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I'm sure the face you'll do when this belief is proven wrong would have been a wonderful sight.

Eh, could almost be worth using the Sight and getting an everlasting memory of the day...

We live on a planet where some people don't have the ability to stop bleeding after they get cut (ie, haemophilia), and that hasn't gone extinct (even though it's/was until very recently basically a 100% mortality rate for women even if they don't get injured). We have people with various issues who are absolutely in the 'unable to defend themselves to save their lives' category, and yet mysteriously, they don't all get murdered by the age of 18.

For that matter, we have people who can drive tanks (the military) and people who can't (the everyone else), but the world isn't inhabited solely by soldiers! Just because they are easily killable doesn't mean they will be killed.

---

It also probably depends on how 'not being magical' comes about. Is it genetic and inheritable? Dominant or recessive? Or is it a developmental flaw? Is it racial - do people from Fantasy North Dakota lack magical powers? It could be related to lack of a trace element in the diet. Maybe it's people whose parents weren't around long enough to mystically open up their minds (subconsciously, of course), or people who don't have enough dead relatives in the past three generations to crack open their connection to the spirit world, or people who were born within the ten minutes after midnight (when, as all know, the gods rest).

Any of these possibilities, or dozens more, would give a different shape to the dynamics between them. None would lead unerringly to an extinction event.

hS

And I won't deny that Tracer was the primary inspiration for Hop... But now that I look at it, looks like the inspiration went few steps too far.

Honest to God, I've completely forgotten Tracer's name while making Hop. As for the accent, I had Cassie Young helping me on that one, cause it was way worse before (This Tweedle thought Cockney = Hagrid's speech).

But yeah, thanks for a bucket of cold water, man. Really appreciate it. Although, now I feel like I wrote myself to a corner with this one :/

It only means more problems.

((On a personal note, I think it could be an interesting thing. Except I think said magic would pretty much substitutes itself to science and technolgy.))

Hates spiders, but can talk to them? Now that's something nasty to do... You know what, since it's her special talent, maybe it should have been her cutie mark... ;)

'Walks on four like a pro', That's really fun... Until you do the math, and remember that Ix has been a werewolf for... 14 years, right? Still well done.

Vampire Pinkie Pie? Keep a close eye on the fourth wall.

Wait, covering anything in dark chocoate makes it infinitely better. Watch that typo.

Ah, nice way of showing Lottie is more old-fashioned.

And now the shipping is just getting more 'text' and less 'sub'.

Fun way to present the charges. I should plagiarize take inspiration from that.

NOOO. Not Lunar Republic! Where will I get these episodes now? Oh wait, that's New Lunar Republic. Nevermind.

And now the subtlety reached NanoFate HomuMado levels. miss the days where I didn't do shipping.

Kudos for the mission.

I have realized that actual gameplay is very different from the dialogue and worldbuilding. Namely, almost every single class uses mana to perform their skills. It is because of that and the fact only one person has come forward saying they are mana-impaired that I jumped to the conclusion that anyone could use magic, and only a fraction of the population can't.

The following is the most complete text available ingame about how the world's magic works. It is very different compared to actual gameplay. Make of it what you will.

Magic on Lore
Magic on Lore is contained in ley lines, which run across and through the planet like haphazardly-placed latitude and longitude lines. Where these ley lines intersect, there are nexuses of magic which act as reservoirs. There are two central ley lines: the Verix, running North-South, and the Horix, running East-West. To perform feats of magic, a mage must draw on the magic contained in one of Lore's ley lines or nexuses.

Drawing from Ley Lines
The largest nexuses is the core of the planet; it contains the most pure magic available, and is centered where the Verix overlaps the Horix. There is no single mage strong enough to tap into this nexus, though it is rumored the Blue Mage or the Mad Weaponsmith have not revealed the full extent of their power, and they will neither confirm or deny their ability to utilize the central nexus. Normal nexuses and ley lines can be tapped into and drawn from safely, in controlled amounts.

As yet, no regular mage has been known to draw directly from the Core. Doing so would be like tapping a person's heart to draw blood: the pressure of the flow of blood/magic escaping would be overwhelming.

The magician would be flooded with pure magic, overcome in a deluge of power which would burn through their physical, mental, and magical veins. Their stores of mana - magical will and stamina - would be destroyed. They would be "burnt out" and lose the ability to perform magic... and their lives.

Severing another mage's connection to the ley lines IS possible, but dangerous. The potential for lashback - which would negatively affect the severing mage - is enormous. Most choose not to risk it.

Nexuses as Portals
Nexuses, formed where two or more ley lines cross, do not only act as reservoirs of magic on Lore; they can also be portals to the para-elemental plane of magic. On rare occasions, mages can directly transport themselves to the plane through the manipulation of these portals.

You may have encountered one of these portals in Lore already. Legend has it that if a magus looks inside themself and follows the pull of a focus stone, they will be led towards the nearest nexus. In that respect, it is both focus stone and lodestone.

While ley lines are fine for everyday magical needs, if the spell you are attempting requires massive amounts of magic, it would be wise to situate yourself near a nexus. The availability of extra power could mean the difference between life and death. IF you're strong enough to channel it all!

Focus stones, a Primer
Each mage on Lore has the ability to utilize a focus, usually made of a rare stone. These stones can allow the mage to hook into the ley lines and nexuses of magic which transverse the planet, and can guide them to the lines and reservoirs of magic across the world.

With practice and a stone for which they feel an affinity, a mage may also use the focus stone to enhance, to boost, their power. The crystalline structure of many stones allows it to hold the focused power mages channel through them.

As an example, think of a small tendril of a mage's power being funneled into a gemstone. That small jot of power bounces off the facets inside of the stone, gaining energy as it rebounds off the planes. That extra energy boosts power, increasing the strength of the magical working.

With the proper focus and will, a mage may find their strength greatly enhanced, the power of their spells increased manyfold. Of course, that is for normal mages. With the... unique... magic found in the Blue Mage or the Mad Weaponsmith, who knows? These two rare mages have not allowed a proper study of themselves to be made.

Source: http://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=21099744 , bottom of page, in spoiler tag, highlighted.

Yes, that's me. How much do you plan to pay me, exactly?

Specifically, with how Hop is a blatant near-carbon copy of the canon Overwatch character Tracer shoehorned into the PPC. The energetic personality, the Cockney accent, certain details about their appearance; heck, even their first names are the same! You went so far as to put an Overwatch quote on her Wiki page!

I really don't like this. It feels like a transparent attempt to try and write a mashup of Overwatch/PPC fanfiction. What's more, it's lazy. Rather than come up with your own character, this feels like you've took someone else's and barely made a token effort to file off the serial numbers.

I might be a bit more accepting if Hop were some sort of AU version of Tracer recruited to the PPC. I would still think it's a lazy choice, but I would understand it better. But apparently, this character is supposed to be from the Doctor Who universe? The actual universe, and not a badfic? I'm sorry, but that stretches my suspension of disbelief too far. The two universes don't have anything to do with each other! It just seems like a very weak attempt to hide the fact that this isn't really your character. It's like if I made a new agent who was a teenage wizard with a scar on his face and an English accent, named him "Harry McAndrews," then said he hailed from Shadowrun.

Another detail about this character that bothered me: her phonetic accent. There are times where it was overused to the point of being nearly unreadable. At other points, it swayed from Cockney to almost Scottish (like anytime you used "aye" for "yes" or "me" for "my"). The trick with using dialects like this is to use an easy hand (unless the joke is that their accent IS so thick as to be hard to understand).

As for the mission itself, it was generally okay. The biggest issue I had was that there was a lot of telling as opposed to showing. It all very well to say that "Hip and Hop cringed on seeing the contradiction" regarding the venom, but it isn't very interesting to read. What were their reactions? What did they say? Or later on, when Cinder Fall and her cronies were taken care of in one sentence. There's nothing that could have been shown about that?

The dialogue was probably the sharpest part of the mission. Each character's personality came off very well through it. The conclusion was also very good, with the agents being clever and taking advantage of the Stu's weakened state. That, for me, will always be better than a knock-down fight between agent and Stu/Sue.

A few minor things:
— I agree with HG in that your portrayal of the Shadow People was very amusing, even if the tilde speech got a little tiring for me after a while.
— Charge list was clean and to the point. Nice. I am not a fan of lists that stretch for over half a page.
— While the matter is often debated, I personally do not think that miscapitalized words like "semblance" should not result in minis. I think of it like this: say "Harry Dresden" out loud. Now say "harry dresden" out loud. Is there a difference? Then again, that's just me.

All in all, I would have liked the mission a lot more had Hop actually been an original character. If I want to read about Tracer, I'll go read Overwatch fanfiction. The PPC should be for the stuff that comes out of our heads, not what comes out of others'.

Main reason is that we vote over everything else important, so why not this?

After that, there's the question of what the mod powers actually are. I figure long bans (> a day, or maybe a week tops) need a community discussion and a vote. That sort of thing might even need to happen on the Board for clarity's sake.

The mods are there, I think, for fast-acting deescalation of unconstitutional things with warnings, then kicks, then if someone un-kicks themselves and keep behaving badly, a short ban.

Now, there's the question of who to give kick/ban rights to. I would nominate Iximaz, since she's in chat a lot and I figure she's a sane, level-headed person who would be responsible with these sort of powers.

If you'd sign up and actually participate in the channel? Yes. There's little point in granting mod rights to someone who doesn't show up at all.
That said, the mindset is "I trust the PGs not to go pants-on-head crazy with mod rights", but I'd rather much have mods that the community chose to put its trust on them since for this the community's discretion is better than mine.

Another great game. Oh, they don't make games like they used to.

I have to admit that I haven't been following Sun&Moon too closely-- I want it to be a surprise for when I'll get it. IV training sounds... good, actually. I'd like to be able to take the 'mons that have accompanied me along my adventures and augment them into SPARTAN IV supersoldiers and--

Wait, no, wrong franchise. But I digress: what specifically seems like gene therapy/mutation/what-have-you? Again, I'm a little in the dark and am trying to avoid spoilers.

With all the money I've gotten from selling to Tesseract, we can just buy another galaxy!
With enough left over to spend the rest of our lives in a mansion made entirely out of diamonds and ice-cream!

I've planned this out, you see. I'm a professional salesalesalesalesman.

Sweet? Oh, no, sweet? No sweetness here, nossir, not an ounce. Sweet as a lemon, I am.
Just making observations, really. Could probably find examples for all of those on this here front page, alone.
Credit where credit's due, y'know? And credit's due.

Really, though, you're doing a pretty bad job of convincing me to not get banned.
I mean, I'd love to get banned in the style of Jim Theis.

- Larfen is prepared for no extra leeway.

Wow, Charlotte really got the short end of the vampire-with-supernatural-power stick, didn't she? (That's one of the few interesting things her 'verse added to the vampire mythos, actually--the idea that notable traits from a human get further enhanced once they get bitten, like Jasper's presumed charisma and the love interest's super-presumed empathy/perception. Also, I thought Alice's specific brand of future-vision was cool.)

OK, random defense of cheesy, overly-abused vampire novel series over. Ix and Charlotte were really funny in this one, whether they were playing off each other or the fic's rampant idiocy. Midnight Star sounds like a decent name for a genderbent!Luna, but other than that, nothing.

The chocolate joke and the family jewels jokes were my particular favorites XD

If some people can throw fireballs, and some people can't, then pretty soon, there won't be anyone left who can't throw fireballs. And since you said it's only a very small percentage that can't use magic, things that would have put them on equal footing, like firearns, would never have been invented, either because the resources wouldn't have been available, they wouldn't have been necessary (if your army has magic, you won't pay attention to making the tiny fraction of the population that doesn't battle ready), or because anyone who tried would have been assassinated by the unsavory parts of magic society.

They should definitely bring cake. But not pie—if they bring pie, we throw them to the lions.

Unless it's Pi Day, in which case we may be merciful. Especially if it's French silk.

~Neshomeh

I personally think you'd be great for the job. I know I respect and listen to you, and I'm almost certain I'm not the only one who does on the discord channel.

Does this mean the Temple of Partyrena has official approval? I'm thinking visitors have to bring offerings of either cake or alcohol, but haven't yet decided whether making an offering lets you join in the gladiatorial fights, or gets you out of them...

hS

I didn't think you actually meant that, hence beating around the bush with "logic" and "reason" like I always do. I think there's probably a lesson in this about being honest with our feelings...

Anyway, now that we've had the traditional squabble over details, perhaps we can just get on with agreeing with each other. {= )

~Neshomeh

I wasn't saying that you (or any other PG) don't have fairness and good judgement - or if I was, I didn't mean to! I was saying that I don't think it was (necessarily) a prominent factor in our elections/appointments, and that therefore assuming that all present, past, and future Permission Givers are moderator material would be a bad idea.

I don't think any of our currently-active PGs are people I would say no to as a moderator, either. But I have no idea (since my problems with chats are roughly the same as yours) whether they're the best candidates.

Also: some of my initial reaction comes from a remembered conversation where someone said PGs should be made moderators of any prospective New Board. Which hits at least three topics I'm categorically against, and I'm afraid some of that bled over to this topic. I'm sorry.

hS

But it's because a) I don't go in the chat; can't moderate if I'm not there; and b) I can't keep up with real-time conversation in large groups, which is why I don't go in the chat. By the time I form a coherent response to anything, the conversation tends to have moved on by two or three topics. {= P

What I meant is that I object to the implication that I (and any other PG) wouldn't make a good mod because I lack fairness, good judgement, etc., which I'd like to think isn't true. We all exercise those qualities as PGs, I hope.

But like I said, whether that means we ought to be chat mods by default is another question, to which I say no.

And yeah, it is a little odd for all of us to stand around talking about how good/not good we are. >.>;

I suppose the copying thing is more correlation than causation, isn't it? That makes sense.

I will come out and admit that I wish I could deny Permission solely on the basis of behavior every now and then, though. Maybe it's a good thing that I can't, but I really don't like those times I'm just hoping and praying the writing is as unpromising as the individual's personality so I don't have to say yes to someone I don't even want to be around. Fortunately, that sort of situation only comes up once in a blue moon and tends to get resolved by the Board at large anyway.

~Neshomeh

Whose idea was it to play I-spy in the RC? The intro was cute, and I liked the mini in the summary appearing.