Hmmm… mistakes were made. I have my first meeting of the day in a few hours. But at least there is comic, so… important things are done. Will have to work on stealth napping during meetings, I guess. Unfortunately I’m not very good at sleeping in meetings, as boring as they are, you’d think it’d be easy.
I thought I was going to finish a bit earlier, but the dialog on this one took a bit longer than expected. I think I sort of fell into the trap of thinking that I could fit more on a page than I could, because I didn’t want to cut anything that would make things too confusing, particularly as we don’t really know who Rick is in a greater context, so cutting down his dialog would make it harder to understand, and while Tokiwa’s dialog might be longer-winded-than-necessary, that’s sort of the point of it 🙂
Tokiwa may have a harder job than even Elizabeth, I sort of feel sorry for her.
I realize that Rick looks quite similar to Kyle in panel 2, not quite sure why that happened, but I was pretty tired drawing this one, so I may have errored toward a more familiar character on the model (and Kyle in turn is drawn more similar to Arron intentionally). But Rick is not, for the record, a Kepler.
Anyway, I will stop rambling now and go to bed. I’ll try to fix any of the invitable spelling mishaps sometime after work tomorrow.
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Summers is coming…
Is that like Winter is coming?
I get the sense that Arron Kepler was really hoping to ease into retirement and that his relaxation at work led many people to forget what he’s really like. “If Arron had shown this sort of spine…” seems to indicate that she forgot all about his past accomplishments (of which we know little).
Up until recently I think he was treating it as an active retirement, staying our of conflicts etc. Then Peter/Biana happened and oh dear, looks like he has to throw his weight around still.
And no one knows how to react because they’d all written him off.
Everytime I hear the name Summers I have so many questions:
Why does Mium call Kally ‘Miss Winters’?
Does that mean she was adopted into the House of Summers?
Why? What happened to the House of Winters? Was there a tragedy? Is she the last?
Are there also Houses of Autumns and Springs?
Do the other Houses have their equivalents of The Fanciest Stick?
I need answers. I keep reading and I gain information but usually it just deepens the mystery. It’s almost like someone is slowly revealing the depths and details of a vast world in such a way as to keep me intrigued and always coming back for more.
And they are very, very, almost aggravatingly good at it.
I think Mium calling her Miss Winters is just making fun of her. Mium often calls people by nicknames, and I don’t think anyone else has called her Miss Winters.
I just realized Myer seems to refer to Mium’s nicknaming habit on his first page: “Not even ‘Hello, Mr. Orange’?”
Maybe that was obvious to all others, but on my first read-through, that habit was not well-established that early. I think “miss IDS” was the only one so far. 🙂
I think it is because the people we see Mium interact with the most are the people he doesn’t nickname. He calls Naomi “Miss Naomi” and Peter and Miko are the only people who he actually calls be their first name.
Mium will occasionally call people by their actual name outside of that, but usually does not as recall. His nicknames are frequently slightly mocking, which is strange, but I think an important part of Mium quirky behavior. As far as I can recall, he has never called anyone besides Peter or Miko by their first name on it’s own, so I imagine that has a bit of significance as well.
Yeah, aside from Peter and Miko, everyone else is “Miss” or “Mister” – except for “Doctor M.I.R.”, “Doctor Martin”, and “Madame Consul” (but also “Miss Consul”).
Oh and I just noticed Miko called Kally “Winters” when they met on 2017-06-19. Then again, she’s borrowed insults from Miss Ila, who’s to say she can’t borrow nicknames from Mium. 😉
I interpreted it that MIUM was insulting Kali, calling her cold for how she was acting as though she didn’t personally care about Peter’s well being, and that it had nothing to do with a past affiliation.
Though, traditionally, where there is a summor court there is also a winter. . .
Ya’know, the question of “which one” comes to mind….
…..but it’s not like it really matters…..
The only thing that could make that last line more ominous would be if you replaced “is” with “are”…
Summers are coming. It’s just that Kally got delayed by Atter. Kally is definitely going to want to confront her.
Also, that feels like a shot at Game of Thrones. 🙂
It cold be the season too. Summer to Sophie’s winter
We have no information about which Summers she’s talking about. It could easily be Nathan incoming here.
It probably is. Remember the last time they talked, Nathan threatened to burn her if she got in the way and she backed down.
Also, Nathan has explicitly said that him dealing with the situation is less messy than Kally, and decided to get involved.
Frankly I can’t see it mattering. If either of them is coming for you the best option is to be Peter (and hence already be ready to get out of it) or to just give up.
I don’t think it matters either, but I interpreted as Nathan.
Noname WAS charged with… Past tense. I think she is surrendering her charge / responsibilities to the only people that might keep her charge alive.
Given everything I’m not sure they actually can keep her alive other than the direct legal movement of bringer her to trial. Which may still end with her demise. Because remember, most people consider Nathan the SCARIER of the Summers siblings.
She is not a no-name, Elizabeth put Camille in the hospital with among other attacks a demon-claw strike copied from Atter, though she also uses a wristwatch boost engine.
Interesting that she has the last word, and that their is only one null caster among the monster hunters (that we see). Implying that Sofie is not also an exceptional combat sorcerer.
Previously i had assumed that Sophie was exceptionally adept because she mentored Kally and can summon a demon. This however implies that demon summoning is more a mater of happenstance or daring than magical talent.
It could also be that:
– anchoring a full fledged demon like Atter is precluding Sophie from using the rest of her abilities.
– Sophie’s an innate demonologist, and having one demon of Atter’s capabilities out, she’s tapped out. (I suppose this is kind of your happenstance argument.)
– The null caster can nullify spells from several different mages in quick succession. Possibly if they did their spells all at once – but then their interference fields would be interfering with each other’s magic.
– Elizabeth stepping down is the big news here. While she trained under Sophie also, she’s much better at the subset of skills she learned. We don’t really know whether Tokiwa actually has magic. In her 9 prior appearances, she’s cast 0 spells, and has not been talked about as if she’s a magic user. Rick only has 3 appearances, but has no more claim to magic. Also, he’s also already told Sophie to reconsider her plans, so probably wasn’t considered likely to risk his career and life to defend her.
– Summers is coming is a huge threat here. Elizabeth isn’t standing down because of the monster hunters, but because of that. It just happens that she’s surrendering to the monster hunters first, because they’re here first. She doesn’t want a chance of being actively in opposition to the Seat of Summers when the Bearer of the Fanciest Stick
walkstravels through thedoor… whatever he decides to travel through to enter the scene.– The monster hunters only had one null caster available, and were hoping they could keep the conversation going and Sophie from running (if that was her choice) through verbal means while the Fifth of Ervon finishes this leg of his journey.
Or…
— There is only one Null Caster in the room, probably to protect the VIP long enough that he can run if things go sour, and the rest are surrounding the building in case they have to just level the entire place.
–The artist just didn’t show the other null casters nearby, simply because it would have been extra characters to draw and would slow down the update schedule.
–The monster hunters aren’t there to take Sophie in so much as to protect her once she surrenders. Therefor the front line of null casters and tanks are positioned to defend against another threat.
–They only need one null caster for this type of confrontation. The monster hunter’s armor and abilities are strong enough to keep anything short of tactical class magic from being fatal and a token null caster is only there for edge cases. The group working in tandem with excelent equipment is stronger than more powerful mages working without teamwork.
–This is all to go against Sophie, they knew that Elizabeth would back down and that Tokiwa would not be a problem either.
I think this is probably the same null caster that tried to arrest Kally. I don’t think null casters are that common, they might have sent more if they had more.
The monster hunters and the null caster actually did get the upper hand against Kally until Naomi and Ila joined the fight (at which point they were truly and utterly screwed, though they didn’t know how badly).
Now that is probably because Kally didn’t want to just obliterate them all, but they aren’t weak. A null caster is a pretty hard counter to the summon type mages it seems, as the null caster was able to pretty easily nullify Kally’s dragon (though it was still ethereal at the time), though Kally didn’t think he could block Dragonfire.
Null casters have a range. Dragon fire may be magically generated, but once created its no longer magic and is just bloody hot. Dragon fire also has a range many multiples larger then null caster range. Think about it like a fight between a waterballoon and a flame thrower.
Meh, they got he drop on Kali by drugging her unconscious. When she woke up the odds were much less in their favor, so much that retreat was the only sane option (as opposed to going against the “red dragon witch”). The fact that others were around at that point was something that the disciplinary committee simply didn’t see as relevant enough to comment on, considering Kali’s capabilities by herself.
I guess this isn’t a point in the favor of the monster hunters…
Game of Seats, right? Nathan refers to himself as the Seat of Summers, and we’re told by Mium he holds the family’s traditional seat in the Ervon Society – no other seats have been named, but their existence seem implied, not at least by Nathan reminding Elizabeth he’s “the fifth of Ervon”. 🙂