• Announcements

    • Robin

      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!

EmpactWB

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    54

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by EmpactWB

  2. Posted

    3 minutes ago, Scotty said:

    The charm spell was to lure victims to a secluded spot for killing, trying to convince a possible victim to follow them would be much more difficult without such a spell.

    Also, it's possible some vampires don't stop at blood when feeding. And maybe they have spells for hiding the remains.

    While I don't disagree that it's likely, we only have the word of two lying liars who lie on that one killing his victims.

  3. Posted

    2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

    Depends on just how much energy summoning that dragon takes. Greg and Grace could probably take care of a single dragon without too much trouble. At least if Grace could summon up the determination to actually do some harm to the poor creature.

    We know that Grace is reluctant to harm any being, and that would most probably include a small dragon. But if whoever was behind that attack was someone like Sirleck then they are unlikely to even consider the possibility that she wouldn't take it out with extreme prejudice, leaving nothing to regenerate. I'm thinking that Greg probably would be about as effective as Noah at keeping one dragon occupied, but the regeneration would mean he would have a hard time disposing of it.

    So if the "man behind the curtain" didn't know and understand enough about Grace then summoning a horde of cheep fire dudes might have seemed a better idea than bringing in another dragon or two, or four, but not three, five or six because that would be ridiculous...

    Conversely, Greg isn't keen on hurting the innocent either. The dozens of fire guys distracting them would have been a good plan as long as Grace and Greg tried sticking to peaceful resolutions with Dex, because if they spent long enough on it, they might have talked him down. Another dragon might have injured Dex in the fracas, or either Greg or Grace might have tried holding it off while the other got through to Dex, and three almost certainly would have KO'ed Dex or perhaps drained his power too fast for it to be replenished before the spells ended.

  4. Posted

    14 hours ago, malloyd said:

    You know, Andrea must have been very quick and effective at dispatching them, given that they can't have killed many people in Moperville at all.  It's not a very large city, and is a well regulated and policed one.  If there were half a dozen extra missing person reports in the last 2 months, never mind half a dozen blood drained corpses, DGB would probably have already noticed. 

    I know it's traditional to ignore this sort of issue in vampire stories, but still.

    I chalk it up to them having the same basic needs as Andrea when it comes to a place to stay hidden. Basically, she's meeting them as they arrive and pick a lair, rather than after they've been there some time. Which would make Helena and Demetrius all the more likely to have her stay right there rather than actually help get her home. Plus, Sirleck is proof of concept that aberrations don't necessarily have to kill their victims (directly).

    Also, there's the fact that not all aberrations are guaranteed to be blood-suckers, and vampire was the term Susan used to make it easier to explain to Sarah and Grace about the single specific one from France so it's weird having all the characters talk about them like that.

  5. Posted · Edited by EmpactWB
    Spelling and correcting link.

    9 hours ago, WR...S said:

    It was definitely Pandora behind Dex.

    I used to think so too, but then I noticed Abner using the same phrase that Dex was muttering right before blasting at Noah, Dex's "now" questions seemed to count down to Elliot and Grace showing up, the bulldog dragon isolated Elliot, blasted into traffic on command causing Elliot to have to block instead of dodge, and then moved to finish Elliot until Melissa stepped in. Killing Dex might not have been the original plan, just an effort to cover up Voltaire's involvement when he couldn't finish Elliot. The pithos might have been a message to Pandora, perhaps signifying that this was the hope of the world rather than what she's attempting.

    I'm not sold on this theory, mind. It has a lot of holes due to lacking information on what Voltaire was up to at the time and how long he's been against Pandora.

    8 hours ago, Pippa's Ghost said:

    Even if Pandora did mark Dex, the amulet used to boost his magic power left him "disoriented and open to the suggestions of whoever was able to get through the disorientation" (here).  Maybe Sirleck/Volty/Lord Tedd/Phil/The Gods of Curling/etc. took advantage of that to trick him into attacking the Dojo.  (Maybe that could be why Pandora later stopped using amulets to boost magic power, and blocked the magic flow instead.)

    That same comic implies that the same person who gave him the pendant was the one controlling him, though, and while it's difficult to be certain, I think you can see the top of the mark when Dex puts on the pendant in panel 2. Also, he noticed the mark Friday and summoned his fairy on Saturday, but it wasn't until Tuesday when he summoned the fire guy that we see any evidence that he had the pendant. We see in Legends of Celida that Tedd already has multi-function watches, so I would think he's probably been working on them for more than the twenty-odd days since the attack. (Admittedly, I can only confirm a minimum of ten days between him saying he's making sense of magic and using that watch. I thought it was nine, but then I noticed panel 3 would fall on a Saturday if it was successive days, so the book bag means there has to be at least one day skipped.) Plus Raven didn't think it was crazy enough to be her, and if there's anyone who should know... Yeah, the more I think about it, the less certain I am of Pandora being the one behind the pendant.

    The Old Hack, Cpt. Obvious and ijuin reacted to this

  7. Posted

    In the comic I linked above, Nanase explicitly says "We used up the ambient energy around here, so we're going to lose these forms soon." And not-Tengu deliberately baited Nanase into using it because it had a limited duration. Nanase could also seem to feel the clock running out on them, since she knew the forms shouldn't last long without the extra energy. Bracing themselves as they feel it coming accounts for them not talking during the switch back. They might have been able to force it to stay longer based on the Abraham fight, granted (to me it always looked like the relief that Ellen had woken up knocked her out of focus and the form), but I see allowing the spell to end at its normal duration as different from actively choosing to end it. Might just be one of those definition things.

  9. Posted

    33 minutes ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

    Ellen didn't copy any spell. She copied Nanase in her current form, and it was only temporary. Far from being as overpowered as if she had been able to copy the actual spell. 

    I have to disagree with this. Ellen copied Nanase's form, but it started out as her normal form, then transformed into the Guardian Form, complete with all the abilities that the spell gives Nanase when she's using it, and it lasted as long as the spell did for Nanase. Ellen totally copied the spell.

  10. Posted

    55 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

    I would like to remind again that we have NO canon statement about spellbook being good for learning spells.

    But, yes, it is possible the spell need to be watched multiple times, at least if it's more complicated spell like Cheerleadra. Or Nanase's fairy dolls, especially in Susan's version.

    Sorry, I should have emphasized the "even if" to clarify that I meant it as a hypothetical option, not a verified one. I just meant to contradict the claim that there had to be more to it than just watching, given we had Tedd's word on that being possible.

  11. Posted

    7 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

     

    Edward's latest cunning plan:

    Edward: Also, I'm going to manufacture a Cheerleadra sighting somewhere while you're [Elliot] in class and surrounded by witnesses. Obvious solution, and everything's fine so long as Ashley can sell the “only just met her” angle.

    Earlier at the mall:

    Floating Elf Jesus (a.k.a Voltaire) (quite loudly): This girl, Ashley, is the potential mate of German Dark I spoke of in my riddle.

    Since it's part of Edward's cunning plan for Ashley to speak to reporters, at least one of them is going to ask her whether the Immortal was lying about her being Cheerleadra's potential mate.

    Maybe Ashley can call in the Demonic Duck?

    Or she can get flustered at being labeled "superheroine's potential mate" instead of "young woman who assists heroes with her God-like soccer skills and who may or may not be romantically interested".

    Tom Sewell reacted to this

  12. Posted

    43 minutes ago, mlooney said:

    Just being able to learn a spell by watching it is what is special about Twilight Sparkle.  It's also, even in a universe of magical unicorns, considered extremely powerful.  I strongly suspect that human wizards in the EGS need to either study the other spell caster casting the spell several times or read their spellbook.  Of course there is no canon statement one way or the other, just that "wizards" can learn other magic user's spells.

    We have Tedd stating that he is clearly not a wizard because he had been around some spells so often he'd have learned them without trying. So repeated exposure is a possible method of learning them, even if study and practice is also a method.

  13. Posted

    Average public school size 1999-2000

    The average in the US was 752, the average for Illinois (wasn't Moperville based on Naperville?) is 713. Quarter for the grade, double for the two schools, halve for just girls, so 188/178, with 26,280 twenty minute blocks in a year. So somewhere in the vicinity of 45-49% of it happening at least once on those numbers. Hair and eye colors are something we shouldn't try to estimate, since additional natural colors are possible in the EGS world. And, as observed elsewhere, magic is a huge dork and might deliberately be trolling everyone.

  15. Posted

    Yeah, really all the Birthday Paradox shows is how plausible Edward's coincidence theory is for explaining the birth times (remarkably). Our info is insufficient to address the whole of it.

    Of course, "switched at birth" seems as unlikely as the separate mothers thing. Wikipedia shows only three discovered cases so far this century. Although one of those was a case of one identical twin accidentally being switched to a random family, which seems oddly relevant. If Susan was switched out to a family while the real Tiffany Pompoms was given up for adoption in her place alongside Diane, that explains everything without having to mess with the cheating father.

  16. Posted

    53 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

     Well, both opinions are true: Of course, Occam's razor would say them being born from same mother is more likely. On the other hand, coincidences DO happen and can be more common that they seem - see birthday paradox. Actually, let's see ... ignoring the "being same" part, if we want probability 95% to have two people born at same half hour, that would be ... 104971 people if I count correctly. In group of 104971 people of same age, there is 95% probability that two had been born same half hour. Sure, that's pretty big, but it's not "impossibly" big.

    Assuming I'm doing my math right, the probably tops 50% when you hit 158 people (365 days, 48 half hours per day for 17,520 half hours in a year; may have been better to do it as 00:00-00:30, 00:01-00:31, etc, but this should be a decent enough approximation). In a town with two high schools, I would expect to have way more than 158 people in the same grade across both schools. So you're definitely edging in to the "very likely" territory.

  18. Posted

    16 minutes ago, chridd said:

    Cheerleadra looks like Ellen, which would imply that the form the superhero takes is based on their normal appearance, so Wolf using the spell would look like a combination of Wolf and Cheerleadra (and same for other wizards).

    Oh! Ellen's Copy beam spell could be learned by any wizard, then used to copy Cheerleadra until the appropriate time! An illusion to look like Rose Elliot until it was time to 'transform' completes the set-up, and Bob's your uncle! 

    As a side note, I'm going to start calling Nanase's dad "Bob".

  19. Posted

    32 minutes ago, animalia said:

    To be fair Negi tried to use said spell on Asuna who we later learn as anti-magic abilites

    Yeah, and Negi stops the teachers from using it on Chao, so we don't see it working there either. (Wilhelm used something similar on Kotaro, which didn't last.) But if the weirdness censor were itself a magical effect, the spell would be redundant for mundanes. Also, the spell from the blimp, the one that would have made everyone more receptive to the idea of magic existing, would have been irrelevant too. They would have needed an area dispelling effect targeting specifically the censor rather than something to make people just chill out and accept less evidence than normal.

    Hmm... Now I'm wondering about the time Negi got his arm turned to stone. Does magic resistance in EGS work the same way? Would there be that tipping point where a spell works slowly enough on a person with high resistance that it's actually riskier than just letting it happen all at once?

  20. Posted

    3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

    Nah, Tedd is currently in a male form, I think you're okay using "he" unless/until there's some indication that Tedd is feeling female/wishing he could take female form right now.  Dan has been using pronouns to fit Tedd's form and/or spirit for a while now, I tend to follow his lead.

    I think Cap meant using so many pronouns when talking about multiple persons to whom the pronouns could reasonably refer (Tedd, Edward, Elliot). It's pretty clear who they refer to, though.

    4 hours ago, animalia said:

    I don't know if anyone here has ever read Mahou Sensei Negima! but one of the things I liked about it was how the wierdness censaor wass justified as a type of magic.

    I only remember that for flying on the staff. Chisame was pretty freaked out by all the crazy right from her first appearance, there was a school club dedicated to keeping track of the giant glowing tree, and Negi had a spell that was basically the MIB neuralizer (not that I remember it ever working offhand). But with Ashley meeting Tedd, we might get to see the age-changing pills from Negima eventually.

    wanderingmagus and Tom Sewell reacted to this

  21. Posted

    5 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

    Went back and took another look.

    While Pandora was in the survey disguise, her glasses seemed to fluctuate between square-ish an round-ish, without actually being one or the other.  But in this comic, her glasses look completely round in profile and completely square head on.

    I know this is either artistic license on Dan's part or Magic by Pandora.  But is there a way that effect could be duplicated with tech and still keep the prescriptions on the lenses intact?

    So, basically, yes. It's all perspective.

  22. Posted

    1 hour ago, animalia said:

    Tedd looks sad

    And hot. Sad and hot. He's probably thinking about how his dad would react to his magic mark.

    Still, I think Edward has it right in panel 5. Most people will dismiss guy-Elliot in favor of the pink-haired girl-Elliot. Tensaided is an edge case, because he already associated the two and seems to feel that actually knowing a super is way more important than ogling one. 

  24. Posted

    In my home state, the cut off for write-in candidates to sign up is the end of this month. I suggest we register George Carlin, because there's technically no requirement that a candidate be living, only that the VP takes over if he dies in office, and it's not like he could mess anything up. Sure, you could argue that he couldn't discharge the duties of the office while dead, but he (or the VP and a majority of the Cabinet) also has to inform Congress of this in writing for it to take effect. If we get a really lazy VP to go along with this and President Carlin never selects a Cabinet, bam. We're golden.

    Yeah, Diane probably knows. She is sneaky and clever. She'll probably just run into Catalina and Rhoda one day while they're out on a date and just casually say "If you break her heart, I'll EAT yours" before wandering off.

  25. Posted

    1 hour ago, Scotty said:

    I still say Rhoda liking girls is only a secret Rhoda doesn't want Diane knowing about, this isn't a case of Rhoda being afraid of being outed like Justin was, Rhoda's parents already know, it's more like Rhoda being afraid of not being accepted in Diane's circle anymore, Rhoda was there when Diane criticized Nanase's suggestion that she'd sit with Diane if she let Justin sit with them as well as well as called Justin defective, so that would certainly have an affect on Rhoda not wanting Diane to know.

    She's keeping it a secret in general so it doesn't get back to Diane, not just keeping it from Diane. I fully agree that it's just for that, but it's still not openly known. And while Pandora might be making a shrinking pun, a secret only kept to avoid one person knowing IS kind of a small one. Big secrets would be like having the Presidential candidates replaced by alien replicants from beyond the Moon or a Volkswagen Beetle coming to life and winning races.