NP Wednesday April 18, 2018

[NP Wednesday April 18, 2018]

18 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The characters are essentially their own persons within the mind of the author.

If the author makes the character do something that the character does not want to do, then the character resists and the creativity stops.

Speaking as a sometime writer, there's nothing more annoying than losing an argument with your own character.

[Story Monday April 16, 2018]

14 hours ago, Scotty said:

I think the retcon there was that the Warrior you played in the first game was Aiden, so if you played the Warrior it was still your character that ended up becoming Diablo in the second game, If you played the other two classes though your characters were treated as friends or support for Aiden. and I think they technically made appearances in the second game as NPCs you could interact with.

Great.  My magic user isn't even the hero now...  Just a part of an idiot's posse.  Thanks Blizzard.  That feels so much better...

I do have to say one of my favorite things from D1 was spamming the "Charge Bolt" spell down long hallways in the upper dungeon levels.  The bolts moved slowly but I don't think they gave the bolts a range limit beyond destroying a bolt it when it hit a wall.  I could go back up to town and be topping off my potion supply and suddenly hear the sound of a minor creature getting killed.  That never got old for me.

 

[Story Monday April 16, 2018]

11 minutes ago, Scotty said:

To be fair, I don't think Blizzard expected Diablo to get as popular as it did, that cinematic was extended later to include the part about going east so that it tied into the sequel, yeah it was lazy but this was 20+ years ago working with what they had available and the skill level they had. I compare it to everything Dan did prior to Painted Black.

I see what you mean but I'm not any happier.  D3 however addressed this and made the Wanderer Leoric's son, not the D1 hero, if I remember continuity correctly.  I guess technically that makes Leah, should she ever return, the heir to the throne of Conduras...  Or worse Diablo himself now is.

[Story Monday April 16, 2018]

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

The first game mainly mentions it in the lore and the Hero, after defeating Diablo, is shown in the end cinematic shoving Diablo's Soul Stone into his head thinking he could be able to contain the evil.

 

I was never happy with Blizzard taking over my character and making them do something this stupid.  With Diablo 2 underlining how stupid my D1 character had been.

[NP Wednesday April 18, 2018]

1 hour ago, WR...S said:

...it hits me that Ashley is now (probably) capable of learning Rhoda's powers.

Question then. Do NP comics contain sufficient ambient magical energy for Ashley to cast Rhoda's spells?

[Story Monday April 16, 2018]

2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I think one of the Sketchbook entries had an homage to Deckard Cain; at the very least I remember Dan quoting "Stay a while and listen." from the first game. Of course if it was a Sketchbook I suspect it was a Patreon request, but I still got the impression Dan was familiar with the character.

It was Sarah as Deckard Cain.  I suspect the request was somewhat bewildering for Dan too...

[Story Wednesday, Apr 18, 2018]

Poor Ashley.  She doesn't get any respect...

And that golem...If it is capable of repairing itself we simply must call him "Golempool".

[Things That Are Just Annoying]

 

9 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Do not disrespect the candy coating.

Without the candy coating, M&M's become a gooey bag of chocolate and peanuts.

Without the candy coating, that apple on a stick is actually a HEALTHY snack.

We certainly don't want anything like that to happen.

The candy coating is my favorite part of the M&M.  The rest of it is milk chocolate.   I don't dis milk chocolate by any means but there's also a ton of other milk chocolate delivery systems out there if that's all you want.

I did experiments to figure out how few M&Ms I could put in my mouth to that that burst of sugary "candy coating" flavor.  the answer was 3 regular M&Ms. 

I used to dislike M&Ms minis because the coating didn't taste right.  that has been corrected.

 

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

But it can be fun! Wapsi Square spawned the Extended Wapsiverse, which now has several recognized significant differences from canon - one character, in particular, is in a lesbian sexual/romantic relationship with a satyr in the canon but is married to a male centaur in the EW.

it helps that the creator has pretty much reduced his entire original cast to guest star and walk-on roles...

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Perhaps Lord Tedd does not rule his native reality?

"Lord Tedd" and "General Shade Tale" may be what they call themselves when they are playing games.

If those two, as children, discovered a way to remotely view and manipulate alternate realities, they may have begun their reign of terror with no more malicious intent than a couch potato playing Pacman.

Or another game....

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

5 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

You need to have some manner of realistic claim or the title will not mean anything. I, for example, am an actual Time Lord. I am the undisputed ruler of October 13, 1982.

Oh so YOU'RE responsible for that Oktoberfest incident...we'll be looking for you when we start....The Hunt for Red Hacktober...

8 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

....I always get a little nervous when I see such elaborate fanon being spun based on so little actual data.  I've seen far too many times when the actual canon differs from what people have built up in their heads or fanfics, and the people who'd invested so much into their own speculations and were so certain they had "figured out" what was "true"/"real", when contradicted, left the fandom in a huff, declaring that the author had gotten everything wrong, not them.

I'm playing it more like an intelligence analyst.  What reasonable conclusions can I tease out of how tenuous a set of facts?  Sometimes I speculate outside the facts but I keep the distinction in my head.

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

The only evidence we have for Lord Tedd having a position of political power is his title of "Lord" and Shade Tale's title of "General" - and without having encountered anyone from that world not a part of Lord Tedd''s group, we have no way of knowing under what authority (if any) they assumed those titles. Personally, I'm not ready to assume that Lord Tedd rules anything.

...which is entirely reasonable.  Lord Tedd could be calling himself that in a super-villain way.  As if he's the "Lord of All Tedds" or something like that. 

Except Shade-Tail does use "m'lud" when talking to Lord Tedd.  That is what suggests LT has some kind of actual authority.  I hasten to add it doesn't prove it, but it holds out the possibility.  We also have Nioi referring to Lord Ted in the privacy of her own mind as "master".  Lord Tedd could more like a cult leader than running an actual nation.  It just seems like there's some kind of organization there with Lord Tedd at the top.  One large enough to have an army with a "General". 

16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

While it might be just general Shade Tail isolating Lord Tedd, there was sort of post-apocalyptic feel in those few images we got of their world. My speculation is that there was big war there, possibly related to magic reset. Maybe magic reset with five thousand seers ...

And Lord Tedd became Lord not only because he has the power, but also because the population of US is just one tenth of before-war, and that's only because US-based seers like Lord Tedd and Lord Arthur (deceased ; no provable connection to Shade Tail ) won ; other countries ended worse (*cough* Moscow sea *cough*).

The important point to pick out is Lord Tedd's organization, however big or not it is, feels isolated, and independent.  Rather than inserting a post-apocalyptic scenario, I look around for other EGS continuity I can stick onto that feeling.  Damian was supposed to be the "lord of Fire" prophesied to unite the Seynoulu.  People have speculated for years that this might actually be Tedd, so why not make it true with Lord Tedd, running a cult/empire of Seynoulu?

maybe they're HQed in the remains of the Shady Corporation where Shade-Tail and his brothers were created.  maybe somewhere else.  I find it amusing though I have no evidence for it that Lord Tedd's headquarters are still in his dad's house's basement.  Just drilled out and massively expanded.  Since second life has Kaoli living openly, and Nioi is a part of Lord Tedd's world, I choose to believe that Lord Tedd's universe is a darker reflection of Second Life.   In a world where magic and aliens are much more common, Lord Tedd's magitech might give him the ability to force the US government to keep its distance.  again, I don't have evidence.  all I claim is this is a theory that fits the facts.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Actually, there is another problem with a dictatorship you failed to take into account: giving up power is something which happens when you die. I don't think Lord Tedd CAN give up power and survive that. Well, maybe if he escapes to different universe.

Also, it would be irresponsible. Most likely, general Shade Tail or someone even worse would fill the power vacuum. Even if Tedd's power is based on some tools he is able to destroy so they won't end up in bad hands, it wouldn't help. Moving from dictatorship to something at least resembling democracy is hard and require some group which can be trusted.

(Most real cases of moving to democracy involve giving power to group which claims to be democratic and when it turns it wasn't, well, better luck next time. It can be seen fantastically on France.)

Democracy is actually a very random and frustrating form of government.  It has a great marketing team but you really do have to read the manual and install all the security fixes.   One of the hardest problems transitioning from autocracy to democracy is that the people are still acclimated to autocratic methods of getting things done.  It's very tempting to get frustrated with democracy and go autocratic or just decide "now it's my chance to rule" and not bother to begin with.  I think this is what happened to Russia despite the recent sham elections there.

We also get the "1-vote democracy " from this kind of thing, where the people finally get a vote, kick out the old authorities, and the new government decides that's enough elections.  This is what happened in the Palestinian Gaza when the Palestinian Authority was voted out and Hamas was voted in.

I am making the possibly flawed assumption that Lord Tedd grew up in a roughly 21st century environment and that he established an autocracy in the US with the means to make it stick.  If true, there might still be a US government that could fill the power vacuum left by Lord Tedd, should he have an attack of conscience and step down. 

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Well her original motivation of coming to main universe was to find out if Dr. Sciuridae is alive there and knows how to defeat general Shade Tail ...

I told you my memory was hazy... 

Idle speculation: An Uryouom TF Gun stabilizes a Greater Seynoulu's ability to transform in a lot of ways.  Can a device be built that puts a greater syenolu back in his pre-TF-Gun state?  It wouldn't stop General Shade-Tail but it would literally and figuratively slow him down...
 

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

17 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Unless, as I keep suggesting, he was just pretending he doesn't care where Nioi is.

It's possible.  Certainly he wasn't able to move against her or didn't think he could move against her when he and Lord Tedd had that talk.

One alternate possibility is Shade-Tail tried to kill Nioi and failed and that's why Nioi was traveling around other universes than her own, but I have no evidence for it.  I just throw it out as a theory that fits the facts.

19 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

YES.

Nioi is nice to Lord Tedd. Sure, Shade Tail CAN say that she just pretends to be nice and wants to hurt Tedd, and he will probably be successful in convincing Tedd to get rid of her. BUT it will mean he shows Lord Tedd that pretending to be nice is possible. Shade Tail is in MUCH better position when Tedd isn't realizing that.

Pretty much.  People are messy and hard to control, as Nazis, Soviets and the British Crown all found out. 

21 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

She's at worse position because Lord Tedd will still default to Shade Tail, but yes: even if she builds up her relationship with Lord Tedd to point where he would default to her, she would still be vulnerable by this. Even the "Lord Tedd sees the truth himself" can be dangerous to her ; she needs him not only capable of recognizing Shade Tail is using him, but also confident enough to not fear everyone else is also using him after that.

This is always the problem with a dictatorship of any size.  If there's power to be had, people who want it will act however they must to get it.  This is why many third-world autocracies are run by extended family of the dictator.  If Lord Tedd wants people around him he can trust he may well have to give up the power that attracts untrustworthy people to begin with.

35 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Which explains why she wants to sidestep the issue by getting rid of Shade Tail instead, despite the fact that it makes her manipulator AND it may even actually hurt their side.

Do we have reason to think Nioi actually trying to eject/eliminate Shade Tail?  My memory of the few comics with Lord Tedd, Nioi or Shade Tail in them is a little hazy.  It's certainly possible, however.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

15 hours ago, Scotty said:

It wouldn't be hard though. When we saw Lord Tedd looking for Nioi, General Shade Tail said "Sorry, M'Lord, I don't keep track of your pets" which to us is an indication that Shade Tail doesn't care what Tedd does, but if Shade Tail is always like that, then Tedd might just chalk it up to Shade Tail being gruff as usual.

But if Shade Tail does get any hints that Nioi is onto his scheme, whatever it is, then Shade Tail could build up just enough "evidence" that the reason Nioi had disappeared (maybe on more than one occasion?) was that she was plotting against Tedd and had only pretended to be nice to get close. Shade Tail could put on a whole "It's my fault, I should have realized she was up to something when you first asked about her whereabouts. She had me fooled as well." and even if Tedd was emotionally attached to Nioi, he's very likely emotionally attached to Shade Tail and has known him longer than Nioi, so the default trust would be in Shade Tail. Lord Tedd's logic would be "everyone wants to take advantage of me, but Shade Tail is always there when it matters."

You have hit on the most important part of maintaining control.  As long as Lord Tedd defaults to Shade Tail first and before anybody else, it's all good for Shade-tail.

The "I don't keep track of your pets" strip is what suggested to me that Shade-Tail is getting complacent.  It's an indication that Shade-Tail doesn't consider Nioi to be a threat to his manipulation of Lord Tedd.  and we've seen Nioi as a very proactive individual.

Nioi can become a threat even if she herself never figures Shade Tail out.  She can become the voice Lord Tedd listens to more than Shade-Tail.  she can encourage Lord Tedd to be more self-reliant.

Running a "she's a manipulator" game against Nioi is itself a problem because it asks Lord Tedd to look for manipulators and consider what a manipulator is and how they operate.   Shade -Tail is best off with Lord Tedd being clueless. Anything that asks Lord Tedd to grow up and take responsibility for who is around him and what they're telling him is a threat to Shade-Tail's control...even if the asking comes from Shade-Tail. 

Nioi likely knows what's up and realizes that she has the same problem.  Pointing out Shade-Tail as a manipulator will also allow Shade-Tail to say the same about her.  her best bet is to build up the hurt and damaged parts of Lord Tedd and hope he will see the truth himself. 

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

9 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Shade Tail wouldn't want ONLY rational reasons.

Needing reasons is actually a symptom something is going wrong.  As any good manipulator knows, it's all about removing choice by evoking powerful emotions  The mind being manipulated will provide any number of rationalizations to support an emotional decision without prompting.  If the manipulator has to actually provide those reasons themselves, they're losing control.

10 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... telling them what to think would actually be counter-productive wouldn't it?

Yes.  Because it exposes the puppet strings the manipulator has in place.   There are always some even if they aren't total.

15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

She described herself as servant. She likely does have SOME position. Wasn't Eva Braun photograph and photography studio assistant?

Not general, sure.

Probably not in the military even, but likely what we'd call today a "civilian contractor."  I don't actually know though.

17 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yes ... but would that be worth it? Tedd might been emotionally unstable to the point that he would get HARDER to control if hurt too much.

(Also, I think that for real cementing, there would need to be more than Shade Tail's word to convince Tedd.)

It's a tough thing to deal with someone like Nioi who has the potential to disrupt the emotional dependency the manipulator needs to have control.  A lot of time the best thing is to make sure the dependency on the manipulator is intact and leave the rest alone.  Acting against a Nioi directly is something else that calls unwanted attention to the manipulator's puppet strings.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

1 minute ago, hkmaly said:

We are getting closer

Lord Tedd doesn't need Shade Tail's approval. But Shade Tail positioned himself as most reliable advisor (if not only advisor), and Tedd is not so confident in his political decisions, so he rarely does something Shade Tail didn't approved.

I see shade-Tail as encouraging an emotional dependency on himself.  Shade-Tail is the steel in Lord Tedd's spine.  Shade-Tail wouldn't want a series of rational reasons why he occupies a special place with Lord Tedd but a void in Lord Tedd's life that only Shade Tail's confidence keeps at bay. 

A good manipulator can insinuate themselves into exactly the position you describe without ever having to tell the person they're manipulating what to think.

3 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Shade Tail is advisor, not pet. Him referring to Nioi as pet is exactly to highlight the difference between them, despite both being subordinates on the chart. On the other hand, he needs to be careful: his own teaching would make Lord Tedd turn against him if he would suspect Shade Tail is not following orders.

Yes. Nioi has lot of influence on Lord Tedd. If Shade Tail really didn't knew where she is and didn't cared, he got too complacent. But ... it's possible he just pretended that.

I expect that Nioi has no official role in whatever Hierarchy Lord Tedd has.  Not to go all Godwin's Law, if Lord Tedd is Hitler, Nioi is Eva Braun.  Hers is not a General Staff sort of role.

Also, if shade-Tail is a General, that implies soldiers.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

11 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I agree with this, however that doesn't require Shade Tail to be able to outscheme Lord Tedd or being able to turn him into tool. It's just that Shade Tail is more mature and understand the emotions. By keeping Tedd immature, he can't control exactly what will Lord Tedd do, but can be reasonably sure it would be something he likes anyway.

I'd agree that Shade-Tail dpoesn't have Lord Tedd on marionette strings.  But has striven to be the one Lord Tedd looks to for advice and confidence, meaning that Lord Tedd shouldn't make a big decision without consulting Shade Tail and Shade-Tail's approval.  I see Shade-Tail's control as primarily political.  I don't think Sahde-Tail is trying for a cult-grade contorl over Lord Tedd's personal life.
 

 

15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

On second though ... pain might not be the best word. Shade Tail basically teaches Tedd that only way to have something is to own it. Nioi is not his equal, she's his pet, servant. She will be punished if she would abandon him. That's the way how to prevent abandonment Shade Tail is teaching Tedd.

I would expect that's how Sahde-Tail would put it with the goal of keeping Lord Tedd a bit distance from everybody else.  I don't think he'd want Lord Tedd to look too much on his subordinates as pets.  Shade-Tail is a subordinate!  9at least on the organization chart)
 

18 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Note that him pretending to not care is important part of hiding how much he influences Tedd. On the other hand, he might be getting little complacent based on how easy it was so far ...

That "not caring" was what I took as evidence of complacency.   Even if Shade-Tail isn't trying to control every aspect of Lord Tedd's life, he should be keeping his finger on the pulse.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

24 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Yes, but you can also be manipulative and still not turn the target into tool.

For example, I can imagine General Shade Tail is "protecting" Tedd from some other people who might have positive influence on him. Probably made sure Tedd thinks he ordered him to. But, if Tedd would decide to meet someone else himself, General Shade Tail would just warn him about the risk ... because he doesn't have him under complete control and is not clever enough to have plan which would prevent such meeting without Tedd getting some suspicion.

Also, I don't think he would be able to remove Nioi now, unless she will do some mistake.

Shade-Tail seems to accept Nioi's presence, if grudgingly.  Perhaps judged that removing her would be worse than letting her stay/live.  What little time we've seen suggests to me he's the "power behind the throne" with Lord Tedd as the one on the throne. 

If I were to read into what little we've seen, I'd suggest Shade-Tail as someone encouraging Lord Tedd's feelings of abandonment and alienation and the rage that goes with them.  People are most easily manipulated through their emotions, so I would guess that Shade-Tail is trying to keep Lord Tedd in a raw, immature and highly mercuric state, with Nioi in the role of a sort of "living plushie" that a permanently adolescent Lord Tedd clutches at to make the pain go away for a while.

I'd also suggest that Shade Tail might be a little complacent, maybe a bit too used to his position.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

24 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Indeed, given how great an influence Grace has had on Tedd, and that General Shade-tail likely still shares all but one parent with Grace and their meeting may have been equally momentous, it's quite possible this Shade-tail is meeting some of the needs Elliot fills and some of the needs Grace fills for our Tedd.

I'd agree.  I'd say the needs Elliot and Grace meet for Tedd are being met by General Shade-Tail and Nioi with Lord Tedd.

I'd also say that force of personality only gets you so far.  Being manipulative is also knowing when and how.  That's cleverness.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

15 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

With the emphasis on strength he is likely less clever than Grace. Meanwhile, Tedd is very clever and you need considerably higher intelligence to predict someone's reaction for complete control. And it's more risky ... and the gain is unlikely to be that much greater.

(On the other hand, while Tedd is clever he may be too focused on his magitech and is not really using his cleverness for other stuff.)

Lord Tedd's methods to date don't show much subtly...or cleverness even though they do show a good deal of knowledge and abstract intelligence. 

For General Shade-Tail to be manipulating Lord Tedd as we all seem to think he is (me included), he has to be clever, or at least moreso than Lord Tedd.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Not a tool. General Shade Tail is unlikely to be clever enough to actually control Lord Tedd completely - and he doesn't need to. The term "catspaw" might still apply, though.

Why wouldn't we think General Shade-Tail to be clever?

Lord Tedd is likely a tool.  There's only so many really good artificers out there so replacing Lord Tedd is something of a non-option.

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

Just now, ChronosCat said:

It's possible Beta Tedd misunderstood the situation. Alternately, perhaps he was deliberately spreading false information about Lord Tedd. I've even heard the idea before that Beta Tedd is the true villain, but I doubt it's that simple.

Beta Tedd = Scrappy Doo then? 

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

So ... Lord Tedd wasn't as clear as Beta Tedd said?

I still think it was a test and if he didn't kill anyone it just means all Tedds passed.

...but why make himself out as an enemy to all the other Tedds in all the other universes that he could find?

it's not like a bit of assassination is just fun and games between Tedds...

[The Album, and Other Music]

How go the CD sales, Prof?

[Story Monday April 9, 2018]

1 minute ago, Scotty said:

Technically aren't the Stargates both? I mean you have the dialing device that inputs like touch-tone, and the portal ring itself can apparently be manually turned like a rotary dial in the event the DHD is lost.

Though that was for the SG-1 Milky Way Stargates, the Pegasus gates in SG-Atlantis didn't have a rotating ring, it was essentially digitally dialed, which makes sense in that it makes it clear that the Milky Way gates are much older technology, possible one that was in transistion since the gates from SG-Universe are said to be an even older variant.

Oh yes.  ruin my fun with details....