Tom Sewell

And so is an elf.

I think "swimming with the big fish" is a great twist on two familiar metaphors ("big fish/small pond" & "swimming with sharks"). It's concise, fresh, and the meaning is instantly understandable to anyone who's heard the earlier two.
 
Voltaire IS a troll, no question...but assuming he's not just off his immortal rocker like Pandora, why is he targeting Elliot? He just happens to decide to pick on the heroic best friend of Pandora's grand godson? 
 
I suspect it's her whose attention he's really after...

It sounds like the "he drew first" cliche from about a million Westerns, where the villain insults his victims until they start a gunfight the villain thinks he can't lose.
To me, it also sounds a little similar to the reason Jerry gave the hammers to women since the ultimate reason was to tempt men to act like... men?

It sounds like the "he drew first" cliche from about a million Westerns, where the villain insults his victims until they start a gunfight the villain thinks he can't lose.
To me, it also sounds a little similar to the reason Jerry gave the hammers to women since the ultimate reason was to tempt men to act like... men?

I think you are all wrong.  He's a manipulative jerk.  He wants Elliot to be trying to prove he's not a coward at a future event.

For some reason, I decided to set these pictures as my slideshow desktop background. This sometimes results in something like this:
Which is Something Dan Promised, but never delivered on. (And, yes, this is the reason I started with End of an Era).

Part 2: Family Tree

This one kind of got away from me. I had been planning to only do a few, but, well...
Suffice it to say, this is when I realized I should be doing these in batches. I'm currently about halfway through Identity, and will add more as I complete each storyline, until I get to the current one, at which point I'll probably work my way backwards through the archive.

So... I discovered EGS a few weeks ago, and since then, I have probably read through the archives about 3 and a half times (at least 2 complete read-throughs, but, thanks to all the links in the commentaries, I've gone back and read several storylines numerous times).
Anyway, one of the things I noticed on my readthrough(s) is that the characters make faces that are, well, exaggerated and over the top, and, frankly, hilarious.
So I decided to go back and catalog what I consider to be some of the best faces, starting with End of an Era, the first storyline after the timeskip. I didn't want to start all the way at the beginning, and I knew there was one face in that story that I had to capture. (You probably know the one).
Anyway, I've been using a Chrome extension called Awesome Screenshot, and each pic can be found on my imgur page. 
Without Further Ado:

 

I like that page. It shows that, as desperate as he is, Magus still has a conscience and refuses to participate in murder.

But this is contradicted by her pointing out that Abraham needed to die for two reasons, one of which was to keep him from interfering the next time the Dewitchery Diamond was used.

How so?  "Grok" comes from Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, not Trek.

Hedge and Guineas (I'm leaving out Vlad because he was K.O.'d during this scene) had been Damien's close associates for years (inasmuch as Damien had any associates at all). He would have had to conceal the fact that he could shapeshift from them for several years.

Damien was also narcissistic in the extreme and dumber than a sack of rocks. Even with what little I knew of him, I would consider him incapable of an acting job that would so convincingly portray a completely different person.

Way, way back in Painted Black, Nioi, who basically is Lord Tedd's Grace, thought General Shade Tail was corrupting LT. That would make Lord Tedd himself another catspaw. But manipulating an Immortal?
However, while I don't see Lord Tedd or GST being the ultimate boss of this storyline, I do have what might be an original explanation of how Lord Tedd could be a good guy and still want to kill off all the other Tedds. Remember that the whale said Tedd was a far more dangerous rarity than a wizard? Maybe Lord Tedd devastated his own world and wants to prevent all the other Tedds from doing the same. We've only seen a few interior scenes of Lord Tedd's world; all of them could have been in an underground shelter for all we know. Maybe we should check around for vault boys...
 

Reading through Grace's birthday party, got to the point where Justin's telling Susan about how Elliot rescued him and such, when he mentions being introduced to Nanase, Rhoda is very obvious in the panel, but what isn't as obvious, is Diane and Lucy in the background with a guy going through his wallet. Also there's no band around Diane's right arm which further confirms that those have to be henna based and not permanent. Back to Rhoda though, she must not be part of Diane's group at that point.

You mean Pandora I hope, Sarah's still a virgin after all.
 
You know, I'm thinking Tedd's emotional state at the moment has more to do about the fact that Elliot's life is in danger rather than Edward finding out about his mark. There might be a little of that there, but Elliot's at the front of the line. I wonder if Tedd's thinking about making sure his gauntlet is ready.

There is also the possibility that Pandora was the one who marked Dex, but it was Voltaire who gave him the pendant (and the telepathic commands). It would explain why there was a time lag in between getting the mark and getting the pendant.

Pandora's warning was when she wanted Sarah to have frivolous fun with her spell, and was part of her plan for making magic public. Now that Pandora has to fix everything, the warning is kinda moot. Also why Sarah isn't there is because she basically just woke up maybe an hour earlier and got approached by Pandora again. I get why Dan didn't want to do a third straight chapter devoted to Pandora, but I'm anxious to know what she told Sarah.

Adrian has theorized that Noah was manipulated to be at the dojo, possibly in as attempt to get him killed.  So Elliot might not have been the only target of assassination that day.

No, a caterpillar is for holding up the roof of a cathouse.

No, a caterpillar is for holding up the roof of a cathouse.

Wouldn't that be a caterpillar?

One thing we mortals tend to forget is that immortals have a completely different view on what constitutes long term plans.  The Cheshire Fried Colonel may have been manipulating events and people to oppose Pandora for years.  For example, I wouldn't be surprised at this point to discover Voltaire had left the clue about the Dewitchery Diamond in a place where Grace could find it, knowing that would draw out Abraham who would then oppose Pandora's extended family and their associates.

It looks like Ashley's going to be pretty famous at Moperville North, especially after she does her part in Edward's cunning plan. Besides the inevitable appearances of monsters and vampires, maybe we can look forward to:
Principal Verrucht asking her to recruit Cheerleadra as a hall monitor That guy from the gentlemen's magazine getting punched out by Elliot or Liz, or maybe hammered by Susan. An offer from Manchester United  

So your family immigrated from Xanth?