Scotty

Do not resist, give in to the dark side, for today only, we have pie instead of cookies.

Noriko's exact words were "It doesn't make sense, between my bloodline and Edward's" implying that the Verre's bloodline is strong magically as well. Adrian's comment that "heredity and magic is not always as straightforward as one would hope." could imply that Adrian is aware of magic's "flair for the dramatic" but probably didn't want to use those exact words and upset Noriko further by basically telling her that magic is trolling her.

Hedge had warned her about flashers, but she didn't really understand what he meant and didn't associate it with nudity in general. It was likely not a subject that ever came up during her childhood as she probably spent the majority of the time there in half squirrel form and so it wasn't a big deal since she still had all the fur covering her. I also imagine when she did go full human form, she probably just wore clothes because everyone else did and didn't question why.

You mean Charlotte, not Rhea, But it was likely Diane that said that considering her dialog starting with "um" in the following panel, . And it shouldn't be grayed since it's not over the phone

Actually, I just realized that Elliot saying that Ashley could call back if they thought of anything to ask might backfire as well. Ashley: "Hey, sorry, but could you ask blah blah blah?" Elliot: "Oh, we already covered that, sorry." Ashley: "Oh alright." 5 minutes later Ashley: "Oh what about..." Elliot: "Nanase just finished asking about that." Ashley: "I think we'll just wait till Nanase returns."

I don't think she's living rent free anymore, at the very least working at Salty Crackers has allowed her to help out with buying groceries and stuff, and she likely helps keep the house clean.

Cus Stone Cold says so! - Austin 3:16

The other thing to consider, is Dan is doing this to make a living full time, and in order for him to make money he has to put out incentives for people to donate. It does kinda suck that he needs to give people a reason to donate other than just "support me making story and NP comics". I personally started supporting him on Patreon with the $5 tier before he switched to the pinup format so I didn't expect anything in return other than his continued work on the comics. As I said before, the change to the pinup format was just a bonus because it allowed me to participate in the idea and selection process, the fact that an idea I suggested was used was another bonus but for the most part, the process has been fun for me. Also the "Dan's Choice" pinups can still be considered him expressing his own creativity since they're his ideas even if they are part of the same format. Another way of looking at this is Dan is trying to improve on himself as a person. You can look at the MV5 storyline and tell that he's for a while been uncomfortable with showing certain subject matter and that he hates that he's uncomfortable with it and is trying overcome this. The pinups as well I recall were something he stated he never considered doing before because he was uncomfortable with drawing nude characters or risque scenarios but had a desire to change. IMO he seems to be having fun with this, and probably feels less stress doing these for $5 a person instead of stressing over whether a sketchbook for a $50 donator is good enough.

Whatever organization the main 8 end up creating to deal with all the vampires and and bulldog dragons and stuff because Arthur Arthur won't do it. I guess technically they've already started it with Charlotte's Angels, just need to get the rest of the crew in on it.

The birds probably took a look at Elliot and were like "OK now THAT is cheating! Building planes and learning how to control them at least took a great deal of effort."

We make the suggestions, and he takes the top 4 liked and we vote on those, kinda like a pinup idol or something. The suggestions he happens to put into a survey are ones that someone suggested in a previous round that didn't quite make it but were close enough to deserve another chance.

Thing is, that's not the sweater she started with and it still doesn't explain where the tank top she put on later, went. So how far did she run to get that sweater?

I know that just before Dan switched to the pinup format, he was having difficulty with getting sketchbooks for people that paid $20+ or whatever price done, I think he managed to get caught up with the backlog just prior to switching, and the new format seems more fair so that more people have a chance to have their idea used than to have only those that throw the most money at him get one done. I know I probably wouldn't have requested the "What if Ellen zapped herself in the MV5 NP story" idea if it meant having to spend $50 and waiting several months until Dan got around to it. As it is now the format seems to be successful as Dan's inching closer to the 1000 patron mark so I guess while some may not like how things are going, the numbers are what matters. And it's not like Dan's gone full blown fanservice with the pinups, IMO there seems to be a decent mix of tame ones (Susan/Diane sequence, Ashley as Cheerleadra) as well as risque ones (Nanase/Fox, nude Grace, Sarah and Ellen). And while the most recent round of pinups were certainly on the extreme end, the next round doesn't strike me as being too risque. At least it seems like our choices will all be clothed to varying degrees, can't speak for Dan's choices obviously.

If magic users are fairly common among humans in the griffins half of the world, maybe, though I could see it being a case of one family asserting dominance through challenging another family to a magic duel or something. It'd be one thing to have a rank 9 family defeat a rank 8 family in a duel, and another to have a rank 9 family get beaten by a rank 5 family fielding 100 rank 2 mages. Though maybe something like that did happen until someone came up with the dueling idea. Well I didn't say it would have been a strict caste system, just one that favored magic users so yeah anyone that had magical aptitude would have an advantage somewhere. And if a slave turns out to have more magic ability than their master, then they could possibly overthrow the master and take their place.

Well I believe Edward had made it clear there's no nudity when he's around. Still, I actually chuckled at this.

You want cool, it's currently 5C here, or 41F for you guys south of the border.

Dan was having a hard time getting sketchbooks out before the patreon milestone change, or do you mean patreon as a whole cus didn't Dan put the NP on hiatus for a while before he started the Patreon?

Susan's had at least 3 arcs where she's had some character growth, "Hammerclorians" "Identity" and "Playing with Dolls". I guess "Playing with Dolls" is probably the least significant of the 3 but I consider her expressing her frustration about how she looks and the comments from people on the review show as growth. "Identity" was split between her and Elliot but her discovering that she's got a thing for watching others and the later coming to terms with not being ready for a physical relationship is a big deal. And of course, "Hammerclorians" was all Susan telling Sarah and Grace things she had kept buried for a while that probably affected her almost as, if not as much as finding her dad with another woman. I guess the segment of Grace's birthday where Susan and Justin nearly hook up was significant as well since it was an eye opener for her and helped reshape her views on males. All in all, I think Susan's probably evolved the most over the course of the comic considering she started off as a man-hating feminist who thought Elliot was an A-hole to having a conflict of feeling over the possibility of dating him. Add that she's a Trekkie and yeah, she's my fave. As for backstories, it's hard to say who's is most significant, I mean yeah the Susan and Diane connection is something we all want to know more about, but Tedd and Nanase's family history ranks pretty high as well with why Noriko left, Adrian's involvement, what's special about Tedd and the whole Lord Tedd deal. Also the fact that Nanase's mom knows more than she's letting on. Grace would be next with her though he backstory is now known to everyone who was was involved. Though there's still the very high possibility of her being a key player in the Lord Tedd and General Shade Tail storyline if Dan gets around to it. After that it kinda drops off some, Ellen's backstory is known as well to everyone in the main 8 as well as her parents and Edward and Greg. What isn't known is directly tied to Elliot in terms of Magus and Pandora's involvment in Ellen's creation and why the immortals Helena and Demetrius have been following Elliot for it seems some time before their improper deaths. Then there's Justin who's backstory involved him and Melissa which has pretty much been concluded unless Dan decides to bring them together as good friends through Noah or something. His involvement with Luke could prove interesting though. Sarah has the least interesting background really, grew up with Elliot, unfortunately kept in the dark about Elliot's after school activities until shortly after the comic started. No mysterious past. What she has going for her is basically what's developed fairly recently, IE her breakup with Elliot and delving into magic with Tedd, and the most significant bit being her getting marked by Pandora. I think it's safe to say that they're all involved in the overarching plot of Pandora though.

As opposed to you being here on the forums Prof?

One of the writers for The Simpsons, Tim Long is from Exeter Ontario which isn't far from me, he's been writing for them for about 10 years and a fair amount of his inspiration is based on things that happened in and around Exeter, I thought that was rather cool.

There might be a caste system in their world, You got the royalty being the most powerful magic users, but other magic users could be advisors, ministers, etc. Maybe there are other professions where some magically aptitude would be useful, like healers and such.

I think this is a case of Dan having the general idea of the story set up, and even himself originally thinking it wouldn't take too long to get through it all, but then as he went along with each page, things cropped up where he felt he needed to clarify for the readers, like Susan's views on the double standard of nudity taking 2 pages instead of 1, and Ellen's claim to be completely hairless below the shoulder had an extra page added to explain that technically wasn't true. The whole bit about height probably took longer than originally planned too, though I would imagine his unwillingness to go into the "other details" saved him a fair number of pages.

In our world, certainly. As well as people claiming to be chosen by a divine power. In the EGS universe, someone having a considerable magic ability would be able to back up the claim of being chosen by a divine power. After a while you'll eventually have families rise up that are distinctly more powerful than anyone else and so the notion of someone with a very strong aura being of a royal bloodline would take hold. In Tara and Andrea's half of the world this notion is still pretty strong and the human royal families would be revered by many as leaders, whereas in the main 8's half, magic had fallen into secrecy for many generations.

You see him using one here, but that's probably more of a nonphysical web.

Well we know Wolf Described Noriko as a "Legendary Monster Hunter" and "Powerhouse" which would imply that Noriko would be more powerful than Edward, Wolf and Cranium combined. So I'm willing to bet that if Tara and Andrea looked at Edward, they'd be like "yeah he's got strong magic ability, but he's no royal".