Cpt. Obvious

Of course players are allowed to be creative, but no one likes the player that lugs around a complete set of every rule book, appendix, and world book ever published and insists on cherry picking optional rules from all of them and keeps arguing over every rule interpretation. The DM is the final authority on the what, when, why, and how. I actually prefer when the players don't really know anything about how the game system works behind the screen. It makes for better role playing and avoids most minmaxing or munchkin tendencies. A group I've played with did what we called freestyle role playing. A session usually started with deciding on the genre and what characteristics, if any, to track. We tended to pair it down to three or possibly four characteristics, and voted upon which ones. Then we decided on what dice to use for skill checks. Common choices was d6, 3-d6, d10, d12, d100. Finally the players rolled their stats and wrote a short description of their characters. Sometimes the players would choose a number of skills based on their character description, and these skills could be just about anything as long as the DM gave the OK. These skills could be bought using points from a pot, they could be derived from stats, or they could just signify expertise. How they worked was up to the DM... And then we played... No rule books to plow through, no limitations on what the DM could put into the story, no limit on what the players might want to try, and no way that there could be any disagreement on the interpretation of the rules as the only rules was what the DM said they were... Free styling like this not only got the players to concentrate on the role rather than the rules, but it also allowed the DM to concentrate on the role playing, which tended to result in really fun free flowing adventures, seldom coming anywhere near the story the DM originally had in mind.

I think he's a hardcore roleplayer. Rules are what the DM says they are, and rules wrangling is only tolerated if it's done to enhance the role play, which is a rare occasion.

I think I've posted on this before but this time I got a new picture in my mind. Rhoda resting in the frosting like she's posing for sensual pictures. Meanwhile Catalina is furiously eating her way straight through the side leaving a Catalina sized hole.

Houston, we've got catgirls! I repeat we've got catgirls, as in two of them!

Well we know where they would hide; In Susans hair! And now I can see her mother looking at the glass in her hand as several fairies are shyly peering at her from their safe hiding place, innocently oblivious of just how visible they are. And then there's the possibility that all of this rouses Susan and her first reaction being to panic and dismissing all the fairies in one big bangf...

It would be an interesting twist if it turned out that Susan had been sleep summoning the fairies, and can't get the hang of doing it consciously... I can also imagine a scene where her mother comes by her room just to take a look at her sleeping daughter, something most parents tend to do at least a few times once they start to realize that their children are growing up and one day not to far into the future they'll move out. Anyway I can just imagine the scene as she sees her daughter apparently having fallen asleep while playing with some dolls, only to realize that one of the dolls flutters it's wings, yawns and turns over cuddling up to Susan and appears to fall asleep...

I don't know. Somehow I can't help thinking Jeremy would look awesome bringing the heat to the dogs of the neighborhood... But at the same time I have a hard time seeing him have much of a problem with those dogs. Being a abomination of science he's probably the bane of any cat chasing dog, at least in my head canon.

No useful thoughts on sizes, relative or not, nor on enchantments and their interactions with each other, but two ideas popped into mind and refuses to leave until I've shared them with the world. (at least I hope that will make them a bit less urgent) First is an image of a catty Katalina making for GetTheHeckOutOfHere! Running at full tilt on all fours with her tail held high at maximum bush and passing people at a speed leaving them to wonder just what they were seeing. Surely no human can run that fast, especially not on all four... And those who know Kat being left with a feeling that this cat looks disturbingly familiar, but not quite making the connection as this obviously was an animal of some kind. The other picture is Kat and Rhoda on their own after having escaped the mall. They've retreated home, who's home is undetermined, and Kat is sitting on the bed grooming herself just like a big cat not noticing that Rhoda is staring at her barely able to hold back a loud "Squeee!" and aching to pet her... (OK, I've written it down, now will you please let me think of something else, you stupid brain!)

More complicated? Yes, it certainly looks like that, and then there's the increased risk chance for accidents highjinks... I think this is the sexiest, cutest and cuddliest Pandora form yet. I can't decide if I want to have miniature catgirl Pandora curled up on my lap, scratching her behind the ears and under the cheek, or if I would have more carnal interest in her. But then I remember the comics for Wednesday, Nov 11 and Nov 13, 2009, and suddenly I'm scaroused...

Problem is threefold... Sugars used to be hard to come by when we were scavenging for our food so having it tickle the pleasure center of our brain was a good idea at the time. Now sugar is cheap and easy to come by, but the rewards system remains so we tend to like sweet food. And as the laws of economics dictate the producers will aim to satisfy the demand of the majority to maximize profit. Now just like with other drugs eating sugar will build up a tolerance making you crave more sugar for the same rush. So a lot of us are effectively sugar junkies... I'm not certain that the source of sugar is all that important, be it high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar the effect is much the same. What's changed is the price, making sugar a cheap and cost effective additive. I don't know if fat is as addictive as sugar, but I'd expect that there would be some effect.

Well we're running on an ancient design spec. While our brains has evolved the base OS is still the same that we were running back in the stone age. Some of the parameters are that high energy food is good. So fat and sugar tickles our pleasure center, giving us incentive to find more of that "good stuff". Dieting is dicey as most diets I've heard of will starve you to some degree. When you starve the caveman part of your brain concludes that there is some kind of crisis. You might be wounded and unable to scavenge for food, or it's dry season and the animals has moved to greener pastures. Whatever the case you are getting to few calories so you have to use less energy. First step is to burn muscle tissue. Muscles are energy hogs, and right now your body thinks that conserving energy is more important than maintaining muscle tone, so the muscles are broken down and used for energy. Fat on the other hand consumes very little energy to maintain, and once your excessive muscle tissue has been eliminated the energy rich fat tissue can keep you alive for a long time, hopefully until you've healed up, the rains come, or autumn comes and you can start scavenging for food again... This was a fine survival strategy when we were living in caves, but with night open supermarkets and McDonalds at every other corner fat and sugar are far from being scarce, and when we cut down on the calories we want to retain as much muscle tissue as possible and burn fat instead, something our inner caveman just doesn't understand. As I see it any diet that drastically cuts the calorie intake risks triggering our caveman survival mode. Running and aerobic exercises combined with moderating the calorie intake slightly will work, but takes a lot of time and if you cut down on the exercises you are are likely to gain all the weight back again. An alternative is to build muscles as a complement to some aerobic training. Actually you will need some aerobics for the strength training to be effective. There are several good arguments for pumping some iron. The increased energy consumption even when sleeping is one. Another is that once you've increased your muscle mass you can cut back a bit on the training without loosing those muscles again. You can't stop training, but cutting back a bit is doable. Then there's the fact that if you are obese you NEED some muscle just to move better. And finally there's been research done that contrary to popular belief muscle heads are less likely to contract age related diseases than those who putts all their energy in aerobic exercises. So according to statistics marathon runners are actually dying off quicker than the gym rats. Never would have thought that myself. Now everything in moderation, that's a good rule to live by. If you go over the top with any training it's not healthy. If you start eating protein powders, carbohydrate loading, or even steroids odds are you're no longer training to improve your health, you're doing it for other reasons. Sorry if it turned into a rant...

I'm speculating that Diane doesn't consider what happened when she was dating boys as personal. That was like a job to her. None of that was personal. However getting close to someone who she does have feelings for might be very scary for her as she then looses the control she's had in previous relationships. Letting someone inside her armor is scary. That armor has protected her from being hurt, but if she let someone in she's vulnerable. Besides she's probably afraid of what they would think of how she's used boys before. She's very intelligent, and is probably aware that a lot of people thinks that she's been a bitch the way she treated those boys. She's got a small group of friends whom she trusts, but she's got some shields in place even with them, keeping secret just how much they mean to her. And that is what I meant by say that Diane might be uncomfortable with close personal relationships.

Seems perfectly in line with the brownie scale used by the Dunkels. Though Mama Kitsune is apparently a bit stricter. Maybe if she'd baked brownies instead...

Are you referring to Susan or Diane? And please, don't answer "yes", that joke feels a bit overused lately. Yes... But actually: Yes, both of them do have the hots for Elliot, but while Susan currently can't let someone in inside her armor, Diane is currently holding off from actively hunting him down because she doesn't want to butt in when he is in a relationship. At least that's her official excuse to herself. I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that Diane never has had any relationship with a boy that wasn't built on his capability and willingness to spend money on her, and even then it probably never progressed beyond a kiss on the cheek. So it's entirely possible that she's almost as uncomfortable with a close personal relationship as Susan is...

Well, unless someone had reason to doubt the birth certificate is authentic is has probably not been scrutinized. Mr. Verres said he or the DGB had investigated the friends of Tedd, and he knew that according to records Susan didn't have a twin sister. I doubt that they would bother to investigate other kids born at the same hospital within a day or so unless there had been something indicating that they might be related to the birth of Susan. So as far as we know Diane's birth records hasn't really been investigated making it possible that they may be falsified. They could even be the official records from the parallel universe that's been slipped into the system.

And I'm still pouting...

I'd argue against that. In my totally baseless opinion the size change spell has already started to cross over to a transformation spell the moment it allowed for selective resizing of separate parts of the body. Going from that to a total transformation spell is just a short hop to the right... What I'm wondering most is how Pandora will react to discovering that Rhoda has acquired yet another spell...

This could cause interesting reactions depending on the results. I can imagine that a doctor or technician might do a double take if the gene test showed that they are indeed identical twins, and yet Susan is quite a bit taller than Diane. And isn't Susan now naturally dark haired after some magic incident, or was that some thing else? (I'm following way to many web comics, starting to have a problem keeping them apart, though sometimes the mash ups that results in can be quite amusing...)

I'd prefer food that doesn't talk back...

It depends on precisely how old 'that age' is. Dan's art was rather stylised at the time; Susan might have been anywhere from five to eight years old. I do not think I would have understood the precise mechanics at age eight myself but I do think I would have understood what was going on, had it been me. I'd read enough at the time to have an idea. But then I'd been a voracious reader since I was six. Also, I think that Susan did not consider that her father might still want anything to do with her as she considered it irrelevant. She was the one who cut him off when she told the truth to her mother. Even if she didn't understand that what happened was bad, or at least just how bad it was, the reaction by her mom left very little doubt that she considered it extremely bad. If they're sneaky enough, serial cheaters can avoid getting caught. The time Susan caught him, it could have been just one count of cheating out of countless he wasn't caught for. I have cousins who learned that they had a half brother at the reading of their fathers testament. Turned out that he had two families, and managed to keep this secret for more than fifty years. No one even suspected that there was anything going on, and yet he had to split his time between the two families. It started to fall apart after he was pensioned. Before that he traveled as a part of his job and managed to spend time with his second family. Some years later his health took a turn for the worse and he was hospitalized, effectively cutting off all possible contact with the other family. So when there suddenly was a four children (my cousins are two brothers and a sister) mentioned in the will it was quite a chock. Two of my cousins didn't want to have anything to do with this new relative, but the third one says that meting his "new" half brother was a pretty incredible experience. There were so many things he recognized from his full siblings and after just a few hour it felt like they really knew each almost as well as he knows his siblings. When asked they all say that the first feeling was disbelief. It just couldn't be true. Then they got mad at their father, that he could do something like this to their mother and them. But eventually they had to accept that what was done was done, and even if their father had cheated on their mother, and had kept a huge part of his life secret it didn't change the fact that he had been their father, and a good father at that.

Did something similar back in the nineties. I went directly from a huge wedding to a LPC concert in black suit and tie. Being the only one in the audience dressed like this I drew quite a lot of confused stares. Didn't stop me from dancing my ass off. Not being all that sober probably helped me shake loose, though it couldn't do anything to improve my dance or to keep the others safe. Still I had a good time and I don't remember seriously hurting anyone.

My memory is quite selective. I remember that girls had Big Hair, wore pastel colored clothes, leg warmers, lots of big cheap jewelry, lots of makeup. short shorts. Short tops. Short jackets. Tights and pirate pants, often transparent in the right light, and then there were the mumble pants... As for us boys I have no idea really. Didn't care to commit anything about male fashion, because I was to occupied watching the girls...

By some definitions, cows would qualify. Beasts that are used as machines to turn grass and grain into milk and steaks. Eating your slaves doesn't sound very nice though...

Has anyone suggested that perhaps the blonde that Susan caught her father with actually are the biological mother of both Susan and Diane? What I'm thinking is that perhaps Ms. Pompoms was unable to conceive, and the couple found a surrogate mother, "the blonde", to carry their child. I'm not sure what the legal ramifications in the US might have been back then, or what they are today for that matter, but I can see how something like this might have been a bit embarrassing if it became common knowledge. So perhaps they payed off the personal at the hospital to fudge the records to show that Susan is their biological daughter. Diane would have been an unforeseen complication, and either Mr. or Ms. Pompoms might have refused to accept twins when the contract was for one child. Yes, it's a bit dark, and it shows whoever would be responsible for refusing to take both twins in a particularly bad light. It could however give a nasty explanation of why Ms. Pompoms didn't put up much of a fight when Susan first wanted to change her hair color. Anything that made Susan look less like her twin would make people less likely to notice the similarities between them. And yes, I'm speculating that it was Ms. Pompoms that refused to adopt both babies, and that the woman who Susan caught her father with was the biological mother...

Oh, something like this? Originally they had a much more limited system, though I've been unable to find it now, but this improved version has a lot of practical color codes such as Goldenrod, Maroon, Navy, Saffron and Indigo.