ChronosCat

I don't know how helpful reading fictional depictions of police corruption would be, but knowing Elliot likes superheroes, my first thought was "Someone (probably Justin) should encourage Elliot to read Batman: Year One." (That happens to have been my first major introduction to the concept of corrupt cops, though I did see a couple of other references in other Batman comics first, as well as in the 1989 Batman movie.)

I'm sure he didn't avoid the trolls entirely just by leaving the forums (though it must have improved things, seeing as he never came back). However he says in the commentary that he thought of the basics of this scenario "over a decade ago".

More polka-dot/pepperoni background in panel two. I wonder what it's supposed to represent mood-wise? It's once again used while Ashley Bridgette is talking in a heartfelt manner, but I don't know what that has to do with circles. ...I seem to remember a background like this being used for Grace a while back; at that time I think I just called it "bubbly" but if it's being used consistently that's clearly an oversimplification. (Incidentally, today the background is reminding me of those circles in the interior walls of the original TARDIS control room, so that's cool.) Starburst background in panel three. *Yawn.* Re: the commentary: So apparently one of the inspirations for this storyline were the trolls and other constantly complaining people on the forums back before Dan left...

Something like panels three to six is what Elliot should have gone with from the start. Unless she's done a lot more training than we've been led to believe, I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to call Grace a skilled martial artist though. A powerful person who knows some martial arts, perhaps, maybe a "powerful martial artist" if you want to keep things simple and don't mind being a bit deceptive, but not all that skilled (yet). ...I guess Elliot can pull off being untruthful after all!

When I here "The Man", this is who I think of: https://chrono.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny?file=Johnny2.jpg

Yay for polka-dot background in panel three! ...Except I don't really like polka-dots... Also, I kind of wish we could see more of it, if only to be sure it really is a polka-dot pattern; I don't really get what that has to do with the scene. ...Hmm, considering the setting, maybe it's supposed to be pepperoni? Which doesn't make it better for me, as I don't like pepperoni either...

From what I've heard, people with a job but not able to afford enough food is fairly common. I don't think being homeless with a job is so common, but then I imagine being homeless would make it hard to get or keep a job. Is having things that we now need really progress over neither having nor needing them? (Well, I suppose I'd rather use a washing machine than wash clothes by hand, and I enjoy being able to travel great distances in short amounts of time... I'm just saying we can't judge progress solely on how much stuff people have.) Anyway, my earlier point was that just because people have what at first glance appear to be luxuries doesn't necessarily mean they aren't really just barely scraping by. (I don't know if you were saying otherwise, but it looked to me like you were implying it.)

Maybe it's better in Europe, but in the US there are plenty of people who are homeless, or don't have enough food to eat or enough money for proper medical care. I'd say the system is failing them. Also, while televisions might be luxuries, the way things are set up these days many of the things you mentioned actually are necessary for anyone hoping to live a stable life. If you want a job you need a way for people to get in touch with you (thus a phone, though not necessarily a smartphone), and clean clothes (thus either a washing machine or access to a laundromat). And unless you live in walking distance of both your job and a place to shop for food and other essentials, you need either public transportation which can get you there (which outside of cities probably won't be an option, and even in cities is not always good enough) or a car. Another worry is that the middle class seems to be shrinking (and not because more people are becoming rich!). Just to be clear, I'm not arguing communism is the answer, I'm just saying that without proper safeguards capitalism can produce some pretty nasty results too, and (at least in the US) the current safeguards aren't enough.

As I was afraid of, Elliot is attempting a level of denial beyond his skill to pull off, and in the process practically confirming what he's trying to deny. Oh well, at least Liz is taking it well, and as a close friend of Ashley's ought to be trustworthy. I think her friendship with and resulting concern for Ashley is pushing her to show more initiative than usual.

You left out SPANCs (Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls). Those are bad?

*sigh* And we're back to the same over-used starburst background in panel one. Yay. ...Anyway... Tensaided makes a good pizza-place manager. Maybe he should take up that job if the video store ever folds? Incidentally, I have decided to call the world of this story the "Pizza-verse".

I hope Elliot doesn't either try to hard to convince Liz he's not Cheerleadra (he's not good enough at lying to pull it off) or simply admit it (he really doesn't know her well enough to be doing that). The best bet would be a very mild denial which he accepts (and perhaps acknowledges) that she probably won't believe. As for the promise of Ashley being safe, when is anybody truly safe? Even without the fantastic dangers Elliot deals with, there are always risks of bad things happening, from (mundane) home invasions and house fires, to earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and even asteroid impacts or nuclear war.

I have no idea if this has anything to do with Dan's reasoning, but if he created an entirely new cast of characters for this story, ones unlikely to ever show up in the main story, it would feel a little strange having this story in EGS at all.

I agree with Scotty that it's likely just a dramatic background. Speaking of which, yay for fiery background in panel six! ... As for what Liz's "other possibility" is, the idea that she thinks he's gay did occur to me, but another possibility I haven't seen mentioned yet is that she is aware of magic (presumably including her own) and has guessed that Elliot has magic. Maybe she thinks Elliot is hiding magic from Ashley, or maybe she thinks despite being otherwise a good guy he's pressuring Ashley into not talking about magic.

Doubtful. Dan mentioned recently that he lost interest in the series around the time Twilight Sparkle became a Princess (which if you're not familiar with the series was back in 2013; the Friendship is Magic based "My Little Pony the Movie" didn't come out until 2017). He says "franchise", not "movie franchise", so it could be a multi-media franchise that just includes movies. Incidentally, there have been two movies titled "My Little Pony the Movie", but they were unrelated other than both being based on the My Little Pony franchise; the first one was back in the 80s. Some of the entries in the Equestria Girls spin-off series also straddle the line between movies and TV specials, with the first few getting limited theatrical releases. (I suppose if Dan wasn't talking about a recent movie, it could have been the first Equestria Girls movie/special, which came out in 2013, but I don't recall him ever talking about it, and with the limited release there's a good chance it wasn't even in theaters in his area.)

That was surprising? It made so much sense to me I half expected Dan to link to a previous comic where it had already been established. I mean, he is an older male relative who is father to her "twin", and much of what she knows about him is positive, as opposed to her actual father who she has so many negative feelings about; it seems only natural she'd feel this way.

Yay for starburst background in panel one! (For once I really mean it; it's refreshing to see a more stylized "sunburst"-like starburst, and it really adds to the fun drama of the scene.) Well, if that's the least amount of clothes the game will let you wear, then in a way she's as good as naked. Also, I think there are some cultures that don't differentiate between fully nude and wearing only underwear; at the very least I remember hearing that some of the instances in the Bible where it mentions someone being naked the author(s) likely actually meant that they were in their underwear (I'm talking about post-Flood here; it's pretty obvious from context that Adam and Eve didn't have any clothes at all in the Garden of Eden).

Boo to lack of brain-cloud backgrounds! I'm beginning to suspect this story's title will eventually wind up being something like "Invitation to the TF Party", with the actual party as the next story. If not that, then at the very least I expect this story to be broken into multiple parts with the party being a separate part from what came before.

http://egscomics.com/comic/party-025 So, there's a lot to unpack here... I think I'll start by going panel-by-panel (mostly).

Yay for starburst background in panel two! ...Well actually I'm much more impressed with Grace's serious face there than the background. Dan needs to involve Grace in another serious action story, so she can use that face without it being a joke.

As of the second panel I strongly suspected this was a fantasy or dream sequence, as Grace being part-alien is still classified, and while Grace doesn't like that she hasn't shown any indications she was considering breaking that masquerade. The telling about magic thing is equally out of the blue (and also in violation of Mr. Verres rules) but with Arthur "admitting" to the existence of magic, and the masquerade in the process of failing, her spilling those beans wouldn't be as big of a deal. Rhoda's reaction was unexpected, but Dan has a tendency to reuse the gag of someone reacting with little or no surprise to things that ought to be shocking, so while it contributed to the evidence of a fantasy sequence, it was far from definitive. After reading that panel I checked the panel borders, and was surprised to see that they weren't rounded. Then I scrolled down to read the second row of panels and saw the top of the third row including the edge of the thought bubble between panels 5 and 6 (I mistook it for a normal rounded border, not that it made a difference) and knew for sure it wasn't really happening. ...It's kind of funny how Grace knows/suspects that Rhoda and Catalina know magic, but the remains of the masquerade are preventing the two groups from discussing their magic with one another. The line in the last panel about Diane and Lucy being super-nice is also interesting. The fact that "Rhoda" says "secretly" implies that Grace doesn't know about their recent character development (or doesn't see Diane's announcement to the school, apology to Justin, and getting together with Lucy as proof they've changed) and yet, she's right.

Based on the title, I'd say it's specifically based on the upcoming Netflix series (which is a prequel series to the movie).

Yeah, I took advantage of that when I played it, it was rather amusing. Exactly. If you want the enemies to always be roughly the same strength relative to you (other than your weapons/armor/magic/etc. and other stat boosts not directly linked to experience points), why use a leveling system at all? Plenty of games do without one.

While I suppose it's possible Elliot and Ashley could break up I don't see her disappearing any time soon. Dan's spent too much time developing her, and from what I've seen she's extremely popular with the fans. (I know Dan doesn't follow fan hopes and demands blindly, but I would think her popularity would at least make him hesitate before dropping her.) Also, the whole point of this story is to introduce Ashley to the main 8. It wouldn't make sense to change gears suddenly, and once this story is over Ashley is going to have even more development, which would make it even more jarring for her to leave.

Which is all well and good, but as far as I know from my sister's play-through and the walkthrough I read (I haven't played the game myself), they don't make it clear in the game that you would want to focus on raising your stats in that manner rather than bothering with traditional leveling. ...I'm actually still a bit frustrated about it on my sister's behalf... ...Come to think of it, I wonder if what Carol is saying here is actual "Fantasy Wastland" dialog to warn you about over-leveling? If so, that's a nice touch.