hkmaly

Did you consider the possibility that Dan is searching for the middle path between those? Although I think it's more random based on how Dan feels at the moment ... (Also, not sure which pinups you consider one layer of plausible deniability from porn, but maybe one layer is enough. And difference between art - even classical art - and porn is not in amount of flesh shown.)

Was already said by Dan on tumblr, more or less. So now we have it in comics to make it more canon. At the rate things are going, we may already have a number of vampires interfering with the removal of the clog. Though I think Pandora would have mentioned that there's still a chance that DGB would notice Sarah even if she didn't tell Edward. Agree, she would definitely mention it. It might set off alarms in range, but that's probably not so big. Unless Tedd just means that the spell does a type of scan of the area as the spell effecting stuff. The spell might collapse the wave function in several blocks ...

No, it has to do with kinetic energy. Equipartition Theorem of thermodynamics tells us that equal amount of energy is going to go into each degree of freedom. So the average velocity of a particle just bouncing around is related to temperature via mv² = kT. Consequently, at any given temperature, lighter particles move faster than heavier ones. So in order to reduce the distance a particle travels on average via diffusion, to compensate for smaller size, you'd have to make all the particles heavier. This is on top of increase on density due to condensing the object. Alternatively, you could reduce temperature. But then we're back to having to adjust all of chemistry, because now the barriers are wrong. Heavier is obviously opposite of what we want to accomplish. But let's try the temperature: wouldn't the change of temperature be compensated by what we did with electrons? Sure, but this is sort of what I'm talking about, and it goes for the other points. At some point, we must say "it's just magic," and we don't know for sure if something is going to be easier or harder for magic. Well, sure. Our best pick on "what is easier" is "what makes the equation prettier", which is pretty bad method of measure, despite already having several useful results in "normal" physics. "Gently bend a few rules" based on measurement which is basically same as the measurement we use for the shrinking hypothesis. I still think the thermodynamic laws are more fundamental, although they have that huge loophole of only really working for isolated systems and last isolated system was contaminated when Jenny Everywhere got lost on her way between Oz and Wonderland. She apologized of course, but that didn't fixed the experiment ... (The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition: This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, that others might use this property as they wish. All rights reversed.) Of course, size altering magic as described in EGS have the violating-of-thermodynamic-laws covered with the "loud burp" solution of enlarged person eating too much, so you may have point here. Also, the limit of shrinking and enlarging for TF-gun and/or Tedd's watches is likely based on "what can be done WITHOUT violating too many physical laws", meaning Rhoda's magic is more physics-teardrop-worthy. And note that we don't know enough about different kinds of magic in EGS to be sure there isn't something even worse. The classification of magic itself seem to be based on different criteria than which physical laws it's breaking, with size altering being just one specific kind of transformation enchantments ...

Diffusion works by gravitation? I though gravitation is hardly affecting anything on this scales. Bigger, yes, smaller, yes, but not this scales. Yes. Smaller. But proportionally same and with modified electromagnetic interaction ... Technically, yes, unless you write those parameters in multiples of Planck's size ... ... ok, I must admit this is over my knowledge ... Still, no. While there are multiple equivalent ways to formulate any physical laws, they may not be equivalent from the POV of magic breaking/bending some of them. Especially breaking, as "turning off" some physical law in one representation would be changing equation by adding another term into equation in other representation. So, no "disabling law will disable half of physics". We are searching for modification of physical laws, not just removal of equations or just changes of constants. (I agree that removal would get scary quickly.) And what we are talking about can easily be under Plank scale. The boundary between shrunk and unshrunk can be thinner than Plank Scale and therefore have very weird properties. Something like naked singularity Might be in fact necessary because we may need photons quantum-tunnelling through. It is obvious that the physical laws as we know them were violated. What we are doing is to search for different (but similar) set of physical laws, which would either directly contain magic (in forms of terms which are zero when magic is not involved) or for which we can say "magic replaced (locally) the normal laws with these modified ones". Of course, lot of handwaving is involved, as we are not good enough to actually compute such laws, but we may be able to offer some rough idea how would they look. What if ALL of them would be changed? Or, alternatively, what if we change another constant, which is normally 1 so noone noticed it? Note that changing G would be related to fact Catalina now weights considerably less. I think there would be some reserve between "full weight" and "thrown into space". Oh, wait, we wanted to solve THAT bit by altering her inertia mass, which doesn't appear in this equation because everyone assumes it can't be changed.

And it's thread for October 19 strip, meaning Oct 19, Oct 21, Oct 24, Oct 26, Oct 28, Oct 31 ... 6 strips ago.

Clearly she's a naughty witch She doesn't seem THAT much naughty ... of course we don't know what spell she is casting. Yup, unlike several others, this is safe enough to be posted on main site in the Sketchbook section. I doubt it will, though.

While this is potentially workable, and might actually be the least problematic option overall, you at very least completely messed up diffusion rates, which are crucial for all kinds of regulatory processes. Neurotransmission is just one example. I'm not sure if making atoms that are smaller, but react the same, and diffuse the same can actually be solved exactly. Given interactions between all kinds of particles, you have more constraints than variables. Given dimension of the problem, you could probably get "close" to satisfying all restrictions despite the problem being over-constrained, but just how close is close enough for a living organism? And we haven't even touched quantum yet. I don't know if anything relies on QM in animal cells, but something like this breaks photosynthesis, for example. Quite the contrary, I DO plan to solve everything on quantum level. If you don't have strength of electromagnetic interaction in your diffusion equation, it was just forgotten. The shrinking will be done like this: 1) Any distances in any physical law will be expressed in multiples of Planck's length. 2) The Planck's length inside the magic field will be smaller. Yes, General Relativity is broken by the size change spell. We KNOW that magic can ignore selected physical laws or "take them just as suggestion". Obviously, this is what happens with this spell. Also, note that while General Relativity claims that you can't have space-time curvature without generating gravitational forces, quantum theory of gravitation might know some exception for that rule. No problem. My education in particle physics is limited, but I like the topics. It will. The image in binocular/telescope has different apparent size than the real object despite path of light being curved. Remember that the shrinking won't create region of "sparse" space. There will be just region of normal space outside the field and compressed space inside the field. And the border of course. Some space will be "created" when shrinking and then filled with air, and space will be transformed non-continuously during the shrinking (meaning: it will tear the space continuum and then paste it together differently). The weight will be solved by modifying gravitation. Problem is inertial mass, which, again, according to our current theories can't be changed. Which can mean that our current theories are incorrect, that the magic is "bending" that rule or, most likely, both. The change of inertial mass MIGHT be some sideefect of shrinking by shrinking space, but if not, well, then it's separate effect of the spell.

I suspect, if asked, they developed a sudden interest in baseball. Of course, in canon, that is if you aren't thinking about Grace, but we could generalize it a bit. I suppose this will be classified as "second base", so definitely baseball Almost EVERYONE did. And it was mentioned in discussion linking to Nanase in Ellen's cleveage ... for last three pages at least. That's why Dan called it "Elephant in the room". Which might've been underestimation ...

Oh. To be more specific, I think Emp here portraited it better.

That "gross art" might easily be specific to thralls, with vampire and werewolves art being better. Although this would also work. I think that she deliberately left out all "vampire" (black) spells because of them being "too evil", and for similar reason would be likely to not use thralls. In fact, she might have mostly werewolves with just few vampires in. True. Well, seem that Sarah knows Justin enough to know exactly what would his reaction be

Hmmm ... is the fabric before her clothes of someone who she just shrunk? That would match the smoking shrinker ... Now, WHO was that? Lisa? (On the other hand, I'm not sure what makes her librarian in this pinup ... I mean, aside from being in library.)

Well, Justin also plays the Magickal Gatherings ... In fact, the most likely way how this would be imagined would be if Sarah for some reason mentioned she was imagining her cards as her friends. Or maybe, if the friends were chosen because they actually resemble the cards, she may say something like "this card reminds me you and this Elliot".

I think she's pretty good with flying. You probably can't even see up her skirt - unlike Nanase here ... Yes ; although I'm not sure if they wouldn't put some cannon between her legs instead of broom ; on the other hand, sometimes bombers WERE flying with brooms instead of guns when they needed to be lighter ...

The "it's magic" route can still logically work, there's a magic field that tightly surrounds a person that makes a person more durable when shrunk, as well as protects them from getting hurt from clothes being too tight or growing soo big that they break through walls and such as it was explained in Q&A#4. That same field could also adjust air and food as needed when a person breaths and eats. Now, they did say in that Q&A that eating something when shrunk, won't keep you full when you return to normal size so maybe it's a slower process for food, like the molecules and such get adapted to the right size during digestion, and therefore a shrunk person would still technically get full after eating a few crumbs of a cookie. The opposite kinda backs this up as someone who grows, filled up on an entire buffet, then shrinks, doesn't have any complications from the food not shrinking with them, all the excess food just disappears with a loud burp. It's even stated that transformations in EGS carries few risks because it's more fun that way. Sure, doing the shrinking by removing cells, molecules, atoms or elemental particles is impossible without killing the person (at least if you shrink 7x). When shrinking the "space" - making elemental particles smaller - you don't hit any problems inside body ; the size of particle is already function of some field. Where you hit problems is the border - normal and shrunk particles would react very differently than two normal or two shrunk particles, most likely explosively. But this problem disappears if instead of magic "ending" after shrinking there is actually some magic field which stays in place and converts particles between big and small version, or in case of something bigger, wrap it into the field and convert it gradually later (this is happening with food). Only problem is that you effectively have different values of physical contacts inside the field and outside, which sounds very similar to what Raven describes as spicy magic. (Note: this is supposed to agree but extend what Scotty is saying.) Another alternative is to use non-euclidean space, similarly as in bag in holding, just not closing it completely. Catalina is actually still as big as normally, but the space is curved so parallel lines which are 3.5 feet apart inside her body are 0.5 feet apart outside. Of course, normally would bending the space so much cause all sort of city-destroying effects (especially considering you might need more curved space than in black hole ... hmmm ... maybe not just city) but so would the mentioned bag of holding, lot of teleports (some work differently but many are supposed to bend space) and any of those magic doors and mirrors which have their ends very distant if in same universe at all. In fact, just in EGS, the shape of universe which takes griffin's half into account would likely be complicated. So, I would assume that it's proven that magic CAN bend space without gravitation-based sideefects. And to look back at the cell reception: can work ; magic field will simply resize the wavelength of photons entering or leaving the shrunk area. It would be no different from what it already does with photons of visible light, which would otherwise develop big shift, resulting in Catalina not being able to see visible light and instead seeing ultraviolet with her 7x times smaller eye cells. In fact, considering Catalina does NOT complain she's blind, we can consider proven that the cellphone works PS: Violating the thermodynamic laws is likely bigger reason for physics crying. And yes, it happens with magic very often.

I think that theory about alliance between purse makers and pickpockets also makes sense Of course flair for dramatic is implemented by flexibility in spell mechanics. Remember that both are done by same entity. It's interesting that Pandora totally predicted Nanase getting guardian form BUT failed to predict this. Maybe she understand the flair for drama if lives are at stake, but fails to realize how much drama teenagers recognize in their sexual life? Girls (and guys for that matter) can't really leave home without a few necessities: phone, keys, cash/credit card, and ID. And most will have a lot more than that...a wallet, makeup, comb or brush, charging cable for the phone, etc, etc. Catalina may have had those things in her pants pockets, but surely Rhoda has a purse if she doesn't have pockets. It could be a little clutch but she must have something to carry her stuff in. That makes sense - except it wasn't shown on any panel, which seems suspicious. Yes, I also though about how they paid at the Food Court ... or, generally, they are in mall, didn't they wanted to buy something? (Girls in movies and comics in general seems to be better able to deal with not having pockets than in reality. In fact, not only girls (warning, tvtropes)) ... considering the length of antennae needing to be in relation to length of waves using in the call, that's VERY good question. Of course, Cheerleadra was able to receive calls without the phone existing in physical reality at all, but Scotty will not like this automatic sideefect of beginner's spell ... Yup. The assumed level of hijinks notwithstanding, this story will NOT lead to Rhoda's spell getting public - or any other publicity big enough for main eight to notice. ... I see that pocket has it's own name

You don't write much fiction, do you? I get into conversations with my fictional characters quite often. And I've lost several arguments with them. But is it about basically nothing? Or is there some topic? It's easier to actually argue about something, think about arguments and counter-arguments ... if for nothing else, it will help you distinguish who is saying what. (Note: Not sure how much fiction did Sarah wrote ... but Dan wrote a lot and I don't think he is deliberately trying to show Sarah's limits.) Also, this reminds me: Dylan: Talking to yourself is the first sign of mental collapse. Rommie: [simultaneously as avatar and hologram] Only for wetware.

And I bet five quatloos that it will be referenced at least three more times before this storyline is over. ;-) Hmmm ... with just four frames per comics in NP instead of six+ in story ... I'm not taking that bet, too risky.

It was the "not straight" being referenced with Vamp!Sarah, and she didn't stopped being in denial about it yet ... which of course doesn't mean she's not in denial about OT3. But when Grace!Sarah mentions it here, she MIGHT be speaking only generally ... and F!Tedd!Sarah answered innocently "I don't ..." (probably I don't know), not "I'm not (in denial about anything)".

Depends on WHICH pocket. Pocket on thigh is pretty useful for phones. The one on back of pants, really not. You very likely answered your own question. If I were to guess, she's shocked because the spell shouldn't be able to do that. Exactly. The determination Rhoda was filled with must've been really powerful. That keeps to be referenced for at least last three comics ... and it would make both of them blush a lot. Still might happen.

Aaaand it's basically same as Fox, Nase or Dex's fairy. Only with them being in Sarah's head, it's less useful ... I mean, Nanase can have all sort of fun with Fox as well, but she could also used her against Abraham, AND she can have fun with Fox AND Ellen.

You don't consider spending the entire comic with SarahTedd lying on the floor with Grace crouched over her, to be OT3 fuel?? I don't consider it "more" OT3 fuel. Grace isn't doing anything more than in last frame of previous page, and Sarah stopped thinking about how sexy it is and instead though about how useless conversation it is. Sure, it makes sense, it's totally in character for her, but it's weak on OT3 fuel. Having conversation about basically nothing is hard even with two people, even harder with just one The Vamp!Sarah and Wolf!Sarah conversation also had moments where they went "out of character" (or more like out of their theme), like the "Or us? me? I am sorta you ..." or the "You're adorable" ... this was basically whole page of that. Also, Vamp!Sarah totally had that "stuff you're in denial about" angle covered. THAT would be more OT3 fuel - if that side of her personality appears again. It could easily be in Grace ... in fact, it's either Grace or she creates her copy from thin air (or moves into someone else and then unfroze herself), I don't think it would work if for example Nanase was playing it.

Hmmm ... no new info here. Ok, I guess the thing with talking to people was explained better, but it was explained in sense I expected it will be, so it feels like nothing new. And no more OT3 fuel either. This will be hard to comment

I'm shocked Pandora is shocked. I mean, shouldn't Pandora have pretty good understanding of what the spell is capable of? Especially considering commentary ... I don't see any pocket on Rhoda. Is it possible neither of them though about it? (Rhetorical question: it totally is.) Also, I'm not carrying hammers and wrenches, however I do carry knife and screwdriver. And keys. How can someone walk around without keys? That might be uncomfortable ...

Not it it's not real photons she is using to see Nanase's fairy avatar with persistence is supposed to be hard (and rare). That may be general rule - that the spell is harder the more it violates physical laws. Susan's summoning doesn't create real physical objects, for example, and whatever Elliot modifies when morphing will eventually morph back. Definitely. Definitely Everything being frozen is said in the ninja explanation, yes. Now, does this "turning concentration" automatically count as modifying the simulation resulting in decreasing accuracy? Probably yes, but we don't know that for sure. We know that unfreezing people does count as such. This is open question. Just because the simulation is no longer accurate, it doesn't mean that it changes into lucid dream. Pandora implied that different changes will affect the simulation with different strength. Now, will unfreezing computer be enough change to completely replace it's memory and disc with what Sarah is imagining? And would that be in principle, or because Sarah doesn't have enough experience with the spell? Could concentration on different parts of computer have different effect on accuracy? (On the other hand, Pandora's description also seem to imply that even relatively small changes can have surprisingly large effects on simulation. Also, even small uncertainty will make informations obtained much less useful.)

It certainly won't flow from wall socket because the power plant is outside the simulation range. Question if it would flow from battery is open ; it's true that so far it seems that all chemical reactions are frozen, although we only saw people ; pity we didn't saw for example what it does with open flame. Regarding move, she is only thing which can move AND provide force - or rather, she and things and people she unfroze with modification-of-simulation. Stuff frozen in middle air won't fall because gravitation is frozen. Everything reacts normally on force provided by Sarah, air, doors, Carol's hair, only people don't but that's because body swap is on hair trigger. Regarding how she sees, yes, that would require little more complicated reasoning. If photons would be frozen, she wouldn't see. If they would keep moving (because they move at speed of light unlike other stuff), they would all be "spend" almost immediately and there would be no reason for more to appear. Best answer occurring to me, the photons she sees are sideefect of the spell. Pandora should know better The snapshot itself may be accurate, but yes, the way Sarah explores it certainly requires rules which don't match normal physics, although they may (and presumably are) still be based on it.