Scotty

It doesn't know if it wants to rain or be sunny today. It's mostly cloudy with several really dark clouds going over occasionally, but also some breaks in the cloud. My right foot has been aching most of the day so there's definitely low pressure moving through here.

The impression that I got from today's page is that Pandora will be going over everything she's done in the past few years to fix everything, to "clean up this mess I've made" Magus is part of the mess so I wouldn't doubt for a moment that she isn't considering what he might have done after she left him, she's the one that introduced him to Sirleck so she must assume the possibility of Magus going back to Sirleck. She's probably also going to try to find out what happened that put Noah in danger because Adrian believed that it was her doing but she didn't even question it at the time. On top of that, she knows there's another Immortal messing around so she's gotta figure out why and how to stop him. I think she's going to be putting that "borderline psychic" stuff to work pretty hard for the rest of the day at least. I don't think so, for one despite the fact that Dan believes he introduced Lord Tedd too early, I don't think he'd write him out of it like that and yet still manage to find a way to bring him up again. Edward said "this is complicated enough as it is without dragging Lord Tedd into it." Edward's "addressing the Lord Tedd situation" more likely amounted to assessing the danger of Lord Tedd sending something else to attack Tedd. Killing Lord Tedd, or even imprisoning him, is a big deal because Dan's already gone through the trouble is showing us that this is not simply an evil alternate of Tedd, and that General Shade Tail may be the real threat.

I wonder if she knows that Magus went back to Sirleck for help? Or at least figures that he would have after she left him. Pretty certain she won't hurt Magus because she'd know he's only acting out of desperation because she refused to properly help him. So it's basically Sirleck and Voltaire who are the enemies, anyone else? Aside from Lord Tedd I mean, I'm not sure she either knows about him or can actually reach him and that situation is complicated anyway.

First time in hundreds of years, certainly, not the first time in her lifetime though. She was being introspective at 150 years old when she was considering an early reset, but found nothing of those 150 years to be worth passing on to her next life. Meeting Blaike made her realize there was so much she could do. I fully agree that Pandora hasn't properly mourned Blaike's death, I think it'd be hard for anyone to mourn a loss like that. Her being an Immortal might give her more options for how to deal with it, but emotionally, I don't think she's any different than Humans.

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.

To be honest, I'm not sure if Tedd needs to worry about getting an Immortal to make another artifact. Maybe he could do it himself? There are still implications that an artifact like that could cause a system change, Tedd might be wary of doing so unless he actually does manage to get the WoM to let magic be public.

For one thing, even though this story isn't canon, Hanma being a canon character likely means there are other tidbits about her that are canon, like the fact that she's older than Jerry/Not_Jerry, that would make a paradox as to how Hanma could be Pandora's next life when Hanma essentially exists before Pandora's reset. Pandora would have to have reset well before Hammerchlorians to still be older than Jerry/Not_Jerry. And for 2: This ^^^^^^^^^.

We saw proof of that when Pandora had a sense of dejavu when Disco Wizard mentioned the magic change, that knowledge had been passed from her previous incarnation but she must not have really paid any attention to it until it became important. 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. I want to add that the representation of the Chaos side seems more like a culmination of all the questionable choices Pandora made after Blaike's death that she justified as "for the best" either with Adrian's benefit in mind, or her own, but much of it might have been done either without considering the consequences of her actions, or she deflected blame, like when she allowed Adrian to fight Abraham and instead of it being her fault for not acting to prevent it, she called it a harsh lesson in mortality. Both sides at least agree that the resets suck because she loses any emotional attachment to the people she cares about, one side sees the logic in doing so while the other believes they can deal with a little instability from time to time, which is probably arrogant to think. But now there's a third option that, while apparently very risky, is what Pandora decided upon doing, trying to reset while maintaining emotional connections to the people she cares about. Failure might mean an improper reset in which she loses most of her knowledge and the rest probably get's garbled. The alternative would be not resetting and risking hurting those she cares about as the years make her more powerful and unstable.

I don't remember much of the series, but he was the 5000 year old Immortal right? I wouldn't be surprised if he did it either to pass the time. Or maybe he wanted a record of his life written down on the chance another Immortal took his head.

A while back Dan tweeted with a tease about an EGS villain he considered really evil. Today he tweeted again with this: We're currently speculating that Sirleck is who's behind the vampires organizing in Moperville as part of Magus' request to distract Helena and Demetrius. We also have a feeling that Sirleck's planning on double crossing Magus once Magus has possessed Elliot's body. Sounds pretty evil there. Aside from Sirleck, who else would fit the bill of being evil? Some may jump to Lord Tedd, considering Beta Tedd's warning that Lord Tedd is trying to kill all other Tedds, but there's evidence that contradicts this, like our actual view of Lord Tedd and what Nioi says about "...he is corrupting you". The fact the Nioi came to the EGS main universe looking for Dr. Scuiridae hoping he'd "know how to defeat him" strongly implies that it's General Shade tail that's the evil one in this scenario manipulating Lord Tedd. Pandora is crazy yes, for reasons probably to do with Adrian she's not bothered to reset herself in many centuries, that doesn't necessarily make her evil. Chaotic Neutral would be more fitting. Magus himself doesn't come across as evil, likely the victim of some other plot in his universe. His interaction with Terra comes across as magic sparring practice (similar to Nanase and Elliot's AMSA sparring) gone wrong. So he's stuck in limbo and desperately trying to get back. That Ancient we know as Colonel Sanders is still pretty mysterious, nothing is know about his motivations and whether he's actually affiliated with anyone, he apparently knows of Pandora but there's been nothing to suggest he's with or against her or just taking advantage of the situation for his own fun. His behaviour in trying to incite violence strongly suggests he's evil but there may be more to him that we don't know about. I'm in the Sirleck corner for this particular case, but who know, all these plot threads could very well be connected to one particular villain that we either already know of, or Dan hasn't revealed yet and he's just teasing us.

Voltaire's guiding of Tara didn't seem to have any benefits to her, as Voltaire was intentionally preventing her from finding her wife while getting her emotionally charged and believing Elliot was responsible. What if Tara succeeded in killing Elliot, would Voltaire miraculously reveal Andrea's location? And what would happen if Andrea just said she got lost and Elliot's only fault was not understanding the code phrase? Heck, it's possible Voltaire would just disappear and Tara would be left at square one, Tara would have murdered Elliot for nothing.

I wonder how a reset with emotional attachment passed on would work. There have to be enough knowledge of who the people she cares about are of which there's at least Adrian, Tedd and Sarah*. Would everything else be selective memory loss, figure out what can be forgotten and relearned later? I admit that what Pandora's suggesting could very well lead to us seeing her going off to college with the Main Eight. *We know Pandora liked Sarah, partly because she's good friends with Tedd, partly because Pandora never needed to explain every detail of the dam and stuff to Sarah like she did with Disco Wizard. But I think she really grew attached to Sarah with her most recent talk. Plus having the emotional attachment passed on along the vow to help Sarah might make the experience more personal for both of them rather than it being just Teacher/Student if she only had the vow driving things.

Plan CM on the surface doesn't seem like it should really affect Tedd, unless it pulls someone that Tedd into harms way, Elliot seems to be off to table in terms of Voltaire having been forced to vow to not do anything with the intent on getting Elliot killed. But there might be a loophole in the fact that Voltaire doesn't have to worry about doing something now because he's already set things motion and Elliot could still get killed in the process and Voltaire's vow wouldn't retroactively affect him. There's also the possibility of Susan getting hurt or killed by the vampires, or Nanase, or Sarah, or Ellen or maybe even Grace, and they'd certainly be close enough to Tedd to get a traumatic response. Heck, Edward getting killed would likely trigger a response from Tedd as well, even though there's that rift forming over Tedd's genderfluidity, I don't think it's anywhere near the point that Tedd wouldn't care if anything happened to his father and losing his father before he even had a chance to talk about the issue would be damaging as well. Also there is still a possibility that Voltaire knows that Pandora is going around trying to fix things and is getting set up to undo all that. That pendant he gave Dex made Adrian believe that Pandora was responsible for Noah nearly being killed. There could be something else up Voltaire's sleeves that would suddenly drive a wedge between Pandora and Tedd. Maybe allowing Pandora to go to Tedd will drive the wedge between Tedd and Edward further if Edward is adamant that Pandora was trying to manipulate Tedd for her own entertainment, Tedd would have to choose whether to believe Pandora, or his father, and if he chooses his father, Pandora would be crushed, but if Tedd chose Pandora, then Edward might be forced to take drastic action which might make Tedd take action as well.

Pandora referred to the knowledge from her previous self as memoirs, so in essence it's really not much different than someone who's in their later years writing about all their experiences, the people they cared about, etc and passed it along to their grandkids. Immortals resetting themselves would probably be the closest thing they got to what happens to Humans

I wouldn't really call it crippling at all, I don't think Voltaire's intentions are for Tedd to become withdrawn to the point of making people think he was mute again. When Voltaire was talking about Plan A, he mentioned that the plan "didn't include filling him with contempt and distrust precisely where I want it to be" which makes me thing Voltaire wants Tedd to lash out, probably violently as well.

I don't think there's anything preventing Voltaire from impersonating Edward as much as there wasn't anything preventing Voltaire from impersonating Abner, or Pandora from impersonating Wolf. There isn't an Immortal Law that states "Edward Verres is to not ever be impersonated", the fact that he's a VIP in the paranormal world means that Immortals believe they shouldn't mess with him, because he's really good at what he does and he could probably kick their arses with charts and exposition. But using him or his likeness to manipulate others would still fall under the "guide and empower" rule.

She didn't know they were called Immortals, but she was told that the "Ancients" on that side can lie, which is a huge difference, and that's what she forgot about. I agree that Adrian is bait to get a reaction from Pandora, but I don't think it would stop at Sirleck, Pandora knows there's another Immortal meddling in things, if she got wind that an Immortal directed Sirleck into targeting her son....well I don't think Pandora would be forced to reset for killing aberrations, but how many Immortals would she tear through trying to find Voltaire before they forced a reset on her? Pandora had stated that Immortal law only protects mortals on the physical plane, for everything else, she can be very direct, so I doubt any reaction to Pandora's rage would be instant. Voltaire isn't trying to cripple Tedd, he's trying to manipulate how Tedd ends up fulfilling his second purpose, Heka stated that if a Seer is morally good than he wants them to be eligible for the second purpose. But if he felt Pandora's assessment of Tedd was unfavorable, then he would have used Pandora to sabotage Tedd's chances of fulfilling that second purpose. Then we have Voltaire talking about how Plan A could have been completed by him manipulating Tedd himself to worsen the outcome of Tedd fulfilling the second purpose to which the best possible evidence to a negative outcome might be how Lord Tedd turned out. If Voltaire wanted to cripple Tedd, all he would need to to was reveal to Tedd what that second purpose would be. Voltaire has to know about Magus because he's aware of Sirleck and what Sirleck is doing. There's no way that Voltaire had spent that past 8 months or so (from New and Old Flames) trying to get Elliot killed and not know why Elliot had soo much attention on him. He'd be looking at every thing trying to figure what he can used to his advantage, Pandora marked Dex, Voltaire gave Dex a pendant to channel more power and manipulate him, also that pendant was meant to direct blame onto Pandora, Pandora recruited Sirleck to help Magus make an attempt to get a physical body, now Voltaire's using Sirleck to target Adrian. While I don't think Voltaire particularly cares whether Magus succeeds in getting a body or not, I can't believe that Voltaire would not know he exists.

I dunno if what Voltaire did to Tara was impersonating an ancient, I think he just took advantage of the fact that Tara didn't remember there was a difference between Immortals and Ancients. Voltaire did impersonate Abner over the phone with Sirleck. I don't think Adrian would be exempt from this. Also it does seem pretty clear that colluding with aberrations isn't breaking immortal law, but then again Voltaire probably expects a lot of aberrations to die and that might justify Adrian's death and Pandora's subsequent rampage. I don't think Voltaire would care that Magus needs Elliot alive, Voltaire might have just wanted a scenario that Magus' attempts would put Elliot in danger. I know the early years of the comic didn't seem have have a coherent plotline and Dan added and retconned many things, he probably didn't have the Magus thread fully fleshed out or even really thought of when Tedd zapped Elliot. Voltaire certainly wasn't around during that, so yeah I'm completely guessing how Dan might fit Voltaire into the mix here. But if Voltaire was trying to use Magus's situation to further his goal, then it's possible that either Grace showing up threw a wrench into it, or Lord Tedd's goo threw a wrench into it. I do get the feeling that maybe The Incident with Tedd turning Sarah into a catgirl and the TFG malfunctioning might have been a test run to getting Tedd to zap Elliot and preventing him from immediately changing him back. I dunno, Voltaire's currently meddling in several threads as it is and the current arc is titled "Catspaws" so I would not be surprised if Voltaire's revealed to have been manipulating everything that's happened in the comic to some degree.

Voltaire wouldn't need to fiddle with Noriko's emotions magically, he did a pretty good job of getting Tara emotionally charged enough to try to kill Elliot and only got a "pushing guide and empower as far as it'll bend" response for it. Voltaire could have said something to Noriko while impersonating Adrian for all we know. Voltaire is quite capable of it. No he wasn't, but he could have been an opportunity to further Voltaire's goals, remember, after Noriko left, Tedd was withdrawn to the point where people thought he was mute, he was getting bullied in school and if it wasn't for Elliot stepping in and becoming his friend, and later getting to work on the TFG, Tedd might not have come out of that. So Tedd's improved nature would have been a threat to Voltaire's plans so enter Magus, an alternate of Elliot. Not sure exactly what the logic would be behind it but he might have been counting on Pandora making Magus do something that put Elliot's life in danger, or in general would affect Tedd in some way. It's possible that the Magus idea didn't pan like Voltaire expected or maybe he just got impatient and started trying other ways to traumatize Tedd, he seems to be at a point where he's just throwing stuff at a wall and hoping something sticks, or building up to where Tedd is hit with a bunch of things at once to really traumatize him. I know it's cliche, but I wouldn't be surprised if H&D had some info, but wanted to get real evidence before they reported back to Edward. If they did get that evidence, they were likely improperly killed right when they got it. If what they learned was Voltaire's plans to traumatize Tedd to effect the kind of Seer he'd be, their last thought might have been "If something happened to Tedd's best friend, that would do it." hence why their current lives felt compelled to watch over Elliot.

Lord Tedd I'll agree that the good was his only attempt, but Magus appeared in Moperville months before Nanase and Susan's trip to France so we can't rule out Pandora being involved. Heck Voltaire might have been manipulating Pandora for the past 3 or so, maybe he set it up so that Pandora could try to get Edward to kill someone, he got basically a slap on the wrist for injuring Abraham, what would have happened if he actually killed him, and how would it have affected Tedd? Actually if we go back far enough, what are the chances Voltaire was around when Tedd was born, sensed that he was a Seer, and manipulated Noriko into doing the things she did and made sure Adrian took the fall for it, and basically create an environment of secrets for Tedd to live in. That's some wild speculation I know, just throwing it out there though. Back on H&D though, the main sticking point for me in my belief that there's more to why they've done the things they did, was that they were doing it for Edward, because back when Magus first appeared and Edward was closing the case due to lack of info, he stated he was going to enlist some friends for assistance and that there was a reason he knows so much about Immortals, I think that's evidence that Edward knows H&D and asked for their help investigating things. I think they found out about Pandora, and possibly even Voltaire, and that Tedd and his friends might be in trouble, but didn't make it back to Edward to tell him.

One of my earlier theories was that H&D needed to awaken Nanase to help them protect Elliot the vampire attack was coincidental and Susan just happened to be there as well, but if H&D needed to reset, but couldn't leave Elliot without some sort of protection, and Elliot and Nanase would have been friends at the time anyway(probably not dating yet) doing the ASMA training, she would be the closest one capable of doing the job. They probably couldn't explain why because it might give away secrets that they're not supposed to tell.

It's possible that Helena and Demetrius were manipulated into breaking Immortal law. Like Nanase and Susan were bait to draw them away. If, by chance, another Immortal got to the authorities in France first and did something to prevent them from being able to send agents to deal with the vampire, H&D might have felt forced to recruit Nanase and Susan. I dunno if that would be considered breaking Immortal law though, also Pandora showed that if an Immortal really believes that what they're doing isn't breaking Immortal law then they're not breaking it. So H&D would likely have knowingly broke Immortal law to be forced to reset because even if they might have lied to Susan and Nanase, that's not a reset-able offense, because Immortals can lie as Voltaire has shown. There is another reason for an improper reset though, Jerry mentioned that if an Immortal interrupts the reset process, it could mess things up for them. Jerry also mentioned that in order to reset properly, he needed to gather all his knowledge and power back which meant unpowering the hammer artifact, so I imagine leaving the hammer artifact powered could have potentially caused an improper reset. If H&D were already in the process of dying when they suddenly learned of Nanase and Susan being in danger, interrupting that to go help them might explain why they disappeared after they lead them into battle. Alternatively, they might have sacrificed some of their power during their reset to prevent something from happening.

I think it's more the fact that she was suppressing those abilities as part of living with Blaike, Blaike had told her that not knowing what was ahead, was what made the adventure worth taking, Pandora obviously took that to heart and continued to believe that. I think her descent into madness started when she saw an opportunity to wipe out the werewolves, and then as she got older and more bored, she kinda shot herself in the foot by setting up a chain of events that she didn't want to predict the outcome of. I don't think Pandora's any difference than Humans when if comes to letting her emotions guide her actions, Humans are just a capable of abandoning empathy when angered greatly. Immortals just seem to be more susceptible to us due to how they age. Losing the ability to control emotions is probably the Immortal equivalent to dementia in elderly humans. Nope, but I suspect these Pandoras aren't hallucincations. For one, they're not small enough. If Pandora wasn't already planning on resetting soon, this conversation is likely going to make her decide that she needs to. Because it sounds like she's about to convince herself that her recent behaviour almost hurt Tedd badly and that continuing her current life would likely end up doing so again except with her not being able to fix things, and it could very well be much worse too.

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2383 AWWW more hugs!!! And I don't know about you guys, but I just love Pandora right now.

And the next page Hanma stated "Something anyone can summon from anywhere might be a bit too much for me. right now." so while she could make an artifact that say allowed Americans to summon hammers, it wouldn't be the same as the original which allowed Susan and Nanase to summon them in France.