I think that she might not fully believe Fiona there 🙂
On a side note, this is the very first reference of the Leaving Cert. in the comic. It’s kind of a significant element of Irish Secondary School life.
It’s full name is the Leaving Certificate Examination or Ardteistiméireacht (Or “Ardteist” for short….which sound’s just like “Hard Test”….kinda fitting)
Imagine the American S.A.T.s, throw it into a blender with the dreaded French “Baccalauréat” and then up the length & difficulty by about exactly 20 billion….that’s the Leaving Cert. 2 solid weeks of 10 hour hand-straining, pen busting, memory gouging multi-paper exams that Irish students must spend at least 5 years preparing for. So dreaded are they that very little practical learning happens in Irish Secondary Schools. Most of the teaching is geared towards the Leaving Cert, essentially turning the whole experience into a half-decade cram session.
As you can probably guess, I’m not really a fan of this system. After I had done my own Leaving Cert I kind of felt horribly duped. The big deal with “the Leaving” was that your grades would be converted into College entry points in a “CAO” application system that all the higher education establishments in Ireland were part of. All of the available courses were given a points threshold you had to reach to enter the course. You had to sort of guess how many points you’d get from the Leaving ahead of time, and then lodge your CAO application months before the exams themselves, with the courses you wanted to enter. This application could not be changed later. It was a horrible sort of gambling that just about paid off for me at the time.
TLDR; The Leaving Cert weighs heavy on all Irish Secondary School students, especially in the final year….which is incidentally the year that our friends have just started….
At least one of them can come up with a plausible lie on the spot. Good job, Fiona. 😈
Uh oh. According to the sign they’ve made it on to Snake Way. Hopefully it’s not going to take a year to get to King Kai’s. 😛
Well, a semi-plausible lie. Fiona really should have said chemistry, not physics. Chemistry is much better at making medium sized explosions. In physics things tend to crash rather than blow up. But good job Fiona on making sure to say it’s not Aoife’s fault!
I have to say that I really like Fiona’s look in the second panel. Mark, you’ve really done an amazing job with her, both in terms of visual design and character development. She’s come such a long way since we first met her as Ashling’s friend A, who may or may not have had a permanent name at the time.
Of course poor Ashling’s friend B seems to have disappeared into the ether. Maybe she was eaten by a Fomorian. 😉
Fiona and Friend B, Naomh, AKA Chain-smoking Girl were named in the comments section here: http://rawrtacular.com/bataneart/comic/pg09/
And, yes, I too wonder what has become of her. She may have appeared in background during the Camogie arc, but she has definitely been MIA in story since.
BTW: Naomh is pronounced Nee’av, apparently.
Well, obviously, the Smoking Girl is off conspiring with aliens to abduct Aoife’s bandeau collection and perform horrific experiments on them! :-O
@Azreal & @Kessy: Thanks for you kind words on Fiona, Kessy 🙂
Ah yes, the long tale of Bata Neart’s forgotten cast members: “Niamh & Orla”.
I suppose Bata Neart should be a cautionary tale to other web-cartoonists to never fill up a cast without a plan. In the very early days of Bata Neart I was only certain of a handful of characters:
-Ashling & Aoife
-Sharon Connor
-Sister Helena
-Ashling’s mom
-..and that Ashling & Aoife would have a small circle of friends.
These were to be 3 friends:
-One bookish default “Nerd” friend, who would know how to explain the Bata Neart.
-One quirky street-smart friend, who smoked heavily as a srot of juxtaposition to squeaky-clean Japanese teens of Anime.
-One head-strong a decisive character who would act as more of a leader of the group during the inevitable.
We now all know the “Nerd” as Fiona, and she worked out as I had hoped. However, when I started to introduce Áine, and with Ashling & Aoife also growing as characters, I found myself not really finding any space for Niamh or Orla.
For future reference, Niamh is the chain-smoker, and Orla is our final unnamed character. Both of them will actually return, and I have a scene planned out for this which also explains where they have been.