Drasvin

Kangaroo man is either an obvious fraud or someone with a very loose grasp on reality. I'm inclined to think the first one, but strange things do happen with some regularity in Moperville.

When Tedd was told that the watches wouldn't work anywhere else in the world, it seemed a given that they'd be severely limited in who would be able to use them, like high powered awakened magic users. Tedd of course could, he's a well of power after all. Nanase might be able to use them, but it'd be unlikely that anyone else could. I imagine any awakened magic user capable of a similarly powerful spell as whatever is in the watch could use them, but yeah, likely not much use for what Tedd originally wanted the watches for, giving power to the unpowered, outside of strange fringe cases (Maybe someone has a large energy reserve but hasn't yet tipped over into Awakened for some reason or another?)

That depends on if there's enough ambient energy around for them to work. The user of the watch can supply their own energy for the built-in spell, just the ambient energy functions as an additional source for those with insufficient personal energy or that don't want to exhaust themselves, and all living things produce some amount of magical energy. I'm not sure Ashley has enough personal energy to cast a transformation spell, but it's not impossible.

Adrian looks rather troubled by these oddities. I hope it doesn't end up distracting him when the bad things start happening later. Likely the former. She has a workable explanation for where she's seen Mr. Raven. She's been to the mall before and Adrian likely sets up his table regularly.

But that's a rather large group of people. Unless fairies mating with humans is a rather new thing. According to this article, any and every person who lived in Europe any time between 800 and 900 AD either (a.) has no living descendants, or (b.) is an ancestor of pretty much everyone alive today who has European ancestry. Another site I read pushed that commonality back to about 2000 years ago, mostly in order to connect Italians with everyone else in Europe. Either way, it wasn't really all that long ago. So if Edward Verres is descended from a fairy-human mating that occurred more than 1000 years ago, then probably his next door neighbor (whom we've never seen in the comic) is too. With realistic genealogy, fairy decent would be very widespread, though likely highly diluted. But it's been mentioned that inherent affinities are rare. I don't think there's been any mention to how common wizards are, but they are a small enough sub-set of magic users to warrant their own terminology, instead of having special terminology for the non-wizard magic users. Likely Dan either doesn't know about such studies, or is ignoring them for story crafting purposes (or maybe the dilution of fairy blood leads to the wizardry and affinities eventually falling out of the bloodline). Oda Nobunaga wasn't a commoner. He was the second son of a shugo(military governor). The famous commoner that helped unify Japan in the Sengoku period was Toyotomi Hideyoshi.

She's only met Tedd in passing so far, she doesn't really know him yet. No, but she does know Elliot, and Elliot knows Tedd. If Ashley wanted a means to transform herself and willing people, I'm certain Elliot could ask Tedd to make her something that could forward that goal and I don't think Tedd would object, especially if Elliot or Ashley paid for the needed materials (which might not be much if Tedd decided to go the wand route. I don't think EGS wands require exotic core materials like unicorn hair or phoenix feathers).

Hmm, that "long line" might be problematic, actually. Everyone who can use magic is descended from fairies, so I would expect the closer to that link, the more powerful, and the more dilute, the weaker. Selective breeding, so to speak, could keep individual lines stronger over time. Although I suppose he could have hooked up with someone who was already part of a long line of powerful magic-users, and just contributed to their staying that way. Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket.... I don't think everyone that can use magic is descended from fairies. Just wizards and people with inherent affinities (like Susan and Sarah). A common thread that gets reiterated by multiple sources is how anyone can gain magic (And it's the reason why the DGB tried to keep magic secret in the first place). The Emissary of Magic even mentioned "magic power [...] gained beyond heredity". All they have to do is train hard enough or luck into one of the many easy(-ish) routes to power. If magic was restricted to those descended from fairies, then you could track it along genealogical lines. Even if you don't know why certain bloodlines get magic, it would be noticeable that magic use is concentrated around different lines with decent. Anyone with good statistical knowledge and descent genealogical records would find a pattern, like how they know about inherent affinities being passed down through families (One of the details that led to theories, both in-setting and in real life, that Susan and Diane are related). That might still work if all humans were descended from fairies, but then Heka listing off different groups, wouldn't make sense, as he didn't lead up to "and all humans" or "and everyone that uses magic." Also hereditary magic would presumably be a lot more reliable if it was based on strength of fairy blood. Again, they wouldn't need to know that the quality derives from fairies to figure out that breeding together magical lines leads to strengthened magic, but this page states that strong magic being reliably inherited in Noriko's family is the exception, rather than the rule. While shapeshifting is one of the most famous abilities of the kitsune, there are many other supernatural abilities attributed to them, including, but not limited to, possession (not something we've seen Nanase do, unless we count 'possessing' her fairy dolls, though that would be tenuous at best), flight (something she used to do casually and can also do with her fairy doll), the ability to generate fire or lightning from their mouths or tails(again not something we've seen Nanase do, outside of the tenuous example of her fairy punch), and creation of illusions elaborate enough to be almost indistinguishable from reality (which she's also done many times, like when tricking Melissa at the comic shop, along with her color-shifted duplicate spell)

I feel sorry for the mall's janitors. Raven only has such ability in elf form, so probably not. He has that ability in his human form, but it's much weaker or something along those lines. He had to focus on Ellen to get a good read on her while he was in his human form. Diane is focusing her attention on Susan and Mr. Raven right now, so it's not out of the question, but I think the vibes she's getting are less supernatural and more subconscious reading of body language. Yes ... it seems Mr. Raven is doing something else than just going to buy something ... I think we overlooked one reason that Adrian could be at the mall. Charity work helping military veterans. It makes sense, though it raises the question of why is Mr. Raven standing behind the table instead of sitting at it? There are plenty of simple answers though (just getting there; getting up to get a drink of water; getting tired of sitting down for an extended period of time)

Maybe she LIKES being bored by anime ... Anime is a large and diverse subject, like western animation. Maybe there's some small corner of anime that appeals to Liz. There's also the fact that many anime conventions become more of a broad interest convention(movies, tv, video games, board games,...) with anime themed signage. Though the simpler answer is that Ashley dragged her along.

That'd make sense in our world, but remember, blue hair is no more unusual than black to them. Depends on the lighting. In some lighting, it can be very difficult to tell black and very dark blue apart.

It's a dark enough blue that it can be mistaken for black.

Given how much you vent about the Danish Parliament, the thought of them having a time machine is a little frightening. ...but then again, it would be frightening for pretty much any government to have a time machine.

Writing stories and fiction in general is a good way to experience and play with concepts and desires that one is either unable or unwilling to do so in real life. This strip can be discussed without touching on the political issues, namely by focusing on non-political aspects, such as fiction writing, Ashley's goodness, expressing ones desires and personality through fiction, and stuff like that. The political aspect deserves to be discussed, but political discussion, by its nature, involves a lot of strong opinions about things that have major impact on people, which can lead to contention and can spiral to toxicity and other unpleasant things if not properly moderated. The Politics thread in the Off-Topic section gives those of us that want a political discussion a place to discuss them and condenses it in a place where Old Hack can keep an eye on it and keep a proper measure of impartiality. And the political aspects of the strip could certainly be discussed over in the Politics thread, letting those that wish to discuss other aspects of today's comic still do so.

Yeah, it's still structurally sound, there wasn't any rebar showing, but I would expect no one would want to just leave it as is and patch it up just so that it didn't look like no one cared about the state of the mall, but as I said before, they could also turn it into a monument and attract customers. I imagine they would need/want to call some engineers to inspect the pillar to be certain that it's still structurally sound. The pillar most likely is still good, but it would be a good precaution anyway. (The force of Tara's strike might have caused tiny fractures through the pillar that could worsen over time. ) Once they figure out whether or not the pillar is still sound, the engineers could then provide advice on the best way to repair, replace, or reinforce the pillar.

Building on this, one wonders if Lespuko claws hurt vampires the way magically-created weapons do. That would depend on the vampire's defense mechanism. If it's regeneration based, then yes. Lespuko claws shut down regeneration effects. If the vampire instead has abnormally tough skin, that would be more uncertain.And given the variety of vampires, the defense mechanisms likely vary as well, though I think the default might be regeneration effects(Makes more sense for beings that fear death). Though I don't think you need magical weapons to hurt vampires. "Magical weaponry harms them far more severely than those of normal make." That implies that non-magical weapons can hurt them, though it requires significantly more firepower to do anything significant. Even if her lespuko claws don't confer a special advantage, Grace likely could use her sheer absurd power to kill a vampire, it would just be a lot more work than if her claws did help.

I doubt share feelings with a being that lacks empathy would harm it. Sharing feelings doesn't seem like something that would disrupt the magic that sustains the vampires. I think the loss of empathy is less a sustaining aspect of vampirism and more a side effect of becoming a parasitic monster obsessed with living forever. More likely it would just confuse the empathy-less being, which could still be handy in a fight. Then again, mixing different magics together leads to unexpected results, even with fairly simply interactions like with Rhoda's and Catalina's spells in Escape from the Mall, so who knows what would happen.

There would be more foreshadowing before it becomes relevant. Dan likes his foreshadowing.

Is it bad that the 'bouncing ferret' scene from Harry Potter flashed through my mind? Being rich means he can afford not just luxury and pleasure, but also to pay to keep people quiet (either via bribes or via more permanent means). Also, depending on what kind of business he company did, he could avoid attracting a lot of attention from the wider populace. If his company does something like screws, nuts, and bolts, then the only people likely to care about his company are regulators and the businesses that purchase those screws, nuts, and bolts in significant quantities. And even then, to the typical individual, Sirleck(or at least his host) just appears to be yet another sleezeball CEO. Maybe an impending PR, HR, and Legal nightmare, but not a literal monster. All he needs to do is keep out of the spotlight enough to disappear into the sea of statistics. Being a rich CEO of a company, if a monster hunter gets tipped off that he might be an aberration, they could follow the trail to him, but they would have to get tipped off first, when there are numerous CEOs in the world and unfortunately, a lot of them use their positions of power to do terrible things. On top of that, by all appearances, the magically community in EGS is really bad about communicating and therefor coordinating efforts, so investigating all the corporate executives for potential monsters would be a daunting task. Organizations, like the DGB, would probably be better at coordinating internals, but they have limits of resources and budget, and they also have to do more than just investigate the rich of the world, when magical bad guys could be any jerk that happens to stumble across magic.

That we know of, but back in Moperverse October (in Marker) Pandora really, really wanted to give Ashley a mark, but didn't feel it was right. But now, she could find justification, such as she really likes Ashley and realizes that since she'll be close to Elliot, who has been targetted by another Immortal, Ashley could use some extra protection. Also, it is in canon that you don't need to get a magic mark to get magic. I get the vibe that Ashley could have the magic potential in her family. The deliberate evasion of her parents pretending they don't know where they're ancestors came from (but nevertheless told her it surely wasn't Japan, which is supposed to have been founded by a Majo named Himeko.) kind of supports them hiding a big secret for her own good. Plus I'm an Ashley fan. I'd like her to have more than a cameo or two in this story arc. And in EGS, there is no such thing as too much tranformation. I think it's less her parents deliberately evading the question and more lack of interest. She said her family has been in America for generations. Not all families have a deep interest in their heritage, especially as they get more generationally distant from that original culture. Also, based on the commentary on this page, Ashley has a widespread heritage from multiple Asian nations, so listing where she doesn't have heritage might be the simpler route.

Hopefully they'd be upfront about what they want, and make it clear the recruit has a choice to not do it. I would be hopeful about that as well, but unfortunately Helena and Demetrius don't have a good track record in regards to that.

So what, you expect her to be victim of ordinary human attack? ANYTHING magical is likely to trigger Adrian's wards. Although I agree that it's weird we don't see the wards activated. I don't think the lockdown barriers have an automated trigger. I think Raven has to cast them whenever he wants to lockdown the school. (Though his spell does automate a majority of the placement of those barriers) My evidence for this is the lockdown ending after Abraham knocked Adrian unconscious. Even if there was an automated trigger, Adrian would have to reset the lockdown spell every day (unless he doesn't sleep, which would be odd considering even his more magical mother sleeps) and there would be the steady energy drain of the spell sitting there, ready to trigger. Adrian had been expecting trouble and would be ready to act to protect his students. Abraham started his attack by cutting the power and blocking communications, which would alert Mr Raven, letting him cast the lockdown spell to attempt to keep Abraham out, or at least keep innocents out of the way (And his elven sense, while diminished in human form, would let him know that the power loss was magical instead of due to the weather or some other mundane happenstance). Well, Immortals can't be detected because they're Immortals, regardless of what layer of reality they're on. It's an inherent quality of theirs. Though Magus and Sirleck(when not attacking a new host) would still be difficult to impossible to detect due to being on the spirit plane. The only indication of Magus being detected from the physical plane is when he first entered the EGS main universe, though he was also crashing through trans-dimensional barriers at the time, which is what the DGB investigators had detected. Magus likely can't be detected by people and things on the physical plane, though it's also possible, if unlikely, that Mr. Verres didn't include a means to detect spirit plane residents in his wards, assuming such a means exists of course. The only spirit plane residents that we know of are Immortals (which can't be detected if they don't want to be anyway), Magus (who is a unique circumstance), and certain aberrations like Sirleck (Which have to shift to the physical plane to attack someone anyway and might be fairly rare). He might have figured that such detection means weren't worth the effort and cost to implement. Again, I think it's unlikely that Edward would skip on a defensive measure, even one unlikely to be helpful, as he's really concerned about his son's wellbeing (even if he's not always good about approaching certain topics properly) and his line of work makes a degree (but not too much) of paranoia healthy...unless the costs of said defensive measures are simply too great, or the implementation too unfeasible, for even a healthy amount of paranoia. Aberrations on the physical plane are likely detectable as such via magical means (pretty much the inverse of aberrations that can detect those that can summon magical weapons). Helena and Demetrius were able to direct Andrea to aberrations to kill. While there are certainly a plethora of possibilities of how they found the aberrations, magical detection would be a clean and simple method. On the other hand, aberrations have a vested interest in not being found as a literal monster, so they likely have various methods to evade detection. Maybe an aberration can only be detected as such when in monster form? Aberrations like Sirleck hide on the spirit plane, where they're likely only detectible to other spirit plane denizens (Which sounds really risky, given that is were the Immortals live, but the first few aberrations that tried that might have been using the logic of 'hide in the place they least expect to find you') Well, EGS vampires might be able to turn other people into vampires, the rules just require it to be intentional and consensual. They can't turn someone by accident or against that person's will. And I'm not sure if they would have much incentive to change someone into a competitor for resources, unless there was something to gain which could be possible in some cases.

I like Nanase's outfit. Though, before I read the commentary and realized that it was a letterman jacket -style jacket, I thought she was dressed up in some sort of cyberpunk-esque outfit, likely because I didn't look at it enough the first time. The letterman jacket is still good looking though.

Well, for something to be twice the volume of one fairy, he would need to be able to summon 4, for 3 times 9, etc. The square/cube law bites. Yeah, square/cube law can be a pain. Though if the volume thing is true, that gives some insight into how much power Voltaire was pumping into him, as he could summon that big bulldog dragon and all of those fire dudes, along with pumping enough extra power into the dragon to make it unkillable. The heat coming off of Dex might have just been a side effect of all the power going into him, though that would raise the question of why Dex wasn't burnt to a crisp.

I doubt Dex had the power to do much other than at most multiple fairydoll summons, unless Greg's been teaching him ASMA as well. From what Noah had said, it implies that his limit on summoning is based on volume. So, if he can summon multiple fairies, then he could summon something with the same volume as multiple fairies...which might still not be much depending on how many that multiple is.

He mentioned wizards, which gets people thinking about magic. True he said, 'the misinformed would call them wizards,' but that still calls to mind magic, or at least something that might as well be magic if you don't have any context, which his announcement did not provide. If he didn't want people thinking about magic, then why have the line about wizards? He could just have easily said, "There are those with power. Power they did not ask for and cannot explain." He also didn't both to correct the talk show host when he called them wizards, even though he took the time to correct the host on what weight would be growing. Also, if he was hoping the majority of people were going to assume something like Mutants or something, why not drive the narrative in that direction? The DGB has no qualms about lying to people on a regular basis. They did that throughout Edward's tenure, and he was taught by Arthur, so certainly Arthur wouldn't have any qualms about lying to the public. He could have said "the misinformed would call them mutants." Doesn't waste resources trying to cover up the existence of paranormal goings on and drives the narrative away from magic, which would help mitigate the risk of magic reset. Going by this comic, he's either trying to do what he believes is the good thing, or he's trying to deceive his boss. Technically it could be either, but Assistant Director Liefeld has the clout and authority to make things very unpleasant for Arthur if the potential lies come to light. It's not generally a good idea to trick your boss, especially when you're a member of a super-secret organization. Such organizations can arrange for 'unfortunate accidents.' Or they could simply lock him away from a very long time in where ever magical criminals go. As for why? Immortals will still have magic, but they will still also have their laws preventing them from doing much more then 'Guide and Empower.' Voltaire is trying to change the laws, but Arthur doesn't know that (or if he does, then he's likely been deceived into thinking Voltaire will try to change them for the better, but I think Arthur is too smart to fall for that) There is the potential of aberrations still being a problem, but that depends on whether or not they're human enough for the magic reset to affect. Arthur might believe that they would be, in which case, all the aberrations would simply die once magic resets, as they cannot survive without their magic to sustain them. Other magical threats they could theoretically handle with non-magical means until they can rebuild their magical capabilities. Guns are generally effective against living targets and as a division of the FBI, the DGB would certainly have access to firearms for all their agents. Maybe even some heavier ordnance (I'm not entirely sure what the limits of FBI equipment are), though that could draw unwanted attention. Also the DGB is on good terms with the Uryuoms (or at least they were when Edward was in charge, not sure about Arthur), so they could ask for some assistance from them. (Would have to figure out what to tell Agent Wolf though) Since he's a high ranking member of the DGB, I doubt him lacking personal magic would matter much unless he's extremely petty. Wands are large enough to supply their own power, so he just needs to order up a few from requisition and have them loaded with whatever spells he wants. It could explain why he doesn't like Adrian, though he could simply not like elves. Immortals are trouble, and elves are half Immortal.