Without Even Meaning It

The punchline actually occurred in a conversation out here, where people are not so often shaped like Platonic solids. It was just so crisp and smooth and apt that I basically had no choice. A comic had to be made, regardless of whether--well, regardless of a lot of things, really.

I never imagined the Polytopes having many senses. Or, if they do have senses, I imagined their senses had to do with more mathematical things--an internal sense of integrals and differentials, inherent knowledge of their distance from objects from which a general shape can be inferred, that sort of thing. Senses that have nothing to do with the way humans see the world, but cobble together to bring about the same general effect.

Apparently Polytopes have smell, though, or at least something they call smell, which also has to do with particles in the air. What the hell could a world made entirely of geometry possibly have to filter? Why did Otto get the air filter? Where did the air filter come from in the first place?

I don't know how to answer the first one. For the second, Otto has all kinds of strange interests, and while they're usually related to the manufacture of recreational chemicals--why those affect shapes is another question entirely--it's not too big a leap for him to be vaguely interested in air filtration. The third question is answerable only through alternate plotlines. There was one, once, in which Dido summoned an entire constellation of objects from other dimensions in an attempt to unbalance itself from its place in the exact center of the room, thus pulling it to a normal surface. But now I've thought of something else to do. Still, the idea was a strong one, and ripples of it extend into all adjacent plotlines, including this one.

Or, you know, the author's just lazy and willing to make room for pretty much any pun that rears its ugly head. Everyone's aware that baking soda is alkaline, right? So when dissolved in water, it's a basic solution? Good. Glad we cleared that up.