Comic Page for Saturday November 22 2014

[MuonNeutrino]

Teenagers of all stripes and genders, really. Assuming that Neutral's meddling does indeed apply to everyone, it's definitely plausible given what we know of keidran lack of hangups about sex and plausible extrapolation about the likely culture of Lyn'knoll.

[Warrl]

(And there are a bunch of teenage human and equivalent-age keidran girls in Lyn'knoll who are having a hard time convincing their parents of something important...)

Or teenage girls and age-equivalent keidran males.......

No, because (until recently) humans and keidran are not inter-fertile. And while not everyone knows that, I'd lay heavy odds that it's common knowledge in Lyn'knoll. So if an unmarried female is pregnant, obviously there's a male of the same species involved.

Except now, some girls who have very meticulously NOT had sex with any males of the same species are pregnant.

And nobody in Lyn'knoll, other than the girls involved, is going to believe that very easily.

Until halfbreed babies start popping out, which hasn't happened yet. Flora probably got pregnant the evening that human/keidran crossbreeds became possible, and she hasn't shown much sign of nesting, nor does she look close to term.

[jacobc62]

(And there are a bunch of teenage human and equivalent-age keidran girls in Lyn'knoll who are having a hard time convincing their parents of something important...)

Or teenage girls and age-equivalent keidran males.......

No, because (until recently) humans and keidran are not inter-fertile. And while not everyone knows that, I'd lay heavy odds that it's common knowledge in Lyn'knoll. So if an unmarried female is pregnant, obviously there's a male of the same species involved.

May I remind you of the very rare circumstance of Mary Silverlock, Raine's mother? Granted that happened because of Euchre changing every aspect of his body from Keidran to Human, but it still proves my point that Human females are also likely to be impregnated by Keidran males in the half-breed scenario.

[Warrl]

May I remind you of the very rare circumstance of Mary Silverlock, Raine's mother?

There was nothing all that rare about HER circumstance. She was human, and was made pregnant by a male human body.

Euchre's perfect transformation makes him human "down to the smallest detail". Which would have to include DNA (assuming the world of TwoKinds has DNA), because the stuff is involved in minute-to-minute operation and maintenance of the entire body. That ability is very rare, but while it is in effect he is human in every sense where the body overrules the soul.

Granted that happened because of Euchre changing every aspect of his body from Keidran to Human, but it still proves my point that Human females are also likely to be impregnated by Keidran males in the half-breed scenario.

No, it proves your point that human males can get human females pregnant. Which was known. There are no half-breeds involved in that specific situation. Raine is purely human, with a perfect-transformation ability she doesn't have good control of.

And aside from that, how do you acknowledge that a particular event is "very rare" and then claim that more of the same is "likely"?

Further, even if Raine were a half-breed, that fact would not affect the general knowledge that half-breeds aren't possible - because her paternity was kept secret.

[Tesla Foxtrot]

Half breeding, Is it a coincident that Raine is a half breed, Flora ''got'' an half breed, and both of them knows Euchre (one is Child and ''sister'')
I must say I like the idea with a mix of Keidran and Human. Now we just need to see the mix between the third race.
I wonder if its possible sub-races of the Keidran''minority''.

http://twokinds.keenspot.com/archive.php?p=768
If someone wonder what the heck am talking about.

[Schrodinger]

May I remind you of the very rare circumstance of Mary Silverlock, Raine's mother?

There was nothing all that rare about HER circumstance. She was human, and was made pregnant by a male human body.

Euchre's perfect transformation makes him human "down to the smallest detail". Which would have to include DNA (assuming the world of TwoKinds has DNA), because the stuff is involved in minute-to-minute operation and maintenance of the entire body. That ability is very rare, but while it is in effect he is human in every sense where the body overrules the soul.

Granted that happened because of Euchre changing every aspect of his body from Keidran to Human, but it still proves my point that Human females are also likely to be impregnated by Keidran males in the half-breed scenario.

No, it proves your point that human males can get human females pregnant. Which was known. There are no half-breeds involved in that specific situation. Raine is purely human, with a perfect-transformation ability she doesn't have good control of.

And aside from that, how do you acknowledge that a particular event is "very rare" and then claim that more of the same is "likely"?

Further, even if Raine were a half-breed, that fact would not affect the general knowledge that half-breeds aren't possible - because her paternity was kept secret.

Raine is the product of a loophole in the Mask's restrictions against hybrids. Since her father was a human at the time she was conceived, she also has the innate ability to shift between Human and Keidran. However, unlike her father's perfect transformation she's cursed with an imperfect version (different from the one Trace used on Mary) meaning that she has far less control over it. There's some evidence that it's tied to her emotional state. More to the point, while Raine is a child of Human and Keidran parents the circumstances cloud the distinction to where I can't call her a true hybrid, more of a technical one. While true hybrids like Flora's unborn child were impossible previously due to divine intervention, Raine is an anomaly.

[victorymon]

beside all these gender and child talk, I must say that the 5th picture (the one with smiling) is just priceless!

[Warrl]

More to the point, while Raine is a child of Human and Keidran parents the circumstances cloud the distinction to where I can't call her a true hybrid, more of a technical one.

I wouldn't have called her one at all. She has a human body and ages like a human. Both her parents were human at the time of conception.

However, the half-and-half form seems to be new to her, indicating that the change in the rules MAY have affected her in ways one wouldn't anticipate. It's possible that the universe has retconned her and she is now an actual hybrid. Not saying she is, just that it's possible.

Raine is an anomaly.

Yep, that we can agree on.

[Schrodinger]

More to the point, while Raine is a child of Human and Keidran parents the circumstances cloud the distinction to where I can't call her a true hybrid, more of a technical one.

I wouldn't have called her one at all. She has a human body and ages like a human. Both her parents were human at the time of conception.

However, the half-and-half form seems to be new to her, indicating that the change in the rules MAY have affected her in ways one wouldn't anticipate. It's possible that the universe has retconned her and she is now an actual hybrid. Not saying she is, just that it's possible.

For those reasons that's why I can't call her a true hybrid. She's an aberration.

Admittedly we don't know much about her condition, other than a short brief from her that gave us an idea of the situation but she's far from an expert on magical subjects. It's an interesting new twist on an older thought we had that she might be stabilizing as it were. I hadn't considered that with the restriction gone she'd become a true hybrid.

[victorymon]

aaand now I think: what happens on the other side of the link?
Does the fiance gets the punch in the face?

[requiembob]

There seems to be an insistance that Euchre is capable of 'becoming' human during magical transformation.

We know that Euchre is capable of 'total' transformation. This compares to visual transformation, such as what Natani does in the Dragon Masquerade. This seems to be the basis by which people say Euchre is reproducing as a human rather than as a keidran transformed into a human. This, however, is not the critical distinction. Given that heredity is something that still exists in the world of Twokinds, as with the whole process of growing up, I would claim that genetics plays a role in normal reproduction, for Keidran, humans and Basitin, until expressly rebutted.

The critical question, at least for Euchre, is therefore 'what sort of genetic information is Euchre providing as the father'. Given this is a comic where magic plays a large role, it is largely conjecture as to what his role as the father is:

- Did he impart Keidran genetic material magically transformed to human?
- Did he impart human genetic material?
- Was it Keidran genetic material?
- Did he impart a magical hybrid genetic material, containing both human and Keidran elements?

I think these represent the most common scenarios, with the degree to which it is Keidran or human shifting depending on what position you want to take. What we know is that there was a child: and this child is neither definitively human nor Keidran. Raine is literally neither one nor the other, and shifts freely between the forms whenever the form feels like being asserted. Supposedly, it's based on her emotional state, but it is clear that it is out of her conscious control.

Since Raine ought to be the genetic product of her two parents, we can eliminate scenarios regarding what exactly Euchre brought to her genetic table. It's fairly clear that the total transformation did not make him a genetically pure human: Raine has a magical tendency to turn into a Keidran. Had his genetic material been unaffected by magic, we would expect a human female. So far so good.

Assuming that human-keidran genetic materials are incompatible when breeding (given it hasn't been possible or documented in the world of twokinds before), and this assumption is very much in doubt, Euchre could not have been solely , unmagically Keidran during transformation. This would not have yielded offspring.

Thus, we turn to a most likely outcome: Euchre had genetic material of a human with some element of magical hybridisation to reconcile his Keidran form into a human one. The same transformation magic that makes him look like a human as a Keidran also makes his Keidran nature genetically compatible with humans via transformation. It therefore follows that Raine inherits both Keidran and Human genetic material , which is what would be called a hybrid, but, there is a caveat. Raine is an anomaly whose genetic material , at least as we would concieve it, is neither here nor there, and she exists as both a human and a Keidran thanks to the transformation magic that made Euchre's genetic material compatible with the mother's. It follows from this theory that Raine is actually fully human and fully Keiran, and the degree of outward expression is moderated by the magic in her blood. These match up nicely with the comic so far, where Raine's magical trinkets suppress magic and allow her to sustain a paticular form without being magically transformed by whatever prompts a shift to her other form.

TLDR: Raine is both fully human and fully Keidran. She's not a hybrid and she's not half-half: magic determines the expression of her exterior.

[DariusL]

TLDR: Raine is both fully human and fully Keidran. She's not a hybrid and she's not half-half: magic determines the expression of her exterior.

This.

[Tesla Foxtrot]

I will still call it an mix-breed, is it then magic that controlls the Child of Flora? If so, I will take away my statement.

[Bellhead]

Raine was concieved under "special circumstances", and the gods to not look kindly on those who thwart their laws. Ergo, she inherited her father's human genetic traits, her mother's genetic traits, and her father's transformation gift, minus the control he had.

While she is technically a hybrid, she's actually a human with an uncontrollable ability to shift her form.

[JayJayForce]

Really interesting question this, What is Raine?

My view is that she is ( or was ) De Facto a Cursed Human. The reasoning behind my view is to do with her magic suppression wards. They were used by Mary to keep her in her Human form at the cost of blocking out most of her magic meaning that she is only Keidran due to her uncontrolled magical abilities. This implies that she is Human by nature, which would agree with her having a normal human mother and a human ( through perfect transformation ) father. Now I agree that she inherited traits from Euchre ( her transformation abilities for one ), but I believe their is no actual Keidran DNA involved, merely Euchre's genetic traits as they would be if he was born Human. Her being unable to Control her powers and them favouring Keidran form I believe is the Masks' punishing them for getting around the No Half Breeds rule.

This doesn't mean that her Keidran side is wrong or should be removed ( afterall, a Dragon's flight is central to their nature yet relies on magic ), just that it solely exists as a result of her magic and would disappear if magic was removed entirely.