Comic for Monday, September 7th, 2020
Sep08
Can you name all the characters in the second half the page?
Only one of them is a character that hasn’t been seen and named yet in comic, though some of you might have seen her in old sketches.
Sorry this is running a little late. Because there is no interlude between Chapter 15 and 16, I wanted to make this… mini interlude with the 2nd part of this page, and it ended up taking awhile, as I had to go down the rabbit hole on some of these characters to find out where they were and what they are were doing (and what they were wearing…); it’s a combination of stuff I’d cut, stuff I just wanted to include, and stuff I think helps set up their next appearance, though nothing too major.
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OMG Past! Well played putting up so many characters right at the end of a chapter. Now I have to wait to find up what they’ve all been up to (or are about to do)!!!!! The anticipation!!!!!!!
I COULD probably name most of them… if I were any good at remembering names.
Assassin dude is a worry: when did we last see him… hmmm it was about when A Kardus was causing trouble for Ila on the border. So he’s had no more than a day right???
Nooooo! I am finally up to date on the comic! I been reading it since December last year, after my brother recommend it to me. It is Brilliantly done, your plot-lines and character development are, I think, unparalleled! (while I’m probably the only person here who is not a programmer, I find your technical side to magic very clever!
Three cheers for Past! (and all the cleaver people in the comments section who have made it so fun, as well)
-SneakyBex
Being at live has agonizing waiting occasionally, but also the benefit of being able to chat with all the people in the comments about what is going on.
Also seconded on the three cheers for Past & the clever commentators. This comic has been a fun part of my internet routine for long enough I cannot quite remember when I started reading it, even if some of it flies over my head until I read the comments… I am also not a programmer, haha.
Welcome! Glad to hear you’ve made the vast journey through the archive successfully! 🙂
I Love your work, it has inspired me to start drawing my own comic/manga (on paper)
I am also a self-taught hobby artist. it’s been a lot of fun for me drawing a continuing story, rather than just random pictures. Perhaps one day I will learn how to put it online, but for now it is enough just drawing some of the ideas I’ve had in my head for years!
Btw,do you still do those custom icons?
If so, could I get one of Tom’s Crowbar, perhaps with a magic casting circle/ring behind it?
-SneakyBex
Added an avatar image, let me know if that works.
Drawing on paper is sort of where I started. I was (slightly) better at drawing on paper than I was at drawing on the tablet when the comic first started as the original drawings for many of the characters started were in the various pages of notebooks and things (I was never very good at actually taking notes…)
Transitioning to a tablet from there was a little rough (the early pages of the comic are pretty much that learning process combined with my confidence that no one would ever see it them…. 😀 ), but these days I do all my drawing on a tablet, and don’t know if I’d remember how to draw on actual paper 🙂
If you ever decide to post it online, let me know! Posting it online is almost certainly the reason that I kept at my comic drawing efforts; I probably would have stopped years ago if I hadn’t gotten the first handful of readers, but different motivations are for different folks, so do what works for you.
Avatar image works and looks fabulous! Thank you!
-SneakyBex
I tried posting earlier but it didn’t seem to show up… Let’s see if this works..
Just set up my WP account, properly, hopefully this isn’t another comment to disappear into the void!
The avatar picture seems to work and looks fabulous, thank you, Past!
-SneakyBex
Comments often get caught in the moderation queue and can take a while to show up. What exactly makes the automod flag comments is beyond me (sometimes it is obvious like links, but it is supposed to let through comments of anyone that’s had an approved comment before, but often does not).
Usually the comment will show up in a day or so (usually quicker) as I’ll flag comments stuck in the queue through eventually.
I’m not sure if I should feel proud or ashamed to recognize most of those faces in the bottom half. I don’t remember several [i]names[/i] off the top of my head, but I have a rough idea where to find them….
Ugh. Forgot which tags to use here, and apparently, that was the wrong one. And there’s no edit button for some reason.
Bleh. (Though I tried putting in this comment and the page never actually properly loaded, just spun for a bit and refreshed to find this comment here too. Hrm….)
You can edit your messages but you have to be kinda quick about it. you only have a few minutes to do so.
I can update it to be longer (which is why occasionally it’s a few hours, but usually its 5 minutes), but it breaks every time I update wordpress (what I use to run the comic backend).
The whole solution is a little janky because people aren’t actually using accounts, so it’s all cookie based nonsense and doesn’t work for some people with more strict cookie settings. Best I can tell wordpress just expects people to install a fancier comment system, but most of them have their own drawbacks and this one largely just works despite some minor annoyances, so… inertia goes on 🙂
Hmm. We might have to dock Fluffy’s pay.
…Not it!
Fluffy did his job. Kally knew killing Atter wouldn’t stop him, that’s why she went to go kill Sophie when Atter threatened to kill Peter. But she was talked down from it, because it would have meant fully breaking with the IDS.
As long as Sophie is anchoring Atter, I doubt he can be completely killed. I suspect the same would be true for Fluffy… I doubt Fluffy could be fully killed while Kally is still alive. That said, it seems like Kally’s dragon was able to damage him somewhat, he seems to be barely sentient here.
Though I don’t actually think Fluffy is a demon in the same way Atter is, Fluffy did show a small amount of recollection of past events when meeting Peter (even if it was seemingly quite vague and he should know Peter very well, meaning that he probably doesn’t have the same level of sapience a human might).
I suspect fluffy is becoming MORE real as time goes on; the memories they have of Peter would be from an earlier time period when they didn’t get out much and were less sapient, so understandably would be more vague.
…You kind of missed my joke. Sorry if my text came out as serious.
I had the impression that Fluffy recognized Peter just fine, merely was choosing to not acknowledge that fact. If I’m right, an unknown person probably would’ve not been accused of sneaking, and may not have had their species identified.
Depends what you mean by demon. A magic fueled killing machine: yes, Fluffy is one of those. A EVIL magic fueled killing machine: no, Fluffy is not one of those. I would use the latter to “define” demon.
We know Atter suffers massive data damage when he gets *ahem* breathed upon by Fluffy. AND we know someone is anchoring him (Sophie? It’s who we all assume). AND we know he is trying VERY HARD to remember “kill Summers”. But he is doing well to remember something beyond that… I wonder what he is remembering to do or maybe it is simply “…after I get a pathetic shell.”
I wonder if (A) Kally asked Sophie to stop anchoring Atter (B) Kally asked Peter to do something about Atter being still anchored (because asking Sophie to do something probably won’t get results: while asking Peter to do something probably will get results… just it will be within Peter’s timeframe).
@PastUtopia, please delete this if I mess I up the new Spoiler Tag.
Going from left to right, the following are my guesses (though I am pretty sure on almost all of them)
[spoiler title=”Characters”]
#1) Miko or VI Mium
#2) Ryn
#3) Atter
#4) Dendrin
#5) Biana
#6) Unknown Character (I have a guess)
#7) Nathan
#8) David
#9) Arron
#10 & #11) Ricci & Sophie
# 12) Marc
# 13) Minerva
# 14) Nelson Otte
# 15) Tamara
# 16) Acalia
# 17) Magnolia
[/spoiler]
Now that I am show I know how the spoiler tag works, actual spoiler guess on the identity of the pink haired girl.
This guess is based on the conversation, the fact that she is adorable, and @PastUtopia’s context clue that she has been seen in old sketches.
[spoiler title=”Pink Haired Girl Guess & Reasoning”]
#6) I think she is Naomi’s younger sister.
Reasoning: We know from this comic that Naomi has a little a sister. In the comment from that comic, PastUtopia said
“The reader was supposed to meet Naomi’s little sister by now, but unfortunately that got shuffled to later. Since we haven’t met her yet, that’s all I’m saying!”
We might have seen Naomi’s little sister in a vote incentive, but I do not remember for sure if that was it, and she was not named or stated as such, just shown with Naomi in a sketch.
[/spoiler]
If that is too much of a spoiler (as it partially based on meta-knowledge) feel free to delete it. Of course, if you delete it, I will know my guess was correct.
I concur with your guess; that would have been my guess too (largely based on appearance).
I didn’t realize we had confirmation such a person existed, though.
There is technically one more person shown, the person behind the pink haired girl, that could be Camilla with her suit-jacket opened up but that raises the question of why pink haired girl refers to her as mom especially if she is who you think she is. Perhaps a child fostered from a less powerful branch into a more powerful branch as a hostage or magical apprentice.
Of course that theory leans heavily on Past assertion that only one charter in the bottom half has not shown \ named.
There is another person *near* panel 11, but I think there’s only one person *in* panel 11. I understand the arms look like they’re in a different outfit because it’s the sort of clothing atrocity that only a younger person or more color-blind person would willingly wear. But I think this is the sort of younger person who might actually wear such a fiendish thing.
[spoiler title=”my confession”](Disclaimer: I’ve also worn such a thing, even when I was not considered a “younger person” and I’m not color-blind. But in my defense, both of my brothers are, and I got my fashion sense from them. I did not admit to this possibility in the first paragraph, because the person who explained this to me assured me very strongly that there was no such exception. I really did not want her to kick my ass, and I’d rather she not find me and kick my ass now, so… there you go.)[/spoiler]
I did not have guesses for characters 1 or 6, but otherwise your guesses match mine. (Well, OK, I’ll admit to having considered the possibility that you were the last character on the right, but, you’d know better than me. 😉
I was not as confident about the person looking the other way in panel 10 and the woman in panel 12, but in both cases, my lack of confidence was not to such a degree that I had multiple names for who they could potentially be.
[spoiler title=”Testing the spoiler tag”]But I didn’t use any surnames except for characters for whom we don’t have a surname because the given names are all unique thus far.
In other news, I have a vague feeling you’re wrong about slot 1 (mostly because the character appears to be confined and I doubt your guess would be), but right about slot 6.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=’untitled’]Miko’s tendency to throw her “meat puppet” on the floor, when she visits Mium (or when Mium visits her?) should explain why some body might be restrained while its brains are played with. Not to say that being a criminally insane wizard of death isn’t an equally legitimate reason to be restrained…[/spoiler]
Yay! It worked!
[spoiler title=”Continuing the spoiler conversation”]That seems like justification for a little restraint. That looks like a lot of restraint. That’s either a Star Trek-esque “This is not a restraint system, it’s a futuristic nanosurgical center” or the sort of restraint one might use for a criminally insane, prone to berzerk rages wizard of death”.[/spoiler]
Just sayin, so’s you know.
Thank you Amaranth, for that. I recognized them all, but since i can’t remember names, it would have taken me forever to find them.
Is Magnolia crying?
Because of emotions or because she left her eyes open for too long?
Dr. My Eyes – Jackson Brown
Panel 5: “Try not *to* be”
Fixed, thanks 🙂
Test time!
Out of the 16 closing panels, how many characters can you name? (not including the one who’s back is facing us) I am ashamed I can only name 9/16.
Pretty sure I have all 16 that can be named (including the one with their back turned from context). The only one I do not have a confident guess for is the pink haired one.
I can guess blindly from the context clue of the conversation and @PastUtopia’s comment makes me have a strong suspicion who it is, but that is an actually spoiler (though I do not think a relevant spoiler).
I got… uh… 5/16. Going to go stand in my corner of shame now.
I could maybe have guessed 2 more if I’d thought about it longer, but I caved and just looked at Amaranth’s comment.
I feel like the only reason I was able to get through them all without looking at Amaranth’s comment was I opened an editor window and went through naming everybody before I scrolled down far enough to see comments. It’s a lot easier that way, rather than noticing that somebody’d made a guess who you know without even looking at her answers that they’re probably spot on and then somehow steeling yourself from checking “Did they get the same answer as me on this one I’m not completely certain about? Dang it, I’ve seen the whole list.”
No. I don’t know the pink haired lady. I don’t have a name for the person laying in the lab, as he is technically not MYM. And I can’t name the gentleman to the left of Nathan, though I probably should be able to, he looks familiar, all them guys in IDS tin cans look alike…
Atter looks “healthy,” at least healthier than I would be after what he has been through.
Is IDS tin can guy the guy who led the assassination attempt on the consul? (That’s partially from context.)
I believe it is. He looks the same, and the context fits.
I am pretty sure the pink haired one is the unnamed one.
Hrm… I seem to be directionally challenged, still. That is Nathan’s left, but technically to the right of Nathan.
Fair; Atter got dragoned *twice*
most individuals don’t really need a second dragoning, to need a third is.. impressive.
I’ve introduced new technology for comments! You can now use spoiler tags. Spoiler tags are going to be pretty much purely optional, but you can use them as you want. For example if you want to guess the characters but want other people to have to guess on their own (or click your spoiler!) 😀
You use them like:
[spoiler title=’Title’]Spoiler content[/spoiler]
[spoiler title=’Title’]Spoiler content[/spoiler]
Having an issue with when I click on show or select in Firefox, it just jumps to the top of the page, and doesn’t open the tag.
Not sure; I just tested with Firefox and it worked fine for me. Could be related to a plug in or something?
Anyone else having an issue with the tags?
My mind just keeps racing towards triage …
Sounds like missing some javascript. If you have disabled javascript, enable it (for this site).
Otherwise, I might suspect you could be using a cached (and outdated and somehow broken) version of the spoiler code. Force refresh (ctrl+f5 or ctrl-shift-r or shift-click reload button) should fix it. (Long-shot, since it appears to be included in a standalone script, but even standalone script could have been momentarily broken.)
If neither of these helps, firefox version, OS, and a list of extensions might help us figure things out …
(It was never on my job description, but I was the de facto in-house tech support in my two last jobs …)
Panel 1: “it would be a waste to have to kill him now,”
Fixed, thanks 🙂