Tom Sewell

Thanks. I'm ashamed to say I forgot about Kaoli (or Kaori), who's existence certainly proves that the Dewitchery Diamond doesn't seem distinguish curses from other sorts of enchantments. And I guess this means if Cheerleadra touches the Dewitchery Diamond Elliot would create a permanent version of Cheerleadra who can give Cheerleadra powers to other people. The Kaoli that Nioi created should be able to spread her "curse" as well, which I guess is changing fur and hair color and getting a little younger.

A more serious question occurred to me: Could the Dewitchery Diamond do to Vampires and other Aberrations what it did to that nobleman cursed to become a werewolf? There's a key difference between the ways werewolves and vampires/aberrations work in EGS: Werewolves are contagious, and you don't have to volunteer to become one. Vampires/Aberrations are strictly an all-volunteer force: they have to sign up for it. What if Sirleck touches the Dewitchery Diamond? Does he just separate into Ellen and Sirleck? Or does Sirleck split himself into the human he was once and the monster--now with the ability to create other monsters? Is Dan going to introduce a Vampire Draft?

An epic climax could be pretty much everyone in a brawl around the Dewitchery Diamond and touching it whether they want to or not.

Um, where does Nioi say that, Old-Hack-sensei? However, I hope this might be true. More Ashleys!

Yes and maybe no. To me, the way that Magus has influenced people suggests that he's a telepath or an empath or both, able to read feelings and/or at least surface thoughts, which I think does give him at least similar experience in what Sirleck experiences during his possessions of hosts. And there's a bit of that in the way Pandora read potential candidates for marking in Marker. Plus, Pandora can enter people's dreams, and that is definitely getting inside their minds. Going a bit off-topic, Sirleck is the only character in EGS who routinely possesses people, and no one in EGS has ever switched minds even once, certainly a huge contrast to C.D. Rudd's Sailormoon.org. Does anyone else feel this missing trope should be welcomed to join all the other wacky tropes in EGS?

Good points, but not necessarily true of the magic spell Magus is using. Roofies, maybe. Anyway, maybe our differences here will settled by the way Dan goes on with Ashley.

Body cams (and shoulder radios) can also have live feeds. The beauty of body cams, radios, and live feeds is that however a cop stop goes, it can lead to more things. Things like footage showing up on the news later; for instance, or further interest by law enforcement. And what do Ashley's parents do, anyway? Or Elliot's dad? For all we know, any or all of them could be in law enforcement. I wouldn't. It doesn't stop Ashley from asking annoying questions. And the best plans are generally made by calm minds. Ashley already proved last Saturday that she can make good plans when she's way from calm. She'd make better plans now.

This is kind of off-the-wall, but if this ride lasts long enough, a cop may pull the car over looking for some violation, and all of the people (or at least their bodies) are teenagers. Ashley looks younger and maybe sounds and acts younger--and she might act even younger. The USA still has lots and lots of state and local curfew laws even if they aren't always vigorously enforced. Maybe the cop will be related to the security guards we've seen at the Mall and Swedekea. And before you say that Magus would simply put the cop to sleep, remember that cops have body cams now. There are cams in lots and lots of cop cars too, some of them with live feeds.

Having Ashley along for the ride may be much more than Dan filling in a potential plot hole that I'm not all that sure most of his fans would care that much about (although I do.) But it also has potential to be more, perhaps much more. First of all, Ashley can make this ride more fun. She's already annoyed Sirleck; I'm sure we all want to see her go on annoying Sirleck. She can also annoy Magus, but that's a different trope, screwball comedy. A dynamic that might work here is Ashley asking Sirleck all kinds of questions, Sirleck refusing to answer, and Magus answering instead. The longer it goes on, the more Sirleck's frustration builds, and the stronger the connection between Ashley and Magus becomes. Ashley sees absolutely no need to worry about Sirleck's right to privacy. Which is largely Elliot's experience of driving. Even if Sirleck can access Ellen's memories, sorting out which memories are which could be giving him unprecedented difficulties. Ellen has three sets of memories; her own since she came into existence, Elliot's before, and Second Life Ellen's.

But we don't know if he would be broken-hearted if Elliot does get killed as long as it wasn't his intent to kill him. You know, friendly fire, collateral damage, acts of God, all those euphemisms beloved of military spokespersons, insurance company lawyers, etc. Plan CM seems replete with hazards that we in no way targeted specifically at Elliot Dunkel. For those of you that aren't familiar with Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics, it comes in two clauses A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Voltaire vowed to obey the first clause only for Elliot Dunkel--but not the second.

Also, if Magus put Ashley asleep, Sirleck might be able to kill her before Magus noticed. If Ashley keeps talking, she's still alive.

Yes, but Magus' spell doesn't require illusory carrots.

I'd say Magus know that Ashley is more likely to give him the benefit of a doubt than Ellen. Even if Magus can't access Elliot's memories, he's spent a lot of time learning everything he can about Elliot and his friends. If he was following Ellen in Diane's car on Saturday, he would know about how Ashley refused to ask all the questions she had to have. If nothing else, Ashley is Elliot's girlfriend, and it couldn't hurt to have her on his side when pleading his case. No, and he should be smart enough to know that he doesn't know. Sirleck has every reason to lie to Magus about that. He should realize it's a possibility. I've been saying for awhile that I think Magus was a jerk before he opened the bon voyage phial and I still stand by what I've said. Pandora may have actually set up his situation because she thought he deserved it. Please, no distracting arguments about whether or not Pandora could get to Magus' universe; if she did, she could. Whether or not Pandora taught it, Magus has learned a hard lessen by now; he's a better person than he would have ever been without this experience. That doesn't mean Magus will outsmart Sirleck. Ashley, Ellen, and Magus are all still in incredible danger. And we haven't even begun to consider what part Voltaire may play in this nighttime drive to an unknown destination.

Maybe Ashley has a future as a professional expositor. Obviously the best trainer would be Edward, a man who can exposit alien invaders into retreating.

Right now I'm writing out the dialog in this comic like a screenplay, and I just finished Panel Three. Sirleck must not get out much; there are bunches of lights in our own nighttime skies. What's Sirleck expecting? Some kind of glowing, avenging angel? Three-tailed squirrels with flaming swords? Black helicopter gunships? <em>Another</em> alien invasion? Magus seems to be more comfortable in the mundane Moperverse after three years than Sirleck in who knows how many lifetimes. Possibly that's because as far as Magus knows only one Immortal is pissed off at him. Addendum I just finished the "screenplay. I was writing it as an HTML page using Notepad++, an open source free program, so I have to type out all the formatting codes (Well, I use copy-and-paste a lot.) Anyway, my fingers were still typing in raw HTML mode when I wrote the first paragraph in this post.

Perhaps. It is canon that Magus hasn't driven a car in three years or so. But if Sirleck is driving, he can't suddenly attack without wrecking the car, can he? No cars, and yet they have modern-style neckties and shirt collars. Well, maybe.

And one of the possessed siblings is possessed by a sibling: The other Dunkel.

Okay, better odds of being alive, but still not perfect. And, provided the former hosts don't remember much, Sirleck can plan on cutting out his cutouts later. Mob godfathers have been doing it for awhile now. Another reason why Sirleck might not think Ellen is that dangerous a loose end is because she doesn't seem to have any really dangerous attack power. Sirleck strikes me as at least a Victorian-era-level male chauvinist buying into that whole damsels-in-distress bullshit (Terry Jones will explain to you why that's bullshit in his Medieval Lives episode The Damsel.) So turning men into women might look like at most a defensive move--and does Sirleck the Abberation really have a sex now? Of course, that depends on how much Sirleck knows about Not-Tengu crashing Rhea's party on New Year's Eve and how thoroughly he's explored Ellen's memory. Anyway, maybe the least work for Dan would to leave both Ashley and Ellen unconscious while Sirleck leaves possessing Magus-Elliot, and either they wake up later, or someone comes over and finds them. It would be interesting, though, if someone else comes to Schloss Dunkel before Sirleck and Magus leave, with or without Ellen. I'm thinking now of the perfect getaway at the beginning of A Fish Called Wanda when the old lady with the little dogs walks in front of the getaway car at just the wrong moment. Sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone on the planet who hasn't seen A Fish Called Wanda yet, if there is such a person.

Not much of a crowd here yet.

Well, here we are in November and two story arcs later, in I Dream of an Escape. With this weeks' comic, Jeanie's dream of escape from Haji's harem look's like it's going to be joined by Natalie's dream of escape from federal custody. Anyway, as I warned readers on that other IDOJB forum, spoilers may follow if you haven't read as far back as I Dream of Technicolor. First, I think there's a special reason that Ms. Eden hasn't been seen since Technicolor. She hasn't been seen much before Technicolor, but she was just a cranky old lady before Technicolor. Since then we know she was the real genie the Sixties TV show was based on, that Hitler's genie was her sister, and that Haji took away her powers and left her to die--like her sister and for far less excuse. And that Haji erased her memories of who her master was, and his memories of her. And that her former master died of old age, and that Jean took his apartment, right next to hers. What we don't know is a lot, but C.D. let us know what he didn't let us no about Jean and Neil's visit to 1969 and what Ms. Eden now knows is important. Here's where I cross over the line into speculation and, of course, amazing crackpot plot theories. The lesser of the two theories I have in mind as I write this line is that Ms. Eden will provide proof to Agent Anderson that Neil/Natalie's crazy genie story is true because she can show him proof Jean and Neil were present in 1969, long before they were born. This will provide Neil/Natalie his/her/whatever Get Out Of Jail Free card, and also bring Agent Anderson help N/N look for Jean because Jean's Anderson's only hope of becoming a man again. The greater theory is that Rouyaa/Ms. Eden has secretly had her powers restored by the Blue Djinn and is out to get revenge on Haji because now she knows her old master is dead and it's Haji's fault she never re-united with him.

I'm starting this thread as a place to discuss the most atypical story arc in Jeanie Bottle now that the arc is finished and we can't comment on it there. Right now I could be the royal "we" because no one else has posted anything on the Jeanie Bottle section of this forum since the day before I turned 66. All the other arcs including the ongoing one (Story 10: I Dream of Verisimilitude) have been in the silly tradition of the Sidney Sheldon/Barbara Eden/Larry Hagman comedy, which I've loved for 52 years so far. Technicolor isn't. There's only one real gag in the entire arc, and it's in the short setup to the main narrative. Prior to Technicolor, there was only one departure from the lighthearted spirit of the original series, this single strip in Story 4: I Dream of my Old Bottle. Until Technicolor, I thought this was a throwaway, put in as an extreme example to set up the line about Jeanie putting off that world domination idea. And maybe it was. But Technicolor makes it much more. Hitler's mistress in the Jeanieverse was a bottle genie, and she was punished by away her powers, making her mortal. Which is appropriate, although it would be nice if she lost her powers before she helped her master kill millions and millions of people. And then Eva's sister Rouyaa gets punished without delay for a much less serious breach even more cruelly, and ends up as old Ms. Eden. Now, I actually like this arc. It's got tie-ins to real historical events that are in sync, and the characters seem more like real people--one of them is clearly Sidney Sheldon, who I'm pretty sure was real, although perhaps superhuman considering all he did in his long life. But it left me frustrated because it left some things hanging, such as: When and why did Jeanie and Neil go back to 1969, and what did they do there? Does Ms. Eden now know what happened to her old master, and that Jeannie is using her old bottle?

I agree, except that it's "Sirleck", an anagram of "lickers" according to Dan. But leaving a conspicuous trail of dead bodies behind doesn't exactly fit with the stealthy lifestyle (or undeadstyle) of a body thief or any Aberration that wants to keep on enjoying its unlimited lifespan (or undeadspan). But if Sirleck thinks killing Ellen or anyone is the best idea, he'll kill without remorse--remember, no empathy, no remorse--or hesitation. I doubt if Ashley has plot armor, though. See Paragraph One. However, the butler's odds of survival may be worse. Even if the butler wouldn't remember being possessed, he would remember being the old man's butler, making a link in a chain leading back to the old man through an investigation of his death into the discovery of the transfer of funds to the offshore accounts...

Sounds plausible.

Seems likely. Voltaire might get a real surprise there. Perhaps Tedd will be able to change magic for Immortals.

Pretty much my premise as far as it goes. I think Voltaire wants to cause so much chaos magic won't be able to change normally, forcing the other immortals to change the whole system to conform to what ever master plan he has. Including, of course, lifting restrictions on himself. "Just let me have the power to fix it right."