Scotty

If it's a matter of media desensitizing people on violence and killing, the argument that video games letting players act as the people pulling the trigger is probably the only thing that separates video games from any other form of media the depicts violence and that violent movies and television shows have been around for much longer. To me, this is another case of "if you're trying to prevent crimes, you can't target just one source" which means they'd have to go after all media that depicts violence, not just video games, but then that goes really deep into censorship territory.

So, I did a google image search on pitchfork, and only saw 1 example of that particular type among a sea of garden/farm tools and the occasional bike part. So I can still try to correct you and say that's actually a tuning fork.

So recent talk that brought up Ashley's internet Ex-girlfriend again got me thinking. We have Dan's twitter statement that he knows who she is, we also have the fact that Ashley goes into detail about it during the date, those details give us hints at how old characters were when it happened and the interests of said characters, which is why I figure Tedd is the most likely because it could easily have happened before he got a hold of the TFG and being interested in transformation for a while would have been motivation to want to work on the TFG as well. We know that Tedd spent a number of years prior to the TFG being very shy and quiet to the point where everyone thought he was mute, but having access to the internet would have allowed him to be more expressive, especially if he found someone in a chatroom or forum that had the same interests. There's probably no argument that Tedd being genderfluid goes back years before the comic starts so even though Tedd didn't realize that transgender and genderfluidity were real, he could still have had those feelings back then and expressed himself as female online because it was safe and no one could judge him. If Tedd isn't Ashley's Ex, I still think it's someone we know. I think if it was supposed to be obvious, Dan would have made it obvious, but I think if he didn't want it to be obvious, he'd still leave breadcrumbs that he can later use to say "here are examples to show why I made it this character". With that in mind, I'm looking at character development and personality and the first that comes to mind would be Sarah. We know she's been interested in transformation ever since she saw Sword in the Stone. So that fits with the shared interest part, however it does seem like Sarah's questioning of her possible bisexuality is a very recent thing so that makes it hard to see Sarah ever considering dating girls prior to the comic start. The next would be Nanase, she's the only main character that would have been around back then that's a lesbian, however considering how much she was in denial about it in the first few years of the comic, I don't see her having secret relationships with females when she was younger, I also consider her interest in transformation to be a recent development with spending more time with Tedd. So I don't think she's a likely candidate either. Susan...we know that she had a broad hatred for men for a long time, and we saw her consider dating females early on and even tried to enlist Ellen's help in that. But transformation doesn't seem to be of much interest to her and even her considering being a lesbian seemed to be a development within the comic and not something she had been thinking about for years. Here's where I might expect pitchforks and torches, Diane. Yes for pretty much her entire time in the comic shows her taking advantage of the male population of MSHS, there are some hints that support her possibly being Ashley's ex. Diane's interest in magic, she thinks it's soo cool, that interest can translate into an interest in transformation as well. As to Diane's sexual preference, she takes advantage of men's attraction to her, but she's never seen getting physical with them. Her interaction with Rhoda seems strange to me, Rhoda's inclusion in the group seemed very odd, Diane early on always came off as being the Alpha Female of the group, Lucy I could see fitting in with that, but Rhoda never did, and yet for some reason Diane let her hang out with them and even goes out of her way to defend and help Rhoda through situations, I don't think Diane had ever tried to mold Rhoda to be like her and Lucy though I do get the feeling Lucy wished she did. I think Diane is quite fond of Rhoda and is just afraid to admit it. This is the same with Diane's behaviour around Nanase, she's always held Nanase in high regard as evidence by her attempts to get Nanase to join her group. Diane having such a view of Nanase probably also stems from seeing Nanase using magic around school so of course Diane would think Nanase's soo cool but is still afraid to just come out and admit it. It's a stretch, but there's been soo many similarities between Susan and Diane that even if they aren't sisters, I still wouldn't be surprised if Diane was bisexual (yeah I know, Susan considering dating females doesn't necessarily make her bisexual) but if Diane has had an interest in magic and transformations for years, if she found someone online that shared that interest, a relationship could have formed.

I don't think anyone had to do that with me, for as long as I can remember, the more real the violence looked in a game, the less I wanted to play it, during the late 80's and 90's this wasn't so bad because it was pretty much all cartoonish, but nowadays if there's an option to turn off blood and gore, I'd very likely turn it off. The fact that you can't turn blood and gore off in real life is a pretty darned good deterrent for me. I'll be honest though, there was that one scene in Duke Nukem 3D that grossed the hell out of me when I first played through. lol

I think Girl Genius nails it on the nose quite well. Too many times, if someone who commits gun violence isn't stated to having mental illness, it states them having played video games with gun violence which I think is even worse because even if the person claims that they did it because they saw it in a game, that inability to separate reality and virtual settings indicates some degree of mental instability, but instead of focusing on that, the focus gets put squarely on video games. Your hit-and-run driver example would likely make people say the driver played or watched someone play Grand Theft Auto.

But would they have access to those records? ... Actually, thinking about it, it's perfectly plausible they had records. Colonisers could have brought copies with them. The answer is simple, Arthur J Arthur is a Freemason. And Freemasons are said to be linked to the Knights Templar.

I'm not sure if it applies when said characters were created when the artist/storyteller was a highschool kid.

I think for this subject, Dan's supplied us with the perfect example. Panel 1 specifically, I mean.

Well, for comparison, Dan did do an Engineer Tess sketchbook about 8 years ago. Oh hey! We also have Engineer Susan!

Yeah, but even so, the connection between Tedd's fashion choice and the game wasn't there so I included the image.

Shame you didn't make it "World ChamPUNships"

They might have known more about Magus prior to their improper reset which scrambled them. They probably feel Magus is connected but not why.

The biggest clue we have is the tease from Dan on Twitter: That's from last May so he's most certainly had Ashley's internet ex-gf figured out long before Kitty was dreamed up.

What about a Coat of Solitude?

Maybe Ellen still refuses to zap Elliot? That whole deal with Magus hasn't been resolved yet and it's possible that even if it does get resolved, Ellen might still feel uncomfortable zapping her brother, but she would be ok with zapping everyone else if they agree to it.

My being in southwestern Ontario meant that even basic cable had Detroit Channel 4 and Channel 7 so I heard that advertisement a fair amount during my childhood.

I didn't mean to imply that Elliot was at a nudist beach, just that because nudist beaches exist, other nudist or topless venues must also exist that Elliot might attend for whatever reason. Grace's 19th birthday is coming up in a couple in comic months so maybe they decided to have the party at an indoor nudist pool or something. Oh and Elliot being female likely means Ellen got her wish zapped everyone.

Dan talking about name based affinities: So guess that settles the discussion about how name based affinities work, Magic is apparently paying attention to when babies are born and if they like the name, they get an affinity, Catalina Bobcat would have been a no brainer maybe because Magic knew that it annoyed some, if not all Immortals?

I would imagine, considering Kitty's passion for catgirls, and his willingness to be Kitty's pet catgirl, there will likely be a lot of time spent in private for the foreseeable future (or past or whatever). One could even expect the amount of spell use could rival Rhoda's and as such, should we see Kitty in the present story arc, she may have already awakened.

Tedd's form and outfit is based on Cindy Aurum from Final Fantasy XV:

http://www.egscomics.com/?id=2316 Looks like they also wonder if Edward and Arthur know about Magic being able to change. Though Tedd's got a point, saying he heard about it from Grace and Sarah might not be taken seriously by Arthur for sure, not sure about Edward though Edward didn't take Tedd asking about whales very seriously either, but then Tedd didn't fully explain what happened either.

Well, I wouldn't want to see Susan get hurt like that but...I guess if the system did change, Jerry could use information like that to spark another angst induced awakening for her.

Yeah, I know. But it's one of those cases that I can really see it being possible given the people involved and the fact that Dan had teased on twitter about knowing who Ashley's internet girlfriend is. But I've said this numerous times in other threads so I'll stop before this derails the thread too badly. Edit: Nope, I did not say Dad instead of Dan, nothing to see here...

Oh, I thought that was just for shipping purposes, not blood relation. I'd be on board if we had any indication that Ashley's dad wasn't her real dad. As it is though I still hold on to the theory that Tedd was Ashley's internet girlfriend.

More like I assumed you'd rank that up there with "mystery character being someone we already know".