Comic for Friday, Feburary 7th, 2020
And you probably thought I’d gone missing without a page… while, I guess I sort of did as this is technically still late even by my definition. I just decided to forgo sleep to finish after all since I wasn’t going to get another chance until Monday, at which point the next page would be in danger. As previously scheduled, next page should be Wednesday.
As previously noted, starting next week I will be travelling for a good chunk of the month unfortunately. Things should still run fine here as I will still have internet access, but pages that I don’t have drawn by the time I leave won’t get drawn till I get back. Was hoping for a better buffer by now, but we are lucky to be getting much right, unfortunately. I don’t like travelling… disrupts too many schedules, and my schedules are at best a precarious network of barely feasible chaos. Travel just plows through the whole mess and upsets everything
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Maybe it’s Mr. Obvious to everybody else, but it just occurred to me that for Naomi this was a nearly scripted conversation. This was exactly why she was lurking in the gym, making loud enough clanking noises that Arkady would investigate as he passed by. She knew exactly where Ila was, but just couldn’t get there without a pass.
I’m with you, Tgape. That’s where I am going with the black hair angle. This is a scripted encounter, and hair color is not something that Team Peter ignores.
What else is going on here that we’re not picking up on yet.
Hmm… Eliana’s place is just across the street. But I was under the impression that it was connected to the hospital for some reason. I’m uncertain of where I might have gotten that impression. Duckduckgo and Google have been *no* help in finding it. It could be something crazy like the only link that has the reference claims to be from last year, when I know it was this year. But I just don’t really know.
Anyway, this seems to suggest that Arkady may need to cross the street, too? Or maybe Naomi’s letting him tell her about a better route.
In any event, I’m pretty sure that Team Peter will absolutely ignore something like hair color when it doesn’t matter, or is otherwise better to ignore than not. (I am not going to pretend that I understand all of the situations where it would be better to ignore it than not.)
Comic!!
Hair still dyed black. Going to visit royal family, specifically ones that are particularly high profile today….
Consul asked you for one favor, Naomi! Just one!
“Miss Atarah, just please try not to appear on TV. Like that… Or, really, anywhere you will be recognized… which, come to think about… Just don’t be seen, please.”
Most of that feels like internal dialog, and the end result is her request was for Naomi to try to be invisible. I don’t think Naomi knows *how* to do that. So, really, it was The Consul’s own fault for asking for something Naomi can’t do.
I’m pretty sure that a bleach and redye, or just washing it out if the black is that style coloring, is the simple solution here.
Either you know mysteries of hair coloring that completely elude me, or one of us is seriously confused. Probably some combination of both.
I’ve read through the Consul’s dialog in this speech bubble dozens of times, and it’s absolutely certain to me that she was asking Naomi to become invisible, and I have no idea how hair dye would help with that – *especially* in Malsa, where there are so many more “natural” hair colors than here.
I’ve considered the possibility that Ellipses could be powered or require brown hair. Tom’s hair is rusty, which is kind of brown. My hair is brown, and people don’t notice me all that often. BWas that just her the list? Or “The List”? I think it would likely be more advisable to enter it on “The List”, especially if Sydney’s unaware that others can add people to it.
… Not that I think Halo’s in any danger of showing up here. Seven orbs, each with their own inner holograph to depict seems like it would be something that Past would find intimidating. Also, cameos aren’t really something that happen here. Still, I think I’d personally worry more if I was on The List rather than just Naomi’s the list, you know?ut Arron’s hair is white, and he’s apparently an Ellipses user. I understand that his hair probably *used* to be brown or black, based on Miko, Peter, Mari, and Kyle’s hair colors. But if used to be mattered, then simply dying Naomi’s hair brown would *NOT* help.
…I do not think I am following this thread.
Glider was saying that hair dye usually requires either a bleaching (making you blonde) or another dye (“re-dye”) to change your hair color, unless it’s the kind that washes out in water (which it probably is not, but might be).
Typically wash out dye does not work well, but that rule of thumb is less true when going from light colors to black. I would assume that Naomi did not use wash out hair dye though.
In which case to get back to purple, she would have to bleach her hair to blonde, and than dye it purple.
Though it is worth considering that they might have more advanced dye (with an cleansing agent) for espionage related purposes, particularly in a world where hair dye would be more involved in espionage.
I suspect a blonde Naomi might be popular though.
Yeah, as much as I love Tgape, I am not capable of following all of that.
In a world where hair color is so important, and hair dye might be illegal at least in some cases…. Given a proliferation of magic… If Team Peter doesn’t have some sort of color changing assist by means of magic, I’d be surprised.
Mium, by means of the various chassises, changes hair color, yes?
All I’m saying is that if not-blonde Naomi has time to work out, then it was a conscious decision to not change hair color.
Which begs the question, what was the purpose of the black hair color? To obscure identity? Sure, but green hair would have done that, or blue, or…?
Why black? To give the impression that she was not magically inclined? To give the impression that she was something OTHER than a family mage / designer child?
Is there a specific target she was impersonating?
Is being seen as a brunette part of the plan that hasn’t unfolded yet?
While Naomi may be a bit of a chaos agent on Team Peter, and a deliberate balance to Mium and Peter, her behavior is still predictable enough to be accounted for. Is she still black haired because of a Peter Plan?
And speaking of Peter Plan, is Naomi actually Tinker Bell?
Considering the conversation at the bottom of the page here:
http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-january-29th-2018/
I suspect she was pretending to be an IDS agent, and black is one of the easiest natural hair colors to achieve with dye.
Ahhh, I forgot that. So, where does that put us for being seen by a family mage while sporting black hair?
Um, that puts us on the last page, and this one. I mean, do you get to be more of a family mage than son of Ashvalt and fiance of Camilla?
Seems like this is the comic for us to disagree? Feels weird.
While we know he’s way more durable than Naomi suggests, his own fiancee, and pretty much everyone else, discounts him on the field of battle.
Get rid of the Consul and put us back on the old rules. I think he barely counts as a family mage under those conditions.
We have hit comment depth, but this is a reply to Glider as well.
I think Arkady counts as a Family Mage. He was in the process of destroying a highly advanced magical tank that was absolutely wrecking a squad of soldiers before a Warmage jumped him.
Being considered “fragile” by Camilla and Naomi does not really count. Naomi borders industructible, and Camilla repeatedly tanked hits from an IDS Monster Hunter (Elizabeth) using advanced magic.
Compared to a “normal” mage Arkady – who is still at best college age(I assume that’s what Levenworth basically is) – is top tier. He created a flaming whirlwind, seemingly could fly, and survived being hit by a lightning bolt.
Pretty sure he counts as a Family mage. I doubt that Kally is as durable as Naomi or Camilla either, and she is the most powerful mage in the story so far.
I think Camilla is just very overprotective. Camilla also didn’t want her brother Ash to fight, despite the fact that he is apparently a Registered Mage like Tyler (though he does not seem particularly competent under pressure).
I think that’s the real problem. Arkady himself admits he was falling apart under pressure, and decided to rely on Ila even though he thought it was wrong to do so. Arkady is a powerful mage (at least somewhat) but not a battle hardened fighter like Camilla or Kally (or just insane and fearless like Naomi).
Glider, I’ve just been feeling like shorter entries, and I’m better at short entries if I’m either super agreeable or sassy. So you’ve gotten a bit of sass today.
Ferrus, exactly. Although, really, I think Glider was probably wonder, “what about a family mage who isn’t a close friend?” And for that, we get to find out.
It’s my feeling that Eliana won’t be too bothered. Regin, on the other hand, will complain. Not too much, however, once he finds out she’s on the same side of things. Except I’m not confident that has a face-saving story of how her latest activities are for the good of Malsa. (I mean, I believe they are, but I’m clearly a bit nuts.)
It is unclear to me that Families would actually care that much about Naomi having black hair, as she isn’t part of them. It’s more about that she is flaunting the law, and that the Consul wants to avoid a scandal.
I doubt the punishment is more than just a fine or something, the real problem stems from the fact that if you let someone publicly break the law, it becomes harder to enforce the law.
Because almost everyone we see is sort of extraordinary people in the comic world, it is hard to really even saw how seriously the law is taken in general, or why it exists.
Early in the comic it is alluded to that there’s some degree of tension in a three-way dynamic between the Families, the Designer Children, and the normal folks.
I actually think it would be really interesting to see why Designer Children aren’t allowed to die their hair in the first place.
Not only is it one of the easiest natural hair colors to achieve with dye, it’s also really common. Just looking at IDS employees, I count… 1 person with black hair in my database. Um, I’m guessing that means I’ve been really lousy at recording this, because that one person is *not* Nick Otte. Sigh.
I won’t lie buddy, I’m disappointed.
But look on the bright side! Great reason to re-read the archives! Recent experience suggests that it is about 4 days of relatively causal reading. But I wasn’t collecting stats.
There’s apparently just 4 of them. Vim, who I had before, Nelson, who I had before except the ‘black’ started a sentence and I didn’t ignore case. Nick, of course. And Kaori Katome, whom I think has dark gray hair as an attempt to depict black with an option for blacker black.
Yeah, I know, you’re expecting me to look through 569 comics, which would take quite a while, but I just had to look through a portion of the 40ish IDS people’s appearances… unless, of course, you expected me to also actually finish my dive to track all of the unnamed characters, but *that* dive would take weeks to finish. And, yes, I am fully aware that means I’m ignoring three indistinct splotches with black hair in Kaori’s first appearance, because I don’t have unidentified character numbers for them yet. But they’re pretty indistinct splotches, and it’s unclear to me if they *really* have black hair, or if Past was just working quickly on unremarkable background splotches.
Tgape you need to do another archive dive, To recap it is a legal requirement for Genetically Engineered children born or decanted in Malsa to have non natural hair and eye color and illegal for her to dye it a natural color.
Naomi is a minor celebrity. The consul after talking to Mium realizes that it is not possible or desirable to enforce this law on Naomi and that attempting to do so would result in it becoming publicly apparent that the national citizen database is insecure. Thus she asked Naomi not to be publicly be seen so she could publicly ignore the infraction.
I don’t really need to do another archive dive. I just got tired of spending copious amounts of time to type up responses that covered too many points for most people to respond to, so I decided to do something different. I apologize if I wasn’t explicit enough about focusing on what a single character said in a single speech bubble over everything else.
Maybe if I spend less time trying to answer everything, I can get back to updating the wiki again or something
No apologizing!
And above, where I said I was disappointed, I really wasn’t.
It wasn’t really so much me expecting anything. More like a fishing expedition. I’ll chum the waters a bit, toss out some bait, and see what Tgape does.
You do you, buddy. No worries, no sweat
Now Past. I cut him no slack. Every time I turn around, travel here, travel there. Work work work.
That’s one artist / writer / geek who is WAY too worried about what he’s going to eat tomorrow.
Okay, saying it that way, it kind of makes sense. I REALLY like eating.
It’s important people eat. Also get the health care they need. They break without those things, and then there’s no comics.
It’s important to realize that under certain circumstances, rest can be health care.
Vexing wankers had me laughing so hard just now, it was brilliant. Definitely going to add that phrase to my personal lexicon.
It’s been in Naomi’s personal lexicon for awhile, and we know at least one of the vexing wankers on her list…
But that particular vexing wanker has a pretty tough shield, so won’t be easy to punch. Which of course means Naomi will see it as a challenge…. oh dear.
Of course, the red-armoured vexing wanker had an unfortunate (for them) encounter with Fluffy, so is probably more punchable now 🙂
That was Naomi’s last fight and she has very little emotional investment in Webber.
That means that the principal reason that Naomi is at the hospital is to bring in the nerve gas damaged Efeight. It is also what she means when she says that Ila’s brother is around but not in a way that is fun.Note normally Mium can repair EF8 but that requires lots of cycles and MYM has been very very busy.
It also means that when the doctors get goods scans of EF8’s internals unless the hospital has draconian patient privacy policy’s their is going to be a lot of questions to be answered. Because the hospital treats family mages it probably has better than average privacy polices but their is still going be a lot of gossip at the very least.
F5. Efaite is busy elsewhere.