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I haven't even played this game and I already hate these guys. His character design and behaviour is hilarious though. It's telling that Grace is far more reticent greeting these people then she was greeting the escaped convict or even her own assailant. No cheerful "hello" here. All the slavery, patriarchy and sheer violence is why I'm always a bit sceptical when people unreservedly praise the ancient world as some kind of pinnacle of civilization. Sure, they produced philosophy and literature that is still relevant today, but in many aspects they were no better than the "barbarians" they opposed.

If I had a spellbook, I'd want it to have "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters on the cover...

Gentle forumgoers all, Some of you may have noticed that I have been unusually short-tempered and hypersensitive of late. I am afraid that this is not your imagination. Due to RL circumstances I am under an unusually large amount of stress, and I have recently arrived at the reluctant conclusion that it is affecting my judgment. I will attempt to watch this more closely but I would also like to say that if you yourselves feel that I am reacting too strongly, you should not hesitate to point this out. The ideal would be to find a temporary or permanent addition to the moderator staff to cover for me while my current situation persists, and I intend to take this up with Robin. In the meantime, I apologise to you all and thank you for the patience you have shown. My best regards, The Old Hack

It goes back to Tedd's theory that if Elliot wants non-girly spells, he has to like the girly spells he has first. So basically we've just seen the moment that Elliot truly loves being Cheerleadra, and his book seems to have noticed this so it's not unlikely that he's finally got a non-girly spell. It's probably a good sign that he wasn't forced to change into a male Cheerleadra so that should mean the female superhero spell is still intact, it might have been updated to allow Elliot to chose what gender he wants to be though. I think there would be riots if it turned out Elliot could only use a male superhero form from now on, with Elliot leading the pack.

Yes, the Nanase doll tucked in Elliot's waistband is cute! Talking back to the voice in your head is often a sign of madness . . . Anyway, I like the poses in the 4th and 6th panels. Elliot is indeed owning the Cheerleadra form and identity. Also, Elliot has confirmed here that the Cheerleadra form has super strength. Not "more powerful than a locomotive", but definitely strength that is implausible for a human--stronger than non-Guardian Nanase, likely stronger than Greg, and possibly able to lift an automobile overhead. Considering the number of people who want to change their bodies' apparent sex in spite of being made social outcasts for doing so (hundreds of thousands in America alone), I would expect that easily ten times as many (or more) would do so if it were reversible, safe, and not a source of social rejection. Everybody has had at least idle curiosity about how "the other half" lives, even if they don't want to transform on a permanent basis.

Also, being willing to admit that your own judgement is not flawless is a good thing--those who think themselves perfect allow themselves no room for improvement.

I would like to discuss why the professional and efficient Roman Legions were not cesspools of bigots and bullies as they are frequently portrayed by historians. I would like to do that. But I can't. While the worst humans were never the majority in any army, the need for soldiers willing to fight and kill on command means that people who use violence for pleasure were (and often still are) tolerated to some degree by military commanders. Historic Legionaries once asked a controversial religious figure for some spiritual advice What he told them boiled down to "Don't be a jerk to the civilians". (Luke 3:14) I don't think that misogynistic men who wish to reenact their own vision of the Marian Legions would include an admonishment from John the Baptist in their general orders.

That's Jennifer Hale's skill at play. Lady has been just about every female character in cartoons and games since the 90s. Seriously, most main character Marvel or DC ladies have had her. Black Cat? Hale. Poison Ivy? Hale. Spider-Woman? Hale. Martha Kent? Hale. Captain Marvel? Hale. Mary Jane Watson and Miss Vermin in the Spiderman Unlimited series? Hale. Bastilla Shan? Hale. Aayla Secura, possibly in a video game? Hale. the video game voice of Dory from Finding Nemo and Galadriel from Lord of the Rings, since apparently I guess they couldn't afford their main voice actors for thevideo games? Hale. Cinderella in the awesome time travel and actual conflict direct to video sequel known as Cinderella III? Hale. She has basically been every enjoyable character in animation and in gaming. It surprises me she hasn't been a Lara Croft yet, but it's a matter of time and availability of an opening I guess. More than half of the female characters I enjoyed as a kid had her behind the voice.

Either that, or find a way to make it automatically boot anyone inactive for a certain amount of time, perhaps half an hour.

It's the sound of the spellbook downloading the new spell from the aether.

Personally I think an equine form for Elliot would be great! I may be somewhat biased.

You do your best in what is often a thankless job. Even under stress you have striven to be as fair and impartial as you know how to be. And you make some witty comments as a forum-goer. Go if you need to. Stay as a non-mod if you want to. You're welcome here.

You do what you can to take it easy Hack, but don't think this makes you unfit to be a moderator, if anything this just a reminder that you aren't an emotionless robot and you're not immune to stress. In the time that I've been in these forums, I've seen you do your best to keep things civil and friendly. Allowing us to be able to say when we think something's not right is not only a sign of a good moderator, but a good person in general and I believe that's what makes this a good community.

Well there was the moment earlier in Elliot and Ashley's date, shortly after he transformed into Mall Girl. When Ashley asked if he was comfortable with being a girl, Elliot stated that "I guess sometimes I feel like being one more than the other." which could be enough evidence to say Elliot is genderfluid. But I don't think he was always that way like Tedd was, this could have been something Elliot never would have considered if he never got zapped in the first place. It makes me think that if everyone had the ability, either through magic or technology, to switch between genders at will, a good portion of people would likely become genderfluid.

@Robin the chat room NEEDS the ability to use the /boot command, or some equivalent, either directly or by vote when someone is sitting idle for hours on end.

Yeah. For the most part, if I can avoid doing quests for a faction like this, I will. There are a number of quests in games that make me go "yeah nope, not gonna do it." And there are times where I wish there were other options for completing a quest.

Little sight-related oopsies. Nanase, anyway, in any form, at the moment, is having the best shotgun. The lack of motion does perceive that it is just a Nanase doll.

Considering there are likely multiple videos online with Cheerleadra flying AND being called Elliot, I'm not sure how could the flying be problem. Unless he will fly high enough to meet airplanes. There IS Neverending Story II movie ... also III. There MIGHT be flying mode for paragliders or something like that. ... and I doubt he is flying that fast, without shield and with eyes open. Possibly. Or not. Magic might have something like a mind on it's own, unlike gravitation, but the power of spell likely doesn't depend on what magic thinks about you, but stuff like how much you train (remember Elliot was transforming every night). So ... I wouldn't think the POWER of Cheerleadra spell is due to trying to find spell he liked. The COOLNESS, on the other hand ... (It's also possible that normally, he would get several smaller spells instead of one big.) Disliking and NOT CASTING them, maybe. Casting them every night despite not liking them? I would be confused too. (Elliot was forced to do that because of energy buildups, which are not supposed to happen when awakening normally ... and, would possibly not happen ANYWAY if not for the higher levels of ambient magic.)

That makes sense, but Magic reflects who the magician is. If "female" doesn't apply to Elliot, it would seem to me that *disliking* female-oriented spells would be the way to eventually make the point. Your answer leads me to wonder if Magic insisted on girly spells because it *was* reflecting who Elliot was/is even though Elliot didn't know it.

I guess a "Perfectly normal book" is a brick joke of sort, similar to "Human" shirt.

It's kind of an old joke on Dan's part. At some point he decided to declare War on Vowels and tried to see how many sound effects he could create that didn't have vowels in them.

Personally, I think it makes as much sense for him and Ellen to be agender or nearly so. The preference for being one or the other sometimes could easily be wanting to experience things differently. He doesn't really seem to care about the girl vs boy part of it so much? It seems like what he likes about one or the other form has to do with things secondary to gender or the sex of the body: anonymity, feeling attractive in a particular way, gender roles (how people treat him/what people find acceptable), height/perspective, seeing more colors of red, everything cheerleadra... Whereas Tedd seems to have a more basic need to specifically be a girl some of the time. He still enjoys much of the other stuff, but it doesn't seem to be the driving force. I could be wrong, but I would put Eliot as agender, or agender to mildly genderfluid.

I figured you were just horsing around.

Actually that is just the short form of the title. The full title is "A Perfectly Normal Book And Not A Spellbook Full Of Profoundly Personal Magical Formulae That In Many Ways Reflect The Personality Of Its Owner."

I want to think that Elliot's spellbook was always titled "A Perfectly Normal Book" and the final panel means Elliot got something new.

Mass Effect is a game where all the power lies with the female variant protagonist rather than the male. Admittedly this is mainly due to the voice actress who is so stupendously good that she puts poor male Shepard quite to shame.

https://blog.xkcd.com/2011/03/08/parentheses/ -

For all the comments Mass Effect gets, the "romance" options tend to be very vanilla. It's as if no one on the design team read a sci fi book, or read anything honest about people on a ship for long periods of time. At the very least the Renegade path for Shepard should have allowed for polyamory for flavor reasons - though I'd argue that Paragon Shepard could be more than willing to help out a crewmate or two, or three ...

(I'm (glad (to (hear (that)))))