Story Wednesday August 1, 2018

[Story Wednesday August 1, 2018]

So that's what an Immortal being reborn looks like. Neat.

Presumably, an improper reset, their questions would just be left hanging, with little to no recollection to answer them.

[Story Friday July 27, 2018]

It took me a moment to realize that the light haired person in panel three is Diane and not Sarah. Her haircut looks good, though.

1 hour ago, wanderingmagus said:

Also, Africa, and every single disenfranchised victim of colonization, has Ancient Magic now. So does Iran, or should I say, Babylon and Persia. So does the IRA, or should I say, Eire, home of the Tuath De. Where were you when Ah Puch and the Great Buffalo Spirit declared war on the Sons of Odhinn, or Yamaraja arose from the depths of Naraka to make war upon mighty Al-Uzza and Ba'al?

No living person should have access to old magic systems (The uryuom are probably less a case of gaining access to an old magic system than their natural magic is no longer incompatible with Earth magic), though old magic artifacts will be coming back online.

26 minutes ago, Stature said:

VI: Not speculating where Edward is going. It does not feel like an arrival area, anyway.

Based on the title of the newspaper he's reading, he might be in the D.C. area, meaning he's probably on his way home, though he could be headed to another location for work.

[Main Friday Jul 13, 2018]

On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 5:23 PM, hkmaly said:

On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 4:18 PM, Scotty said:

On ‎7‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 4:06 PM, hkmaly said:

I repeat, main issue is that basically nobody is actually motivated to make Pandora real student.

It doesn't have to be anyone else's motivation, if Pandora wants to be seen in public with Sarah, she'd take the necessary step to make it appear that she belongs there.

As you mentioned yourself, making herself real student is NOT necessary to be seen in public with Sarah. Just looking as student will be enough. It's unlikely someone would actually bother to check if she's visiting any classes, or in case she would, if she has them subscribed or what's the word. I'm not sure about US, but in Europe hardly any university teacher is checking attendance, and the ones who do check in the other direction - they complain if someone will appear on exam without ever being in class, but if someone appears in class and not on exam? Probably wasn't feeling being able to do that exam.

The bigger the university, the less likely is someone would be making sure everyone belongs here, with the possible exception of gate, which Pandora can skip or go through invisible.

Depends on the teacher. I imagine the administration for the school wouldn't like teachers teaching someone that hasn't paid their tuition. Though that would depend on word getting back to the administration, which again depends on the teachers in question and how high profile Pandora is.

4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Hmm, I know I've been the main advocate of Pandora going to college with Sarah, but it occurs to me there is another option....

 

...she could teach at Sarah's college.

About magic.

That would require the government to abandon, or at least ease up, on their secrecy policy, which I doubt they would do by the time the cast goes into college. Though it would be an awesome idea.

4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Hey, if it's going public, what school wouldn't jump at the chance to have a genuine Immortal teaching about this brand new, exciting field?

Any school that knows what a headache an Immortal can be, especially with their tendency toward a substantially different system of morals and ethics.

4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Heck, Pandora can shape-shift, she could do both!

She could do both, but that's effectively doubling her work load, and even Immortals have limits of how much stress they can take. Though if she's careful with her scheduling, it actually would be a good idea if she wants to act more openly, as learning different subjects could help with understanding how human's perceive the world.

[Main Monday Jul 16, 2018]

The mystery of the Dunkels deepens, though based on the commentary it's not going to be answered anytime soon, if ever.

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Since it's now in canon that human magical talents are inherited, it would make sense for every one of the Main Eight to have at least one parent with magic or at least magical potential. From there it's a short step to parents with "jobs" such as "greeting card salesman" and "used furniture dealer". Moperville is supposed to be near Chicago, and Chicago has already had at least one very notable "used furniture dealer".

There's no need for every one of the Main Eight to have a parent with active magic or obvious potential. Simply being human means they can gain, learn, and improve magic. With the exception of special talents like wizardry and other special talents like what Susan, Diane, and Sarah have, the only difference between different humans his how much work and training they have to put in to get to a given level of power and ability. Which is similar to other fields that raw talents can play a role in.

4 hours ago, Wixelt said:

Aside from the things in Dan's linked to in the commentary to imply previous strange things, it should also be noted that they don't work for the government, or at least not the same agency as Edward, as he doesn't recognize them and is equally stranged out by their surprising acceptance of the situation.

I also remember the Dunkels mentioning something along the line of them not being sure what Edward's job entail (though I can't seem to find the page, so my memory might be lying to me) which further supports that Mr. Dunkel doesn't work in the same agency at least. I was thinking he likely worked for the private sector as there's some implication that the Paranormal Division of the FBI handles or is heavily connected to all paranormal governmental activities in the USA(And Edward is a rather big name in the DGB), but then I remembered that any magical talent that Mr. Dunkel may or may not have doesn't have to be related to his job or his acceptance of strange things. He could simply be an auditor for the IRS or an accountant for FEMA or something else relatively mundane and any magical abilities would be potentially helpful, but largely irrelevant.

28 minutes ago, Scotty said:

You know, it just occurred to me that Nanase seems to think it was odd that the Dunkel parents called in Greg. I mean it'd wouldn't be much of a stretch to say they know about him because Elliot took Martial Arts classes from him, but we haven't seen any interaction between them. Do we even know if they only recently came to trust Greg with matters  like this due to his recent involvement with the Goo and the fire golems, or have they known him for a while and there was a reason they enrolled Elliot in his training classes?

Maybe they knew of Elliot's tendency to protect people from bullies and thought "you know, Greg is starting up a Martial Arts course, that would be perfect for Elliot."

Mr. and Mrs. Dunkel might trust Greg simply because Elliot and Ellen trust Greg. I'm rather certain they would have had discussions about his martial arts classes, if nothing else, for the small talk purpose of asking Elliot how his day went, and would have learned that Greg is a dependable, if sometimes goofy, guy.

[Main Friday Jul 13, 2018]

MORE HUGS!

6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Did Tedd really need to phrase his closing comment in such a manner?

One of the most emotional scenes in EGS, and the specific wording makes me think of My Little Pony.

Someone on Twitter mentioned it made them think of Twilight Sparkle with a Darth Vader-esque voice.

[Story Wednesday July 11, 2018]

Hugs!

[Story Monday July 9, 2018]

Based on the links in the commentary, it looks like next up we'll get Sarah and Tedd talking about what happened to Box.

[Story Friday July 6, 2018]

I agree with this pyromaniac uryuom. Fire is a wonderful thing worthy of celebratory laughter.

[Story Monday June 11, 2018]

Poor Ashley. She's been through a lot.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

"Transport is already on standby" ... but which kind of transport? Will they use mundane ways to protect direction to "here" like opaque windows or will they make them sleep again? Or is that some sort of teleport?

Ellen has already displayed an extreme dislike of sleep magic, so I doubt that will be used. Simplest answer would be in the back of a windowless van.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Aaand, Sybil is on Magus's side. Arthur isn't. Would he be this moved by young woman who wouldn't be "married" to his creation? Let's see, was he aware of any woman being endangered by buldog dragon?

Arthur strikes me as the kind of person that would be willing to deal with unsavory consequences to achieve the desired goal. "The ends justify the means" though maybe not as extreme as characters that live by phrase tend to go.

4 hours ago, weirdee said:

Edward was fired for unprofessional conduct affecting his ability to carry out his job, not for caring. The others might goof off but they are all able to handle their jobs. It is also a higher position, so there is less room for mistakes.

Of course, it brings up what will happen if it comes to light that he was being influenced outside his own control.

Magus had refused to amplify Edward's emotions, which is what led to the falling out between him and Pandora. Edward's actions were driven entirely by his own anguish and rage.

Though even if Magus had been influencing Edward, I think that'll only justify Liefeld's decision to move Edward to another (new) division instead of firing him completely, which is likely what would have happened if he didn't have the connections he does.

[Friday June 8, 2018]

5 hours ago, Scotty said:

5 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Dragons are awesome. Little things like them not existing won't get in the way of that.

Besides, maybe dragons existed once upon a time, but one of the magic resets caused them to go extinct.

Or leave, they may have migrated to the other half of the world where the people didn't hunt them down.

 

Arthur's sure that no one has seen a true Dragon before, or at least in a very long time, but Ellen, Elliot and Ashley met Griffins who were also supposedly mythical creatures so it'd be pretty easy for them to believe that real Dragons existed.

Given how much information is missing from official channels, I would not be surprised if Arthur doesn't know about the other half of the universe. (Or at least that it's technically part of their universe and not a separate universe altogether)

14 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

2 hours ago, Alwaysnewguy said:

Does anyone else think that Dan read or anticipated the conclusion jumping from the Wednesday comic discussion and wrote this to snark about it?

It's possible, but it could also be a callback to another conclusion jumping event.

Ellen is a true Olympian when it comes to conclusion jumping.

[Friday June 8, 2018]

Dragons are awesome. Little things like them not existing won't get in the way of that.

Besides, maybe dragons existed once upon a time, but one of the magic resets caused them to go extinct.

[Main Wed June 6 2018]

52 minutes ago, Scotty said:

1 hour ago, Drasvin said:

Also, it seems everyone keeps being wrong about what the "Diamond" was. I wonder what the original purpose of the thing was before Abraham got a hold of it. My guess would be to preserve the scale, either for study, power collection, or both.

I suggested that the crystal was meant so seal whatever held the power inside. though maybe it was meant to harness the scale's power in a more controlled manner?

Another possibility I thought of is that the crystal might have been the magic energy equivalent of congealed blood that was later shaped into an aesthetically pleasing form by some wizard, which would account for why the crystal's power was similar to the power of the scale.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Whatever animal it was from, the Golem recognized it, so maybe the war between Uryuoms and Humans back then was over that scale, or the animal it came from? I guess if Uryuoms objected to Humans slaughtering dragons(maybe) to take their power, then I can understand why they'd go to war with Humans back then.

I don't think the war was started over the scale (or the animal it came from). Once the Golem's memory had been properly jogged, their desire was for humans to have nothing. Seeing the scale in the box could have sparked some degree of recognition of that goal without causing the full recall of events. My guess is that the uryuoms in question were looking to carve out a place to call their own. Just happened that the place they wanted was already occupied. Going from that, the Golem wanted humans to have nothing, because that's the situation their kind was forced to deal with.

[Main Wed June 6 2018]

That's a dragon scale. ... Is Ellen a dragon now?

Also, it seems everyone keeps being wrong about what the "Diamond" was. I wonder what the original purpose of the thing was before Abraham got a hold of it. My guess would be to preserve the scale, either for study, power collection, or both.

[Story Friday June 01, 2018]

22 minutes ago, Scotty said:

4 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Not at all actually. He could have simply added that line for emphasis. If Ellen questions who his daughter is (or if she would assure such a thing), he could call her. Cell phones are ubiquitous. Whether or not Ellen believes Arthur and his daughter is her own prerogative and is unlikely to affect his decisions much if at all.

But it would carry much more weight with Ellen if it was someone she already knows and trusts. She's suspicious of Arthur's motivations because she only knows him based on that others may have said about him, if his daughter was his assistant or another agent, there's no reason to be instantly convinced of anything, but if his daughter is Mrs Dunkel, someone Ellen loves and trusts, then of course she'd have a "huh...okay...." moment.

It would carry more weight, but his statement doesn't need to. Arthur might want to quell Ellen's suspicions and put her more at ease, but if he doesn't, then the course of events doesn't really change that much. The worst that might happen is Ellen try to convince Ashley not to accept Kevin's help, but I suspect that Ashley is already firmly on-board with Kevin training her. A suspicious Ellen might be an annoyance going forward, but not really detrimental to any of Arthur's plans (And if she turns out to be detrimental to some plan, he could just ask Edward to exposit at her talk some sense into her)

[Story Friday June 01, 2018]

Arthur has a daughter. Interesting, though in retrospect it's not surprising. Bringing about offspring is not an uncommon occurrence for people. There are numerous reasons for a given individual to not have any offspring, but various biological urges and instincts lead to offspring to be the norm. That said daughter was seemingly unintended and that Arthur supported her anyway is surprising and heartwarming.

9 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Gee, none of you think Arthur's daughter is Sybil, the only person we've seen who seems to like him?

That could make sense, though, as she appears to be his secretary, that would suggest nepotism which runs counter to his assertion of ideal American values (Hypocrisy or outright misdirection isn't out of the question though)

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

7 hours ago, WR...S said:

I suspect it's more significant than that, though.  Either this will make him somehow related to the other two seers (i.e., to their common mother and her sister), or he's Susan's maternal grandfather.

All three seers we know off being related? Two are suspicious, but all three, that would be too much.

Susan, meanwhile? Hmmm ... she wasn't in basement when they were looking at Arthur in TV ... she does have some talent ... ok, we can't rule her out completely.

Though it's been implied that Susan's magical talent is from her paternal side (With Adrian and her father looking extremely similar)

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I don't see this either actually. I think she means HUMANS in that "we", not comparing herself to Kevin.

But she was created by magic and has obviously shown to have thoughts that are independent of Elliot's.

Though she was created by magic, Ellen is a flesh and blood human

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Arthur being Susan's maternal grandfather has the problem giving both her parents a blood relation to Adrian and while it might be possible considering Adrian didn't know he could have children and so both sides wouldn't know they were related, there is also the deal with Arthur having attempted to deport Adrian to Russia years ago. We already have Diane who's probably kicking herself for the way she's treated who she just found out is her father. Dan doesn't seem likely to have anyone else doing the same

I don't believe there have been any hints or signs that Arthur is at all related to Adrian. He doesn't have the Raven family talent, Pandora doesn't seem to have made any attempt to ensure his or his daughter's safety after her revelation about Adrian being able to have children, and given that Susan's father looks extremely similar to Adrian despite the large number of generations between them, that would suggest that resemblance runs strong in his bloodline and Arthur looks nothing like Adrian.

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

Should also add that the only possible reason he'd mention his daughter as someone who would assure Ellen of his intentions is if his daughter is someone Ellen knows. Because if it was Sybil or anyone we haven't seen, then what incentive is there for Ellen to believe him.

Not at all actually. He could have simply added that line for emphasis. If Ellen questions who his daughter is (or if she would assure such a thing), he could call her. Cell phones are ubiquitous. Whether or not Ellen believes Arthur and his daughter is her own prerogative and is unlikely to affect his decisions much if at all.

[Story, Wednesday May 30, 2018]

1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

3 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Kevin is a seemingly sapient entity, though one that was artificially created. It's only polite to treat him as a person.

I wonder if Kevin has always been sapeint, or if he absorbed some of the Dewitchery energy too and that "brought him to life"?

If he was sapient all along, it seems a bit cruel to have stuffed him in a crate for decades just because he's not a very good teacher.

Also, when creating a magical AI, does magic do all the work, or is there any programming involved? If Kevin is not unique as a sapient artifact, then maybe magical AI creators ought to be giving electronic AI creators some tips...

Based on this page, it appears that Kevin was completely non-functional before the Diamond was shattered. "I should even be able to talk to you."

So likely he absorbed some energy from the Diamond, which fixed whatever was preventing him from functioning, assuming that his lack of function wasn't from a feature of magic being suppressed to lock away a previous system of magic and the Diamond just powered him up after the soft 'reset' released all the locks.

As for creating a magical AI, I imagine magic does most of the work. Designing AI is hard, not just from a hardware stand point, but because the software is difficult and complex to put together. Modern AI development is largely centered around machine learning procedures, which can make a program that is really good at the thing it is being designed for, but the code is too tangled and complex to be understood by even the people who ostensibly designed it. Similar to a brain:  the functions individual nodes/neurons are understood, and clusters are vaguely grasped, but the whole is beyond.

51 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

3 hours ago, Drasvin said:

There also appears to be a mirror behind Arthur in panel 4. Seems they're in an interrogation room instead of some random office or conference room. Which is an obvious place to have a discussion like this, but didn't occur to me earlier.

Arthur apologized for talking to the meddling kids in an interrogation room in www.egscomics.com/comic/2018-05-23

I missed that line. Makes sense though. From my understanding interrogation rooms can feel rather uncomfortable or even oppressive.

[Story, Wednesday May 30, 2018]

Well that was mildly unexpected. Makes sense for Arthur to be Kevin's creator/father.

There also appears to be a mirror behind Arthur in panel 4. Seems they're in an interrogation room instead of some random office or conference room. Which is an obvious place to have a discussion like this, but didn't occur to me earlier.

 

5 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

And once again Ashley proves to be as good as Pandora thought she was back in Marker: She's concerned if Kevin is all right. She thinks of Kevin as a person.

Kevin is a seemingly sapient entity, though one that was artificially created. It's only polite to treat him as a person.

 

[Story Monday May 28, 2018]

I have a feeling that Sarah is going to be envious, unless they can recreate the giving of wizard-ness. 

13 hours ago, hkmaly said:

14 hours ago, Haylo said:

14 hours ago, ssokolow said:

...and I'm going to assume it's a sucker bet that any spells Ashley gets will be transformation-related.

If she wasn't any sort of magic user before, she's probably a long way from getting spells of her own. What she needs is to see at least one low-power spell a few times to use her wizards ability to learn other people's spells. Once she knows one, she can start practicing it.

Ellen's "blonder" beam (http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/2017-07-23-ellen-demo-15) should be a low-power transformation that Ashley would like.

Let's see ... she is dating Elliot, who can transform to any female, and already saw Ellen's FV5 beam ... I don't think she will have shortage of transformation-related spells. But she's WIZARD. That means she can learn any spell she wants. And considering her low power and the amount of spell people around her can show her, it's possible she won't get any OWN spells at all - like, that she will "fill all slots" with learned spells.

I don't think wizards learning other people's spells prevents them from gaining their own spells normally. It's not like they have limited slots they can fill with spells. They just have an additional way to learn new spells.

[Story, Friday May 25, 2018]

There will likely be more explaining and such needed for loved ones, but at least the situation has been diffused enough that they can stop worrying about where they are.

And given what had happened over the night, a couple people flying around Moperville is unlikely to attract any attention towards magic that the global lightshow wouldn't have.

8 hours ago, mlooney said:

I was sorta right, in that a large number of people ended up acting as cavalry, but they didn't "Ride to the rescue", but were working on doing that.

Likely the only reason they didn't is the fact they didn't know where to go. Unfortunately, Magus and Sirleck were such an out-of-context threat for the main cast that the cavalry would have to more or less trip over the location they were needed at. A problem further complicated by how far away the facility is.

[Story Monday May 14, 2018]

I wonder how well Magus would have faired if the urteronc had been in top fighting form instead of badly damaged.

[Story Friday May 11, 2018]

I wonder if Magus landed on the Golem's chest or its head. Hard to tell from the angle in the last panel. Though either way, I doubt the Golem is down for the count. Such things have a tendency to be highly resilient. This one survived a blast from a god-like entity after all.

[Story, Monday May 7, 2018]

One should not underestimate guardians of ancient, mystical places, especially if they're willing to be polite. If they weren't powerful enough to deter any attackers, then the places they guard wouldn't have lasted to become ancient. And politeness on their part means that you aren't a threat to them and they would rather not take the time cleaning up your remains.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

7 hours ago, Scotty said:

7 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Also, ancient Uryumocco confirmed.

Yeah, but comparing it to modern Uryumocco would probably be like comparing Common English to Latin, though Latin of course isn't long forgotten but it's very niche in it's usage today.

So far it actually seem like comparing current English to Shakespeare one.

Given that Dan's commentary states that modern Uryuoms wouldn't understand the ancient language, it's at least like comparing modern English and Old English (like what the original poem of Beowulf was written in) as modern English speakers can understand Shakespearean English(also known as Early Modern English), albeit with some difficulty.

5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

7 hours ago, Scotty said:

So I can't really blame the golem for being out of the loop and that the war with Humans was over ages ago.

That's why the most important device on any machine is internal chronometer. Any war machine should suppose that no order is valid for more than 100 years and if more than 1000 years passed, it's certainly museum exhibit now.

Yes, but the golem has been inoperable for all that time, with it's systems and functionality being actively suppressed. Any internal chronometer likely wasn't running either, so while the golem can obviously tell it's not at the library any more, it most certainly doesn't know how much time has passed.

[NP Wednesday, May 2, 2018]

10 minutes ago, Stature said:

You know time flies when Lucy has a another guy. A possible "boy toy", at that.

Or he is tagged along.

When we last saw Lucy (also non-canonically)

Escape from the Mall is a canon storyline

[Story, Wednesday May 2, 2018]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

3 hours ago, Wyrd42 said:

The green certainly comes from the dewitchery "diamond". There is a really good chance that the magic was drawn to her because it created her. While I don't care about her hair color(other than curiosity at where Dan is taking that), but I hope the changes to her form aren't permanent. Her breasts are so large and her waist so small that she looks deformed.  I like fv5 on males as it enhances the sense of change, and is often used to lampoon the male social identity's more ridiculous aspects, though I'd really like to see more variety in the transformations and less of a focus on large breasts, but supersizing the already enhanced traits and doing so so often really takes away from the quality of the comic, in my opinion.

The golem mentioning that Ellen having a lot of the kind of power that woke it and the other artifacts would be the same as Tara mentioning that Ellen had a "different kind of magic potential" so it wouldn't necessarily mean that Ellen absorbed any of the power after diamond shattered but that she already had the power because she was created by it.

The golem was able to trace the power to its origin in an open, but otherwise nondescript crate, so they might be able to detect how the magical energy flowed from the Diamond's remains/core through the facility.

[Story, Wednesday May 2, 2018]

It looks like Ellen might be the one to end up with old system magic after this is all said and done, probably from power seeping into her from the remnants of the Dewitchery Diamond.

I also think the silhouette looks dragon-ish, though I might be biased. I really like dragons.