ChronosCat

And here I thought he was made in a factory. So the Burgher Meister isn't the Master of Burgers? That's too bad. Of course, but as Willy Wonka said, "that is called cannibalism, my dear children, and is in fact frowned upon in most societies."

To any Immortal who holds any respect for humans and who doesn't blindly trust other immortals, Voltair's statement in the final panel ought to be a warning that Voltaire's intentions aren't as good as he makes it out to be. But Humans haven't stopped, at least not all Humans. In addition to some varieties of the modern Pagan movement, Hindu tradition has a rather large pantheon, and some of the Kami in Shinto are powerful enough to rank as gods (hence the term often being translated as "god" or "gods"). In fact, pretty much anywhere that Christianity or Islam hasn't completely suppressed the old beliefs, there is belief in either a pantheon of gods, or a huge range of spirits some of which are like gods. I assume what you really meant was the rise & spread of Christianity (followed by Islam) in the Old World and the resulting near-universal abandonment in belief in the pantheons of the Roman tradition (including all those it had absorbed), Egyptian tradition, Germanic traditions (including the Norse), and the Arabian tradition? So approximately 2000 - 1000 years ago? That would give Immortals who reset on schedule about 5 to 10 incarnations since the current laws went into effect; I suppose that would be more than long enough explain the "it's always been this way" vibe I've gotten about current Immortal society & rules (not to mention for a lot of knowledge to be lost, though considering they apparently deliberately forgot many things during resets, and different immortals don't interact a lot, large amounts of resets aren't really required for a culture-wide loss of knowledge).

As I recall, way back in the Keenspot days, Dan said that the EGS multiverse contained a finite number of universes. (Unfortunately I don't have a link, and obviously Dan could have changed his mind since then.) EDIT: A little searching on the Keenspot forums brought up this, which for the purposes of this discussion is almost the opposite of what I remembered. I wonder if I was remembering a different statement, or if I was misremembering that one? Also relevant to this discussion: Word of Dan regarding Lord Tedd's Attacks from 2004.

Hmm, hard to say. Either way, it certainly didn't look to me like they were finished.

For those who don't follow Dan's Twitter, I wanted to point out that he edited the shot of Diane getting her hair cut to look closer to the final look of her haircut. From a continuity perspective I don't think it was necessary, as she was clearly mid-cut at the time. However, I do think seeing more of a half-way point does make the transition to her new cut a lot less jarring.

That just makes it worse - my mind wants to read Diane as a badly drawn Sarah. Either that or an android (or gynoid if you prefer) - that's a very neat and orderly style (it probably doesn't help that it's freshly cut; if Dan does it right it should look more natural as it grows out).

Yay for speed-line background in panel one! (It reminds me of the cinema scenes in the NES Ninja Gaiden games.) Although that sounds awesome, unless Immortals want to start publicly passing themselves off as ancient deities, it's just going to be people against people with no "gods" involved. Same here, though I don't feel like that haircut suits Diane. I believe it was said that people could use old magic systems if they know how, but the default magic system for new magic users is still the current one. In other words, in addition to ancient artifacts, people could learn old magic systems from books or any immortal beings who happen to still remember the old systems. That's what I figured as well.

http://www.egscomics.com/egsnp/gam-17 Grace-a-monsters world Charlotte sure has a different taste in clothing from canon Charlotte.

The Goo was really just one attempt on Lord Tedd's part, though - Elliot just failed to defeat it so it tried again. Assuming Mr. Verres and/or his allies haven't fended off any new attacks off-panel, that means that about a year has passed with Lord Tedd making no further attempts to "kill weak Tedd" (in the Goo's words). I suspect he may not actually bother to make more than one attempt on each Tedd. Incidentally, this seems like a good time to mention once again my theory that Lord Tedd isn't trying to kill his alternate selves at all, so much as make them stronger (or at least make sure they have strong friends). (Of course, that's not inconsistent with the idea of Lord Tedd being responsible for what happened to Magus, particularly if the goal is to make Tedds strong without their allies.)

So, in case anyone read the comic shortly after it was posted and hasn't been back to the main page yet, it should be mentioned that Dan edited the comic to make it more clear it's Ellen. I have to admit, until I scrolled down past the first row of panels I entertained the possibility Charlotte was giving a report on spooky activities to Duck for some reason, but even without the caption identifying Ellen I figured out who she was pretty quickly - if nothing else, I thought what she was saying made it pretty obvious. Still, I find it amusing that Ellen's disguise actually fooled some people. While it would be nice to make some progress on the Lord Tedd and Company plot thread, I'm actually not looking forward to the meeting between Ellen and Kaoli. With Second Life just being memories, they haven't actually had a chance to get to know each other, and in many respects haven't actually met at all - it's more like they just happened to "watch" the same immersive 3D "movie" at the same time. Ellen has a much different personality than SL Ellen, and I'm sure Kaoli isn't the same as SL Kaoli either (though the question arises as to whether she's more similar to either Naoi or SL Kaoli, or if she found her own path). I worry that one or both of them will be disappointed to learn that the other is really a stranger to them.

According to the Wikipedia article, a stained-glass window in the Church of Hamlin was made to memorialize the event around the year 1300; unfortunately it was destroyed in 1660. Later, in 1384 the Hamelin town chronicle states "It is 100 years since our children left." ...So not exactly up to the record-keeping we're used to these days, but enough to say that Mr. Browning's date was incorrect. Incidentally, the 26 June 1284 date predates the Brothers Grim, first appearing in the Lüneburg manuscript (which dates to around 1440-50). (It just so happens that I'm planning on writing my own adaptation of the story at some point, so I've started doing a little bit of research into it.)

Well, if he hasn't encountered anyone wearing black, he obviously hasn't met the Men in Black yet.

Look, just because some computer lied to you about a cake once doesn't mean all cakes are lies.

I'm sure Hairdressers have the same variety of personalities and opinions as people in most other occupations. As you say, that's a hairdresser's chair. Also, the woman is wearing what appears to be a uniform. So unless Diane's mother is a hairdresser, that's probably not her. No, but many expect the viewer to pay a little bit of attention in order to figure out which stock plots are being used, and to play along with the obvious attempts to manipulate your emotions. Therefore the most likely candidates for a "turn your brain off movie" would be the sort of action movie that either has no plot besides "these people are fighting each other" or spells out what little plot there is in a very obvious manner as soon as possible. Personally, when I want to zone out in front of a screen I prefer to turn on a documentary and then not pay attention to the words, but to each their own.

One concern I have that I was reluctant to bring up since we were having fun talking about cake is that the momentum of smaller, lighter objects is different from larger, heavier ones. As such there would be significant differences between fighting at tiny size and regular size. Still, it ought to help with learning to think about the possibilities of fighting in the air, and in some respects it would be more accurate than fighting on the ground. Probably the best solution would be to start by practicing at tiny size, then once they got the hang of that and weren't in too much danger of falling, switch to practicing at regular size.

Well, it all depends on how large/heavy they are, and how thick and firm the cake and/or frosting is. If they're fairy-doll size, a normal single or two-layer cake that's on the firmer side ought to provide sufficient padding (so long as they're not flying too high), while not being likely to fill in the hole/crater any time soon. At smaller sizes, the risk of creating a hole that could fill in would be greater, but on the other hand by Dan's normal shrinking rules the characters would be lighter too, so it might all balance out. Smaller sizes would also bring greater risk from the frosting itself; firmer frosting would reduce the risk, but it also might be a good idea to frost the cake more lightly in that scenario as well.

I've been wondering that since a few strips into the Aberration attack. It's rather ironic that in the end Magus might have been able to manage everything without distracting the Immortals after all. (Of course, unless Ellen had suddenly gotten the urge to transform Elliot, he still would have needed help with that part, so he would have needed to turn to Sirleck anyway.) I was under the impression that old Helen & Demetrius were attacking him with the intent to kill, and I assume there would have been others who wanted to finish him off (possibly after playing with him first). But I suppose there's no firm evidence for that. As for whether it was possible for Magus to die while in non-corporeal form, it's possible Dan might write things that way, but in the real world there's no evidence that anything is truly indestructible, so I tend to assume the same to be true in fiction unless we are explicitly told otherwise.

Yay for starburst backgrounds in panels 1 & 3! Yay for generic background in panel 2! Yay for sparkly mellow Grace-a-saur and cute Grace-a-monsters (i.e. all Grace-a-monsters) in general! Yaaaay! ... * Lies down and goes to sleep. *

Well yes... (Which means Pandora contributed to the circumstances of her own downfall.) Of course, Magus wouldn't have needed Pandora's help if he'd never been banished to the Main Universe in the first place, so whoever did that has a huge part of the blame for Magus' situation. But personally I think for the purposes of determining the primary adversary/antgonist/villain/etc. of Sister III (which is how this conversation started) we really don't need to follow the chain back any further than Magus (and Voltaire).

Magus could have teamed up with Sirleck without planning to kill him (and/or with a different plan for how Sirleck could help him). He could have chosen not to work with Sirleck, and waited in hopes that one day he'd encounter a more trustworthy ally. He could have committed suicide via Immortal. I suppose that isn't really a lot of options (and none of them good), but they were still options. Furthermore, Pandora didn't tell Magus to go back to Sirleck or to plot to betray him - Magus thought of those things himself. So I still consider it his plan. I suppose it could have been due to Voltaire's interference or Dan not spelling everything out, but I found it odd Pandora showed no signs of realizing the significance of the vampire attack; if she had predicted Magus' actions she should have been waiting for something like that. Of course she should have been able to predict it, regardless of Voltaire's interference (all he really did was focus the attack on Raven, and maybe help with the timing). My suspicion is that after they parted ways she mostly put Magus out of her mind (aside from that time she warned Tedd not to use her wand on Elliot) and never bothered to predict what his future actions would be under the new circumstances - it's been demonstrated that she had a tendency to focus on one thing and forget about everything else.

Well, she gave Magus the idea and helped with the start of the plot, but continuing on without her was Magus' decision, as was returning to Sirleck and coming up with the plan to distract the Immortals. It's possible (though in my opinion not certain) Pandora expected him to make those decisions, but the decisions and actions still belonged to Magus.

Ooh, that's perfect! Soft, tasty, and no chance of drowning! Hey, I voted for it! I even suggested it a few times myself when you didn't get around to it.

Except that (I believe) part of the purpose of sparring is to train muscle memory. As Sarah's spell takes place entirely in her head, it's questionable whether that would be helpful for training the muscles.

I think I accidentally entered a keyboard shortcut that activated the "submit" button. EDIT: Yes, between all the "Ctrl+I" and "Shift+Enter" I was doing, I must have accidentally hit "Ctrl+Enter". I didn't even know that was a shortcut!

I have heard the "long hair is a liability in combat" advice applied to women before. (Or at least I've seen cases where a female fighter has short hair and gives that as the reason why.) But you're right that the fact that Greg hasn't given that advice to any of his long-haired female students (as far as we've seen) does imply a bit of sexism. The forest floor has sticks and logs (possibly including hard and pointy ones) and rocks. What they really should use is a giant bowl of pudding. ...What?