2019/04/29 - An Auspicious Beginning

[shadowlucario50]

I'm sure few may have considered this but note that in theory Steward's coin is not the only one in existence.

Its very much possible that all of the others, not being a direct product of the temple they were housed in were only merely buried in its ruins, rather than being destroyed or disappearing. All it would take is the ruins being disturbed or cleared away for those coins to be spread around and to be found by others, thus allowing others to be exposed to its effects...

I'm a sucker for such change, so I'll be very interested in seeing how this all pans out.

Oh heck, that's a new interpretation I didn't think about. What if more and more people started transforming into animals in town?

If Rick goes for that plotline, I am all for this chaos!~

[Gameb18oy]

Does anyone think it's possible that Marion is just their squirrel name similar to how King and Joel have two separate tags?

I’ve been meaning to ask, but I thought Thomas going to the zoo to hideout was more of a fan theory thing concerning where he could go. I don’t know where he’d go if he didn’t go there, but I don’t think Rick in comic actually confirmed that one way or another...

I always interpreted that as Thomas basically just lashing out in anger, he didn’t exactly make plans to go to the zoo after he got rich and considering how the humans reacted to some very polite wolves walking around the park, I feel he’d cause a commotion if he just tried to walk in

[D-Rock]

I interpreted that line as sarcasm.

[Shadycat]

Marion. Boy or Girl? For now, I'm thinking Girl. (It's still more commonly a Girl's name)

While at its peak in the 1910s (and roughly the same at other points, though it began to even out more) Marion was almost three times more common as a girl's name than a boy's name, I think this character was a boy because before they realized what happened they were thinking about shaving their beard and that's something men have to deal with. There isn't really any evidence for this yet, though it would be interesting if when the coin changed somebody's body, their sex is also determined by the same unknowable ruleset that determines species and Thomas and Steward just happened to stay male.

After reading the comic I was sure it's a boy. Then I checked the skirrl's name and it left me totally confused. In German Marion is a 100% female name. While some guys carry Maria as a second name, I've never heard of Marion as a name for boys.

In the US I don't believe it's a very common name, but Marion Barry was the (male) mayor of Washington, D.C. and Marion Mitchell Morrison was better known as John Wayne.

[John-056]

I'm sure few may have considered this but note that in theory Steward's coin is not the only one in existence.

Its very much possible that all of the others, not being a direct product of the temple they were housed in were only merely buried in its ruins, rather than being destroyed or disappearing. All it would take is the ruins being disturbed or cleared away for those coins to be spread around and to be found by others, thus allowing others to be exposed to its effects...

I'm a sucker for such change, so I'll be very interested in seeing how this all pans out.

Uhhhh, the comment above yours, literally showed that the Coin's effects are almost instant.

That means Humans simply picking up the coins are transformed in a few Seconds.

Look at the comment above yours, it shows Mr Steward being transformed in the span of a few Seconds after Thomas literally spits the coin into his Hand.

So that means the only way for coins to effect Humans without them noticing, is if they are given it in a state where they are completely unaware, i.e, if they are Dead asleep.

[Argent]

<geek break>

Well, I guess to be fair, they do look like GIFs, so an easy mistake. Fen, those are MP4 files.

Okay, you're going to have to walk me through the difference. I just get them from the gif box on twitter.

If Twitter is actually calling that a "gif box" then shame on them, but I suspect that's a video box.

GIF is an image file format that allow short low resolution animations, transparent backgrounds, and other things that were important in the early web. For transparent images it's been mostly replaced by PNG which has better transparency support and better image quality (oversimplified, I can go into painful details but for practical purposes that's it). So GIF is now used mostly for embedding small animations.

MP4 is a video file format that supports full length movies with sounds.

GIFV, to complicate things, is a proprietary streaming video tool created by IMGUR that has nothing to do with GIF but they call it that because they use it to stream videos that a user uploaded as a humungous GIF because that's more efficient for them to serve. I hate them for calling them "GIFV" because it has caused SO much confusion.

Anyway.

Browsers do not typically just play random movies inside <img>...</img> tags.
</geek break>

I always interpreted that as Thomas basically just lashing out in anger, he didn’t exactly make plans to go to the zoo after he got rich and considering how the humans reacted to some very polite wolves walking around the park, I feel he’d cause a commotion if he just tried to walk in

Why would this be related to any plans Thomas had made for "after he got rich"? There's these two camels that showed up after the collapse, one speaking only Arabic, where do you think the authorities would put them? There's no known connection between either and any suspected criminals.

[Buster]

I'm sure few may have considered this but note that in theory Steward's coin is not the only one in existence.

Its very much possible that all of the others, not being a direct product of the temple they were housed in were only merely buried in its ruins, rather than being destroyed or disappearing. All it would take is the ruins being disturbed or cleared away for those coins to be spread around and to be found by others, thus allowing others to be exposed to its effects...

I'm a sucker for such change, so I'll be very interested in seeing how this all pans out.

Uhhhh, the comment above yours, literally showed that the Coin's effects are almost instant.

That means Humans simply picking up the coins are transformed in a few Seconds.

Look at the comment above yours, it shows Mr Steward being transformed in the span of a few Seconds after Thomas literally spits the coin into his Hand.

So that means the only way for coins to effect Humans without them noticing, is if they are given it in a state where they are completely unaware, i.e, if they are Dead asleep.

not necessarily. if the power of the curse is diminishing as time goes on, due to the temple's collapse robing it of a power source, that could explain a delay being present a year after the event where one wasn't in the hours immediately following.

[Bullet]

It already starts with my favorite theme: Human Transformed Into Animal!

Looking forward where this is going and how it even happened. And also: Who is this guy?

[Keldor]

I'm sure few may have considered this but note that in theory Steward's coin is not the only one in existence.

Its very much possible that all of the others, not being a direct product of the temple they were housed in were only merely buried in its ruins, rather than being destroyed or disappearing. All it would take is the ruins being disturbed or cleared away for those coins to be spread around and to be found by others, thus allowing others to be exposed to its effects...

I'm a sucker for such change, so I'll be very interested in seeing how this all pans out.

Although I'm divided between my like for squirrels here, my own keen interest to find out what caused Marion to end up that way and not wanting to have to feel too much of a feeling of sadness or pity.

I feel like there's a very good chance that the treasure is still all there, buried beneath the rubble. Maybe he was out there playing and exploring the ruin and found some. If he was with his friends at the time, he might not be the only one waking up with a rude surprise...

Thomas and Steward both instantly turned to animals the moment they picked up a piece of treasure. But we probably shouldn't assume that this would always be the case. This is Pete's curse, and he has his sense of humor.

[fenrirblack]

<geek break>

Well, I guess to be fair, they do look like GIFs, so an easy mistake. Fen, those are MP4 files.

Okay, you're going to have to walk me through the difference. I just get them from the gif box on twitter.

If Twitter is actually calling that a "gif box" then shame on them, but I suspect that's a video box.

GIF is an image file format that allow short low resolution animations, transparent backgrounds, and other things that were important in the early web. For transparent images it's been mostly replaced by PNG which has better transparency support and better image quality (oversimplified, I can go into painful details but for practical purposes that's it). So GIF is now used mostly for embedding small animations.

MP4 is a video file format that supports full length movies with sounds.

GIFV, to complicate things, is a proprietary streaming video tool created by IMGUR that has nothing to do with GIF but they call it that because they use it to stream videos that a user uploaded as a humungous GIF because that's more efficient for them to serve. I hate them for calling them "GIFV" because it has caused SO much confusion.

Anyway.

Browsers do not typically just play random movies inside <img>...</img> tags.
</geek break>

Oh, now I see the problem. It works with Safari but not with Chrome. Good to know. I always like when you explain stuff to me. I always learn something.

I'm sure few may have considered this but note that in theory Steward's coin is not the only one in existence.

Its very much possible that all of the others, not being a direct product of the temple they were housed in were only merely buried in its ruins, rather than being destroyed or disappearing. All it would take is the ruins being disturbed or cleared away for those coins to be spread around and to be found by others, thus allowing others to be exposed to its effects...

I'm a sucker for such change, so I'll be very interested in seeing how this all pans out.

Although I'm divided between my like for squirrels here, my own keen interest to find out what caused Marion to end up that way and not wanting to have to feel too much of a feeling of sadness or pity.

I feel like there's a very good chance that the treasure is still all there, buried beneath the rubble. Maybe he was out there playing and exploring the ruin and found some. If he was with his friends at the time, he might not be the only one waking up with a rude surprise...

Thomas and Steward both instantly turned to animals the moment they picked up a piece of treasure. But we probably shouldn't assume that this would always be the case. This is Pete's curse, and he has his sense of humor.

I guess if there was a way for him to carry the coin back home without actually touching it until he was about to go to sleep then that could be someway of delaying it. Like it has also been pointing out, they apparently don't notice right away. If he was already laying in bed then just happened to touch it, change, then go to sleep without realizing his bed suddenly grew huge.

This still begs the question of how it happened. I'm wondering now if it's going to be a mystery to be solved like Clue. Was it Steward with the coin in the bedroom? Or was it something else? Part of me wants to know but a smaller part of me hopes Rick isn't going to tell us right away but instead have Marion and the others try to find out the cause over the course of this arc and future arcs. It would be an interesting plot thread.

[Buster]

actually, thanks to .APNG (animated .PNG) files, .GIFs are completely obsolete, unless your preferred browser is IE/Edge

[Urib]

Lol I love how the scale of how small Marion actually is is perfectly clear.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I really didn't notice that the first time around but then again I was trying to figure out who this new character was.

[Bill in OK]

So, did Marion work in a library?

If that is a reference to Thomas Khatt then you have my upmost respect.

It was actually a play on “Marian The Librarian” from The Music Man.

I got it. But I am pretty old.

[Argent]

actually, thanks to .APNG (animated .PNG) files, .GIFs are completely obsolete, unless your preferred browser is IE/Edge

APNG is controversial, the hard remaining core of the PNG working group are apparently having a furious war about it because the standard they came up with was MNG.

[Champion Wallace]

As viewers of the comic we have the benefit of a third person viewpoint, simi-omniscient knowledge of context, and time to digest what transpired. Marion on the other hand, doesn't. We know Hunan animal transformations are possible and that Marion's now a squirrel, but from their prospective, all Marion knows is their arm is covered in fur (and maybe that everything looks bigger). Marion doesn't know yet that they're a separate species now, let alone a squirrel so even if they would "appreciate it", Marion doesn't fully know what "it" is.

Parents and transformation are a fickle thing. They have a tendency to suck the fun out it. Depending on if Marion gets his parents involved (which could not even happen for a number of reasons including they’re busy or away) could effect the story in several ways. First he tries to hide it which after that screaming would be hard, they see him and freak out because they think he’s a feral squirrel, or they have a family meeting to discuss what happened and steps to overcome it. If I was writing this I would go with hide it from them and sneak out the window. Like I said parents and magic don’t mix most of the time. Unless they try to take him to the vet which could definitely be funny.

You can have resolution without necessitating crazy hijinks (I liked the Zap! arc).

Does anyone think it's possible that Marion is just their squirrel name similar to how King and Joel have two separate tags?

I’ve been meaning to ask, but I thought Thomas going to the zoo to hideout was more of a fan theory thing concerning where he could go. I don’t know where he’d go if he didn’t go there, but I don’t think Rick in comic actually confirmed that one way or another...

I always interpreted that as Thomas basically just lashing out in anger, he didn’t exactly make plans to go to the zoo after he got rich and considering how the humans reacted to some very polite wolves walking around the park, I feel he’d cause a commotion if he just tried to walk in

One does not simple walk into prison either. As a camel (without a handler) there isn't really anywhere for Thomas to go to avoid human interaction and not starve. Say what you will about humans, but someone would probably call animal control on Thomas and then he'd be put up in a zoo whether he want's to be there or not.

I'm sure few may have considered this but note that in theory Steward's coin is not the only one in existence.

Its very much possible that all of the others, not being a direct product of the temple they were housed in were only merely buried in its ruins, rather than being destroyed or disappearing. All it would take is the ruins being disturbed or cleared away for those coins to be spread around and to be found by others, thus allowing others to be exposed to its effects...

I'm a sucker for such change, so I'll be very interested in seeing how this all pans out.

Uhhhh, the comment above yours, literally showed that the Coin's effects are almost instant.

That means Humans simply picking up the coins are transformed in a few Seconds.

Look at the comment above yours, it shows Mr Steward being transformed in the span of a few Seconds after Thomas literally spits the coin into his Hand.

So that means the only way for coins to effect Humans without them noticing, is if they are given it in a state where they are completely unaware, i.e, if they are Dead asleep.

It's also been shown the coin's effects aren't immediately apparent. If (and this is a very big if) Marion was tired enough and not paying any attantion, it's possible squirrelification happened during or before when they were getting ready for bed. However, even for a teenager, I don't think there's enough "orange soda" in the world to not notice being a squirrel all the way from Milton's backyard to bed, especially given how much smaller squirrels are than humans.

actually, thanks to .APNG (animated .PNG) files, .GIFs are completely obsolete, unless your preferred browser is IE/Edge

So, .GIFs are completely obsolete unconditionally ?

[fenrirblack]

It's also been shown the coin's effects aren't immediately apparent. If (and this is a very big if) Marion was tired enough and not paying any attantion, it's possible squirrelification happened during or before when they were getting ready for bed. However, even for a teenager, I don't think there's enough "orange soda" in the world to not notice being a squirrel all the way from Milton's backyard to bed, especially given how much smaller squirrels are than humans.

Im really starting to think this has nothing to do with Steward or the coin. It never made sense how Marion could have been affected by the coin during the middle of the night or what Steward would gain from changing Marion. I mean there are a lot of crazy theories about how he could have but it honestly makes more sense if a third party was in play. Why Marion or what is supposed to be gained is still questionable but at this point I’m leaning towards anarchy. That or my original theory of “you have been chosen by a higher power to stop a great evil.”

[Amazee Dayzee]

I'm going with anarchy and I don't think Marion is the only one that is transformed at least of this and the next strip.

[Argent]

Maybe it was Kitsune.

[fenrirblack]

No, Kitsune is not that cruel. He is a lot of things but one thing he never did was mess with humans. Pete was the only one who did that. This has to be the work of someone or something else.

[Obbl]

Your post seems to imply that messing with humans would be worse than messing with animals, though I can't understand why that would be.
Regardless, I agree that Kitsune would definitely not have gone through with something as drastic as transformation without full consent of the victim. He may be a trickster, but he's never one to throw someone in completely blind. Plus he chastised Pete for doing precisely this to King

[Champion Wallace]

It's also been shown the coin's effects aren't immediately apparent. If (and this is a very big if) Marion was tired enough and not paying any attantion, it's possible squirrelification happened during or before when they were getting ready for bed. However, even for a teenager, I don't think there's enough "orange soda" in the world to not notice being a squirrel all the way from Milton's backyard to bed, especially given how much smaller squirrels are than humans.

Im really starting to think this has nothing to do with Steward or the coin. It never made sense how Marion could have been affected by the coin during the middle of the night or what Steward would gain from changing Marion. I mean there are a lot of crazy theories about how he could have but it honestly makes more sense if a third party was in play. Why Marion or what is supposed to be gained is still questionable but at this point I’m leaning towards anarchy. That or my original theory of “you have been chosen by a higher power to stop a great evil.”

I still say Housepets! is not the type of comic to have a "great evil" to stop. Characters seem to max out at the evilness level of scheming uncle. Long time antagonists like Pete, SD, and Bino are far from pure evil.

Your post seems to imply that messing with humans would be worse than messing with animals, though I can't understand why that would be.

Do I spy an anthropocentric vs biocentric debate?

Regardless, I agree that Kitsune would definitely not have gone through with something as drastic as transformation without full consent of the victim. He may be a trickster, but he's never one to throw someone in completely blind. Plus he chastised Pete for doing precisely this to King

Kitsune also said (although this was about the game, which is no longer taking place) "your choice can be overridden in some cases. Namely, the the action performed is for your own good". Additionally, part of why Pete was penalized was for preventing King from saying "Joel", separate from transforming him.

[fenrirblack]

It's also been shown the coin's effects aren't immediately apparent. If (and this is a very big if) Marion was tired enough and not paying any attantion, it's possible squirrelification happened during or before when they were getting ready for bed. However, even for a teenager, I don't think there's enough "orange soda" in the world to not notice being a squirrel all the way from Milton's backyard to bed, especially given how much smaller squirrels are than humans.

Im really starting to think this has nothing to do with Steward or the coin. It never made sense how Marion could have been affected by the coin during the middle of the night or what Steward would gain from changing Marion. I mean there are a lot of crazy theories about how he could have but it honestly makes more sense if a third party was in play. Why Marion or what is supposed to be gained is still questionable but at this point I’m leaning towards anarchy. That or my original theory of “you have been chosen by a higher power to stop a great evil.”

I still say Housepets! is not the type of comic to have a "great evil" to stop. Characters seem to max out at the evilness level of scheming uncle. Long time antagonists like Pete, SD, and Bino are far from pure evil.

Yeah, but it's not like we haven't seen true evil beings in the comic. Or even mysterious being that are most likely evil. Pete may have not been "pure evil" but he was trying to destroy the world. And did some pretty terrible things.

Do I spy an anthropocentric vs biocentric debate?

I don't know what's happening here.

[Gameb18oy]

Your post seems to imply that messing with humans would be worse than messing with animals, though I can't understand why that would be.
Regardless, I agree that Kitsune would definitely not have gone through with something as drastic as transformation without full consent of the victim. He may be a trickster, but he's never one to throw someone in completely blind. Plus he chastised Pete for doing precisely this to King

Funny enough, it seems that Kitsune might have a mild rule of only messing with potential players. The rules seem to be only cats and dogs can be avatars, and while it might be a coincidence, that’s basically the only species he messes with, the mild exception possibly being foxes, but then I think he just sees them as his people, so that’s also fair game

[Argent]

Pete may have not been "pure evil" but he was trying to destroy the world.

That doesn't mean his was "trying to destroy the world". A catastrophe is any event that causes damage. Brexit would be a catastrophe, but not the end of the world.

[fenrirblack]

Pete may have not been "pure evil" but he was trying to destroy the world.

That doesn't mean his was "trying to destroy the world". A catastrophe is any event that causes damage. Brexit would be a catastrophe, but not the end of the world.

It starts with a catastrophe but then it turns into an apocalypse then there's nothing left but anarchy. It's a domino effect. No matter what you call it, Pete knowing causing untold damage and chaos qualifies as evil.

[Argent]

It starts with a catastrophe but then it turns into an apocalypse then there's nothing left but anarchy. It's a domino effect. No matter what you call it, Pete knowing causing untold damage and chaos qualifies as evil.

Um, wut? I see nothing like that in the actual text of Housepets!... can you provide a citation?

[fenrirblack]

It starts with a catastrophe but then it turns into an apocalypse then there's nothing left but anarchy. It's a domino effect. No matter what you call it, Pete knowing causing untold damage and chaos qualifies as evil.

Um, wut? I see nothing like that in the actual text of Housepets!... can you provide a citation?

I’m analyzing and interrupting the hidden meaning of the words and making a conclusion based on similar subjects and possible outcomes and scenarios.

[Amazee Dayzee]

I think that he means that Pete was causing a catastrophe by forcing equality on the world and then it will descend into anarchy which leads to an apocalypse (I think he had those two switched around) and he says that qualifies as evil even if Pete really isn't evil.

[Obbl]

It just comes off as catastrophizing to me. Each individual step along that train of thought is semi-plausible, but the end result seems pretty ridiculous. Especially given the vagueness of Pete's promise: bring about equality between animals and humans. The stated intent was to be quick, and the predicted result was "catastrophe", but we aren't told to what extent this catastrophe would go. To claim that apocalypse is a logical outcome to assume doesn't fit with the information we have unless you start with the assumption that Pete cares that little about mortals, which I don't think fits what we have either.

[fenrirblack]

chaos theory.