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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!

sstabeler

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Posts posted by sstabeler


  1. for people suggesting Ellen might want to be male later so she could have a kid with Nanase, that's not quite the same thing. This is talking about the base form being male or female- Ellen doesn't have any problem with using the gun to become male temporarily (and while the gun's transformations do become permanent during pregnancy, i'm fairly sure that is for male-to-female transformations so that the kid can be brought to term (and, for that matter, for mammals, ensure the baby can be breastfed) not something that would happen to whoever is providing the sperm. So it's not really the same argument. (Indeed, if anything, considering gender expectations can be a social construct, I wouldn't be entirely surprised if the whole thing came up because Magus's society believes men are inherently better at magic (in the sense that changing an X chromosome for a Y chromosome would cause a boost in magical ability) and that predisposed him to think Ellen secretly wanted to be male.

     

    That, and one fundamental reason I doubt Ellen is that bothered being a girl is it assumes Ellen is some variant of "Elliott in a girl's body", and if she was, considering Elliott's only problem with Cheerleadara was because he ONLY had female forms, not being a girl as such, then it's doubtful Ellen would be that bothered anyway- and since Ellen really isn't "Elliott in a girl's body" and hasn't been for at least an in-universe year IIRC, then the chances of Ellen secretly wanting to be permanently male are remote.


  2. I think people might be overthinking this a little bit- I think this is mostly Elliott wanting to actually check if Ellen actually is OK with being a girl, or if she wants to be a boy. Remember that Elliott's objection was to Magus making Ellen male without asking. I personally think that Ellen was more confused about her sexuality post- diamond than her gender, so I fully expect Ellen to say that she doesn't want to be male. Magus was projecting, but even though he was, that doesn't by itself mean Ellen didn't have gender issues. 


  3. 5 hours ago, Scotty said:

    Having Ashley stay with them means another person Sirleck has to worry about when he makes his attempt on possessing Magus. This might be an indication that Magus is aware of that possibility and is getting prepared.

    what could Ashley actually do? I think Magus- who has claimed to be more powerful than Nanase- is more planning on defending himself via his own magic if that comes to pass. I think it's more hoping that Ashley's presence will prevent Elliott- who would be understandably angry following Magus getting his own body- from attacking him before he can explain. 


  4. Since Magic requires the Seers to convince it not to make major changes, it's either playing with them, or it's the limit of how much it cares. Enough to allow them to voice objections, not enough to guarantee Magic will listen.

     

    Plus Magic could simply be comparatively responsible about wielding it's power.


  5. I was just thinking about Magic, and I had a thought. What if Immortals don't actually go literally insane as such, but the increased power gradually makes it harder for them not to see humans as insignificant? Helena and Demetrius apparently thought little of using Nanase and Susan to kill an aberration, even though it traumatised Susan. If they were close to needing to reset, then it'd explain their attitude. ( As for Zeus's past life, he did seem inclined to see humans as playthings, he was just more responsible about not breaking his toys.)

    Anyway, my point is that Magic, in a sense, is like an Immortal that's never reset or refreshed- it's so much more powerful that it has... considerable trouble seeing humans as worth caring about.

     

    As for Sarah, either Pandora can Awaken her post-refresh, or Tedd can teach her.


  6. I just thought of something, and double-checked. Tedd can make a wand of any spell he has observed with his seer powers- and he's used his seer powers  on his seer powers. Does this mean Tedd can make Seer wands? (I can even think of why he would- it'd work far better than the magic analysis wands they already have, so  presumably it would prevent anyone else going through what he did due to him resisting the wand.) if he can, then magic doesn't actually have a choice except to make changes to allow magic to safely go public (since the Seer wands would work regardless of magic changing, so Tedd could simply give sufficient people Seer wands that every time Magic changes, it gets back to where it was within about 5  minutes. Magic would probably give in within a couple of hours.

     

    hang on... could THAT have been plan CM? piss Tedd off enough for him to go "fuck you" to magic, and sabotage the magic change mechanism? it could, after all, explain how Lord Tedd got started. (Grace was significantly more...militaristic... in Lord Tedd's universe, and there was no Elliott we know of, so it's possible Lord Tedd lost his temper at Magic, and the power went to his head. It'd explain Nioi, too, since if Ellen's dreams with Kaoli were close to Nioi's experiences with Lord Tedd, she'd know it was fundamentally General Shade Tail (Grace's alternate) that caused Lord Tedd to be the way he was (and there's some signs General Shade Tail's actually the mind behind Lord Tedd's actions- Nioi thought, when she arrived "he is corrupting you"- which would make sense if the evil acts were planned by General Shade Tail (or at least encouraged)

     

    In short, could plan CM be to cause Tedd to turn into Lord Tedd? With Voltaire overlooking that the situations are sufficiently different that it was never likely to work?  (the way I see it, Lord Tedd is the way he is because both Elliott isn't in the picture for some reason and Grace isn't as pacifistic as she is in the main universe. (IIRC Tedd and Nanase never really tended to hang out- indeed, even these days they tend to hang out more as part of the whole group than anything.As such, I doubt she would have been able to do a great deal to prevent Tedd from becoming Lord Tedd even if she is around.)


  7. I can see two loopholes: 1. Pandora says she will discuss methods she will use with Sarah beforehand, and won't use any methods Sarah disapproves of. It does not necessarily include mentioning all the potential consequences. 2. there is no mention of Pandora being honest.

    I do think she's being honest, here, though- she has a good reason to help Sarah, and it wouldn't even be particularly funny to screw Sarah over.

    As for the commentary re: guardian forms, I can think of a simple reason it wouldn't work. It was a combination of both whatever Not-Tengu was doing and the Guardian forms that used up the ambient magic in a small area of Moperville. To safely clear the dam, they need to use up ALL of the magic causing the issue. That would take a massive amount more power, and I suspect the burnout from the Guardian forms would cause problems. Combine that with wanting to, you know, keep Magic secret and I  doubt they could do it.


  8. about Pandora being able to sense Voltaire: I suspect she could. Remember that as Immortals get older, they are able to see more clearly- I suspect that how Immortals hiding from each other works is that they more-or-less obscure their presence from other Immortals- it would explain how come they need to figure out how again after each reset. ( it's inherent in the same way as it's inherent that people can ride a bike- you still need to learn how) So maybe, after a certain age, Immortals are able to see other Immortals regardless. They just usually reset before that point.

     

    as an aside, i love how Nanase looks like she's about to start kicking Voltaire's arse.


  9. is there any reason why people are speculating about Edward being either wrong, or there being Dewitchery Diamond shenanigans when there is a far simpler explanation? They aren't twins because they were born to two different mothers. Susan's father is already known to have cheated on her mother. We don't know how long he cheated on her for- or if he had cheated on her with different people before. Simple explanation- Susan and Diane are half-siblings due to being born to different mothers. Susan lives with her mother, Diane lives with her mother- possibly her father too, but I doubt it. ( in other words, Diane is the kid of Susan's father with the woman he cheated on Susan's mother with)


  10. I have a theory about why Pandora is talking to Sarah. Firstly, depending on how much Pandora knows- which seems to be quite a bit- Pandora probably knows Sarah was Tedd's lab assistant. Since Tedd's lab has wards on it put in place by Edward, it's fair to assume that at a minimum, the whole house has similar wards. Assuming  Edward doesn't have access to wards that can be permanently put on a person. As such, it's probably that Pandora can't appear to Tedd without Edward finding out- at which point, she may as well just appear to Edward. In other words, it may simply be she wants Sarah to let Tedd know what needs to be done.

    Second, Pandora has to know- from the conversation in Question Mark, if nothing else- that Sarah wants to be able to use magic. When Pandora gest the energy clog unclogged, Sarah will lose access to her spell, since- according to Pandora- she hasn't the power to use it. She may want to give Sarah a power boost so she can at least use the mark without the energy clog. ( or, of course, even Awaken Sarah.)


  11. there was discussion earlier in the thread about Pandora's alignment. Frankly, I put her as Well-Intentioned Extremist ( warning- TV Tropes link) - she has good intentions, but because she hasn't reset in far too long, she has become increasingly insane by both human and Immortal standards. ( and that's legal insanity, by the way- she meets the test of "operating under such a defect of reason that she fails to understand the severity of her acts" as well as possibly "or fails to understand the criminality of her acts" so legally, she would be confined for medical treatment- which could include a forcible reset- rather than convicted of a crime.)

     

    Frankly, I stand by what I said earlier in the arc- Pandora needs to be persuaded to go through a proper Immortal death, since that would reset her back to being a good person. Clean up the damage she has caused as much as possible, then reset. ( if she properly resets, judging by Jerry, she could even be useful to the cast in future.)


  12. 7 hours ago, ijuin said:

    On zombies: Edward explained that classical "undeadness" was not known to be magically possible. It's likely that attempts to do so would result in corpse-golems--they would walk around and perform simple tasks for the Mage who animated them (maybe even acting as a cannon-fodder army), and in general act similar to summoned monsters, but they would not have souls or minds, and would not spread their condition to their victims. (Do take note that "not known to be possible" is not the same as "known to be impossible"--sending things back in time is known to be prohibited, and there's probably magical theories to explain why, but things that are "not known to be possible" may simply be that nobody has ever been proven to have done it.)

     

     

    What he said is that animating the dead in the classic zombie fashion- that is, where a bite from a zombie can turn someone into a zombie themselves- is not known to be possible. What probably is possible is some version of a Inferius from Harry Potter- a dead body, animated by someone's magic, that can be given a task.


  13. 7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

     

    Between Tedd and his mom, yes. The longer it's put off, the worse.

    Thinking about it, we don't really know that there's been no contact between Tedd and his mom since the divorce. When he makes his rant about his mom not coming to visit even for Christmas, it's just before Christmas; she could have cancelled. Ted might even know about his sibling(s) but doesn't talk about him/her/them. And I can even think of a good time for him to finally bring them up: When Susan learns she's adopted. "Hey, I've got a sister/brother I've never/hardly ever seen."

    I agree that there needs to be a reconciliation between Tedd nd Noriko, however, I disagree that there should not be some form of reconciliation with Noriko and Edward. Possibly not in the sense of ending up remarried, but at least to the point they are friends. ( possibly Noriko moving to Moperville to be able to help look after Tedd. After all, in some ways, If Tedd had access to her, it could be extremely useful for his research. (off the top of my head, she could help him create a version of the watches that actually helps meet the power requirements of the spell, instead of merely giving access to the spell. Since the energy clog thats been empowering the town is going, then the watches will be all but impossible to use for Tedd and Sarah soon unless Sarah develops enough of her own power to use them soon. ( actually, I wonder if that would spur her into asking one of the crew that know Anime-Style Martial Arts for training, so that she can develop more of her own magical power? I know Pandora sad she needed to use her spell to get power, but that's not the only way. ( that, and frankly, I suspect Pandora of lying that Sarah can only use the power due to the energy clog, of if she isn't, then Pandora is perfectly capable of empowering her to. For that matter, I only trust what Pandora said in that conversation in regards what her power is, and that Pandora is the source of them, since we have seen evidence of that. There's been no evidence of the rest of what she said being true.))

     

    That, and I think there should be an element of reconciliation between Noriko and her sister, even if only because I suspect that the...strict...upbringing Nanase has been through if due to Noriko abandoning Tedd and Edward. ( for that matter- and this is admittedly probably not the case- since it's been remarked in canon that Nanase is particularly obviously related to Tedd when her hair is similar length to his, I wonder if Nanase is actually Tedd's fraternal twin sister and her- apparent- mother acts like she does partly out of Dursley-style resentment of being forced to look after her- Edward being only able to look after one kid to explain why they were split up. It would explain why Mrs Kitsune is so irritated with Noriko that she denies she even has a sister, and why she is concerned about Tedd's safety- it's partly " he can't defend himself against magical threats" and partly from how Noriko leaving apparently almost destroyed Tedd. ( another reason why Noriko at least used to be a jerk.)


  14. two possible ways:

    1) she thought that it would endanger Tedd if she stuck around- let's face it, there's been one of her opponents that tried to attack Nanase despite her not being around, it's possible others would have attacked. Even if she was wrong, it makes it less jerkish.

    2) it's done as something of a redemption plot, with her realising she shouldn't have left them behind, and trying to correct her mistake. ( by correct her mistake, I don't mean some massive gesture to show she's sorry- EGS is not a sitcom- but more along the lines of actually being there from now on.) That way, it's acknowledged that she was a jerk, but no longer is.

     

    Frankly, I agree with you that Edward and Noriko don't need to reconcile, but in a sense, it's be good if either they do, or Edward finds someone else. The guy's been through a lot, and I think it's a little unfair he has to deal with it on his own. (that, and in some ways, I could see Edward finding Noriko having to deal with some of the shenanigans the EGS crew get up to amusing)

     

    oh, and one more thing- I don't think she is necessarily totally committed to her work as much as her commitment to her career was what drove her and Edward apart. Basically, she concentrated on training her kids that actually could learn spells in future, rather than pay attention to Tedd. yes, it's jerkish, but in a sense, unless she has a very good reason, she was something of a jerk.


  15. I don't think so-or if she is dead, it is more recent than Not-Tengu. First, it's Adrian claiming reconciliation is impossible. however, it is in the context of explaining how it was his fault. I'm guessing that reconciliation is merely unlikely. Best guess is that Tedd gets his ability to obsess about one thing to the exclusion of everything else from Noriko, and she's obsessed with her career as a witch. Since Adrian encouraged her in her career as a witch- himself thinking that he, Edward and Noiko could be a powerful team fighting alongside each other- he blames himself for not encouraging her not to define herself solely by her career.

    Frankly, I think that there will be a reconciliation at some point, since in a sense, I get the feeling she's too well-planned out as a character not to actually appear, and the logical way for that to happen would be a reconciliation.


  16. for that matter, in EGS, straight gender transformations- that is, the equivalent of an FV1 or MV1 transformation- don't actually even change Nature, so it would make even less difference. ( FV1, afaik, just plain changes your gender- it won't, for instance, give a man breasts. The exception is the sexual organs, but that's programmed into the transformation- make the target a girl and give them female sexual organs- since it's designed to be fertile after a certain amount of time. ( personally, I figure it's less a case of the transformation being programmed to make the target infertile temporarily, as much as the transformation not including an egg being immediately released- more-or-less, you are transformed to a girl just after finishing her period. For the male one, i'm guessing the transformation doesn't include sperm- so again, you need to wait for sperm production to increase your sperm levels to where fertility is reasonably likely. It doesn't take that long- IIRC, it takes something like 3 days- but it would be a reason why the transformation would be infertile temporarily.


  17. it's worth noting that Larry's plan isn't necessarily as flawed as it seems. Magic certainly can transform someone into a girl, and Elliott's Secret Identity Forms prove that transformation can include the mind, so the only actual reason Larry's plan is flawed is that there is no inherent "male way of thinking" and "female way of thinking"- he could be transformed into Grace, and think like Grace ( which raises interesting philosophical questions about if that is functionally death or not- if someone is completely different, should they be considered the same person? ( legally speaking, they are- death is when the brain irreversibly stops working- but are they really the same person? In EGS, I would say yes, since magic is reversible, even if only by using a spell exactly countering the other(in other words, if someone was permanently transformed, permanently transforming them into their original form again.) in the real world? it's debateable.)) but there's no inherent difference between how Larry and Female Larry would think. ( witness Elliott and Ellen. she thought more-or-less exactly like Elliott, barring a joke about men not asking for directions, until she made a conscious choice to act differently, and nurture caused divergence as time went on.)


  18. To be honest, I suspect that Pandora is slightly oversimplifying. That is, there are two ways of being punished for breaking Immortal Law: 1. you know you broke it, and so every single immortal forces a reset. 2. one or more immortals find out what you did, and are powerful enough to force you to reset, so they attack you and force a reset. (oh, and I don't think Helena and Detrius were forcibly reset as a result of their actions in France regarding nanase and Susan, for a couple of reasons. one, they only empowered them, and guided them to the vampire. two, they were tackling an Aberration, and rules are far looser when Aberrations are involved- indeed, from what Sirleck has said- that it would be suicide trying to get the attention of Helena and Demetrius- combating an Aberration allows an Immortal to actually attack said Abberation themselves. ( which makes Helena and Demetrius even worse for getting Nanase and Susan involved: they could easily have dealt with the Abberation themselves. Legally speaking, they would almost certainly be guilty of Criminal Negligence- because- from a legal perspective- they couldn't be bothered to kill the Aberration themselves, they exposed two minors to lethal peril, and one of the minors was forced to kill what looked at the time to be a human being. Worse, they made no effort to help Susan with what was almost certainly major psychological damage ( specifically, I get the feeling she has either PTSD, Depression, or both from having to kill the aberration while it was in human form.)


  19. I actually think that what someone mentioned earlier about Grace's mind being the problem may well be true. neither Pandora or the Disco Wizard particularly want to harm Grace- Pandora because I doubt she wants to piss of her son and/or Tedd (that, and Grace may or may not factor into whatever plan she has) while the DW doesn't want to harm Grace since she is sort of vital to stopping Pandora, since she's the only one who even subconsciously knows WTF is going on.

     

    I remember a line from a fic I read, that may or may not be a saying in our world- when elephants fight, it's the grass that gets trampled. What it means is that- if DW really is  operating on behalf of Magic ( and it is worth noting that we have only his word that he is- he could easily be the immortal that tried to get Elliott killed, for example.) then he could probably take Pandora. However, the battle would almost certainly damage Grace's mind, if not rip it to shreds.


  20. the problem is, she hasn't matured. If you bottomline what she does, she is playing with mortals. Not resetting just means that she no longer worries about the consequences of her actions- combined with the fact that it is difficult for events to be truly unpredictable for her since she is so old. When events are predictable to her, they are no fun. If she reset, yes, she would be back to playing childish pranks on mortals. That would probably be an improvement since she is currently essentially playing dangerous pranks on mortals.

     

    As for Jerry- he's why I think resets are closer to reincarnation than a memory wipe. I think it's more that he resents that he has to help Diane due to the vow. It's the compulsion he resents, not helping Diane as such. he's not immature as much as resents an obligation being forced on him by- to him- somebody else, especially when it wasn't even because of something Old Jerry had done.(the vow was because of Helena and Demetrius using Nanase and  Susan to kill the abomination rather than getting help. Incidentally, regardless of the family talent of Susan for vampire hunting, I agree with Old Jerry they were assholes. At a minimum, Susan was forced to kill somebody, and probably never got counselling for that. She was probably 15 at the time.(and yes, I know Abominations give up their humanity. However, the abomination was in human form at the time, and I doubt Susan knew the difference at the time. Even if she did, you can intellectually know something isn't human, but if it looks human, your mind will instinctively think it is human.) yes, it's good that Susan gained access to her magic, but the psychological effects must have been devastating. The could easily have empowered Nanase and Susan while making them promise to fight abominations in the future. For that matter, given Abominations are an exception to the rule of Immortal noninterference, they could probably have simply killed it themselves. Instead, they chose a method more in character for Pandora. If I had to guess, they were overdue for a reset themselves- and appear to have needed to be forced to, since they improperly reset- and were beginning to go insane like Pandora has.)

     

    In short, several centuries of experience hasn't actually made Pandora any more mature.


  21. in a  way, this storyline really makes me feel sorry for Pandora. She presumably didn't reset because she was concerned about having wasted this particular life, and as a result, she is leaving a legacy that her next life will probably be profoundly ashamed of. She's a clear example of why immortals reset- her basic personality is still there- she was always something of a troll, but somethiing of a lightherated one, making people do embarrassing things rather than dangerous things- but over time, the increased power has corrupted her into thinking that the consequences to others don't matter. Frankly, this makes me think the best thing for her is to go through a proper immortal death, so that her next life will not lose the knowledge of important things ( like, for example, not skipping resets) while regaining her sanity.


  22. there's also the fact that actually, technically, you do evolve during a football game- since you get better at the game with practice, you evolve into a better football player. It's just it's not generally all that noticeable except over long spans of time.Much like RL evolution.

     

    Oh, and helmets aren't precisely self-defeating- it's more that they are very good at protecting against acute injury- that is, they prevent players breaking each other's necks- but not against chronic injury- that is, the built-up brain damage from being repeatedly slammed into the ground- and I wonder if increased rates of brain damage and the like are due to players hitting harder, or that reduced rates of injury are prolonging careers, causing more long-term brain damage. That, and I hate to point it out, but - certainly at college level- sports players aren't necessarily the sharpest tool in the box in the first place.


  23. First, Not-Tengu not being anything special is just that it wasn't particularly difficult for him to get his monstrous form. he WAS a serious threat- remember that Angel-Nanase would have been defeated had they actually fought.

     

    What I find interesting is that a threat this large may mean that there is an apocolypse of sorts- in terms of revelations Specifically, since Noriko was surprised Tedd was (supposed to be- I somewhat doubt he still is) magically impaired it can be assumed Nanase's mother has magic of her own. A threat this big may cause her to actually use it. That, and I have a feeling that if Sirleck really is "raining hell" down on Moperville, then it may cause Noriko to turn up- either at Edward's request, or pissed off at the threat to Tedd. ( note that she prioritised her career over her family- it never said she stopped caring about them at all)


  24. 8 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

    er... yeah... the only way i can see that happening is if she was so oblivious to his methods that the ones she picked up were subconscious, and she doesn't even know she's doing it. otherwise there would be a shift in her behavior when no one (but the audience) is watching...

    I think you're closer to the truth there- on an unintentional level, anyway- than you think. Remember that both Nanase and Elliot have ended up wanting to spill things to her, despite her not actually wanting them to betray anyone's secrets.

     

    In all seriousness, though, I don't think Ashley is evil in any fashion. There are  genuinely nice people, and bear in mind that this is only the second storyline she's been involved in in any fashion.more than as a peripheral character. It's entirely possible that the reason she seems unnaturally good is we just haven't seen enough of her yet. She's not an absolute angel- I have no doubt her tendency to get lost in books in the bookstore irritates the crap out of Liz- and i think the reason people are suspicious is because she can come off as too perfect.Add to that the fact that she is almost too perfect a girlfriend for Elliot- her actually having a fetish for transformations probably throws a lot of people off- and various characters being surprised at how quickly Elliot asked Ashley out and you have a simple explanation for why people are suspicious of her.