Q&A: October 2022

Heya there, folks! It's time for some ANSWERS to some QUESTIONS. This month the Q&A is being released before the comic commentary because I found that it's usually ready to go way faster, so I think a switcheroo in the order is gonna work out better for our monthly schedule. So that's what we're gonna do from now on!

As always, thank you so much to all the patrons that took their time to ask a question!

1. Did Calder and Murrit have a thing in the past that faded out?

AUSTIN: Calder had a thing for Murrit and not the other way around.

I don't doubt there was a point in time where the two of them were friendly or even cared for one another. That's obvious enough with the details we glean about their young friendship during the Jentha flashback and how Murrit sees his connections to the others in general, but it was always a heavily one-sided admiration that Murrit used to his benefit and that Calder vicariously lived through.

When Calder wound up putting stock in his right-wing, male oriented worldviews in the wake of his life falling apart as a means of scapegoating, this blossomed as Calder resenting Murrit's own shift into the nonsensical, and vice versa. Neither of them gained anything from each other anymore, so the friendship died.

To me, the fact that Calder was - for lack of a better term - strung along by Murrit adds a lot to his current characterization. In many senses, he really isn't wrong to believe that he was left behind, even if the fact that it persisted for so long afterwards was of his own making.

2. Why does Occeus immediately assume Calder is responsible for/associated with The Game? Has Calder antagonized Occeus in the past and is this related to their pale woes?

AUSTIN: It's because Occeus and Calder are server and client players, so Occeus contacts Calder to find out what he knows on account of that. The system has cosmologically intertwined them yet again, and as such, he wonders what exact role he has in it. 

Though I don't think him or the audience really know the true extent of that just yet. Calder is a cagey little bugger who enjoys padding out his sentences with talking points to avoid the bigger picture.

3. Did the main 12 have sleepovers as kids? And how will Arcjec's memory issues affect his character development- as in, is it potentially anterograde?

EDDIE: Oh yeah, absolutely! I don't think it'd be very common for that to happen with ALL twelve of them at the same time, because that's just so many people and logistics, but I like to think that the Voorat-Raines siblings frequently offered to host some of those good childhood sleepover parties - the fact that Ellsee wasn't really able to move around a lot before the start of her magic girl pilgrimage would certainly be a contributing factor. I would say the most frequent visitors were probably Taz, Laivan and to a lesser extent, Calder. Maybe even Occeus sometimes? Who knows!

As far as Arcjec's memory thing goes, I think we've said pretty much all that we can say about it already without dipping into spoiler territory. It's kind of a big deal, so we gotta keep it hush-hush!

4. Any info on the Kaikai and Innali ancestors that you guys are willing to spare?

EDDIE: The truth of the matter is that most of the ancestor characters that aren't related to the main 12 are pretty loosey-goosey as far as established Facts about them go - with the exception of Clarud Enthal, who is a Pretty Big Fucking Deal, which is unfortunate for everyone. 

We're honestly not sure how much time we'll even have to spare for any of those guys in the end, with all the other more pressing balls in our court. What we CAN say, though, is that Turnin's ancestor was inspired by one Kevin Thomas Strahle (better known as the L.A. Beast) and that Kaikai Sr. was a member of Clarud's long since disbanded Noble Compact, first mentioned in this page over here. Fun!

And that's it for this month! Hope you're all having a good Wednesday, and we'll see you again soon!

- Eddie and Austin