Comic for Monday, April 23rd, 2018
Well, certainly not the first time we’ve seen the consul. Her hair is different than previous times, that’s it is intentional. It’s a long day, and she’s not really dressed up for speech giving at this point. I reckon we will know her real name eventually, but pretty much everyone calls her “the Consul” or “Madame Consul” for a reason that will either be explained in a lore page or in the comic someday, probably. It has to do with the position of consul, and the history involved with and… well, needless to say, its complicated. But she DOES have name, I’m just pretty sure it hasn’t shown up here.
I should probably complete the height chart I was drawing, or at least draw Amy and Magnolia in the same panel, as Magnolia is a good bit taller than Amy, though due to how I panel things they look roughly the same height way, haha. I think I get why someone suggested I actually draw the height chart, now 😉
As to why Amy calls her “Dai”, her name is Magnolia Dai; it’s the same reason that Tyler usually calls Peter “Kepler” and Peter calls him “Weber”, they tend to use people’s last names more often than most people reading the comic would find normal, and Amy and Magnolia are classmates, but not as closely associated as someone like Mione, Tyler, or Marc. I could draw a “who is who’s friend chart” – it’s a classic web of connections. Naomi and Mione are good friends, and Amy and Mione are good friends, so Naomi and Amy are good friends second degree, you see… On the other hand Magnolia hasn’t been in Malsa that long, but has made good friends with Maia for reasons that are mostly unrelated to any of the events we’ve seen so far, and Maia knows people like Amy and Mione, but isn’t good friends with them, so Magolia and Amy, for example, are like… friends of the third degree or so? Given that Maia and Arkady are both direct descendants of the Families things are a bit more complicated with them, as using their last names is a little over formal, so people their own age or older are more likely to call them by their first name… and people like Marc there’s a whole additional complication to naming… Most of this is irrelevant nonsense, I don’t know why you got far enough into this paragraph to read this.
Anyway… I suppose we’ll see how what the Consul wants to chat about… coming to a comic near you… soon… like Thursday. As that’s when the next page is, you see. … Yup, hitting post now.
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I love how you can see the deadbolt sticking into the hole next to the door.
Most of my friends call me by my last name. It’s pretty common in circles where several people have the same first name.
Large families in small schools tend to push the first name/multiple name thing in school. Small families in large schools tend to push last names.
In the large school there may be twelve kids named Elvis, but they each one have their own unique last name.
In a small school with 24 McKillekennys running around, there is only one “McKillekenny,” everyone else of the 23 McKillekennys must be something else.
I know that feeling. My brother Jim joined a frat with Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, and Jim. The frat was sufficiently well to do to hire a cook, also named Jim. I have worked on a team with Ed, Ed, Ed, and Ed, my name is also Ed. Five Eds isn’t quite as ridiculous as nine Jims, but I think it showed off the tendency to go by surname more in those sorts of environments in general, because there were more people around who weren’t Ed for me than there were people around who weren’t Jim for my brother.
I’ve also encountered a group with multiple Lewises (while working in Lewisville, which isn’t nearly the coincidence that it might initially seem), and even Louis went by his first name, despite not being a Lewis…
At one point, the department I worked in had five people named Chris (one of them being me), and two of them were female! And yes, if someone called “Hey, Chris” a lot of heads snapped around. 😎
This will be interesting. Peter deals with a lot of incompetent people, but evidence so far points to the Consul not being incompetent. Brash and ambitious, yes. Incompetent, no.
The real question is how much she heard from Tyler, and if his “deadman’s switch” of “tell the Consul to pass my titles to Peter if I die” went off from his current condition.
Is it outright illegal for a designer child to dye their hair?
Also “Not until I know why it sounds like Naomi has black hair” would probably sound better if it read “Not until I know why it sounds like Naomi with black hair” since she is giving a description of the ‘strange girl’ who saved Tyler.
It only makes more sense the second way if she’s not pretty sure it is Naomi. From the sound of this way, it means that Amy is fairly certain it was Naomi, and wants to know why her hair was black before saying anything, not just speculating that the girl sounds like it was Naomi. Maybe I am too used to @PastUtopia’s version of grammar though.
I don’t have a reference on hand, but I think it has been mentioned that Designer Children aren’t supposed to dye their hair. Early on there was a reference to ‘the Color Law’ and Peter coming from a place without it (though we know he is not a designer child). It is possible they only have to be made with purple/blue/green/etc hair, but I would think if they were going to make that a law, dyeing it would be obviously out.
I read it the same way. Amy’s question is why Naomi died her hair, not whether it was Naomi.
Re: hair dye and designer children, laws are funny things, especially when crafted as a compromise between many politicians. It isn’t unusual for the letter of the law to be very different from the stated intent of the law.
I don’t know that there has been anything about dying hair and color law. If Ryn and his glasses are any indication, however, the issue may be less about people dying their hair to hide the modifications and may be more that people would do it to try to pretend to be modified.
Also, I think it is important to point out that when the question of Peter and modifications came up the answer was “he comes from a place without color law”, so he may well be modified (or at least decended from someone who is, and how THAT works with color law is anyone’s guess).
Mm. Maybe Peter’s just fishing, see who bites about Tyler being wounded. (That section for some reason is hard to follow. I think it’s the thought boxes interspersed and not being super familiar with Magnolia.) Though her being specific about the “can’t read your mind” right after after Amy goes “wait she’s a mind reader” makes me doubt that statement, too…
Anyway, he almost sounds legitimately confused/surprised about the Consul being there. (Almost, anyway. He appears to have planned for either most of current events currently happening, or arranging for them to happen, after all…)
I think I like the Consul, though. Strolls on in (dash of swagger?), looking amused as she sits down to wait. And my word! Her reply is so politely snide….
Oh yeah, I’m looking forward to this…
(Wait. Isn’t she technically his boss right now? Or am I getting these things mixed up again? Either way, dis gun be gud…)
(PS: First? 😮 Apparently posted an hour ago, though it’s still Sunday for me….wasn’t expecting a page, either. It was just there. Heh.)
Past seems to have a typical developer sense of time. Usually a bit late, except when he’s early, or just doesn’t show at all. I think my boss is genuinely surprised anytime I manage to join a conference call.
I’m pretty sure he is surprised to see the Consul. He doesn’t know Tyler threw him under the boss before collapsing. That being the case, Mium most have been out of ear shot.
As for leaking Tyler’s location? He’s just baiting the trap. Oh, then maybe Mium did hear.
Pretty sure it’s just a different time zone. Site timestamped my post at a little past 2:30, when my clock said more like a little past 10:30.
After rereading the last few chapters (for fun & refresher), I recognized the Consul in several spots, which just makes the upcoming conversation between these two sound like even more of an upcoming event to watch.
I’m pretty sure the site time is GMT or universal time. Past has made commentary before about having posted the comic while it was still technically day XYX, and I’ve never been able to sort out what time zone he is using to make that determination.
Either way I’m with Sandman. I came expecting to look for comments and found a comic. Thanks Past!
It’s lined up with mine (both in the “technically on-time” and in the “actually post at midnight” domains), which is east-coast time, so I was thinking that’s when it is… but I could be wrong on that.
Peter has two versions of surprise.
1. The version where he says, “hmm. This happened earlier than I expected. But it fits into a less likely variant of my plans. Lets go with plan variant E3.”
2. The version where he says, “Muim. What options do I have to fix this now?”, and starts making plans on the fly.
I think this case is more like version 1, which I don’t consider real surprise for someone like Peter.
Good point. The “ah – madam consul” might even be someone (Mium) prompting him regarding achieving optimal positioning on the resolution tree.
If I remember correctly peter only talks to Mium via actual devices, so I don’t think that is it. Unless I’m wrong. I’ve only seen evidence that he has to communicate using normal means to Mium.
That is not entirely true, it appears as if peter can normally communicate with Mium internally but that such communication is short ranged and/or disrupted by magic. Thus during combat he often requires a device. Here is an example http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-thursday-august-24th
I think the “has to communicate using normal means” restriction is more about MIUM communicating back rather than communicating to him. Naomi says somethnig to Peter about talking about MIUM behind his back, and Peter replies that MIUM can basically always hear them so it seems that MIUM isn’t the one who can’t hear. Also Peter uses his device to communicate and check up on MIUM in a lot of other circumstances. The only issue with MIUM not communicating back is when his resources are loaded down with combat and such (like when MIKO allocated MIUM the server so they could chat). In the case with the bomb that Peter dropped, it likely had some EMP stuff in it or somethnig else extremely disruptive to magic and communication (does MIUM’s existance require magic to opperate?) so that was likely what cut them off at that point.
I don’t know about that scene as Mium refers to the communication going as there as house communication. Like there are speakers in the house or something similar to allow Mium to speak back to Peter.
yea, in my first reply I did mean Mium telling Peter stuff not the other way around.
I think I’m just accustomed to people using Bluetooth headsets.