story Story: Wed, Aug 10, 2016

[The Old Hack 2,448]

1 minute ago, mlooney said:

/me gets out the list.

/me squints at The Old Hack.

/me makes a notation.

What would you do if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me.
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,
And I'll try not to sing out of key...

[Berserk Knight 1]

Actually, considering the way immortals bend the rules, maybe Pandora could just recontextualize it so it's "I'm empowering magical energy's ability to flow over to the other half of the world!"

That's technically still empowering, isn't it?  I mean, magic is proven to have a will of it's own, so technically it shouldn't be THAT different.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

1 hour ago, poizan42 said:

...immortals can't break the rules because the other immortals would punish them for it... But what if almost every immortal agrees that the rules needs to be broken? Are the rules so important to them that they wouldn't agree on making an exception no matter what's at stake?

Have you never confronted tradition or bureaucracy?

[Sargon 3]

13 hours ago, PSadlon said:

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2225

She didn't so much bend the rules as fold them.

Any bets on whom she empowered?

I'm thinking Magus.

She did empower the people who got marks by giving them marks.

She did empower everybody in Mopperville able to use magic by creating the energy clog.

She did potentially empower everybody in the world by making them aware of the existance of magic.

[PSadlon 88]

41 minutes ago, mlooney said:

/me gets out the list.

/me squints at The Old Hack.

/me makes a notation.

What sort of notation. 

[hkmaly 490]

4 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Pandora broke into 5 tantruming children all screaming in unison.

Seems more like just four to me.

6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

For me, the most fun part of this episode is Child Pandora running around cussing like a little kid who doesn't know any grown-up cusswords yet.

Well it wasn't really proven that "grown-up" cusswords are more effective ...

9 hours ago, Drasvin said:

Also, while Ellen was born via magic, she is flesh and blood. She's more intune with her magic due to the method of her birth, but she is still made of regular old flesh, blood, bone, and everything else that makes a person.

Sugar?

11 hours ago, Scotty said:

The whales told Tedd that Magic had been unusually high for much of his life, and even Andrea stated that for a long time, the flow of magic was slower, which would mean that something slowed the flow of magic. I still think Pandora did something years ago that affected the flow and then just after her meeting with Adrian and declaring the "destruction" of the world, she completely blocked off the flow.

Agree. In hidden genesis she was likely talking about Magus, but I think her plan was already in progress ...

Also, note that on that page she seem to appear on four places ... just like on this page ...

54 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

2 hours ago, poizan42 said:

...immortals can't break the rules because the other immortals would punish them for it... But what if almost every immortal agrees that the rules needs to be broken? Are the rules so important to them that they wouldn't agree on making an exception no matter what's at stake?

Have you never confronted tradition or bureaucracy?

I keep saying that there must be some automatic element in those rules. Either automatically punishing immortals, or automatically making other immortals aware of the rule breaking. And this automatic process is based on text of the rules and not the intent. Although bureaucracy IS behaving little automatically in the "intent is not important" sense ...

Note that I also suppose it was done by immortals. Something like collective spell they casted all together, after they agreed upon those rules.

1 hour ago, Berserk Knight said:

Actually, considering the way immortals bend the rules, maybe Pandora could just recontextualize it so it's "I'm empowering magical energy's ability to flow over to the other half of the world!"

I also though about her recontextualizing it as empowering the OTHER half ... then realized she may not really know ABOUT the second half. She might've created the clog without knowing WHERE the magic actually flows to ...

[Tom Sewell 268]

Well, it's twenty minutes before dinner, so to pass the time, I'll fire off another crackpot theory.

Maybe "Magic Itself" is something like Skynet, a magical automoton set up by the Immortal community to keep the peace between them and maybe protect the humans to some degree. And, like Skynet, maybe it's become sentient.

Of course, it wouldn't be exactly like Skynet. Especially in the whole "exterminate the humans" thing. We hope. Heck, maybe it's more like Mike, the sentient computer in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, PSadlon said:

What sort of notation. 

That kind of notations.

People should know about The List and what it means.  And why you go in it.

Punishment Reasons.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, PSadlon said:

What sort of notation. 

Clearly, this kind.

[mlooney 3,417]

34 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

Clearly, this kind.

Whatever.

[Zorua 124]

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

As far as we've seen, Magus has only amplified emotions and getting them to act on something they normally wouldn't. Like Tedd zapped Elliot originally because Magus amplified Tedd's annoyance that Elliot couldn't tell if he was a guy again, Tedd was probably thinking "I oughta zap you". Ellen was annoyed by the "dream" she had about sleeping with Archie and didn't like the idea of Nanase being a guy and just wanted to have a V5 party where she zapped everyone, so Magus amplified that to try to get her to zap Elliot. Abraham was feeling guilty about having to kill Ellen, Magus tried to amplify that to stop him but I dunno if Abraham was resisting really well or if it was something else.  Edward was mad that his niece was hurt and nearly killed Abraham for it, Pandora wanted Magus to amplify that even more so that Edward finished the job, but thankfully Magus refused.

I'm pretty sure those were the only cases so far of Magus' amplifying.

He can amplify abilities. He says so right here.

He hasn't done so in canon (theories about Ellen's FV5 beam against Vlad vs. against everyone else aside), but he can do it.

So the idea that he could amp up Tedd's Anti-Magic is still plausible.

[Scotty 1,061]

2 minutes ago, Zorua said:

He can amplify abilities. He says so right here.

He hasn't done so in canon (theories about Ellen's FV5 beam against Vlad vs. against everyone else aside), but he can do it.

Ahh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure Magus had anything to do the Ellen's beam when she zapped Vlad, It's canon that she can amp up the beam herself, but as for the beam that hit Vlad, I'm more inclined to believe that she cares enough for Nanase that her emotions were naturally supercharging the beam. It was a clutch moment.

[Don Edwards 548]

7 hours ago, PSadlon said:

I'm just saying here have been incidents of ta dimensional shift causing runaway energy conditions in literature before.

At first I misread that as "causing runaway literature" and I was going to ask for a link or reference... because it sounds interesting.

[Zorua 124]

15 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Ahh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure Magus had anything to do the Ellen's beam when she zapped Vlad, It's canon that she can amp up the beam herself, but as for the beam that hit Vlad, I'm more inclined to believe that she cares enough for Nanase that her emotions were naturally supercharging the beam. It was a clutch moment.

To be fair, it's a tiny detail in a paragraph that's TL;DR'd a second later, from a page written seven years ago. Not unsurprising that it'd be missed or forgotten.

I know that the beam was most likely amped up by emotion and there's reasons to suggest that was in fact the case. Still, it's always fun to speculate. To the speculation thread! *spinning 910cmx logo transition*

[Tom Sewell 268]

21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I'm more inclined to believe that she [Ellen] cares enough for Nanase that her emotions were naturally supercharging the beam. It was a clutch moment.

Yes, and perhaps again when facing not-Tengu. Yeah, Jerry was on the scene, but...

Another thought: Just maybe Pandora is teaching Magus some hard lessons. Magus doesn't really show any anything more than arrogance and concern for himself until he refuses to kill Abraham.

[Scotty 1,061]

2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Yes, and perhaps again when facing not-Tengu. Yeah, Jerry was on the scene, but...

Another thought: Just maybe Pandora is teaching Magus some hard lessons. Magus doesn't really show any anything more than arrogance and concern for himself until he refuses to kill Abraham.

The Copy Spell instance is tricky, either the spell was working as intending and Ellen's asking for permission was unnecessary, or it was the will of magic that took notice of what Ellen was trying to do and figured it was a proper dramatic moment. I guess "flair for the dramatic" could just as easily apply to the extra amped beam that hit Vlad too though. ::shrugs::

[RainbowWizard 35]

I get the feeling that Dan is a fan of Looney Toons with how much Pandora acts like Daffy Duck sometimes. Or Pandora is a fan. Or both. Actually now I think about it, it's confirmed Dan is a fan because of the reference to the war quote in the old 'facing the squirrels' NP plot with the Monty Python reference!

 

Sidebar: Pandora's hair looks almost double-squirrel tail ish with the messy sticky out bits in this.

And this is taking place in Grace's mind... Dreamscape... Non-rainbow magic magubbins.

 

random unlikely sidetheory: spend enough time in someone else's mind without protections and an empathetic erosion will begin making you more like that person in your own mind, since you're exposing your mind solely to the materialised thoughts of their mind. This would be a long term thing, so everyone's safe here, but it seems plausible.

 

[Aura Guardian 57]

I'm going to guess that Tedd's magitech is how Moperville will be cleansed of the extra magic.

I wish that everyone could have had magic, but Magic  

[jonnnney 1]

18 hours ago, Berserk Knight said:

Actually, considering the way immortals bend the rules, maybe Pandora could just recontextualize it so it's "I'm empowering magical energy's ability to flow over to the other half of the world!"

That's technically still empowering, isn't it?  I mean, magic is proven to have a will of it's own, so technically it shouldn't be THAT different.

We don't know the full rules of the immortals on the other half of the world. They might not have carte blanche to empower anyone/anything.

 

Does anyone else think that Pandora first created the clog to help Adrian and her godson (along with creating chaos of course)? Adrian was trying to create a team of powerful wizards with Ted's parents and an higher amount of magical energy would assist in his goals. She did say one of the reasons that she let Abraham attack was to give Adrian a chance to fight just like he wanted and Adrian said he hadn't seen her for 14 years.

She later empowered the clog when she decided to bring about the apocalypse.

[ijuin 572]

20 hours ago, PSadlon said:

What sort of notation. 

I was thinking Reverse Danish Notation?

[Cpt. Obvious 73]

12 hours ago, mlooney said:

That kind of notations.

People should know about The List and what it means.  And why you go in it.

Punishment Reasons.

Actually The List can have many uses, some more ominous than others...

 

[hkmaly 490]

23 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Maybe "Magic Itself" is something like Skynet, a magical automoton set up by the Immortal community to keep the peace between them and maybe protect the humans to some degree. And, like Skynet, maybe it's become sentient.

Makes sense ... especially considering that with magic, something becoming sentient is MUCH more likely. And about the protection: of course it protects humans. They are valuable toys.

18 hours ago, Scotty said:

20 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Yes, and perhaps again when facing not-Tengu. Yeah, Jerry was on the scene, but...

The Copy Spell instance is tricky, either the spell was working as intending and Ellen's asking for permission was unnecessary, or it was the will of magic that took notice of what Ellen was trying to do and figured it was a proper dramatic moment.

The Copy Spell is tricky as we don't know how it's supposed to work. TF gun is not able to copy abilities, but this spell doesn't need to follow that rule ... only thing we know is that it would not work on not-Tengu, but we have no idea WHY ...

... in any case, the asking for permission was unnecessary. The "saving girlfriend by copying her abilities" angle would be enough drama with or without asking.

 

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Actually The List can have many uses, some more ominous than others...

 

/me's list is some what less, ah, expansive, than Syd's list is.

[Tom Sewell 268]

42 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

only thing we know is that it would not work on not-Tengu, but we have no idea WHY ...

Here's an idea: Not-Tengu's abilities were all part of a spell he was using. According to Edward Who Knows Everything, a.k.a Tedd's dad, only wizards can learn (= copy) spells. If Ellen had used the copy spell, assuming she could penetrate the magical shell around the actual ugly one-eyed French guy, she could have turned into an ordinary ugly one-eyed French guy with no special powers. Jerry just said copying not-Tengu was a bad idea, not exactly what would or would not happen if Ellen had tried.

Maybe the first beam did work, but the FV5'd not-Tengu turned male again before the shell dissipated.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

On August 10, 2016 at 5:04 PM, mlooney said:

/me gets out the list.

/me squints at The Old Hack.

/me makes a notation.

/me decides the list is a list of interesting and intelligent people.

On August 10, 2016 at 5:09 PM, Berserk Knight said:

maybe Pandora could just recontextualize it so it's "I'm empowering magical energy's ability to flow over to the other half of the world!"

That's pretty much what I thought, but I'm guessing that it won't be that easy.

On August 10, 2016 at 6:35 PM, hkmaly said:

Sugar?

Don't forget Spice!  Hmm, although, given she was made out of a boy, maybe she's still Snips and Snails and Puppy-dog Tails....

On August 10, 2016 at 6:35 PM, hkmaly said:

I also though about her recontextualizing it as empowering the OTHER half ... then realized she may not really know ABOUT the second half. She might've created the clog without knowing WHERE the magic actually flows to ...

Hmm, I would have a hard time believing something that big was unknown to the Immortals.  But, it might be something which, like Magic being able to change, Pandora "knows" but hasn't really thought about or fully recalled yet.

23 hours ago, Zorua said:

He can amplify abilities. He says so right here.

Nice catch!

23 hours ago, Zorua said:

To the speculation thread! *spinning 910cmx logo transition*

*snerk*  Nice reference!

2 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

Actually The List can have many uses, some more ominous than others...

Thank you for that nice collection of links!  I think your third link ("more") is my favorite. :-)