Comic for Monday, Jan 9, 2023

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Comic for Monday, Jan 9, 2023

Diane thinks Noah is giving too much information. Seems uncharacteristic for her to question that, but she pulls off a deduction. Turns into a Little Orphan Annie character because of it. Apparently in the EGS universe, your eyes can roll to such an extent that your scleras faces forward and your irises and pupils are hidden. Not sure why making a deductive connection would cause this for Diane. Hopefully, she will recover soon.

I recall a Mad Magazine bit where Daddy Warbucks gave Little Orphan Annie a gift, two pupils for her eyes. They came in a gift box. This is weird, because pupils are essentially holes. How do you hand somebody holes without the matrix around the hole? It worked in a Mad comic, but it doesn't seen transferable to other settings. Then again, EGS is also a comic, so it could work. "Don't worry, Diane, we will fix you up with Mad science!" Seems like a thing they could do.

My guess is that come Wednesday, her eyes will be normal again with no mention of this incident, as if nothing untoward had happened. Seems reasonable if this is not uncommon in the EGS world; they deal with it all the time, why should they talk about it.

If this happens to you, you've probably severed your optic nerve, and you should go to a hospital.

Also noteworthy, the werewolves weren't just werewolves, they were special werewolves++, but now they are wherewerewolves. I wonder why Noah knows this level of detail. I guess Adrian briefed him before his trip.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

FWIW, you can get your scleras tattooed another color. This is not recommended, people have gone blind from a botched procedure, but people have had this done, because of course they have. Per the Wiki article, it is illegal some places, because of course it is. Let's take a rare procedure that few would ever want and stick our judgemental governmental nanny state thumbs in it.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Looking at the comic of Abraham in stone linked in the commentary, I wandered to the next comic to see him pop out. Notice that Abraham's spell which automatically released him when the Dewitchery Diamond was used by Elliot was smart enough to destroy the cameras so that he wouldn't be observed. How did he know to add that feature to his spell? Was it based on a general prohibition against scying, and the spell interpreted the cameras as scrying?

The next comic is just a problematic. The two spells, 'Modern Knowledge' and 'Modern Garb', what is the source of the information? There are all kinds of reasons this should not work. The best guess I can come up with to why it could work is that it only samples the knowledge of a few nearby people, and has some sort of importance filter to narrow the floodgates down.

He's kind of a nitwit. In the next comic he needs a tracker with a good sense of smell, so he summons an otherworldly creature that is a hazard to those around it. You'd think Summon Bloodhound' would do the trick with less hassle. I'm pretty sure he could get information from it.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

Noah in this old comic has a normal left eye. Cosmetic spell, magic modification to the eye, or the Uryuom left eye is a retcon?

[mlooney 3,417]

5 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Noah in this old comic has a normal left eye. Cosmetic spell, magic modification to the eye, or the Uryuom left eye is a retcon?

Plus Elliot "can confirm the existent of the other eye" (https://www.egscomics.com/comic/2010-09-01), so it's probably a cosmetic spell, but he kept the hair over they eye thing as a backup.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Noah in this old comic has a normal left eye. Cosmetic spell, magic modification to the eye, or the Uryuom left eye is a retcon?

It occurs to me there is a fourth option; Noah is a seyunolu with some Uryuom heritage. As such, he should be able to shape shift, although we've seen no absolute evidence of this (I'm discounting his extreme combat form as more of a superhero transformation). He could then have shape shifted his nonhuman eye to be more human; a variant of 'magic modification to the eye', but not a direct spell as such.

Fifth, he could have has cosmetic surgery, although that does not seem likely.

I think that 'this is a retcon' is true; EGS seems to evolve a fair percent of the time; but there still needs to be an in-story explanation, so maybe eliminate that one. So, then if boils down to 'magic' vs 'cosmetic surgery', and it's a safe bet that in EGS, it's magic.

[ijuin 572]

Noah would have at most the degree of shapeshifting that typical Uryuoms have w/o use of a Cosmetic Morphing Device—recall that Will and Gill, for example, needed the CMD gun in order to gain exactly-specified forms. So, I could see him shifting between full Humanoid and full Uryuom and anywhere in between, and some limited Uryuomish shifting.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

1 hour ago, ijuin said:

Noah would have at most the degree of shapeshifting that typical Uryuoms have w/o use of a Cosmetic Morphing Device—recall that Will and Gill, for example, needed the CMD gun in order to gain exactly-specified forms. So, I could see him shifting between full Humanoid and full Uryuom and anywhere in between, and some limited Uryuomish shifting.

I don't think it's been spelled out what mix he is, but I agree, he seems to be a pure Uryuom / Human mix, aka Tulougol Seyunolu.

Nor has it been mentioned how he got his other extraordinary powers, such as heightened stamina and running speed, nor his combat powers. Given Grace's difficulty doing normal magic, I expect he has an interesting backstory we have yet to hear.

[mlooney 3,417]

Yeah, he does seem to have more "human" magic than Uryuom magic.

[ijuin 572]

Noah himself admitted to having been “desperately seeking power” to avenge his father’s death at Damien’s hands (which makes him “the child left behind” from way back when), so it is almost certain that he trained as hard as possible during that time. He also had Adrian’s guidance on what methods were better and which were foolish.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

2 hours ago, ijuin said:

Noah himself admitted to having been “desperately seeking power” to avenge his father’s death at Damien’s hands (which makes him “the child left behind” from way back when), so it is almost certain that he trained as hard as possible during that time. He also had Adrian’s guidance on what methods were better and which were foolish.

My impression is that his ad hoc adoption by Adrian Raven is a relatively recent event. I'd place it after the graveyard scene. Recall, he is surprised that Adrian thinks of him as family.

[mlooney 3,417]

I think Adrian has been Noah's guardian since well before the graveyard scene.  Damien killed Noah's parents several years before Damien fought Grace. As I understand it, the time line was Damien killed the cult that created him, then went on to attack the company trying to create assassins taking Grace and her siblings captive.  This was done while Grace was just a young child.  I would be unlikely that Noah would be with out a guardian that long.

[Darth Fluffy 302]

That makes sense.