ChronosCat

Susan looks pretty cool going Super Saiyan and all, but I'd be able to enjoy it a lot more if she didn't have tears in her eyes. I'm a little surprised by them; yeah Susan still has emotional scars from her first encounter with a vampire, but I would have expected her to be angry or something like that, not sad/mournful/whatever (at least not before the battle). I kind of hope we get to know a little bit more about Susan's current mental state, as I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly what's going through her head at the moment. Oh, and before I forget... Yay for starburst of name declaration in panel three! Yay for starburst of Fairy Doll summoning in panel seven! I really wonder what the deal with the color change is. While we've seen hair move with no wind before in EGS (the Hair Fairies certainly get plenty of work), all the hair color changes have been the result of transformations and similar spells, or dramatic events such as gaining magic or burning out. It would be really unusual if Susan's hair color responds to her mood. Perhaps one of her spells is a battle form, and she's switching to it? Welcome back. If by "just in time" you mean "before the first big battle of the arc" then yes, very good timing. Me, I'm here for Magus' resurrection, so I made sure to be here in time for Ellen(Sirleck) zapping Elliot. (It helps that I have been following the comic, I just hadn't been on the forum in years.)

My speculation is that if an Immortal lives long enough without resetting, it will split into multiple new Immortals, and Pandora's multi-faced "Chaos" form is a sign that Pandora has begun this process. However, like so many other things, knowledge of this was probably lost or suppressed via reset-based memory loss. In that comic, she says she'll stay as she is as long as she can in order to clean up her mess, and then she will reset; she hasn't cleaned up her mess yet, so why would she have started her reset? (Also, in answer to your last question, it's been less than 24 hours - Pandora met with Tedd very early Friday morning, and it's now Friday evening.)

I love the blurry horizontal lines in the background of panel 1. It reminds me of the effects in some old NES games (particularly the Mega Man & Ninja Gaiden series). It's also interesting there's just a glow behind Catalina in the final panel, instead of the usual starburst. In other words, yay for blurry background effects in panels 1 & 3! She probably didn't have a 1-point card in her hand (either that or she really wanted to see Catalina as a St. Bernard). Also, apparently it's okay to overpay for your square.

I really like the effect Dan used when Raven transforms. ...Speaking of which... *clears throat* Yay for starbursts in panels four and seven! Yay for glowing transformation in panel six! I thought for sure it was stated somewhere that Immortals always change their names when they reset. But maybe that's just accidental head canon on my part.

I was so busy admiring Ashley's cow form, I forgot to mention: Yay for starburst backgrounds in panels 1 & 2! I guess the "attraction" affect works. ...Also, I wonder if Dan will actually get around to adding Susan's squirrel parts in to the last panel?

I just noticed the sunburst effect in the final panel. It's funny how these days I tend to "read" such effects without really taking note of them (not unlike how I rarely take note of individual letters). I guess that goes to show that Dan's use of effects usually isn't obtrusive. Anyway, yay for starburst background in panel six!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/cool-off-and-be-15548871 Elliot looks really cute like that. And that ending - I really hope there's a sequel comic! (I have to say I was really surprised to come to the forums and find there wasn't a thread for this comic yet, when it had been up for hours. What, there isn't anybody on the forums with nothing better to do than check for updates 24/7? )

It looks to me like Elliot made only two (long, slow) licks: one in panels 2 & 3, and one in 4 & 5. The first lick left him with dog ears, a female figure, skimpier clothing, and slightly lighter skin and hair. The second lick enhanced his figure, completed the transformation of his clothes into a bikini, gave him a tail, lengthened his hair, and changed his skin(fur?) and hair to an even lighter shade.

I have only one complaint about this comic: I can't see how Ashley's first canon transformation could top this!

Can you use the "source" button? I haven't gotten around to setting up the forum fixes, so that's what I tend to use when I'm editing a post. Well, they were in the "Eugenics Wars" books by Greg Cox.

I don't remember where or if the person was being serious, but I've heard a theory (in the non-scientific sense of the word) that exactly that has happened in our world. Among other things, it would explain why we have legends of magic that doesn't seem to work these days, and why no matter how much physicists learn about the physical laws of the universe there always wind up being more unanswered questions.

Well, if we're going to have them be recorded memories, they might as we have been from alternates of Elliot and Nioi like Nioi and Dan said. I'm just trying to come up with an alternate scenario Dan could have gone with instead where the dreams were interactive.

It appears like each lick advances the transformation. The question is, does it stop when you reach the point Elliot is at? Or when you reach a more animal-like anthro-dog form? Or does it go all the way to full dog? This would be something important to know before trying to eat the whole thing. Speaking of which... The world may never know.

As in, Pandora's Apocalypse? Is this battle going to be so obvious and public that the world can no longer deny the existence of magic? This is going to be some crazy battle, then. When the idea of the Magic Reset was introduced, I figured it was just another threat for the heroes to fight against, and an excuse to keep the Masquerade going. However, I'm starting to think it might actually happen (and fairly soon, too). I'm a little surprised; Dan went through so much time and effort to explain the current magic system, it seems a little odd to throw it all away and start over. On the other hand, I'd love it if the Masquerade was done away with permanently. I really loved it early on in the comic when the characters were using magic (including ASMA tricks) in public and it seemed public knowledge that Tedd was a mad scientist; I was disappointed when the characters started taking the Masquerade seriously. In my experience, when people go out to eat as a group and one person is paying for the entire order, often times that person will place the order for everyone. The only reason I can think of is what Tuscohoma said, that it's easier for one person to deal with the waiter (though honestly I don't see how it makes that big of a difference). As for the date situation, there's probably also a bit of "Chivalry" involved - after all a "true gentleman" is supposed to do everything for the woman he's courting (and other women as well), even things she can easily do herself.

So I've come up with a few possible solutions; this is the one I like the best: The simulation could be run by a sentient "Game Master" (it could be an actual person or a magical construct, though I prefer the magical construct idea) who is a really good actor and is controlling all of the important NPCs like puppets. (The background NPCs could still by run by simple non-sentient AIs until & unless Ellen or Kaoli interacted with them.) When the simulation ends, the GM continues to exist, and can even later perform their role again in other simulations.

Actually I was exaggerating. I'm not completely made up, I'm just highly fictionalized. Hmm...I have to admit, I've never thought about this aspect of my idea in this much detail before. You have a point about Ellen and Kaoli being able to compare the AIs to themselves and each other. As for the question of souls, that depends on where souls come from, and how one acquires one. If anything with a certain level of sentience automatically receives a soul, the spell would have to thread a very thin line to produce convincing AIs that don't have souls - if it's even possible at all. Of course, the reason for having the other people in the simulation "soulless" was to avoid the moral issues involved in ending the simulation if the only difference between the NPCs and normal people is the level of "reality" of their world. I suspect there might be other ways around this problem; I'll have to think about it.

I've always wondered if Dan brought Grace to our world for that picture, or if that's Dan in his Grace form. Taking a photo of the Earth from 200 light years away would only tell you what it looked like 200 years ago (and even then it might be distorted by things as interstellar dust and the gravity of any planets or stars it passed close to), it wouldn't tell you what people were saying back then - or what they were thinking. To use a similar technique to copy memories would require that the mind gave off some sort of signal which will remain readable for years (a constant telepathic broadcast, perhaps?). That depends on how convincing the AIs were. Also, while Ellen might put two and two together in the real world, within the Second Life simulation she and Kaoli wouldn't have anything to compare the AIs to, so I think it would be pretty unlikely they'd figure it out inside the simulation . Hey, not everything else is real! I'm made up too!

This made me think, back in Painted Black during the fight with Vlad Nanase used her fairy doll spell when she was falling to what she thought would be her death, in the hope she could live on in her Fairy Doll form. If things had worked out that way, I bet some Immortals would have mistaken Nanase for an aberration.

Some stories are written with the conceit that they are non-fiction. (TVtropes calls it "Direct Line to Author".) This can be pretty fun in the hands of a skilled enough author (like Tolkein), though if not well thought out it can lead to plotholes (clearly no Yeerks ever read the Animorphs series, or they would have known they were dealing with human kids not Andalites, and probably could have figured out enough to track them down without their last names). The thing is, Dan does not seem to be employing Direct Line to Author; there's never been any talk of how the Dan of our universe received this information from another universe or anything along those lines.* Pretending that Dan did receive messages from another universe would thus be engaging in the "Literary Agent Hypothesis" (warning: another TVTropes link). There's nothing wrong with that, I just think modifying our theories on how universe travel works to take the Literary Agent Hypothesis into account would be a little on the silly side. (By the way, I should point out that I never said there was anything wrong with being silly.) * Well, unless you count the 4th wall breaking non-canon comics. Squirrel Dan and Minion apparently have devices which allow them to monitor and even alter universes, and Dan has occasionally implied that Squirrel Dan and Real World Dan are one and the same. Still as said comics are non-canon I don't think they count for "Direct Line to Author". In the real world, the only way we know to learn about the past is to study the world as it is now. Books, fossils, and the light from distant stars all exist in the present even if they contain information from the past. However, human memory is imperfect, and it's unlikely Nioi could have recorded the sort of vivid childhood memories Ellen experienced by simply copying adult SL-Ellen's memories. If Nioi didn't cast the spell to gather the information until SL-Ellen was an adult, then the spell would have had to reach into the past to gather the required information. So even if no physical objects traveled through time, the spell and the information it gathered did. In my scenario of it all being a magical simulation, the only connection between universes that would be required would be between the main universe and the Alpha Universe, to allow Ellen and Kaoli to share the same illusionary "world". No one in that world would be real; SL-Ellen and SL-Kaoli would just be our Ellen's and Alpha Kaoli's avatars in that world, and everyone else would be soul-less magical AIs. It would be just like playing a video game, except that while "playing" it Ellen and Kaoli wouldn't remember that it wasn't real.

Considering Tedd's TF watches are technically wands, I'd say they can be made out of whatever their maker wants them to be made out of.

Well, you wouldn't normally see that sort of thing in an official, professionally made rule-book, but (a) this isn't the rule book, it's just Hanma breaking the fourth wall to clarify some points, and (b) Hanma has a rather informal, conversational style of explaining things.

It came up several times back in the old days, so I wasn't sure if it was worth repeating... But if you think it's a good idea, I'll run through it again... Nioi says that the main reason for the Second Life dreams is to age Ellen & Kaoli's souls. If Second Life was a magical simulation with compressed time, one in which they possessed free will and the ability to affect the outcome, Ellen and Kaoli really would be effectively living out a second life in their dreams, and it would make sense that the experience would age their souls. However, if it's simply a recorded memory they're passively watching, why does it age them when the memories they inherited from Elliot and Nioi apparently don't? Furthermore, the second reason for including Ellen in the Second Life dreams was so Kaoli would have someone to share them with. Well, I suppose it gives them another thing to talk about when they eventually meet (though I wonder how much time they'll have to chat seeing as it'll probably be part of the big final conflict with General Shade Tail and Lord Tedd) but as it stands it's not all that different from knowing that someone else watched the same movie as you; main Ellen and Alpha Kaoli don't even know anything about each other besides what little Nioi passed on. It would have created a much more meaningful connection between the two of them if they had both been living within the same world, their real-life selves influencing their decisions. Finally, I really hope Nioi got SL Ellen & Kaoli's permission before copying their memories/lives, as if not that was a huge invasion of privacy. Of course given that Nioi didn't think it was necessary to get Ellen's informed consent before dumping over a decade of someone else's memories into Ellen's head (Nioi sort of asked for permission, but was so vague Ellen had no idea what she was agreeing to, which does not count as informed consent) I'm not all that confident Nioi got proper permission before copying the memories either...

Really? It makes perfect sense to me (but then I've been known to explain things in an overly complex manner myself). Out of curiosity, can you elaborate on what you find "complex"/"strange" about the rules / their description?

I don't think Elliot's catboy form has any affect on him or his mind when he's not in it.

Kind of funny to think that Ellen was once intended to be a villain by Dan, and even made a very poor attempt at it in Sister 1. She sure looks the part now (even if it's Sirleck at the helm). My first guess is that out of desperation and for the sake of his conscience he's fooling himself into thinking Sirlek is trustworthy (if not exactly a good guy). Of course, just being that nieve wouldn't be out of character for Elliot, and Magus is an alternate of Elliot, so perhaps he shares that trait... Francine survived being possessed by Sirlek, so clearly said possession isn't automatically fatal. (Perhaps he slowly drains his victim's life energy (or whatever it is Aberrations consume) over the course of years?)