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Vorlonagent

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Posts posted by Vorlonagent

  6. Posted

    Ms. Pompoms is likely to face an angry Susan regardless if she waited this long to tell Susan something big and important.

    If Ed Verres comes up empty, the best Ellen and Nanase can say is "we *think*...  "We think Diane is your sister because resemblance, birthday and magic affinity".  "Diane *is* adopted so it's possible you are."  I think we can agree that Ellen and Nanase shouldn't present their suspicions as fact unless they know it is fact.

    In some ways, talking to Ed Verres makes things harder because room for doubt lowers the emotional ante.

    Wildcat reacted to this

  7. Posted

    4 minutes ago, Scotty said:

    Sorry, I meant it in the way of "refusing to believe" in that Susan would think her mom would have told her long ago that she was adopted or something. The point I was trying to make is if Nanase and Ellen went to Susan first and Susan took it badly, then it would have a negative impact on their friendship, even if temporarily, and even if Mrs Pompoms then came out and said it was true, then there's essentially 3 people that Susan would be like "Just when I thought I finally figured out who I am, you throw this at me?!?". If Mrs Pompoms told Susan first, then even if Susan finds out that Nanase and Ellen suspected it for a while, the initial shock of being told by Mrs Pompoms might have faded enough for Susan to hear Nanase and Ellen's story.

    There's relationship risks regardless of what Ellen and Nanase do.  Any choice that doesn't involve talking to Susan risks provoking anger or disappointment via "Why didn't you tell me?"

    Scrapyard_Dragon and The Old Hack reacted to this

  8. Posted

    15 hours ago, Scotty said:

    Nanase and Ellen had already discussed that if anyone should tell Susan she was adopted, it should be Mrs Pompoms, and they were even going to talk to her about it first to give her that chance, because Susan hearing her mom say she's adopted would be better than hearing it from Ellen and Nanase, yeah it will likely hurt either way, but it could be worse if Ellen and Nanase told Susan and then Mrs Pompoms denies it, even if Diane was there, it'd basically be their word against Mrs Pompoms and Susan might be more likely to believe her mother more.

    It's not a matter of who or even what Susan believes.  It's a matter of what the right thing is and doing it. 

    It's perfectly OK to introduce Susan to Diane, lay out the case for Susan being Diane's sister and have Susan not believe a word of it.  That's her choice. 

    Trying to set up a "perfect situation" that forces Susan to believe is an exercise in egocentrism, demanding Susan come to believe what I want her to believe on my schedule.  I would want to give her the respect of deciding what she believes in her own time.  Which is why I say go directly to her or butt out. Do not bother Ms. Pompoms.

  9. Posted

    I'm of the opinion that, if you're going to do something, go straight to Susan.  She's 18, she's an adult, she's mature, she deserves to know, if she doesn't know already.

    If you aren't going to go to Susan, butt out altogether.  Give Susan the respect of being up-front or respect her privacy by being silent.  Sneaking around, trying to finesse Susan's mother just makes for the sort of confusion that can be more hurtful to Susan than any news about her parentage.

    Elliot has the right idea.  Talk to Ed Verres first.  Get the lay of the land before deciding where to travel.

  13. Posted

    On 4/30/2016 at 9:07 PM, Don Edwards said:

    I think I've played one character I didn't have any backstory for. It was purely a mechanical concept - "Swordchucker Jones" - and I never even tried to figure out why he got into the habit of throwing his sword.

    (Come to think of it, that isn't quite right. I also never explained why a Pixie Shaman would have a spirit companion that looks like a human-boy marionette puppet.)

    But then I decided to try to build a pacifist wizard... and ended up writing about twelve pages of biography beginning with a scene that occurred shortly after he was conceived, followed by a 15-year time-skip and how he got into a wizard's academy, along with why he's "pacifist" and just what the functional definition is. (And then I never got a chance to play that character.)

    I know what server you spent a lot of time on...  :)

    I was fascinated by different combinations of power sets so I made a lot of experimental characters...and had the server space to keep them around.  Some of my experiments got enough animating energy to be in the top tier of my roleplaying characters.

    I decided if you built a melee character, resistance-based was generally better than defense-based, and mixed sets gave mixed (and often unsatisfactory--looking at YOU, Ice Armor) results.  I worked somewhat on healing-based sets and I liked them but wasn't sure where they stood compared to the other two.  I was partial to Electrical Armor, Invulnerability and Fire Armor.

    Electrical Armor and Super-Strength were an awesome duo.  I had tank and brute versions of this, both leveled to 50.  Both were well into the Incarnate endgame content when CoH ended.

  14. Posted

    46 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    Susan's TALENT was described as natural talent for spells that create objects out of magic and spider vampire talks about Diane summoning the bane one day.

    You don't need nuclear reactor. Coal power plant would suffice. But those tend to be not exactly portable either.

    You can compare laser to wielding torch. Both are tools which can cut things and can be doing it as long as you keep providing energy to them. Thing is, storing the energy in form of chemical which is going to be burned like acetylene is much more efficient than batteries. In fact, if you will be able to convert the heat to electricity (or light) effectively enough (which is not exactly possible with portable devices), you could power the laser with acetylene-based battery.

    Or, if we move from the analogy back to real devices ... hydrogen fuel cell will be more believable energy source for portable laser than normal battery. I suspect you can't make pistol with that ... but it will be something you can drag behind you on wheels.

    I understand about the limits on battery storage vs weight.  I understand how a chemical reactant holds more energy in less space and how nuclear power holds orders of magnitude more energy for the same space.

    I was talking about graphene capacitors because batteries aren't viable and there's only so many practical and portable options.  A capacitor might not be as good as a chemical solution ("lasing a stick of dynamite" if you will) but perhaps good for a reasonable shot or two...

    CritterKeeper reacted to this

  15. Posted

    11 minutes ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

    can they store multiple gigawatts in an infantry-portable scale unit without becoming volatile? because to be practical, it needs to have a damage output equal to or greater than a medium caliber solid projectile, and a reasonable magazine capacity, in an infantry portable scale.

     

    What are you defining as a "medium-calibur solid projectile"?  I wouldn't think you'd need the output of a nuclear reactor to power the laser equivalent to a 9mm pistol...

  17. Posted

    22 hours ago, Scotty said:

    That's about what I do too. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before but I'm of the type where if I'm going to be looking at the rear end of a character I play in a video game, it might as well be female. Though if i was actually going to role play a character, it'll be male.

    I actually spoke those words to my brother, who saw me playing a female character.  He kinda looked at me funny and I could tell he was wondering WTF.  I said, "Well, whose butt would you want to look at for several hours at a time?"

    I roleplay either gender as the mood strikes.  About half of my characters had enough animating energy for me to write a bio for them.  About half of those I have some idea how they think.  About half of those I have a good idea of how they think.  Half of those I can roleplay on demand.  So when I run 70-30 female there's a lot of girls in the upper-echelons.

    Man I miss that game.  Writing this reply, I've really had to resist going into "tell you about my character" mode...

  23. Posted

    Showing Elliot's spellbook glowing and making noise suggests that whatever happened is significant. It's a callback to when Nanase got her angel spell, though not quite as dramatic.  Elliot, without realizing it, has leveled up. 

    I tend to think Elliot has opened the door to getting a wider range of spells that reflect on who he is.

    Edit: the only reason for Elliot to get heat vision is because Superman has it and the hero fixation that created Cheerleadra is based in Superman. Magic would simply be filling out more of the motif. I don't see Elliot's new spell as anything minor as heat vision. I have no idea what it is. Just that it's some kind of Big Deal. Maybe having to do with the Cheerleadra form...Maybe.

  24. Posted

    12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    Possibly. Or not. Magic might have something like a mind on it's own, unlike gravitation, but the power of spell likely doesn't depend on what magic thinks about you, but stuff like how much you train (remember Elliot was transforming every night).

    Magic does have a mind of its own...

     

    12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:
    18 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

    If "female" doesn't apply to Elliot, it would seem to me that *disliking* female-oriented spells would be the way to eventually make the point.

    Disliking and NOT CASTING them, maybe. Casting them every night despite not liking them? I would be confused too.

    Casting with reluctance and/or annoyance ought also make the point...

  25. Posted

    2 hours ago, Duke of Pretzels said:

    The way I understand it is that if you're a magic person, you periodically get new spells as you learn and grow, based on your needs. Elliot isn't inherently magical - he (or she, at this point in time) was made magic by an outside force (see sister, iirc ) which gave him the magic ability to change gender. He became more powerful, but wasn't happy with his spells, so his magic tried to modify the spell to make him happy with it - from girl form to full shapeshifting to a super form to alter egos, he got better and better variations on his ability to turn female. His magic would continue this pattern until his need to turn female was met, not understanding that he didn't want to be a girl. As of this comic, Elliott is happy to be a girl. Now, his magic will start to fill his other needs, having satisfied his initial, artificial need. 

     

    That makes sense, but Magic reflects who the magician is.  If "female" doesn't apply to Elliot, it would seem to me that *disliking* female-oriented spells would be the way to eventually make the point.

    Your answer leads me to wonder if Magic insisted on girly spells because it *was* reflecting who Elliot was/is even though Elliot didn't know it.

    ijuin reacted to this