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Darth Fluffy

Comic for Friday, Jan 27, 2023

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Comic for Friday, Jan 27, 2023

Diane has not said anything new in this comic she has not said before. It does seem more coherent, like she's been thinking about it.

Noah seems to have empathy and grasp where she's coming from, and to his credit is not judgemental, but his response may be advising her to reveal more than she should; the scope he intends is unclear. But he may not be on board with the notion of hiding knowledge of magic.

It seems Diane should be open about the human side of her circumstances without revealing the fantastical information.

Regarding the commentary, I'd say that being able to put your feelings into words to communicate them to others is much of being mature and having healthy relationships.

 

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6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Noah seems to have empathy and grasp where she's coming from, and to his credit is not judgemental, but his response may be advising her to reveal more than she should; the scope he intends is unclear. But he may not be on board with the notion of hiding knowledge of magic

The Boy Who Hated Secrets may not have the best judgement here. However...

6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

It seems Diane should be open about the human side of her circumstances without revealing the fantastical information.

This might work. For a while. Explaining how she knows that Raven is her father, without telling them about magic floating grandmothers who kind of died right after telling her will involve a lie of some sort. So will explaining who Susan is.

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Diane already knows she needs to tell her family & friends.  (Mom, dad, did you know I'm adopted?)  Figguring out exactly how to open the conversation & what info should be shared is part of the reason she was looking for Adrian in the first place.

And now I'm picturing this scene acted out by muppet wombats.

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41 minutes ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

The Boy Who Hated Secrets may not have the best judgement here. However...

This might work. For a while. Explaining how she knows that Raven is her father, without telling them about magic floating grandmothers who kind of died right after telling her will involve a lie of some sort. So will explaining who Susan is.

She does not need to lie (assuming their technology is at our level, which seems to be the default). She knows she's adopted, this has been mentioned; discussion about her sister at the college party, and later with Susan. She mentions curiosity about her biological heritage, and gets a DNA test. She discusses all of this openly with Adrian Raven, and convinces him to help her cover story by getting his own DNA test from the same testing agency. She convinces Susan to do the same. When the test results come in, she says, "Look, mom, dad, Look what I found out!" Relationships revealed, magic not revealed.

As a side benefit, Adrian Raven can tell her what he remembers of her biological mom, providing clues of how to find her. She may also come up as a hit through the DNA tests, if she's been tested. With the can of worms open, Diane can ask her adoptive folks about the adoption agency, and might trace the mother through them. Or Adrian might just happen to know where to find her.

Another side benefit is she gives Adrian a chance to explain his relationship with her biological mom, either mitigating her concerns that it seems unsavory, or at least giving him an opportunity to apologize. She may not know that she needs this, but she does; it obviously bothers her.

If they don't have DNA tests (which, if you think about it, they would have, if it is convenient to the plot ...), she could still talk to her parents about being curious about her biological heritage and ask them for contact information for the adoption agency. She could offer many legitimate reasons to be curious, having to do with needing to know about possible inherited health issues, just wanting to be aware, if they felt threatened, but I doubt it would even come up. Then, she contacts the adoption agency, and at a minimum has a cover story (in that case possibly not exactly true, depending how much the divulge), of how she knows Adrian Raven is her biological father, and then has a cover story for how she knows about Susan (Adrian's mother told her). Or the agency may actually have good records.

These also let her introduce Noah as an adoptive sibling, should circumstances warrant it. Not really a difficult game plan.

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Given that Pandora was not entirely human, I wonder if anything odd would show up in a DNA test of Adrian or Diane—e.g. an extra chromosome or something else that clearly shouldn’t be present in a full human.

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5 hours ago, ijuin said:

Given that Pandora was not entirely human, I wonder if anything odd would show up in a DNA test of Adrian or Diane—e.g. an extra chromosome or something else that clearly shouldn’t be present in a full human.

Biologically, with no magic involved, the fact that Adrian has sired at least two children (Diane, and some distant ancestor of Susan) is pretty much proof that the Immortals' chromosomes are pretty close to human, and the count is exactly the same.

Of course, "with no magic involved" and "Immortals" don't go together very well.

But then Susan is several-generations-away descended from an Immortal, and there's no indication of either of her parents being aware of magic. So either there's no magic involved in her specific case, or it's self-activating magic, or there's something her parents haven't told her.

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14 hours ago, ijuin said:

Given that Pandora was not entirely human, I wonder if anything odd would show up in a DNA test of Adrian or Diane—e.g. an extra chromosome or something else that clearly shouldn’t be present in a full human.

Pandora is not 'not entirely human' - as portrayed in EGS, Immortals are fundamentally immaterial, existing outside of a physical realm. But, hey, recognize that it is fantasy, and the rules are as described by the author, in this case Dan, and they can manifest themselves physically. The parameters and level of fidelity of this manifestation are not yet specified; we don't know how DNA is involved.

The immortals we've seen have looked human-like when manifested, but recall that Voltaire faded out while Ashley watched. We don't know a reason they manifest with pointy ears. Could they do rounded ears? Why do they have a gender? Can they reproduce with each other (It seems to follow that if they can individually reproduce with humans, they can reproduce with each other). Do they always manifest in the same gender? What about when Pandora is the grotesque sprawling chaos creature? Is it female?

It all comes down to 'it is fantasy' and 'it works the way the author says it does'.

But if you must know, it's midi-chlorians.

 

13 hours ago, mlooney said:

... After all, magic isn't secret any more

Uhm, why do you say that? It seems that the secret is still being kept.

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It's been recognized that keeping magic secret is not plausible, but DGB is not exactly pushing it into the limelight at a rapid pace either. And even when general awareness of magic does start to come out, people who have magic might still prefer to put off revealing their situation.

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Arthur’s current position is to officially acknowledge that magic and Mages exist, but to conceal the fact that just anybody can get magic by training for it,

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24 minutes ago, ijuin said:

 . . . conceal the fact that just anybody can get magic by training for it

Or be born with it.

Or receive it from a more powerful magical being.

Or stumble into it through cosmic coincidence.

Or discover the truth behind Penn & Teller . . .

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6 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:
19 hours ago, mlooney said:

After all, magic isn't secret any more

Uhm, why do you say that? It seems that the secret is still being kept.

Arthur said it was real on national TV.  The Pandora causes light  show.

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17 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Biologically, with no magic involved, the fact that Adrian has sired at least two children (Diane, and some distant ancestor of Susan) is pretty much proof that the Immortals' chromosomes are pretty close to human, and the count is exactly the same.

Of course, "with no magic involved" and "Immortals" don't go together very well.

7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

Pandora is not 'not entirely human' - as portrayed in EGS, Immortals are fundamentally immaterial, existing outside of a physical realm. But, hey, recognize that it is fantasy, and the rules are as described by the author, in this case Dan, and they can manifest themselves physically. The parameters and level of fidelity of this manifestation are not yet specified; we don't know how DNA is involved.

The immortals we've seen have looked human-like when manifested, but recall that Voltaire faded out while Ashley watched. We don't know a reason they manifest with pointy ears. Could they do rounded ears? Why do they have a gender? Can they reproduce with each other (It seems to follow that if they can individually reproduce with humans, they can reproduce with each other). Do they always manifest in the same gender? What about when Pandora is the grotesque sprawling chaos creature? Is it female?

I suspect that by default they aren't human at all, but when they take on physical form they can produce bodies that are for all intents and purposes human (they presumably could take on the form of other species, as well). We know Pandora could do rounded ears and even present as male when disguised as an existing human (she impersonated Agent Wolf once, remember); perhaps the pointed ears are to show that they are Immortals to those who know about them (or maybe Immortals just think pointy ears are cool). Of course this theory doesn't explain why Elves are immortal and the children of Elves seem to be more likely to have magical power, but then that gets into the question of how magic is inherited, which I don't think Dan has really gone into.

On the other hand, I have an alternate theory that Immortals are ancient humans (or a closely related species) who become so magically powerful that they became god-like, but it happened so long ago that this fact has been forgotten by Immortal culture and all Immortals we've seen. In this case, Pandora's "Chaos" form would be a transformation brought on by her instability, and her adult human form presumably would be her "true" form.

 

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5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Or be born with it.

Adrian is approximately (best estimate) 600 years old. He was born in Europe. He has living descendants.

Statistically, something over half of the people in the world with European ancestry in the past 600 years should be descended from him. (If he were a thousand years old, it wouldn't be "something over half" - it would be "essentially all".)

I doubt he was the first Elf. And I doubt that Elves happened only in Europe.

IMHO, pretty much everyone in the world has at least one Immortal ancestor, and most have more than one.

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

IMHO, pretty much everyone in the world has at least one Immortal ancestor, and most have more than one.

Yeah, that math checks out.

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15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

(they presumably could take on the form of other species, as well).

We have not seen evidence that they can. Extending the fantasy further is of course possible.

 

15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

We know Pandora could do rounded ears and even present as male when disguised as an existing human (she impersonated Agent Wolf once, remember); ...

Yes, that is a good point, but we don't know how deep the impersonation was. Was she physically male at that point? I'm pretty sure no one checked in her pants. It could be retroactively explained either way, and it would still fit the current script.

 

15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

On the other hand, I have an alternate theory that Immortals are ancient humans (or a closely related species) who become so magically powerful that they became god-like, but it happened so long ago that this fact has been forgotten by Immortal culture and all Immortals we've seen. In this case, Pandora's "Chaos" form would be a transformation brought on by her instability, and her adult human form presumably would be her "true" form.

Yes, 'extended by further fantasy' is a possibility. At this point, it is audience speculation, unless Dan let details slip in Discord.

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17 hours ago, mlooney said:

Arthur said it was real on national TV.  The Pandora causes light  show.

Yes, he did. He also presented himself as a crackpot. The host acknowledged that, at least that's the was I interpreted it. His approach did not thrill Edward, but I think he was more 'hiding in plain sight' than 'revealing magic'.

Subsequent to those events, Arthur has consistently aligned with not exposing magic on a grand scale, although he did grant Kevin to train Ashley. I think he knew about Elliot and Ellen already.He granted a research lab to Tedd, but there is a cover story. I don't think his outlook has changed, just that his approach is questionable.

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7 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

He granted a research lab to Tedd, but there is a cover story.

The cover story is to help people that have trouble with some sort of magical issue.  Hardly a story that will keep magic secret.

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I just noticed on re-read that Diane has elf ears when Noah tell her to tell her parents everything.  The Dan needs to explain, more or less, what gives her elf ears.  Seems like stress and/or resisting spell is the current trigger.

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On 1/27/2023 at 7:38 AM, Darth Fluffy said:

She does not need to lie (assuming their technology is at our level, which seems to be the default). She knows she's adopted, this has been mentioned; discussion about her sister at the college party, and later with Susan. She mentions curiosity about her biological heritage, and gets a DNA test. She discusses all of this openly with Adrian Raven, and convinces him to help her cover story by getting his own DNA test from the same testing agency. She convinces Susan to do the same. When the test results come in, she says, "Look, mom, dad, Look what I found out!" Relationships revealed, magic not revealed.

This would be, in fact, merely lying in a plausible manner.

 

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"Mom, I recently learned something that I need to talk to you about... but... there are a bunch of other people's secrets involved in how I learned it, so if you think I'm not telling you everything, you're right."

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3 hours ago, Amiable Dorsai said:

This would be, in fact, merely lying in a plausible manner.

 

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

"Mom, I recently learned something that I need to talk to you about... but... there are a bunch of other people's secrets involved in how I learned it, so if you think I'm not telling you everything, you're right."

 

Exactly, don't raise issues that don't need to be raised.

The 'not lying' comes in with actually getting the DNA tests so you are not lying when you say "I got a DNA test", and have a plausible reason to know. Let them connect the dots.

How is this any different than, say, being in retail and not revealing, "This item is going on sale next week." - especially if you work on commission, and if they walk away, you might miss the sale even if they come back?

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19 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

"Mom, I recently learned something that I need to talk to you about... but... there are a bunch of other people's secrets involved in how I learned it, so if you think I'm not telling you everything, you're right."

This may or may not work, depending on how nosy her parents are towards her personal life. 

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9 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

One of her magical abilities is persuasion, as I recall...

Unfortunately, if there's any human on the planet immune to that power, it's gonna be Mom.

Yeah, mom's are going to be immune to their children's mental powers most of the time.

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