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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!
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Story: Wednesday, Jun 29, 2016

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I still say that Greg is awaked, he has 2 to 5 spells.

And I should have use Susan's growth spurt instead of Nanase's boobs as an example of magical growth with reference to Greg's bodybuilding style body.  We know at least 2 male magic users, who are awaken have better abs than what we have seen of their lifestyle would indicate.  Justin even said something about that.

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The Ecology of Anteaters (Not a Spellbook) - Seems fine, if not obvious.

The Tacos of Yesteryear - When did they even have tacos? Quick, check their fridges! And give me a steak burrito!

Tone (and schedule) says it will end, but the bunnies will always say otherwise.

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I love the fake book titles. So much so that I actually came up with some explanations for what these titles would mean, if they were real books.

A Perfectly Normal Book: Self-help. A guide for "weirdos" about how to act normal

The Tacos of Yesteryear: A history of tacos, from their humble beginnings to their present worldwide popularity.

The Ecology of Anteaters (Not a Spellbook): Self-explanatory. It's about the ecology of anteaters, and it is not a spellbook, obviously.

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How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could and would chuck wood? A precise mathematical calculation.

Proper and Improper Nouns

Our Friends the Amino Acids

The Laws of Physics and the Penalties for Breaking Them

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The description of how (relatively) easy it is to generate spell books made me think that they may be well known.  If the spell books are publicly known, that leads to some interesting ideas.

I am imagining Elliot on trial for collateral damage from a battle involving the Unfortunately-Named-Cheerleader-Themed-Super-Heroine.  Elliot's spell book is entered as evidence.  Edward Veres is called as an expert witness.  Then under oath Edward is compelled to describe how Elliot demonstrated gross negligence when he failed to reduce the risk to bystanders or end the conflict because his spell book describes how to use those powers in those situations and Elliot failed to read his book.

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In such a court case, there would be no way to prove *when* such additions were made to his spellbook.  Edward could argue that the relevant passages could have appeared *after* the incident, perhaps in response *to* the incident.

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4 hours ago, Stature said:

The Tacos of Yesteryear - When did they even have tacos? Quick, check their fridges! And give me a steak burrito!

Maybe it's a trashy lesbian romance by someone who's terrible at keeping their metaphors subtle?

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37 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

The description of how (relatively) easy it is to generate spell books made me think that they may be well known.  If the spell books are publicly known, that leads to some interesting ideas.

I am imagining Elliot on trial for collateral damage from a battle involving the Unfortunately-Named-Cheerleader-Themed-Super-Heroine.  Elliot's spell book is entered as evidence.  Edward Veres is called as an expert witness.  Then under oath Edward is compelled to describe how Elliot demonstrated gross negligence when he failed to reduce the risk to bystanders or end the conflict because his spell book describes how to use those powers in those situations and Elliot failed to read his book.

An interesting thought and scenario, though that exact one is unlikely to happen. Elliot's actions as Cheerleadra would largely be protected by Good Samaritan laws, which protect non-professionals who are trying to help in emergency or crisis situations from legal liability of collateral and such, such as someone administering CPR and cracking the person's ribs or pulling someone from a burning vehicle and worsening any sustained injuries. There are certainly limitations of such laws, but as long as there's no evidence of Cheerleadra intentionally causing harm or risk, it's unlikely there would be much legal ground to convict Elliot, as he's not employed by any law enforcement or emergency services and he's not intentionally seeking out the super hero work. Maybe if his negligence directly endangered bystanders(like if he gets an spell that lets him fire laser eye beams or something and triggers the spell accidentally), but as he's not a professional, it's doubtful that he would be legally expected to otherwise reduce risk in a crisis situation.

Note, I'm not a lawyer, just your typical knowledge sponge, though I did learn the general points about Good Samaritan laws in a class on First Aid.

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Elliot has a tool or weapon that could foreseeably cause harm to others.
Elliot has the means to learn ways of using those abilities safely and effectively by reading his spell book.
Elliot has neglected to study his spell book but used the abilities anyway.

A common theme of Good Samaritan laws, as they apply to first aid, is well expressed by the following statement from Wikipedia.  "The responder is not legally liable for any harm to the person assisted, as long as the responder acted rationally, in good faith and in accordance with their level of training."

Using powerful weapons without training is not the behavior of a rational person.

Good Samaritan Laws may not apply to Supertypes.

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9 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Elliot has a tool or weapon that could foreseeably cause harm to others.
Elliot has the means to learn ways of using those abilities safely and effectively by reading his spell book.
Elliot has neglected to study his spell book but used the abilities anyway.

A common theme of Good Samaritan laws, as they apply to first aid, is well expressed by the following statement from Wikipedia.  "The responder is not legally liable for any harm to the person assisted, as long as the responder acted rationally, in good faith and in accordance with their level of training."

Using powerful weapons without training is not the behavior of a rational person.

Good Samaritan Laws may not apply to Supertypes.

Except Elliot does have functional training for his 'weapon.' Elliot is well practiced with Anime-style Martial Arts, which trains the user in super-powered martial combat. He has trained on how to punch and kick and otherwise fight while pumping ki (which has sense been established to be magical energy) into his muscles for additional power. Of the abilities that Cheerleadra currently has, the only combat ability that Elliot wouldn't be trained with is Flight and that appears to be at least semi-instinctive as he can fly in complex patterns soon after first using the spell (he does have problems with the landing though). I would say he would have sufficient training for at least the basic abilities of Cheerleadra and is only lacking on more complex and advanced capabilities

While I posited a hypothetical of endangering bystanders via an unknown ability, magic user seem to have a generally firm control over when their abilities activate. The only times we've seen spells activate with little to no intent, is when someone is first marked without their knowledge or when the person is experiencing dangerous energy buildups. The other times we've seen of someone activating an aspect of a spell without consciously meaning to, they've had either an intent similar to what the aspect does (and that aspect is on hair-trigger) or they've had strong desire and intent in line with the function of the spell or aspect. Sarah triggered the switch bodies part of her spell when she was intent on moving Carol in the simulation. Elliot triggered the Cheerleadra spell in his sleep due to a dream about being a superhero. He triggered the secret identity aspect without knowing about it when he was freaking out about how he would get home without anyone realizing that he was the mysterious new superhero. His merger with the phone was passive and other than answering a call by touching his belly button he only triggered the phone apps when he had desire and intent to bring them up. So unless the hypothetical dangerous spell/aspect is on a hair-trigger (in which case Elliot would likely find out about it rather quickly after earning it), then any unknown spell or aspect will likely go unused. Should a person rendering first aid be held liable for using makeshift supplies when they have a first aid kit in their car, if they don't know it's there? If Elliot where to be brought up on charges for gross negligence, it would likely be over his not managing his energy buildups properly, as those can and have force triggered spells.

Also I don't see why Good Samaritan Laws wouldn't apply to Supertypes, provided said individual is neither a professional super nor are intentionally seeking out crisis or emergency situations (though that might fall under volunteer work if the super isn't expecting remuneration, though depending on the situations might run afoul of vigilante laws)

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I wonder where the text in the spell books actually comes from. Is there some Immortal somewhere whose job it is to just go around writing articles in everybody's spell books about their new spells? Or are the spell books themselves sentient and writing themselves?

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Regarding Grace's pose: No, it wouldn't be "natural" because she may be using "magic flying".

First, her flying is more like levitation. There are no wings involved. The pose only makes sense with wings on back providing (part of) lifting force.

Second, she obviously have weight on her legs. They would be positioned differently if not.

She seriously looks drunk. Or maybe tired but overenergized with caffeine.

Although I'm not complaining, because she also looks cute like this. And sexy.

9 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

I am imagining Elliot on trial for collateral damage from a battle involving the Unfortunately-Named-Cheerleader-Themed-Super-Heroine.  Elliot's spell book is entered as evidence.  Edward Veres is called as an expert witness.  Then under oath Edward is compelled to describe how Elliot demonstrated gross negligence when he failed to reduce the risk to bystanders or end the conflict because his spell book describes how to use those powers in those situations and Elliot failed to read his book.

Can you seriously imagine court case based on proving that overly verbose hard to read text was correctly understood? ... oh, wait, some laws are exactly like that and yet we are supposed to understand them.

6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

If Elliot where to be brought up on charges for gross negligence, it would likely be over his not managing his energy buildups properly, as those can and have force triggered spells.

... while not trying to spent some time outside city is negligent, transforming often enough is also effective.

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42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Or maybe tired but overenergized with caffeine.

That seems more like it to me.  Hmm, I wonder how theobromine affects squirrels?  Or Uryuom or Lespukos, for that matter....

42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Can you seriously imagine court case based on proving that overly verbose hard to read text was correctly understood? ... oh, wait, some laws are exactly like that and yet we are supposed to understand them.

I still have a picture of my Nook's EULA first page.  A box to click saying something like, "I hereby confirm that I have read and understood this End User License Agreement," and at the bottom, "page 1 of 178"

42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

... while not trying to spent some time outside city is negligent, transforming often enough is also effective.

Now that Elliot has met the conditions to make his Magic happy, I suspect he's done with having energy build-ups.  Not sure if it was explicitly stated that getting only girly spells and getting energy build-ups go together and end together, or if my brain just made that up....

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38 minutes ago, Wanderer said:

I wonder where the text in the spell books actually comes from. Is there some Immortal somewhere whose job it is to just go around writing articles in everybody's spell books about their new spells? Or are the spell books themselves sentient and writing themselves?

I'm pretty sure it's closer to the later. Likely the spellbooks are pulling data from their linked owners, parsing the details of the spells and outputting the verbose text to the pages, similar to how Tedd can understand a spell by watching it be cast, though with the efficiency of a machine or computer program and with the advantage of being able to access data even when it's not in use. On that point, I imagine it's possible to make a spellbook that doesn't have as verbose or dense text, but doing so would be risky as you would be losing detail that might be important, especially if the book isn't particularly 'smart' with what details it culls for readability.

 

44 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Can you seriously imagine court case based on proving that overly verbose hard to read text was correctly understood? ... oh, wait, some laws are exactly like that and yet we are supposed to understand them.

In the case of laws, that's in part what lawyers are for. A good part of their job is to decipher the thick, verbose laws and legal documents and provide accurate, understandable legal advice for their clients. If spellbooks would be admissible evidence in the EGS-verse, there are likely lawyers, or something equivalent, who specialize in deciphering spellbooks for the courts and/or their clients. Would these services be affordable for a teenage without a steady job? Most likely not.

 

52 minutes ago, hkmaly said:
6 hours ago, Drasvin said:

If Elliot where to be brought up on charges for gross negligence, it would likely be over his not managing his energy buildups properly, as those can and have force triggered spells.

... while not trying to spent some time outside city is negligent, transforming often enough is also effective.

Very true, but there have been several times that Elliot has neglected to transform often enough, like at the comic shop on the day the fire dude showed up or when the day Ashley got to see him transform. Those times he managed to keep his magic under control long enough to get out of sight and intentionally trigger a spell to bring his energy levels under control, but he still let them get high enough to risk the energy overflowing and force triggering a spell (imagine what would have happened if the bathroom had been occupied) and a harsh court could potentially damn him for being that risky with his magic.

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16 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Or maybe tired but overenergized with caffeine.

That seems more like it to me.  Hmm, I wonder how theobromine affects squirrels?  Or Uryuom or Lespukos, for that matter....

I'm pretty sure if it would affect Grace the way it affects dogs, it would already be mentioned.  Also, she would likely not survive this page.

20 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

I still have a picture of my Nook's EULA first page.  A box to click saying something like, "I hereby confirm that I have read and understood this End User License Agreement," and at the bottom, "page 1 of 178"

... why there wasn't class suit already?

38 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Now that Elliot has met the conditions to make his Magic happy, I suspect he's done with having energy build-ups.  Not sure if it was explicitly stated that getting only girly spells and getting energy build-ups go together and end together, or if my brain just made that up....

It was not stated in either direction, but based on flair for drama, it IS possible ...

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1 hour ago, Vorlonagent said:

Is this comic confirmation that Ed Verres is officially a wizard?

I thought that Wolf and Cranium reporting to him was sufficient confirmation.

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