Q&A: September 2023

Hello again, dear readers! Time to ANSWER some QUESTIONS.

As always, thank you so much to all the patrons that took their time to ask a question. Let's get into it:

1) What does Calder think of Elon Musk?

EDDIE: Starting this Q&A off with a banger, huh.

AUSTIN: Well if you'll recall, Elon Musk is just as stupid on our parody planet as he is on Earth. In Snowbound Blood Vol. 3, I wrote about Bytcon swindling him into sending one of his self-driving cars into space because he's a rube who believes he has power when, really, he's just a hodgepodge of various self-important talking points.

I think this alone would drive a wedge between him and Calder, as Calder prides himself on his own perceived autonomy and righteousness. Anyone who tries to muscle through the walls he's created is bound to push his buttons. Not to mention the myriad ways that Musk's inane thought processes on how to solve big world societal problems would assuredly interfere with the Kerian method. Libertarians, am I right?

2) How and when did you decide Arcjec and Ellsee were siblings?

AUSTIN: Later in development than one might think! Originally, they were just good friends that happened to have ties through their ancestry and positions in the narrative. Arcjec's mixed blood was just his own personal shade of bronze and Ellsee was just an estranged mutant he knew in childhood. But as more and more got added to their backstories, the deeper they were intertwined and the less sense it made for them to not have a deeply cultivated relationship.

We thought it would be a missed opportunity to not find an interesting way to bring them together since they were already such fringe, special cases on Repiton. So, we made a special blood-bound relationship just for them, and finagled the various amnesiac plotlines to suit our needs. Don't think of it as a retcon! Think of it as retroactive genius. 

3) Between Arcjec, Ellsee, and Murrit's pronoun updates post-Act 2, were any of those changes the characters actually made at that point in the story or were they meant to apply retroactively?

EDDIE: In-story, no, those "pronoun updates" didn't happen at the EXACT moment when they were shown. Those three kind of had a lot going on at the moment to spontaneously decide to update their social media accounts, I'd say! By the point where we found a suitable way to make more explicit certain aspects of their gender identities, those things had already been in discussion for a long time, and, logically, would have happened on a character level since before the story started, even if earlier acts of Vast Error mostly stuck to one set of pronouns over the others. 

That's kind of the nature of such a long running story as this one, you can't really avoid making these sort of retroactive changes once in a while - it's a bit of a puzzle-solving exercise, to try and work around certain things that were set in stone in a way that feels more current to what you want to do as a writer. But hey, that's part of the fun of it! I'm very happy with where we landed on that particular front, and I'm excited to get more into it the further along we go.

4) In volume 12, Seinru talks a lot about the weight of ancestors and sigils. So, does Seinru know anything about their ancestor?

HEATHER: This does get into spoiler territory! What I can say, though, is that Seinru does know about how their ancestor was portrayed, which is certainly something they’ve had to put some thought into. She likely does not have the full story about him, though.

We might get to know a little more about it later. 

5) How does Seinru control the homunculi? Are some of them on autopilot while some are controlled with specific actions in mind by them?

HEATHER: I won’t say too much about the homunculi either, but essentially yes. Considering the homunculi have been seen working simultaneously in multiple areas, Seinru technically can’t be in all those places at once, but he will focus on direct control as much as he can.

6) If any, whats the etymology behind Seinrus name?

HEATHER:  I don't remember any specific etymology for them, no. I think it was more just one of those "yeah that sounds neat" kind of names.

7) It seems like the Vivifier and her story are quite well known to the general public. If that's the case, how well known is the Forgiven? Related, I believe it was the Fortmistress who originally killed the Forgiven. If so, does Taz know about that?

HEATHER: Unfortunately, there isn’t too much we can say right now about this without dabbling into future spoilers too. Of course, the Forgiven is known of, but the full extent of what’s known about him is unclear at this point in time. Same for how much Taz knows about everything Deadlock actually did.

EDDIE: With the added usual disclaimer of "things aren't 100% canon until they're shown in the comic"!

And that's it for the moment! The next commentary will be coming up in the next few weeks, so keep your peepers peeled for that. Have a good one, folks!

- Eddie, Austin & Heather