Story Wednesday July 6, 2016

[Scotty 1,061]

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

... I find really hard to believe she would prefer Tiffany over Susan, but she might be less allergic to being called Tiffany. And yes, she would likely stay blonde - or maybe experiment with partially colored hair.

Susan said her dad chose the name Tiffany for her first name while her mom chose Susan for her second name, so it makes perfect sense that she would rather be called Susan instead of Tiffany because of her negative feelings towards her dad. so yeah I think it would have been likely she would have continued to answer to Tiffany if the affair never happened. As for the hair, there would still have been a chance that she would have still dyed it at some point, but it would have likely been for more positive reasons..

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

It's possible he's DIANE childhood friend. She might actually LIKE being called barbie when six.

Rick is roughly the same age as Rhea since they both go to the same college and live in the same building so I think it's more likely that Rick and Rhea spent more time together, the vibes I get was that Diane was more naive when she was 6 (which is evidenced by the fact that she didn't know how ethnicity worked back then) and probably laughed at everything including stuff Rick said.

 

As for the last 2 quotes. You might want to edit those to show they were Critterkeeper's and not mine.

Though conventions can be quite expensive depending on which ones you go to, PAX South for instance is $75 for a 3 day pass, Blizzcon tickets are $200 for 2 days, then you need to factor travel and hotel expenses, food, and anything else you might buy or do while you're there. If the convention that Sarah and Susan went to was local then travel would be basically gas money and parking, and no hotel expense, food would be minimal too and the tickets themselves I'm guessing would have been between $25-50 each. Considering Sarah "dragged" Susan to the con, They likely each bought their own ticket and Sarah might have offered to pay for gas. I'm guessing Sarah had been saving her allowance for some time.

[Kazzellin 8]

13 hours ago, Scotty said:

Certainly looks possible.

And while we're at it, I'm not certain we should bury the theory of Susan and Diane being related to Adrian just yet. Young Pandora bears a pretty strong resemblance to them. So being Adrian's half-sisters could be possible and still explain the Susan-like illusion Adrian put on Grace. Pandora could have used magic to suppress the elven nature of Susan and Diane so that even other immortals couldn't detect it. She was disappointed that Adrian couldn't act to his full abilities growing up, so made sure that Susan and Diane didn't receive those restrictions.

Agreed, and I like this idea!

 

13 hours ago, HarJIT said:

Hmm...

Maybe Susan's and Diane's parents are Pandora and the Blonde Woman?

...

I'm just gonna leave this here.

Or Voltaire and the blonde woman?

 

13 hours ago, Scotty said:

I was thinking more like Pandora was the Blonde woman. Which raises the question, did she intend on Susan seeing her with her father (or adopted father)? Would make sense if Pandora wanted Susan and Diane to have very different childhoods, Diane seemed to have had a pretty normal if a bit spoiled childhood, while Susan grew up in a broken family. How would Susan have been if her father didn't cheat? Probably the same as Diane I think.

I don't think--oh, wait. Pandora is a shapeshifter. The cheekbones/facial structure don't have to match for it to be Pandora. carry on, then!

Quote

Though conventions can be quite expensive depending on which ones you go to, PAX South for instance is $75 for a 3 day pass, Blizzcon tickets are $200 for 2 days, then you need to factor travel and hotel expenses, food, and anything else you might buy or do while you're there. If the convention that Sarah and Susan went to was local then travel would be basically gas money and parking, and no hotel expense, food would be minimal too and the tickets themselves I'm guessing would have been between $25-50 each. Considering Sarah "dragged" Susan to the con, They likely each bought their own ticket and Sarah might have offered to pay for gas. I'm guessing Sarah had been saving her allowance for some time.

Not quoted, as I don't want to loose the above if it drops from changing to page two, but was that arc ever confirmed as canon?

[Kazzellin 8]

(The Edit function isn't working for me correctly (the text isn't filling and it won't let me type anything other than the reason for the edit), so if someone could merge these two posts, that would be awesome!)

As for the comic itself, I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out! Is the dragon going to be killed by Adrian's father, and Adrian himself is a surprise, then things just go downhill (so to speak) from there? Is this even taking place in the main side of the world coin, for that matter? Also, that is one thick ponytail Pandora is sporting. O_o

 

 

[Scotty 1,061]

1 hour ago, Kazzellin said:

Not quoted, as I don't want to loose the above if it drops from changing to page two, but was that arc ever confirmed as canon?

Probably not, I mean one of the security personnel was using a crystal ball to watch over everyone and mess with their heads by calling them out on running an stuff but it's possible the crystal ball stuff is kept between her and her co-worker, Susan running off doesn't seem in character for her though the joke of it was curiosity got the better of her. Her and Mellonpool being about to duel over their opinions of Star Trek was probably the most ridiculous because of the convenient access to lirpas but then again, if there was a booth nearby with foam props... It might be one of those "It could be canon because it's believable enough".

[Don Edwards 548]

3 hours ago, Kazzellin said:

(The Edit function isn't working for me correctly (the text isn't filling and it won't let me type anything other than the reason for the edit), so if someone could merge these two posts, that would be awesome!)[/quote]

Actually the edit function works perfectly except for one little detail: ordinary text appears in white on a white background. Which makes it kind of hard to see - but it's there, and you can prove it by...

• highlighting
• selecting the entire text and converting it to a bulleted list
• a greasemonkey script (for firefox and maybe some other browsers) that is mentioned frequently but I don't remember the details

[mlooney 3,417]

3 hours ago, Kazzellin said:

(The Edit function isn't working for me correctly (the text isn't filling and it won't let me type anything other than the reason for the edit), so if someone could merge these two posts, that would be awesome!

There's a reason why 25 to 40 percent of my post start with "Freaking edit mode".  My predictive keyboard supplies edit them mode as choices when ever I "type" freaking now.

[mlooney 3,417]

15 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Actually the edit function works perfectly except for one little detail: ordinary text appears in white on a white background. Which makes it kind of hard to see - but it's there, and you can prove it by...

• highlighting
• selecting the entire text and converting it to a bulleted list
• a greasemonkey script (for firefox and maybe some other browsers) that is mentioned frequently but I don't remember the details

You can also go to raw HTML mode, but if it's a long post you are editing the massive amount of cruft in the text of the post might be a problem.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

Sum ah fuss neffer knead two edid.

[Stature 96]

Minor edits in HTML are a breeze. Major, jeezy kableezy.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Sum ah fuss neffer knead two edid.

Err, would you mind repeating that in Coptic cursive?

[Sweveham 65]

22 hours ago, Drachefly said:

Panel 4 resembles certain Zelda concept art. I suspect all the panels are.

I don't doubt the comic is at least somewhat inspired by Zelda, although this kind of imagery is of course rather universal. On tumblr, Dan says this comic  is where he goes "all SNES era Final Fantasy".

17 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

The best rant against creative writing classes, and how they stifle creativity and lead to dull cookie-cutter stories and hack writers, was the one Jim Butcher gave at DucKon a few years ago.  It was his opinion for years, until one day he decided to show his writing professor he was right....he would follow every one of her stupid rules, fill out every one of her stupid charts, plot things out ahead just the way she said, and then show her how bad the result was.

The result was The Dresden Files.

Eh, frankly Butcher strikes me as non-exception to the rule that creative writing classes produce mediocre and bland writing. I went to his site and read the first chapters of several of his books. It was all decently and competently written, but nothing inspired me to buy his books. Granted, his style of fantasy is not to my taste.

Great writing, to me at least, is books like To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf,  Momo by Michael Ende, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and the Earthsea series by Ursula K Le Guin. These are books you can't imagine coming out a creative writing class, for many of them break the very rules that such classes propose.

 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Sum ah fuss neffer knead two edid.

 

27 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Err, would you mind repeating that in Coptic cursive?

Oops...

As I was saying, some of us never need to edit.

And my word processor does not support Coptic. I am so frustrated. 2,756 more insults like this from the soft micros and I may consider calling upon a curse condemning Bill Gates homeland of the pacific northwest to unending rain and grey skies.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Pharaoh RutinTutin
Relevant detail added

[Kazzellin 8]

9 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Actually the edit function works perfectly except for one little detail: ordinary text appears in white on a white background. Which makes it kind of hard to see - but it's there, and you can prove it by...

• highlighting
• selecting the entire text and converting it to a bulleted list
• a greasemonkey script (for firefox and maybe some other browsers) that is mentioned frequently but I don't remember the details

Seriously? The hay? O_o

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

....I may consider calling upon a curse condemning Bill Gates homeland of the pacific northwest to unending rain and grey skies.

I think someone else already beat you to that, given the standard weather in Seattle.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 hours ago, Kazzellin said:

I think someone else already beat you to that, given the standard weather in Seattle.

Don't be hard on him. It's this economy and good curses are expensive. In the old days when the Pharaohs swam in wealth, they could easily afford face-melting curses that stretched across several generations and family lines. These days they can barely afford five feet tall pyramids and the only kind of curse they have the money to put on them go along the lines of 'bugger off.'

[HarJIT 97]

14 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Actually the edit function works perfectly except for one little detail: ordinary text appears in white on a white background. Which makes it kind of hard to see - but it's there, and you can prove it by...

• highlighting
• selecting the entire text and converting it to a bulleted list
• a greasemonkey script (for firefox and maybe some other browsers) that is mentioned frequently but I don't remember the details

The details:

On 15/06/2016 at 10:24 AM, HarJIT said:

I did make a Greasemonkey script to fix the invisible text editing problem.  If you have GM installed, clicking that link should install the script.

Its code is:

// ==UserScript==
// @name        910CMX Rich Text Editor - Temporary White Text Fix
// @namespace   https://harjit-egs.tumblr.com/
// @include     *community.910cmx.com/*
// @version     1
// @grant       GM_addStyle
// ==/UserScript==

GM_addStyle("ul.ipsList_reset li p { color: inherit !important; }");

No, I'm not kidding.  I'm more or less just knocking out a CSS rule.

(Before anyone asks, GM for Firefox, GM for SeaMonkey).

Use of this was suggested for making it run on Opera, apparently successfully although I cannot personally confirm that, not being really an Opera user myself.

[Scotty 1,061]

Here's another oddity for you all. I wanted to post a reply in the July 4th thread, but this text field refused to open, I got the toolbars and the attachment bar, but there was nowhere to type anything, trying to quote someone didn't work either. I had to do a triple check after it allowed me to type in this thread, even restarted the browser.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On July 6, 2016 at 3:05 PM, Scotty said:

Susan didn't want things handed to her which would be why she got a job at the video store. I don't think it was her mom that taught her to be self-confident, though I think her saying "because he's a man" got Susan in the "I hate all men" frame of mind which would have made her want to teach herself how to be able to do things without a man doing them for her.

[Note that I started this post a while ago, but work interrupted, so some of it is ninja'd by now]

Self-reliant, then, and that's bound to give a girl at least some self-confidence.  It might well have been her mom who wanted Susan to learn how to make her way without having to rely on men.  I'm curious now which side of the family the money comes from, or whether it was all made in this generation and if so by who.  Any of the possibilities could be interesting!  But telling the stories of all the main characters' parents in any detail would take up *way* too much time.

Quote

I don't think Diane got bounced from one family to her current one, unless she was still too young to remember it, remember she didn't realize she was adopted till she was 6, so it's probably safe to say she's only known her current family.

D'oh!  I forgot about that one.

On July 6, 2016 at 3:48 PM, hkmaly said:

... I find really hard to believe she would prefer Tiffany over Susan, but she might be less allergic to being called Tiffany. And yes, she would likely stay blonde - or maybe experiment with partially colored hair.

Some people really do like the name Tiffany, and some find Susan boring or otherwise objectionable.  I could see her using Tiffany until she reached that age when so many kids experiment with creating their own identity by changing what name or nickname they go by.

Quote

It's possible he's DIANE childhood friend. She might actually LIKE being called barbie when six.

If they were adopted fairly young, he's probably a childhood friend to both of them.  And to a certain age range, Barbie is cool!  She represents the limitless possibilities of being a grown-up.

Quote

First, I don't think her dress was THAT much sexy, second, while people sexually abused can show such signs, I find unlikely all people showing such signs were sexually abused. It sounds like reducing living people to just victims of sexual abuse.

Excuse me?  When did I ever say anything like that?  I was speculating about several possibilities, and never did I say or imply that any of it was pathognomonic for abuse.  It is a warning sign which is often overlooked, or even used as an excuse for the abuser and to shift blame to the victim.  ("Poor guy didn't stand a chance against that little....")  It's as reasonable a possibility to raise as anything else we've been speculating about, and I don't appreciate being accused of "reducing living people to just victims" for even daring to mention the existence of such phenomena!

Quote

... I didn't know conventions are THAT costly.

That was me, not scotty, that you quoted there, and it depends on your family's budget and what sort of con it is.  That looked like a large media con, and such events can charge well over a hundred dollars for a weekend badge.  A regular weekend badge at San Diego ComicCon was $245 this year, if you could get one.  Chicago TARDIS has General Memberships for $90, Priority for $150, and Reserved for $200, with varying levels of access and goodies for each.  Food and drink also tend to be expensive at big cons, just like any other big event, as well as parking if you drive there.  Many of the fan-run, written-word-oriented cons around here, on the other hand, charge from $45 to $60 per weekend, and that includes a ConSuite with free snacks and beverages, and almost always free parking and much cheaper room rates for those traveling to attend.

For some families, $60 would be too much to spend on a frivolous weekend; for others, $245 (or $490) wouldn't bother them a bit.  I'm guessing Susan and her mother are in the second category, and while I don't know for sure where Sarah lands, I'm betting she would have had to save up allowance or use up her full birthday and/or Christmas allotment to attend a large media con.

[SeriousJupiter 49]

We finally get to know some of Pandora's backstory and you all talk about Susan and Diane. Figures.

I definitely see where this is going. Pandora will decide to have a child as her legacy before resetting, but something unexpected will come up that will make her not want to reset after all. Maybe she will fall in love with Adrian's human father for real and never want to lose her memories of him? Or perhaps something will happen to Adrian that will make Pandora want to keep her identity forever so she could better protect him with all her extra strength and wisdom? That latter one seems like a very unselfish reason for losing one's sanity and becoming increasingly more bored with everything, so it might well be good enough a reason for Pandora. However, if she still just wants to remember her lover who's been dead for centuries, then I personally think that's not a very good reason to lose one's marbles for, especially since she will eventually put everyone around her at risk.

Also, I like that dragon. Burninate them peasants, Trogdor!

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

18 hours ago, Scotty said:

Here's another oddity for you all. I wanted to post a reply in the July 4th thread, but this text field refused to open, I got the toolbars and the attachment bar, but there was nowhere to type anything, trying to quote someone didn't work either. I had to do a triple check after it allowed me to type in this thread, even restarted the browser.

Was this using Edge? If so then I can add that I've had problems with text edit going wonky while using Edge. Text boxes that didn't want to open. Text boxes that didn't allow for any text to be entered. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate past the current paragraph using the arrow keys. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate using the mouse, but I could select text using double or triple clicking and I could access the drop down spell check menus (something that's just stopped working for this text box that I'm writing in...). Text boxes that suddenly becomes inaccessible not allowing me to do anything to the current text, not even copying it so I didn't have to start over from scratch.

Solution? Use some other browser! Any other browser should work better than Edge. Even IE is worth giving a chance over this kludge.

If it wasn't Edge then I just suggest you try any other browser, just don't have to high expectations of Edge if you decide to give it a whirl. The current version of edge (Version 25.10586.0.0, EdgeHTML Version 13.10586) doesn't seem quite finished.

I'd really like to push for Opera, though not the current pile of... No I'm still on the old 12.18 which was released back in 2014! No version newer than that is worth using as both FireFox and Chrome offers more functionality and better UI. So unfortunately I can't in good faith say that Opera is a valid alternative...

[HarJIT 97]

6 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Was this using Edge? If so then I can add that I've had problems with text edit going wonky while using Edge. Text boxes that didn't want to open. Text boxes that didn't allow for any text to be entered. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate past the current paragraph using the arrow keys. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate using the mouse, but I could select text using double or triple clicking and I could access the drop down spell check menus (something that's just stopped working for this text box that I'm writing in...). Text boxes that suddenly becomes inaccessible not allowing me to do anything to the current text, not even copying it so I didn't have to start over from scratch.

Solution? Use some other browser! Any other browser should work better than Edge. Even IE is worth giving a chance over this kludge.

If it wasn't Edge then I just suggest you try any other browser, just don't have to high expectations of Edge if you decide to give it a whirl. The current version of edge (Version 25.10586.0.0, EdgeHTML Version 13.10586) doesn't seem quite finished.

I'd really like to push for Opera, though not the current pile of... No I'm still on the old 12.18 which was released back in 2014! No version newer than that is worth using as both FireFox and Chrome offers more functionality and better UI. So unfortunately I can't in good faith say that Opera is a valid alternative...

Was that the version before Opera changed to being a Chrome derivative? (checks WP) Yeah, looks like Opera 12.x was the last Presto browser although, while the transition appears to be in 2013, it lists 12.17 as released in 2014 and 12.18 as released in early 2016 (suggesting that 12.x, though an older version, is occasionally being updated).

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

2 hours ago, HarJIT said:

Was that the version before Opera changed to being a Chrome derivative? (checks WP) Yeah, looks like Opera 12.x was the last Presto browser although, while the transition appears to be in 2013, it lists 12.17 as released in 2014 and 12.18 as released in early 2016 (suggesting that 12.x, though an older version, is occasionally being updated).

Yes, that's correct. The .18 update was a security fix, and quite unexpected as the company had declared that no more updates would be released for version 12. While this browser still works as well as ever it does lack support for some of the new web standards, most importantly the latest update to HTTPS, which is a bummer.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

"Pandora found herself already yearning for the fresh start of a new identity, but she was only to be a mere one hundred and fifty years of age.  It was too soon to feel that way!"

Hmm, I wonder if Immortals still get a cumulative effect over the years despite resetting on schedule?  Could Pandora be descending into ennui earlier and earlier with each reset?  The more times they reset, the more important stuff they have to pass on to their next incarnation.  And perhaps they don't quite forget everything, merely almost everything?  As the centuries go on, perhaps more carries over and even though more is forgotten, too, the overall effect is to leave them bored and insane earlier each time once they pass a certain tipping point?  If resets were losing their effect, that might partially explain why she decided to do something different this time around, by *not* resetting.

[Kazzellin 8]

18 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

"Pandora found herself already yearning for the fresh start of a new identity, but she was only to be a mere one hundred and fifty years of age.  It was too soon to feel that way!"

Hmm, I wonder if Immortals still get a cumulative effect over the years despite resetting on schedule?  Could Pandora be descending into ennui earlier and earlier with each reset?  The more times they reset, the more important stuff they have to pass on to their next incarnation.  And perhaps they don't quite forget everything, merely almost everything?  As the centuries go on, perhaps more carries over and even though more is forgotten, too, the overall effect is to leave them bored and insane earlier each time once they pass a certain tipping point?  If resets were losing their effect, that might partially explain why she decided to do something different this time around, by *not* resetting.

If that was the case, wouldn't there be more immortals like Pandora? Or do we figure they've all done the "die in a very explodey fasion and take others with them" that Jerry mentioned to Susan/Satah/Grace?

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

4 hours ago, Kazzellin said:

If that was the case, wouldn't there be more immortals like Pandora? Or do we figure they've all done the "die in a very explodey fasion and take others with them" that Jerry mentioned to Susan/Satah/Grace?

Maybe Pandora is one of the first Immortals?

[Scotty 1,061]

On 7/8/2016 at 10:33 AM, Cpt. Obvious said:

Was this using Edge? If so then I can add that I've had problems with text edit going wonky while using Edge. Text boxes that didn't want to open. Text boxes that didn't allow for any text to be entered. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate past the current paragraph using the arrow keys. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate using the mouse, but I could select text using double or triple clicking and I could access the drop down spell check menus (something that's just stopped working for this text box that I'm writing in...). Text boxes that suddenly becomes inaccessible not allowing me to do anything to the current text, not even copying it so I didn't have to start over from scratch.

Solution? Use some other browser! Any other browser should work better than Edge. Even IE is worth giving a chance over this kludge.

If it wasn't Edge then I just suggest you try any other browser, just don't have to high expectations of Edge if you decide to give it a whirl. The current version of edge (Version 25.10586.0.0, EdgeHTML Version 13.10586) doesn't seem quite finished.

I'd really like to push for Opera, though not the current pile of... No I'm still on the old 12.18 which was released back in 2014! No version newer than that is worth using as both FireFox and Chrome offers more functionality and better UI. So unfortunately I can't in good faith say that Opera is a valid alternative...

I've been using Firefox since Firefox 2.0, my issue is just happening with the July 4th thread, every other thread I go to lets me respond just fine.

On 7/9/2016 at 10:33 PM, CritterKeeper said:

"Pandora found herself already yearning for the fresh start of a new identity, but she was only to be a mere one hundred and fifty years of age.  It was too soon to feel that way!"

Hmm, I wonder if Immortals still get a cumulative effect over the years despite resetting on schedule?  Could Pandora be descending into ennui earlier and earlier with each reset?  The more times they reset, the more important stuff they have to pass on to their next incarnation.  And perhaps they don't quite forget everything, merely almost everything?  As the centuries go on, perhaps more carries over and even though more is forgotten, too, the overall effect is to leave them bored and insane earlier each time once they pass a certain tipping point?  If resets were losing their effect, that might partially explain why she decided to do something different this time around, by *not* resetting.

Could be, but the way Jerry described it, Immortals usually just take enough knowledge to know who they are an probably the time period they're in so that their basic nature doesn't go running off expecting things that don't exist anymore. Any extra knowledge, like Jerry's promise to Susan, was described as not being an actual memory but as if Jerry 2.0 had read a note left behind by Jerry 1.0. Any other "notes" could certainly convey that "if you did X then Y would happen" but the experience of doing it wouldn't be there and so Immortals would likely want to do it anyway, unless of course if was something like "don't do x, because y is very bad".

For Pandora's case, I wonder if the chaotic role she chose is to blame for her feeling burnt out sooner. One can only trick so many people into doing wacky things in exchange for stuff before the method and reaction starts repeating. Blaike certainly bucked the trend with refusing Pandora's offers, but if that's all she did in 150 years then I would expect her to get bored relatively quickly. Immortals like Jerry probably switched things up over the years to get different reactions and outcomes.