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Tom Sewell

What Should Diana's Mark Be?

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There seems a pretty good chance Diane will get a magic mark at some point. Possibly she might already have one when we see her next, but since she goes to school with Grace, sees her frequently, and has sensed other magic marks, and did not instinctively use magic when confronted by the spider vampire, such a mark would very probably not have been put on Diane before that encounter on Saturday night.

So what should it be? I favor a crescent moon, a bow-and-arrow, or both. Why? Well, Diane is a form of Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon and the hunt. Artemis is her Greek counterpart, as any classically educated person or any of the much more common Sailor Moon otaku already knows.

It also suggests that while Susan always has the hammers, Diane might have a ranged attack. I find it easier to imagine Diane as a stealthy sniper than another hammer queen.

Here are a few inspirational images:

 

diana-goddess-of-the-moon.jpg

event_211793532.jpeg

dianagoddessofthehunt.jpg

diana.jpg

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I recognize that third image! It's from Fantasia, right?

*Me: is about to comment on the phase of the moon being incorrect for the time of day
*Brain: the segment involved deities
*Me: pre-emptively shuts up

Okay, so I read the title and my brain's first thought was

5177e2a25be01255b229ef9c37ba24e6.jpg

 

...the arrow is aimed a little dow-
*Brain: DEITIES
*Me: shuts up

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On 7/12/2016 at 6:36 PM, Tom Sewell said:

and has sensed other magic marks

When and where has she done this?

Diane's seen, or at least heard about Nanase's tendency to float around the halls at school, but that's about it, she only guessed that Ellen has magic because of her association with Nanase.

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Reminder, Pandora's voluntarily shapes her Marks to be descriptive of the spell they represent.  That's not required.  Susan's Mark, for example, was a Venus symbol which in no way related to the function of the spell she got. 

If Pandora Marks Diane, Diane will get some kind of descriptive Mark.  If she gets Marked by Jerry 2.0, all bets are off.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

When and where has she done this?

Diane's seen, or at least heard about Nanase's tendency to float around the halls at school, but that's about it, she only guessed that Ellen has magic because of her association with Nanase.

I realize the way I wrote that was ambiguous. Curse you, easy-to-confuse pronoun! What I meant is that Grace was sensing marks at Moperville South on the day before the date at the mall, in Squirrel Prophet. In fact, when Grace sensed Rhoda's, Rhoda was next to Diane.

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43 minutes ago, mlooney said:

Given her foretold ablities as a vampire hunter, a cross overlain with a wooden stake would be cool.  Or a wooden stake and a mallet in saltire would also be cool.

Brownie point for using a term from heraldry. Think about how many signs you've seen that would be greatly improved by the simple application of one of the most basic rules of heraldry - the one about colors and metals.

36 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I realize the way I wrote that was ambiguous. Curse you, easy-to-confuse pronoun! What I meant is that Grace was sensing marks at Moperville South on the day before the date at the mall, in Squirrel Prophet. In fact, when Grace sensed Rhoda's, Rhoda was next to Diane.

I didn't think she was sensing marks so much as half-remembering that she saw those people's backs in a dream.

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1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

I realize the way I wrote that was ambiguous. Curse you, easy-to-confuse pronoun! What I meant is that Grace was sensing marks at Moperville South on the day before the date at the mall, in Squirrel Prophet. In fact, when Grace sensed Rhoda's, Rhoda was next to Diane.

I wouldn't call that sensing, it was a dejavu moment from her dreams, whatever Disco Wizard showed her in the dream would make her take notice of Justin and Rhoda's back, so more like a nagging memory than a sense.

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Reminder, Pandora's voluntarily shapes her Marks to be descriptive of the spell they represent.  That's not required.  Susan's Mark, for example, was a Venus symbol which in no way related to the function of the spell she got. 

If Pandora Marks Diane, Diane will get some kind of descriptive Mark.  If she gets Marked by Jerry 2.0, all bets are off.

Unless she's trolling again....

58 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

Brownie point for using a term from heraldry. Think about how many signs you've seen that would be greatly improved by the simple application of one of the most basic rules of heraldry - the one about colors and metals.

Could you summarize that rule?  I only just learned the rule about a bastard using his father's banner but with colors reversed (and thus how appropriate Jon Snow's having a white direwolf is).

58 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I didn't think she was sensing marks so much as half-remembering that she saw those people's backs in a dream.

Exactly.  She kind of remembered they're important, but didn't know why until she finally recalled the details of her dream.  She wouldn't know anything about any Marks not in her dream.

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Is this, perchance, the rule in question:

"The rules developed by heralds are based on the experiences of the medieval military craft. They achieved wide recognition because of the primary significance of military activity at the time. Their basis was that every person must be recognizable as quickly as possible under unfavorable conditions of visibility. One of the main rules was therefore that of tincture, whereby metal cannot be used on metal, nor color on color."

Neubecker, Ottfried. Heraldry: Sources, Symbols and Meaning. 

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5 minutes ago, banneret said:

One of the main rules was therefore that of tincture, whereby metal cannot be used on metal, nor color on color."

Um, I don't really understand what that means.  Metal?  Are they putting gold leaf in their flags?  Stitching metal daggars to the cloth?  Are they saying you can only have a black or white background, rather than, say, blue on red, or green on yellow?

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22 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:
2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Reminder, Pandora's voluntarily shapes her Marks to be descriptive of the spell they represent.  That's not required.  Susan's Mark, for example, was a Venus symbol which in no way related to the function of the spell she got. 

If Pandora Marks Diane, Diane will get some kind of descriptive Mark.  If she gets Marked by Jerry 2.0, all bets are off.

Unless she's trolling again....

I wouldn't be surprised if Helena and Demetrius visited Diane after she got home and offered to mark her. Of course that all depends of if they're capable of marking people, either due to their improper deaths slowing down their rate of relearning spells, or the fact that they're still technically too "young" to have the power to mark. If it's the latter, then Jerry 2.0 very likely wouldn't have the power to mark someone either due to him being more freshly reset.

 

 

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This is not from the text, as I am out of the house, so you'll have to bear with me. Silver and gold - represented by white and yellow in imagery - are the "metals" and they must appear at least once in the shield. In classic heraldry, "metals" and "colours" must alternate, though obviously this becomes more difficult to apply when there are more in play than just one "metal" and one "colour". Technically, in California, most road signs have white text (silver, or argent) on a green, brown or blue background so they do comply, in a sense.

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2 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
2 hours ago, banneret said:

Is this, perchance, the rule in question:

"The rules developed by heralds are based on the experiences of the medieval military craft. They achieved wide recognition because of the primary significance of military activity at the time. Their basis was that every person must be recognizable as quickly as possible under unfavorable conditions of visibility. One of the main rules was therefore that of tincture, whereby metal cannot be used on metal, nor color on color."

Neubecker, Ottfried. Heraldry: Sources, Symbols and Meaning. 

Um, I don't really understand what that means.  Metal?  Are they putting gold leaf in their flags?  Stitching metal daggars to the cloth?  Are they saying you can only have a black or white background, rather than, say, blue on red, or green on yellow?

Yeah, the wording on that is not the best. Ambiguous without more information.

2 hours ago, banneret said:

This is not from the text, as I am out of the house, so you'll have to bear with me. Silver and gold - represented by white and yellow in imagery - are the "metals" and they must appear at least once in the shield. In classic heraldry, "metals" and "colours" must alternate, though obviously this becomes more difficult to apply when there are more in play than just one "metal" and one "colour". Technically, in California, most road signs have white text (silver, or argent) on a green, brown or blue background so they do comply, in a sense.

I'm not certain that this clarified things for me, but it's approaching doing so? I might just be very tired, and tomorrow will read this and get it clearly, but as it stands...

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I make no apologies for the quoted text, the whole book is written like that, a bloody nightmare.

To simplify it further, there are "metals" (silver/white and gold/yellow) and "colours" (red, blue, brown, green). You're supposed to have at least one of each, and alternate them.

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7 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

Brownie point for using a term from heraldry. Think about how many signs you've seen that would be greatly improved by the simple application of one of the most basic rules of heraldry - the one about colors and metals.

 

I was, at one point an SCA herald.  I still rant about obeying the law of tincture to people.

And yes Argent on Or is  a violation.  That's white on yellow to you mundanes

:demonicduck:

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6 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Could you summarize that rule?  I only just learned the rule about a bastard using his father's banner but with colors reversed (and thus how appropriate Jon Snow's having a white direwolf is).

I thought bastardy was marked with a bar sinister? *scratches head*

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10 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Um, I don't really understand what that means.  Metal?  Are they putting gold leaf in their flags?  Stitching metal daggars to the cloth?  Are they saying you can only have a black or white background, rather than, say, blue on red, or green on yellow?

Coats of arms are also painted on a warrior's shield or breastplate, not merely on cloth.

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On 12.7.2016 at 1:36 AM, Tom Sewell said:

I favor a crescent moon, a bow-and-arrow, or both. Why? Well, Diane is a form of Diana, the Roman goddess of the moon and the hunt. Artemis is her Greek counterpart, as any classically educated person or any of the much more common Sailor Moon otaku already knows.

It also suggests that while Susan always has the hammers, Diane might have a ranged attack. I find it easier to imagine Diane as a stealthy sniper than another hammer queen.

Good suggestion. However, like it's already been mentioned, the shapes of the magic marks really don't matter and the marks also disappear once their owners awaken. They're not like MLP's Cutie Marks.

Anyway, I agree with you about Diane possibly having a ranged attack. I could see her with a spell that lets her shoot magic arrows at vampires, and maybe also different magic arrows at boys that will make them attracted to her. That is, unless she's matured past that by then.

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I can buy the "Grace's vague memories" theory as plausible, but that would still mean she should have sensed something about Diane's back at the same time she was looking at Rhoda's back, since they were side-by-side and walking away when Grace had her epiphany.

If Diane's mark has been foreshadowed in that eight-mark page at the end of Grace's dream, it could have been either the smoke-screen with the gray background (stealth) or the reversed-color disk with the yellow background. The male-female combination (or Venus and Mars) would be Tedd's--the background suggests the flash that Luke saw and the aura Tedd has when he re-dude-ifies himself.

I've long assumed the magnifying glass on a green background would be Luke's, Luke of the green hair and the ability to check auras (but remember how puzzled he was when he didn't find Justin's mark. Pandora was "kind" enough to explain why he didn't. But... Luke sees Grace with a green aura which is very similar. Could that mark actually be Grace's?

Hmm. Yellow background, blond hair? Diane is sort of a reversed version of Susan, or a photo negative (a term from the dimly remembered days when cameras used actual film which had to be developed and then printed.)

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13 hours ago, banneret said:

Is this, perchance, the rule in question:

"The rules developed by heralds are based on the experiences of the medieval military craft. They achieved wide recognition because of the primary significance of military activity at the time. Their basis was that every person must be recognizable as quickly as possible under unfavorable conditions of visibility. One of the main rules was therefore that of tincture, whereby metal cannot be used on metal, nor color on color."

Neubecker, Ottfried. Heraldry: Sources, Symbols and Meaning. 

Sounds like they got the same writer for EGS spellbooks...

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14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

I can buy the "Grace's vague memories" theory as plausible, but that would still mean she should have sensed something about Diane's back at the same time she was looking at Rhoda's back, since they were side-by-side and walking away when Grace had her epiphany.

That's only if Diane was marked at the time and wasn't marked later on (One theory is that the colored ones had already been given out, and that the gray ones were to be given out in the future), or if Disco Wizard knew about the mark, or if they decided it would be better to focus on the three more likely for Grace to interact with, or if they decided to focus on only three due to time pressure or memory limits or what have you. Lots of reasons for it to have been Rhoda and not Diane. Grace can't sense marks, she remembers things that give her deja vu about it. (If Grace could sense marks, she would have noticed when Justin's vanished)

On top of that, chances are relatively good now that Diane wasn't marked at the time, or else she'd likely have accidentally used it at some point, which would have sent her scurrying to Nanase. (Or she would have used it during the SpiderVamp attack, be it intentionally or accidentally. And if she'd had it prior, there's a small bit of a chance she would have awakened at that point).

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On 7/14/2016 at 10:13 PM, CritterKeeper said:

Um, I don't really understand what that means.  Metal?  Are they putting gold leaf in their flags?  Stitching metal daggars to the cloth?  Are they saying you can only have a black or white background, rather than, say, blue on red, or green on yellow?

There are two "metals" which - since English heraldry is done in medieval French - are known as "or" and "argent". That's literally gold and silver, but actually yellow and white - usually paint. Any other solid hue is a "color".

You don't put a metal on a metal, or a color on a color.

There are also furs, which are a repeating *small* pattern of a metal and a color, usually in roughly-equal areas, and almost always used only as the basic background. There'll typically be more than a dozen - and sometime much more - of the characteristic shape in each hue on the shield. You can put either a metal or a color on a fur, although if it's a nearly-solid hue you should treat it as that hue.

The reason for this rule is very simple: high contrast. The original and primary purpose of heraldry is to make men in armor identifiable at a distance, often in less-than-great light. If you can't tell one thing from another, it isn't doing the job.

And guess what you want on roadside signs...

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