Thread 151093439

>I now have an entry in my "offline wiki"—a gradually growing collection of notes—on the door. Part of the reason why is I found myself needing to decide how exactly the user interface for a magic door with one dial—the door knob—and one button—the latch—worked while keeping it consistent with previous canon.

>I could just not explain how it works at all, and it would be fine, but I want what they're doing while interacting with the door to be consistent. Because of that, even if I wasn't sharing it, I needed to know.

>What I found was that four things needed to be true for consistency:

>One turns the dial to see the "After" and "Before" of stored forms, and "After" had to be first because that's been shown.

>"Before" had to be able to go directly back to "After", as that was also shown.

>It had to be possible to go directly from "After" to "Off".

>There had to be a way to access "Not Enchanted"—showing people as though not enchanted—without it being part of the "After-Before" cycle.
>My solution was two sets of cycles. "Off" and "Not Enchanted" are together, and "After" and "Before" are together. A simple solution, but my goodness did I stress over it before getting there.

>The charging flaw
>This hasn't been stated in the comic, so it's subject to change, but I currently have it written that holding the latch in for three seconds while "Off" is what's supposed to manually start charging mode for twelve hours. Using the mirror during that time is supposed to bring it out of charging mode.
>Also tentatively: Using the mirror in charging mode actually resets the timer, and casting any spells in view of the mirror will also reset—or start—that same twelve hour charging period. Whoopsie!

>Ancient EGS History
>Originally, it was claimed that Grace's weight was constant between forms. This was past me thinking making token references to conservation of mass made them clever.

>Way way WAY back in July of 2002, I decided that was a terrible idea, actually, so I made it that Grace being zapped by the transformation gun not only fixed that, but benefitted her in other ways.

>Side note: It's been retconned that Grace's full squirrel form was heavier than it should've been, but never as heavy as she was in larger forms. I know the comic can be silly, but I don't buy a tiny squirrel weighing nearly 200 lbs (91 kg) being able to move. Even if I did, I would then imagine them putting paw prints in concrete.

>Later, in 2004, Ellen zapped Vladia (then called Vlad). Vladia experience very similar benefits, but refused to try transforming after that out of fear of it still being a problem. Given how she's talking now, however, she's presumably tried transforming since then

>All of which brings up a point I find fascinating: If I hadn't needed to write in a way to change how Grace's transformations worked, this entire plot point wouldn't exist.

>I think that's a large part of the fun of writing: Figuring out how to make things work within canon, then building off the results

>WHAT A CLIFFHANGER! What will Grace see?!
>"...Po?"
>SSSHHH!

>Anyway, I'm proud of how Bishop—or someone she works with—found out a unicorn might have been involved in some way before Grace brought it up. It doesn't involve magic or anything convoluted. It's just something they very reasonably would have done that gave them a clue.

>A clue that was mostly useless on its own, but still! Clues are often like that.

>Wait... Characters withholding information is an option?!

>I'm so used to Edward being an endless barrel of exposition that I almost forgot Bishop didn't have to share her own unicorn findings. I legitimately had to remind myself that they weren't really "on the case" together. She had no reason to tell them about it, or to acknowledge any significance to what Grace had said.

>Which is good, because them not discussing that further speeds things along a bit! Prior to giving myself that reminder, the last two panels would've been part of the next page.

>Also, I like panel three.

>Poor Vladia
>I don't like putting characters behind text like Vladia was in panel two, but given the space available, I figured Vladia would be visible. I also didn't want to go stylistic with a minimalist background given the door mirror, so... Sorry about that, Vladia.

Part 1 of 57. Naturally, you don't just suddenly transform a prince. It takes at least 12 comics at a minimum, 30 comics to do it pretty well, 50 if you REALLY want to do it right, and 57 if you write like I do.

>Adrian: "We could just trim the, uh, 'shark fins,' your highness."
>Elliot: "No, we can't! For me and my sister, it's our thing! It's would be like putting glasses on Superman!"
>Adrian: "Who?"
>Elliot: "Oh, this hero from a play written by... Actually, I forget his name, but his initials are DC."
>Adrian: "How do you remember a man's initials, but not their name?"
>Elliot: "Sometimes initials work better, like with... EGS!"
>Adrian: "What's 'EGS'?"
>Elliot: "Egalitarian Gator Samurai!"
>Adrian: "You made that up."
>Elliot: "I might have made that up, yes."

Obviously, this is in reference to matters of personal assessment and humility. It could not possibly be in reference to anything else whatsoever.

>I didn't want to fill up the first panel with the explanation of a conjured mirror, nor did I want to force that explanation into the second panel, so I hope everyone jumps to the conclusion that the mirror that's suddenly on the balcony is, in fact, the result of convenient fairy godmother nonsense.

>That, or they assume this is one of those famous balcony mirrors everyone's always on about.

>Also, it's a MAGIC mirror, and that's why the Elliot's hair in the reflection appears to be parted on the normal side instead of being mirrored! This was clearly something I intended, and not a blunder I decided was too awkward to fix by the time I'd noticed it!

>In all seriousness, fixing the error would've involved messing with several layers of art, and I kind of preferred seeing the non-mirrored version anyway, so I decided to roll with it. Besides, it really is a magic mirror. Maybe it actually does do that in-universe.

>I felt I had to callback the modesty joke in the previous comic, but I also wanted this moment. My solution was to make it so Princess Elliot's beauty only really hit Cinderella Tedd once eye contact was made.

>Which I guess means this sort of happened:
>(Sees Princess Elliot's figure) "ENVY!"
>(Looks into Princess Elliot's face) "So pretty..."

>Is that romantic? Maybe it's just a thing that technically happened. People can decide for themselves.

>>151093570
>>151093590
>>151093608
She cute