Grrl Power #813 – Metaphysics 101
Given Dabbler’s description of devils, you would think that succubi would actually be considered devils and not demons. It’s one of those distinctions that is usually more important to academics than it is to the Infernal populace, unless it’s some political leader looking to score points by stirring up racist nonsense or start a war.
You know, one of those totally justified wars, like, “Are we two horns going to let those one horns terk er jerbs? More horns! More jerbs!”
Dabbler is hugely simplifying this crash metaphysics primer. When she says there are “routes to tap it,” there’s a lot to dissect there. It’s like saying rubbing two iron bars together is a route to tap the electromagnetic force. It’s accurate, but obviously there’s a lot more to it. Especially when considering that magic is an integral ingredient of many races. Demons, devils and several other species and races are interwoven with Infernal magic. Angels and all their variants are the Celestials, Faye are the nature magic, etc.
I spent some time filling in the thaumic subdivisions there. I’m not sure I’m happy with “Void” and “Machine” so I reserve the right to sneakily retcon this at some point.
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One of the things I love most about this comic is the way Dave halts everything, every now and again, to geek out and drill down into something….
He has been halting everything for over 810 episodes, nothing ever gets finished and then wastes months on random crap like this.
If you don’t like it, fuck off
Got to agree with that. You’re paying nothing to read this comic and have no say in how he writes it. How freaking intitled can you get? You don’t like the way he writes it find someone else to whine to about how they write their free web-comic. See what it gets you.
Almost as certain as death and taxes, is the fact that people lacking any talent are quick to criticize those with talent. The Internet is a big place and has plenty of room for you to create your own “perfect” web comic. So why don’t you go ahead and write something yourself? I for one find Dave’s world to be a fascinating place filled with compelling characters.
Ah yes, the inevitable “where’s your web comic, how dare you criticize a web comic unless you’ve got one of your own!” comment.
People like you need to take a deep breath and think about reality just a little, tiny bit. How many movie critics do you think are also movie directors or producers? How many book critics do you think are authors? How many restaurant critics do you think are chefs, or own a restaurant?
The answer is in every case: vanishingly few proportional to the total number.
And how is it that you appear to know for a fact that TJ has no talent? Did you hack DaveB’s server and get his IP address, and then hack the provider and get his location? What if he posted his comment from a Starbucks using their free wifi instead of from his residence? How do you identify the talentless hack then, smart guy?
Was wondering where you were skulking, did the school put a lock on the WiFi server again?
The difference between a movie critic and you, is a movie critic doesn’t just shit over the movie or the production staff (director, producer, writer, etc.)
All you do, is shit all over what DaveB does, without posting a single positive or helpful critique, and then you attack those who point out what a fuckwhack you are
That’s a little caustic. TJ is still reading. And given whats freely available online, its obviously not just for the cheesecake.
I empathise a little – because whereas I like the exposition and world building, I’m in the odd position where I well and truly despise the main character Sidney. But I like everything else about the comic. Cool world, decent story, fantastic art.
Eh. I’m still reading, years and years later.
(Its not the first comic I’ve enjoyed but for the main character – Girls with Slingshots was a favourite, but to be fair the author was very self aware of the main character’s flaws.)
You might like [Wayward Sons: Legends](http://waywardsons.keenspot.com/d/20100531.html). It’s dead, but there’s a ton of backlog to last for months.
It’s about ancient aliens who inspired mythology.
I loved Wayward Sons.
I enjoyed Wayward Sons mostly. But for it’s weird clunky humour and that godawful xmas story. Wonderful creativity in parts though.
You know, I thought I was the only one. Though, personally, I have more of a love/hate thing going on with all the main characters. There have been moments I was close to giving up reading Grrrlpower because I couldn’t stand the main characters and then they did something else, and I liked them again. Huh. Guess that may be a compliment for DaveB’s ability to create realistic characters, now that I think about it.
Oh I think he’s a good writer. I just don’t like Sidney. She ticks to many boxes for personality types I generally don’t gel with. Alpha Geek. Extroverted Alpha Geek (Honestly these people are just embarrassing. Have the decency to be an introvert.). Flamboyant extroverted Alpha Geek with a loony toons version of ADHD whose Wacky Antics is tolerated by a partially covert military organisation.
Oh, and Math. I think the guy’s presence and demeanour often boarders on that of a sexual predator. But yeah, he’s more believable a character for social integration in the military for me than Sidney. A person of his immense skill would be tolerated if hes just creepy and not actually rapey. Someone who acted like Sidney would be snapped back so hard her head would spin. And she would take her goddamn Meds.
That’s true, but some criticism is warranted. And given some of the other comments this has lead to I kinda wish the whole conversation never happened. It’s disspointing because I enjoy this comic a lot. When you get conversations that turn into personal attacks that end up taking a good chunk of the comments section it just makes me not want to be a part of the community :(.
It is called world building (combined with exposition dump in some cases like this). And just because the comic started with a flash-forward you can hardly say that everything after those first few pages is ‘halting everything’.
Better watch out, TJ! You’ve riled up the White Knight brigade and their endless array of nonsense defenses for someone who has never to my knowledge ever asked for anyone to defend him.
This crew is worse than any kind of critic, because your criticism was at least honest and your own. These freaks of nature pretend to know what is best for DaveB better than he does himself, and they are more than willing to let you know just exactly how dedicated they are to the cause of defending someone who never asked to be defended.
There we go, there’s the attack
OK, second from top: “other stuff, don’t worry about it”
Now why am I suddenly ‘slightly’ worried?
That’s where Chutulu&Friends party.
Because that’s where they store all the cool junk, that they won’t let you play with until you have cleaned your room and eaten all your veggies
I saw that and thought ‘this is where the orbs and Krona, or possibly supers as a whole tap into, isn’t it?’
I’d guess the orbs are pure thaumion tech
The orbs probably originate from the Machine portion of the thaumion field, made by a race that is as good with technology magic as the faye race(s) are with life and the demon race(s) are with infernal magic.
I’m not sure why “nature” got quotation marks but infernal didn’t…
Other stuff, like, you know… SCIENCE. Don’t worry about it. Not important.
Reality (as we understand it) is very much in the section labelled BOSON.
Not the usual boring old science, but SCIENCE always written in caps. Cackling mad scientists and all that.
Speaking of mad scientists, are there any of those in this comic? Not that I can remember. I think they would fit in quite well in this silly story (silly in a good way of course).
Fairly sure we saw a pair, when Sydney got her rebreather in SmugD’s bowels
Think the blonde lady that was with Dabbler back at base might be one of said “mad scientists”, but I’m not certain about that. She’s supposed to be almost as smart as Dabbler is, so…
Oh yes, Gadget, almost forgot her :(
Yes, they’re responsible for parts of the dire-animal population.
this for example
MAD as in a few screws loose or missing?
Those tend to mix science with delusion so end up either in politics or consumer product development.
I much prefer angry, annoyed or just crotchety scientists – they are what make the world interesting
No. Mad as Sparks. Capable of forcing their view of reality on the world and warp the laws of nature.
They’re not really Mad, just slightly annoyed.
So it’s a user interface for reality modification with multiple levels of authorisation. And no-one has admin access anymore? In a sixteen billion year old universe it’s believable that some ancient race would build that. God knows humans will, given time and unlimited power.
Well Krona DID say that the orbs have a “Root access to the universe” or something like that while they are being upgraded
I think Krona has limited sudo access, but I think her main limit is it’s through an undocumented programming language, so she struggles at it.
The upgrade tree appears to be written in something she can sort of mostly read, which may be a very helpful reference work for her. I feel like most of her comment there was more like the sort of thought I sometimes have had on finding a document poorly explaining an interface that I’d previously thought was completely undocumented.
yeah that’s the theory, and how it works in some series. Some ancient primordial race with “Dimension Tech” figured out a way to mold the very fabric of the multi-dimensional spaces into a computer like network able to cause shifts in reality to produce various effects. But younger races have stumbled upon this incomprehensible how it can exist “machine/network” thanks to their own astral quality matching up or the use of a symbol based system, ect…are able to use the system at a basic level and are still studying how to use it and what does what. But could never figure out the “how it works” to the degree or replicating it; just what works.
Something along the lines of “Requiem” by James Roden, where a “First Peoples” had learnt how to write to “Reality”, then decided to upload the population to a “digital future”… Echoed by the Igraen People, known as the “Hierarchy” in Reddit/Jenkinsverse after losing their war against the V’Straki.
I’m pretty sure #6 is Hierarchy…
I like where this is going. And I especially like how it looks like he’s been building up to getting into this for years
I like how he’s building up to something which will take century or more to finish. I mean, we are getting close to ten years anniversary and are still at beginning.
… ok, that sounds almost sarcastic but I mean it. I like big worlds with detailed build, despite the fact that in case of comics it may take too long to finish building them.
Dave, if you look at an RPG called “Mage: The Ascension”, they have what they calls “Spheres” which command properties of the universe. Some of what you have in your thaumic subdivisions parallel them. You might get some inspiration for replacements to the ones you’re not happy with.
D&D had ‘Spheres’ long before “M:TA”
D&D has Schools of magic, actually quite different from Spheres (or Arcana in Awakening.)
Generally, Schools of magic are divided by methodology, while Spheres are all about topic and their place in the natural metaphysical cycle.
You can do illusions with any Arcana using the practice of Veiling for example, using a different Arcana depending on what you are trying to disguise.
It was never a new concept, the idea of magic having different forms is steeped in ancient lore, blood magic, prayers, demonic bargains, all considered inherently different depending on culture from shamantic, withcraft, the innate magic of the fae, heck even gods had other gods who practiced their own form of magic beyond what mortals could aspire to so you ended up with gods of magic.
It comes down to how you want to define “magic” or what define as “magic”. Take the metaphysical powers of X-men style mutants, change the setting and suddenly it become “Inherent magic skills”, or an “Elemental Alignment” (like being born to use fire magic, but need training and practice to get really good at it”.
most series that deal with magic have some variations and schools. Slayers has (White, Holy, Shamantic, Black, and chaos) with supernatural creatures relying on their own personal powers rather than spells.
Thaumions are a decay product of prestidigitonium.
I swear to god, first run through i thought that said boston. I was like, “Is that a burn on boston somehow? Im confused.”
No, it’s just the explanation of how it was that the Ghost Busters reboot was able to film here without needing to do any movie magic for that segment. Stuff is just like that here. I understand, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. But trust me, the rest of the Ghost Busters (all the parts that were filmed in NYC) were really difficult to do, because things just don’t work most places like they do here.
Honestly, I’m not sure why they didn’t just make the whole movie here, and save a bundle. Sure, NYC’s a bigger place, but having to fake every little thing just seems like a horrible pain.
It’s the plane of “Other stuff, don’t worry about it” that’s got my attention. I’ve learned that somehow, that’s the stuff that always ends up on the test.
My suggestion for ‘machine’ would be to replace it with ‘physical’.
Be it metallic or organic, a physical thing that can be enhanced via tapping into magic seems logical enough.
“Structure”? Machine would be part of that in theory, and maybe you’d have stuff like gremlins relating to it.
I was more thinking of things such as
Dwarves – Enchanting/Enhancing their craftsmanship/tools/weapons
Adepts – Channel energy into more strength/reflexes/resilience/endurance
Tinkers – Gremlins/Gnomes going nuts and gizmo’s with extra features – some truly crazy stuff here…
And with Dabbler, there is always a But(t)…..
Not just any butt, a ‘big ‘ol butt’ ;)
It’s not that big a butt! Very wellllllllll
honedtoned! Toned!!!!!Big ol hypnotic butt.
Talking to Tamatha makes Xuriel’s “but” look big.
It’s like an extended Dabbler’s Corner, but in comic :)
Machine can also be replaced with Science/Technology. Though, Construct or Physical works too.
Void is fine, everything has an opposite. Order/Chaos, Light/Dark, Nature/Construct, Matter/Void. I’ve seen others use Void Magic in RPGs.
Eh there is an easy excuse and one that can be used to avoid retcons. Dabbler did not pull out a ready made chart. She drew this in a hurry and just filled things in for a quick and dirty explanation. So some of it is wrong. And she can even say she did it deliberately to keep from dropping secrets she is not supposed to on an unsuspecting Earth.
“I COULD tell you the exact, total, literal truth… But your brains would melt and run out you ears….”
“OK, good to know, please don’t do that.”
“But I CAN tell the true purpose of Aglets…..it is sinester.”
I think if you really want to define “the opposing/complimentary force of…” it helps to know how you defined the first one.
So what are Elemental and Mind?
If Elemental is supposed to be the basic blocks from which all physical form is expressed, then VOID would be it’s compliment, as it is the absence of physical form. If, instead, you’re focusing on it more as The purified blocks of creation, it’s compliment would be the blending of same. Or, put another way, would MAGMA, as a blend of Fire and Earth, be an Element, or would it’s blended nature make it the opposite of them, in the way Necromancy falls into Death, being Life but not Pure Life?
For Mind it’s a bit harder, because I really never get a solid feel for what people mean when they say that. But if you’re opposing it to machine, I suspect you’re looking more at that dichotomy as Ridged Hierarchy vs Intuitive Leaps. If the Elemental pairing in about the underpinning forces from which all physical items are formed, then this pairing is the forces from which all conceptual items are formed.
And, finally, if you wanted to chuck them both, Elemental (Physical) can be the anti-thesis of Mind (Concept), but then you get 6 forces rather than 8, and I suspect you’re looking for 8 for a reason. Going to take a beat to hit that 6 is actually more common in science as a followup to 2 than 8 is, and that when you get an 8 point set some yahoo always wants to define how 3 and 7, being orthogonal to 1 and 5, are related to that because… *sigh* So do you want a reason that Element stands ‘betwixt’ “”Good”” and “”Evil””?
Aranea is probably half wanting to get out of there, and half wanting to stay and take notes.
Noticed that as well: she may have her prejudices, butt she seems willing to learn about them (what she does with that knowledge is what counts, remember, she kidnapped Tammy to find out more about Deco and other demons)
Was about to make a separate comment about that, butt decided to read other comments to see if anyone else had a similar thought :D
Nice MLP reference there Dave.
… What?
And please, only say ‘MLP’ if you are referring to the original series from the 80’s, otherwise use “FiM” (which is crap)
Or maybe don’t use TLA’s* at all, or explain them. So people who are not geeks know what you are talking about?
*Oh, sorry. TLA means three letter abbreviation…
I assume it’s Movimiento de Liberación Popular, rather than the Manitoba Liberal Party. The latter wouldn’t make sense in this context …
In this case, MLP Stands for My Little Pony, more specifically (regardless whether Guesticus likes it or not) the Friendship is Magic iteration that just recently ended. When Dabbler says “I’m not talking about how friendship or orgasms are magic,” without the “or orgasms” the “are” would then be “is” (since friendship is singular) making what appears to be a reference to the Friendship is Magic series.
So if Friendship is magic, and Orgasms are magic…
Friendship with benefits must be, like, super-magic.
My little Porny, Friendship with Benefits
*read this*
*Gets up to get coffee*
*comes back to desk and sits down*
*start drinking coffee, only to spew it out over the monitor*
*golf clap!*
Well done sir…cringy yet hilarious, resulting in my brain rebooting as it tries NOT to imagine this.
☆↑This!↑
Yes, FiM is a separate iteration of the MLP franchise
That’s the same thing if people mention ‘Star Trek’ and start waffling about Data, or talking about Worf without specifying which series
Seriously this is getting boring now. Stop with the randomly shoving in more and more new characters every 5 minutes and get back to the main story. You are now roughly up to catching up to the what happened a few months ago which was over 810 episodes ago. Had a random alien invasion and argument over clean up, dropped that and now onto something else. Its like dealing with a person with ADHD that is on a sugar bender.
“Its like dealing with a person with ADHD that is on a sugar bender.”
Like the protagonist?
Please, enlighten us as to what the ‘main story’ is about
A crazy but heroic nerd with superpowers.
No, we know that, wanted to know what TJ believes it to be
And, technically, Sydney doesn’t have any superpowers
I commented a compromise for the disposal of the Fel ship a few monts ago.
The humans want to examine an alien spacecraft but this one is damaged and contaminated.
Kora should arange for one of her ship’s escape pods, functional and undamaged, to go “missing”.
Must have happened around the time the Fel ship and artifacts were towed to the Sun.
Unless you’re forking over cashmonies to fund this, how about fucking off?
And why on god’s green earth would he give even a moments notice to your rant? Where do all you entitaled idiots come from. This is Dave’s world you just get to see it. You don’t like it go make your own.
Many readers, myself included, appear to enjoy these exposition moments. They can get a bit long winded at times, but I find it interesting to learn how this world works, and it gives us many hooks to speculate on other facets of the workings of this comic’s reality.
Dave B seems to enjoy writing exposition moments. It’s his style of storytelling. I assume most of us in his big audience appreciate it enough to return for more.
How do you think he established his MC? Even I can see Sydney is a gender-swapped miniature Dave B. Of course I have the advantage of having met Dave at a local gathering of web comic writers and artists that was part of Danielle Corsetto’s farewell tour for Girls With Slingshots. I also met Randy Millholland and Sabrina Pandora there, and every one but Danielle was a local at the time. Dave B is also a gym rat/body builder (or was), so that’s where he got the stuff for the LT’s supplement obsession.
TJ – the below is from [ABOUT], linked right at the top of the page…
“A comic about super heroines. Well there are guys too but mostly it’s about the girls. Doing the things that super powered girls do. Fighting crime, saving the world, dating, shopping, etc. There’ll be explosions, cheesecake, beefcake, heroes and villains, angels and demons, cyborgs, probably ninjas.
Yeah but what’s it about?
The extraordinary person in the ordinary circumstance.
To me, the most memorable moments in comics and shows are the scenes with amusing character interaction, you know the issue the X-men spend playing baseball, or the moments where you see the ice queen warming up to the underdog nerd character, or the scene that establishes that two tertiary characters have a buddy cop thing going. I find that’s the stuff I remember and enjoy the most, not what villain they fought that episode. If Wolverine fights Sabertooth for the 47th time, who really cares? But if the artist draws him drinking a Strawberry Yoohoo afterwards, that’s the sort of thing that people remember.
I wanted a comic that focuses mostly on those interstitial scenes I enjoy so much. So the comic is largely “day in the life” It is still a superhero comic though, and there will be some fighting of course but I suspect that any fighting Sydney gets involved in will be a little more slapstick than you’d normally get.”
I would submit that DaveB has been absolutely true to his original intent, and that this amazing webcomic is all about the journey, not so much the destination. Also, as a fellow ADD-gifted individual, I absolutely relate to DaveB and to our protagonist.
Factual and well put.
I couldn’t agree more, good sir. :-)
Why is there no +1 … button ???
+1 … ^_^
+1
+1
You seem to have missed the point of this comic somewhere in the last 812 pages or so. The story you’re after is the distraction from this story. This *is* the main story.
You just noticed this now?
“… like dealing with a person with ADHD that is on a sugar bender.”
:roll_eyes:
Not everyone with ADHD is hyperactive (the “H” in ADHD), some have what used to be known as ADD (Attention Defict Disordet ~ the “AD” in ADHD)
“The Faye”? did you mean “The Fey” or “The Fae”?
Or is Resnick up to something in this universe?
Nah, Faye Dunaway ;)
Actually, Faye Whittaker.
Which one? o_O
All the Faye Whittakers.
Faye Knuse
You’ll get it, give it 5 seconds.
Please let that be Pinkie’s real name :D
You know, Suzie’s rival reporter
“Faye Knuse Promoted To Head Of Faux News! – More At Eleven”
Clearly Dabbler is referring to the loose confederation of nature spirits called the Pheigh.
Whatever happened to Fay Wray?
That delicate, satin-draped frame?
Question: is Dabbes supposed to be the teacher? or the naughty co-ed (always felt that word was being Vizzini’d because it stands for ‘co-education’, meaning ‘a school that teaches both boys and girls’) who is trying to ‘improve’ her failing grades?
There are many good sexy teacher archetypes, too. The young, inexperienced teacher who lets herself be dominated by her male students, the ‘dominatrix’ teacher who abuses her authority, the tease teacher who provides fuel for adolescent boy fantasies, the slutty teacher who keeps the cute boys after class…
It’s just the outfit doesn’t look like that of a teacher, more that of a student
The glasses fit the teacher model but yeah the shirt and skirt are student.
If I know Dabbler right she may be in both categories plus a few more.
Um, I’m not seeing Infernal or Celestial magic on the diagram. Should it be on there somewhere?
Yes, they are opposite each other
It is (now)…
They always were…
You were pressing “Enter” as I was typing :(
Sydney’s remarkably calm right now, given that she’s basically right next to someone who injected her with a powerful paralyzing agent…….
I’d have punched her in the eye, given that she can’t fight back right now, or at least i’d be directing to orbs to beat her about the head….
She came out of the paralysis gradually enough to employ a dose of rationality. Combat-wise, Aranea is already defeated. The only way left to truly defeat her is to prove to her that they never should have been enemies in the first place.
They should continue ths at the bar.
She burned through her not-calm when Krona tried to hack her awake.
What popped in panel 2?
Was that her weapon vanishing?
I imagined that to sound like the pop you hear when you take the cap of a marker, which fits nicely with her starting to write in the air using her finger in the next panel. Could be that is the sound of the ‘draw in 3D’ magi-app she used for that.
Given that she had no weapon before and is later writing with her fingers I would guess she popped her fingers (similar to snapping).
Yeah, she was just snapping her fingers, which, contrary to what one might expect from the name, doesn’t really make a “snap” sound. “Pop” is probably more realistic, though a little confusing.
She was like, “How do I explain this…? (snaps fingers) Ah, I know!”
Snap your fingers, then look at the positions your fingers end up in, and you’ll see that they look like hers do in panel 2.
Nah. Magic Gathering.
the sound that instant messages make on some apps, it’s sort of like a crystal bubble popping
And why on god’s green earth would he give even a moments notice to your rant? Where do all you entitaled idiots come from. This is Dave’s world you just get to see it. You don’t like it go make your own.
Dabbler just gave it to everyone in a nutshell….!
Krona doesn’t give Sydney an even break,so she takes matters into her own hands.
Fun fact: the concept of devils as the cunning schemers who offer contracts for your soul and design and implement decades- or centuries-long plans, while demons would much rather just rip off your head, dance in a fountain of your blood and call it a day, is used in Dungeons and Dragons, and for most of the game’s history they were considered demons. In 4th Edition, however, they were moved into the devil category. The latest edition appears to have thrown its hands up and declared them to be found among both groups… which kind of echoes Dabbler’s mention of racial and/or sociological crossover.
for most of the game’s history *succubi were considered
In D&D terms, Devils are Lawful Evil and Demons are Chaotic Evil. The primary distinction is a Devil will abide by the agreement he makes, a Demon will not. If one defeats a devil under the terms of the agreement, he will simple accept the results and try again another day. If one defeats a demon he kills you on the spot, if he can.
Hey Dave, check the “Webcomics I Like”.
It’s Oglaf, not Olgaf.
Yeah there’s always a but when you’re dealing with news like that.
I think Void is a good choice. The void/elements opposition works nicely for the oriental elements, and why should occidental mythology/pseudo-science get all the fun?
Return of Teacher Dab! I like!
Hmmm… everything seems to be opposites so I’m thinking physical would be good for machine. (Not claiming to be the first to blurt that out.) While elemental magic can easily be broken down making it’s opposite ‘more elemental magic.’
I kind of think elemental could come off like it’s own color wheel on top of the others in a way that gets too complicated for this quick explanation.
Order and Chaos, are not opposites; Chaos is the absence of order.
And isn’t that the definition of opposite.
I mean if my bank account gets a -2currency 2currency becomes absent in it, while if my bankaccount gets +2currency, 2currency less is now absent for my account.
Whelp, at least the glamor is easy to follow. And effective (in distracting from “other stuff”). And mostly wasted on the in-‘verse audience?
I thought that we were supposed to switch to a chibi style for these lessons. :-D
Quick info about Thaum…
Thaums are made up of ‘Resons’ which comes in at least 5 ‘flavours'(Up, Down, Sideways, Sex Appeal, Peppermint). No prize for finding the connection with succubi…
And splitting a Thaum may release enough energy to create a universe…
Ooh ooh! It’s peppermint, isn’t it? What did I win?!?!
Fresh breath :D
It’s going to be one of those systems where the magic has an affect on the individual just as much as the individual has an affect on the magic, like how using fire magic makes you more likely to go cuckoo for conflagration, right?
Neil deGrasse Tyson regrets not being on that rooftop.
For multiple reasons.
And this is the “short” version?
The long version is 11 dimensions all at right angles to each other, and the energy changes as it goes from different dimensions to some dimensions but not the rest, and if you go from one dimension to ours and back again you wind up standing on the floor but if you go through a third dimension to get back you wind up standing on the ceiling or a random wall until gravity asserts itself, or turned inside out (which actually doesn’t hurt as long as you go back to the previous dimension you just left), and sometimes you wind up as a hyperintelligent shade of blue and that’s just going from one 3D collection of dimensions to another. Oh and as long as you go from one 3D reality to another everything looks perfectly normal, because all dimensions are at right angles to each other, pick any 3 and it all looks the same except for colors, which are sometimes colours and sometimes kul-urs and in the dark dimensions Coal Urs.
And one other thing sometimes when you are in a different set of 3 dimensions the food isn’t actual food, because the molecules aren’t put together right, like left-handed sugar, only different. I barely understand this, but not enough to explain it. It’s the same atoms as regular food, but enzymes from one universe don’t work because the atoms are not in the right place to unlatch the atoms they unlatch in our universe so you wind up with food that has no caloric value. Like I said it’s complicated. nd impossible to do more than scratch the surface in a single book, much less in a single comment to a web comic page.
That graphic needs a big ol’ “YOU ARE HERE” arrow on the “boson” level.
I love the world-building info. It’s like when they explained the magic system in Erfworld. But maybe I just knowing the game system…
“They TUK MEH JERB!”
“Yeh, they tuk yer jerb!”
Magic is commonly described as relying heavily on symbology so I do agree with the previous comment that the POP in panel 2 happened as the equivalent of taking the cap off a dry-erase marker before getting started drawing.
I have a question about the joke at the bottom of the page. The Thaumiapp Store is all Free to Pay? What does that even mean?
Usually, “You’re allowed to.” Sometimes, “If you paid, it wasn’t Free.” Very often, “Hack at your own risk, but it could cost you.”
Probably a nod to the fact that the ‘free to play’ programs tend to end up almost requiring ‘paying’ to use effectively.
i believe the joke is based on the fact most apps you can download from a Cellphone or tablets App store are free but usually use shady tactics to coerce money out of people and/or have a shitload of ads breaking the flow of whatever you were using the app for be it games, software for editing photos, etc
If you didn’t pay for the product, you are the product :)
“What does [‘Free to Pay’] even mean” – Bad Penguin
In many cases, it means you’re free to use the App at basic capacity to get you interested/invested in it, and anything past that point increasingly starts to require bought features and/or powerups. If it’s a game you may be able to progress past that throttling by grinding at the free levels, but it becomes increasingly frustrating. You don’t need to pay, but they’ll do their best to make you want to.
I see that Tamatha as an Infernal being is ‘inferring’ that her species is bad. I guess it is genetic.
I also see that machines are on the gathering of magical types. I knew that was how airplanes actually worked. Bernoulli’s Law my ass!
As to this page being a needless break in the story, I feel this is actually a valid tactic in this situation. When someone is running on pure emotion and is acting irrationally it is sometimes a good method to calm them down by getting them to engage the rational part of their brain. If nothing else it helps start a dialog rather than just a shouting match. (A method often used by the owner of a certain big blue box.)
Why is Krona Whoed?
Not shown. Not speaking.
i assume it’s because she’s in the chibi skit under the comic
Yea, wondered that as well, then spotted her below