Comic for Wednesday, November 2, 2022

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Comic for Wednesday, November 2, 2022

This comic ... the time flow does not fit how EGS time works. It's barely been a week; Raven would surely finish out the school year unless something pressing called him away.

Other than that, i suspect Noah has already learned from Adrian Raven that Diane is his daughter, and he's following her because he wants to connect, but he's extremely skittish because he's been warned that she may not want to. So, from a plot point of view, Diane will meet him before Raven, hence 'Brother', although Noah is adopted, and not even officially.

He could probably give her some good advice about relating to Raven, and some encouraging stories about Raven as a person.

I am curious why Raven would leave the school. Perhaps he wanted to give Diane space. It seems odd, as he was working with Grace and Ellen and he was more available to Noah being at his school.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

While it is unusual for teachers to voluntarily quit mid semester, it is not unknown.

Let this be a lesson.  No one can out procrastinate an immortal.

[Southern Cross 5]

Technically, Raven's only half-immortal.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

While it is unusual for teachers to voluntarily quit mid semester, it is not unknown.

Let this be a lesson.  No one can out procrastinate an immortal.

I have seen teachers leave suddenly. Rumors fly about why they left.

[ijuin 572]

A leave of absence for the remainder of the semester in order to grieve for his mother would make sense, but suddenly permanently retiring needs an explanation.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

Perhaps Adrian has decided to establish a new mortal identity away from Moperville?

Even so, abruptly leaving is bound to raise more questions.

[mlooney 3,417]

 I like the idea that Raven is going to move on, in a different disguise, to teach at university, but I leave open the possibility that he's in with Wolf in Colorado.  Of course it's also possible that the teacher that told Diane that Raven had retired is, in fact, Raven in a different disguise. 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

That teacher looked a lot like Ed Verres

[mlooney 3,417]

7 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

That teacher looked a lot like Ed Verres

Latest comment from The Dan on the comic is that it's not Edward.

 

Future Edit: Some people initially mistook the teacher for Mr. Verres, and yeah, I can see the resemblance. I didn't want to completely change him, but I made two subtle changes to make him less-Edwardy.

Simply lighter eyebrows and more of a sideburn. Still a resemblance, but should reduce "is Edward teaching?" theories.

EDIT EDIT: Wait, three changes. Forgot I modified the glasses a little.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Perhaps Adrian has decided to establish a new mortal identity away from Moperville?

Even so, abruptly leaving is bound to raise more questions.

It seems logical that he would have to do something like that from time to time, but he would have a long term plan for doing so; it would not be sudden.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 hours ago, mlooney said:

 I like the idea that Raven is going to move on, in a different disguise, to teach at university, but I leave open the possibility that he's in with Wolf in Colorado.  Of course it's also possible that the teacher that told Diane that Raven had retired is, in fact, Raven in a different disguise. 

Raven does not get along with Arthur, would likely distance himself until Arthur is retired.

[Amiable Dorsai 70]

Maybe he does not wish to be where Diane might be forced to confront him, feeling it should be her choice if she wishes to speak to him.

It may be time for him to start winding down the "Adrian Raven, history teacher" persona, and start looking for a new life. Noah seems to be in the same grade level as the Main Eight, so that reason for staying is disappearing. He seems to have been at Moperville South for long enough for it to be a little odd.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

55 minutes ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

He seems to have been at Moperville South for long enough for it to be a little odd.

He has been teaching in Moperville at least long enough to have been a teacher to Mrs Kitsune 

[ijuin 572]

So twenty-odd years in Moperville, minimum.

The whole “winding down his current alias and setting up a new one” idea still does not explain why he would do it right now instead of waiting for the end of the current term. It is highly probable that his decision is related to the death of his mother.

[Don Edwards 548]

2 hours ago, ijuin said:

It is highly probable that his decision is related to the death of his mother.

And/or learning of Diane and/or Susan.

[mlooney 3,417]

It depends on his apparent age as to if he can tall the administration of the school that he wants to retire due to the death of his mother or not.  While it's possible for a person in their mid 60's to still have their mother be alive, it's a bit unusual.   This is, of course, assuming that the school administration doesn't know about Immortals and elves.

[ijuin 572]

I would think that people would only start getting suspicious if the mother were apparently over one hundred years old. People living to one hundred are fairly uncommon, but not so rare as to be shocking or for others to suspect them of lying about their age.

Yes, Pandora was some unspecified age greater than five hundred or so years, but nobody was publicly making the claim of Adrian Raven’s mother being inhumanly old. Raven claiming that his recently-late mother was say, ninety-seven, would not raise suspicion unless his present alias was supposed to be older than seventy-five.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Girls having children while in their teens is not common, fortunately, but it happens. Women having children into their early forties happens as well, although fertility is dropping off. Much beyond that requires a fertility drugs or an in vitro egg fertilization and implanting. So a 65 year old could have a mother anywhere from around 80 to 107 years old. More common would be a first child in her mid to late 20s, last child by 40, so from around 90 to 105 years old. Raven wants to keep a low profile, so he'd probably claim to be in the main stream.

A person living to 100 or beyond is not unheard of, but it's rare. 90s is much more common. Seems likely for Raven to claim to have a mother who passed away in her 90s. As ijuin said, difficult to do if he's much beyond 65.

Diane is going to meet Noah soon, then we find out why Adrian 'retired'. ... Hmm, how long could he draw retirement pays before someone got suspicious?

[mlooney 3,417]

14 hours ago, ijuin said:

Raven claiming that his recently-late mother was say, ninety-seven, would not raise suspicion unless his present alias was supposed to be older than seventy-five.

I strongly suspect that his current alias is in the mid 60s as mandatory retirement is a thing is a lot of school systems.  At say 65 that would make him appear to be mid to low 40's when the previous generation came though, which is believable. 

[Darth Fluffy 302]

13 hours ago, mlooney said:

I strongly suspect that his current alias is in the mid 60s as mandatory retirement is a thing is a lot of school systems.  At say 65 that would make him appear to be mid to low 40's when the previous generation came though, which is believable. 

I wonder why he wears his age illusion when he's home alone with Noah, and why he drops it when he combats monsters.

[ijuin 572]

Dropping it in combat is probably so that he can have all of his energy and focus available for the fight rather than spending it on maintaining the illusion.

[mlooney 3,417]

9 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I wonder why he wears his age illusion when he's home alone with Noah, and why he drops it when he combats monsters.

We've seen him with out the illusion at home before.  Like when Grace visited in "Death Sentence"

https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2011-12-15