Tom Sewell

So how old will Elliot's firstborn be when Susan is ready?

Potential problems: Susan would have to see Sirleck. Susan might not be able to kill Sirleck without killing his current host. Susan might be the one possessed. Absolutely true. But not being able to kill Sirleck without killing his innocent host is kind of a more immediate problem. Do we foresee something like A Christmas Carol with Sirleck in the role of Ebeneezer Scrooge? Neither do I, although the ways of Dan are indeed mysterious. Ever read Piers Anthony's For Love of Evil? In that one, Anthony actually creates sympathy for the Devil! Yes it would, and would seem to be the most logical plot point to come. Or rather attempting to possess Magus. But if something thwarts him, particularly in the middle of the Brawl at the Mall come Friday (assuming Friday ever comes), Sirleck may possess any convenient host, particularly if he can't be invisible without a host. And before anyone else points out that the butler saw his rich old asshole master collapse and maybe die, Sirleck could have already abandoned him and been hiding on the ceiling waiting to pounce. Yes, it's kind of hard to believe that a brain-dead guy would remain standing long enough for the Butler to see him collapse without seeing a visible Sirleck flying away. I kind of think Dan was concentrating on making sure we knew the butler was Sirleck's host's. Maybe Dan has decided that Sirleck only has to become visible just before taking a new host. Maybe Dan forgot to fade the final except for Sirleck. Maybe if it is a small plot hole I'd do better to let pass, even if Mr. Tensaided wouldn't. For EGS:NP, definitely. For the main storyline, maybe not. Take another look at Painted Black. And notice that there hasn't been all that much humor in Sister III. I have a theory that the wackiness in NP since Sister III began has served as a way for Dan to avoid too much wackiness in Sister III, and also as a way to help Dan cope with creating unpleasant situations in the main storyline. I created a thread just for Ashley and I believe that's where I put in the disturbing speculation is that Ashley is doomed for the reasons that she has to make way for Susan and Elliot to get together, and that to make the drama in this series really affecting, someone who isn't just a redshirt has to die.

What would happen if Sirleck possessed the body of one of the main characters? This is something I thought of quite a long time ago. It's such a disagreeable thought I haven't cared to analyze it much. But it's a trope that fits this story much too uncomfortably well. First, consider what began this arc. Part 1, Legacy, tells the story of how a "rampaging monster" killed Blaike Raven. Dan didn't get around to confirming that the "rampaging monster" was a werewolf until Part 7: An Unkindness of Ravens, and on that same page it comes out that Pandora wiped out the werewolves (or at least thinks she did) and Adrian tries to guilt his mother for not even attempting to find a cure for the victims of the curse that made them into werewolves. And then we have Edward telling Grace there is no curing aberrations in Part 8, Awkwardness Ahead. Note that if Edward is wrong about this, his refusal to consider the alternative is quite similar to Abraham's refusal to consider Ellen is not a monster. BTW, I know that it's been said that Abraham got his name from the biblical Abraham who almost sacrificed his son Isaac. But I don't remember anyone connecting Abraham with Abraham van Helsing, the chief vampire hunter in Dracula. Getting back on track, there are at least three plot points just in this arc that could be foreshadowing the monsterization of someone we EGS fans have grown to love. It's the go-to gotcha of countless vampire, werewolf, zombie, etc. stories.

But Sirleck is visible to the Butler, or would be if the butler had eyes in the back of his head. If Sirleck was invisible, either we wouldn't be able to see him at all, or everything else in the scene would be faded. And one thing that's supposed to be common to all aberrations is that they have to assume their monstrous forms before they attack, assuming they aren't monstrous-looking all the time.

I have had an epiphany: It wasn't that Dan didn't want to create a reporter that was not Carol Brown to announce the death of whats-his-name; it was so he wouldn't have to make up a name for Sirleck's rich host. Dan's been very stingy with names. He hasn't yet given surnames to Diane, Rhoda, Noah, Melissa, George, Tony, Liz, Ashley, and Lucy. The only parents with first names are Tedd's. If Dan keeps this up, most of his characters may go on strike, perhaps organized by the demonic duck, whom we know to be a union duck. Come to think of it, the duck doesn't have a name either.

I think Dan already has. Does the butler look willing? What Sirleck reminds me of most is the alien body stealer in The Hidden: Takes over hosts and wears them out. For an extremely creepy webcomic on this theme, try The Settlers.

So did Sirleck leave the butler all his dead host's money? Or did Sirleck just have to get whatever host he could get right away? On the other hand, after whatever villainy Sirleck is about to commit, maybe he could jump to another host. Then everyone will think the butler did it.

The first things she had in her first container seem to have been already in it. While I'm on the subject, the reason why Susan wanted a doll that would fit in her purse doesn't mean her container is her purse, it's so she can hide a summoned fairy instead of unsummoning it. Unless she gets a bigger purse, she won't be able to hide all her fairies at once.

Grace has a double ponytail like Noah or Second Life Ellen. You can just see a bit of the other ponytail stage left of her waist. However, I did miss the possibly-nude-woman. Heresy!

Maybe the next time we see Jerry he'll be with that uryuom in orbit?

... and eventually they find us, and decide to keep on looking.

I'll admit that's a possibility I missed. There's only one conclusion: I still have too much of a real life. I must strive to eliminate that last remnant. I must be even more like Mr. Tensaided.

Maybe Sarah has a bigger trunk. As I recall, her basic spell magical summons things from a container she has marked. Or maybe it's a new spell. Or maybe it isn't Susan or Susan's magic after all. My last three amazing crackpot plot theories have one thing in common: They're all strongly connected to Susan. And the three suspects would all be very, very upset to discover an intruder in her room, particular one while she appears to be helpless in sleep. Pandora doesn't have any direct connection to Susan anywhere in canon. Of course, what Heka told her that we didn't hear could have provided that connection.

Yup, chaotic, and that fits Pandora Chaos Raven Box. Any other candidates? Dipping into my endless barrel of amazing crackpot plot theories: Susan's dad, ol' blackface. Susan's mom. Definitely enough anger to do something like this if she could. Susan--it's something like Nanase's duplicate, particularly the "urge to kill" version in Sister II.

I was thinking maybe Susan's warmed up quite a bit since Sister II and would be amenable to a visit from some much younger half-siblings. They wouldn't be the product of her dad's cheating (at least, cheating on her mom). The idea of a half-sibling her age, though...we know that has been harder for her to get around. Maybe I've been exposed to too many Star Wars plot theories.

I didn't mean Mrs. Pompoms killed him. I just meant he could have died. There's no evidence Susan has had any contact with him since she told her mom about his cheating, and I'm guessing Susan was around five then. That's lots of time for an accident or illness to carry him off, or for someone else to murder him. Remember that Susan's mom told her she shouldn't hate him, and that doesn't jibe with her mom refusing to let him see her. It also doesn't fit Susan insisting that there were good times with him before the divorce. Death is a good excuse for his apparently long absence from Susan's life. Although... I have just had a thought about the anomaly of Susan's cousins. When Ellen texted her about a cousin that looked like her, she said she didn't know and didn't care. But the day after Christmas, she told Justin about watching not-bad Christmas shows with her cousins. I was assuming the cousins she was talking about were the children of her mom's sister, the one she was away visiting in hospital. But maybe they could actually be her younger half-siblings that she calls cousins? Not the most amazing crackpot plot theory I've come up with, perhaps, but at least it's a change of pace from scrying that black hand for clues.

Possibly the menacing hand isn't really menacing Jerry? Given that Tiny Jerry is still sitting on Susan, the hand is in a position to grab her. BTW, since my last posting, a guy got shot across the street. I saw a couple of guys running away from my window. An ambulance took away the shootee about twenty minutes ago, but there's three cop cars I can see without getting up.

Fingernails I haven't re-checked all 2338 comics, but I don't think Dan has ever drawn fingernails, long or short, on Susan, or for that manner on any of the main characters except Grace in combat mode and that's only if you count claws as fingernails. Mr. Pompoms Jerry may have limited magic now, but that's on the scale of Immortals, and he can make make himself invisible to ordinary humans. So assuming Mr. Pompoms is an ordinary human, Jerry can spy on him. As for finding him, how many Mr. Pompoms are there? Given Jerry was searching the internet earlier, he could already know where to find him. (Since Susan isn't an ordinary human, and Jerry's invisibility is still sub-par, there's a chance she's seen him and is about to grab the tiny intruder.) Since we don't know anything about Mr. Pompoms beyond the divorce, there's also a chance that he's dead.

Yes, they do look like nails. That's a very well drawn hand, almost like it's been traced. But Dan would never do that! And maybe he didn't. Hands are hard to draw, but provided you aren't a pirate, you always have willing models there at the ends of your arms. And the perspective for that black hand looks to me like a good match for a hand as seen by the owner/operator. Whatever means Dan used to create that hand, he took some care to get it right. Nails done that way suggest that it's a woman's hand. All-black, though, suggests otherwise. Even humans with very dark skin over most of their bodies have light-colored skin on their palms, the soles of their feet, and the undersides of their fingers and toes. And it can't be a black glove because fingernails. Dramatic effect? The black hand scores there. Artistic choice? Well, it does emphasize how tiny Tiny Jerry is and probably emphasizes that it isn't Susan's hand.

Jerry 2.0 is in some real danger, and considering avoiding danger isn't exactly cowardly. I give him the benefit of a doubt. Remember what happened the last time he tried to rationalize slacking off on that vow to Susan?

Jerry's four immortals older than himself are probably four immortals older than himself as measured from his last reset. By that measure, Helen and Demetrius are older, since they are shown in their reset forms before Jerry's reset happened. Okay, the previous thought seems solid enough, although not that exciting. On to a truly amazing crackpot plot theory. And that theory is: Voltaire is Susan's Dad--and Diane's. Volty's been working on this scheme for a long, long time and the sisters have a part to play in it. Maybe that part is to kill the vampires that are definitely part of the scheme he's set up. And brought Magus over to the Moperverse with his power to amplify impulses--the timing of that is a bit vague but it could have happened before Susan and Nanase's trip to France. Magus knows that Helena and Demetrius have reset badly, so he knows they've reset. How would he know that? Why did Dan decide it was important that he know that, and important to let us know he knew that? Maybe I should have gone back to bed instead of posting this. It's probably influenced by seeing a YouTube video that alleges Emperor Palpatine was Anakin's father in the original script of Revenge of the Sith. The scheme is obviously insane. But then, so is Voltaire. Anyone up for a contest for a crazier mastermind? Right now I'd nominate Desty Nova of Battle Angel Alita, the Joker, Dr. Emilio Lizardo of Buckaroo Banzai, and any president of North Korea.

Somehow I don't think we'll be seeing Susan's dad very soon unless that's his black, long-nailed hand. Or are those talons? There's only one character that's been shown with Susan with black hands and talons. He's supposed to be dead, but not-Tengu was thought to be probably dead, wasn't he? If he's alive (or the un part of undead is working for him) he could be one of the vampire mercenaries, and couldn't resist waiting until Friday night. Or that vampire could be dead-dead, and it's another vampire. How about a vengeful brother? That's a trope with a YUGE number of precedents in every genre. Or maybe it's Susan's mom. She's demonstrated that she can be a real terror, magic or not. She'd need magic to see Jerry 2.0, thought, and she's not an Immortal. Or is she? Well, probably not, since she was visiting her sister when Susan caught Daddy cheating. But she might have magic she doesn't show, much as some or all of us suspect Nanase's mom has. It could be Voltaire, making sure his plan for Friday night stays on track. But Voltaire has this thing for white, and there's no proof in canon that he even knows Susan exists. And it could always be Pandora. Twice she's demonstrated that she can make more than one of herself, although the selves were close together. Morphing is definitely her thing. We need to call in a detective to solve this one. Hey, isn't there a detective in canon now? One who was somehow able to shadow Immortals?

Perhaps, but Greg would have found it much easier to get dates.

Sister VI: Noriko Shows Up at Lavender's Wedding

Are you old enough to actually remember the SPI wargame Fulda Gap? Pretty much no one but old wargaming grognards in the States these days have ever heard of the place and it's part in NATO stategy. Which, by the by, was a crock from the start. The reason the Fulda Gap was emphasized in that strategy is incredibly stupid. Fulda is in the south of what was then West Germany in a mountainous region. That's kind of what you would expect since it's called a "gap." So it makes sense for the strongest force in NATO, the American Army, to concentrate there. Right? Well, no. The place to put your strongest forces is the place where the tank-heavy Soviet army was most likely to attack, and that was in the North along the North German Plain. Tanks are great in flat country open country where they can see for miles and shoot at anything in range and just go zipping along, sometimes just going around enemies instead of slowing down to fight. They aren't so great in mountains and/or forests where they can't go as fast, can't go at all in lots of places, and there's lots of cover for guys with antitank rockets to hide behind and wait for tanks to get close. And what was defending the north? The Brits and the West Germans, good armies but smaller, and a collection of even smaller armies from the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Luxembourg's entire army was commanded by a major. Why didn't the American army defend the north? It's a pretty long story, and it starts in 1940. The Germans attacked on May 10th, and they were on the English Channel by May 20th, cutting off the only British army and the best of the French armies. A month after that, France surrendered. What was left of the British army set up in southeast England and waited for the Germans to cross the English Channel. And that's where the greatest part of the British army remained for four years. England isn't a very big country, and when Americans came over, most of them in England were put in the southwest. By June 1944 there were far more American soldiers in British ones. Shipping was still short, so to simplify matters, when the big landings in Normandy came, British and Canadian forces sailing from ports further east landed further east than the Americans. In July the German lines were broken, and the Americans, especially the ones under Patton, wheeled out in all directions, while the British and Canadian forces, plus one American army, under Montgomery made more modest progress. The war ended at the beginning of the next May with Montgomery getting to the Baltic Sea hours before the Soviets, meaning Stalin didn't get to occupy Denmark. Patton took a good chunk of Czechoslovakia, but in the spirit of fair play and concern that our Gallant Russian Allies wouldn't help us finish off Japan, Patton was ordered to withdraw. The British got their occupation zone in the North, which might explain why the Beatles really took off in Hamburg and one of them even married a German girl. The American zone was in the south. The Americans gave part of their zone to the French, further away from the Russians. But maybe not far enough away, because France pulled out of NATO in the early Sixties while the Beatles were jamming in Hamburg basement clubs. Someone said that when the Cold War began in the later 1940s that all the Red Army needed to march to the English Channel was boots. It's exaggeration, but not by all that much. The real deterrent was, of course, nuclear weapons. Eisenhower never dreamed of really using nuclear weapons; he once stopped a cabinet meeting when his Postmaster General started talking about plans for resuming mail service after a nuclear war, saying, "After a nuclear war, we're going to be grubbing for worms." But Ike threatened to use nukes from the start; that's how he ended the Korean War. The U.S. Army when Elvis served in was just there for show. The real deterrent was nuclear weapons. Eisenhower really cut back the Army to save money. Why did Eisenhower think he could get away with this? Russia exploded its first atomic bomb in 1949, four years before Eisenhower took office. The answer is that the Soviet Union is a long way from the United States. It didn't really have any bombers that could reach the US for most of his administration, whereas the US had overseas bases placed to put just about all of the Soviet Union in range--and our bombers would get to their targets before the Soviet bombers. Because of the U2 flights, Eisenhower knew that by 1960 they had only six ICBMS, and they took days to ready for launch. But by the end of the 1970s, the Soviets had caught up. They had hundreds of ICBMS and many more shorter-range missiles, and were finally producing enough nuclear warheads. Now it might strike you that if you think any nuclear weapon use is going to lead to more nuclear weapon use and so on, you are guilty of rational thinking. This can be highly dangerous to your political well-being, especially if you're in the armed forces. The Soviets and the Americans switched propaganda from "nuclear war is survivable" to "limited nuclear war is survivable" and on to "we'll only use nuclear weapons if the other side uses them, so we still need our Army." In our case, we still didn't bother to move what was left of our army to where it had any real chance of stopping the Warsaw Pact using conventional weapons. This was the nuclear scenario option for Fulda Gap: "Soak the game map in lighter fluid and set it on fire."