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Don Edwards

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Posts posted by Don Edwards

  1. Posted

    I've also seen that in a lot of these issues, the majority of the people most loudly offended by some terminology that they say is disrespectful of some group are NOT PART of that group. And if you think using the offending terminology brings down their wrath, just try being part of the group yet not be offended at the terminology...

  3. Posted

    Elliot is certainly capable of qualifying as a Thinker, with that ability. But with KerPop's advisory that the rating is based on how one would fight them, I'm going to say he doesn't... because he isn't prone to thinking. But if he did, well, some of the recommended countermeasures (disrupt communications) would be ineffective...

    Guardian form carries Thinker automatically, so incorporating a smartphone - while a nice non-magical enhancement - wouldn't add the category.

    I just made a policy decision and revised the list to match. Copying powers from someone else doesn't put one (Ellen) in the category for those powers. Because the ability to copy powers means they potentially go in ALL categories, and doing that makes putting them in ANY category uninformative. However, that means I really need to put this ability in as a Trump power, which I had been reluctant to do. (It's also a Breaker power and a Thinker power.)

    But observing a power and knowing what it is and can do is still a Thinker power, not a Trump power. According to me.

  4. Posted

    4 hours ago, Xenophon Hendrix said:

    I'm pretty sure the author is setting things up for Diane to be marked. My best guess about which way he'll go with it is that the smoke-shaped mark seems to fit Diane's pride in her stealthiness. On the other hand, I have no idea what the circle-rectangle mark might be. On the third hand, Sarah got a mark that wasn't given here.

    I suspected when we first saw that page of eight marks that all eight had already been given at that point. Sarah getting a mark not on that page strengthens this view (but does NOT PROVE it).

    Also, the shape does not have to have ANYTHING to do with the power. That's canon, and supported by Susan's mark being the classical symbol for females - which has no apparent relationship to the summoning of objects. (This is a good thing. The one symbol looks to me like two people having sex in a bean-bag chair, and I don't think I want to know what power would go with that.)

  5. Posted

    13 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    "please don't become the next Roswell" ... yup, DGB was definitely involved in that. Note that we still don't know any details about HOW they got on Earth, but yes, FTL seems likely.

    Interstellar travel requires at least one of: FTL, coldsleep (long-term cryogenic hibernation) and near-lightspeed, temporarily stepping into an alternate universe, long-distance teleportation, or generation ships (vessels that can go 50+ years with minimal maintenance and no outside supplies).

    Freefall uses FTL but, between still having a huge propellant-to-payload ratio and still having transit times measured in months, also uses coldsleep to avoid the need for suitable accommodations and life support for active passengers. It also uses near-lightspeed ships (plus coldsleep) for transferring large amounts of stuff that's less time-critical; this includes colony ships (the ones that bring more or less an entire colony, hundreds to thousands of people with everything they need to establish a colony).

    We don't know how the Uryuom got to earth. It's canonical that either their ships are shaped like flying saucers, or that's what some human thought of when the subject came up. (I don't consider the scenes on/near the moon strictly canonical - something about a knife-fight involving a shark being interrupted by a loud cry from someone on earth...) But even if they are saucer-shaped, that doesn't explain what mechanism they use for interstellar travel.

  6. Posted

    5 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

    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.

    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.)

  7. Posted

    15 hours ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

    Truth be spoken here. What would be worse? The biological father had a divorce, kept Susan but gave up Diane, remarried, and later left Susan with his second wife. This sounds like the kind of spin that Dan would put on the story. ;)

    The more common theory is that the Pompons were already married when Mr. Pompons and Miss Blondie conceived twins. Mr. Pompons tried persuade Mrs. Pompons to adopt both, but she would only go for one - and never learned that her husband was the biological father.

    This theory does not have significant supporting evidence. However there's no evidence at all against it.

    4 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    I would think it would only possibly be relevant if one parent were the birth parent and the other was not.  If they adopted her together, then it really wouldn't have any bearing at all.

    Succumbing to a moment of weakness and committing adultery is one thing. A 4+ year history of adultery - such as would be shown if Mr. Pompons claimed to be his adopted daughter's biological father - wouldn't help in the custody battle and would result in a divorce settlement/alimony payment more in Mrs. Pompons' favor.

    4 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

    Um... Please remind me why this isn't possible? All I remember is that the original mark allowed her to summon a copy of whatever was placed in the appropriately marked box. I don't remember that there were any limit on what could be summoned other than it had to fit inside the box.

    According to Susan's description of her original spell:

    • One object at a time.
    • I think she said that a container does not automatically come with contents. That logically would include ammo pouches, magazines, etc. At the extreme, it would be a no-moving-parts rule.
    • A summoned magical weapon is good for ONE sharp blow, then it unsummons. If summoning a loaded firearm were possible, firing it would unsummon both the gun and the bullet.

    However, we know that the one-object-at-a-time rule has been relaxed - at least in regard to fairydolls. And that a separate spell for fairydolls is not absolutely required (since she first summoned one the evening before she was awakened). So that restriction may be gone - which would allow her to use a projectile-launching device (bow, gun, slingshot, etc.) provided that the launch itself does not constitute a sufficiently sharp blow to unsummon the projectile.

    (Now I have some additional experiments I want Susan to try...

    1. Put an object in the box. Summon a copy of it. Remove the original from the box. See if the copy is still around. Investigate its properties.
    2. If #1 does not cause the summoned copy to unsummon, put it in the box and summon a copy of it. Look in the box to see if the "original" is still there. Investigate the properties of the copy-of-a-copy.
    3. Variant on #1: instead of removing the original from the box, erase the mark on the box.
    4. Have Ellen copy her and then see if Ellen can summon objects from the box - or can mark her own box to summon objects from.
    5. Summon a fairydoll and see if it can summon objects from the box.)

  8. Posted

    12 hours ago, Scotty said:

    Yeah, it might be a genderfluid thing, or maybe Elliot's realized there's something other being one gender or the other and is basically saying "I'm both and I love it."

    Maybe Gender-Dual can be a thing?

    There are at least two varieties. Gender-neutral* would feel like both more or less equally and not really care which one presents at the moment. (I think I'm there a lot, but since I can present one gender for free while presenting the other takes a lot of effort plus skills I've never practiced and accessories I don't own, I can't say for sure.) Bigender feels like both more or less equally and wants to present both simultaneously. (Never been there.)

    * Some definitions of terms are in flux. Gender-neutral is sometimes treated as synonymous with agender, which has some fairly narrow definitions (basically meaning that gender is pretty much absent from the person's sense of identity) and some amazingly wide definitions (at the widest, anyone not cisgender is agender) and quite a few different in-between definitions. I prefer a narrower definition for agender, and a different fairly narrow definition for gender-neutral, such that in theory if there were an objective and well-calibrated way to measure these things we could draw a sharp line between the two - but in practice they overlap a bit along one edge.

    5 hours ago, Scotty said:

    Elliot technically answered it later. But like I said before, I think it's more like he's both at the same time. In Tedd's case it's a feeling of needing to be male or female at a given moment. For Elliot is probably more like he's comfortable in either form equally and thus can switch back and forth freely.

    I wasn't remembering that one line. Yep, Elliot's now genderfluid to some degree. However, that may be influenced by the fact that for Elliot, changing sex can actually slightly change who he is and significantly increase what he can do (e.g. fly).

    I'd also add that with all the female forms we've seen Elliot in, ALL of them are about his own age and something that a large fraction of males his age would describe as "cute" and/or "sexy". (Not necessarily the case that any ONE male would use those terms for all of them.)

    .

    (Side note: I've found another way around the problem with editing messages. Turn the block of text where your editing needs to occur into a bulleted list, and all the text becomes visible. When done, you can highlight the entire bulleted list and un-bullet it.)

     

  11. Posted

    On 4/26/2016 at 7:18 AM, Scotty said:

    On another note, it occurred to me that Tedd should also be a striker, his mark spell also lets him enchant others by touch.

    Agreed - and in addition to being extremely disconcerting to many people, Tedd possibly could significantly alter the target's physical strength - and for certain activities working around exorbitantly large breasts is definitely a skill that must be developed. (I wonder if he can enchant a normally-ambulatory person into a wheelchair-bound person.)

  12. Posted

    2 hours ago, Scotty said:

    Nanase falls under summoner as well because of Fox which works the same way as Susan's fairies. Even down to being able to manually control them. Susan being able to go first person mode with her fairies is from the whole "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter" side effect of summoning Nanase's fairy doll which I guess is the same as Ellen's copy spell? Maybe if Susan goes first person mode with Lil' Nase, she'd have access to fae punch and such?

    Ah, I forgot about Fox! I'll go add the appropriate entry. I think "Master" is appropriate (possibly along with other things) when the summons are capable of acting separately from the summoner, which Fox definitely is. Susan also got "Blaster" from being able to explosively unsummon the fairies, but as far as we know there's nothing equivalent for Fox.

     

    55 minutes ago, Matoyak said:

    Would Susan fit blaster (ranged ability) by virtue of being able to magically summon say, a bow, machinegun, or cannon?

    11 minutes ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

    can't she summon ANYTHING in a case she has marked?

    What if she went to a gun shop and discretely marked one of the display cases?

    There are stated restrictions on what she can summon (which potentially could be out-of-date) that would keep that from working. Aside from the little problem that a typical gun shop is as fussy about firearm safety as a typical police station (if not more so) and probably doesn't store guns & ammo in the same case let alone store loaded guns, Susan's summoned weapons are good for one solid blow each; a bullet firing would count as the one solid blow for both the bullet and the gun.

  13. Posted

    5 hours ago, Wildcat said:

    Personally, I think it makes as much sense for him and Ellen to be agender or nearly so. The preference for being one or the other sometimes could easily be wanting to experience things differently. 

    He doesn't really seem to care about the girl vs boy part of it so much? It seems like what he likes about one or the other form has to do with things secondary to gender or the sex of the body: anonymity, feeling attractive in a particular way, gender roles (how people treat him/what people find acceptable), height/perspective, seeing more colors of red, everything cheerleadra...  Whereas Tedd seems to have a more basic need to specifically be a girl some of the time. He still enjoys much of the other stuff, but it doesn't seem to be the driving force.

    I could be wrong, but I would put Elliot as agender, or agender to mildly genderfluid.

    Definitions of terms in this area are still in flux, but I'd class Elliot as gender-neutral rather than agender. Among those most involved with the issue, "agender" is becoming more defined as the absence of gender identity, where "gender-neutral" is a more or less balanced and unstressful presence of both male and female gender identity. Elliot has embraced being male, and owned being female ("I'm cute and sexy", not "this form is cute and sexy"), and since learning that he was awakened hasn't shown much sign of feeling internal conflict over it.

    (Granted, you can easily find instances of broader definitions of "agender" - occasionally you'll even find definitions that include Tedd and possibly Sam.)

    As for Elliot being genderfluid, I don't think we've seen any evidence for it. We've never (since learning he's awakened) seen him voluntarily change sex just for the sake of being the other sex for a while, without some non-gender-related reason it seemed desirable or necessary; and we've never seen him reluctant to change sex when there was a reason it was a good idea to do so and no stronger reason not to. However, it's still possible, particularly if (as you suggest) he's only mildly genderfluid.

    Wildcat reacted to this

  14. Posted

    5 minutes ago, Scotty said:

    Based on the description of the categories, I'd say Tamashii Gekido falls under Shaker (Area Effect) since it is a close range area effect around the user, and both Elliot and Ellen can use this.

     

    For Susan, I guess if you count unsummoning faeries as a ranged attack, that only relies on Susan actually using that tactic in combat, and it might not be an effective use of that quirk. Otherwise I'm not sure she has any ranged abilities, also I'm not entirely sure how she'd fall under striker either as she doesn't seem to have any touch ability  (unless she has mastered the vulcan neck pinch) as far at the category descriptions go, summoning things doesn't seem to fit any of it.

    For Ellen under Breaker, I'd say remove the sometimes, the copy spell certainly allows her to take on the abilities of others.

    For Justin, how would he fit Changer? I've never seen him shape shift under his own power, the illusions we've seen him use early on seems to fall under Stranger.

    For the Thinker Category, not entirely sure, but Nanase probably fits here too, she may not have the tech savvy that Tedd has, but a 4.0 GPA must account for something. could also have "sometimes Ellen" because of the rare moments that Ellen thinks of something that no one else ever would have considered. :P

    I abbreviated the definition of "Shaker" a bit too much perhaps; the full definition talks about control of the battlefield. For me to say Tamashii Gekido qualifies it would need to be at least one of: longer range, larger area, and longer lasting in its effect (of making an area a bad place to be). However, it IS an area effect, so saying it qualifies is also reasonable.

    Yes, I was counting Susan's fairies as both Stranger (infiltration) ability (can get in through small openings, hide easily once in position, don't need line-of-sight to Susan) and ranged attack (unsummon). For striker, I was thinking of the stun-hammers, and any of her other summoned weapons' enhanced effect on aberrations..

    I don't think Justin's illusions (that we've seen so far) would be much help in infiltration. But I wanted to put them someplace. They do change his appearance. Changer seemed the best (albeit not great) category. Plenty of room for disagreement on that one too*.

    I already put Nanase in the Thinker category (oops, I guess that only got into one of the two versions of the list - I'll fix that in a moment). But I did so specifically for her enhanced combat-awareness (including assessing people's combat abilities) in guardian form. There's no evidence that the 4.0 GPA is a result of magic, so it doesn't count. Similarly, there's no such evidence regarding Ellen's occasional intuitive flashes, so she gets the "sometimes" for when she's copying a form with abilities she doesn't normally have, including both guardian form (combat awareness) and Brownie form (sense of smell).

    I'll also agree with someone else's comment that there's no place in that list of power categories to put a summoner. However, it may not matter, with one exception: Susan may qualify as a Master because of her control of summoned fairies. (Yeah, I'll add that to the lists too.) Aside from that, the point of a summoning is what one does with the thing summoned. The only powers we've seen Susan use involved summoning, and I had no trouble categorizing her use of them.

    * Actually, there's plenty of room for disagreement on any of them that anyone wants to disagree with me on. However, some have even more room for disagreement than most.

  15. Posted · Edited by Don Edwards
    added Susan/Master and Nanase/Master to both lists, Nanase/Thinker to first list, Tedd/striker to both lists. Took out Ellen's copied powers, made more allowance for the copy ability. Added some explanations.

    On 4/25/2016 at 11:56 AM, KerPop42 said:

    Nanase, Sarah, Grace, and Elliot all have competent Stranger powers. Ellen is a Changer-Trump-Blaster, Tedd is a Trump-Thinker and a Changer-Tinker, and Sarah is a Thinker-Stranger. Elliot and Grace offer the same threat: walk into any facility in the form of any worker they want, transform into a flying brick to out any defenses, then transform into someone else to get away.

    Security at PRT Moperville would have to be tight.

    Reading the list of power categories...

    • Mover (unusual means of travel): Elliot, Grace, Nanase (flying/hovering).
    • Shaker (battlefield control, area effects): none.
    • Brute (able to hit harder and/or take being hit better): Elliot (superhero form); Grace (claws, toughness); Nanase (magically strong, guardian form); Justin (flame fists); Susan (summoned weapons, stun-hammers).
    • Breaker (can change their own abilities): Elliot, Grace, Nanase (powers in some forms that don't work in some other forms) ; Ellen (copy).
    • Master (controls others): Susan (fairies), Nanase (Fox).
    • Tinker (makes/alters gadgets in ways that can violate laws of physics): Tedd, obviously. Grace, maybe.
    • Blaster (has ranged attack): Ellen (FV5 beam), Susan (explosive fairies), Nanase (fae punch).
    • Thinker (enhanced knowledge, skills, or perception): Tedd (magic-reading), Grace (talk with animals), Nanase (guardian combat-sense), Sarah (telepresence), Ellen (knowledge of powers she copies).
    • Striker (has a touch attack that does something abnormal not explained by the force of the touch): Susan (stun-hammers), Tedd (sex change).
    • Changer (shape-shifter): Elliot, Ellen, Grace, Tedd, Nanase (actual shifts); Justin (illusions).
    • Trump (alters or interacts with powers of others): Ellen (copy).
    • Stranger (disguise/infiltration): Elliot, Ellen, Tedd, Grace (shapeshifting); Susan (fairies); Sarah (telepresence); Nanase (hair & clothing changes, fairy).

    Pivoted version:

    • Ellen: Blaster, Breaker, Changer, Stranger, Thinker, Trump
    • Elliot: Breaker, Brute, Changer, Mover, Stranger
    • Grace: Breaker, Brute, Changer, Mover, Stranger, Thinker, Tinker
    • Justin: Brute, Changer
    • Nanase: Blaster, Breaker, Brute, Changer, Master, Mover, Stranger, Thinker
    • Sarah: Stranger, Thinker
    • Susan: Blaster, Brute, Master, Stranger, Striker
    • Tedd: Changer, Stranger, Striker Thinker, Tinker

    Summary version for professionally paranoid government agents:

    • Run away!
    • Run away!

     

  16. Posted

    4 hours ago, exterminator said:

    A more fitting name would've been "The neverending story". That way Elliot could justify not reading it by saying the book "just goes on and on".:D

    If you have both read and watched "The Neverending Story", then you probably think the movie is better. Mainly because the book just goes on and on. The movie covers about the first third, and stops at a good stopping point. The rest of the book, IMHO, has nothing to recommend it.

    ------------------------------

    I've heard of - never encountered - GPS software where if you deviate from the route it plans for you, it works to get you back to the point where you left the planned route going in the right direction. Seems to me this would be extremely unhelpful in the event of a forced detour (construction, bridge out, road blocked by firetrucks, etc.) and would NEVER be BETTER than planning a new route from one's current location.

    I once tried some GPS software that plans a route from your starting point to your destination, and has no provisions whatsoever for deviation - or even tracking where you are. It tells you a route from your starting point to your destination. Period. If you want something else, "end" that trip and start a new trip.

    For Elliot's current method of travel, I think "walking" mode with intelligent handling of going off-route would be best (since there won't be a "flying without an aircraft" mode). Fortunately the GPS isn't smart enough to wonder how it is that he's walking 500 feet above ground at 80 MPH.

  17. Posted

    It's supposedly tied to several things simultaneously - if I remember right it's the hard drive, the motherboard, the processor, and maybe the video adapter. The intent being that the software can tell the difference between "same computer, replacing a component" and "whole different computer".

    Details of what can be replaced under an existing license, and what hoops must be jumped through, may vary from one licensee to another. The retail license is probably broader in what is allowed than some OEM licenses.

  18. Posted

    I'd be hesitant about some of these as they are currently done. Not saying they are wrong, but because they are not necessarily always right. For example, the chart lists Ellen's fur color based on one specific time she had fur, but she's had fur on at least two occasions and the colors may not have been the same - the fur color is not person-specific, it's form-specific or person-and-form-specific.

  19. Posted

    57 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    There will be no need for Edward to raise his voice.  However, we MAY discover the absolute maximum number of charts Agent Verres can produce in a single lecture.

    He'll number the spaces the charts could be in, move each chart to the space with the number 2X the number of its pre-move space, and have an infinite number of odd-numbered spaces left vacant for more charts.

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  20. Posted

    1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

    Possibly transmutation of lead into gold. In the late Mr. Pratchett's masterpieces, this was one of the primary objectives of Ankh-Morpork's alchemists. Unfortunately, the only process they mastered with any degree of consistency was the art of turning gold into less gold.

    Well, that is vastly easier.

  21. Posted

    3 hours ago, Drachefly said:

    I've been on other forums where I've been called a mindless cultist because my position on a issue concerning a controversial fan-work was forgiving and had some nuance, and no one dared to speak in my defense except in PM.

    You insisted on being thoughtful and contemplative when everyone around you was in a frenzy? Yeah, that's pretty bad... I guess... according to some people.

  22. Posted

    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

    -- C.S. Lewis

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  25. Posted

    When all I could see was the first row, I was wondering if the detective was Jerry. (Now I'd be rather surprised if it is.)

    8 hours ago, ijuin said:
    8 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

    Voltaire could be a reference to a French writer, or a musician.

    Which now has me picturing him talking with the same voice as the musician...

    Indeed he could be, but if the Immortal named himself for the musician, then he is pretty young.

    Or changed his name recently. Magus gave Pandora the name "Chaos" and she decided to add it into her name.

    But yeah, I think he's named after the writer.

    What's interesting is the assumption that Helena and Demitrius were BOTH watching Elliot 24/7. Together. Every moment. Aside from being obviously unnecessary, we know it isn't true and they even say they're only "keeping tabs" on him. Even if they intended to maintain a 24-hour on-the-spot guard, it wouldn't require both of them at every moment.