29 september 2013 my precious...

[Veya]

Y'now, for a moment, I expected Ruby's action to only strength further Kin and Minmax's relationship(as mentioned, the only thing about Minmax that is bigger than his offensive potential is his heart, he'd work something out even with his near-negative Int), and if anything backfire and build up some mistrust from Kin to Ruby(since I deem Kin smart enough to connect the dots with the necklace's disappearance).

And then came turtlemonkey to be that one guy to point out a ridiculously likely and much worse option... but... would it really affect their relationship all that much? she would still know that she trusts Minmax, she wouldn't know why, but possibly would feel like the reason doesn't matter, she just knows that she does.

[The Rotting King]

What is that weapon? At first I thought it was an axe, but now I am not so sure. Could those blades extend out to make it into a sword (I am thinking falchion or scimitar style). That would make sense given Minmax's preference for swords.

Yeah, if it was an ax designed for combat it would probably have a longer handle. It might actually be a folded up blade; each of those "blades" we see on the weapon seems to be connected, and they might unfold into a giant sword. (Though the handle would again be kind of short for such a long blade).

Maybe it isn't a weapon, but is instead a tool. It might even be a key to a dungeon crawl, like the key of darkness.

Somebody mentioned that the writing on floor in front of treasure might be an item description. Minmax can't read. I'd laugh pretty hard if he wasted his loot grab on some kind of magical gardening implement due to his illiteracy.

[ForgetsOldName]

I thought maybe Ruby will put it on a voodoo doll and cast some sort of spell on Kin. Or maybe she thinks the necklace has a spell on it. Anyhow they haven't resolved the question of how Kin is going to get the teapot out of the maze. And two days is a long time, especially as there are still a bunch of FMK wandering around the maze--at least all the zombies are out there. And some of those FMK had some very nice treasure.

[Alarikun]

Ah well. Im going to side strongly with this- HOWEVER Im "hoping" it backfires. Even IF she forgets the present, I cant see why she wouldnt remember Minmax going out of his way to throw her a "birthday party". The big misspelled birthday sign, the mice, and frog, a furry mushroom. Will she remember opening an empty present? Will that spark her ridiculously high int to go "wait a minute..." and draw connections the same we she did when she figured out minmax was throwing things into oblivion holes- Not because it jogged her memory and she could suddenly remember "he had pants all along", but because it didnt make sense for him to not have had pants all along.. and only one shoe (Ie referencing all those other squishy moments they had along the way. Will she change her outlook on him now, or look back on all the OTHER squishy moments they had and put 2 and 2 together to figure out why she had those in the first place)? Maybe birthdays being a "new" thing to her (She expressed never having had one before, etc), shell remember opening an open present and be offended by it and change her outlook on the experience. Who knows!

Well, thank you. You just helped give me some new hope on the matter. I'm hoping it goes like that... honestly. >.<

Edit: I mean, as far as the Oblivion Holes have been explained, all memory of the object in question is erased. Nothing particularly changes after that, for other memories. So it would be a memory of opening a present to find nothing. And for some reason, she wasn't mad. Kin is smart, she could figure this out.

Sidewaygts... you are awesome.

[Veya]

In the chance that Kin realize the necklace is gone before Ruby can do anything with it... with who the other two Kins would side?(assuming the situation is big enough to call everyone's attention) I could see Sapphire siding with Kin, but Onyx I am not sure... she does have a crush on Ruby and all.

[DragonStryk72]

Sigh... I was really hoping we'd be getting back to the goblins soon. Not that I don't love MM Forgath, and Kin, but the last comic featuring the goblins as actual characters was the end of book 4, and that wasn't even the main group. We've been on that cliff hanger for a really long time now, all the way since 2011.

[Miryafa]

Aha, so that's what "manual reset" for the maze means.

And obviously Ruby is jealous of Kin having a boyfriend whose Charisma is Awesome, so she took her necklace to remind herself of her purple-eyed lover even after he leaves the maze

[Nemo]

Eh, I just thought she grabbed the necklace so that Kin would come back to retrieve it and she'd get another chance to convince her. Yup. Doesn't make as much sense as the Oblivion Hole theory.

[AntMac]

2. Realizing that somehow the necklace is tied to her feelings for Minmax, she dumps the necklace into one of the oblivion holes. Thus forgetting that the necklace was given and both forgetting the feelings for each other.

I read the comic and went "Ah, that Ruby, what a goof, she thinks she broke the "love" spell Minmax put on that necklace, isn't she gunna be all the disappointment when she finds LOVE can not be broken" , I was not worried.

Then I came to your post.

I am sorry that I immediately thought it was probably what was going to happen, and, that Kin now remembers Minmax saving her in the trees as a bad thing, because, afraid and reminded of evil male harming her, an aggressive raging male "rescuing" only her further traumatised her. (understandable too, sadly)

So Just as Ruby casts the necklace into a hole, Minmax will be taking a happy Kin into his arms to talk about their future . . . *Love worse than broken* after a double take, "Eww, yucky snake-monster, what are you doing" says Minmax. "I told you I would kill you if you ever touch me" says Kin, and starts to strangle him with invulnerable tail.

Forgarth smashes open her skull to save his friend and says "Wow, I was wrong, you were right, a monster is always a monster I guess".

[Corpsificus]

Perhaps Ruby will set the gears to have Kin forget her memories when the maze resets. She could trigger a reset and try to kill Forgath and Minmax early in their run before KinMax can blossom. She could offer the lone Kin an opportunity to team up.

[extrabigmehdi]

Perhaps Ruby will set the gears to have Kin forget her memories when the maze resets. She could trigger a reset and try to kill Forgath and Minmax early in their run before KinMax can blossom. She could offer the lone Kin an opportunity to team up.

That makes sense.

[raaabr]

What is that weapon? At first I thought it was an axe, but now I am not so sure. Could those blades extend out to make it into a sword (I am thinking falchion or scimitar style). That would make sense given Minmax's preference for swords.

Yeah, if it was an ax designed for combat it would probably have a longer handle. It might actually be a folded up blade; each of those "blades" we see on the weapon seems to be connected, and they might unfold into a giant sword. (Though the handle would again be kind of short for such a long blade).

Maybe it isn't a weapon, but is instead a tool. It might even be a key to a dungeon crawl, like the key of darkness.

Somebody mentioned that the writing on floor in front of treasure might be an item description. Minmax can't read. I'd laugh pretty hard if he wasted his loot grab on some kind of magical gardening implement due to his illiteracy.

(FMK exit the maze)
MM: Hey, look what I've got!

Kin: Minmax, that's a Swiss army plow.

Also, the Weapon/tool is glowing purple, Minmax's IME. Whether it's a coincidence, or if it works similarly to Complains's sword has yet to be determined.

[RedwoodElf]

Somebody mentioned that the writing on floor in front of treasure might be an item description. Minmax can't read. I'd laugh pretty hard if he wasted his loot grab on some kind of magical gardening implement due to his illiteracy.

Congratulations, Minmax...you have selected The Ultimate Spatula as your one and only magic item from this dungeon crawl...It gives characters with the Chef Prestige class a +10 on all survival skill rolls to cook a tasty omelette, no matter what kind of eggs are used!

[Voyager]

I find myself falling into the camp of Ruby throws it into the oblivion hole, and it does not have any effect.

Getting the necklace wasn't what brought Kim and MinMax together; it was MinMax going to all the effort he did to give her a birthday party. It wasn't even that he did a good job of it, so much as he tried as hard as he could to do something nice for her. The necklace is just a keepsake. Erasing it would be cruel, but in the end, pointless.

[Mithcoriel]

I don't quite agree with those that think Ruby thinks there's a spell on the necklace. When she told our Kin she had two collars that controlled her actions, it seemed to be meant specifically symbolic.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I also agree that the first panel has weird perspective. I think the reason is that the objects at the wall seem too flat, as if they and their shadows were only drawn onto the wall.

[Tofu]

Grah! - I want the cursed collar removed, not the uncursed un-magicked purely sentimental KEZ collar.

IMO - Oblivion Hole + KEZ collar - no effect, true seeing(*) of each still occurs cos it's not contingent on the necklace.

(* - although. I don't really know about the true seeing - I tried to double check it here (http://goblinscomic.wikia.com/wiki/Kin) and this page is somewhat out of date ... this page needs inserting http://www.goblinscomic.org/05312010/ and I am sure the true seeing bit needs inserting somewhere as well ...)

[Tofu]

wow - that was quick coloring work ..

[Simon_Jester]

And she'd better not split up from them. How will she get the teapot out of the maze? Getting that was the ENTIRE POINT so if they can't leave with it, then there was no point and they'll just have to run it again. Goodness. This feels stressful!

Although Our-Kin could decide to abandon her quest and Pot-out with F&M instead of running the Maze again.

Or they could go back into the Maze after exiting, I think, to recover a different set of items, including the teapot. Sure, they might have to playthrough another four million times or whatever, but it'd still be possible, and their experience would be little different from what it was so far.

Although the Maze might actually have safeguards to stop the same person from entering it repeatedly from their home universe, now that I think about it, because that lends itself to a lot of rather irritating exploits.

+1 It's making me a little queasy thinking about it. Turtlemonkey, you are an evil genius. In my head I am now setting Ruby's alignment to evil. Because "I know you think you want this, but I know better than you do, so I'm going to force you into something else" is pretty damned evil to me.

What if she sincerely believes that the necklace must be cursed or something to make Kin do this?

She's assuming that she instinctively understands how all her 'sister' Kins operate psychologically, and for the two she's actually spent any time talking with this is probably a valid assumption. For Kin_Ruby personally, it probably would take a magic cursed necklace to make her fall in love with a human after being recently abused for years by Dellyn.

But there are a LOT of Kins (scary demonic Kins, giant rampaging she-hulk Kins, pink bubblegum Kins...) that she never really interacted with. She may simply be underestimating how diverse these parallel-universe versions of herself are.

Wait....if FMK do decide to reset, then Minmax will lose his color-coded armor!

But oblivious might be spared; it defies the laws of reality, after all.

Since Our Heroes will still remember how they got the armor in the first place, they can just head straight for the armor on the next playthrough? Or several?

I figure that if the Reality-156 people decide they want to do a few more repeated playthroughs to level up, just as the Kin-groups is doing, the Kin-group might cooperate. Then again, they might not now that I think about it, because they don't want yet another group of disproportionately leveled-up wildcards wandering the maze who already know all about the Kin-group.

Y'now, for a moment, I expected Ruby's action to only strength further Kin and Minmax's relationship(as mentioned, the only thing about Minmax that is bigger than his offensive potential is his heart, he'd work something out even with his near-negative Int), and if anything backfire and build up some mistrust from Kin to Ruby(since I deem Kin smart enough to connect the dots with the necklace's disappearance).

And then came turtlemonkey to be that one guy to point out a ridiculously likely and much worse option... but... would it really affect their relationship all that much? she would still know that she trusts Minmax, she wouldn't know why, but possibly would feel like the reason doesn't matter, she just knows that she does.

I agree- as I said earlier, the physical symbol of the relationship is not the relationship, the map is not the territory, even if in this case the gift of the necklace helped to provoke the relationship into happening.

Also, I still think there's a very real chance that Kin_Ruby respects Kin₁₅₆'s choices better than that, and is stealing the necklace for reasons other than stealing it in the hopes of undoing the relationship.

In the chance that Kin realize the necklace is gone before Ruby can do anything with it... with who the other two Kins would side?(assuming the situation is big enough to call everyone's attention) I could see Sapphire siding with Kin, but Onyx I am not sure... she does have a crush on Ruby and all.

I'm not sure there'd be much of a fight- if Kin_Ruby was willing to fight over this, she wouldn't have resorted to pickpocketing and let Kin₁₅₆ go.

I read the comic and went "Ah, that Ruby, what a goof, she thinks she broke the "love" spell Minmax put on that necklace, isn't she gunna be all the disappointment when she finds LOVE can not be broken" , I was not worried.

Then I came to your post.

I am sorry that I immediately thought it was probably what was going to happen, and, that Kin now remembers Minmax saving her in the trees as a bad thing, because, afraid and reminded of evil male harming her, an aggressive raging male "rescuing" only her further traumatised her. (understandable too, sadly)

So Just as Ruby casts the necklace into a hole, Minmax will be taking a happy Kin into his arms to talk about their future . . . *Love worse than broken* after a double take, "Eww, yucky snake-monster, what are you doing" says Minmax. "I told you I would kill you if you ever touch me" says Kin, and starts to strangle him with invulnerable tail.

Forgarth smashes open her skull to save his friend and says "Wow, I was wrong, you were right, a monster is always a monster I guess".

I don't agree, because you're forgetting that second-order consequences of an object's existence don't change when the object is thrown in the oblivion hole. It doesn't retroactively go back and rewrite your life to remove the effects of the car/necklace/backpack/pants/whatever. It just removes the specific memory of the object itself, leaving as many logical inconsistencies in your memory as necessary to make this happen.

Kin₁₅₆ has no reason to suddenly be angry at Minmax and reinterpret all the events between them in light of the necklace's disappearance. Certainly Minmax won't suddenly think Kin₁₅₆ is a yucky snake-monster, because Minmax was the one who made the necklace in the first place out of vague, friendly impulses.

Perhaps Ruby will set the gears to have Kin forget her memories when the maze resets. She could trigger a reset and try to kill Forgath and Minmax early in their run before KinMax can blossom. She could offer the lone Kin an opportunity to team up.

Now that is a bit more credible than Kin₁₅₆ forgetting her emotional state as a consequence of the necklace going away. It's the sort of auto-stalkerish behavior which evolves naturally out of Kin_Ruby's desire to be big sister or team leader to her group of Kins.

The one catch is that... it is not a foregone conclusion that if the Kins fought Group-156, they'd win.

[BordeauxRow]

(This is an response to Simon_Jester, just didn't want to clutter up the page with even more quotes.)
1. you cannot re-enter the maze, Onyx explained why a few pages ago.
2. a severe trauma like the kins went through warps how you see things. Ruby might be thinking that our kin suffers from stockholm syndrome. (think thats how you spell it.)
3. I am guessing that they will "boost" 156 through it, but time will tell.
4. No real opinion over that.
5. maybe she will react sentimental to the theft but. as others have stated, the birthday happened whether she throws the necklace into a hole or not. If she throws it into it, kin will just remember getting an empty present for her birthday.
-
for the rest i have no idea.

[thinkslogically]

Also, the Weapon/tool is glowing purple, Minmax's IME. Whether it's a coincidence, or if it works similarly to Complains's sword has yet to be determined.

I assumed it was glowing his IME because it's a magic weapon rather than any similarity to Complains' sword (beyond them both being magical).

[raaabr]

Also, the Weapon/tool is glowing purple, Minmax's IME. Whether it's a coincidence, or if it works similarly to Complains's sword has yet to be determined.

I assumed it was glowing his IME because it's a magic weapon rather than any similarity to Complains' sword (beyond them both being magical).

My bad, I was too vague. I meant that it had the IME color changing effect of Complains' sword

[ForgetsOldName]

Something just occurred to me...could the six people (Trikin and FMK) pick out six treasures and give them all to FMK to carry home via the jade teapot? I would think there would be no problem with winners swapping and sharing treasure under normal circumstances. The Trikin wouldn't care because they'd get access to the same treasures whenever they were ready to exit.

[WearsHats]

Too lazy to check : Has anyone mentioned that this page was posted on Thunt's birthday? He celebrated his birthday by stealing Kin's birthday present! Not cool Thunt. Not cool.

[spiderwrangler]

IF Ruby tosses it in an O-hole, I don't think that Thunt will have that negate any feelings between MK. The general consensus/assumption is that those two crazy kids are moving towards 'seeing' one another, and with 'I see you' being brought up during T & D's proposal/engagement, there is a even more personal tie to this aspect of the story. It's the relationship that matters, not objects. To treat it otherwise would cast doubt on his own personal relationship. Not to say that there might not be short term drama, but love wins in the end.

[thousandinone]

So looking over the other perspectives, my moneys on the following scenario:

Necklace gets obliviated, and the maze reset is added to that- touching was still a problem as they entered the maze, if I recall.

The 'I see you' line is said in an incredulous manner, as neither knows WHY it has happened.