El Goonish Shive

No idea, but if any conventional weapon could hurt him in that form, it's pepper spray. Blunt force would do nothing, but if his smoke form has any sense of touch or glands and nerves and whatever then I suspect he would definitely feel it. It may even be more effective on him than on a normal human given that it's not just external contact in his case.

I'd imagine his spell would have safeguards against his human form absorbing foreign substances, but there will probably still be traces on his skin, eyes, mouth, possibly digestive tract and a few other places it's best not to think about. So even if he didn't feel the attack at all in smoke form, he would still learn a valuable lesson from his experience.

I mean, on one hand, yes, their conversation is private. That said, Grace is just about the absolute last person who should be chiding others on respecting privacy right now.

I guess Sam leaping in to intercept a possible attacker is a bit more in terms of characterization for him, though yeah, it's pretty laughable that he thinks he should protect Grace instead of vice versa (but in fairness to him, all he knows her as is "clerk at the gaming store").

If that is Pandora's new form... oof, talk about Came Back Wrong. EDIT: Yes, I know it's almost certainly Camdin, but I was just imagining just how bad she could have been punished if it wasn't him.

Edited by 32_Footsteps on Feb 15th 2019 at 10:01:36 AM

Panel 2 is my favorite. I love how calmly and politely Grace is just like, "Nah, bro," at what is actually a brave if ill-informed decision on Sam's part.

NanaseCraft51.

Featuring the return of initial body sizes, hairstyles, clothing and even footwear as the arc moves toward endgame.

Edited by AliceMacher on Feb 15th 2019 at 12:14:22 PM

Comic Tsos 41

Well, I see where this is going...

NP NanaseCraft 52

This makes a depressing amount of sense...

...I'm far more surprised by this than I should be.

That creepy smile, the bared fangs... I guess Grace is about to go omega? Only I see Camdin being more hyped than intimidated by that...

Edited by TwinBird on Feb 18th 2019 at 1:40:02 AM

...ooooh, boy, that NP...

Also, I presume Grace is about to try for some intimidation rolls.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Feb 18th 2019 at 7:15:14 AM

Okay, cool, I’m dropping the NP until the next arc starts.

I really want to know why exactly Camdin is so weird like this. Luke doesn’t seem like he’d do this sort of thing at all. And what is their goal, exactly? How does harassing two people about their ability to transform help Camdin out in any way? Is he just a creep with a very specific fetish and an inability to take “no” for an answer?

Plot twist: Grace just shifts into an adorable little squirrel. And then proceeds to kick his smoky ass anyway.

Ok, maybe not the last bit but it makes more sense to satisfy his curiosity and send him on his way without revealing her most powerful form (and without traumatising poor Sam any further), and she can always telekinesis him into a smoky pretzel after that as a backup if he doesn't keep his word.

NP: MITTENS, NO! okay but that's actually kind of hilarious, especially if they bring the goody-two-shoes benevolent kink genie to Diane who was planning on world domination.

Yeah, I'm gonna say that I actually really liked today's NP. I know Ashley is overly shilled constantly, but this was actually a great use of her as a punchline.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 18th 2019 at 8:16:34 AM

yeah, it doesn't even have to be explained. We see ashley, we know what's up.

Ashley can indeed work better when she is Played for Laughs two examples that come to mind, the first when she frustrated Nanase "Ok", the second one when she was getting that socer ball "My date is about to get illed by an angry griphon, but that cn wait 'caue I'm so paying for this ball first ". The "stop, let's take pictures!" moment with Elliot that weirded Diane out also comes to mind. That's it, when she is obstructive because of honor before reason or her fetishes and we get a reaction out of someone. Not when she gets free stuff or lauded for being oh so good

A thought occurs to me. I think the reason that Ashley gets shilled so much and became such a Creator's Pet is that she is 100% into basically everything that Shive wrote this comic to be about.

That's why she's so endlessly enthusiastic about everything all the time. It's a feedback loop. He is essentially writing an EGS fangirl.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Feb 19th 2019 at 8:07:37 AM

You know, there's nothing I can really point to as "wrong" in this comic, but something about it leaves me unsatisfied. Might just be residual issue with how we got here.

tsos-42

Shamelessly stealing another theory from the Facebook page:

Camdin is a wizard, and the real reason he wants to watch transformations is to learn the spells. Grace’s Uryuom-based magic is outside of his experience and capacity to learn.

As I type I realize that this would require him to have awakened and gone beyond the single-spell magic mark we know he has, though.

Edit: He does seem to be doing the same pupil-dilating maneuver Tedd uses when they’re analyzing a spell…

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Feb 19th 2019 at 1:10:46 PM

I'll put some chips down on Camden being a Seer of some kind, yeah. Presumably aware of Magic's rules, since he wasn't there for the change.

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Feb 20th 2019 at 8:38:39 AM

He can't be a proper seer, he would have used magic by the time the change happened. And I doubt that he knew about the purpose of a seer considering how little he and Luke seems to know. If he is a wizard then he might be using Luke's spell.

Yeah, I'm down for Wizard, not for Seer.

A Seer is a type of Wizard, don't forget. Both types of spellcasters can learn the spells of others, a wizard to cast them directly, and a seer to... well, Tedd can imbue objects with them to make wands, but I can't remember if that's his thing or if all seers do that.

Regardless, it makes sense that the spell-learning process itself, with the dilated-pupil effect, is the same for both types.

Edited by HeraldAlberich on Feb 20th 2019 at 12:10:14 PM

All of that may be true, but it's also reasonable to just have pupils dilate when you're surprised or shocked by something. It could just be that (after all, if Camdin has some sort of ability to detect magical energy, and he's just encountered something almost completely alien to him, that'd be an understandable reaction).

Or it could be a combination of things.

NP NanaseCraft 53

Interesting... Maybe those posters who hoped for evil Ashley in the main story are about to get a consolation prize. Or maybe it's just Nanase, like her main story counterpart, being overly suspicious.

I'mma bet on the second one.

It’s definitely Nanase being overly suspicious. Dan could never make Ashley anything less than perfect.

It's always a bit odd when EGS goes back to its original animu roots.

Funny now that I think about it, Grace could pick up non-uryom magic if she wanted to now.