's body covered by her clothing: they're on her hands, her ankles and so on, meaning we'd have seen them on her present form had she not concealed them somehow. It's also increasingly apparent that the Court is more than willing to let its students undertake dangerous activities if the powers-that-be can learn from their creations -- or mistakes). Kat was allowed to build an antigrav device and she's in Queslett, where kids get in trouble for fighting (q.v. Eglamore vs Hyland Sr). In Chester (presumably?), one can maim a fellow student with what seems to be little comeback.

Calling it now. This will end well.

Great, but what happen with the girl who's hand melted?

Dang... you think that thing was sentient, or is she really doing this to herself?

So many stories that wouldn't happen with a good therapist....

You know, I'm not so sure that's a very healthy mindset!

After weightlifting competition, all medallists are checked for symbols.

Oh. ...I'm even more confused now. First I thought she liked quirky magic, then I thought she was into maximizing magic efficiency, then I thought she didn't like being weak, and this page I think she doesn't care about improving herself and wants to serve or improve her symbol thesis. The dots don't seem to connect for me yet. I'm still excited about what her modern character does though!

So that's how she shriveled up....

That’s pretty self destructive

Yeah, that looks healthy. Not

A random neuron fired in my brain when I saw the panel with Noa eating. It came from 1971 & the Jethro Tull album "Aqualung". "Snot running down her nose. Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes..." I hadn't heard or thought about Tull or Aqualung in ages. Thanks for helping my mind do a backflip!!! ** Aside from that... This is an interesting transition from a somewhat zaftig young lady into a Twiggy clone. An insight into how being 'driven' without a constructive feedback loop can change a person in many (& not necessarily positive) ways.

It would be so funny if after all this buildup, Parley just knocks her out in one hit.

A highly symbolic scene :D

It kind of seems like, in this coven of witches, only two of them aren't consumed by obsession in one way or the other.

I, a witch with OCD with an unhealthy gym mindset, did not expect representation in today's comic

Her idealism is heartbreaking. She becomes superpowered, with no greater wisdom than the rest of us.

I'm sure this is perfectly safe and healthy.

I can’t wait for Charlie’s showdown with this new sociopath

Might explain why she is thin but not muscular if it's all being transferred elsewhere. Freaky.

IDK if you were trying to make her my new favorite character in the story but you would be late anyway.

Daaaaaang, she's really givin' it all she's got. I'm actually terrified of her!

So this is the third member getting introduced. This fight will not be a walk in the park. And we haven't seen anything about the forth member yet, the one that was vaguely describe as some kind of last resort.

This chick is probably the scariest in the series (based on available info).

Oh so she's been stockpiling jer gains. Interesting. I hope Parley knocks her flat on her back.

It all went away. But where did it go? Was the attenuation of Noa’s skeletal structure the result of stretching limits? Fat to thin -short to tall.

Gymmaxxing for magic is a fun twist on person descending into madness

Is she turning herself into a bomb?

What is she eating? It looks like a rock!

sooo... did her runes stretch her out? Or did she just grow up?

Is this the origin story of Jones?

All that hurt has to go somewhere, and girlypop doesn’t have these symbols on her in the present…

I get it... this is a way to cast a spell that by all rights should kill her, by feeding her life into it bit by bit instead of all at once. I have to give her props for finding a workaround like that. Whatever magic she's working here is undoubtedly forbidden, if it's even known; but it must be powerful indeed.

I'm assuming this is an allegory for anorexia or other mental health disorder?

Parley is NOT winning this

Yea... that explains a lot.

guys, she wasn't trying to lose weight and didn't have self image issues. she was spending her entire childhood and teens doing this, she looked slightly thicker because she was a KID. you gotta look at things like this from outside of your own perspective at least a little if you want to comprehend what's going on here.

This page alone gives me enchantment wizard vibes, and now I want to see more scrawny wizards suddenly bulk up from the muscle runes they've been enchanting themselves with~

100% natty bruh!

A lot of theories that this is Chester, but is it possible we’re seeing into Thornhill for the first time?

Ooh no. This overenthusiastic little girl grew into a scary young woman.

Earn It

I think Jenny has these three as lab rats. She's been. Experimenting on them. Very least, observing them.

Isn't anybody missing her at school? Doesn't the Court have truant officers?

Well, that's not at all worrying...

...which one was the murderer?

Muscle mage

Send the pain belowwwww