MitD XVII: [Y]ou were quite clear. I was just being pedantic

[Tubercular Ox]

if the creature in the darkness is a hunting horror than it depends on Rich's "It is possible to guess...it's not something I made up" covering "I used this other game system, which told me to make up a spell, so I did so and used that made-up spell in a key scene." It depends on the creature actually being far physically weaker than either the tower scene or the earthquake scene indicates. It depends on the creature being in the darkness not because Xykon and Redcloak keep him there though he wishes not to be, but because light, unheralded, hurts him.

I think the Monster in the Dark is a Hunting Horror, aka the Haunter of the Dark, from d20 Call of Cthulhu, printed in 2002.

In this scene, we see a Monster in the Dark with visible yellow eyes, prepared to kill on the order of an evil sorcerer. It has an alien nature that fails to understand how humanoids think.

The Hunting Horror is a Haunter of the Dark with visible yellow eyes, prepared to kill on the order of an evil sorcerer. It also has an alien nature that fails to understand how humanoids think.

The Hunting Horror has an eldritch abomination in its background. Rich’s story has the Snarl, which is an abomination and a horror that is more real than the gods that fear it.

It is a child because the Hunting Horror is Huge and Rich needed to shrink it.
It tells a story of ambiguous alignment because Call of Cthulhu monsters don't have a printed alignment
It has a fish out of water personality because it is an alien creature that is supposed to find us as strange as we find it
It accepts Xykon as an authority figure (which it sometimes rebels against) because that is the role it has in Call of Cthulhu: serving evil sorcerers.


In Call of Cthulhu, it is possible to do magic by manipulating the fabric of reality directly. In Rich’s story, gods are shown to do this by pulling threads.

The Hunting Horror is a Dragon. Dragons have a type and if Rich reveals a Dragon, the audience will wait to see what type of Dragon it is. This lets the Monster in the Dark be both familiar (a Dragon) and not (a Hunting Horror).

Spoiler: Circus Scene

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A sanity check is the best explanation for the Circus Scene. A Hunting Horror forces a sanity check on everyone that looks at it.

• Goblins (and Liches) are immune to sanity checks
• Repeated exposure creates immunity, so the circus workers are immune.
• Adventurer levels optionally grant sanity resistance, so any audience members that look like adventurers may have protection.
• If you do the math, after 14 generic NPCs make sanity checks, on average 1.8 of them suffer temporary insanity.
• Throwing up on the spot and refusing to look at the monster are both possible temporary insanities.

Of course the Hunting Horror has high Charisma, so it can be beautiful, and coming from another realm makes it hard to recognize.

Spoiler: Escape Scene

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A Call of Cthulhu spell is the best explanation for the Escape Scene. A Hunting Horror has premium access to Call of Cthulhu spells because it is printed in the same book.

Call of Cthulhu spells are built off of template spells printed in the book. A Call of Cthulhu spell cannot have the same name as its template spell, and must differ from its template spell in one or two small ways.

Call of Cthulhu spells must have an aura of mystery and strangeness, and are never easy, mechanical, mundane, or safe.

The template spell is Word of Recall. It is renamed to Escape, it picks a sanctuary for you at the time the spell is cast, and it excludes the caster. Otherwise it is the same.

The audience finds it mysterious and strange because teleport effects do not work that way in D&D, and its use as part of the climax of DStP is not easy, mechanical, mundane, or safe. Rich underlines this when the Monster in the Dark fails to activate it later.

You're not supposed to figure this out until after you've figured out it's a Hunting Horror.

Spoiler: Tower Scene

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All the rules the thread invented to rewrite how monsters can use their abilities can be replaced by a single rule: Rich can activate an ability a monster is not aware of without the monster choosing it.

It preserves the story: The Monster in the Dark is still trying to hit lightly.

It preserves the guessing game: Monsters are not being rewritten on the fly.

It unravels how Rich can tell a story about abilities a monster isn’t aware enough to choose.

The Tower Scene should never have been more complicated than this:

A Hunting Horror uses its Deflect Harm SLA to nullify all damage from successful attacks.

The best weapon a Hunting Horror has for hitting lightly is a wing slap from its lone wing. With no arms and no legs, it would look like it’s hitting Miko with a baseball bat, thus it knocks Miko far away.

Rich can use True Strike and/or Power Attack to sell this hit, if he wants.

Spoiler: Thirteen Reasons to Believe (Spooky!)

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One. Gates in Call of Cthulhu are circles or patterns on the ground that take you from one place to another.

Two. It can Roar for sonic damage in a 50 foot cone.

Three. It has a feat free to take Shock Wave, which lets it knock down foes and damage structures in a 100’ radius by hitting the ground with its tail.

Four. It moves at a 30’ Slither, in non-Euclidean paths, per its description

Five. It can use the Fist of Yog-Sothoth, which can push a creature but not hold it.
Six. It can use the Grasp of Cthulhu, which can hold a creature but not move it.

Seven. It has a Ravenous Maw with Improved Grab, and it can Masticate for automatic damage to anything held.
Eight. It has a Tail-Tentacle with Improved Grab, and it can Constrict for automatic damage to anything held.

With no arms, no legs, and no other attacks with Improved Grab, this is the only way it can play with its toys. Both Masticate and Constrict can pierce a phylactery’s hardness.

Nine. It is a legless dragon seen in a nightmare, per its description.

Ten. It is a minor character in The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, where it is tasked by its master to kill the denizens of a flourishing underground civilization, made up of interconnected caves and mines. Sadly, the book calls them ghouls instead of dwarves, but Xykon is confused.

Eleven. It can use an Evil Eye and bestow a curse just by focusing on a target and hoping, but it can’t bestow a blessing.

Twelve. (Start of Darkness, pg 50) It stinks, making people queasy or nauseated, depending on their save. Its smell is never mentioned again, but the means for curbing it are.

Thirteen. (also Start of Darkness Page 96) The Monster in the Dark is not a summoned monster, but a Hunting Horror’s summon spell specifies that it devours its victims. The only character that does more devouring than the Monster in the Dark is the Snarl.

Spoiler: Light Damage to the Exterior

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A Hunting Horror takes damage from the light. Rich doesn’t care about the damage, but he likes to tell a story. Every time the Monster in the Dark has a chance to be in the light, but isn’t, Rich is adding to a story about its relationship with the light, which is: It likes the light, but it takes damage from it.

It has fast healing 10 and cannot be harmed by any light less than true daylight. It can spend up to 40 minutes in true daylight, after which it needs to rest for 2 minutes in darkness to fully recover. It can cast darkness at will as an SLA, so it may trigger reflexively.

[Peelee]

The only way i can be disappointed is if it is entirely irrelevant to the story.

[Throknor]

MitD XVIII: Now able to vote for its own title

[Tubercular Ox]

Okay, officially adding my vote to You Might Want to Begin to Prepare Yourself for Disappointment It's a barrel of monkeys.

[Crusher]

I'll vote for MitD XVIII: The Monster at the End of this Book and...hm.

I'm also going to make a note to myself to nominate "MitD XVIV: Finally Emerging from the Darkness" next time, which has, I think, a fair chance of being the last version of this thread.

Not to quibble, but this current version of the thread launched when, I believe, #1269 was the current strip. So, 6-7 strips. I suspect the next one will last longer than this one, and one never knows what the strip-rate will be, but I suspect the next version of this thread will not be the last one.

Edit - Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with the duration (and length. They haven't varied a ton, but its by more than I expected, anyway) of all the MitD threads but I can't find it. However, I'm moderately confident this was the 3rd fastest thread.

[Ruck]

If created by means 'had a template added to it' then it absolutely can - if it is a plant creature cultivated from a larger one it absolutely can, or an ooze split from a bigger ooze etc.

Again, just because you imagine something as potentially plausible doesn't mean I think it is. Consider how specifically you have to parse Rich's words into a very specific and unintuitive meaning for this to fit. Is it reasonably plausible or logical, or is it something you have to dig for a really specific interpretation of the words in order to make fit?

Spoiler: SOD

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We know that months before Xykon meet with Redcloak he had creative differences with his minions and a week before he meet with Redcloak he had to deal with some good guys in his thrown room without any minions - assuming that it was the same base of operation for that period of time then Xykon was likely doing something in that base for months and we have no idea what it was. In fact we have basically no idea at all what Xykon was doing for much of his life other then a reasoned assumption that he had multiple evil schemes.

Could one of those evil schemes have involved creating creatures? sure, could he have abandoned said creatures for any number of reasons, also sure.

Xykon's reaction to meeting the monster was 'Whoa', the easy reading is that he was surprised to see the creature why the surprise is seemingly largely assumed to be because of what the creature was, but could it have been recognition of something else, sure it could- just makes the rest read a bit differently afterwards.

Okay, so for the fourth time or so, if Xykon created MitD, who is MitD's father and why does he remember him the way he does?

As I mentioned to you if you read SOD from the prespective of 'Xykon created the creature' it reads fine, just adds some additional levels to it.

And if you read from the perspective of "Not everything Rich said about the strip before he actually figured out the plot is canon," it makes a lot more sense. I do not think "Xykon created the creature" fits "Redcloak met and discovered the creature, recruited him, then Xykon met him, with absolutely no indicators of any prior relationship between the two."

Then we have a fundumentally difference of opinion over what is being said here - I don't see how you can claim that 'The comment directly contradicts ... his other quotes on the topic' and also claim you are not putting weight on those other comments, it would seem to me you are putting enough weight on them to void his other comment.

Yes, I am putting weight on the comment that explains the process of creating the story; you seem to think I am putting weight on the number 100 specifically. I am putting more weight on the comments written after the story was figured out than I am on the comments written when the story was still considered a gag-a-day strip, and whether or not you can contort the latter into an anything-is-possible interpretation that fits, does not mean that interpretation is the most plausible or even a relatively likely interpretation.

I am placing some weight on the 100 comment and some weight on the April 2004 comment and have came to the conclusion that the 100 comment might void the first but that they are not inherently in conflict, I am not ignoring either.

And I think everything we've seen since contradicts the April 2004 comment and suggests it was made at a time Rich hadn't figured out the details or story for MitD, when MitD was just "a mystery that would never be resolved." I think this is really obvious and requires a lot of contortions to think otherwise.

Actually, for me it's the other way around: given that I don't think we've found a satisfying fit so far (JMO), I'll be mildly disappointed if MitD turns out to be any of the current entries who all require painful legislating of at least one scene (if not more) in order to fit (thanks for the memorable wording, Kish!)

I don't think that's true-- indeed, whenever I sit down to think about the topic, I find myself thinking that one answer is more and more obviously correct the more I think about it-- but I can't say that it's an invalid position. Maybe there's something out there no one has unearthed that's a better fit; the unearthing part is not my field of expertise.

I guess for now I'll vote for You Might Want to Begin to Prepare Yourself for Disappointment, but I haven't found / thought of anything I really love yet.

[Tubercular Ox]

Not to quibble, but this current version of the thread launched when, I believe, #1269 was the current strip. So, 6-7 strips. I suspect the next one will last longer than this one, and one never knows what the strip-rate will be, but I suspect the next version of this thread will not be the last one.

Edit - Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with the duration (and length. They haven't varied a ton, but its by more than I expected, anyway) of all the MitD threads but I can't find it. However, I'm moderately confident this was the 3rd fastest thread.

What is length when every thread has 50 pages? Or what am I missing?

[Kish]

You're missing the difference between "be longer" and "last longer." Crusher isn't saying some threads are 50 pages and some are 60; they're saying some threads are 5 months and some are 7.

[Tubercular Ox]

You're missing the difference between "be longer" and "last longer." Crusher isn't saying some threads are 50 pages and some are 60; they're saying some threads are 5 months and some are 7.

Okay, that's fair, so what's duration? Cuz Crusher said

Edit - Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with the duration (and length. ... )

[Peelee]

Okay, that's fair, so what's duration? Cuz Crusher said

There's duration and length. There's also the number if strips thay elapse during a thread's life and the amount of time that passes between a thread's life.

I dont know which term is being used for which measurement but it seems pretty straightforward to me.

[lio45]

You're missing the difference between "be longer" and "last longer." Crusher isn't saying some threads are 50 pages and some are 60; they're saying some threads are 5 months and some are 7.

I fully agree with Ox there: Crusher said "duration of threads AND length of threads".

The only viable hypotheses would be at first sight 1) that some threads got locked up for being a (nonmagical) dumpster fire (at <50 pages), and the staff eventually allowed a new thread to open later; and 2) that in the early days of the forum, the standard "restart a new thread for the same topic when you hit exactly 50 pages" wasn't yet in force.

Otherwise, duration of threads varies (from a few months to maybe year(s)) but length of threads does not (50 pages).

[dancrilis]

Again, just because you imagine something as potentially plausible doesn't mean I think it is.

Ok - so you don't think it is even 'potentially' possible for Xykon to have created the creature, previously you said close to 100% now you seem to be at 100% - fair enough, but I am not asking you to think anything else you can (and likely should) think whatever you like.

Consider how specifically you have to parse Rich's words into a very specific and unintuitive meaning for this to fit. Is it reasonably plausible or logical, or is it something you have to dig for a really specific interpretation of the words in order to make fit?

Given that I am been clear that I am happy to ignore the words as non-relevant and have been asked questions about how the 'might' be revelant my example have been to cover that might.

For the record if The Giant decided to answer this with 'there was a whatever, Xykon kept it in the darkness, therefore Xykon created a whatever in the darkness' I think that would be perfectly suitable for the words he used and may have been the basis for some of the rest of the creatures development.

Okay, so for the fourth time or so, if Xykon created MitD, who is MitD's father and why does he remember him the way he does?

I answered this - if the creature was smaller then it could have seen human Xykon and thought him massive and thought of him as father, that you are not happy with that as a potential answer doesn't make it not an answer.

And if you read from the perspective of "Not everything Rich said about the strip before he actually figured out the plot is canon," it makes a lot more sense.

When we had this conversation (to the extent that two comments make a conversation) a few years ago you were a lot more in my thinking (or so I assume I thought at any rate didn't actually remember your response until I was reviewing old posts) that the words might not be relevant, now you seem certain that they are not relevant

...anything-is-possible interpretation that fits, does not mean that interpretation is the most plausible or even a relatively likely interpretation.

I am not saying that it is the most plausible nor relatively likely - I am no idea how you are not getting that.
All I am saying is 'here is a comment, it seems to indicate a thought process, that thought process may have evolved into the story' if it did so then I have no idea how that evolution might have been but for instance:
Random Thought Process: 'Xykon created the creature? nah don't like that, but it was said ... out if for instance Xykon put the creature in the darkness so he created (in a manner of speaking) 'the creaure in the darkness' (hmm like that as an idea), but what does that do to the story, what is the creature without the darkness, why does it stay there, what is the relationship with Xykon, etc etc etc'.
If that or some varient of it was the thought process The Giant had then the comment is relevant to the formation of the story but is not relevant to what the creature is.

I am also content to think that the Giant made the comment ignored it and the rest of the thought process for the story occured without it.

Edit:
Apologies I think I might have isolated the issue we are having, you said:

I would bet it being as close to 100% as can be that it is not relevant.

To which I said:

And that is fine but I would have it more at the 50% level as to if it is a statement worth considering in determining what the creature is...

My mistake - whether something is relevant and whether something is worth considering are different metrics and I should not have put them beside one another.

[lio45]

Not to quibble, but this current version of the thread launched when, I believe, #1269 was the current strip. So, 6-7 strips. I suspect the next one will last longer than this one, and one never knows what the strip-rate will be, but I suspect the next version of this thread will not be the last one.

Edit - Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with the duration (and length. They haven't varied a ton, but its by more than I expected, anyway) of all the MitD threads but I can't find it. However, I'm moderately confident this was the 3rd fastest thread.

Had our "productivity" and Rich's been constant, at the rate of this thread vs the comic, we would currently be in MitD CCXII and voting for the title of MitD CCXIII (and the suggestions would likely suck by then).

[lio45]

And I think everything we've seen since contradicts the April 2004 comment and suggests it was made at a time Rich hadn't figured out the details or story for MitD, when MitD was just "a mystery that would never be resolved." I think this is really obvious and requires a lot of contortions to think otherwise.

Exactly.

This is like dancrilis arguing that since Rich is the kind of author that DOES do rape jokes (an unarguable, demonstrable fact), then it automatically follows that Strip #1276 has a nonzero chance of featuring a rape joke.

[Tubercular Ox]

And I think everything we've seen since contradicts the April 2004 comment and suggests it was made at a time Rich hadn't figured out the details or story for MitD, when MitD was just "a mystery that would never be resolved." I think this is really obvious and requires a lot of contortions to think otherwise.

I've yet to see dancrilis ask you to think otherwise, from my point of view he's just standing up for the right for alternate hypotheses to exist.

And to quote lio45:

given that I don't think we've found a satisfying fit so far (JMO), I'll be mildly disappointed if MitD turns out to be any of the current entries who all require painful legislating of at least one scene (if not more) in order to fit

IOW taking objections to contortions seriously shuts down the entire thread for everyone. It's better to let people have their premises and ask them to go nuts. I bet dancrilis wouldn't last long if you just asked him where he was going with this.

[hroþila]

I answered this - if the creature was smaller then it could have seen human Xykon and thought him massive and thought of him as father, that you are not happy with that as a potential answer doesn't make it not an answer.

You think the MitD remembers Xykon eating a lot?

[dancrilis]

You think the MitD remembers Xykon eating a lot?

I don't particularly think anything on this (kindof the point I had been trying to make - seemingly amazingly unsuccessfully), I was asked 'what about X' and I gave a potential answer to X if X had been Y I would have given a potential answer to Y even if that answer was absolutely disconnected to the answer to X and if I was asked to answer both at once I could have given an answer XY which would be neither X or Y.

I'm certainly not the only one who finds it insulting to the author...?

I made the point above - although more potentially insulting then actually insulting.

Some suggesting that may fit the same theme - (but dealing with expectation rather then disappointment) - hopefully without the same potential for insult (all taken from the statements within the comic none dealing with the creature itself unfortunately).
1. What should we expect next?
2. It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention.
3. I do not expect any success.
4. I should have expected as much.

[Kish]

I will absolutely add a vote for, "It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention."

[Crusher]

I fully agree with Ox there: Crusher said "duration of threads AND length of threads".

The only viable hypotheses would be at first sight 1) that some threads got locked up for being a (nonmagical) dumpster fire (at <50 pages), and the staff eventually allowed a new thread to open later; and 2) that in the early days of the forum, the standard "restart a new thread for the same topic when you hit exactly 50 pages" wasn't yet in force.

Otherwise, duration of threads varies (from a few months to maybe year(s)) but length of threads does not (50 pages).

Sorry, was out all day and didn't check in. This answer is actually the closest to what I meant and I should have been more specific.

I tracked both chronological duration (this is what I meant when I said "third fastest") as well as number of strips covered (which I'm moderately confident this was by far the fewest. Chronologically this thread was fast, but I don't think it was a huge outlier compared with some early ones. But strips tended to come faster then so each thread covered more).

However, I did also check # of pages and # of posts in each thread (50 posts/page iirc) and those have varied a bit. I don't think a thread has ever been entirely locked to flame-wars or whatever (and the old threads weren't always locked when the new ones launched). But they certainly have been closed slightly early (say, page 48 or 49).

GW can correct me if I'm off-base on this, but I think the system wasn't *quite* as thoroughly ironed out in the earlier days, so if you got a situation where the next thread's name was decided early and posting was really slow because nothing was going on for an extended period of time, the next thread might get launched a little early. Then we might have two threads for a bit and the old one would eventually just drop off the front page due to lack of use.

We also had a few threads go to page 51 or 52 (or at least past 2500 posts which I didn't realize was possible but apparently is, or at least used to be) which happened when there was a ton of activity going on in the midst of a change-over and the old thread wasn't locked right away.

Edit - Also, I'm casting a vote for MitD XVIII: It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention. Which imo is one of the best proposals I've ever seen because not only is it funny on its own, its also even funnier because of how *hilariously* inaccurate it is.

[Peelee]

Sorry, was out all day and didn't check in. This answer is actually the closest to what I meant

But but....

There's duration and length. There's also the number if strips thay elapse during a thread's life and the amount of time that passes during a thread's life.

This is whwre I'd put my crying emoji. IF I HAD ONE

[Grey_Wolf_c]

(50 posts/page iirc)

30. It can be set up to 50 in the preferences, but the limit of #pages is established on the basis of 30, so as a curator I keep it at 30.

I don't think a thread has ever been entirely locked to flame-wars or whatever (and the old threads weren't always locked when the new ones launched). But they certainly have been closed slightly early (say, page 48 or 49).

GW can correct me if I'm off-base on this, but I think the system wasn't *quite* as thoroughly ironed out in the earlier days, so if you got a situation where the next thread's name was decided early and posting was really slow because nothing was going on for an extended period of time, the next thread might get launched a little early. Then we might have two threads for a bit and the old one would eventually just drop off the front page due to lack of use.

No, I've always closed the threads because we were close to 50; not because of perceived slowness of posting. I do try to wait until the last possible moment, but sometimes if I have the time and predict I won't in the near future, I am liable to do the heavy lifting of starting a new thread a bit early, so as to prevent risking doing it a bit late. And the reason ultimately is that once a thread was closed by a mod because of length before I had started the new one and it was immensely painful to pull out the OPs (mod had to PM me the text & bbcode in like 8 PMs, because the PM character limit is like half of the post limit), and I'm keen on never repeating that situation if I can possibly avoid it.

GW

[Ruck]

My mistake - whether something is relevant and whether something is worth considering are different metrics and I should not have put them beside one another.

Well, then, I'll just say that I don't think it's relevant or worth considering. The evidence in support of it is one very flimsy piece of evidence, a comment made 19 years ago; the evidence against it is voluminous and in both the strip itself and follow-up comments, and it very likely renders the former piece of evidence irrelevant.

I've yet to see dancrilis ask you to think otherwise, from my point of view he's just standing up for the right for alternate hypotheses to exist.

Well, I'm just "standing up for the right" to call a hypothesis flimsy, poorly supported, and highly unlikely if I think it is those things. I don't think every hypothesis is worth seriously considering; I don't think I'm under any obligation to treat implausible hypotheses as legitimate.

[Crusher]

But but....

This is whwre I'd put my crying emoji. IF I HAD ONE

First off, to me, the question of "Who is the best silver dragon?" ALWAYS has "Peelee" as the best answer.

Second, since you implicitly asked, I did have a methodology for determining the best one, because of course I did. How else would I decide? It was:

Three primary opportunities for points:
- That I meant "duration" to cover chronological duration, and also
- # of strips
- "Length" referred to # of posts in the thread, and I gave modest extra credit for realizing that me saying "...its by more than I expected, anyway" meant that not all the threads had exactly 50 pages

No one referred to all three points in a post, but multiple posts mentioned two of the points. Yours was the most concise, which was good! However, Lio45 was the only one to speculate on the "not all threads had exactly 50 pages" extra credit bit, and also provided the most detailed answer. Concise is great, but depth of on-point detail in *this* context? Huge.

Edit -

30. It can be set up to 50 in the preferences, but the limit of #pages is established on the basis of 30, so as a curator I keep it at 30.

GW

Thank you. Even as I was typing that I was fairly sure I was wrong, but I couldn't figure out what the right answer was. So I stuck with it in hopes I was wrong about being wrong.

[dancrilis]

Well, then, I'll just say that I don't think it's relevant or worth considering.

Fair enough but presumedly you did consider it before deciding it was not relevant or worth further consideration (or maybe not).

For instance, I think the following comment (cut ot highlight the element I am referring to) has likely little relevance on The Giant's writing today (or for a long time) except to act as a potential statement relating to how the world (in-universe) may function relating to alignment (and even that is dubious), but still think it is likely worth consideration for any who haven't seen it in case they come to different conclusions.

Killing evil creatures isn't evil

[puzzler7]

I'll also cast a vote for MitD XVIII: It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention

[Tubercular Ox]

Killing evil creatures isn't evil

Hahahahaa that's paralyzing. Awesome quote. Rich needs it to be true so he can show why it isn't true. Have fun with it guys.

[InvisibleBison]

I'll vote for MitD XVIII: It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention.

[lio45]

Voting for MitD XVIII: It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention.

(Also, it would seem the Darth Paul Effect doesn’t actually require Darth Paul :P)

[Kish]

Fair enough but presumedly you did consider it before deciding it was not relevant or worth further consideration (or maybe not).

The thing is, dancrilis...he said his concept of what the creature in the darkness was was "a mystery I would never reveal" until "around strip #100" and for the creature's "first two or three appearances." I am not seeing any way to get to "so, this thing he said when the most recent strip was #57 and the creature had appeared exactly twice counts as after that." It's championing an utterly selective form of hyperliteralism: this (that Xykon created whatever that is in the shadows) matters because he once said it and the part where he said it doesn't apply now, doesn't matter even though he said it.

[Tzardok]

MitD XVIII: It's utterly unreasonable to expect us to have been paying any attention.

Add to my votes, please.