hkmaly

In this case, the reason to control them isn't just for the sex, but for the control itself. Just like Not-Tengu liked to control completely his "flock", to someone like him, the idea of making someone do anything under his control, expecially something they normally would not do at all, would be a big turn on. As I said, while there may be people turned on by it, it could be sufficiently rare for none of them getting such magic. Note that specifically Not-Tengu would never release control of his flock unless forced to. And while I can see him making his flock have sex with each other, it would be the "BOTH people being mind controlled to have sex" option AND they may not remember it. Hmmm ... I must admit I now see the story of "Diane wasn't warned, so Nanase came down too late and the flock attacked her and started to rape her", but, well ... 1) The people are transformed, so Nanase wouldn't blame anyone of them anyway. Not that she knew them that well in first place. 2) It would be quite obvious they are not themselves even if they wouldn't look all like Nanase. 3) Sorry, I know that it's sexism, but I still find hard to imagine that sexy girl like Nanase trying to have sex with someone could result in as bad experience as rape usually is. Note that otherwise, while Dan wouldn't be likely to ever make story like that, I think it would match Not-Tengu's personality. He did mentioned that Tedd wouldn't appeal to him. Although I think he would regret that if he would saw her like this or even this.

You think? Maybe that's his NORMAL behaviour. I mean, he was doing almost the same thing earlier. Is there any other reference to the Rawhide than what the Roach is saying in first panel?

This would definitely be very bad place for timeskip. In fact, I'm not sure if Dan will do ANY longer timeskip ever, because there seem to be stuff happening all the time, but if he does, definitely not when we have the griffons scheduled. Yes ; first, Pandora is unlikely to be allowed to cast a spell on them, second, it's unlikely she would need to move fingers to do that. My first idea was Goth Elliot (or possibly another Elliot form, not like Elliot is limited ), it could even be cheerleadra which would explain the resistance to cold, but yes, Elliot is unlikely to cast a spell in such circumstances, and actually lacks any long-range spells ... The idea it's Liz is interesting ; it's true that she's supposed to have some spell related to not pretending, maybe it's spell which actually can be used in case like this without causing a scene? Something like those guys suddenly not paying attention to girls? ... hmmm ... ok, doesn't seem likely. So, most likely this is another one of Ashley's fantasies, however in such case it's entirely possible it IS Goth Elliot. Despite Pandora's love of fishnets and Tedd's clothes being closest, Elliot is most likely to both wear stuff like this AND appearing in Ash's fantasy. ... unless this is actually related to that girl Ashley had relationship over internet who may or may not be Tedd. Seriously? Dan doesn't need to hire a model EVER, as Grace can play all characters, including the main ones. (Note: This actually reminded me Magica De Spell - one story ended with movie crew chasing her and saying that they won't be making movie about Scrooge's first dime but about Magica, the women of thousand faces ... and that it will be cheap as Magica can play all roles.) I suspect that Dan has Pandora's reappearance planned and CANT actually move it. Unless he simply adds another story before that, but even THAT is hard to do in main archive. Also, seriously, if he would be moving Pandora's reappearance like this we would NEVER see her. Doesn't mean Dan can't SAY that - as a bluff. EDIT: Note that we are very likely to see Pandora BEFORE the Lord Tedd story. Which is another of those which will came much later than expected.

Hmmm, yeah, there are kinds of dead which are creepy and just didn't occurred to me in context of RPG ... That might be part of it, definitely. Damn this spoiler thing is hard to write.

There was also high likehood they wouldn't BELIEVE it. That's assuming that the friend/coworker will only find out about the mind control later. In classical RPG scenarios, the mind control spell is short term, so they may SEE the person doing the mind control or have other reasons to suspect from start that the person being mind controlled is mind controlled. Then there is the option of BOTH people being mind controlled to have sex. In which case it would really be much better if they never found out about it. They probably had some program for relocating people specifically for cases where someone was targeted in way which basically made impossible for him to continue his previous life. However, it's possible it never happened. I mean, seriously, WHY would someone mind control someone else to rape third person? Sure, people are weird so there probably was someone thinking about it but he might not have the magic. If someone has mind control magic and want to use it for sex, it would be either THEM raping someone and using mind control to hide it or forcing someone to "rape" them. (Mindcontrolling someone to kill someone else makes more sense, but also it's easier to deal with.) Even restrains specifically made for not causing physical harm are rarely possible to use without causing physical harm first. Then it's question of how much harm versus how harming does the spell feels, and that would likely be EXTREMELY individual. Oh, definitely. That's why I was starting with "if you start thinking ...". Because, for some reason, killing DOESN'T feel creepy. And while some kind of injures do, there is big difference in how creepy something is compared to how serious harm it is. Extreme case of this is when people actually think that something which happened to them is worse than if they died. I find it very illogical, on the other hand, feelings not being logical isn't new or surprising. Note that "personal stuff" is important even without mind reading or mind control being involved. Lot of people feel seriously hurt if someone they don't know reads their personal diary, see their naked photos or something like that, without any assault happening ...

Yeah, we are not evolved to understand quantum stuff. What use would understanding quantum be to a caveman? The closest he would ever get to quantum anything is a crude grasp of chemistry. It's Newtonian mechanics that describe the environment of everyday low-tech experience, which is why that was the first mathematically-consistent system that we figured out. Actually, caveman can describe his environment quite well just with Aristotles physic. That's why it took so long before someone realized that it doesn't work. But yes, Newtonian mechanics can be understood intuitively. Relativistic physic is on border where you need to be very careful ... and quantum physics is impossible. However, I wouldn't be so sure it has anything to do with evolution. We didn't evolved to understand Newtonian mechanics ... well, actually, we did ; the part which EVOLVED to understand Newtonian mechanics is the part of brain allowing us to catch thrown ball ; but the understanding of, say, orbital mechanics is handled by part of brain which actually evolved to be capable of learning and reprogramming itself, and it's original purpose was likely predicting behavior of predators, prey and fellow caveman. (That may be the reason why it's so easy to personify things. We may see Zeus behind storm because the part of brain we use to predict behavior of storm was designed to see someone behind the behavior.) We may be able to learn the correct kind of intuition for quantum mechanics if we had enough experience in different kind of environment. Like, the starting point would likely be Alice in Wonderland. The problem isn't our brain not being capable of learning that ; it's that we don't have where to learn that from, as learning it directly from the equations of quantum mechanics is too big jump.

I think most of those manipulations were evaluated (by Elliot/Ellen) not as "good" but as "acceptable evil". But yes, matter of perspective etc. Actually, specifically the kind of calm spell used on Ashley would probably make her kick the attacker to crotch. It prevented her from panic and made her evaluate the situation logically, and logically, she was not in urgent danger and there was no way for her to escape from moving car. When being robbed, she WOULD be in urgent danger and could actually escape. Even compelling to NOT act might be very evil in some situations. But yes, I would consider hard to argue how that could be more evil than ensuring the same result by physical violence.

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-04 In some games, at least the enemies you manipulate are animal and/or monsters like undead, not anything capable of true thinking or possibly person. ... actually, in most games even people are not capable of true thinking But yes, manipulating someone's mind doesn't sound nice ... until you start thinking about how that compares to killing them. I mean, you are not abusing your mind control powers to make them do something they might possibly consider worse than dead ... ehmmm ... not counting the "attacking each other" option I guess ... Also, Jedi obviously don't see any problem with what they do with weak minds. And they are supposed to be good.

Ok. My questions remained unanswered. The information that it's really just like Uryuom antennae is still useful. I mean, I find hard to imagine how something so thin can support such weight of fur, but at least it's consistent. They LOOK so different this possibility didn't really occured to me before ... Quantum Mechanics is counterintuitive: if you try to understand it, you very likely get it wrong (compared to computing the results). Must happen all the time on Uryuom parent planet. Very useful. We also saw Grace do this with them. I mean, not sure what exactly she's doing but it seems to suggest very interesting kind of movement. And then we have Archie, who holds drum stick in them. On the other hand, compare bug antennae, which can do all sorts of tricks without true bone. It's also possible that Uryuoms can use their shapeshifting to move the antennae. I mean, however the shapeshifting works, it certainly involves moving something, and moving the antennae might be exception to the general limitation of only switching between forms Uryuoms without lespuko blood have. ... still, what Noah does with his "wings" certainly suggest much greater variability in antennae shapes than anything else, so maybe there is something else in play there ...

Dan doesn't like to offend people. Also, alienating a good chunk of his target audience isn't a very good choice from a business perspective... I seriously hope most of Dan's audience are not so much touchy. Well, I'd say it's more like one person can't have more than one "accessible" affinity at a time. I imagine the non-accessible affinities remain in a dormant state, and can become accessible if the currently accessible affinity becomes invalid for some reason. I don't think affinity can become invalid. Well, name-based one maybe, but those are the weakest anyway. That's different. What I'm speaking about is that affinity would eventually run out of "important" spells to give and therefore stops blocking other spells. Similarly how Elliot could only get non-girl spells if he starts liking the girl ones or how Nanase needed to stop hiding to get non-hiding spells.

I'm not sure if there is really room temperature fire (meaning, around 20°C) but there is definitely stuff which makes fire at temperatures low enough you can put it on hand. Like, this may not be reliable source but there are people on youtube doing it ... meanwhile, on the opposite end of spectrum, you have stars with their fusion-powered technically-not-fires. And something else: how EXACTLY the roach moved? I mean, the position of his eyes must've changed and the hind legs seem to be closer to front of the body ...

You would need inherited affinity as strong as the Seer one for something like that.

http://egscomics.com/comic/qa8-15 Yeah, as predicted, laws of EGS universe can't contain something which would be problematic for some readers ... ... wait, what? Susan "doesn't have an irrelevant name-based affinity for cheerleading magic is because her inherited affinity for magic weaponry took precedence."...does it mean that people can't have two affinities? Because if not for this wording, I would assume that the inherited affinity for magic weaponry would take precedence in giving her spells, but she would still have the name based affinity and may get some cheerleading magic later when already having enough weapon spells ... Also, totally expect that with name-based affinities rare the thing about Will of magic not "getting" some of the puns and missing them would apply. PS: Lisa, don't worry: You are unlikely to get name-based affinity for summoning cupcakes, but you can still get the spell: cupcakes wouldn't be so hard magic you can only get it with affinity.

Of course, that's assuming that magic NOTICED the sailboat-makers or automobiles. After all, those are quite fresh things.

Personally I would be / have been fine with him just acknowledging that it wasn't fair; the part that bothered me was that he didn't seem to realize how unfair it was. That said, I like that magic is so convenient in EGS - and that in general really bad things don't usually happen in EGS outside of backstories. It allows me to just relax and enjoy the ride, whereas in a similar but less "safe" story I'd be worried about what might happen to the characters I've come to like so much. There are stories where you don't need to worry about characters despite the fact that their protection is not implemented in actual laws of universe. (And, specifically in this case, how could naming someone NOT be backstory? Anyone so young to be named in course of comic wouldn't get old enough to be character before the comic ends ...) The WoM literally says "there are factors preventing the birth of a Seer from being something one can plan", the thing is, trying to give birth to a strong wizard is not the same as trying to give birth to a Seer because Noriko wouldn't know what Seers are. I suspect there's an AU where Noriko does know about Seers, believes she has the potential of giving birth to one but is constantly failing to do so because she isn't aware that knowing prevents it and so keeps blaming the men for not being suitable. Not knowing about Seers would be the only explanation for her being 2 for 2 on giving birth to them. I would expect that if it would be really explicitly made impossible - just like seers who know about second purpose will not show on meeting - the wording would be different. "Factors" seems more like something random-based. For comparison, note that there are factors preventing you from timing the birth to exact date: that doesn't mean it's impossible, just that no matter how hard you try you can't guarantee the result (for natural birth, I mean. You can guarantee the result with c-section.) Oh, retcon! Note that panel 1 changed too: it now talks about strange names. And panel 3, "applicable" changed to "really on the nose".