Comic for Monday, March 9th, 2020
Mar10
Technically speaking Naomi isn’t lying, Mium sent Ila, not Naomi. Mium might have done it for Naomi’s sake.
Cutting off the speech bubble in the last panel was an intentional stylistic choice to give the panel more depth, and make the words the less important part of the panel. The associate she is referring in this case is Peter, not Mium. She refers to Mium as her friend… sometimes she refers to Peter as her friend, but their relationship is a bit more complicated, and I suspect in sum total she’s a bit frustrated with him today in general.
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Page is coming, but not tonight. Should be up by tomorrow end of day. Stay safe out there. If you need something to do while coped up in quarantine, may I recommend hitting “first” and losing a day or two? You’re welcome.
Hate to say it, but I’m going to need another day. It’s a bad time to be running late, after all, site traffic is near record highs… but a few factors are bogging it down. Page is taking a bit longer than expected, busier than expected with the world slowly imploding with work, and, well, general poor planning, overlapping commitments, etc.
Hopefully tomorrow. I did get some work done it, it’s fully lined sketched, lined, and partially colored, but I won’t be able to finish and post tonight probably.
Fascinating. I anxiously await the exposé!
It’s been several years, but Past HAS done cross overs before. Or rather he’s done guest comics elsewhere. Not as part of the canon story line as far as I see, but just a one shot.
I was going to search them out, but I think I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader.
I will ask if anyone ever saw anything come out of this:
http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-friday-may-17th-2019/
If I recall correctly, that led up to a fight between a hard light projection of the Consul and a hardlight projection of someone in IDS armor (helmet on, so there’s really no telling who.) The Consul projection didn’t do very well in this fight. Clearly she needs to learn to be more of a boss mob.
This is probably not where most of us expected it to go. I also am wondering how things went down after Kally opted to not fight. Was Sophie still arrested? Or did she have the situation containment team for lunch? I suppose she could’ve just wandered off somewhere. That seems to be more of a Nathan thing than a Sophie thing.
I suppose it’s possible that in a surprise move, Dendrin entered the picture, mistook Sophie for Kally, and used the thing he wasn’t supposed to use on a world the IDS had an interest in. That could potentially be very bad. But, on the plus side, the possibility of that seems to be very low, since it was my impression Dendrin was supposed to be going as far away from Sophie as possible, to lure Nathan away.
That was supposed to be a reply under where you referenced Past and guest strips.
The link I provided had a comment suggesting that someone was putting together some guest art.
Not sure how I buggered that.
I’ve recently gotten a stylus for my tablet laptop. I fairly quickly confirmed that Randal Monroe’s a far, far better artist than I am right now. So is basically every web artist whose work I’ve seen ever.
I have stuff I’d like to do, and I’m not totally giving up, but I’m certainly not the person to answer SiliconWolf’s call.
Errors (I think):
Panel 2: “This isn’t… that weird to a day to you, is it?” has too many “to” in it. “weird to a day” should probably be “weird a day”
Panel 4: “Sometimes I think he just is doing out of habit” needs some rearranging and perhaps an extra word, like: “Sometimes I think he is just doing it out of habit”
Panel 2: “that weird of a day to you” would probably work a bit better, but it feels like Arkady is struggling with words here, so I’m inclined to attribute any awkwardness in the wording to him.
Panel 4: I read it as “Sometimes I think he is just doing that out of habit” and completely failed to notice that this was even problematic wording, but yeah. Your extra word version works perfectly fine, too.
Fixed, I think. The panel 4 one seemed right to me, but I usually am wrong about that sort of thing, so I changed both of them 🙂
Appreciate the fixes! 🙂
Panel 4 still says “doing out of habit”, without any “it”, “that”, or other indication of what he may be doing.
(No comment on the word order – either seems right to me – but the missing object doesn’t.)
Fixed(er) maybe? 🙂
Also Panel 2, word bubble 2, ‘This isn’t… that weird [to] a day to you’ the bracketed to probably needs to go. Or the subsequent ‘a day to’.
Fixed, thanks 🙂
I’m not sure… but if Naomi is talking about Peter/Mium in the 1st panel 3rd bubble, then it is correct as written; however if Naomi is talking about herself, she would, probably, say: “sometimes the best you can do is influence who [that] might be.”
Not sure if there’s been an edit, but it currently reads nicely in my mind regardless of who Naomi is thinking about.
In this case I’d lean towards that bubble being musings on her own recent choices. She without doubt saved Arkady by accidentally asking Mium, and by proxy Ila, to intervene.
She’s starting to realize that she didn’t change the net number of deaths. Kardus likely would have lived except for her intervention. Any number of loyal family mages, Malsan soldiers, and others Naomi might know died or were out at risk due to her intervention. The resources (Ila and processing power) that were expended in saving Arkady, and the time Mium was offline because of it, no doubt cost lives.
The lives of people Naomi cared most for were preserved, except possibly Arkady is now shot. But it wasn’t a freebie. And Naomi is trying to come to terms with that.
She’s probably wrong about how much she changed the net number of deaths. Kardus probably would’ve gone on to kill more people. I mean, it sounds like it’s probably the primary sort of occupation war mages get. If you recall the employment gig Kardus got prior to this was basically, “Kill whomever assaults this IDS base.”
Sure, that was billed as “defend this base”, but that clearly wasn’t the case, considering they also hired an assassin (with explicit orders to kill whomever assaults the base), and Rovak (probably nothing needs to be said about this choice).
Though, on the other hand, the people who Kardus won’t kill because he was killed first will probably procreate, and all of their descendants will die. So in the long term, Naomi has caused *more* deaths, rather than fewer. However, those additional deaths are generally not ones which we attribute to people.
Option A) Arkady just got shot. Naomi is going to wreck some fools.
Option B) Naomi just got shot. Naomi is going to wreck some fools.
Option C) Neither of them got shot. Naomi is going to wreck some fools.
Conclusion: Time to get the popcorn ready.
I already got my popcorn, back when Peter suggested it on
http://pastutopia.com/comic/comic-for-monday-june-22nd/
And have been eating it ever since. I’m pretty sure he or Miss Naomi has suggested it other times since as well…
Meoi
PS, honestly, I’m for option C. I hope Naomi didn’t hurt an arm again. Really, this comic must have something against people with arms, what with all the dismemberment and violent bodily mutilation of appendages…
I am reminded once more how much better that art has gotten. I rarely think about the art these days in the comic but… wow.
Leaps and bounds I say, leaps and bounds. What better glories the future might hold in the areas of art, I cannot say, but that even if it never changes again, the story is still great. Yeah though, tbh, I have a hard time somedays with those old pages. Almost reminds me of the ’80s for some reason…
Meoi Lass
It looks like somebody tried to shoot Arkady through the semitransparent glass door. But some mage hardened it :). There are two tiny smudges, one on the glass and one on the frame.
This could be Illa and/or creche kids playing with toy guns.
More likely it is the rear guard of a group of Orish mercenaries and the third warmage who were under the mistaken impression that Elaina is out on the battlefront or dead. They are probably stalled in the lobby by Elaina hardening and holding the door rather than using a more destructive energetic defense. And yes Naomi is going to wreck some fools.
I think that’s supposed to be the reflection in the metal elevator door. Not sure though.
I suspect they just walked into a firefight that wasn’t initially about them. The distant ‘thump’ and ‘crunch’ suggests there’s collisions or falls going on outside, and there’s no real reason for an ambush party to be engaged in that kind of movement.
At least, not a successful ambush party.
It’s my belief that it’s option C, assuming that somebody else in the house didn’t just do so. Given whose house this is, it’s entirely possible they just came in on Eliana or even Regin wrecking some fools.
That said, that right eye in the final panel suggests that they didn’t just walk in on the home’s proper residents completing the wrecking of fools.
Fair enough.
Certainly someone just boarded the train to hurt town, and Naomi will be *smiling* while she punches their tickets.
Arkady, as always, should stay out of the way.
Whose house is this? They don’t appear ever to have left the hospital elevator.
But did the hospital elevator change course, traverse the skyway, and descend in Eliana’s family’s house?
If not, I assume they’re still in the hospital building, about to embark on the skyway.
Good question.
I perceived it as the family house. They’d ridden an elevator to the skywalk, crossed over, and ridden the next elevator to the desired floor.
However once you posed the question, I think it makes more sense that they are getting off of the first elevator. The door has opened in the vicinity of the sky walk. The house was breached and the intruders are using the sky walk to clandestinely enter the hospital.
Except with the arrival of two registered class mages, it is no longer a clandestine operation.
All of this is ungrounded hypothesizing on my part. I don’t really know.
I think its closer to one and a half, given one of the two is Arkady…
I think it’s closer to two and a half given that one of them is Naomi.
I also perceived it to be the family house, although I did not go as far as to anticipate the intentions of the intruders. I perceive too many possibilities to really pick one. (The rest of this is just rambling on about other possibilities.)
In addition to Glider’s thoughts, I’ve also considered it possible that the invaders were explicitly assaulting house Regin, under the perception that Eliana was no longer capable of defending the house, and feeling bold enough about their prospects against Regin. This scenario would probably not go well for them, because not only is Eliana not as depleted as they believed, but also Camilla, who may be injured and not Naomi, but still more capable than what they were expecting to need to deal with.
… or maybe it was just Eliana defending, with everyone else still at the meeting that Saldur called. It’s unclear who this would be, but that would mean that Saldur, Elmon, Saraine, Akatmar Shemoki, and Idunar couldn’t be directly involved.
On the other hand, it could be an attempt by AVon at retrieving F10. That seems unlikely, given everything we last saw in AVon lab 5, but the company’s bigger than just lab 5 and Mir. Jayce Myer could have launched another mission, for example. As far as I’m aware, he opted out of the encounter with Rovak back in chapter 6, and presumably managed to make a safe retreat. Considering he was in his “home turf”, that seems highly likely.
It’s unlikely to be Sophie’s part of the IDS, but if she thinks she just took out the Consul, she could be attempting to secure the country and the home of the most feared registered mage could possibly be seen as a strategic target, especially if Eliana is perceived to be less than combat ready right now and it’s understood that Regin is elsewhere.
Kor’s World is still out there. This doesn’t feel like somewhere they’d go, but just listing it as a possibility, because we shouldn’t forget about them.
Arpon is probably not directly involved, but as a country currently at war with Malsa and known for making poor strategic choices, they would probably love to send assassins in to attack one of Malsa’s strongest families when their home is less defended than normal. It’s just not clear how they’d manage to get people there, given their teleporter is incapacitated, and would really not want to get caught on a mission by anyone in this household even if she were inexplicably healthy once more.
Evan Farschel has only had two appearances, and his company Egenus has not been mentioned much more often. But they’re clearly a major player in Malsa, given that they’re the designer children people and designer children are everywhere. They’ve also been suggested to be not entirely on board with generally accepted ethics. Could this be bringing them into anything? It seems like an odd place for it, but it could happen. I’m more expecting his company to come into play via some manner of replacement limb technology for Acalia, rather than taking any direct action themselves.
It’s pretty much guaranteed to not be the Mezzode Liberation Front or other antagonist from a different comic, because Past doesn’t really read other comics and doesn’t do cameos. However, this story is already more convoluted than most advice I’ve seen on the level of complexity one should target in a story suggests is viable, so it’s always possible there’s something more.
I am fairly sure that that the last panel is in the family tower. The angle of the floors in panel 4 indicate a junction of walkways from the hospital and council’s office buildings at the tower they were heading for. And just a random thought, Naomi probably knows Eliana as the little old lady in a wheelchair that hangs out on Mium’s favorite roof.
As for what they ran into it was either a fraction of Davids group detailed to take out Regin & Nydia (loyalist mages presumed to be left at the capital) who ran into Elaina, Rene & Ilia in low power mode, plus whatever small fry staff & security.
Or Davids group really really really really screwed up, hitting the conference room and sparking a free for all, with All The Local Magical Heavy Hitters.
Is Eliana old? She just seemed mobility impaired to me.
That could easily be my experience misleading me. My ex has spent a lot of her life in a wheelchair, and has been using one for her primary long distance travelling for something like 6 years, despite her being a child of the 1980s. For a while after her diagnosis, we went to support group meetings for people with her condition in the state until they started supporting online attendance.
While my ex’s condition is more severe than her brother’s or mother’s (it’s hereditary), there are absolutely people who have it worse than her. There was a teenage girl there who had already been in a wheelchair for years.
Given that experience, I saw hair that wasn’t gray and an engagement braid and assumed she was actually probably a young adult – I would guess around Camilla’s age.
I was not implying that Naomi’ assessment was correct, complete, or in retrospect sane. I implied that she mistakenly classified her as irrelevant old fuddy-dudy just like she did with the council.
Ah. Right. So, yeah, she’s ancient. Surprising she hasn’t retired already. My mistake, I didn’t understand. 😉
I’m just going to add that Ila is supposed to be there. Which may mean Naomi lost the draw on wrecking fools. Also upgrading the level of fool these fools are.
I’m thinking that Naomi’s mission is to jump start Ila because she went too critically low on food. As such, the Ila wrecking fools option feels unlikely to me.
Of course, that is entirely conjecture on my part.
Hmm. I’m quite interested in the next page. The story just keeps getting better,and better, regardless of when it updates. Thank you for a wonderful read, again.
Um, and there is a typo on the title for the page for the 21st of January. It says 2019 in one place, instead of 2020.
Oops, should be fixed. To be honest, I’m surprised I’ve only done that once (if I’ve only done that once… 🙂 )
I think it was the only time… I… have large amounts of …free time, and a sleep schedule similar to Miko’s. So…I have re-read the entire archives several times… recently. There really are not a lot of webcomics with the level of detail you put into your plotting and storyline writing. So…I notice small technical details each time, but most of them are small, or unimportant, or possibly intentional, I really don’t say anything. Just want to help.
Again, thank you.
Meoi
PS, what timezone are you publishing from? I’ve noticed the website is set for GMT, I think?
I wish he was my GM.
I think the time zone is supposed to be a bit of a mystery. That having been said, I figured out quite a while ago that it’s Malsan Standard Time
This makes as much sense as anything else.
I’ve also considered that the WordPress software is set to GMT, which really just asks the operating system, and that Past has a short Perl script that randomly changes the timezone on the server.
It’s possible that it randomly switches between Malsan, Orish, etc. In other words, the onion isn’t necessarily just one or two layers deep.
Where exactly does Past keep traveling to anyway? Having access to dimensional gates would explain a lot.
I have no idea why the website is GMT, I think that’s just what WordPress (the backend I use) defaults to. I figure the timezone will probably be wrong for most people anyway if it shows a universal time, so I might as well just leave it at the default GMT.
You have done it before, but it was likewise noticed and reymedied. Have you ever thought of having a forum thread where people can report typos and whatnot? As reports are completed, they could be deleted, and you wouldn’t havv to monitor all pages for new posts.
It’s my understanding the spammers already give the requirement of monitoring all pages for new posts, unfortunately.
I’ve given thought to a forum before, particularly back in the day; in general my view is that it’s not enough value added to be worth it. My worry is that I don’t really want to split the commenting base – i’ve already had the problem a little bit back when I actually had early comics on patreon where some people would comment there and some people would comment here.
For some people, reading the comments is part of the fun, so I’d rather have as many of the comments in the same place.
Obviously that doesn’t apply to correction comments and there’s some desire to have comments that span more than on page (theory and discussion comments). People historically have posted comments like that to other pages (like the contact page) which doesn’t change, and that general works, though for the most part has died off.
Correction comments could work in a forum setting, but I suspect they’d have the same problem they do currently; I see all comments, but if I don’t get a chance to fix it when I see it, there’s a decent chance it drops off my radar. Due to the moderation I see (and generally read) all comments posted to any page, but if i’m travelling or busy I might not fix an error, and once I’ve seen a comment in the moderation log, I often don’t remember to go back and check it again later.
Adding a forum would be a whole new thing I have to put up, monitor, endless security patch, and moderate – it’s not the end of the world or anything, but even without considering the effort I’m not sure the pros outweigh the cons (primarily my concern would be splitting up the comments section, where only a handful of forumer goers would see the comments).
Only a very small fraction of the readers leave comments, and I suspect many of those that read but don’t comment generally enjoy reading the comments without having to go to another place to read them.
Anyway; that’s the consideration process I’ve had so far, feel free to leave feedback or the like. I’d also not that you can contact me directly via the contact page if you have a correction you want to point out to me without leaving a comment – that works too, and some people do that.
If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it. Having said that, I can’t help thinking:
The Wiki could be an alternative to new forum software. A project page for correction comments. Another for fan theories …
You’d still need user management, unless you open up these pages (and only these pages, presumably) for IP edits – and probably some moderation, although the Wiki format means other users can help with that.
Odd, I thought the expression was, “if it ain’t broke, fix it until it is”.
I’d campaign for a more sophisticated forum, but that feels a lot like volunteering for work.
Both of those expressions are things. Because, you know, standard expressions are just like any standards: the great thing about standards is there’s so many to choose from.
Sounds good, Tgape. I’ll provide the server space, you moderate.
I’m not sure why this reminds me of when Alex promoted one of the most redeemable trolls on thedailywtf’s forum to moderator.
I’d like to think I’m not as annoying as Morbs, but I still don’t want to go that way. Moderating is a huge job that I’m really not ready for.