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The Old Hack

Story Friday December 21, 2018

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...huh.

So we'd mainly been assuming that the smoke was Liz, but apparently not... the magnifying glass is almost certainly Luke, the paw (bearing in mind that Kitty was a last-minute addition) almost certainly Catalina, the Mars/Venus symbol almost certainly Tedd, so Liz must be the... ah... did anyone ever figure out what the za that was?

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That cloud mark still mystifies me. The only spell it fits is Adrian Raven's Murder Shroud.

As for Mr. Bendy Guy, in my headcanon his last name is "Lows" because he demonstrates such a low level of fashion sense in the horrible layering in the next to last panel. Meet his big sister Belle shopping for a friend who doesn't have the heart to tell her the truth (Belle is the redhead with a vest):

And why am I so certain of this? Because the friend with the red hat also summoned the scary chick a little later.

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This amazing insight deserves a post of its own. Maybe a lab coat, too. And nerd glasses.

Camdin is the one with the cloud mark. He appears out of a cloud, which might mean he teleports with a cloud special effect, like a stage magician, or, say, a real genie. Or maybe that he can just make a cloud which would make him even more noticeable and Luke was distracted enough to be surprised despite Camdin's lame power.

Edited by Tom Sewell
Forgot coat and glasses.

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Yup, I assumed after checking the link and looking at the first two panels that Cadmin is the cloud.  So the current unaccounted one is the half-and-half circle in what my mind insists is a doorway.  I'm trying to decide if that one could be Sarah's; given that she and Tedd were marked the same night, she has as much right to be on that list as Tedd has.  The two halves are the real world and her virtual one?  The image is a scan-of-the-area in progress, halfway across the circle?  How else could that symbol be hers?

(ETA  D'oh!  Question Mark somehow completely slipped my mind.  I blame sleep deprivation.

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It could be very interesting if Cadmin tries to sneak up on Grace sometime...

7 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

I'm trying to decide if that one could be Sarah's; given that she and Tedd were marked the same night, she has as much right to be on that list as Tedd has.  The two halves are the real world and her virtual one?  The image is a scan-of-the-area in progress, halfway across the circle?  How else could that symbol be hers?

Sarah's mark is (or possibly was by this time; she's used her spell a lot trying to drain the reservoir enough for Adrian to take down the dam) a question mark. It's backward in the last panel of Squirrel Prophet because Sarah is looking back over her shoulder in her mirror.

Maybe that will turn out to be Diane's mark. The yellow background might indicate another blonde, like maybe the green background of the magnifying glass might relate to Luke's green hair. I'm sure the shape will be a clue because despite Tedd telling us that it's not shape but area that matters, that's not how I see Dan working. Maybe the power to reverse spells? Reverse alignments? Split bowling balls to make 7-10 splits?

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Just now, WR...S said:

...huh.

So we'd mainly been assuming that the smoke was Liz, but apparently not... the magnifying glass is almost certainly Luke, the paw (bearing in mind that Kitty was a last-minute addition) almost certainly Catalina, the Mars/Venus symbol almost certainly Tedd, so Liz must be the... ah... did anyone ever figure out what the za that was?

Liz was a last minute addition as well though.

" Liz was first in this scene because she's Ashley's friend and someone for her to interact with. No more, no less. Then I started thinking about what her answer to this question would be and what sort of spells she could get, and things snowballed from there. "

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

Camdin is the one with the cloud mark. He appears out of a cloud, which might mean he teleports with a cloud special effect, like a stage magician, or, say, a real genie. Or maybe that he can just make a cloud which would make him even more noticeable and Luke was distracted enough to be surprised despite Camdin's lame power.

Yeah, he's gotta be the cloud. Probably not as lame as you'd think though, as a cloud, you could get through cracks in walls, or under most doors, sneak up on someone.

Of course the number of criminal acts one could do with it are very high, if anything you carry is included in cloud form, you could enter houses and steal things without leaving evidence of anyone ever being there.

Camdin's giving me the vibe of someone who would do that sort of thing. I don't like him.

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1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Camdin is the one with the cloud mark. He appears out of a cloud, which might mean he teleports with a cloud special effect, like a stage magician, or, say, a real genie. Or maybe that he can just make a cloud which would make him even more noticeable and Luke was distracted enough to be surprised despite Camdin's lame power.

Or, maybe he can transform to cloud, like some vampires (mist form). That's how it looks to me.

2 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Yeah, he's gotta be the cloud. Probably not as lame as you'd think though, as a cloud, you could get through cracks in walls, or under most doors, sneak up on someone.

Of course the number of criminal acts one could do with it are very high, if anything you carry is included in cloud form, you could enter houses and steal things without leaving evidence of anyone ever being there.

Yes. Although the crimes Sarah can do are considered more dangerous. Camdin wouldn't be able to get into nucler football ... Sarah would and noone will notice.

29 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

So the current unaccounted one is the half-and-half circle in what my mind insists is a doorway.

It's the contrast symbol on TV.

... no idea what spell it could be based on this.

11 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Sarah's symbol has already been established as being a question mark.

Exactly.

8 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

It could be very interesting if Cadmin tries to sneak up on Grace sometime...

With or without her antennae out?

8 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

or possibly was by this time; she's used her spell a lot

Not THAT lot, IMHO, and she was mostly using ambient magic. Pandora warned her that more than four times per day wouldn't really help.

8 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

I'm sure the shape will be a clue because despite Tedd telling us that it's not shape but area that matters, that's not how I see Dan working. Maybe the power to reverse spells? Reverse alignments? Split bowling balls to make 7-10 splits?

You mean it's not how PANDORA is working. I think Dan even directly stated somewhere that Pandora is deliberately shaping the marks as clues.

Hmmm ... power to reverse spells, that MIGHT match what Liz was saying ...

 

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5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

 

 

With or without her antennae out?

Hmm, that could be a reason for the current main comic topic.

5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Not THAT lot, IMHO, and she was mostly using ambient magic. Pandora warned her that more than four times per day wouldn't really help.

And then almost immediately had Sarah start using her spell several times an hour, specifically to use up ambient magic, so Sarah may or may not have been using her own magic enough to help build her reserves and Awaken.

5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

You mean it's not how PANDORA is working. I think Dan even directly stated somewhere that Pandora is deliberately shaping the marks as clues.

Or just to troll people....

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Just now, hkmaly said:

Yes. Although the crimes Sarah can do are considered more dangerous. Camdin wouldn't be able to get into nucler football ... Sarah would and noone will notice.

Sarah couldn't touch it though. and actually, Camdin could get to it, unless the room it's normally held in is completely airtight, as a cloud, he should be able to get into anything connected by A/C ducts.

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Just now, Tom Sewell said:

@hkmaly: Crunchy speculation!

Or possibly it might turn out to be Ashley's mark. Dan had already introduced Ashley. Reversal can also mean healing and Dan had Pandora identify healing power as an affinity of Ashley's.

That's assuming that Pandora ignored the fact that Ashley's goodness prevented her from wacky shenanigans. And yeah, Ashley was known(so was Liz, for a long time) but I doubt Dan ever actually planned on marking Ashley, or if he did, it was after he'd already laid out the marks for Squirrel Prophet and then decided to give her Kevin.

There is another friend of Luke's that could have that last unknown mark though. I think it's more likely.

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8 minutes ago, Scotty said:

There is another friend of Luke's that could have that last unknown mark though. I think it's more likely.

Camdin sounds snarky enough to be the guy talking to Luke in his car. Who else do you have in mind?

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55 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Camdin sounds snarky enough to be the guy talking to Luke in his car. Who else do you have in mind?

The person on the phone said "You owe us" for pizza, implying at least one other person in their little group.

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1 minute ago, CritterKeeper said:

The person on the phone said "You owe us" for pizza, implying at least one other person in their little group.

I agree. It just sounded to me that Scotty had someone specific in mind, someone I missed.

I myself haven't lived in a college dorm since 1970, but some things don't change. College demands pizza. I actually sold pizza for a little while. Falafel may have made some inroads, and microwaved ramen, but pizza's the real brain food. Ask Ellen.

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Just now, Tom Sewell said:

I agree. It just sounded to me that Scotty had someone specific in mind, someone I missed.

I would have no clue who the other person would be, the best we could have hoped for would have been it being a twist and Luke's friends being someone we've seen before (like Good Tom), but it was mainly Luke's conversation with Justin about how he knew there was even a difference between someone with a mark and someone with magic but not marked. Justin guessed that Luke saw at least two magic users with confirmed marks and one without, and there's no indication that Luke is included as one of the two marked ( I dunno if he could look at his hands and see an aura, or look in a mirror). So who the other friend that was marked, and maybe even the non marked magic user, are completely new yet to be introduced characters.

I dunno what criteria Luke would be using for what a non marked magic user's aura looks like though, if it's a confirmed "they have magic and they let me look to see if they had a mark" thing, then it's probably another person Luke knows, if it's a "I see an aura that look different from someone that's been marked" thing, then it's possible that he was using Noah (Shadow Guy/Lady) as a non marked reference. Of course, base on what Pandora says later about Luke not knowing the difference between someone marked and someone that was just awakened by her, there's more to it.

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It should also be noted that Camdin seems to believe that Grace is the "Shadow Guy/Lady" in the last panel, if Camdin is the person Luke is talking to on the phone, the insistence on "Shadow Lady" after Luke states Grace has the same, it'd be easy to assume they're the same person. Especially if Luke has only seen Noah in shadow form.

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16 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
Quote

Not THAT lot, IMHO, and she was mostly using ambient magic. Pandora warned her that more than four times per day wouldn't really help.

And then almost immediately had Sarah start using her spell several times an hour, specifically to use up ambient magic, so Sarah may or may not have been using her own magic enough to help build her reserves and Awaken.

The point is that to use ambient magic, Sarah was using the spell more often than useful for training. She did as much training casting the spell several times per hour as if she was casting it several times per day, because the amount of training she got was limited by how much her own magic she put into the spell.

16 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
Quote

You mean it's not how PANDORA is working. I think Dan even directly stated somewhere that Pandora is deliberately shaping the marks as clues.

Or just to troll people....

Sarah was exception because she knew about magic marks. Others didn't, so finding out the mark before the spell wouldn't help them - BUT when they find the spell, they would be like "(facepalm) so THATS what the mark is for, so obvious".

16 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:
16 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Hmmm ... power to reverse spells, that MIGHT match what Liz was saying ...

Or possibly it might turn out to be Ashley's mark. Dan had already introduced Ashley. Reversal can also mean healing and Dan had Pandora identify healing power as an affinity of Ashley's.

Unlike Tedd's friends, Arthur Arthur is PROFESSIONAL. He certainly DID tested Ashley for magic marks when he was testing her and finding she was wizard. And he would mention it.

15 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
16 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Camdin sounds snarky enough to be the guy talking to Luke in his car. Who else do you have in mind?

The person on the phone said "You owe us" for pizza, implying at least one other person in their little group.

Obviously, that other person doesn't NEED to be marked, but I agree with Scotty: I think Luke has another marked friend.

14 hours ago, Scotty said:

Luke not knowing the difference between someone marked and someone that was just awakened by her

Note: I'm pretty certain that she MEANT that Luke doesn't know difference between someone currently marked and someone who used to be marked but then (was) awakened. Not anything specific about her doing it.

 

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32 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

The point is that to use ambient magic, Sarah was using the spell more often than useful for training. She did as much training casting the spell several times per hour as if she was casting it several times per day, because the amount of training she got was limited by how much her own magic she put into the spell.

There was likely diminishing returns on each use, though Pandora did say that Sarah was making progress towards awakening but still had a long way to go. Pandora's suggestion of how many times Sarah would need to use the spell was probably such that Sarah wasn't completely tanking her ability to exercise her power, sure Pandora did say that Sarah can do more if she could manage, but at that point she likely wouldn't be getting any training value from it.

41 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Note: I'm pretty certain that she MEANT that Luke doesn't know difference between someone currently marked and someone who used to be marked but then (was) awakened. Not anything specific about her doing it.

She could have also been referring to being awakened by an Immortal vs naturally awakening, like Nanase was awakened by an Immortal despite having been dreaming naturally, and Susan was marked by an Immortal but awakened naturally, they probably don't have similar looking auras than Justin who was both marked and awakened by an immortal.

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19 minutes ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

The point is that to use ambient magic, Sarah was using the spell more often than useful for training. She did as much training casting the spell several times per hour as if she was casting it several times per day, because the amount of training she got was limited by how much her own magic she put into the spell.

There was likely diminishing returns on each use, though Pandora did say that Sarah was making progress towards awakening

Of course she did. Just probably not more than if she would be casting it four times per day.

21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

but still had a long way to go. Pandora's suggestion of how many times Sarah would need to use the spell was probably such that Sarah wasn't completely tanking her ability to exercise her power, sure Pandora did say that Sarah can do more if she could manage, but at that point she likely wouldn't be getting any training value from it.

Meanwhile, three times per hour was close to maximum she can do WITH ambient magic, training value or not.

22 minutes ago, Scotty said:
1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

Note: I'm pretty certain that she MEANT that Luke doesn't know difference between someone currently marked and someone who used to be marked but then (was) awakened. Not anything specific about her doing it.

She could have also been referring to being awakened by an Immortal vs naturally awakening, like Nanase was awakened by an Immortal despite having been dreaming naturally, and Susan was marked by an Immortal but awakened naturally, they probably don't have similar looking auras than Justin who was both marked and awakened by an immortal.

I would definitely expect Susan's angst-induced awakening leaves some differences in aura ... and yes, Luke probably wouldn't notice THOSE either ... but I would expect the difference between awakening and dreaming in general would be more visible and therefore more noteworthy that Luke wouldn't know the difference.

Now, difference between naturally dreaming and marked? It's possible that awakening hides them, just like it clears the mark itself. On the other hand, it's possible something remains, just like the spell from the mark which turns into "normal" ...

 

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Unlike Tedd's friends, Arthur Arthur is PROFESSIONAL. He certainly DID tested Ashley for magic marks when he was testing her and finding she was wizard. And he would mention it.

Flawless logic as far as it goes. Arthur does say that Ashley needs to awaken first--but how does Arthur know Ashley needs to awaken? Gee, could it mean Arthur already knows Ashley has a magic mark?

I'm not saying it's boilerplate canon that Ashley was marked, but it is something Pandora thought about in Marker. Yes, Pandora seemed to think better of it--but Pandora went on to mark both Catalina and Kitty

Arthur could even be wrong about Ashley needing to be awakened. If Pandora didn't realize Rhoda had awakened until she saw Rhoda work spells far beyond what the mark had given her, I doubt that a mere human, even a wizard, couldn't make a similar mistake with Ashley, particularly since her power is so weak. If Ashley actually got that very minor healing spell, she could have been using it without realizing it since October, and it's January in Moperville now. Justin didn't  know about his mark at all, and was using much stronger magic without realizing it.

Edited by Tom Sewell
Even I make mistakes.

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3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Flawless logic as far as it goes. Arthur does say that Ashley needs to awaken first--but how does Arthur know Ashley needs to awaken? Gee, could it mean Arthur already knows Ashley has a magic mark?

If Arthur knew, what kept him from mentioning it? Considering he was already telling them that Ashley was a wizard, saying she was also given a magic mark at some point would have been insignificant news. Also I would think having a mark would give Ashley an advantage in learning to become a wizard, because it would mean she'd have a spell to work with to get more power before going to learning new spells like a wizard.

Also, considering how much time has passed since she took part in Pandora's "Survey", if she did get a mark with one of those 3 kinds of spells, there had to have been plenty of opportunity to accidentally use it, stubbing toes, hangnails, got a papercut, etc. Heck I've bumped my elbow against a table, the instinct is to grab it with your other hand and rub it to make the pain go away, and a sharing feelings spell might have revealed itself at any time when she was with Liz, or even with Bad Tom.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur could even be wrong about Ashley needing to be awakened. If Pandora didn't realize Rhoda had awakened until she saw Rhoda work spells far beyond what the mark had given her, I doubt that a mere human, even a wizard, couldn't make a similar mistake with Ashley, particularly since her power is so weak. If Ashley actually got that very minor healing spell, she could have been using it without realizing it since October, and it's January in Moperville now. Justin didn't  know about his mark at all, and was using much stronger magic without realizing it.

Pandora marked Rhoda on a whim and didn't pay any attention to her after that, also Pandora did have a thing for not wanting to predict outcomes, it made things less boring for her, so it's likely that Pandora just glimpsed at the kind of spell would fit Rhoda, but didn't do a thorough check to see what kind of potential she had.

Arthur would be more likely to do a thorough check because it's his job to be thorough, and being a Seer,. I would expect that it'd be very difficult to miss something. If it was any other wizard that checked Ashley, I'd be more willing to concede to the possibility of them missing something what Ashley had was too weak for them to detect (like how Pandora detected Sarah's affinity while Jerry didn't) but Arthur being a Seer who, like Tedd, would have access to power beyond ambient energy, been immersed in magic for a large portion of his life and "seen" all kinds of thing. It wouldn't surprise me if any of the agents currently in service in the paranormal division (like Edward) were hand picked by him because he saw their potential.

Ashley, as I said above, should have had plenty of opportunity to use her spell, even if she didn't know she was using it. Using the spell though would have built up her power, even if slowly, that should make her power more detectable, though I still think that being marked would be like getting a target painted on your back saying "I've been marked!" for anyone able to detect that sort of thing, like Luke.

And Justin assumed that his new power was a result of his ASMA training finally paying off, no one questioned it, not even Edward which really is a failure on Edward's part since he should have known Justin could do minor illusions and this being a new spell should have made him believe Justin had awakened and thus needed a spellbook. Though Edward did question it a bit, he did ask Justin to confirm what he said about the fire golem being really light to which Justin confessed was just a cover to avoid questions of how he was able to kick like that. Edward not following up on it might have been due to being distracted by Arthur's appearance on TV.

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12 hours ago, Scotty said:
16 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Arthur could even be wrong about Ashley needing to be awakened. If Pandora didn't realize Rhoda had awakened until she saw Rhoda work spells far beyond what the mark had given her, I doubt that a mere human, even a wizard, couldn't make a similar mistake with Ashley, particularly since her power is so weak. If Ashley actually got that very minor healing spell, she could have been using it without realizing it since October, and it's January in Moperville now. Justin didn't  know about his mark at all, and was using much stronger magic without realizing it.

Pandora marked Rhoda on a whim and didn't pay any attention to her after that, also Pandora did have a thing for not wanting to predict outcomes, it made things less boring for her, so it's likely that Pandora just glimpsed at the kind of spell would fit Rhoda, but didn't do a thorough check to see what kind of potential she had.

More importantly, in the Mall, she already knew Rhoda is marked and didn't bothered to scan her, paying attention to Catalina instead. She had like few seconds between too bored to pay attention and realizing that Rhoda is using new spell. And that's ignoring the possibility that she KNEW Rhoda awakened and her "When the hell did she awaken" was because her previous assumption was "ok, I did noticed she's awakened, it was probably recently considering when I marked her".

12 hours ago, Scotty said:

Arthur would be more likely to do a thorough check because it's his job to be thorough, and being a Seer,. I would expect that it'd be very difficult to miss something. If it was any other wizard that checked Ashley, I'd be more willing to concede to the possibility of them missing something what Ashley had was too weak for them to detect (like how Pandora detected Sarah's affinity while Jerry didn't) but Arthur being a Seer who, like Tedd, would have access to power beyond ambient energy, been immersed in magic for a large portion of his life and "seen" all kinds of thing.

Yes. And he was personally interested due to Kevin, so I totally think he scanned her personally.

12 hours ago, Scotty said:

It wouldn't surprise me if any of the agents currently in service in the paranormal division (like Edward) were hand picked by him because he saw their potential.

Depends on how big organization the paranormal division is. But he WAS head of it for some time and certainly DID uses his abilities to choose which agents to promote and who to recruit.

I can even see him going to some military academy, scanning everyone and recruit the ones with magic talent. I don't think anyone would consider it suspicious or extraordinary.

12 hours ago, Scotty said:

And Justin assumed that his new power was a result of his ASMA training finally paying off, no one questioned it, not even Edward which really is a failure on Edward's part since he should have known Justin could do minor illusions and this being a new spell should have made him believe Justin had awakened and thus needed a spellbook. Though Edward did question it a bit, he did ask Justin to confirm what he said about the fire golem being really light to which Justin confessed was just a cover to avoid questions of how he was able to kick like that. Edward not following up on it might have been due to being distracted by Arthur's appearance on TV.

Agree. It's normal that Justin makes such assumption, but Edward was negligent to not verify if Justin awakened or not. And, yes, might've been due to Arthur's appearance distracted him and he forgot about it. After all, even if it WAS result of ASMA training, so would be eventually awakening: sure, Nanase was awakened by immortals and Elliot by the diamond, but even without that and without being marked, Justin would eventually awaken.

Of course, Edward is not seeing Justin as often as others from main eight. It's possible that on next opportunity, he mentions something like "this reminds me, I should probably scan you to see how far you are from awakening". Unless, like, Tedd notices sooner: currently he doesn't know what to look for (and was actually not looking at Justin as far as we know, last time he tried he noticed Luke instead).

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