• 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!
Sign in to follow this  
ChronosCat

Story, Monday Dec 17, 2018

Recommended Posts

http://egscomics.com/comic/tsos-16

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yay for starburst background in panel one!

...So now I'm starting to think maybe no one will see Grace using her powers; in fact maybe this little sequence exists entirely to explain this aspect of Grace's powers. It wouldn't be the first time Dan has inserted a scene just to explain someone's powers...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, ChronosCat said:

http://egscomics.com/comic/tsos-16

...So now I'm starting to think maybe no one will see Grace using her powers; in fact maybe this little sequence exists entirely to explain this aspect of Grace's powers. It wouldn't be the first time Dan has inserted a scene just to explain someone's powers...

Yes. I really consider this to be one of Dan’s problems as a storyteller. Occasionally — not as often as in the past, thankfully — he completely drops the “show, don’t tell” rule and an entire page or more turns into an expository lump. I think it stems from a concern that his readers will either fail to understand or worry that he will be criticised for having his characters pull abilities out of nowhere.

In this case I honestly feel that just a panel or two with Grace explaining “I can use my antennae to ‘feel’ at a distance” would have been sufficient. Most everybody would get that and if he was still concerned he could add clarifications in his comments below the comic. Nonetheless, Dan feels this is necessary and while I do not agree with him I do empathise with his concerns.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Justin is totally the correct person for this. Mimics that half of readers expected she will be using telekinesis. And other half that she will be flying. I mean, noone guessed she just wanted more senses.

9 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:
2 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

...So now I'm starting to think maybe no one will see Grace using her powers; in fact maybe this little sequence exists entirely to explain this aspect of Grace's powers. It wouldn't be the first time Dan has inserted a scene just to explain someone's powers...

Yes. I really consider this to be one of Dan’s problems as a storyteller. Occasionally — not as often as in the past, thankfully — he completely drops the “show, don’t tell” rule and an entire page or more turns into an expository lump.

She IS showing it ... although, yes, also explaining ...

... and, while I don't think this will lead to someone seeing her ... maybe this will allow her sensing someone else? ... or, Dan really just wanted to get it out before she will need to use this ability "for real" - I mean, when it became plot point she can do that.

11 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

I think it stems from a concern that his readers will either fail to understand or worry that he will be criticised for having his characters pull abilities out of nowhere.

Based on how many readers failed to understand Sarah's spell, I would say his concert is justified.

Yes, sometimes it seems like taking too long, but I prefer it to not explaining enough ... in fact, there are more things I would like to have explained. Guess some of them are on that pile Dan speaks about ... (tilting back to see the pile. The top of it is hidden in clouds.)

16 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

In this case I honestly feel that just a panel or two with Grace explaining “I can use my antennae to ‘feel’ at a distance” would have been sufficient. Most everybody would get that and if he was still concerned he could add clarifications in his comments below the comic. Nonetheless, Dan feels this is necessary and while I do not agree with him I do empathise with his concerns.

... I don't think panel or two would be enough, but I agree that it could be done shorter ...

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Once again, Dan did something I didn't predict. Thinking on it, though, Grace's antennae seem to have a similar power now to Adrian's extended ears. Spicy.

As for storytelling, maybe Dan is going on with the dice search until Friday when we discover someone who shouldn't be witnessing this is, a pretty good Friday cliffhanger.

Everyone who's into Star Trek at all should read David Gerrold's old book The World of Star Trek if they can find it. If you don't know, Gerrold is the inventor of tribbles. Anyway, he revealed a lot of the memes of Star Trek, like that guy in a red shirt who usually beams down with Kirk, Spock, and maybe McCoy or another regular cast member in the cold opening sequence before the first commercial break so he can get killed and we can find out how the monster works. The screenwriter's bible mandated some kind of cliffhanger before every commercial break to keep viewers from dialing away from the ads that paid for the show.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 minute ago, Tom Sewell said:

Once again, Dan did something I didn't predict. Thinking on it, though, Grace's antennae seem to have a similar power now to Adrian's extended ears. Spicy.

No. Adrian senses magic. I don't think Grace senses magic ... or at least she didn't before the magic change. Hey, this is another thing which may happen - it's possible this is first time she actually focuses or her senses since the magic change, and she may notice she senses more now ...

BTW, regarding the "(using telekinesis) would be more difficult than just picking them up" ... well, Jean Grey would pick them all at once, but I guess Grace would need one after one. Still, I remember some comics where Jean Grey explained that not only she can now hold silverware for whole school at once, but she can also sense if someone is touching them ... which would suggest this Grace's sense is not THAT weak ability when Jean Grey only got it as upgrade.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

it's possible this is first time she actually focuses or her senses since the magic change, and she may notice she senses more now ...

Yes, and this also might be the next plot point: Grace senses something she couldn't before the Change.

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

No. Adrian senses magic. I don't think Grace senses magic

When I said her power was "similar" in my previous post, I meant that Grace could sense more using her antennae, not necessarily that she could sense magic the way Adrian can. And Adrian can still sense magic when using his "old Mr. Raven" form as he did with Susan the first time he met her at the mall.

"Squirrely senses jiggling."

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

While Grace's ability is all well and good, apparently Tedd and Grace had a big fight at some point?

This being based on what Tedd says and what Dan says on Reddit:

I can say from experience that getting hit in the back of the head unexpectedly does not feel good and first instinct is usually to respond in aggressively.

That said, what Tedd considers a "big fight" with Grace may be entirely subjective, and probably comes nowhere near Nanase's and Ellen's first spat.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

BTW, regarding the "(using telekinesis) would be more difficult than just picking them up" ... well, Jean Grey would pick them all at once, but I guess Grace would need one after one. Still, I remember some comics where Jean Grey explained that not only she can now hold silverware for whole school at once, but she can also sense if someone is touching them ... which would suggest this Grace's sense is not THAT weak ability when Jean Grey only got it as upgrade.

Considering X-Men/Marvel and EGS are entirely different fictional multiverses / continuities, you can't really use power-scaling in one series to judge power-scaling in the other.

And even if you could, I don't think the individual powers of mutants with similar power-sets always develop in  the same order (and EGS magic users don't get spells in the same order on the rare occasion they have the same spells at all, though Uryuom powers might be different), so just because Jean Gray was really powerful before she developed a specific ability does not necessarily mean anyone else with that ability is equally powerful. (Of course Grace is powerful, just apparently not when it comes to telekinesis.)

I don't know how the writers of X-Men conceptualized telekinesis, but it seems like Dan is picturing it like a hand (with a well developed sense of touch) grasping the object. That being the case, she probably could telekinetically "touch" an object long before she realized she could manipulate and move them. (I wouldn't be surprised if she's had this sense all her life, but she only realized she could move objects during the second Goo fight...)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Larry Niven created a detective called "Gil the Arm" in the 1970s whose telekinesis acted like an invisible arm. I wonder if Dan has ever read "Death by Ecstasy". It's got a real killer of a climax.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Honestly, he should of (hehe) left it as is, I feel if it's in relation to character dialog, writing a word or phrase as how you feel the character says it is perfectly valid, regardless of whether it's grammatically incorrect or something. Tedd saying "shouldn't of" while a minor speech quirk, is really no different than how Jeph Jaques gives Roko her alternate dialect, or David Willis write's Sal's dialog, etc, and I don't see people going nuts about it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
8 hours ago, Scotty said:

Honestly, he should of (hehe) left it as is, I feel if it's in relation to character dialog, writing a word or phrase as how you feel the character says it is perfectly valid, regardless of whether it's grammatically incorrect or something. Tedd saying "shouldn't of" while a minor speech quirk, is really no different than how Jeph Jaques gives Roko her alternate dialect, or David Willis write's Sal's dialog, etc, and I don't see people going nuts about it.

Well, "shouldn't of" and "shouldn't've" sound almost exactly the same, so it's not really that much of a compromise.

EDIT: He's edited it again. Now Tedd says he was yelled at rather than they had a fight.

Edited by ChronosCat
Avoiding a double post.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
21 hours ago, hkmaly said:

BTW, regarding the "(using telekinesis) would be more difficult than just picking them up" ... well, Jean Grey would pick them all at once, but I guess Grace would need one after one. Still, I remember some comics where Jean Grey explained that not only she can now hold silverware for whole school at once, but she can also sense if someone is touching them ... which would suggest this Grace's sense is not THAT weak ability when Jean Grey only got it as upgrade.

Considering X-Men/Marvel and EGS are entirely different fictional multiverses / continuities, you can't really use power-scaling in one series to judge power-scaling in the other.

Not seriously. However, we are doing similar stuff all the time, for fun.

15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

And even if you could, I don't think the individual powers of mutants with similar power-sets always develop in  the same order (and EGS magic users don't get spells in the same order on the rare occasion they have the same spells at all, though Uryuom powers might be different), so just because Jean Gray was really powerful before she developed a specific ability does not necessarily mean anyone else with that ability is equally powerful. (Of course Grace is powerful, just apparently not when it comes to telekinesis.)

If it's not two different abilities but almost part of same ability, then having both would make sense. On the other hand, yes, even then you may focus more on one and have the other weaker.

Also, Grace is powerful but she can't be compared to Phoenix. Now, was Jean Gray Phoenix at that point? Hell, how should I know? X-Men are confusing.

15 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

I don't know how the writers of X-Men conceptualized telekinesis, but it seems like Dan is picturing it like a hand (with a well developed sense of touch) grasping the object. That being the case, she probably could telekinetically "touch" an object long before she realized she could manipulate and move them. (I wouldn't be surprised if she's had this sense all her life, but she only realized she could move objects during the second Goo fight...)

I would be surprised if she never moved anything before. However, it was likely in much smaller scale. Like, based on how she explains it, she likely "poked" something with her telekinesis before, but possibly not actually lift unless it was something really light.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Just now, hkmaly said:

I would be surprised if she never moved anything before. However, it was likely in much smaller scale. Like, based on how she explains it, she likely "poked" something with her telekinesis before, but possibly not actually lift unless it was something really light.

She disarmed that mugger which mean she had to grab and move the knife with her telekinesis and a knife is certainly bigger than dice. But I think that was the only time and she's stated that it's easier to just make herself fly. She was also in half squirrel form at the time of the mugging which again could mean that her abilities are limited to the form she's in.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Scotty said:
10 hours ago, hkmaly said:

I would be surprised if she never moved anything before. However, it was likely in much smaller scale. Like, based on how she explains it, she likely "poked" something with her telekinesis before, but possibly not actually lift unless it was something really light.

She disarmed that mugger which mean she had to grab and move the knife with her telekinesis and a knife is certainly bigger than dice. But I think that was the only time and she's stated that it's easier to just make herself fly. She was also in half squirrel form at the time of the mugging which again could mean that her abilities are limited to the form she's in.

Her reaction when she stopped the goo suggests to me that as of that point she had no idea she could move (or stop) objects. However it is true that she had moved at least one object before, the mugger's knife - she just was so out of it she couldn't remember it later. This raises the possibility that she might have moved other things in the past without realizing she'd done anything (possibly other incidents like the mugger, or possibly moving something she wasn't looking at just a little bit).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:

Her reaction when she stopped the goo suggests to me that as of that point she had no idea she could move (or stop) objects. However it is true that she had moved at least one object before, the mugger's knife - she just was so out of it she couldn't remember it later. This raises the possibility that it wasn't the she might have moved other things in the past without realizing she'd done anything (possibly other incidents like the mugger, or possibly moving something she wasn't looking at just a little bit).

Oh yeah, the goo fight slipped my mind there, Sarah had to remind Grace about being able to use telekinesis and Grace was straining hard to maintain hold while in human form, when she morphed into the Jeremy, Cat, Squirrel legion form the boost in power allowed her to shatter the goo's tendrils. The mugger incident would have been the first time Grace used telekinesis on objects, and she immediately passed out when she did that. I would suspect that if Grace had other incidents, expecially during her childhood before Damien's attack, there would have been knowledge of her telekinetic abilities and attempt to train her how to control it before Edward stepped in and got the scientists to cease trying to train her to kill. It's possible that getting zapped affected how her telekinesis works as well as fixing her morphing abilities, the fact remains though, post zapping, Grace needed a more powerful form to use her telekinesis more effectively.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So as of the mugger incident, Grace had only used her telekinetic abilities on objects (other than herself) in moments of great emotional duress?

It may be possible to imagine that the government scientists raising Shade Tail knew of her telekinesis, but some how managed to convince her that she wasn't as powerful or as accurate with that ability as they actually knew she was (or could be) in an attempt to keep her "under control" until they were convinced she really was the weapon they wanted.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
6 hours ago, Scotty said:

It's possible that getting zapped affected how her telekinesis works as well as fixing her morphing abilities, the fact remains though, post zapping, Grace needed a more powerful form to use her telekinesis more effectively.

IMHO not directly, however getting zapped allowed her to use more powerful forms - and seems that her telekinesis is very limited in all her original forms.

6 hours ago, Scotty said:

there would have been knowledge of her telekinetic abilities and attempt to train her how to control it before Edward stepped in and got the scientists to cease trying to train her to kill.

Note that this explanation was later called version of the story that we tell people who aren't in "the need to know". Might not be entirely exact.

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

This raises the possibility that she might have moved other things in the past without realizing she'd done anything

Hmmmm ... maybe she did moved something when young and playing, but she didn't get lot of opportunities to play so she forgot?

6 hours ago, ChronosCat said:

moving something she wasn't looking at just a little bit

She can ONLY move something she is sensing with her telekinesis touch sense.

1 hour ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

It may be possible to imagine that the government scientists raising Shade Tail knew of her telekinesis, but some how managed to convince her that she wasn't as powerful or as accurate with that ability as they actually knew she was (or could be) in an attempt to keep her "under control" until they were convinced she really was the weapon they wanted.

I think it WASN'T powerful or accurate enough to be used in fight until she got better forms (level 3 or more).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Just now, hkmaly said:

Note that this explanation was later called version of the story that we tell people who aren't in "the need to know". Might not be entirely exact.

I'd still think that if the scientists knew about Grace's telekinetic abilities, they'd have made some attempts to get her to use them, it'd seem like a wasted opportunity to not try to harness it at a young age.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
31 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

She can ONLY move something she is sensing with her telekinesis touch sense.

My thought was maybe at some point she telekinetically "jostled" something, but either her sense wasn't developed enough to tell it had moved, or she didn't have confidence in her sense yet. If she didn't see it move or otherwise sense it with any of her senses besides her telekinetic sense, she might either never have noticed, or noticed but assumed it was just her imagination.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Note that this explanation was later called version of the story that we tell people who aren't in "the need to know". Might not be entirely exact.

I'd still think that if the scientists knew about Grace's telekinetic abilities, they'd have made some attempts to get her to use them, it'd seem like a wasted opportunity to not try to harness it at a young age.

Not if it was weak and tired her quickly.

53 minutes ago, ChronosCat said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

She can ONLY move something she is sensing with her telekinesis touch sense.

My thought was maybe at some point she telekinetically "jostled" something, but either her sense wasn't developed enough to tell it had moved, or she didn't have confidence in her sense yet. If she didn't see it move or otherwise sense it with any of her senses besides her telekinetic sense, she might either never have noticed, or noticed but assumed it was just her imagination.

Considering how much effort is required for her to move something, I would say it's hard to not notice ... but, yes, she might consider it just her imagination.

Like, I would assume that she move something basically by focusing on her sense of telekinetical touch of that object.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Kids tend to assume that whatever they personally experience is normal and is what everyone experiences.  Grace really wouldn't have much way to know other people couldn't sense things in the same way she does, and others might not notice that she occasionally knew things about stuff she couldn't see with her eyes, dismissing it as either a kid's imagination or a lucky guess, or maybe that she's glimpsed what she described before.  Unless they were testing for it specifically, it would be tricky to detect unless just the right circumstances happened.

As for sensig what you're moving, and thus sensing things at a distance in general, I've thought this would be a Requisite Secondary Power for a long time now.  I even have a term for it, telekinesthesia.  Kinesthesia is the way you know where your hand or leg is and what it's doing even though you can't see it and it's not touching anything else to give you feedback.  Telekinesis is moving things without using your physical body.  Thus, telekinesthesia.  :-)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
15 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Kids tend to assume that whatever they personally experience is normal and is what everyone experiences.

Just kids? Actually, what OTHER assumption you can have? EVERYONE assumes that their personal experience is normal until finding out it isn't. Adults just had more opportunities to find out.

15 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Grace really wouldn't have much way to know other people couldn't sense things in the same way she does, and others might not notice that she occasionally knew things about stuff she couldn't see with her eyes, dismissing it as either a kid's imagination or a lucky guess, or maybe that she's glimpsed what she described before.  Unless they were testing for it specifically, it would be tricky to detect unless just the right circumstances happened.

... if she was more trained than raised, I can totally imagine others not noticing because of not paying attention to what she's saying.

And, the same is true for telekinesis. Unless they expected it or noticed by chance, Grace could've do a lot of things without anyone noticing.

15 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

As for sensig what you're moving, and thus sensing things at a distance in general, I've thought this would be a Requisite Secondary Power for a long time now.  I even have a term for it, telekinesthesia.  Kinesthesia is the way you know where your hand or leg is and what it's doing even though you can't see it and it's not touching anything else to give you feedback.  Telekinesis is moving things without using your physical body.  Thus, telekinesthesia.  :-)

It's only required secondary power if the telekinesis is not limited to what you see anyway.  But it does sound like COMMON secondary power even if not required.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

... if she was more trained than raised, I can totally imagine others not noticing because of not paying attention to what she's saying.

Poor kid. Sounds about as pleasant as being in the care of typical Danish Lit teachers.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this