El Goonish Shive

Discar: It's hard to make proper ratios because most people assume their sexuality and romantic orientation do line up, even if they don't.

So you get things like "I'm a straight woman, everyone thinks girls are attractive, that's not that weird."

I've not heard of any, though that would be interesting to find out.

That's true, too. Most people don't realize romantic orientations are a thing.

edited 23rd Apr '15 2:48:29 PM by DeathsApprentice

I imagine that makes studying this sort of thing harder. People have enough trouble understanding their own sexuality, and that's a physical thing. Properly identifying your romantic feelings is difficult.

Hmmm, well when I found out what being aromantic meant, I realized it fit me because I'd never had a crush on anyone, ever. Dunno if that helps, just giving my own experience. (Granted, even after I realized that, it took me a long time to accept it, but still.) I know some aromantic people have had trouble distinguishing between crushes and strong platonic feelings, so there's that.

edited 23rd Apr '15 2:51:46 PM by DeathsApprentice

New NP!

More temptation in Sarah's lap. Honestly, hasn't just about everyone who's had a lucid dream fallen into this?

Fridge Logic moment - if Sarah being able to mess with fundamental aspects of her mental world affects the veracity of information, what separates such a manipulated world from just being a total figment of Sarah's imagination? Or is Pandora just trying to present Sarah's own imagination as a "feature"?

Not that I would put it past Pandora to do such a thing. She is egotistical enough that I could easily see her try to pass off Sarah's imagination as part of what Pandora gave her.

The main difference is that before Sarah changes anything, the projection is accurate, and contains information Sarah doesn't know.

Edit: Oh wait, I understand what you mean: Sarah can simply see the projection and then imagine it different without the need for magic...

edited 24th Apr '15 5:55:37 AM by Medinoc

Interestingly enough, the only thing magical about all this is the fact that Sarah can see things she is not allowed to. Otherwise, everything else can be done to some degree with imagination and lots of practice.

@20183 You got it as of the edited note. I guess it depends on just how much gets moved from what's true with each alteration. Still, it strikes me as Pandora trying to present an already present ability (Sarah's imagination) as a gift from her. And I can totally see Pandora trying to do that.

Ee... Fridge Horror moment for me, what if Pandora is lying about said changes only affecting the imaginary world? Maybe she's just stretching reality like a rubber band. Sure, it snaps back in place the first hundred times, but the more you stretch it... and it could take a while for Sarah to realize the changes she's effected on the world.

Even outside of that, as I think I commented earlier, the ability to do anything you want with no consequences because everything snaps back is an amazingly effective way to move someone toward the dark side.

If I had to say something

Sarah is an artist, if she ever took a moment to think about it, she could use her ability in the most mundane way possible.

To get some damn fine poses from people for reference.

^_^

"It would so much easier to get the proper lines if... well, they won't notice if I remove this layer of clothing, right?"

So, what we're getting from Pandora is that Sarah's power has amazing Power Perversion Potential but little real-world applicability outside of a career in a military or emergency response organization.

Basically, everything I said when we first found out she had this power, only it took a couple weeks longer to explain.

@20186 ... That is a reasonable and frightening thought. It wouldn't be the first time she left out details to someone she empowered, either.

For moving to the dark side... well, to be fair, give me a few minutes, and I could come up with a way for any sort of power to be abused and cause a character to go evil. That said, Pandora is definitely presenting the dark side potential of the power with a bit of a heavy hand.

Is it possible to be a heteromantic asexual? Because I think I am.

yes. any combination is possible. I know someone who is bisexual biromantic...but leans homosexual heteroromantic.

Makes life annoying for him, that's for sure.

Well, I definitely prefer the company of women to men, I enjoy what is commonly considered foreplay, touching, kissing, sensual contact in general but the actual sexual act I can take or leave.

Then yeah, you could be ace, demi-sexual, or gray-ace or some variety.

I think Pandora's overall goal with Sarah is to divide the party. With her access to secrets and information not normally made public, it would be easy to sow seeds of discord and misinformation. Depending on how much power Pandora has, she could, feed Sarah misinformation at key times and cause serious trouble.

I can bet money at some point, Pandora will suggest to spy on other people.

To what end? What have they done to make Pandora feel threatened by them, to the extent that she would need to take measures to protect herself and her plans from them?

Thus far, her only investment in the protagonists' activities has been her personal connection to Tedd. Her aims and theirs crossed paths briefly during the Fire Guy sequence of events, but she got everything she wanted out of that.

She has no reason to consider them a threat, especially when some of them agree with what she's doing. It's entirely possible that this visit to Sarah is exactly what Pandora presented it to be.

edited 24th Apr '15 9:32:53 AM by TobiasDrake

I feel more like Pandora is like "Hey, you have the same power I have AND LOOK AT HOW CRAZY I AM COME JOIN THE CLUB."

It would make sense with her profound sense of loneliness.

Sarah's face in that last panel needs a "good grief!" thought bubble.

As an artist, you might be able to learn a lot about human anatomy, but you can't actually sit down and draw it (well, you can, but you don't get to keep the drawing... I suppose theoretically you could get better at drawing by practicing in the sim- we don't know if new neural pathways can be formed in this environment, though. What if Sarah decided to practice parkour or something in the sim? Would she get good at it in real life? My guess is no, because in a situation like that, you don't know if you're subconciously warping your physical abilities.

I think a more likely consequence than going to the dark side is just developing complete apathy to anything that happens in the real world- if you can experience any situation exactly as you wanted to, why would you even bother with trying to make it happen for real? You'd only be perpetually disappointed.

Also, artist's note: I don't know how much you'd get out of just removing the clothes layer, but you could learn a ton about anatomy by going a bit further...

Isn't that precisely what going to the darkside is? :P

What, the disinterest in the real world? Or wanting to look at people without their skins on?

I suppose if you live a life not wanting to interact with real people or have real experiences it could be seen as a "dark side" of sorts, though it's more of an emotional dark side than a moral one.

Giving yourself an anatomy lesson, though? Eh, it might sound a bit icky, but look at this way- imagine being able to pull apart and examine anything without doing any damage- all the things you could learn. Open up machines and see how they work, as they work. Shrink down and watch cells at the microscopic level. Visit a museum and strip layers off ancient artifacts to see how they were made. Go to the zoo and x-ray all the animals. See how your city would hold up in an earthquake, then rebuild it to see if you can improve it. The possibilities are pretty close to infinite. Taking people's clothes off is one of the most boring things you could use it for.

edited 25th Apr '15 5:12:50 AM by PapercutChainsaw