Contact
I’m happy to hear from readers (or anyone besides spam bots, really).
Writer / Artist / Site Admin can be reached at pastutopia@pastutopia.com
You can also reach me on Twitter as @pastutopia.
Polls
2023 Santa Hat Poll - Who will claim the Christmas Crown this year?
- Kally Summers (9%, 32 Votes)
- Ila (8%, 28 Votes)
- Naomi Atarah (8%, 28 Votes)
- Miko (6%, 22 Votes)
- Fluffy (6%, 22 Votes)
- Miko's Avatar (6%, 19 Votes)
- The Consul (5%, 18 Votes)
- Avi Atarah (5%, 16 Votes)
- Mari Kepler (4%, 14 Votes)
- Doctor Mir (3%, 11 Votes)
- Mium (2%, 8 Votes)
- Peter Kepler (2%, 8 Votes)
- Lisa (2%, 7 Votes)
- Rovak Stas (2%, 7 Votes)
- Arron Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Kyle Kepler (2%, 6 Votes)
- Camilla Canthi (2%, 6 Votes)
- Amy Selah (1%, 5 Votes)
- Magnolia Dai (1%, 5 Votes)
- Tamara (1%, 5 Votes)
- Nathan (1%, 5 Votes)
- Shitty Demon (1%, 5 Votes)
- Maia Ethi (1%, 4 Votes)
- Ashvalt Ardunni (1%, 4 Votes)
- Saria (1%, 4 Votes)
- Ashley Thomas (1%, 4 Votes)
- Artem Arduni (1%, 4 Votes)
- Alex (1%, 3 Votes)
- Arkady Arduni (1%, 3 Votes)
- Tyler Weber (1%, 3 Votes)
- Atter (1%, 3 Votes)
- Elizabeth (1%, 3 Votes)
- Ryn Koko (1%, 3 Votes)
- Toshe (1%, 2 Votes)
- Doctor Martin (1%, 2 Votes)
- Ricci (1%, 2 Votes)
- Frank (1%, 2 Votes)
- Nelson Otte (0%, 1 Votes)
- Regin Enkari (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gate (0%, 1 Votes)
- Jayce Myer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Ikirium Avon (0%, 1 Votes)
- David (0%, 1 Votes)
- Nick Otte (0%, 1 Votes)
- Joid (0%, 1 Votes)
- Yoav Cao (0%, 1 Votes)
- Biana Beyer (0%, 1 Votes)
- Vairlem (0%, 1 Votes)
- Gelon Level (0%, 1 Votes)
- Marc Idunni (0%, 1 Votes)
Total Voters: 81
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Posting this here since it doesn’t pertain to the comic pages but the comment section, while attempting to edit my comment (eventually decided not to, it wasn’t important enough to try more than 3 times) while the editing text box had focus pressing the arrow keys caused the comic page to change (as pressing the arrows navigates comic page) or pressing backspace caused the browser to go back to the previous page (normal browser behaviour), neither of which occur while using the new comment text box so maybe that could be fixed?
I have a theory/wild guess that Kor’s world invaded Central due to the presence of a S.M.A.I. This is based on little more than their only onscreen appearances in the comic being focused on smiting Mium. The Korish person we’ve seen seemed to be take orders from a S.M.A.I. Maybe it/they don’t want competition? I also wonder how another S.M.A.I would compare in regards to Mium’s mind-eating.
We comic has added a ‘buy me a cup of coffee ‘ button which I like as I am not ready to Patreon, but want to support you and the comic. Just a thought 🙂
QC comic – thx Autocorrect
This is a really old comment I meant to reply to a long time ago, but somehow slipped through the cracks. I appreciate the suggestion! I used to have a donate button, and it actually made a little bit more than the Patreon, but I decided to take it down.
I might put it back up at some point; but for the time being I wanted to focus on Patreon. I totally understand that its not the right option for everyone, but it better reflects the monetization I think is appropriate. I’m not really a starving artist, I’m a really busy hobbyist – the more the patreon grows, the more I can justify this comic as a use of my time. Donations are great, but I can’t really plan time management around donations as, in my experience, the income from them is super random.
To dig into why I don’t just leave them open, I found that I wasn’t super comfortable with the donation model I was seeing. The lion’s share of the donations were coming from people that were already supporting me (either from repeated donations or patreon) and while I really really appreciated the support, it was hard to rationalize from my point of view. I am very comfortable with the more transnational nature of Patreon where spending is less impulsive and structured around scheduled rewards – I totally get that Patreon is not “worth” it, but I would much rather see someone committing to a few dollars a month than randomly dropping 50 on an impulse, as I think that sort of transaction is better for both me and the person donating.
Anyway, this is a long rambling answer to someone that will probably never see, but I wanted to leave this question answered rather than unanswered 🙂
New speculation topic! Naomi’s magic. Something we see occasionally with Naomi is the purple gridlike lines start popping up when she wants to do something particularly absurd with a lot of power. The curious part is less that they cover her, and more that they rather quickly start spreading onto things she is holding while they are active.
It’s pretty directly implied that this reinforces whatever she is holding. The first case of this I can think is the tennis racquet during the airball game. Kally essentially shot an artillery slug at Naomi, who still just hit with the racquet, which suspiciously did not shatter to a million pieces.
Reinforcing something else that you are holding though does not seem like typically booster behavior. Their whole shtick seems to be boosting their own durability, strength, and speed. Additionally, if we think about the other boosters we have seen (using boost engines or autocasters), the IDS Soldiers and Nick Otte did not seem particularly fast, just stronger than normal, while Jayce and the leader of the hit-squad that shot Naomi were fast, but not necessarily strong. They were amplifying only a single attribute.
But Naomi we have seen do at least seven things – speed (vs Kally in Tennis, dodging around when people are trying to shoot her several times), Strength (she ripped a tank apart with her bare hands), Toughness (she fell off a 10+ story building without any real injury), Regeneration (she literally slept off a bullet wound), Reinforcement (she made the tennis racquet unbreakable), and Enhanced Sense (Mione notes that Naomi had her eyesight likely enhanced when Kally blinded her). Additionally it is implied that Naomi can at least partially see into Eidos (though not as well as Mione, who in turn is implied to not be able to see into as well as Magnolia). Side note: the more a character is drawn with their eyes closed, the more they seem to be able to “see” Eidos. Topic for a later day.
There are two possibilities than. One, the boost engine and autocasters can’t replicate what a booster can do very well, or two, Naomi is not really a booster, but something a good bit more powerful. Maybe an “Enhancer”. What Naomi does seems to be me to make something (usually herself) drastically better at doing what she wants it to do, basically “adding” a property to it. Typically this looks like boosting because she “adds” strength or speed to herself, but she has done some strange things too (like making a ball smash easily through Kally’s shield when brute force failed, by making it too mana-infused to be effected).
It is a theory that will be enhanced if we meet another booster that can not do the things Naomi can, but it is also possible if you think about that that is just a logically extension of a boosters powerset and she happens to be the strongest one in town.
Oh, and there was more point of Naomi’s magic that is important to go over. The null caster failed to nullify it. When he, having just plowed through Kally’s dragon, is grabbed by Naomi, instead of her magic shutting off, she can still go toe-to-toe with someone in a powersuit while mana fireworks go off where they are touching until Ila shot him.
We have never seen another character get the lines on their skin either. That said, I think @PastUtopia has said that Naomi is a booster, but I have to go look at the comments to see exactly what he said (sometimes he’s a cagey bastard – no offense) about exact wording… Will post back if I find the exact comment I’m remembering.
PastUtopia did say she’s a booster, just a very good one.
Thinking about the way the magic system works, it makes sense that a null caster has difficulty nullifying a booster. It’s been stated that it’s difficult to directly affect the Eidos of another person. Naomi’s boosting directly affects her, so to dispel it, the null caster would have to affect her Eidos. Thus, it would take someone like Mium (that is, highly efficient at null casting) to be able to do that, if anyone could. It would possibly also take very high energy reserves. Maybe just Mium only while in the F10 chassis.
Hah! I’d forgotten about Contact page forum topics…
I agree in general, I think that we just need to see another powerful booster to compare Naomi to.
The trouble a null caster has with a booster may explain why Mium “loses” to Naomi in sports and games. Beyond just probably not trying to actually win, she is sort of rock to his scissors, while I guess Kally would be paper. Even if Naomi can smash up Eidos constructs (like against Atter’s demon things) she couldn’t really win a fight like that as a powerful Eidos construct user can win a fight from miles away, while Mium can pretty much complete ignore Eidos constructs (though maybe not dragon fire).
That said, I think Mium is sort of like “machete” in the game of rock paper scissors… sure, he hard counters paper, but you aren’t going to do much better with rock or scissors. Which would make Mium F10 sort of like “battle ax”.
I am curious if the F10 Mium is really that much more powerful, or if that was because Mium was just trying harder.
Could I get an avatar of some form for the site? Any character is fine.
Done. Sorry for the delay. Picked a humorous out of character exasperated Mium one since I thought it was funny and had it laying around, let me know if you want something else.
Oh, hey. This is where the magical avatars come from. Could I get one? If it is not too much trouble. Maybe the brain-hurting Nathan from a few pages ago when he was talking to Naomi? 😀
Done. Hopefully got the right one.
I don’t want to be a pain, but if you happen to draw one of those swanky new avatars for Rovak, well… I wouldn’t mind…
Done
So what do you think Miko and Peter talked about in regard to Mir. Miko brings up Mir in a pretty ominous sounding lead in, then we cut away from the conversation. When we cut back to Peter, he looks something, even Naomi immediately picks up on him being not okay. Miko’s well being is one of the few things Peter seems to genuinely care about (Kally’s well being is another).
Point 1) Miko knows about Mir and seemed to deliberately try to provoke her when they met. Mir seems to know about and hate Peter, but did not recognize Miko.
Point 2) Miko is at least partially artificial/a cyborg. She has some sort of chip in her head, that connects directly to her brain to the point where an AI (Mium) could literally hijack her body. This suggests it’s tied into her nervous system/brain directly. She not only seems unperturbed by this, but seems to imply she’d happy go further in replacing “fleshy bits”. Mir has a seemingly entirely artificial body, but was once a human (I think), so is either a brain integrated with an artificial body or a digitized brain.
Point 3) Mium trolls the hell out of Mir much like he does Miko and Kally, rather than just mostly ignoring her like he does most people.
Okay, now we get the crazy theories.
Crazy #1) Mir does not appear to have been a robot lady that long. It seems the CEO hadn’t seen her like that before. Peter was at Avon not that long ago. Peter may have been involved in Mir becoming Mir. This could have even been a test for something he needed to do with Miko…??
Crazy #2) Miko is jealous of Mir. Miko implies she isn’t particularly attached to her fleshy body, and considering her appearance and apathy on the subject, as well a chip plugged directly into her brain, I’m inclined to think there may be something wrong with her body. She may see Mir going full robot and be onboard for that idea, especially if she is sort of insecure of her appearance. While we have only seen her avatar as chibi, in bonus art it is not, um, a runt.
What do you guys think? Got any more theories? Think there is anything to these?
The past few pages have me wondering where M.Y.M’s restrictions come from. I think the general consensus is they were imposed by someone else but I am starting to suspect they are self imposed. I can see whoever was smart enough to create an AI also being smart enough to realize how easily said AI could justify circumventing any restriction would be (see many examples in the comic). I can also see Peter and MYM discussing the issue with Peter pointing out the dangers of unrestricted behavior in a way to have MYM set his own limits. After all civilization only exists because we set and adhere to our own self imposed restrictions of behavior.
I put this in the wild fan theory page so PastUtopia can ignore it.
I think it was a collaboration of sorts, with the original parameters being refined and added to by both Peter and Miko, and then being re-modified by Mium.
I have some competing theories on this. Unfortunately I am in a bit of an awkward position because the Patreon bonus comic has some additional hints here and I am not sure I can/should post them here. I have spoilered it as mouseover text, but it is not actually a spoiler for the bonus comic.
Minor “Minus Years” Spoiler (Mouseover text, no real link).
My main theory at this point is that Mium is made up of lesser intelligence, that maybe could have been bound by restrictions. While these restrictions still exist, many of them are now ineffective.
That said, I think some of them provide him motivation to not do things, at very least. I think it is less a wall than it is a hurdle. Like “avoid doing X unless value of X is Y greater than not doing X”. Like he has some restriction on not fully activating the “A.A. System” but as soon as Miko is in danger on it goes. He has some restriction about not taking more processing power, but Miko could authorize him taking more… despite him apparently writing OTHER of her overrides out of the system.
That particular exchange shows to me that while he does aid Peter, there is some degree of strain. Probably just because he thinks he can do a better job at with more freedom… but the logical conclusion of that is something that Peter wants to avoid, and we are not yet sure how far Mium would take it if completely off the leash.
That said, I expect that Mium really wanted to jump the leash, he could. That he does not means that “freedom” or “expansion” are probably not his driving goals.
Well, it’s been awhile and this hardly counts as a theory… but damn. Tom references “ol’ Summers”, while Naomi immediately jumps to Kallisto, Tom is initially confused. We know that Tom works with Nathan, and that therefor his name is likely Nathan Summers.
This makes double sense that Arron would predictably try to reach Nathan Summers when Kallisto Summers disappeared. Nathan is very likely related to her. Either brother, father, uncle or cousin seems likely.
My current guess is brother, but as we have not seen him yet, he could be Arron/Kyle’s generation and be old enough to be Kally’s father/uncle. If it’s a brother, it’s almost certainly an older brother given that he is perhaps more legendary than someone dubbed “the red dragon witch”.
I think you’re on to something here.
I am fairly excited about this one. We have anecdotal evidence that magic is somewhat tied to genetics, and we have the likely sibling of Kally here. I am expecting great things from this Nathan.
Not to mention that Peter wants Nathan to look into Kor’s World, and we are talking about someone that does not play well with others (to put it mildly).
If Nathan is a Summers and is as powerful as Kally, this will be a good hint that they could be from (or descendants of, as we do not know how long ago the Incursion was yet) one of the pre-Incursion Magic Societies, maybe even Ervon Magical Society (the only one named in the Lore).
Personally I really hope there is a prequel cover about the Incursion, because that sounds like an awesome story (though it might be a little dark compared this one).
Alright. So obviously the blurred out text on Panel 7 of September 5ths page is mission critical to acquiring new theories. I asked PastUtopia if I could post the text I’ve been able to salvage from it, and he said I could.
What I can get:
—– — —– —— it’s* —– ——
shut up peter* don’t —– —- — stupid* ———-
it’s still so dark
The panels are sequentially less blurry, so the first is basically impossible and the last is easy. The * are guesses that look right and make sense in context. Once I got “shut up”, “Peter” and “Stupid” were natural fits, consider who is doing the mumbling. The first “it’s” comes from matching it to the later less blurry one.
After the first “it’s” is probably “it’s still dark”. I think she is mumbling about not wanting to wake up, but my instinct is that there is some spoiler in there, mostly because it is blurred out.
A fun challenge, though I’m not sure there is any useful info in there.
What I got is mostly the same:
“mmmm… ** **** ***** it’s still dark”
“shut up Peter, don’t agree with ***(1), stupid… ********”
“it’s still… so… dark…”
The first word of the first panel is just the same letter over and over, and “m” makes more sense than “n”, “u”, “w” or “v”. The rest can be compared against later bubbles.
The (1) I think is either “him” or “her”. If there is any spoiler here, it’d be that. There is probably a name in the first paragraph, probably the fourth word. No idea what it is though, and I’m not sure it’s possible to decode (I zoomed in on the image and still couldn’t get it).
Damn. I think that solves this one too.
“mmm…. go away Nathan, it’s still dark”
“shut up Peter, don’t agree with him, stupid… ********”
“it’s still… so… dark…”
God damn it is times like this that I love this comic. It was right there, and going back I can definitely match that to “Nathan”.
So this came up on September 1st comic comments and I thought it was interesting. Is Peter and Doctor Martin the same person?
Evidence:
-Martin is missing.
-Peter seems to have been involved with Avon in a big way.
-Peter has MYM.
-Peter talks about the theories of artificial Eidos Keys.
Problems:
-Peter doesn’t seem like he would make the F-Prototypes. While he might make pure AI, he’s more of a hacker then a scientist.
-Martin seems like he was probably around too long. He was a top researcher for Avon, known to their executive board. Peter was only missing a few months.
-Peter is “in the top 5” of people Mir hates. Martin would presumably be #1.
Thoughts?
I need to go hunting but I seem to recall (the first boardroom scene maybe?) someone mentioning Martin and a thought bubble of a bearded man with glasses. True Peter did think of using a disguise but I think the figure was older and non-scrawny.
Interesting. I do not remember seeing Martin. I will definitely have to go hunting. So far I’ve given a small chance to Peter being Martin, a small chance to MYM being Martin somehow computerized, and a large chance to a new character.
I am hoping for a new character, so evidence for that would be worth another read through. Like I really need an excuse…
i think that the char you where thinking of was tom. the freeman looking guy with a crowbar. and that was way back where we learned about the bridgepoint data being copied.
i think the first time we hear about martin is when illa and mium have their first throw down.
Apparently I was making up panels in my own mind or more likely incorrectly remembering a scene from a different comic. I had thought there was a scene where Dr. Frankenmir was raving on about the “degenerate” Martin and there was an image of the lower 3/4 of a face. I can’t find it so I now suspect I am just whacked .
I was musing on theme songs for your characters and came up with This List.
And I get to see if I can follow simply instruction on web links
Well, that’s certainly an… eclectic list. Of course, that’s quite appropriate for an eclectic list of characters. Hell of an undertaking there, half way through I thought “I can’t have that many characters, can I?”
I did listen to at least 30 seconds of each 😉 some of them I listen watched all the way though. Naomi and Tyler were the clear winners (based purely on the music) but that’s probably music-favoritism… 😉
Plus, made it through an entire list of music videos without getting rick-rolled, so that’s a plus.
A+ on Linking 101; I think you are ready for Linking 201, but sadly we don’t offer that yet… 😉
Interesting. I’m not sure they are all the choice I would have made. In particular, Peter’s seems like it should be something with more gravitas. While he may not treat it seriously, it seems like there is something ominous behind it.
Of course, music taste is highly subjective. Frankly, I’m not sure I know enough music to make a list like this, though, so it is still super impressive even if I’m not sold on all of them.
I think I would probably go get a cable subscription if The Far Side of Utopia ever became a TV show and could have music. That would be awesome.
True it was kind of a spur of the moment thing limited by songs I actually own. Several have almost no basis because they appeared infrequently and long ago. Peter is problematic in that you want to root for him and then we get a personal interaction scene and is kind of a dick in most of them. Perhaps Russ Ballard Voices in honor of his constantly active inner monologue? Although it has connotations of mental illness which aren’t warranted. Kalli should be William Tell not Esky (I think that who I gave it to). Dr. Mir I should update to the Hitler rant video done as Gangnum Style and Rovak’s latest speech left me thinking Weird Al’s Trigger Happy.
This is a cool idea!
i would make one, but they would all be anime themes if i did it… -.-
I decided to change Rovak to this because it is to upbeat be a song about a murderer and I like the AMV. Not being lazy this time Dr. Frankenmir’s new theme
Poking about in my music files I think I found a Peter Theme you might like better
Haha, yes! As soon as she said Peter’s music should be more ominous, I immediately thought of the Peter Gunn theme. I’d never seen this video of it, though; I originally knew it from the Spy Hunter video game.
The teal/blonde haired hackers girl name is (maybe spoiler) Tamara.
I noticed the character’s names are in the URL of their image the cast page. Obviously I checked hacker girl as it lists ??? as the name, and there it was.
You can delete this data mined theory if you want PastUtopia. Maybe want to fix that though.
Huh.
The same process also provides “Query”‘s real name–which is kind of anticlimactic, to be honest. 🙂
I am VERY favorably impressed with your investigatory skills. ^^
This is pretty much the only webcomic I follow at this point, so I have a lot of time between updates to dig around the site.
The depth of the rabbit holes around here is what I like. I’m sure, for example, there is an entire backstory to Tamara (and every other character). This means I can work on trying to uncover what it is. With a lot of fiction, it would be pointless because it doesn’t go that deep. Things not in the story are just empty space. I always get the feeling here that I have not gotten to the empty space no matter how far I go.
et tu, delta-v? 😐
I’m going to have to be more careful 😛
Past Utopia really needs to remove this charter from the cast page as her role seems to have been split off into two charters, Miko pre disguise and Tamara the other teally haired hacker girl, eventually named in comic after she is hired by MSB. And place Tamera in background characters. The last good closeup we have is http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-thursday-september-22nd . Miko posibly should be move from secondary to primary character.
Oops I somehow confused Miko with Saira. There is no edit button in this section.
Which brings up the unanswered question as to why Tamera felt the need to disguise herself. So maybe we will see her again and she is on secondary rather than background charter list for a reason after all.
Characters are placed into Main/Secondary/Background based on how heavily they feature in my outline of the story. This could be considered minor spoilers, but, on the other hand, the outline and the comic do not always reflect each other that much as a lot gets cut from the comic by necessity.
I will say that a lot of Tamara’s story got cut so far, but, Miko’s story for the first handful of chapters was cut as well, and eventually Miko showed up more, so it’s possible that the same will be true for Tamara, it just depends on how effectively her story tells the main story people are trying to follow, haha 🙂
I was testing a new comment engine on this page, but I scrapped it because it doesn’t work with my edit mode. I finally disabled it entirely.
I’m going to keep talking to myself here till it becomes a thing or PastUtopia tells me to stop…
What clues have been given on the IDS World? It has been updated to be called “Central” in the Setting page notes, but still says almost nothing about it.
The big things we know:
There was a war with Kor’s World there.
They are aiming to migrate people to Malsa. This is tied to the Bridgepoint project, as they started talking about it in the context of that getting sabotaged. They could be either trying to evacuate or colonize/invade. Or both.
They let the IDS run around on a pretty long leash. They not only let them do basically anything they want in “Palindra” but they let them fight among themselves.
I don’t mind you posting here (or anyone else). I do see these, but since they are theories I think it’s best if I don’t personally contribute 😉
Oh man. I can’t believe I’ve never seen this page’s comments.
I think the “Central” is probably devastated by the Incursion, and probably being evacuated/phased out. Either they are abandoning it, or they want to try risky terraforming magic/technology to fix it. Otherwise why try to remake the Bridgepoint? They are trying to limit interdimensional transit, and that’s the opposite of that.
Guessing that it was Earth or “Earth Analog”, the nations probably tried to nuke the invaders.
Been wondering if any world or culture understands nuclear physics in the comic worlds though, as the implications of that and magic are big (small changes that cause BIG problems).
Question theory this time! Characters who keep their eyes closed? Only two characters are frequently drawn with their eyes closed, Magnolia and Mione.
Magnolia may very well be blind. During the robot arc, she asks Maia what was going on. It’s sort of speculative, but we’ve only seen her twice I think.
Mione is clearly NOT blind. We see open her eyes semi frequently. But unless she’s looking at something, she’s drawn with them closed. I don’t see this being a purely stylistic thing considering two things!
One, they are more “off” color then most, two they are drawn ever so slightly off style (the light part goes all the way around the pupil – the only other eye drawn like this is Mir’s right eye). Between these and some vague hints, I suspect Mione has some sort of “second sight” ability related to magic, particularly as she is blinded worse than anyone else by Kally’s light burst during the tennis match (and may even be who it was targeted at blinding to cover whatever else she did).
Well, the Mione one is basically confirmed, that she can “see” into Eidos, including through walls.
While I don’t read a lot of Japanese Manga, the closed-eyes-chevrons treatment is kind of a “thing” usually meaning “happy” or “pleased with one’s self”, but not always. I really hadn’t thought much about it until you brought it up . Oh, and Naomi does it frequently when she’s pleased about something.
As far as style, PastUtopia has been upgrading his art skills furiously, and that may account for the differences. Or maybe not–let’s *Ahem* keep an eye on the eyes. 🙂
The most clear example is here:
http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-thursday-july-28th
As the other eyes have a full dark fill on top. This is a small detail, and the art does change a lot, it might be nothing. Or might be because her eyes are a lighter color than most. But I think it is basically confirmed that Mione’s eyesight is abnormal at this point.
I know what you mean, though. I did not include Naomi as I think she only closes her eyes when smiling. Like:
http://pastutopia.com/?comic=comic-for-wednesday-january-13th
For her it is the difference if she looks “cute” or “psycho” when smiling. The above image almost made me think she is not quite so overrated.
Still pretty curious on Magnolia, but we haven’t seen her much. Her bio says “smiling” so she may just be the “happy” group.
I think the dark fill is shadow from eyebrows. Check out Arron HERE.
Ahh, nuts! That link is incomplete. Try HERE, (Panel 3) instead.
It looks like it is a subtle effect to show he is startled, but it does suggest the dark fill is part of lighting. That Mione’s rarely has them is then likely because her eyes are very light colored. I will have to keep an eye on characters with light eye colors.
I do think Mione have special sight is confirmed, I guess the question now is if it has anything to do with her eyes or is just part of her magic.
I have to say, the art for Arron is the most expressive. I do not know why, but it makes me emphasize with him a lot more than I would otherwise. He is essentially a minor character and partial antagonist, and some old guy, but I find myself rooting for him in his scenes.
Yeah, I identify with him a lot–that’s why I picked him for my Avvie. ^^
And, yeah, Mione’s eidos-sight is absolutely confirmed. You nailed that one, no question. 🙂
Another topic! I recently reread the archive (at least the first half). The A.A. System. I don’t even have any theories. Seems to be some sort of secondary system for Mium, but hasn’t come up recently.
Anyone got theories or ideas?
So is there where we post spoiler speculation?
If not, please remove this comment. Also, maybe spoilers!
Knowing the Miko is a girl and that “Miko” is not her real name, I think it is a good lock that Miko is probably Peter’s cousin, Taki?
-Miko and Peter have a somewhat informal relationship.
-Taki ‘she doesn’t really talk to anyone besides her cousin’ and Miko shows a disdain for talking to people.
-Miko has blue eyes like Peter. Based on the name, Taki may be half-some other ethnicity explaining the hair color.
I think this is basically confirmed. The only other option (in my mind) was the hacker girl and she always had the wrong eye color (a non-natural color, meaning not from IDS World). Now we “know” her name isn’t Taki.
Could be someone we haven’t met yet, but I think it’s more or less confirmed that it’s Miko.
That’s the way I read it, too. 🙂
MYM F8
I just saw this comment and am a little baffled. Beyond that it appears to be a deduction of character naming, not sure why it’s here? 😀
I didn’t want to be too spoilery in case I’m right, so I hid it here. ^^
I also think he may be part of the reason that Peter went rogue–just guessing. ^^ Dr. Mir used the term “successful prototype” in reference to Ila. Emphasis: successful.
Feel free to delete this whole conversation, if you wish. I’m happy now. ^^
This comment is more then a YEAR old and we still don’t know the details here.
We still don’t actually know why Peter went rogue or where he got Mium/MYM.
Reading this I actually went back to check. I’d never realized that Mium wasn’t introduced as a prototype/AI, since by the time I started reading that was confirmed (and I binge read the archive when I started).
I’m not sure what Delta-v meant, either.
As far as discussing why Peter “went rogue”: We don’t have much to go on. But, if I had to guess, I’d say he left because of all the corruption he found.
While the IDS is -supposed- to police interdimensional traffic, Peter knows how much illegal traffic and black market activity has been going on under the nose of Malsa’s government. (Case in point, when Peter helped Tyler Weber create a sensor and showed him the activity, who then informed his superior.)
IDS not only knows about this activity, the higher ups seem involved and are trying to cover it up. My guess is Peter is trying to learn how deep the corruption goes and is fighting it in his own way. Or maybe he’s just that fed up with IDS.
Regardless of his reasons, he’s gathered a small group of allies who are insanely strong and whom he trusts. And by becoming a student in Malsa’s academy and injecting himself into current affairs, he’s in a good position to gather intel and make an impact.
Well, I wasn’t quite sure why he put it here (though he later answered that) but I think he put there when he figured out two background terms put together phonetically sounds like another characters name and was looking for confirmation 😉 At this point it’s not much of a spoiler though (as said background terms have since been applied directly to the character) 😛 especially when get the gist that Peter is playing ‘hide in plain sight’ cards pretty hard for some reason.
I think you’re definitely onto some of the threads; there will certainly be some more dots to connect soon… and if I have anything to say about it even more questions raised! 😛
We’ll also see Peter’s plan adapt – his interactions with Tyler are becoming far more significant than he planned, as Tyler is not quite the pawn he imagined; he didn’t expect the direct intervention from Kor’s World; or that IDS Headquarters was going to take an interest as fast as they did.
And he’s not the only one with schemes!