April 18th, 2016
And the vote incentive this week is just a short silly thing that must've happened. :>
If you're following on patreon, the process shots/etc for this page will probably go up sometime on Tuesday since I'm not home yet!! EXPECT A MORE COHERENT POST FROM ME THEN. <3 But in the meantime, the first round of Q&A questions was just answered this week, so if you're a patron in the $5 tier, you should definitely check those out! :D They were a lot of fun!
Vote Incentive for This Comic.
Ahhhhhh thank you!! *u*
(/WHISPERS I LOOK FORWARD TO THEM TOO)
posted at 11:04pm on April 19th, 2016
Well, It'll be 'we' soon enough. Face it Xira, you're in too deep. You're with the weird tentacled guy and company now.
posted at 1:32am on April 18th, 2016
idk man xira might be fine with that SAID WEIRD TENTACLED GUY IS A LITTLE LESS ENTHUSED
posted at 11:04pm on April 19th, 2016
i always forget xira is, in fact, younger than everyone...
posted at 2:24am on April 18th, 2016
xira is a teen who tries very hard
posted at 11:06pm on April 19th, 2016
So I have this feeling that Xira is the Sev to Sev's Jonan.
I mean he seems to annoy Sev as much as Sev annoys Jonan.
...
Ooooo! I can't wait till Aember joins the party and Jonan will learn to appreciate Sev's & Tarri's maturity. :D
posted at 2:34am on April 18th, 2016
This pleases me to no end.
posted at 1:51pm on April 18th, 2016
omg so
Xira:Sev::Sev:Jonan
perfect
posted at 11:06pm on April 19th, 2016
As much as I love your art and stories, I have to say that in panel 2, Xira looks almost cubist, and the nose line looks weird from that angle :|
Also, the vote incentive is adorbs. I'm not sure how Æmber would come with, but I know Tareth is going to try.
posted at 3:32am on April 18th, 2016
Maybe she'll come through the power of the tentacles inadvertantly sticking to stuff; like Sev saying "we can't take her she's locked in a forcefield!" and slapping the top of the box.
posted at 1:38pm on April 18th, 2016
And Sev just has to transform into a dragon, with the box suckered on. Follow-up question: will she think it's awesome or reveal a fear of heights?
posted at 1:53pm on April 18th, 2016
this is such a perfectly Severian scenario
posted at 11:08pm on April 19th, 2016
Yeah, I can see what you mean! I don't usually go back and fix/fiddle with finished pages though, especially now that I have such a large buffer -- this one was drawn sometime last year! xD
posted at 11:07pm on April 19th, 2016
I actually wasn't expecting you to change the image on the page, as artists who do that usually end up going back and redoing first chapters over and over again before getting frustrated and moving on to another project that only gets to the end of one chapter before they decide to go back and fix the first few pages...
I'm just glad you see what I mean and don't think I'm some vicious internet douchebag picking on you for no reason :)
posted at 2:04am on April 20th, 2016
I cracked up at panel 3 and the last one. In panel three, you can just hear Xira's frustration (and a little bit of sassiness) coming through; and in the last panel you can feel how annoyed Sev is that this stranger thinks he's Tareth's friend. I almost expect the next comic to start with Sev latching on with his tentacled hands and pulling Xira back like one of those old-fashioned long-handled canes used to pull unentertaining people off the stage! :P
posted at 11:14am on April 18th, 2016
oh my goodness, I'm pretty sure if severian could stretchy his tentacles that long he would Absolutely Do This
posted at 11:08pm on April 19th, 2016
Are they gonna both try to push through a door and wedge themselves XD
posted at 1:00pm on April 18th, 2016
I WOULDNT PUT IT PAST THEM but I think they made it thru the door okay this time THE CHURCH HAS BIG WALKWAYS
posted at 11:10pm on April 19th, 2016
Or you know, waltz out there just when the aberrant hunters come back inside, that works too Sev.
posted at 5:51pm on April 18th, 2016
Severian??? Think before acting???? Perish the thought
posted at 11:15pm on April 19th, 2016
Ever since Necropony showed up a few pages back, poor Sev has seemed super befuddled: "Wha? Huh? Wait, why?" I kinda feel like his insistence that HE get Tareth is basically a desperate grab for some kind of control of the situation! Xira seems to have a real talent for taking control, even in situations he shouldn't be in control of! (Is it too obvious that I really like this page? ^^)
posted at 1:52pm on April 19th, 2016
hahaha omg "a real talent for taking control, even in situations he shouldn't be in control of" should just be the entire description of Xira
posted at 11:15pm on April 19th, 2016
Yes, Sev, you can go get Tareth from the big obvious main room where the hunters just shot you a little while ago, I'm sure that'll go just fine! Or maybe you should leave it to the one guy here who's actually capable of talking himself OUT of trouble...
I'm getting really curious about how Xira and Sev are going to (not?) get along if Xira comes with them (please please please). They both have a habit of taking control of situations, Xira with words/manipulation, Sev with force/sheer enthusiasm. (Interestingly, Jonan usually uses both approaches and can currently use neither.) Sev is completely open about everything, except a few things he doesn't want to talk about; Xira seems to do most of what he does in secret, and he hears all the things people don't say. Their interactions are going to be REALLY interesting.
I'm wondering how Xira's going to handle the hunters, though. There's still a lot we don't know about his powers - I wonder if he can do the nobody-notice-me brand of invisibility? That wouldn't seem too out of line with the other powers of his that we've seen.
posted at 10:45pm on April 19th, 2016
I'm betting on it being Jonan who has to deal with the hunters this time.
posted at 11:12pm on April 19th, 2016
It would be really interesting to see Jonan try to deal with the hunters! Out of all the characters we've met so far, they're some of the only ones that he might not be able to intimidate. A few of them seem to have even less concern than he does about people who get in their way. Terrified girl? Insult her and move on. Angry priest? Knock him down and move on. Giant shapeshifting tentacle dragon? Shoot him and move on.
That's another thing I'm curious about. We've seen why Jonan can get away with stuff (relied on as a healer, army of zombies, can seal your face shut); why do the hunters seem so confident that they can go around attacking and kidnapping people without getting in trouble for it?
posted at 1:29am on April 20th, 2016
(omg I love this analysis)
posted at 11:16pm on April 19th, 2016
One of the things I super enjoy about this comic is how well the characters play off each other in terms of like temperament and approaches to situations. It makes for really dynamic interactions. (Which is verbose nerd-speak for "Oh boy, me too! This is gonna be fun!")
I thiiink illusions and such are something folk with Xira's power-type can do so, maybe. Nobody-notice-me is a superpower I really like so that would be so cool. But, so far he seems to be more of a "these are not the droids you're looking for" type. (The line between those two is kinda thin, actually, now that I am thinking about it. Huh. But, fwiw, I guess I feel nobody-notice-me is generally more of passive, fading into the background noise approach while not-the-droids is an active in-the-moment tampering with someone's perception. Instead of your eyes/brain blipping over the space someone is in and not really registering them, your brain is forced to register false information. But, ymmv and it may work different in this 'verse. I cannot recall! End thought-spew! ...This has been MagpieM's Too Many Thoughts About Powers. And now back to your regular scheduled programming...)
posted at 11:20pm on April 19th, 2016
Building from your fantastic analysis, another difficulty might be seeing things from someone else's perspective. To use an analogy with cameras, you'd have to be see the feed to know which parts to erase over, or add blank wall. Essentially, you'd have to hack into the person's perception, which seems more like an illusionist sort of thing (another type of witch).
Another difficulty is that the eyes aren't exactly a camera that gives a constant flow of information. There's a fantastic Vsauce video on the subject, which I'll link to later. Suffice it to say, the real difficulty is understanding how the brain interprets visual input in real time, having to change the illusion to fit whether or not he's looking from the corner of his eye or straight at him.
posted at 2:03pm on April 20th, 2016
A link would be lovely!
The brain sorta pieces stuff together and fills in the blanks from what it thinks should be/is there to a certain extent, if I remember right. So, if instead of creating a sort of magical-hologram of fake wall for the eyes to see in the spot where the witch is standing, it just directly effects the visual processing center then it's more like using magic to go, "Hey, brain, this is a wall here. You know what walls look like. You just fill in the blanks, all right?"
posted at 11:57pm on April 21st, 2016
It still sounds so difficult to actually do. Hmm. How should you do it? Should you affect the shape recognition area so that the person looking at Xira would be totally incapable of seeing him and then making his brain do that "there's a blank space in the wall but let's just ignore it and pretend it's all wall there"? I don't know how magic works here, but it still sounds very detailed thing to do. If we assume Xira hasn't studied brain anatomy a lot, how would he know what to do? Just try it out until randomly hitting the right spot?
Even if everything above would work just fine, what about larger groups? It looks like Xira can't alter many memories at the same time (= he needs to "enter" the mind one by one), so I'd say changing the way people reconstruct the images in their heads requires something similar from him. If he is capable of doing that at all, that is.
That reminds me of the puppet masters. If Xira can change memories, doesn't that mean he must actually be able to change the neural pathways? And if puppet masters can control the body, what would stop them from controlling the neural pathways as well? Maybe they would lack that nice vision Xira gets to enjoy when he goes to ramble through someone's memories, which really makes it easier to know what you're doing, but they must somehow feel what they do. Like intuitively know that if I move my hand like this, that guy there will sit down or stop or whatever. Why couldn't they feel the brain the same way? Or even if they didn't have any "feedback" of what they're doing, what would stop them just trying it out? Looks like at least Xira hasn't worried too much about ethics.
posted at 12:28pm on April 22nd, 2016
*replies to Magpie so that the thread doesn't get too squished* xD
For ease of discussion, the "types" of witches are Mind-readers (thoughts & emotions), Puppet-masters (control of the body), and Vision-makers (perception).
None of the witches needs to know brain anatomy -- magic works on a more abstract level than that. Xira's not fussing with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex when he makes himself believable -- he's affecting thoughts. Necropony, by all rights, should not be able to open and close its jaw, or to perceive anything with its empty skull -- but it can, because it's been imbued with life.
IRL, "Life" and "Thoughts" aren't real things, they're concepts that represent complex processes -- but in Mær, they're real things, because magic interacts with them and magical creatures can perceive them as such.
THAT SAID I love brain talk and this is some fascinating discussion so: I think Magpie & Jade hit pretty close! like, IRL, your eyes gather data and your brain then interprets that data and makes a nice camera feed for you (which is the reason why a camera whipping around at the same speed your head would whip around is always disorienting - it's very different from what you usually "see").* So I imagine that, scientifically speaking, Vision-makers might just be hijacking that data and replacing it with their own, and leaving the delicate interpretation part up to the brain.
Mind-readers could probably handle avoiding notice, too, but it would be less like invisibility and more like that invisible gorilla experiment.
*(this baloney about the brain interpreting a thing before it shows you is also the reason I can't see that freakin' blue dress, which I sTILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN OVER)
posted at 5:07pm on April 22nd, 2016
In the alternate history of Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy stories (which I strongly recommend), the laws of magic have codified. Readers can recognize it as applied psychic power. There, 'invisibility' is accomplished by diverting vision away. An astute observer can notice that he can't look at a particular spot, but most observers aren't so astute.
posted at 7:46pm on April 22nd, 2016
@Shazzbaa: The invisible gorilla thing! omg I had a teacher show us a similar video for a thing I had to do for work and it is such a mindscrew! Our brains are so wacky.
@Lynx-Eye: The Lord Darcy books are on my list since I ran into a short story somewhere and was basically like, "This! I need this!" Library doesn't have 'em, though and I am currently trying not to buy things I'm not 100% sure I need to own so... Much wistful pining.
posted at 12:07am on April 25th, 2016
Yeah, that alt comic definitely happened. Also I think Sev is suffering from a combination of Friend Jealousy and Big Brother Protective Instincts. This should be fun! :D
posted at 11:17pm on April 19th, 2016
this is a Very Accurate Description
posted at 5:10pm on April 22nd, 2016
So I found Runewriters through seeing your post about T-shirts go around TUmblr and going "I need to know what this is b/c shapeshifters" and then I binged Runewriters like Monday night and then I finished bingeing TNH in like three days so uh.
Hi Shazz. I like you a lot and hope you don't think I'm a stalker. And Runewriters is fracking amazing and I have no coherent commentary on the actual page, but, um, also hi other Runewriters people, it is nice to join you all!
posted at 1:01pm on April 23rd, 2016
UMMMM THAT IS AWESOME, gosh, Thank you!!!!!! I'm super pumped you're enjoying it so far!! ; u ; <3 AND WELCOME ABOARD!!
posted at 2:55pm on April 23rd, 2016
^_^ Thank youuuu thoughhhh >.> I'm glad that you're super pumped! This comic is super right up my alley and I love it to death! Also most people's reaction to "I binged a 500+ page comic in two-three days" is usually "You have no life" and not "UHHH THAT IS AWESOME" so YOU are awesome >.>
posted at 6:17pm on April 23rd, 2016
Comment by Tama
Ah, the reason I look forward to Mondays. :3
posted at 1:05am on April 18th, 2016