Story: Friday, April 1st 2016

[hkmaly 490]

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

The way I see it was Carol was all frantic rushing in and finding out she just missed Cheerleadra. She then closes her eyes in a "Okay calm down Carol, we can still do something with this can't we? Wait, this is a mall, lots of witnesses!". She would have been so eager to get right to it that she wasn't aware of Phil initially. No special magic ability needed for that, just a one track mindset.

Yes, it makes perfect sense to explain it this way, and in any normal story other option wouldn't even occurred to anyone ... but this is EGS and Sarah got similar magic recently and we already have two families with hereditary magic ... it was little suspicious. And we like to speculate.

[Vorlonagent 442]

I'm not sure Sarah's family is out of the ordinary when it comes to magic potential.  Could you explain what leads you to think they might be?

[hkmaly 490]

Just now, Vorlonagent said:

I'm not sure Sarah's family is out of the ordinary when it comes to magic potential.  Could you explain what leads you to think they might be?

They are completely ordinary.

Now think about it a little. THAT is the reason DGB works so hard to keep magic secret.

[Vorlonagent 442]

OK, If you weren't suggesting that Sarah's family has magic in their lineage what did you mean by...

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

But this is EGS and Sarah got similar magic recently and we already have two families with hereditary magic ... it was little suspicious. And we like to specul

?

[hkmaly 490]

23 minutes ago, Vorlonagent said:

OK, If you weren't suggesting that Sarah's family has magic in their lineage what did you mean by...

1 hour ago, hkmaly said:

But this is EGS and Sarah got similar magic recently and we already have two families with hereditary magic ... it was little suspicious. And we like to specul

?

I'm not saying they don't have magic in their lineage. Pandora directly said it's part of Sarah's bloodline. I'm saying that having magic in bloodline is common enough for them to still be called ordinary.

EDIT: On the other hand, Noah said innate talents are rare, so maybe they are NOT ordinary.

[Scotty 1,061]

Innate abilities may be considered rare because some (like Sarah's ability) are so hard to detect. Jerry didn't see it, either because he was in the process of dying or not old and powerful enough to peer that deep into Sarah's potential, so he defaulted to whatever she yearned for.

[Vorlonagent 442]

That's twice today I have forgotten points of continuity.  I don't usually do that...

[Matoyak 51]

7 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

Which is something I do, and I've seen other people do, to calm down when in a stressful situation. She just lost a shot at would have been a good story, i think that counts as stressful. and the interview idea could just be her desperate attempt to salvage the situation.

7 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

...or to take a moment and think to self "How do I salvage this situation?"

6 hours ago, Scotty said:

The way I see it was Carol was all frantic rushing in and finding out she just missed Cheerleadra. She then closes her eyes in a "Okay calm down Carol, we can still do something with this can't we? Wait, this is a mall, lots of witnesses!". She would have been so eager to get right to it that she wasn't aware of Phil initially. No special magic ability needed for that, just a one track mindset.

That's my thoughts on this as well. I think the chances of Carol having magic are very very low. But eh, with EGS it's hard to know.

[Scotty 1,061]

I can understand there being a chance that Carol has the same innate ability as Sarah, but it's probably just as hard to detect and I just don't see Pandora having marked her as well. I see Pandora taking interest in Sarah because of her friendship with Tedd, and upon taking a closer look at Sarah's potential during the deck building phase of the tournament, noticed her innate ability and thought some fun could be had with it.

[hkmaly 490]

21 hours ago, Scotty said:

I can understand there being a chance that Carol has the same innate ability as Sarah, but it's probably just as hard to detect and I just don't see Pandora having marked her as well. I see Pandora taking interest in Sarah because of her friendship with Tedd, and upon taking a closer look at Sarah's potential during the deck building phase of the tournament, noticed her innate ability and thought some fun could be had with it.

You don't see a fun potential in reporter having such ability?

Also, it might be someone else than Pandora marking her.

21 hours ago, Matoyak said:

That's my thoughts on this as well. I think the chances of Carol having magic are very very low. But eh, with EGS it's hard to know.

Exactly. As I said: it's not likely, but this is EGS, it might happen. Tedd, who will totally never have a spell of it's own, got a spell. Sarah, the token "not having magic" person, with immortal confirming she had no talent, got a spell based on talent.

(Also, we should remember that even if Carol don't have magic now, that may change quickly. It seems that Pandora's strategy is to mark everyone she can. But she's not likely to give anyone that nice explanation she gave to Sarah. THAT she only did because of Tedd.)

[Scotty 1,061]

14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

(Also, we should remember that even if Carol don't have magic now, that may change quickly. It seems that Pandora's strategy is to mark everyone she can. But she's not likely to give anyone that nice explanation she gave to Sarah. THAT she only did because of Tedd.)

I didn't say Pandora's visit was because of Tedd, just that her initial interest in Sarah and giving her the mark was because of Sarah's connection to Tedd. The visit was likely due to Pandora discovering that someone was meddling with her plans through Grace so she figured she could meddle back through Sarah.

Think about what Pandora said about telling Edward being a big no no. She claimed that Edward being aware of Sarah's ability would force him to tell his superiors and then they would force Sarah into working for them. But really, what would Edward's first thought be if Sarah told him that she was marked by who Grace thinks was the creepy girl that appeared on the News shortly after Abraham's attack? The same creepy girl that appeared in front of him, Wolf and Cranium a couple years earlier? I'd think he'd be more worried about that than whatever spell Sarah has, and I think that's why Pandora didn't want Sarah telling Edward.

[ijuin 572]

Yes, Edward (and Adrian himself) are the two people whom the Main Eight know who just might be able to move enough people and resources to seriously cramp Pandora's Master Plan. Pandora thus has an interest in keeping those two on the edge of things until she has more pieces in place.

[Pharaoh RutinTutin 1,586]

14 hours ago, Scotty said:

Think about what Pandora said about telling Edward being a big no no. She claimed that Edward being aware of Sarah's ability would force him to tell his superiors and then they would force Sarah into working for them. But really, what would Edward's first thought be if Sarah told him that she was marked by who Grace thinks was the creepy girl that appeared on the News shortly after Abraham's attack? The same creepy girl that appeared in front of him, Wolf and Cranium a couple years earlier? I'd think he'd be more worried about that than whatever spell Sarah has, and I think that's why Pandora didn't want Sarah telling Edward.

When described that way, Pandora sounds a lot like a child molester.  Conning the victim into believing that she (the victim) will be punished if she tells someone about the molestation.

[Scotty 1,061]

I think it applies to most types of extortion, making a person believe its in their own best interest to hide something from the authorities.

[ijuin 572]

But yes, the power and experience disparity between Pandora and those whom she marks does increase the resemblance to child molestation--the much more powerful and knowledgeable party is abusing their position and shirking their ethical duty in order to exploit the less powerful party.

[Scotty 1,061]

We might have different views about this, I see what Pandora did to Sarah as being like the Mafia shaking down a business and being like "We got our hands in everything around here so it'd be no use going to the authorities about it."

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

It's still extortion either way, the only thing that changes is the motivations of the parties involved.

[hkmaly 490]

On 04/08/2016 at 1:36 AM, Scotty said:

Think about what Pandora said about telling Edward being a big no no. She claimed that Edward being aware of Sarah's ability would force him to tell his superiors and then they would force Sarah into working for them. But really, what would Edward's first thought be if Sarah told him that she was marked by who Grace thinks was the creepy girl that appeared on the News shortly after Abraham's attack? The same creepy girl that appeared in front of him, Wolf and Cranium a couple years earlier? I'd think he'd be more worried about that than whatever spell Sarah has, and I think that's why Pandora didn't want Sarah telling Edward.

Oh. Right. So that wasn't due to Tedd either.

Note that he MIGHT force Sarah to work for DGB anyway. The main issue here is that it's nowhere as bad as Pandora make it seem, also she will be in good company, as Edward will likely try to recruit whole main eight.

On 04/09/2016 at 10:52 AM, ijuin said:

Yes, Edward (and Adrian himself) are the two people whom the Main Eight know who just might be able to move enough people and resources to seriously cramp Pandora's Master Plan. Pandora thus has an interest in keeping those two on the edge of things until she has more pieces in place.

I don't think Adrian have enough resources. Also, he already knows almost everything main eight would be able to tell him. No, only one who doesn't know as much as he thinks he does is Edward. And even HIS options might be limited now when he's not head of paranormal division - which happened as direct cause of Abraham attack which Pandora controlled, so I'm SURE she is aware of it. (Likely she didn't needed to do anything special to cause that, but she certainly predicted that even if Edward wouldn't kill Abraham, he will still be replaced at that position.)

On 04/09/2016 at 3:59 PM, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

When described that way, Pandora sounds a lot like a child molester.  Conning the victim into believing that she (the victim) will be punished if she tells someone about the molestation.

The age difference is also part of why it sound that way. EVERYONE is child compared to Pandora.

22 hours ago, Scotty said:

I think it applies to most types of extortion, making a person believe its in their own best interest to hide something from the authorities.

There is difference between "you will be punished BY AUTHORITIES" and "you will be punished BY US".

13 hours ago, Scotty said:

We might have different views about this, I see what Pandora did to Sarah as being like the Mafia shaking down a business and being like "We got our hands in everything around here so it'd be no use going to the authorities about it."

Frankly, I see this more like combination of bribe and extortion. Like informing a businessman that if he tries to tell about them to authorities, the investigation will reveal that some contract that he ALREADY ACCEPTED was actually bribe and he wouldn't be able to prove otherwise.

[Scotty 1,061]

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Note that he MIGHT force Sarah to work for DGB anyway. The main issue here is that it's nowhere as bad as Pandora make it seem, also she will be in good company, as Edward will likely try to recruit whole main eight.

I gotta wonder though, with the way Arthur Arthur is running things, if Edward would do that. Arthur Arthur is all about keeping how easy it is for people to get magic a secret and doesn't care if there are any civilian casualties, we saw Cranium's reaction when Arthur told her, I imagine Edward would be livid if he found out that Grace and Elliot's lives were put in danger and his former colleagues were told it would be an acceptable loss if they were killed. Heck maybe that's why Cranium and Wolf were there at New Years, they might have been disobeying Arthur to help Edward. This is why I hope the main eight eventually end up expanding the "Meddling Teenagers" into an actual organization devoted to protecting civilians from magic based threats.

 

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

On 4/9/2016 at 1:48 PM, Scotty said:

I think it applies to most types of extortion, making a person believe its in their own best interest to hide something from the authorities.

There is difference between "you will be punished BY AUTHORITIES" and "you will be punished BY US".

17 hours ago, Scotty said:

We might have different views about this, I see what Pandora did to Sarah as being like the Mafia shaking down a business and being like "We got our hands in everything around here so it'd be no use going to the authorities about it."

Frankly, I see this more like combination of bribe and extortion. Like informing a businessman that if he tries to tell about them to authorities, the investigation will reveal that some contract that he ALREADY ACCEPTED was actually bribe and he wouldn't be able to prove otherwise.

It not about whether the statement is true or not, it has been confirmed that Immortals can lie and mislead people, whether or not what Pandora told Sarah is true, the fact is she's planted the seeds of doubt and mistrust into Sarah, before Pandora's visit, Sarah thought she could trust Edward with anything, now she's not so sure.

[hkmaly 490]

39 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I gotta wonder though, with the way Arthur Arthur is running things, if Edward would do that. Arthur Arthur is all about keeping how easy it is for people to get magic a secret and doesn't care if there are any civilian casualties, we saw Cranium's reaction when Arthur told her, I imagine Edward would be livid if he found out that Grace and Elliot's lives were put in danger and his former colleagues were told it would be an acceptable loss if they were killed. Heck maybe that's why Cranium and Wolf were there at New Years, they might have been disobeying Arthur to help Edward. This is why I hope the main eight eventually end up expanding the "Meddling Teenagers" into an actual organization devoted to protecting civilians from magic based threats.

You can argue that enlisting them in DGB can make them SAFER. On the other hand, yes, especially Grace and Elliot might have even bigger problems with accepting orders to let people be killed than Cranium and Wolf. And yes, it's quite likely Cranium and Wolf arrived on New Year on their own instead of under Arthur Arthur's orders. They might totally say that the fugitive was random encounter. Meanwhile, there probably was someone who was actually "on guard" for case of incidents (not having free time like they did) who they DIDN'T called because he will be less likely to help.

Still, there is probably some time before they will get the offer (FBI wants at least 23 years, DGB may operate under similar rules), the head of paranormal may change meanwhile. Or, with the informations already on their files Edward might be unable to prevent them being hired.

[ijuin 572]

A thought: one reason why Pandora is trying to sow distrust of Edward among Tedd's friends is so that they will gravitate towards the second-most-knowledgeable magical authority that they know of--Adrian. Thus, Adrian would have the "Next Generation Magical Heroes" team that he had been wanting.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

51 minutes ago, ijuin said:

A thought: one reason why Pandora is trying to sow distrust of Edward among Tedd's friends is so that they will gravitate towards the second-most-knowledgeable magical authority that they know of--Adrian. Thus, Adrian would have the "Next Generation Magical Heroes" team that he had been wanting.

I love this. Professor R in charge of the School for Magically Gifted Children. Enter the new superteam the M-Women.

[ijuin 572]

Better than the Ex-Men.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

25 minutes ago, ijuin said:

Better than the Ex-Men.

A friend of mine once ran a superhero game where a team named the Ex-Men appeared. It consisted of a group of disgruntled divorcees of the superheroine Not Too Bright Phoenix. It developed that all the poor sods lived on the edge of financial ruin due to her alimony demands and we ended up feeling sorry for the idiots.

[ijuin 572]

Of course, Elliot and Tedd could qualify as "Ex-Men"...