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Quick pic: Loudmouth's roommate Baker, apparently melted from the Texas heat: I had to do some white balance adjustment and gamma correction to get the mud out of this picture. Irfanview 64 is such a wonderful program.

Wait. Not "suggest". "Imply" is the word I meant.

Not really a problem. Plus it's Pittsburg Kansas, not Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

I'm guessing that originally it was personal feelings that were preserved, then someone found a way to instead use that capability to pass on more knowledge and a bigger "starter seed" of power, and the temptation to save more and more power crept up on them untill personal feelings got crowded out.

Mrs. Prof managed to get a pill down Loudmouth's gullet tonight without my help (of which I wouldn't have been any). I think she scruffed him, but I'm not sure. I think this is either pre-scruff or post-scruff tonight. Not sure which.

Well yeah, I would imagine that after a while Pandora would again get to the point where her power and knowledge will result if boredom, and it's quite possible she could then do another "refresh" I don't think that the reason that Immortals decided to go the route of "abandonment of self" style reset because it was risky to do otherwise. They probably decided to do it so they didn't have to carry any emotional burdens throughout their lives. Pandora is a good example, she fell in love with Blaike who then was killed later, she could have reset and her next life wouldn't have to mourn at all. Maybe most Immortals chose to avoid getting emotionally involved with mortals because it would be too much temptation to not reset, but at the same time, living as long as they can and having everyone they ever cared about live, grow old, and die would probably still take it's toll on them despite "refreshing" their power. So it's really a matter of "Go insane with boredom and power?" or "go into a depression over everyone you've ever cared about dying which might probably lead you to just resetting completely anyway?" Immortals probably figured just reset anyway and avoid both situations.

I am not... quite certain this is how it works. At the very least that is oversimplifying it. Admittedly pain is a potent motivator, teacher and protector but it is possible to get too much of it. Mental traumas may result if it comes in the form of abuse, particularly systematic abuse. One of these is sociopathy which is noted specifically for its complete lack of empathy with others. That being said, there is something to it. For many people it becomes easier to empathise with a particular sort of pain once it has been placed in a perspective where they can understand it. Humans have different methods of doing so. To mention the three main ones there is experiencing the pain yourself, directly observing others experience that pain and through study learning the nature of that pain and how it acts on those who suffer from it. Of course, the very simplest way of shutting down that empathy is to convince a person that the ones experiencing the pain are not actually people. Once this has been accomplished, it is amazing with just how much stoicism people may endure pain and wrongs not done to themselves.

I don't think she'd be having the conversation with herself that she is having if she didn't feel empathy. But I think it is new to her. I don't think it's really new to her either, just that she had buried it for a while, empathy would have made her reset when she turned 200, but she pushed it aside because she was afraid of the idea of "total abandonment of self". It's kind of ironic really, because what Pandora ended up becoming over the years was not the same person that spent 16 years of her life with Blaike. That Pandora has just recently returned to the foreground.

I think it closes the loop on the internal dialogue with what amounts to a decision by all of Pandora, not just the two subsets represented by Empathy and Chaos. If you track the sequence, when Tedd leaves, the dialogue starts as Empathy appears, followed by Chaos. What's particularly fine about this whole sequence is that it combines aspects of multiple personalities and the devil/angel-on-your-shoulders trope without being limited by either conceit. What I came away with was the sense that this is an abstract representation of Pandora's inner process, what the roiling, unstable emotional core of her looks like when it looks inward. Empathy and Chaos are not at war, they are having a discussion, indeed, they finish each others sentences at a few points. The shift back to Pandora actual at the end signifies resolution and decision in a very neat, show you don't tell you way that adds dimension and tone to what is being conveyed.

Almost certainly part of the joke. This Immortal isn't a 14 year old Japanese girl. She is a 14 year old girl fascinated by Japanese pop culture. Let's just hope her tentacle monster activities remain off panel.

I think you're right, especially given the fact that they are sterile and the way they keep decapitating one another on a semi-regular basis.

...and I have a kidney stone. Left side and blocking. Bleh.