CritterKeeper

Overall, I like this one. Great expression on Lucy, varied and well-drawn body positions, especially the hands, and I can kinda see how Rhoda's sitting on the armrest between them could bring their heads to the same level (although her legs really don't look like that sort of position). My one major gripe is their, ah, endowments. As I've made clear before, when I see a sketchbook with characters we know and love, I want it to actually be them, not some other body, unless the transformation is an active part of the image/situation. Part of Lucy and Diane's friendship was Diane's support of Lucy when she was feeling embarassed about getting big breasts as a teen. Diane is an almost-twin of Susan, and Susan is described as lanky and thin, and unlike Nanase her magic isn't going into her cup size, so it makes more sense for her to have smaller breasts. Not flat-chested, but not exactly saggy-big either. And most of the time the art corresponds with that, even more recent art. Compare Susan's figure to Cheerleadra's here, or Diane's to Charlotte's to Nanase and Ellen's here. Diane is far too well-endowed here, while Lucy isn't big enough. If you wanted big boobs, why not put them on the girl who got an extra helping extra-early? Sure, you could excuse it by saying they're transformed, but why? So, I like this one, a lot, but not 100%. :-)

But nothing really out of the ordinary. Tedd dealt with it pretty quickly, and she was in a much better mood after their talk than he had been before it. It explained one of the great mysteries in Tedd's life. Kids often blame themselves when their parents split up, but Tedd is old enough now to realize that parents have motivations too, and are only human. Tedd can see that her leaving was a fault in her, not Tedd. And is rational enough to realize the implications of his reaction to the wand almost immediately. He had a lot on his mind. Again, Tedd's reaction is nothing unusual for someone who has just found out that their plan for their life isn't going to happen. I had a friend who wanted to be a Japanese translator, but then discovered that her eyesight was just too bad for the teeny little details of kanji. She had to completely rethink what her life goals were and figure out how to achieve new ones. There's a difference between a normal response to a loss and depression. Depression is when it's out of proportion or is lasting far longer than it should. Feeling sad isn't depression. Feeling regrets isn't depression. Even mourning isn't necessarily depression, indeed it can be quite healthy and failing to mourn a loss is what's unhealthy. It was Elliot and Tedd on the basement couch, wasn't it? No, wait, maybe I'm thinking of Tedd angsting over breakups. Well, I know what you mean, anyway, and I don't think a little anxiety is the same thing as becoming so withdrawn people thought Tedd was mute. Edward's fears are way overblown, and sadly show a real lack of confidence in Tedd's ability to deal. He doesn't see how much Tedd has grown and changed (Insert joke about bra cup sizes here). I don't think so. Even then, he had friends to help him through, and despite their differences and trust issues, I don't think Tedd actually doubts that Edward loves him. Tedd had accepted his "thing" and could talk about it rationally with Sarah, not to mention work on ways to compensate for it. I see a little sadness, a little regret, but nothing more. Even just talking about it with a friend is healthy. I think it would have been "safe" long before this, but the timing certainly is better this way.

Exactly. Tedd is keeping secrets from his father and that sort of thing tends to snowball. ("His" father because that's the form Tedd is in on this page) Last we heard, Mr. Verres was almost certain that learning about his mother, even just the fact that she was a famous monster-hunter, would send him into a severe withdrawl from everyone and likely depression.

Or, they could record and archive it all, and only go analyse the recordings if they have cause to later.

I think it was pretty much an open secret. Whoever would have had to take action deliberately didn't know. If someone had complained, I suppose they might have had to make them switch back. The dorm was a special interest one, specifically for the science fiction club, so I'm pretty sure they had more autonomy that a regular dorm would have, although not as much as a frat house.

I can see three ways that would go: * Wall of text exposition, recaping stuff we've already seen but the two haven't shared with each other. This is what the Dan of the first couple of years of the comic would have done. * Skilful use of the conversation to recap things as a way of making sure everyone is up to date and remembers all the relevant facts, to set up the next storyline. Dan could definitely handle this now. * Cleverly using the conversation to reveal layers of information about the characters, their differing perceptions of what's happened, and the differences in their attitudes and plans, as well as working in information new to us as well as the characters. I am confident that Dan has evolved enough as a storyteller to be able to do this; although it's a lot more work to do well, the payoff is a joy to read!

My sister was assigned to a double with another girl. Her roommate had a boyfriend, who had a single. So, one swap later, my sister had a single for the price of a double, and the happy couple was, well, happy.

That was my idea (I'm sure I'm not the only one). It was Pandora's college-student-doing-a-psychology-project that made me want to see more of that version of her. :-) She might arrange to be an official roommate, yet not spend all her time in that guise. More of a roommate on paper. It would get Sarah some extra privacy, if it's like my university was with all frosh required to live in the dorms and a typical dorm room housing two students. Extra privacy that would allow for regular visits and lessons, wand-waving, and such.

I'm sorry to hear that the forum is a source of stress for you instead of a stress-reliever like it is for me. I hope you'll be up to rejoining us again soon, in a much-improved frame of mind and energy level! Please let us know if there is anything we can do, in the meanwhile (other than each buy a hundred copies of your album ;-).

Wanna bet Nanase Craft genuinely thinks of herself as an archaeologist for hire, and will be taken aback by Sarah's refuting that?

I never liked the grunge music or fashion. To me it just seemed like whiney upper-middle-class kids pretending to be hard up, and I didn't see the appeal to anyone out of their early teens. I'd gone through my own "sorta heavy metal" phase at that early teen age and grown out of it long before grunge, so the idea that it was supposed to be the "voice of my generation" really annoyed me! Computer game-wise, I went from Pong to Zork-style text adventure and Atari to PLATO to a few computer games on a C64 and later PC, but I was rarely cutting-edge. I did play Myst when I did a zoo externship and stayed in someone's guest room where their son's computer was....at one point I mentioned how far I'd gotten, and he realized I was a lot farther on his game than he was. I was able to buy a game if it really interested me, like Myst (which I did buy when I went home so I could finish it), but I wouldn't have been able to buy every game. I don't think I've actually been into computer games since the 90s, other than a brief obsession with Facebook games back when they were first a thing, and another with The Sims free versions online. Hmm, and I suppose the Sims 2 was after the 90s....and some Pokemon GO more recently....okay, maybe I've played in an equally sporadic manner since then. ;-P

It was in the Bloodhound Gang's theme song first!

Not necessarily. It's kind of like the Uncanny Valley -- it might freak someone out more to see a transformation that's still within the normal human range, than one that's far beyond it. At least a werewolf-y transformation is obvious, whereas a within-human change could be hidden from a person or lied about, thus feel more like a betrayal than a secret. It's not logical, but neither is the Uncanny Valley effect.

The Bloodhound Gang -- Whenever there's trouble, they're there on the double!

From what we've seen of Camdin, I'm not so sure he'd tell Luke that he could learn other people's spells. I could definitely see him using Luke's ability to look at people and see their magic, and then if he wanted to discuss someone in particular with Luke, saying, "Hey, check that person, could you? No? How about that one? And that one? Bingo!" That change in the pupils is exactly what Luke and Tedd do to see magic. His being a Wizard would explain it, and it's about time we saw a non-government, non-Seer, plain old everyday Wizard!

Huh. Does Smoke have two abilities? Has he Awoken? Or is he a Wizard or Seer? He seems to be using a Magic-Sight ability like Tedd or Luke have, and he's also transformed to smoke. If he's a Wizard he could have picked it up from watching Luke. If he's a Seer he would need to have been unqualified, either knowing a Seer's purpose or not having used magic yet, and I don't see how either of those could be the case, given our timeline. So, I'm calling it -- Smoke wasn't just looking for kicks, he wanted to add new transformations to his collection of spells. But he can't learn Grace's type of magic.

How silly. 4004 BC is a lot earlier than that!

It's always fun when an author you love recognizes you. I still have a T-shirt somewhere from the Weis-Hickman Rebel Alliance. This weekend had Phil and Kaja Foglio as guests of honor. Well, Phil officially, but they're basically a package deal. Hence my being inspired to re-read and hopefully catch up on Girl Genius.

One of the local sci-fi fan-run conventions was last weekend, and as usual, there were some room parties that went above and beyond on the decorations and theme-ing. One was a group of teens who turned the room into a giant box fort. Another covered the walls with enlarged versions of comic book characters (on paper, not the walls themselves, we do like this hotel and don't want to be kicked out). My favorite was themed on the Alien/Aliens movies, with plush chestbursters and facehuggers on random corners and shelves, plus a few in glowing "specimen jars", and giant poster-style images of various portions of a spaceship to make it seem like the room was the Nostromo. Bits of duct and running strings of light added to the feel of the ship. There was a plush orange tabby cat above the TV with an ID badge identifying him as Jonesy, the cat from the movies, with his position listed as "Coping Officer" and the ID number 009/L1-VE5. Everyone running the party had Nostromo T-shirts, mostly white print on black shirts but one in pink ink and one in pink glitter ink. And best of all, they had a actual official ALIENS coloring book, and had made copies of various pages and set them out with a big box of crayons. :-) They had the movies running, with captions on, and it's always good to get to rediscover how great a classic movie is!

Voicemail message from a client. I am amused at how happy/excited/enthusiastic a person can be that their cat pooped. "A wonderful bowel movement, I don't think I've seen that type of bowel movement out of him for years! It is terriffic!" I'm definitely leaving this one on the voicemail for the receptionists to hear tomorrow. They'll get a kick out of it too! :-D (In case anyone here has an old cat who gets constipated, we used a mix of warm water and lube, passing a red rubber catheter up past the blockage, doing several of these mini-enemas throuhout the day instead of one big one the cat would have to be sedated for. It's a wonderful trick every vet should know about!)

Ye gods, now I'm picturing Grace transforming into a Jägerkin. I really shouldn't go back and forth between webcomics like this.

Nobody expects the Spammish Repetition! Spam spam spam spam, spammity spam..... So the Doctor's granddaughter was less than eight years ahead of herself when she got confused about how many shillings in a pound, way back in the pilot, "An Unearthly Child".

Makes me picture all the multi-lingual labels and signs and instruction manuals we have now. In a few thousand years, will someone use the How To Install Your Smart Speaker booklet as a key to deciphering the mysterious "English" language? Or perhaps an engraved tourist sign about a Niagara Falls long since dried up? ;-)

I agree that Grace may transform if she feels the need to protect her new friend. Now that she's got a bit of training under her belt, hopefully she'll think quickly enough to just tell Sam to get behind her at first, and save any dramatic Omega-form for responding to actual hostile action. If she does bring out her antennae, I suspect Camdin will think she's Noah's hero identity instead of Cheerleadra.

Gosh, it's almost like someone has a prejudice against name-based affinities..... ;-)