El Goonish Shive

Dan has a hard enough time updating one comic with sidecomics, can you imagine two?

Just look at all the sketchbooks he does these days.

NP 524

Say something 3 times and it'll happen.

Comic 2262

May contain peanuts, you mileage may vary, card subject to change without notice, Not valid in Narnia, Avonlea, or Higher-Earth or above.

Made up name time! I predict something similar to her dead lover's.

Well, don't immortals name themselves? Does it really count as a made-up name when you could just decide it's a real name? I guess that gets to questions as to who gets to define an identity.

Really, anyone can name themselves. I came up with Tobias Drake when I was 15. Half a lifetime later, people even know me by that offline.

A name is just the label people use to refer to you. We're all assigned one at the start of our lives but nothing precludes you from choosing the one you like, or from even having different ones for different facets of your life.

Pandora is under no obligation to actually give "Pandora Chaos Raven" as an answer to this question. Sarah's looking for a label by which to refer to her, and Pandora's well within her rights to just pick one for her.

edited 14th Oct '16 7:37:06 AM by TobiasDrake

I suppose if we get into online handles, well, one thing that I find interesting is that people will use various online aliases to address me, even though I generally attach my real name to them somewhere on the account. It doesn't matter that it takes about a minute at most to learn that my name's Rick, but a lot of people will just call me "32." Or, in a really strange twist, "Mr. Footsteps." I didn't necessarily set out to redefine my identity when I picked this screen name (about 16 years ago), but there you go.

I suppose it matters if "true names" are a thing in the EGS universe, but what if they're not? And honestly, would you prefer if "true names" did or did not exist? I don't know if I like the idea that others can simply define who you are without any input from you.

I kind of like the power of a name thing, but I doubt it is in play here. For myself, what I scaled depends on who I'm with. On the internet, my name is very unusual and to give it away it to mix my private and public life. Maybe Pandora won't want to out herself just yet.

I think the point is that Sarah has, I guess, been introduced somewhat to Pandora, but still doesn't have something to call her when addressing or talking about her.

Comic 2263

An Immortal by any other name...

Werkelijk? Doos?

Unsubtly Pandora is trying to close a box she opened.

Hadn't thought about her needlessly OC-y full name being a reflection of her various aspects.

Box?

Just think, If Adrian's dad had had a different name she could have ended up Pandora Chaos Smith.

Box?

edited 17th Oct '16 8:42:34 AM by tricksterson

Um...

I really would have picked a different name. One that doesn't have a crude meaning.

It's a callback.

I suggested she should have gone with Pyxis(not Pithos), as it sounds nicer and may have intimated a Pyxie like nature.

The crude meaning of the word "box" is very rare. No one would think she meant that in this context.

I've never heard of it.

It's a very obscure euphemism for a vagina.

Also a thing you wear to protect your balls in cricket.

Huh. Over here, we call that a cup.

The only reason I know "box" even has a vulgar meaning is Kingdom Of Loathing.

... Hell, the Hole in the Sky may be the only place several slang terms for genitals remain in use.

Going back to the hipster magic thing, I'm wondering if it does have a motivation after all. Besides just "I'm too cool to go mainstream," that is. What if there's a limit to the amount of magic-users that can exist, and if everyone knew how to get magic, it would be spread so thin no one could use it at all? Pandora seems to think (based on her complaints and her memory of that curb-stomped mage army) that magic was trying to keep from overpowering normal technology, but that seems like an odd conclusion. Well, she's insane, so she can have as many odd conclusions as she wants, but I mean we shouldn't assume that she's right.