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Pharaoh RutinTutin

Story, Wednesday November 15, 2017

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12 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Apparently even possessed siblings fight as soon as they get in the car.

And one of the possessed siblings is possessed by a sibling: The other Dunkel.

Edited by Tom Sewell
How dare you think I made a mistake? Two misteeks. Nevr mnid.

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... ok. The variant that Magus will WANT someone to remember and goes so far as to take ASHLEY with them was definitely not something I would expect. (The explanation in commentary makes sense - yes, we need someone Magus will explain things to - but the in-story reason was too weak to predict.)

Hmmm ... is Sirleck better at driving than Magus? Maybe they don't have cars in Magus's home dimension?

Also, doesn't seem ELLEN will remember enough to work as witness.

BTW, Alshey is FINALLY asking something - not like when with Nanase.

... is the Calm spell similar to the Serenity spell Jerry used?

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39 minutes ago, partner555 said:

Wouldn't this put Ashley in more danger?

Not if everything will go by Magus's plan.

Yes if everything will go by Sirleck's plan.

In most likely case - meaning, Sirleck will execute his plan but will not succeed - hard to say.

Note that I expect Ashley WILL be hit with sleep again later ...

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2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... ok. The variant that Magus will WANT someone to remember and goes so far as to take ASHLEY with them was definitely not something I would expect. (The explanation in commentary makes sense - yes, we need someone Magus will explain things to - but the in-story reason was too weak to predict.)

The fact that Magus wants to be able to explain the situation in case Elliot doesn't remember the whole thing, and I guess this might be confirmation that Ellen won't remember being possessed by Sirleck, gives more evidence that Magus is a good guy just trying to get out of a bad situation.

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Ashley's riding along for the purposes of exposition....

Works for me. When Coraline was made into a movie, they added a new character (Wybie) for that reason - and that reason only.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... is Sirleck better at driving than Magus?

Perhaps. It is canon that Magus hasn't driven a car in three years or so. But if Sirleck is driving, he can't suddenly attack without wrecking the car, can he?

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Maybe they don't have cars in Magus's home dimension?

No cars, and yet they have modern-style neckties and shirt collars. Well, maybe.

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Right now I'm writing out the dialog in this comic like a screenplay, and I just finished Panel Three. Sirleck must not get out much; there are bunches of lights in our own nighttime skies. What's Sirleck expecting? Some kind of glowing, avenging angel? Three-tailed squirrels with flaming swords? Black helicopter gunships? <em>Another</em> alien invasion?

Magus seems to be more comfortable in the mundane Moperverse after three years than Sirleck in who knows how many lifetimes. Possibly that's because as far as Magus knows only one Immortal is pissed off at him.

Addendum

I just finished the "screenplay. I was writing it as an HTML page using Notepad++, an open source free program, so I have to type out all the formatting codes (Well, I use copy-and-paste a lot.) Anyway, my fingers were still typing in raw HTML mode when I wrote the first paragraph in this post.

Edited by Tom Sewell
Additional information

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1 hour ago, AFNB said:

Ashley's riding along for the purposes of exposition....

That would be if there were no PLOT reason for her presence. There is one. Magus wants a witness who can explain his motivations to the currently possessed and presumably unaware Elliot.

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I find it most interesting that Magus doesn't know how much Elliot will remember, but he doesn't seem to think that Ellen explaining things to Elliot is an option.  Does he know for certain that Ellen won't remember, or does he know that something is going to happen to Ellen that will prevent her being able to tell Elliot anything?  Doesn't look good for Ellen, and I hope that's the first thing Ashley asks about, as it would show she picked up on that little detail too.

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22 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

I find it most interesting that Magus doesn't know how much Elliot will remember, but he doesn't seem to think that Ellen explaining things to Elliot is an option.

I'd say Magus know that Ashley is more likely to give him the benefit of a doubt than Ellen. Even if Magus can't access Elliot's memories, he's spent a lot of time learning everything he can about Elliot and his friends. If he was following Ellen in Diane's car on Saturday, he would know about how Ashley refused to ask all the questions she had to have. If nothing else, Ashley is Elliot's girlfriend, and it couldn't hurt to have her on his side when pleading his case.

22 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Does he know for certain that Ellen won't remember,

No, and he should be smart enough to know that he doesn't know. Sirleck has every reason to lie to Magus about that.

22 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

does he know that something is going to happen to Ellen that will prevent her being able to tell Elliot anything?

He should realize it's a possibility.

I've been saying for awhile that I think Magus was a jerk before he opened the bon voyage phial and I still stand by what I've said. Pandora may have actually set up his situation because she thought he deserved it. Please, no distracting arguments about whether or not Pandora could get to Magus' universe; if she did, she could. Whether or not Pandora taught it, Magus has learned a hard lessen by now; he's a better person than he would have ever been without this experience.

That doesn't mean Magus will outsmart Sirleck. Ashley, Ellen, and Magus are all still in incredible danger. And we haven't even begun to consider what part Voltaire may play in this nighttime drive to an unknown destination.

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So, my speculation: this occurs after a scene we'll be getting to later in which Susan and Diane get into a fight with the army of aberrations, possibly with the help of one or more "good" Immortals, which somehow leads to a magical lights display in the sky.

I'm actually a little disappointed Dan felt the need to "keep the tone from getting out of hand". Dan has already shown with Painted Black and the previous Sister stories that he can take EGS to a fairly dark place and then pull it back into fairly lighthearted comedy/drama, and I feel like those highs and lows help to give the world a greater feeling of depth. Of course, there's plenty of room for things to still get darker, but I don't see why this particular scene couldn't have a darker tone.

...Also, Magus could have followed Sirleck's first suggestion and still explained everything to Ashley; she doesn't have to be able to talk back for him to exposit at her.

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5 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Right now I'm writing out the dialog in this comic like a screenplay, and I just finished Panel Three. Sirleck must not get out much; there are bunches of lights in our own nighttime skies. What's Sirleck expecting? Some kind of glowing, avenging angel? Three-tailed squirrels with flaming swords? Black helicopter gunships? <em>Another</em> alien invasion?

Sirleck should be aware of traffic lights and searchlights from aircraft or just wing/tail light s on aircraft in general. I would think he'd keep up with the latest trends and tech in order to be able to do what he does without raising suspicion. Though Uryuom spacecraft lights might be possible if he's been in the dark about aliens.

Another possibility is that Sirleck's talking about the exploding spidervampire from the previous Saturday. Or maybe it's foreshadowing that someone noticed him and he narrowly escaped.

4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

I find it most interesting that Magus doesn't know how much Elliot will remember, but he doesn't seem to think that Ellen explaining things to Elliot is an option.  Does he know for certain that Ellen won't remember, or does he know that something is going to happen to Ellen that will prevent her being able to tell Elliot anything?  Doesn't look good for Ellen, and I hope that's the first thing Ashley asks about, as it would show she picked up on that little detail too.

Magus doesn't possess bodies on a regular basis, in fact this would be his first time, so he has no prior experience to know for sure how this will affect Elliot, he's basically got the word of an Immortal that he doesn't trust that this procedure won't harm Elliot but that doesn't include affecting memories. I doubt he trusts Sirleck as far as he can throw him so he probably doesn't want to take any chances, though it is possible that Sirleck had confirmed that his hosts are never aware of being possessed. Sirleck's and Magus are employing different methods of possession after all.

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12 hours ago, Scotty said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... ok. The variant that Magus will WANT someone to remember and goes so far as to take ASHLEY with them was definitely not something I would expect. (The explanation in commentary makes sense - yes, we need someone Magus will explain things to - but the in-story reason was too weak to predict.)

The fact that Magus wants to be able to explain the situation in case Elliot doesn't remember the whole thing, and I guess this might be confirmation that Ellen won't remember being possessed by Sirleck, gives more evidence that Magus is a good guy just trying to get out of a bad situation.

Or at least that he THINKS he's good guy ... but I though we already knew that.

11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... is Sirleck better at driving than Magus?

Perhaps. It is canon that Magus hasn't driven a car in three years or so. But if Sirleck is driving, he can't suddenly attack without wrecking the car, can he?

I would expect Sirleck wasn't driving much in last three years either because he had driver. On the other hand, perhaps Magus is not aware of it ; Magus might just ASSUME Sirleck is better driver and Sirleck is confident enough to let him think that.

11 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Maybe they don't have cars in Magus's home dimension?

No cars, and yet they have modern-style neckties and shirt collars. Well, maybe.

They can have something similar to cars but different enough to the driving experience not working properly. Some literal carriages without horses perhaps. Or they simply drive on other side of road.

9 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

That doesn't mean Magus will outsmart Sirleck. Ashley, Ellen, and Magus are all still in incredible danger. And we haven't even begun to consider what part Voltaire may play in this nighttime drive to an unknown destination.

On the other hand, Voltaire's plan might easily RAISE chance of Elliot's survival ... I mean,we know so little about his plan we don't know if it will raise or lower chance of Elliot, Ashley and Ellen's survival. However, we know that he won't do anything with intent of Elliot getting killed.

9 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:
15 hours ago, hkmaly said:

... is the Calm spell similar to the Serenity spell Jerry used?

The effect might be similar, but this one isn't nearly as fuzzy.

Well it's obviously inferior, yes.

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I'm actually a little disappointed Dan felt the need to "keep the tone from getting out of hand". Dan has already shown with Painted Black and the previous Sister stories that he can take EGS to a fairly dark place and then pull it back into fairly lighthearted comedy/drama, and I feel like those highs and lows help to give the world a greater feeling of depth. Of course, there's plenty of room for things to still get darker, but I don't see why this particular scene couldn't have a darker tone.

Well, I wouldn't object to him instead tying/binding Ashley, but that might get the tone out of hand in different direction than dark :)

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

...Also, Magus could have followed Sirleck's first suggestion and still explained everything to Ashley; she doesn't have to be able to talk back for him to exposit at her.

However, if Magus is inexperienced in exposition, he may WANT Ashley to ask questions if something is not clear to her.

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

So, my speculation: this occurs after a scene we'll be getting to later in which Susan and Diane get into a fight with the army of aberrations, possibly with the help of one or more "good" Immortals, which somehow leads to a magical lights display in the sky.

Not only explanation but it is explanation I like. I already noted that it make no sense for Sirleck to spend so much time and money to create distraction and then attack BEFORE the distraction is activated - so, at the point of Ellen entering the house, the vampires must already been attacking.

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7 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

But we don't know if he would be broken-hearted if Elliot does get killed as long as it wasn't his intent to kill him. You know, friendly fire, collateral damage, acts of God, all those euphemisms beloved of military spokespersons, insurance company lawyers, etc. Plan CM seems replete with hazards that we in no way targeted specifically at Elliot Dunkel.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics, it comes in two clauses

  1. A robot may not injure a human being
  2. or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Voltaire vowed to obey the first clause only for Elliot Dunkel--but not the second.

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28 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

I would expect Sirleck wasn't driving much in last three years either because he had driver. On the other hand, perhaps Magus is not aware of it ; Magus might just ASSUME Sirleck is better driver and Sirleck is confident enough to let him think that.

Sirleck could be using Ellen's knowledge of driving.

Magus' method of possession likely doesn't have that perk of having access to a host's memories, I would guess that if he did, he'd be able to tell if Elliot would remember this experience.

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19 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

But we don't know if he would be broken-hearted if Elliot does get killed as long as it wasn't his intent to kill him. You know, friendly fire, collateral damage, acts of God, all those euphemisms beloved of military spokespersons, insurance company lawyers, etc. Plan CM seems replete with hazards that we in no way targeted specifically at Elliot Dunkel.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Isaac Asimov's First Law of Robotics, it comes in two clauses

  1. A robot may not injure a human being
  2. or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Voltaire vowed to obey the first clause only for Elliot Dunkel--but not the second.

Also keep in mind that Plan CM was set in motion before Voltaire vowed, the loophole could be that that vow only applies to future attempts, where Plan CM would be a past attempt that's still in progress and Voltaire doesn't feel duty bound to stop it.

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