Scotty

Actually I feel like this comment might make my previous statements irrelevant. I consider the Uyuom egg to be a valid solution, but I wouldn't consider it a solution to whether or not Ellen can handle being a guy temporarily or being with mNanase. If they do go the egg route, I'd like for there to be a story around it that explains why which would include why Ellen couldn't go through with the TFG method, maybe it's crippling anxiety over a repeat of what happen between second life Ellen and Archie, maybe she just made a promise to herself not to undermine what Elliot's been going through (something she might have decided after their awakening). Maybe Grace was right and Ellen being a guy again would be very bad. I dunno, this kinda situation seems like it'd be a good way to kill 2 birds with one stone. I don't think the definition of transgender has changed any in the last 15 or so years, of course media attention and politics certainly have, and that's likely had more of an impact on Dan. It's one thing to know something exists, but another to see how people react to it. It would be easy for Tedd and Elliot to look up transgender and they'd be like "huh, ok, cool" but then you have the case of the person messaging Elliot with a plea for help and it's now "huh......ok......" and it's probably bringing up how he felt about learning Nanase was gay, or learning about Justin being outted and now Elliot's like "what do I do? This person just confided in me, I wish I could help, but that would mean telling someone, and this person doesn't want me telling anyone!" Ellen's libido is higher than usual as she normally is, maybe zapping herself might kick it into "I don't care if Nanase's a guy right now!" mode. I considered this a possibility as well, while we may never find out what Ellen and Nanase do beyond kissing and touching, the use of various toys is possible, including wearable ones, so if a form could be programed where only the important bits are changed but the rest of the body remains the same, it may be enough.

I didn't think there was a joke there, Ellen seemed pretty serious about suggesting Tedd helping and Nanase seemed to take it seriously, though yes she was a little squeamish about Tedd being involved, but all Tedd would have to is provide access to the TFG, it's not like he has to supervise. Yeah, being with a guy didn't feel right with her, but she still considers herself to be somewhat bisexual, bisexual homo-romantic to be exact. Ellen may have dreaded seeing male Nanase at the party, but didn't seem to be sickened by either. Ellen cares about Nanase so I don't think her brain's going to melt down over "But it's a guy! But it's Nanase! But it's a guy! But it's Nanase!" I did also propose the idea that Grace could make an Uryoum egg that Nanase and Ellen can use, that way neither of them need to use a male form. This would be the easiest and most likely solution.

Tedd doesn't currently have a way to set other people's default forms, just his own, he did say that he could probably make a wand that can set the default form of others, but it seemed like the idea of it scared him, on one hand, I'm sure he'd want to jump at the chance to help the person, but he's probably worried that such wands could be abused like Edward warned about, the comment about it being "kinda nightmarish" might have been the realization of how easy it could be to make a wand that can turn people into monsters or something. Learning about magic changing if too many people know about it would also affect his willingness to help. It's one thing if Magic ends up changing due to something beyond Tedd's control, but not too long ago, Tedd must have felt like he was really close to causing it himself. Even though Elliot said that Tedd shouldn't give up and even try to force a compromise, Tedd's apparently taken a "wait and see what happens" stance for the moment, if magic changes he'll figure out what to do next. If magic doesn't change though... that's the tricky bit, how long is Tedd willing to wait to see if it's safe or not? Us readers have been given the impression that we'll find out if whatever happens "Friday" causes magic to change, but Tedd doesn't know that, and if magic doesn't change after "Friday", what the? Well Tedd does know that an Immortal vowed to help Sarah learn magic so he can always ask Sarah to ask, which we can already guess 'Box's' response to that as we already know that Pandora is trying to help Tedd by learning what he is. I'd imagine that regardless of magic change or not, Pandora's going appear in front of Tedd and tell him what he needs to know.

Oh I fully understand Dan's stance on the subject, he feels weird about putting Ellen in those kinds of situations just like I feel weird about her not being able to be in those situations. I do respect Dan, I won't push him to do something he's not comfortable with, but I can still hope that he's able to come to terms with it or say with certainty that this is how it's going to be. At this time, I feel Ellen being uncomfortable with it comes from Dan being uncomfortable with it, so I've chosen to believe that maybe one day Dan might change his mind about it. It wouldn't be the first time for it either, IIRC Dan was initially uncertain about doing the patreon pinups, he's also mentioned a few times (and very recently) that he's unsure if he'll ever do more adult pinups for patrons, but he does have a tumblr account on standby in case he ever decides "what the heck, I'm doing it". Basically, I don't recall seeing a "never" in regards to Ellen ever being male for any reason, and that's the basis of my opinion, if Dan comes out and says "Sorry, I've decided she'll never do it." then I'll have to accept that. The last time I brought up the subject, I proposed that Ellen and Nanase would loved each other so much that they could stand either of them being male for a night in order to have kids, and maybe even take turns if they decide to have a second or third child. When Nanase first mentioned wanting to have kids someday, Ellen suggested that Tedd might be able to help, so immediately one would think that the TFG would be involved, so then it's a matter of who would use it. For having Elliot be a sperm donor, it is a possibility, but from a psychological stand point, Ellen would have to accept the fact that Elliot is the father, and while there's the argument that Ellen was Elliot at one time, Ellen's spent so much time convincing people that even though she had Elliot's memories, she's not Elliot. I don't expect her be like "technically I'm still the 'father' because we were one person once". I dunno, it feels un-Ellen-like to have to ask Elliot for help with that, and what kind of reaction do you think Elliot would have, considering his stance on early pregnancy? The again, Ellen may have kept that stance as well it may be years (in comic) before her and Nanase decide they're ready for kids, and it's possible Dan may not run the comic that long (unless he does more large time skips) so we may never find out.

I'm...somewhat confused by that... I'm guessing "TYSM" stands for "Thank you so much" but I'm at a loss about the lines of a's all over the page and the last panel being distorted. Welcome back BTW.

Seems that way. This does feel weird hearing Ellen say "Nor do I want to be, a dude.", on one hand, it makes sense that she's been able to make her own identity and doesn't have any desire to go back to being Elliot. But on the other hand, she's basically decided to not fully participate in any genderswap activities that the group would have like Grace's Birthday, the extent of participation would be zapping the males. I haven't completely counted out Justin and Susan as never wanting to do anything like that again. I also don't buy the "It would be bad if Ellen became male" excuse used as anything but a way to keep the genders even (4 male, 4 female), or that Grace thought it would help get Nanase and Ellen together, Grace could tell there was some attraction between them before she found out Nanase was gay. And then there's Nanase's desire to have kids some day, Ellen refusing to be male would be problematic if Nanase wanted to go through pregnancy and such. I get that Ellen might not feel comfortable about it right now, but it just feels wrong for Ellen to never ever want to even temporarily be male. If the person was trans female, sure, but if the person is Sam or someone else who's trans male, then Ellen wouldn't be able to help beyond giving Elliot advise on how to handle it. I think Dan intentionally left out any hints as to whether the person is trans male or trans female, it's easy to assume the person is trans female because Elliot can transform into female forms so the person would believe Elliot might know how to teach others how to do so. But at the same time a trans male person can also think that if Elliot knows how to go from male to female, Elliot might know of a way to go from female to male.

Yeah, I was originally thinking that it would be Grace that breaks the silence between Edward and Tedd, but I'm now thinking that it could very well be Elliot that points out what Edward's been doing to Tedd.

Amusing, and also cute:

I think it's like Pandora's rationalization "Not that he'd ever find out, but I'd know" that makes it a big deal, sure, Sarah's ability won't let her get physical evidence of something, but people who know about her having that spell could still worry that she'll find out some dark secrets about them, people who don't know would be unaware until Sarah suddenly tried to blackmail them or something which I don't think she'd do unless it was trying to prevent someone from doing harm to others, I can totally see her attempt to get a crooked business person to stop being crooked by claiming she has evidence of the crookedness. But as for using the ability to act out fantasies, only those who know about her spell might feel uneasy about Sarah possibly using it for that purpose, Susan especially would know what Sarah would be capable of, she wouldn't have suggested the "Hollow Pursuits" episode if she didn't think Sarah would use the spell for fantasy, or maybe Susan wanted to encourage Sarah to use the spell for it, with the caveat of "as long as you leave me out of it."

I want to take Tedd and Elliot as a similar case here, we saw early on that Elliot reacted in much the same way as Edward, Elliot questioned why Tedd would turn himself into a girl multiple times, he was even wary that Tedd might have a more perverted motive for helping him find a way to end the energy buildups though that turned out to be not true which I think might have been the point Elliot started to realize that Tedd's transforming might be due to something more than wanting to take a peek like "of all the different forms Tedd could use in his research, he always chooses female forms, and if he's not using them for perverted reasons, then there must be some other reason for it". Of course Elliot would have assumed that just not drawing any attention to it anymore would be enough, but the damage from his earlier comments would have already had an effect on Tedd, who developed a fear that Elliot would react badly if Tedd chose to permanently be female, which turned out to not be the case, but it wasn't until a little later that Elliot came to realize that he had hurt Tedd with his earlier comments, even if that wasn't his intention. Edward could very well be in the same boat Elliot was, with the disadvantage of not having the perspective that Elliot had. Edward sees Tedd playing around with female forms and Tedd's used excuses like "it's a vacation" or "it's for science" or some such thing and so Edward would believe Tedd might be abusing the TFG. Edward wouldn't dare try to take the the TFG away from Tedd because it would risk Tedd going back to the way he was before the gun, so Edward acknowledges that the way Tedd is now is better, but he's hung up on "why female forms?". Edward might have tried to get Tedd to talk about it, but if Tedd insisted that "anyone with transformation tech would experiment with being the opposite sex" then Edward might be at a loss about what to say about it. Maybe Edward has considered the possibility of Tedd being trans, but hasn't said anything because he expects Tedd to deny it, even something like "if you prefer to be this way, it's ok" might be seconded guessed as being responded to with "it's not that!" and a couple weeks ago (comic time) that might have been the case. Now that Tedd's realized what transgender is and being genderfluid, he does have a proper response if Edward were to ask again, but there's that fear from those other comments that makes Tedd so hesitant about saying anything. There basically needs to be a moment where Edward makes the first move like Elliot did, but it's more likely that someone needs to point out that Edward's comments were hurtful before that, rather than after.

I suspect that their family originally had the duty of "protect the village" or "protect the royal family" which would be seen as an honorable job. Noriko might have decided to "protect the world" which sound honorable, but if she's attempting to do so alone and/or for some sort of gain, she'd be considered acting recklessly and selfishly which wouldn't be honorable, heck her treatment of Tedd and putting the desire for an apprentice over having a family is selfish, she probably felt it was her duty alone to carry on the family line and it turned into an obsession regardless of whether or not Mama Kitsune was capable of doing so. We don't know if Noriko keeps track of what's happening in Moperville so we don't know if she knows that Nanase has awakened, but if she does know, I wonder how she feels about it? Relief that the family line has continued for one more generation? Anger that her sister was able to do what she couldn't? Or still feels it's up to her to do so because Nanase is gay and she believes it's unlikely for Nanase to have children and continue the family line? Either way, it's clear that Mama Kistune believes Noriko dishonored the family.

I could see this as a possibility, Mama Kitsune might not be aware that Noriko had at least one other child, and so felt that the duty to carry on the family line fell to her. The fact that Mama Kitsune's being so secretive, "the less she knows about what I know, the better." Could be her way of trying to keep Nanase from making the same mistakes. It's interesting that at first, Mama Kitsune is hard on Nanase making sure she's studying and such. but she seems to relax that attitude a bit after the incident with Abraham. It's like, now that she's knows that her daughter is capable of being selfless and fight to protect others, she isn't worried about Nanase becoming like Noriko but she was worried that Nanase's actions would draw her into danger, maybe she knew about Noriko's exploits and worried that someone might target Noriko's family for revenge. It's probably too early to tell if Akiko is capable of the same level of magic as Nanase, I can see Mama Kitsune refusing to subject her children to the same torture that Noriko put Tedd through.

It wasn't so much that, but we were sometimes on a schedule, like trying to get a combat session done in one or two nights, if any of us were taking too long to decide what to do on our turn, the GM would threaten to decide for us.

Wait, I think you got it confuse, the list is for "worst parents" the Dunkels shouldn't be at the top. Nanase's mom is homophobic though, probably due to the fact that she had high hopes for Nanase to give her grandkids rather than the whole "insanity" comment that Susan's mom gave, but still calling it a phase isn't excusable. Mind you we didn't see Mama Kitsune make any comment about it on New Years, so it's possible that she either sees Nanase being happy with Ellen and thought "she was never like this with any of the boyfriends she had, even Elliot." and changed her mind about it. That would put her with Melissa who no longer acts like Justin's going through a phase. Mr Kitsune is a different story, the only dialog we've see was when he "scolded" Akiko for wandering too far from him at the mall, and punishment was getting only one cookie. I don't think he shared the same opinion as Mama Kitsune about Nanase being gay though despite lack of evidence to support or prove otherwise, so I'd probably put him with the Dunkels As for Justin, it sounded like his parents took finding out about him being gay badly, I think only his uncle took pity on him and helped by giving him a job at the comic shop. We don't know what Justin's father said on the phone when Justin said he was going to stay over night at Susan's, but Justin's response made it sound like his father might have been hopeful that Justin being gay was just a phase as well. The only stuff we saw from the Browns was how Mr. Brown wouldn't let Sarah sleep in on Saturdays. I think Sarah really only has issues with Carol. Mrs Pompoms would probably rate with Justin's parents in terms of tolerance, allowing Susan to consider being a lesbian for the sake of avoiding being hurt by men doesn't make things right, though its possible her homophobia might just be towards men, wait is it still homophobia to be accepting of one gender being gay but not another? Sounds more like selective homophobia which would be rather hypocritical. Mr Pompoms certainly at least shares top spot with Noriko, we certainly don't know enough about the exact circumstances of the Verre's divorce, Noriko could have become a cheating cheater as well in her quest for an offspring suitable enough to be her apprentice. Pandora's had it rough really, her experience of falling in love, making a family and then losing part of it has made her very protective of her remaining family and those she comes to consider extended family, but it's also made her somewhat heavy handed in how she treats her son, not resetting when she should have has also played a big factor in making her a bit reckless

The GM we had for the Heavy Gear game would randomly run the dice command in IRC with various modifiers, but not explain why, while we discussed what actions we should take and such, we didn't know if he was rolling because we were taking too long to decide, or if he was just playing with the bot. There was one night he rolled several times with a low result and chuckled saying "well got those pathetic rolls out of the way for yas" and the later rolled high and only gave an evil sound chortle.

Dan on the subject of when EGS takes place: By this, the idea that EGS's first year was 2013 and is now in 2014 seems more plausible, however he returned with " I might actually settle on a year if I wind up narrowing it down enough, though it will never perfectly match our own timeline." Which would mean that he could say the first year was 2011 going into 2012, and explain the dates not lining up with ours as being "it's an alternate universe with a slightly different calendar system"

I think Dan is still very much trying to figure out how to handle what happens between Tedd and Edward, it is a very delicate situation in terms of storytelling and it has to be told in a way that's believable. I can't blame Dan for dreading the day he needs to address this once and for all. I wondered if part of Edward's behaviour stems from what happened between him and Noriko as well, we know Edward made an effort to make sure Tedd had everything possible, he encouraged Tedd's research though he tried to make Tedd understand the dangers involved. He also sees the effect Grace has had on Tedd and has pretty much given them his blessing. Him doing background checks on all of Tedd's friends is disturbing, but considering how Tedd was years ago, Edward would have worried greatly about the possibility of someone taking advantage of Tedd, and I think Edward's probably feeling some relief Tedd's got 7 friends who'll look out for him now. But back on the subject of Noriko, I wonder if Edward's been seeing some of Noriko's behaviour developing in Tedd, like Tedd's obsession with the science of magic could be comparable to Noriko's obsession with her career. Edward might fear the day he has to tell Tedd the truth about Noriko and pointing out anything Tedd does as being something Noriko once did, might cause damage as well. Not saying that spending lots of time transformed is something Noriko did but as you said, if Tedd looks soo much like his mother already, being in female form would make Edward uncomfortable not as much as Tedd being a girl, but reopening the wound the Noriko caused, and Edward can't just outright say "stop doing that, you look like your mother." I am on the fence about this, we don't know how much Edward has been able to keep track of Noriko's activities since she left, official business probably, but private life, not so sure. If the reason for the divorce was Noriko having an affair and getting pregnant, then Edward would likely know of a half-brother/sister, but it's just as likely she hid that from Edward, or didn't have other children yet which would mean that any siblings of Tedd's could be several years younger.

I think Grace has picked up on it, she just doesn't know what to do about it yet. Tedd's her boyfriend and Edward is the one who promised to protect her and has been very accommodating to her. She's gotta be worried that if she doesn't say the right things, it might make it worse, and I couldn't blame her for not wanting to risk it at the moment. The fact that Dan's included this (as well as Sam's situation) makes it hopeful that there will be some resolution. The fact that EGS doesn't have any "snap your fingers and everything's better" for every issue gives it more credibility, these are real topics but the solution can't always be like giving Felix a mark that lets her change her default form (assume Felix's spell is the same as Tedd's), so it makes sense that Dan would want to solve the issue between Tedd and Edward in as real a way a possible.

It's also possible Sam did see Sarah on the review show, but was either being polite or just didn't think that Sarah at the card tournament and Sarah from the review were the same person "what are the chances?"

I dunno, seems wierd that "Ronin" would publicly spread the false idea that Elliot was gay only to later privately confide that he's trans. "Ronin" also would have to go through the trouble of making a new account so that Elliot wouldn't make the connection and I don't believe Dan would go that far. I believe there is the condition of someone being in denial of an aspect of themselves so much that that they lash out at people with those same aspects. I don't think Tony fits the bill though as there hasn't been any hints at a potential inner conflict, he's comes off as a complete bully. That doesn't make any sense to me, how would it accomplish Voltaire's goal? Elliot tells Tedd about the message, Tedd might get frustrated about possibly not being able to help because of impending magic change, but Elliot did tell Tedd that "if magic wants to keep playing, it's gonna have to compromise eventually" so Tedd has been motivated to not give up completely and helping a few people would still be something Tedd would jump at, even if it's finding a way to permanently change someone else's default form without actually teaching them magic. Tedd did say that he might be able to make wands based on his mark spell, so he could make the wand, use it on Sam, and make sure no one else learns about it.

I'm thinking it's Sam as well, that caveat is actually irrelevant. You're probably thinking that it is because Sam is trans male and Elliot only has female transformations (aside from the cat form, and Elliot should be able to get some male transformations at some point now that magic's sorted out with him), but the person messaging Elliot doesn't know that, they're probably just thinking "if a guy could transform into a girl, then a girl must be able to transform into a guy, what Elliot knows might work for both genders."

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2344 Dan's copy-pasta skills at work. Elliot seems a bit scatterbrained here, trying to make sense of the spellbook, but it's not going well so she's risking looking at youtube comments again.

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=613 The kids aren't having any luck, lol. The girl in the background also went flat chested, as well as more hippy.

You guys really know how to tell a good yarn.

Gonna be having roast beef for supper in a bit, not 500 degree roast, but a slow cooker roast with potatoes cooked along with it, there's a pepper squash in the oven with butter and brown sugar cooking into it.