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Looks like twolesy spells actually work. Perhaps twolesy have evolved to not only believe in magic, but also to experience biogical effects and changes matching their beliefs. If this is the case, I eagerly await the relevant explanation strip, because I have no idea how this would be an advantageous trait. As for Ben, it may simply be psychosomatic. I sure so, because otherwise my theory's out the window.
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# ? Oct 27, 2012 01:22 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 22:49 |
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That's what I was thinking. Anxiety can cause physical pain all on its own, even if you AREN'T on an alien planet pretending to be a secret agent and getting attacked by the locals in a dark area just below a reverse gravity zone that will have you falling upwards to your death with one wrong move.
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# ? Oct 27, 2012 02:04 |
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BiggerJ posted:Looks like twolesy spells actually work. Perhaps twolesy have evolved to not only believe in magic, but also to experience biogical effects and changes matching their beliefs. If this is the case, I eagerly await the relevant explanation strip, because I have no idea how this would be an advantageous trait. Remember, it's not necessarily 'advantageous' in general but rather 'specifically advantageous to procreation' that causes evolution. It could be that at some point in time the twolesy started sexually selecting based on belief in magic (imagine for example a cult where joining the cult, and believing in magic, leads to having children with women in the cult), and over time that belief became so ingrained that they started actually adapting to it. Maybe the women were more likely to mate with people that were more affected by 'magic' and over many generations it became a species trait. Another option would be that the wizards are like spewing bacteria at them or something? I dunno. I assume there's some amazing rationale behind this, though. At the same time, I fully expect our hero to just be experiencing a placebo.
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# ? Oct 27, 2012 03:49 |
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I'll be surprised if the explanation doesn't tie into the reverse gravity zone, somehow.
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# ? Oct 27, 2012 06:55 |
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Haha, this is really cool actually, will have to bookmark it!
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# ? Oct 29, 2012 10:16 |
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Magic is real!
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# ? Oct 31, 2012 07:50 |
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I'm sure there is a logical reason for it. Maybe an ability to mutate under duress or something like that. Not-Plume probably just has tummy-ache from stress and alien food, since Dunkirk seems to be fine.
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# ? Oct 31, 2012 10:38 |
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There is some serious mounting dread going on here.
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# ? Nov 2, 2012 15:35 |
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I just had a thought. What if there are no real kaladihr? What if it's a natural part of the twolesy's biology that they've evolved out of? There's even precedent for that on earth with the axolotl. This is an axolotl. It's basically a type of salamander that evolved to freeze its development at the larval stage. It's starting to become a popular aquarium pet these days, but when it was first discovered something interesting happened. A live specimen was sent back to England for study, but first it was injected with iodine to help it survive the trip. When it got there, it looked like this: The iodine had triggered the release of certain hormones, which started the axolotl's metamorphosis for the first time in millennia (please do not inject your pet axolotl with iodine). Maybe twolesies are just so suggestible that the idea that they've been cursed is enough to force their brains to trigger their own dormant metamorphoses.
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# ? Nov 2, 2012 17:05 |
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RandomFerret posted:(please do not inject your pet axolotl with iodine)
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# ? Nov 2, 2012 20:42 |
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You do realize what this means, right? Pokemon evolution is real. Concerning the six limbs: Schwarzwald posted:I'll be surprised if the explanation doesn't tie into the reverse gravity zone, somehow. Ding ding ding, we have a winner. The twolesy evolved more useful limbs but the reverse gravity zone caused them to keep the standard six on their chests. BiggerJ fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Nov 2, 2012 |
# ? Nov 2, 2012 23:44 |
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That flying creature must have an interesting wing structure. Technically, it's upside down.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 03:33 |
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I can't imagine what it must feel like for Plume, being half in and half out of the reverse gravity zone. Imagine gravity suddenly pulling one half of your body in the other direction, that must be really unpleasant.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 03:43 |
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RandomFerret posted:I just had a thought. What if there are no real kaladihr? What if it's a natural part of the twolesy's biology that they've evolved out of? I'm glad you've caught on, and that you posted pictures of axlotls.
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 09:37 |
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RandomFerret posted:I just had a thought. What if there are no real kaladihr? What if it's a natural part of the twolesy's biology that they've evolved out of? There's even precedent for that on earth with the axolotl. Or what if kaladihr are all just mentally ill twolesys?
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 13:29 |
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Little something I made - a trace of that crazy bat thing with some tweaking. I'd love to see some ultra-realistic drawings of this guys creatures. I really need to invest in a tablet...
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# ? Nov 6, 2012 17:44 |
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Well, he just gave you more monsters to draw in today's biology lesson!
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# ? Nov 7, 2012 11:14 |
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Biology lesson updates are the best updates.
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# ? Nov 8, 2012 02:22 |
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He's leaving us in suspense about the magic though. You can always tell when something's going to be a big plot point because it doesn't get immediately explained after the creature's first appearance.
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# ? Nov 8, 2012 02:33 |
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ZearothK posted:Well, he just gave you more monsters to draw in today's biology lesson! I've been thinking about trying a Khaladihr. It's kind of a horrific transformation but the way nightmares mouth has been hanging open and his eye - its strangely endearing.
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# ? Nov 12, 2012 02:03 |
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Well he's got an electrofrier, I'm thinking that at least this particular wizard knows that magic's a scam.
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# ? Nov 19, 2012 14:16 |
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ChairMaster posted:Well he's got an electrofrier, I'm thinking that at least this particular wizard knows that magic's a scam. He's going to try to get them killed since they brought technology with them. Maybe he saw what happened to the GREATEST loving PLANET EVER? They're definitely using technology as pseudo magic and keeping everyone else in the dark. Science is magic. Also like BiggerJ said at the top - the transformations/Deaths are probably done by the twolesy themselves. The wizards probably know about psychology and are using it to get the comfy seats. What better way to scare someone off your trail then the promises of a painful end? Even more so due to their deep beliefs in the supernatural and other spiritual beliefs.They wizards are magnificent bastards. The wizards are essentially the bad guy from the living note-book saga, using their knowledge to their advantage and keeping everyone else in the dark again. Almost a recurring theme in the story too. They didn't know they brought the wrong guy, they didn't know about how bat-poo poo insane a certain race was, The guy didn't know about the danger technology would cause on that one planet, said one planet didn't know about who sired or mothered there children and it drove them crazy. This whole story is about paranoia and jumping to conclusions. scarycave fucked around with this message at 14:16 on Nov 20, 2012 |
# ? Nov 20, 2012 13:25 |
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Well, it seems like the secret of not-Plume is getting out of the bag for everyone in this arc. Specially if the real Plume gets in touch with command. I bet we'll learn something important from this Wizard's duel.
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# ? Nov 26, 2012 13:22 |
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And indeed we did - it's all in their heads, when it's not also in their bodies.
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# ? Nov 29, 2012 05:24 |
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Next page: a biology update explaining why gravoola demons are invisible to humans.
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# ? Nov 29, 2012 05:31 |
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These guys take their LARPs seriously.
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# ? Nov 29, 2012 11:13 |
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Eeevil posted:Next page: a biology update explaining why gravoola demons are invisible to humans. That would be gloriously, beautifully evil.
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# ? Nov 29, 2012 12:43 |
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Eeevil posted:Next page: a biology update explaining why gravoola demons are invisible to humans. But are they invisible to limbchoosers?
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# ? Nov 29, 2012 12:51 |
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Well this latest one was eye-opening. I think we can safely conclude that the magic is not real, because even if for some reason the two summoned demons were invisible to our two main characters, the lightning one of them summoned to shoot with should still have been visible because invisible lightning makes absolutely no sense. However, we have now seen two different instances of magic having physical effects on these aliens whose names I can't remember, which is one hell of a psychosomatic placebo effect.
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# ? Nov 30, 2012 17:04 |
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Man, these guys sure love describing things that are supposedly plainly visible.
Eeevil fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Nov 30, 2012 |
# ? Nov 30, 2012 17:13 |
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Just finished Hitmen for Destiny. I read the first two planets of Accidental Space Spy and the Sister Wives story some time ago, but I guess I was put off of Hitmen for Destiny for a couple of reasons. First was "hitmen" (that trope's nearly as overused as zombies these days), and the second was the weirdest spoiler of the ending that showed up in the Tails Gets Trolled thread: That it was all about some guy's desire to make himself an amazing destiny because he thought his girlfriend deserved more than a working stiff schlub like him. Another kind of resolution I feel is way overdone. I read Hitmen for Destiny over several days and I couldn't figure out right until the end how the heck that spoiler was supposed to have anything to do with anything. I really appreciate the effort that went into maintaining internal logic. I figured out what was going on with the unicorn universe almost immediately and it was real instructive insofar as understanding the way the author was going about the worldbuilding. Even before I got to that point I had plenty of faith in the way the narrative was crafted, but yeah, it really is a big testament to how easy it must be to write provided you have a clearly thought out gameplan. Once you have the basic assumptions out of the way it's real easy to come up with jokes that sound like straight out monkey cheese abstractly even if there's a perfectly rational explanation behind it. More importantly, though, it's the reader's belief in this coherence that helps get everything to come together. As far as Rolf goes, I thought it was pretty clear that his destiny was supposed to decouple from Annette's right after the Barn Beast, and found myself wondering exactly how this would have been managed. I really want to see how the Barn Beast's death was originally supposed to go down, not because I care about it being "cool", but because as presented it was really difficult to guess why anyone would have wanted to kill the Barn Beast in the first place, or how this could have been so difficult that it would have necessitated two heroes. Especially since the Barn Beast itself was such a strange monster- it must have been reasonably intelligent, since it somehow managed to learn about at least two prophecies. Concerning the ending- Definitely too happy. I guess I just didn't have the same sympathy for most of the characters as the rest of you did. I found myself identifying most strongly with Bianca, who was tortured and spent three years as a tentacle monster in addition to all the awful stuff that happened to her on panel. I never really want to see any of these people again and I feel better off not knowing about what else they're going to be doing. Which I guess is kind of a happy ending, in a really meta way (for the reader that is). Last point. I feel like the best format for this work, by far, would be Adventure Game. Goodness knows we've all been gobbed around by ridiculous non-intuitive puzzles before. The very organic way these puzzles are solved would make for a very fun game of adventure guesswork as compared to the normal frustration. Like imagine the Mexican standoff scene in the end which must be solved by rejecting every possible solution offered until another character enters the scene. It could also make for some great action sequences. I really liked how, rather than getting progressively more difficult, the difficulty of killing the monster was pretty much random. Because it's not like they'd be in order or something. I also find the prospect of the end-game boss being the same wimpy tutorial monster you fought to get used to the playing style so outrageously funny that I wish someone would actually try it. Wouldn't work as well for Accidental Space Spy, though, since so far I haven't seen any action sequences in that at all. Then again that's how most adventure games work so whatever.
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# ? Dec 1, 2012 03:30 |
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Eeevil posted:Man, these guys sure love describing things that are supposedly plainly visible. They don't realize its true purpose - to ensure that they all see the same thing. To them, it's culturally normal. To us, they're synchronizing. Edit: I really, really want Ben (aka Not-Plume) to figure all this out and take advantage of it. He even has a friend who can back him up. BiggerJ fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Dec 1, 2012 |
# ? Dec 1, 2012 06:18 |
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Funnily enough, Thorsby did make an adventure game: http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Attack_of_the_Yeti_Robot_Zombies It is kind of bad, but had a unique style.
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# ? Dec 1, 2012 13:27 |
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"All over its body IT will have gruesome eyes!" They're making up these monstrosities on the spot. Like a game of H.P. Lovecraft improv. BiggerJ posted:Edit: I really, really want Ben (aka Not-Plume) to figure all this out and take advantage of it. He even has a friend who can back him up. All they have to do is cast a "All the twosleys that are trying to kill us will drop dead spell", then all the twosleys trying to kill them will die. "Allthetwosleysthataretryingtokilluswilldropdeadsix!" scarycave fucked around with this message at 15:09 on Dec 2, 2012 |
# ? Dec 2, 2012 15:03 |
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They need to know about the spell, though. It's probably simpler to cast "obeymeix" over and over and over again.
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# ? Dec 2, 2012 15:59 |
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They may also need to be known as wizards.
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# ? Dec 2, 2012 19:21 |
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Doc Hawkins posted:They may also need to be known as wizards. Didn't the wizard when they first arrived at the village say they had magic? That he then broke with the device someone else gave him? Maybe they could say that since he's now dead that spell is broken and they have their magic back.
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# ? Dec 2, 2012 19:36 |
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Ben's tummy ache is most certainly stress at this point, or a reaction to alien food. Time for them to declare themselves mighty wizards.
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# ? Dec 3, 2012 14:12 |
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ZearothK posted:Ben's tummy ache is most certainly stress at this point, or a reaction to alien food. Time for them to declare themselves mighty wizards. - I am going to cast a spell on you all! - You can't do that! They shut off your magic! - Fools they never shut off my magic! I cast a spell to make you think they did! That never happened! - - That never happened and neither did your birth! I had you under a spell to make you think you existed the whole time. - But that can't be...thats impossible! - Oh yeah? Do you even remember being born? - No...I don't. Oh god! I don't exist! - And neither does the rest of your species! -
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# ? Dec 3, 2012 14:26 |
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# ? May 9, 2024 22:49 |
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Here's the real Plume.
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# ? Dec 3, 2012 17:11 |