ChronosCat

That's assuming you are unable to stop it. But you have a point. Usually, there is the element of guys being physically stronger ... but it's true this may not be limited to guys, and we are talking about Nanase ... It's not just a question of physical strength, either. If one is blackmailed or otherwise coerced through non-physical means into having sex, it still counts as rape. (And of course there's situations where the person is in no state to make a decision about consent one way or another, but that's been touched on already in this conversation in relation to alcohol and mind-control.)

This stems from a more "wacky" phase of the comic, so I wouldn't be shocked if Dan retconned it, but up to this point Uryuoms have been able to walk around in public without most people seeming to suspect there's anything strange about them. The reason Will and Gill wanted clone forms was not because they couldn't be seen in public, but just because they thought they could fit in a bit better. He might not consciously expect Edward and Noriko to get back together, but if Edward started dating (or worse got engaged) Tedd might feel Edward was trying to "replace" Noriko. Granted there would be a bigger chance of this if it was happening when Tedd was younger, but considering how traumatized Tedd still is about the divorce and Noriko's departure, there's still a chance it could be a problem. On a related note, I'm trying to remember what (if anything) we know about why Noriko has never returned or kept in touch (as far as we know), besides the "too expensive to visit" excuse. One thought that comes to my mind from time to time is what if it wasn't Noriko's choice? For instance, what if it was part of the divorce settlement that she wasn't allowed contact? (I hope this isn't true, for Tedd's sake; if it were the case and Mr. Verres had been hiding it from Tedd, the discovery of it could drive a huge wedge between them...)

Yeah, the use of "Oh Snap" confused me. Isn't that supposed to be for bad things? At the very least it's supposed to be for surprising things, and my reaction to the final panel was just amusement and a thought of "this is going to be a running gag, isn't it?" Incidentally, I wonder if Tedd even knows (or at least knows of) Lavender? If not, Mr. Verres might want to invite her over and give Tedd a chance to get to know her as "Dad's friend who is a girl" before revealing her as his girlfriend. And thinking ahead (and assuming the relationship progresses smoothly), I hope Mr. Verres at least knows better than to get engaged to her before Tedd has had a chance to get to know her (I mean, that sort of revelation has the potential to be just as painful for Tedd as talk of Noriko, maybe even more).

It's funny, my first reaction reading this strip was "Yay, the party's still on!" despite knowing even before this story started that it would be about a party (not about attempting to throw a party and failing). Anyway, I'm glad Tedd's onboard, and it won't be just about introducing Ashley to everyone and their magic. Also, it's a nice touch having Elliot correct himself on Tedd's pronouns, but it does drive home to me that the way Dan's drawing Tedd's face right now reads as "male" to me. Kind of ironic, as this is the reverse of the gender-presentation issues Tedd used to have in-story.

But does Dan have the next story ready to go yet? I got the impression this was another "stalling for time" arc; likely if he wasn't doing this story we'd instead have another period of random mostly-unconnected joke comics (which would still include a lot of video game strips, because Dan apparently has a lot to say about video games). Mind you, I'm not opposed to video game strips and arcs as a rule, but they're a lot more fun when I'm actually familiar with the games Dan is commenting on, and Dan's tastes and my tastes in games are different enough that this is pretty rare. Occasionally my not being familiar with the game isn't an issue (going waay back, I found the "Grace the Goddess" arc pretty fun despite never playing "Black and White") but this one sure is falling flat for me.

I realize Dan posted this a lot later than usual, but it was still strange to check the forums this morning and not see a Story thread yet. Kind of funny too that in the time it took me to catch up on the latest NP thread and compose what I wanted to say about this strip Tom started a thread for it... ...So, I'm starting to feel like Elliot here. The party sounded like a great idea at first, but now it really doesn't seem like the best time for one. On the other hand, Dan spent a lot of time going into all the problems people were dealing with prior to Grace's Birthday Party (including ones that the sex-change theme would bring to the fore), and that turned out to be a great story, so maybe this will still be fun. Assuming Ashley is up for them, transformation party games sound pretty fun too - however something tells me we won't see very much of those games. (If we did, this would start to feel like a Goonmanji spin-off, which I don't think is what Dan's going for with this story.)

I'm pretty impressed Dan drew the skeletons in so much detail. I used to draw skeletons a lot when I was a kid, but I'd always simplify things (like dividing the rib cage into only a few large ribs instead of all of the ribs that would actually be there).

Well, if Susan doesn't go, that'll be one less character Dan has to juggle at this party...

https://www.patreon.com/posts/dark-cloud-2-26409492 http://egscomics.com/sketchbook/2019-011 I love the outfit designs, the colors, their expressions... In fact the only thing about this picture I'm not super enthused about is the background (it's a little too fake / overly simple for my tastes). I feel kind of sorry for the people waiting for their sketchbook requests to be done, though - it's been a few years since Dan accepted those requests, so they've been waiting for years!

... did he? When? While that could mean he just doesn't want to say, I think if that was the case he would be more clear about it. So more likely he hasn't decided on precise dates for Squirrel Prophet and beyond.

Elliot's apparently coming up with the party before the pretext makes this seem unlikely, and the fact that Dan has indicated on Twitter he doesn't know the calendar-dates for recent events makes it far more unlikely, but the current story is likely within a week or two of the anniversary of Ellen's creation... I wonder how she'd feel about having her brother and friends throw her a first birthday party? I assume the Pharaoh's point was how to justify it to Ashley. It might make her uncomfortable if she knew the party was all about introducing her to other magic users / Elliot's circle of friends. (Then again it might not be a problem, and Elliot does tend to be pretty straightforward these days.) As for a party without a theme or celebrating some event, are they really that common? I've never experienced one myself (not that I know enough people IRL to get invited to many parties) nor can I recall them ever really coming up in fiction (aside from the stereotypical "the parents are away, lets invite half the school over" parties).

http://egscomics.com/egsnp/fantasywasteland-07 Yay for starburst backgrounds in panels two and three! Incidentally, the story comic's up too, but I don't have anything to say about it at the moment, so I'll let someone else make the thread. [space for spoilers] ...So this scenario reminds me of how in the original Final Fantasy, the Black Belt (Monk in later translations) & Master classes were more powerful fighters barehanded than using weapons (even weapons that could only be used by those classes, which made those weapons kind of pointless).

In the Dragon Quest / Warrior games (or at least the first three, which are the only one's I've played) by the time you reach the middle of the game, when you walk through the areas near the beginning with the weakest enemies, the monsters run away from you fairly often - and if/when you return to those areas with end-of-game levels, they're more likely to run away than to fight you! Enemies significantly weaker than you also run away from you in the first Final Fantasy, though not nearly as often. These are pretty much the only examples I can think of, though... Since I started following Dan's twitter, the chance to create reaction threads has come up so often for me it's not only lost its novelty, it would be starting to feel like a chore if I thought I had to do it. So these days I usually leave the reaction-thread creation for others unless I have something to say (because I can't comment in a thread that doesn't exist yet).

You mean when you said the following? The first time I read your post I focused on the "worrying about going mad with power", which made a good joke for Goonmanji (particularly where she was gaining access to a powerful immortal artifact), but is a bit over the top in the main story, and I doubt is what's on her mind right now. The idea that she might unthinkingly cross a line is a bit more likely, but still doesn't seem to fit her expression & sigh in this strip. The "I might actually be able to do this to people one day" does fit with a new thought I've had, that it's the fact that she might actually be able to cause transformations that is interfering in her ability to enjoy morally problematic transformation fantasies - not so much because she's afraid she might actually do those things, but just because it's no longer pure fantasy to her. If that's what you were trying to say, I apologize for being redundant. At any rate, I wasn't even thinking about Ashley's own magic earlier, I was just thinking her experiences in Sister III might have been enough to ruin the fun of her TF fantasies (or at least the non-consensual ones) for her.

Yes, but she didn't let it stop her from fantasizing about those transfoormations (at least according to Goonmanji 2). I'm speculating that now that she knows things like in her fantasies really could happen, she's having a hard time enjoying them as harmless fantasies.

So my interpretation is that after experiencing real magic, and witnessing Magus threaten to transform Ellen without asking (or so it seemed at first), Ashley is finding it hard to put aside the moral problems with non-consensual transformation and just enjoy the fantasy like she used to.

And I get what you mean, the former suggest bandits who raid, the latter suggests a group of raiders that have turned bandit against other raiders....which....actually, have anyone who's played games like Skyrim or Fallout seen bandit groups fighting each other? I mean, it makes sense that two bandit groups would fight each other over resources just as they would attack settlements, but I can't recall it being portrayed that way in games. I don't know, I would tend to interpret the first word as the modifier. So "Bandit Raiders" would be raiders who raid bandits, while "Raider Bandits" would be a group of bandits who raid.

My first thought was that it was a reborn "Pandora" (or whatever she'll want to be called now) given the Pandora we know wearing fishnets so much. However, the sparkles in the last panel seem to imply the woman is casting a spell on the guys, which Immortal Laws shouldn't allow Pandora to do unless she's marking them or otherwise "empowering" them. I then started thinking of others who might wear fishnets, but Goth Elliot wouldn't be likely to cast a spell in those circumstances, and Ashely doesn't know any magic yet. Liz was marked, however, and we don't know what her powers are, so maybe it could be her. (It could also be someone new, but if Dan wants to keep the size of this arc under control, this isn't really the best time to be introducing a new character.) However, I think Scotty's idea that this is another one of Ashley's fantasies makes much more sense than any of my ideas. Not only does it explain the warm-weather clothing, but also how cliche the situation is. Besides, this seems to be leading to a vindictive use of magic, which Dan usually saves for fantasies and non-canon jokes.

I think when it comes to killing, how it happens affects whether or not it's creepy. I don't find the idea of being killed in a war or a mugging creepy, but I do find the idea of poison or a murderous stalker creepy. Part of it might just be that if we hear about death in certain ways often enough it comes to feel normal; just an unpleasant fact of life that we have to put up with. [CN: depression, suicidal thoughts]

The mind is a very personal place, one that in real life no one else is ever truly let into. As such, messing with it in any way is a disturbing violation of that person. The specific scenario you mention of someone temporarily preventing a person from acting (specifically through the use of a spell designed for that purpose, without ever "entering" or "reading" the mind) might not count as "mind rape", but depending on the exact details of the spell it could still count as "mental assault". And , while it might be better than preventing those actions through physical violence, even if the specific spell isn't bad enough to count as assault I'd say it's still worse than preventing those actions through physical restraint (assuming those restraints are unlikely to cause physical harm - which admittedly does depend on the restraints and situation in question). If nothing else, even if in the end it was the most humane option out of those available, it still feels pretty creepy.

Just checked it out. Seems like a friendly enough place at the moment, but ugh is the format a step down from a proper forum (IMO).

After reading the commentary, I imagined some archaeologist digging up Grace's grave thousands of years in the future, and finding only some teeth, fragments of bone, and the fur-free cores of her antennae, still in perfect condition.

I was wondering the same things. (Well, except for what time it is.) Between the "Welcome" message and most of the "Announcements / Info" section of the larger 910CMX forums being from 2016, and the color scheme (including hard-to-see links and white editing text) never having been fixed, I get the impression this site isn't a high priority for those in charge of maintaining it. As such, whenever I can't access the forums, I wind up worrying, "is this the end of the EGS forums?" (And if anyone in charge of maintaining the site is reading this, I understand that life can get in the way, and if you're not an EGS fan there's not much left for you on these forums. Still, some warnings and/or explanations for site outages would be appreciated.) On a related note, does anybody have any ideas on what we might do if the 910CMX forums should die while there's still some of us hanging around here? I know there are other places to comment on / discuss EGS, but none of the ones I've looked into give me the same sense of community I get here, and at any rate I'd hate for this community to be ended prematurely. (And apologies if anyone thinks this is an over-reaction; I do have a tendency towards pessimism.)

I'm a lot happier with this than what the original version of the previous comic seemed to imply. On the other hand, there sure are a lot of "maybes" in this "answer". It's also kind of jarring how the answer went from "no, you can't change your name to get an affinity" to "sure you can change your name to get an affinity so long as both you and Magic like the name enough". I hope Dan is still happy with this set up... 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... 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'm guessing this is similar to how name-based affinities can block other spells an immortal could give a person.

A heads-up: Dan has changed the wording in panel two. "A solid no" became "usually no", "when a baby is first named" became "when someone is first named", and instead of there being power to certain names, the naming "sets off Magic's future irony sensors". That last bit seems a bit awkwardly worded; in particular by the narrow definition of irony name-based affinities would be the opposite of ironic (i.e., "fitting"). (I know a broader definition which includes things that are fitting is fairly common these days, but I don't like it.) At any rate, I look forward to seeing how these changes tie in with whatever is revealed in the next comic.