More Speculation.

[mlooney 3,417]

I think "the will of magic" is the collective powers of the Immortals.  Given her power level Pandora is a large part of the will, but not all of it. 

[ijuin 572]

8 hours ago, Arcanimus said:

Welp. I'm on the bandwagon to believe that Pandora is the Will of Magic, or a part of it. Her previous incarnation has memories of the last system reset, and the fact that there have been no other resets since she's been in her current incarnation is just too large a coincidence to overlook for me. Granted, it's flawed, in that she supposedly was there during the "incident", but that could be a false memory planted by her previous self to cover her tracks in some kind of "I'm not allowed to know that I'm the will of magic"-type, Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya-esque plot.

Or I'm overanalyzing.

Nah, Pandora can't be Haruhi. There's Aliens, Mages/Espers, and people from other universes, but no Time Travelers.

[Tom Sewell 268]

Okay, maybe the Will of Magic is an office like Santa Claus in The Santa Clause or Death like in Incarnations of Immortality. I totally don't buy Pandora being the Will of Magic now but I can see her becoming the Will. Maybe the old Will of Magic is sick and tired of the office.

WILL OF MAGIC: You don't like the way I'm doing my job? You think you could do better?

PANDORA: It's pretty obvious that's exactly what I think!

WILL OF MAGIC: Okay. Good Luck! Have fun storming the castle!

(Cosmic zap. When the smoke clears, the WILL is gone and Pandora is wearing whatever ridiculous uniform the WILL OF MAGIC has to wear)

PANDORA: Whoops.

Actually I think there's merit in this kind of plot twist. Crazy as she can be, Pandora seems to have a pretty moral core. She could be the safest Immortal to take over. Plus we get the story benefits of wild powers not getting taken away from our main characters, which would pretty much end the series, wouldn't it?

[Arcanimus 31]

4 hours ago, ijuin said:

Nah, Pandora can't be Haruhi. There's Aliens, Mages/Espers, and people from other universes, but no Time Travelers.

Technically, Abraham is a time traveler. He can only go in one direction, but its safe to say that he's well outside his original time.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

On 8/15/2016 at 4:52 AM, Matoyak said:

On 8/15/2016 at 10:09 PM, Tom Sewell said:

One could, but who would read it? There's little point in writing fanfic without involving characters from the source. Write an original story instead.

Which is not to say you shouldn't build a story around OCs, but they should have involvement with the returning cast.

Hmm. I feel that's unnecessarily limiting the potential of fanfic writing in general, honestly. While I don't really read fanfiction, there's no reason it has to always include the main characters. One could use the universe created by someone else for it. (Heck, that's where a lot of the Cthulhu Mythos comes from, and the entire Star Wars expanded universe could be argued to be sanctioned fanfic writing).

No one's saying it has to, it's just that if you go to Fic archive sites, the fics that don't use the existing cast tend to be at the bottom of the list going by views, comments, favorites, etc. Fans seek out fan-work that stars their favorite character, or fleshes out their favorite extra, more often than not. having an OC 'steal' that spotlight typicaly ends badly.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

49 minutes ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

more often than not. having an OC 'steal' that spotlight typicaly ends badly.

http://interrobangstudios.com/comics-display.php?strip_id=989

I'm sure most of you have seen it.  But it is a caution worth repeating.

[Matoyak 51]

57 minutes ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

On 8/15/2016 at 2:52 AM, Matoyak said:

On 8/15/2016 at 8:09 PM, Tom Sewell said:

One could, but who would read it? There's little point in writing fanfic without involving characters from the source. Write an original story instead.

Which is not to say you shouldn't build a story around OCs, but they should have involvement with the returning cast.

Hmm. I feel that's unnecessarily limiting the potential of fanfic writing in general, honestly. While I don't really read fanfiction, there's no reason it has to always include the main characters. One could use the universe created by someone else for it. (Heck, that's where a lot of the Cthulhu Mythos comes from, and the entire Star Wars expanded universe could be argued to be sanctioned fanfic writing).

No one's saying it has to, it's just that if you go to Fic archive sites, the fics that don't use the existing cast tend to be at the bottom of the list going by views, comments, favorites, etc. Fans seek out fan-work that stars their favorite character, or fleshes out their favorite extra, more often than not. having an OC 'steal' that spotlight typicaly ends badly.

Uh, that's exactly what Tom Sewell said, though.

On 8/15/2016 at 8:09 PM, Tom Sewell said:

One could, but who would read it? There's little point in writing fanfic without involving characters from the source. Write an original story instead.

Which is not to say you shouldn't build a story around OCs, but they should have involvement with the returning cast.

All I was saying is that those two bolded statements are a bit limiting. I don't care how popular something is, we shouldn't limit things to purely what's popular. To say it again, that would be "unnecessarily limiting".

[Don Edwards 548]

A problem with canon-character fanfic is that it can be invalidated by later canon.

Wapsi Square has a thriving fanfic next to the canon world - canon characters frequently are a part of it, but it's mostly not about them. Several of the fanon characters originally were author self-inserts, but well-done ones (not marysues), but they are now part of a shared universe and we write each other's characters routinely.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

22 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

No one's saying it has to, it's just that if you go to Fic archive sites, the fics that don't use the existing cast tend to be at the bottom of the list going by views, comments, favorites, etc. Fans seek out fan-work that stars their favorite character, or fleshes out their favorite extra, more often than not. having an OC 'steal' that spotlight typicaly ends badly.

I'm betting that the batting average of those fics is still better than that of an amateur writing and posting a completely original story.  Some fans do like fanfic that plays in others' sandboxes, whether the original main characters are there to play with or not.

[malloyd 23]

On ‎8‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 2:40 AM, Arcanimus said:

My suspicion grows that Tedd is the Magic Emissary. I suspect that the "whales" were magic itself granting the spell and an awareness of the buildup in a semi-believable manner. I suppose this belongs more in a "wild theory" thread, but my search-fu has failed me.

The "whale" is clearly one of the whale avatars of Ebisu, the kami Tara expected Nanase to be the hime-miko of, who'd thus naturally be interested in Tedd as part of his priestly family.

Well OK, probably not, Dan has moved away from anime and Japanese culture references a bit, but at one time I think that could have been a serious theory here.

 

[The Old Hack 2,448]

3 hours ago, malloyd said:

Well OK, probably not, Dan has moved away from anime and Japanese culture references a bit, but at one time I think that could have been a serious theory here.

Given what I have seen proposed as serious theories in this place... easily.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Something that came up in the story discussions that seemed worthy of moving here....

On August 21, 2016 at 7:34 PM, CritterKeeper said:

It strikes me as especially sad that Elves can't have children.  It would be so much easier for Pandora to reset if she saw grandchildren and great-grandchildren spreading across the land.  As it is, an Immortal who has a child is kinda stuck -- their mortal lover will inevitably die, and their beloved child will be left completely alone if they reset.

Makes me wonder if this isn't one of the reasons Immortals so rarely have mortal lovers or children.  The temptation is too great to wait just a little longer to reset.  Wait until the lover dies, until the child finishes high school or college, settles into a new job, escapes a civil war or plague, recovers from a broken leg....there's always something happening in this life, often several things at once.  It's like when Sarah wanted to break up with Elliot, but couldn't do it right then because it was too close to Christmas, and then after that New Year's.  There's always a reason to wait just a little longer....until suddenly you've waited far too long.

If the child of a mortal and an immortal were a normal mortal and couldn't have children, at least there'd be a limit on how long it would be an excuse/reason to delay.  If their children were immortal they wouldn't have to worry about them.  If they were mortal but could have children, their immortal parent could see their family growing and see them surrounded by loved ones, and it would be easier to let go.  Seems like the combination of long but still limited life, with inability to have children, is the worst possible situation for an Immortal parent.

[Scotty 1,061]

Wild theory here:

So, we have Pandora asking Liz about what she'd like to be for a day if she could transform, and determining that there is something she could mark Liz with but doesn't say what.

I just noticed this on Dan's Tumblr:

Quote

Was Liz's answer to Pandora informed by her old smoking habit?

humongouscyclepaper

egscomics:

Most definitely, yes.

The 6th mark in the list, (3rd down on the right) could be smoke.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

But the traditional fantasy characters who could become a cloud of smoke were Hollywood Vampires and western corruptions of Djinn.

Is Liz going Barbara Eden on us?

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Is Liz going Barbara Eden on us?

Clouds of something, which might be like:

• Clouds, a.k.a. fog (obscuring but otherwise harmless)
• Tobacco Smoke (irritating to some)
• Cannibis Smoke (illegal to some)
• Tear Gas
• Kreeptonite (requires crossover with Sinfest)

[ijuin 572]

Kreeptonite is deadly to creeps?

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, ijuin said:

Kreeptonite is deadly to creeps?

More like radioactive pepper spray. It comes from their homeworld: Kreepton. It's from Tatsuya Ishida's Sinfest, a webcomic that's been running longer than EGS.

[mlooney 3,417]

14 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

But the traditional fantasy characters who could become a cloud of smoke were Hollywood Vampires and western corruptions of Djinn.

Is Liz going Barbara Eden on us?

Noted for next set of single person transformations pinups.

[EmpactWB 21]

Fairly mundane speculation, but does anyone else think that Nanase's mother focuses so much on Nanase's eventual family role as a result of Noriko's split with Edward? Given that she's disowned her sister, we saw the same lightning when she was hiding family secrets, she dislikes Raven despite his high standards, and Raven is the reason Noriko focused so much on her career, it stands to reason. Admittedly, I originally dismissed her reasoning as being the stereotypical Asian mother, but it makes sense in universe, particularly if she wants to avoid talking to Nanase about magic so that she doesn't have to talk about Noriko.

Of course, I'm also assuming that Noriko seduced Raven (the irreconcilable difference caused by Raven above), not knowing that elves are sterile, in an attempt to have children who could carry on her magic legacy. But I don't imagine I'm the first to have said that.

Edited September 5, 2016 by EmpactWB
Clarification

[malloyd 23]

7 hours ago, EmpactWB said:

Fairly mundane speculation, but does anyone else think that Nanase's mother focuses so much on Nanase's eventual family role as a result of Noriko's split with Edward?

I'd have say if anything the other way around, Noriko split from Edward for the same kind of family reasons her sister cares about.

Come to think of it, do any of the main characters actually know magic runs in families?  We do, and some of the adults clearly do, but has anybody made it clear to any of them?  They seem oddly incurious about their relatives experiences with magic and unwilling to talk about their own if they do know.

[EmpactWB 21]

Could you clarify that first statement? I'm not sure I follow.

Tedd and Sarah should, because Sarah assumed Tedd had mega potential but Tedd oddly seems to have none. So they know his parents expected Sarah's assumption to be correct and were surprised to be wrong. I'd also say Nanase suspects something like that.

[Scotty 1,061]

3 minutes ago, EmpactWB said:

Could you clarify that first statement? I'm not sure I follow.

Tedd and Sarah should, because Sarah assumed Tedd had mega potential but Tedd oddly seems to have none. So they know his parents expected Sarah's assumption to be correct and were surprised to be wrong. I'd also say Nanase suspects something like that.

I would think that Wolf's statement of "Legendary monster hunter with a long family history of fighting monsters and evil wizards" would be enough to make Nanase believe that it magic can run in the family.

Also in terms of how Mama Kitsune was raising Nanase, initially she apparently wanted Nanase to excel at everything but expected Nanase to be a housewife, maybe it was how Mama Kitsune was raised as well, but maybe she was doing so as a front, like she wanted Nanase to think she was expecting her to be a housewife but really Mama Kitsune was preparing Nanase in case she ended up gaining access to magic. Notice how after the events of Sister II, Mama Kitsune never again brought up the housewife discussion, yeah she did switch to judging Nanase's relationship with Ellen for a little while but even that has dropped off once she saw Nanase and Ellen helping people, I think Mama Kitsune has realized that Nanase's path is set.

[Xenophon Hendrix 47]

I've been saying similar stuff for a while. I suspect that Mrs. Kitsune, far from being the close-minded authoritarian that Nanase believes, in truth has been carefully rearing Nanase to preserve Nanase's freedom of choice.

[Tom Sewell 268]

Now that we know that Edward is going to set up a Cheerleadra sighting when Elliot (or "Elliot") is in class and surrounded by people who recognize him, one very good possibility is that the plan will involve Ellen using her copy spell on Elliot--which could provide Magus with the opportunity he's been waiting for for so long. I've speculated earlier that Magus could be an alternate Elliot, and the result could be Magus possessing Ellen or Elliot. This could eventually lead to Sirleck possessing Magus possessing Ellen or Elliot, something perhaps suggested by Sirleck being the rearmost menacing form in the title page.

I have no idea how the rest of the gang, even with Pandora's help, will destroy Sirleck without killing whomever he's possessing. It's a pretty scary scenario. However, there could be comic potential in Magus, Sirleck, or both trying to pose as Elliot, Ellen, or whomever. One thing I think we can count on is that Sirleck instinctively hides his nature as much as he can manage.

Speaking of hiding his nature, if Sirleck is bound by the rules set up for aberrations, shouldn't he have to become visible when he actually takes possession of a new host?

 

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

if Sirleck is bound by the rules set up for aberrations, shouldn't he have to become visible when he actually takes possession of a new host?

There are rules for aberrations?

Edit: Then again, don't mortals seek out the monsters and become aberrations to get the power? The nearly dead body Sirleck is riding may have asked to be joined years (decades?) ago. The human may have thought it was like a classical familiar who could give him magic. But it eventually became simple possession. Edited September 9, 2016 by Pharaoh RutinTutin
Relevant detail added