2022/10/05 - Emily Chapter 7

[rwstyles]

Always nice when real life provides a ready made script for the author!  Yes, this really happened.  Several times.

[Tapewolf]

Always nice when real life provides a ready made script for the author!  Yes, this really happened.  Several times.

Yes, I'd heard several accounts of that, but I only recently learned that the usual name for it is "The Cobra Effect".  For other similar situations, see:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive

[Starcat5]

07-02 - Saying the quiet part out loud

And so we've reached the part where the guilty party finally loses their cool and accidentally admits to their crime.

And thank RWStyles for making this a thread for the entire chapter. As much as I love these comics, this forum isn't active enough to support per-page threads. I was going to PM Tapewolf about such an action, but my Laptop and Desktop conked out last week and had to be sent in for repairs. A phone is a wonderful tool, but it isn't the best at making posts, let alone entire threads. The amount of erroneous Autocorrects I had to go back and undo alone...

[Tapewolf]

And thank RWStyles for making this a thread for the entire chapter. As much as I love these comics, this forum isn't active enough to support per-page threads.

Yeah, people have been posting about Xerian in chapter threads and I have no problem with that.

[Liatai]

Oof. Dewar, your last word should have been "lawyer" instead. ^^; No due process for youuuuuuu~

[Tapewolf]

Oof. Dewar, your last word should have been "lawyer" instead. ^^; No due process for youuuuuuu~

That would definitely have been the preferred option, but it doesn't work as well pacing-wise.

[Liatai]

Aye, sacrifices must be made for pacing. But it would be a nice callback to, and give the king another chance to say, "I am the state." Medieval justice and the absolute rule of the monarch, and all.

There's a certain macabre poetic justice in him being denied the due process he denied to so many, including our protagonists, too. X3

[Starcat5]

I want to say something about "not losing one's head", but it would probably come across as being in poor taste no matter how I phrase it. 

In other news, it will be interesting to see Emily's career path, now that she has been publicly outed as a Demon. On the plus side, she's earned the King's favor and maybe even backing. ...ok, sure there is a recently vacant Thane position right there, but an openly Demon Adventurer does have some story potential.

Edit: Oh thank Dog, hitting refresh to have the browser resend data WORKED! My internet conked out right as I was hitting post, and it has been hours since then! I thought I lost the whole thing!

[Tapewolf]

Aye, sacrifices must be made for pacing. But it would be a nice callback to, and give the king another chance to say, "I am the state." Medieval justice and the absolute rule of the monarch, and all.
There's a certain macabre poetic justice in him being denied the due process he denied to so many, including our protagonists, too. X3

Yes.  He has more to say about this, since we have about 7 pages left - though it's worth keeping in mind that when the Larkwood bandits got too far out of hand, he ordered their deaths outright as well  (see chapter 4).

In other news, it will be interesting to see Emily's career path, now that she has been publicly outed as a Demon. On the plus side, she's earned the King's favor and maybe even backing. ...ok, sure there is a recently vacant Thane position right there, but an openly Demon Adventurer does have some story potential.

We shall see over the next few pages!  She does have a large part in the "Keller" story which is updating sporadically in the Tower of Art, but that's a few centuries later.

[ProfesseurRenard]

Aye, sacrifices must be made for pacing. But it would be a nice callback to, and give the king another chance to say, "I am the state." Medieval justice and the absolute rule of the monarch, and all.
There's a certain macabre poetic justice in him being denied the due process he denied to so many, including our protagonists, too. X3

Yes.  He has more to say about this, since we have about 7 pages left - though it's worth keeping in mind that when the Larkwood bandits got too far out of hand, he ordered their deaths outright as well  (see chapter 4).

In other news, it will be interesting to see Emily's career path, now that she has been publicly outed as a Demon. On the plus side, she's earned the King's favor and maybe even backing. ...ok, sure there is a recently vacant Thane position right there, but an openly Demon Adventurer does have some story potential.

We shall see over the next few pages!  She does have a large part in the "Keller" story which is updating sporadically in the Tower of Art, but that's a few centuries later.

Speaking of the Tower of Art, I thought I could recall Emily beheading Thane Dewar with a sword in the original story. Either this was altered for the comic or I'm being practiced upon by my own memory.

[Tapewolf]

Speaking of the Tower of Art, I thought I could recall Emily beheading Thane Dewar with a sword in the original story. Either this was altered for the comic or I'm being practiced upon by my own memory.

Nope.  I didn't spell things out, but it was strongly implied from the words used that she was operating the guillotine, or at least that was my intention.  The idea was that they had to surrender their swords anyway to attend the execution (weapons aren't allowed in the crowd in case someone tries to interfere) so a sword or halberd execution would have had to include a line where she asks for or is given out.
But since they happen to have a guillotine all set up and ready to go, why make things harder?

[Starcat5]

07-05 - Violent dethronements aren't what they used to be

Can I assume that the King's status as "Demon" is an open secret? Something most of his subjects already know? Because His Majesty is having this conversation in front of a crowd.

[Tapewolf]

07-05 - Violent dethronements aren't what they used to be

Can I assume that the King's status as "Demon" is an open secret? Something most of his subjects already know? Because His Majesty is having this conversation in front of a crowd.

Pretty much.  It's not something he talks about openly, but the fact that he's been ruling the realm for multiple lifetimes is a little hard to conceal.

[Starcat5]

07-09 - Clearing one misconception and adding another?

While it is good procedure for them to confirm Emily's statement that their Commander knows about her status, the phrasing here implies more disbelief than is appropriate. ...which is entirely in-character for these two knuckleheads. 

[WhyNot?]

07-10 - Thanks for reading!

I do somewhat wonder what Erich Taun's story is.

We saw him make the decision to be a 'Cubi pretending to be a Half-Demon Adventurer' and he seemed to be having a successful life out of openly being that. At some point he decided to become a 'Cubi pretending to be a (Half?) Demon pretending to be a Being Adventurer'.

Even if it isn't necessarily the hardest answer to come up with in regards to why he went Being, especially given the comic he's currently in, that he decided to make himself a layer cake of identities to the point of getting outside shapeshifting tools is certainly a choice.

Also I did initially think the roles of the horse and feline had switched roles in this scene from story to comic but they are actually the right way around. I think I must have swapped them round in my head because Evans kinda falls into the Sandy role of treating Emily semi-fairly and getting exasperated at Samson being a blatantly distrustful racist whenever she's not around, so in my head he just kinda progressed further down that path while Samson refused to change.

I suppose it still makes sense: Samson had work and confrontation done, while Evans didn't. He has to acknowledge he was wrong unless he wants to flat out deny reality while Evans just kinda continues down his in-between path because he was never on the 'inherently monsters' thought train.

[Tapewolf]

I seem to recall someone asking whether Erich would be presenting as 'Cubi or Demon here.  Might have been on Twitter, I'll have to go back and check.
The short version is that Emily is set about 100 years prior to DMFA, and my reading is that it would be too early to go around with headwings.