Cpt. Obvious

Was this using Edge? If so then I can add that I've had problems with text edit going wonky while using Edge. Text boxes that didn't want to open. Text boxes that didn't allow for any text to be entered. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate past the current paragraph using the arrow keys. Text boxes where I wasn't allowed to navigate using the mouse, but I could select text using double or triple clicking and I could access the drop down spell check menus (something that's just stopped working for this text box that I'm writing in...). Text boxes that suddenly becomes inaccessible not allowing me to do anything to the current text, not even copying it so I didn't have to start over from scratch. Solution? Use some other browser! Any other browser should work better than Edge. Even IE is worth giving a chance over this kludge. If it wasn't Edge then I just suggest you try any other browser, just don't have to high expectations of Edge if you decide to give it a whirl. The current version of edge (Version 25.10586.0.0, EdgeHTML Version 13.10586) doesn't seem quite finished. I'd really like to push for Opera, though not the current pile of... No I'm still on the old 12.18 which was released back in 2014! No version newer than that is worth using as both FireFox and Chrome offers more functionality and better UI. So unfortunately I can't in good faith say that Opera is a valid alternative...

Lots of good suggestions here. I'd like to add the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. However this is certainly a massive undertaking as the series is ten volumes, with a total of 8889 pages, and it isn't exactly easy reading. Add to that six novels by Ian Cameron Esselmont and you have a lot of reading. But if you just want to get your feet wet I'd suggest you read The Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. It's a collection of five novellas set in the same world as the others I've listed. Compared to the rest they are quite light hearted in a dark way, and not as overwhelming. Another suggestion that might sound weird to some is David Eddings. A lot of people directly thinks of the Belgariad and the Malloreon, but frankly, if you haven't already read or tried to read those then I suggest you go for the Elenium and the Tamuil series. When compared the Belgariad looks quite bad, and honestly the Elenium reads like a second attempt at the Belgariad. In the years between he learned a lot about writing and how to tell a story. There's a lot of other authors I could mention, but I'm just going to add one more to my list, and that's Peter F. Hamilton. He mostly writes SF, but his The Night's Dawn trilogy is firmly spare opera. A shorter and lighter suggestion is the story Fallen Dragon. Read that and if you find it enjoyable then you might like The Night's Dawn Trilogy or the commonwealth Saga.

I blame the Egyptian government. They keep claiming that installing a few rocket engines would be ruining a historical monument. I'd rather call it upgrading to fulfill the designers original goals. Because who wouldn't want to see the Cheops Pyramid fly?

“You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be."

And it works! Thank you for that, it makes things so much easier... By the way, I'm using it with Opera. To make GreaseMonkey scripts work with Opera you just need to drop a copy of aagmfunctions.js in the folder where you put the GM script. This has worked for all scripts I've tested so far.

You cherry picked that a bit. The full text read: The key parts here is "I usually don't do trigger warnings, but then I'm usually not discussing the most common trigger subjects." and "If I'm posting here though, you are not likely to find a trigger warning unless it's in a thread where some one expressively asked for it." There were also the "I do also try to adapt to the local customs" which includes reading the forum rules and observing and learning from other posters and the moderators. For this to be such a big discussion I have a hard time remembering reading any posts containing trigger warnings in this forum. Most users seem to be willing to step carefully, and on the few occasions discussions break down or turns ugly the moderator has been able to stop it, often with just a warning. One problem is that triggers are highly personal, so less common trigger subjects are easy to stumble on. When that happens I don't know anything better than take notes and try to avoid being an ass. A way around that would be to have the forum software parse the posts and make them visible to a reverse-muted user if their user name is mentioned or if they are quoted. That could be circumvented by the poster using nicknames, such as Cpt. Oblivious in my case, but then it would also be obvious to those reading the posts that it's trash talk. All in all I think it would be an invitation for misuse, so it's probably just as well that it's not an option. (and I'm writing this blind as my broswer thinks white on white is perfectly fine when editing a post...)

I honestly don't understand why we are discussing this. What use is it to get up in arms over the term 'trigger warning'? If it's not applicable to you it should be easy enough to ignore, and if it's applicable then it filled a purpose. Just remind yourself that 'you' are not 'everyone' I usually don't do trigger warnings, but then I'm usually not discussing the most common trigger subjects. I do also try to adapt to the local customs for whatever forum I'm in. So if I'm posting on a suicide forum I will take a good look at my post and try to include trigger warnings that fit the site, the sub-forum and the thread. If I'm posting here though, you are not likely to find a trigger warning unless it's in a thread where some one expressively asked for it. All in all I don't see the problem or the need to argue about them. If you think someone is spamming trigger warnings just ignore them. If someone gets in your face and demand you use trigger warnings then look at what they write and decide for your self if you think it's valid. Don't just assume that they are full of it because you're unable to see the problem, so don't be an ass, and if someone goes 'full retard' on you I suggest you seriously considers just moving on or blocking them if the site supports that option. This isn't in any way the perfect way to treat this subject, just what I've found works for me. You can't please everyone, and you don't want to, but you should at least try to not be an ass about it.

I've always used 'argument' as a synonym for 'dispute'. As I understand it an argument doesn't have to be emotionally charged, though it seems to be a common opinion. Besides debates has often enough devolved into screaming and fisticuffs...

Her growth in this strip does however, in my opinion, end up quite a bit to top-heavy for her slim build. I think her bust size in the third stage looked much better, foxy yet still athletic. I'd still scratch her behind the ears (and probably get nipped for it) though... Ellen is not beyond thinking about baseball at times... But the real question is how she'd feel about having Elliot or one of his alternate identities on the team. She might be OK fantasizing about Nanase and Elliot, but most likely she wouldn't be OK with role playing it. There's the "But he's my brother!" angle, and a slight risk for jealousy as they used to date. A bit of role play as one of his female alternates is probably less likely to feel squicky as they do come with some personality adjustment for Elliot. It's probably easier to see Heidi, Mild-mannered (I'm thinking of her as "Mildred" until we get the WOG) or Angsty Goth (Agnes?) as a person separate from Elliot rather than Cheerleadra. We also know that Ellen considers Angsty Goth "disturbingly hot". There is a lot of kink fuel available for Ellen, question is what she's comfortable with and how Nanase would feel about it. As far as we know they might realize they are not comfortable using the likeness of any of their close friends, though in contrast to Elliot I think it's unlikely that they will totally fail at perversion (luckilly it does look like Ashely will be able to cure him...).

Thinking about this I suddenly remembered Tedd's gauntlet. As I remember it that was slowly gathering magic energy which he could somehow use for... things not really specified. Now I'm wondering just how that works, and what forms of magic energy it can absorb. There is probably a lot of restrictions but *if* it could safely absorb the energy of say a fireball then Tedd would probably fall off any scale used to measure the danger me might pose...

And in Cynosure swords work everywhere!

Ahhh... My old friend Writer's Block! We meet again... Now how did you escape from that black hole of abandonment and despair that's my documents folder?

One alternative would be if Tedd could build a single shot version. Throw it in the box and she can summon a new copy after each shot. It would tie in nicely with the single use magical weapons she's got now. A single shot laser could even be chemical, if a high power chemical laser is easier to make than a xenon discharge or solid state laser capable of pumping out the same wattage. A bit if laser physics: A laser can be powered in several ways, some of which isn't immediately obvious. The most common lasers we see are using a light emitting laser diode. Lasers that's used in laboratories are often powered using a glorified xenon flash tube, the lasers that were suggested for satellites in the fabled Star Wars program were to be powered with a small nuclear detonation, making them powerful one shot weapons. There was another program where the lasers were to be carried in large airplanes. These were to be chemically powered as a capacitor bank capable of powering some kind of discharge pumped laser would be way to heavy, A chemical laser is effectively a one shot weapon that needs to be take to a lab to be reconditioned and rearmed after each shot. It's possible the entire laser tube has to be replaced, I'm a bit foggy on the details here. At least that's what I remember about them. As I remember it this was the latest and greatest info on lasers as of about twenty years ago, well all but the LED lasers as those weren't really that common or powerful back then. Heck ordinary LED's were way less common and no where near as powerful back then... Note that this info may be dated or plain wrong. But it's the best I can come up with without firing up google and end up spending the better part of a day getting sidetracked...

Good point! Unfortunately most thrown weapons are rather weak. Knives are both unreliable and do very little damage. Throwing axes do more damage, but has to hit just right or they'll bounce off. Javelins and spears are probably the best throwing weapons, but they do take a lot of training and strength to be effective. More effective thrown weapons such as the atlatl requires two parts to work.

Um... Please remind me why this isn't possible? All I remember is that the original mark allowed her to summon a copy of whatever was placed in the appropriately marked box. I don't remember that there were any limit on what could be summoned other than it had to fit inside the box. When she awakened I seem to remember that one of the first two spells was basically a copy of the ability the mark had given her, and the second spell was the ability to call the hammers even after Jerry dispelled the shrine. I'm with you there. Nanase might say that Susan has never mentioned anything about being adopted, and Nanase certainly hasn't asked about it. So no, they are not certain. If Diane presses on with questions about what powers Susan has I'd say it would be OK if Nanase said something about how having powers isn't always a pleasant experience, sometimes bad things happen, and that she should keep that in mind when talking to Susan about it. Hug them! Got to hug them all!

My guess it that realizing that Ashley not only thinks it's cool that he can transform, but that she loves seeing the transformation and doesn't have a problem with dating him as her is what got Elliot over the hump. Before that he was probably afraid of how any potential girlfriend would react when learning that not only was he a boy-scout hunk that a lot of girls admired from afar, but at any time he could turn into a spandex clad crime fighting babe, who by now probably is responsible for a lot of wet dreams. Face it, as Cheerleadra probably is an embodiment of Elliot's preferences and dreams she's got the looks of a teenage boys idea of perfection. While Elliot may fail at intentional Perversion his subconscious most certainly doesn't have any such hangups, and it takes a certain kind of girl to feel it's OK if her boyfriend makes a habit of turning into a girl that has the perfect body, never has a bad hair day, never has any zits, blemishes or broken nails, and always has perfect makeup... And that's before you mention super strength, flight, integrated GPS and hands free mobile...

Am I the only one going to comment on Diane's expression in that last panel? I can't help but read that as Diane thinking something like: "You're not `sure´ she's adopted? You mean that not only does my twin, who I didn't even know existed, live in the same town for all these years, but she might be living with our biological parents? WTF?" AFAIK no one has told Diane about Susan's parents being divorced. IF it turns out that Ms. Pompoms really is the biological mother then I foresee a very tense meeting with her daughters in the near future.

Warning! Rant coming up... I watched an interview with a man who had been a prisoner of ISIS. I he was kidnapped and held for ransom and it took something like 14 months before he was released. When asked about how he was treated and what kind of people the ISIS soldiers were he said that very few of those he met seemed to care about the religion other than going through the motions. What they did care about was having free access to people to torture and humiliate. He himself had been tortured in many ways and had been through nine mock executions. Usually he was told in the morning that he would be executed as they hadn't got the money, or alternatively they had got the money and had no further use for him. They then left him to stew for a day. When evening or whatever time they claimed he was to be executed at came they put a hood over his head and dragged him outside, got him on his knees, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. Usually it was just a click, a few times they fired a gun just next to him. These mock executions wasn't ordered, it was just the guards having fun. Nine times he went through this, with some variations thrown in to keep him scared. Nine times different guards got their jollies from playing with mock executions, and that was just one prisoner. These guards came from all over, many from European countries, and they joined ISIS just so they could be assholes and torture people. Now this was a man, what they do to women isn't better in any way. Having heard that, I'm not surprised that some people might find it fun to join a bunch of misogynistic fascistic sadists in a video game. Hopefully there are very few of those who feels it's OK to do this in the real world. Unfortunately though there are some who do, and organizations like ISIS or Boko Haram and The Lord's Resistance Army in Africa are just too happy to recruit them. Sorry for the rant... I just had to say that there are people out there that are worse than what we like to imagine is possible.

Ohhh! A new spell for Elliot... If I were Magic I'd give him an awesome autopilot... that followed the GPS instructions to the letter including obeying speed limits, traffic lights, and always stopping for pedestrians crossing the road. I'm not sure if I'd make him follow the roads at a height of six feet, or fifty, either way he'd be at the mercy of traffic, the spell having him follow the rhythm of road bound traffic while paying no attention to birds, drones or anything else that flies. I can visualize the look on her friends faces when they learn that Cheerleadra is stuck in traffic and can't figure out how to disengage the autopilot... It's probably a good thing that it's Dan writing this comic and not me...

I think it helps that though they liked and even love each other they were never really in love. Big difference. Nanase dated Elliot as he was as close to the ideal man as she could find among her friends and acquaintances. Elliot on the other hand dated her because he liked her as a friend and when she approached him he really didn't understand the feelings of love and being in love. When they broke up neither of them felt that there was a big gaping hole where the other used to be, and so there were no hard feelings. Sarah and Elliot dating was similar. They've known each other since they were toddlers, and though there were friendship and love, and some lust due to hormones, they were never truly in love. The breakup again showed that neither of them suffered the trauma of having their heart broken, nor were there much anger involved. There were some frustration but not much anger. In both cases some feelings were a bit bruised, but no hearts were broken... The fact that none of them is a selfish a-hole does help.

If clairvoyance in the EGS universe works anything like the commonly used definition then they would only need to take an interest in Susan to see that she has a sibling. Clairvoyance is usually defined as the ability to by supernatural means gain information about something or someone even if said event was something that happened in the past and / or far from the current position. So for really old immortals finding out about something as important as someone having a sibling should be easy. Only question is how much effort they have to put into using their clairvoyance. Is it a free automatic action, or does it require intent and some effort and time to use? Pandora seems to use it a lot, even when she'd prefer not to.

So could Ellen, but she'd probably choose not to use that label. As both Elliot and Tedd are able to switch gender at will I wouldn't say they qualify as Ex-Men. Vladia could be said to be one even though she's theoretically able to shift back into her original male form we know she won't risk doing so.

I think Adrian has the "crazy, and super dangerous." part nailed down. That face in panel 9 is certainly crazy enough, and if he wasn't virtually hogtied by the laws regulating magic use by Elves I believe he would fit the "super dangerous" part as well.

Not to mention that a lot of them has smart phones with cameras. So interview them and make sure to get permission to use as many recordings as possible...

Would the world be a better place without alcohol? Perhaps it would, but I think we would just have found some other way to intoxicate ourselves. I can't think of a single "natural" alcoholic beverage that tastes good the first time you drink it. With natural I mean naturally fermented, such as beer or wine. The first time I tried beer I thought it was foul but after trying it enough it grew on me, and today I can appreciate it. In my experience the same goes for wine. The hard stuff is even worse, or better depending on what side of the curve you are. Whisky has a huge spread, from smooth bourbon to devastatingly smoky and tar infused golden honey. But it all taste awful the first time and still I've learned to enjoy it. How perverse is that? However the really dangerous stuff is things like alcopop and fruit flavored ciders as these largely hides the taste of alcohol making it easy to drink more than you realize. Personally I'm something as weird as a responsible drunk. When drunk I try to take care of everyone, making sure they don't drink to much, that they don't get into fights, that they get home safely, that they doesn't do anything to stupid or dangerous. This has made people believe that I'm not actually drinking that much, or that I have some kind of amazing alcohol tolerance when actually I'm drunk as a skunk. One time I was at a club with some friends and we all got hammered. I ended up carrying a friend upp the stairs from the place, flagged down a cab, dumped him in it and payed the cabbie, including giving him a gratuitous tip just in case my friend would throw up. The day after I woke up feeling like shit, my pants was standing in the corner covered in dried mud and I had twigs and pine needles in both hair and beard. The thing is that there are no parks or anything anywhere between the club and my flat, and I had no idea what had happened. I just remembered starting to walk home and I actually thought I remembered it all, but the state of my pants and the twigs and pine needles told another story. After that I didn't touch anything alcoholic for almost three years, and I've been very careful ever since. Another strange thing is that I've never been involved in a fight with anyone while drunk even though I can't help but get in the way whenever it starts to get ugly. Figure that? So does that mean I think alcohol is safe in any way? No. One of my closest friends brother committed suicide after suffering from brain damage. He was in a club and got jumped from behind by a drunk. It could have been any kind of other drug involved of course, but if it hadn't been for alcohol culture making it accepted to be intoxicated in clubs it probably wouldn't have happened. And as I grew up the neighbor's son was a drunk. One time he drew a knife and tried to stab his mother, something so totally out of character that I have no idea what went on in his head. He joined the AA and is now a sober drunk. Last time I heard from him he had been sober for more than ten years, but he's still a drunk. Alcohol is NOT a safe drug, but it's one I know a bit about how it works and what the dangers are. For me it's the case of better the devil you know, and that's why I prefer that alcohol remains as the common legal intoxicant over replacing it with or adding THC or something else that we lack long term data for as large a sample as we do have for alcohol. I can't see what good it would do to legalize another intoxicant while we still have alcohol as available as it is today. And no, I don't think banning alcohol would be possible. It's just to deeply ingrained in our society. Just look at the prohibition in the US and what followed in it's wake.