Fun with Shape Shifting

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

As for changing size, Aary managed to shrink to the size of a feral poodle, Abel gave himself boobs and the wing-tentacles can grow to fantastic lengths if you look at the Dan vs Aary strips.  This doesn't seem to come at the expense of mass elsewhere in the body so it's definitely magical in some way.

Either that or Aary made for a -very- heavy poodle, and was almost completely hollow during the fight. I can see definite flaws in those ideas. (F'rinstance, how heavy does the poodle get before it's feet sink into the ground?)

[e_voyager]

mass and energy. remember not all things make sense  especially in comics or when magic is involved. and look at mega man. their entire boy become energy during transportation and upon death. it's not and exact thing in the world of fiction and in the world of fact we still can't explain energy lost during normal procedures. 

[Kayriel]

True, but unless specifically created so that it doesn't, you can almost always rationalize these things out. I spent a good fourteen of my fifteen years as a roleplayer doing just that. Makes for some damn good viewpoints in combat. Ultimately it'd be up to Amber, mind you, but theorizing and postulating make for great conversation, in my opinion.

[e_voyager]

indeed half my fun comes form trying to figure out things that make no sense.  like the powers of the superheros in DC comics.

[Kayriel]

DC is easier to reason out than Marvel, at times. Sure, Marvel provides more background into the origins themselves usually - over DC, but rather that their explanations don't make much sense on the whole.

Franklin Richards. Resident Overpowered, Cosmic-Powered Entity, makes Galactus look like a 3rd grader. Born to a woman who can utilize invisible force fields (albeit empowered by Hyperspace energies) and a man who can... stretch. Force Field+Rubber =/= UltimoGodBoy.

[e_voyager]

you are 100% right  but in marvels defense it is power of mind and body combined. Sue's power if affected by her mind and can hide a planet form the big G if she wants and on top of that she can Pierce this he can. Reeds mind is extremely powerful as well look at the thins he's built and not his body is able to harness that power and make his as flexibility and resilience as his mind is? add to that there contact wit the beyonder before fore Franklin was born there multiple encounters with cosmic radiation it only makes sen that he power would be something to do with his mind empowering his body or the like.  in this care Marvel when he lets make him a mortal version of the beyonder who gave the celestial a workout in secret wars two but at the same time lets cut his power in half so that he can only access it on a planetary scale instead of the grand cosmic scale that we originally envisioned.  and there you have psi lord from the fantastic five. ( i learned a lot of this over the years including when she hulk was a member of the fantastic four and psilord was a teen but that was probably and alt universe.) Franklin's mind can literally restructer realities to match his will. that's why he can make people stronger or weaker that why he can blow up planets when he'd feeling over whelmed but he's still mortal unlike the beyonder whom was later called frank.   (see secret wars two issue three the beyonder conquers the world. )  and even then the beyonder did not control everything  he was close but molecule man without even trying sheared off beyonders control and now i must sleep

now to spell check. will over 100 misspelled words

[Naldru]

A few months ago, there was a discussion of Jules Verne versus H.G. Wells.

H.G. Wells usually gave some pseudo science explanation of the new inventions, but the response of Jules Verne and some others was basically that it didn't make sense and it wouldn't work.  However, H.G. Wells was more interested in the impact of the inventions and developments rather than how they worked.  He would probably be a reader of Marvel comics.

Jules Verne always tried to make his magnificent inventions sound reasonable, and many were extrapolations of things that were already being developed, such as the submarine.  However, when you really got down to the physics of the inventions, they wouldn't work either.  People couldn't work in soft diving suits at the bottom of the ocean and then return to a one atmosphere environment without undergoing long decompression or suffering internal damage to their bodies.  His attitude seems closer to that of DC Comics.

[WhiteFox]

I wish I read real comics...

I... I have a bunch of Punisher: War Journal issues.

And the Civil War #1-7 book.

The art was pretty.

... Please don't shun me.

(Really, I'd read more comic books if I had more money and knew where to start. I swear, it's impossible to tell what's going on unless you read from the beginning.)

Anyway... I think the core of the discussion here is suspension of disbelief. How much will we believe? Wells and Jules seem to be believable because the inventions are close enough to reality. Not dead on, but not outside the realms of possibility.

Who was it that said "The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense."?
(EDIT: Tom Clancy.)

Fiction can get away with anything that it's readers are partially informed about. They know enough to believe in it, but not enough to discount it. This is why Magic and Science are the two biggest sources of super powers. Wells got away with it, because once a reader can say, "Sure, it's magic, but let's just go with it" everything else runs smoothly. That's suspension of disbelief. (Note: I do not know a darned thing about Wells. I'm just going by what you described)

Reality doesn't have to care whether or not you believe in it. It just is, and we make our own conclusions. This, I think, is what trains us to accept fictional things. Once we are willing to go with the fact that it's true, it's up to us to rationalize it.

Which is why I try to *think* as little as possible about fiction, and go with how it feels. In fiction, it's more important for something to feel true than to be true. It can't be true. It's fiction. Sometimes it's better to just not ask "Why?" and just enjoy the story.
(EDIT: Illusion is the first of all pleasures. -Oscar Wilde)

[Kayriel]

That seems to be how a majority of people think in the world. I'm not so passive about my interests, if a certain aspect piques my curiosity, I want to know as much as I can. Especially when it's something that has combat applications to RP.

[rabid_fox]

I wish I read real comics...

Yer here, so you do.

[e_voyager]

do like i do . go to the library it's free and they have back issues in the form of blade and white graphic novels as well, these novels are labeled essentials for some reason but hey i just go with it.

[WhiteFox]

do like i do . go to the library it's free and they have back issues in the form of blade and white graphic novels as well, these novels are labeled essentials for some reason but hey i just go with it.

Sadly, I do not live near a decent library. Sigh.

I wish I read real comics...

Yer here, so you do.

I love my online comics, yes I do, my precious, but I have yet to find a comic that has art comparable some of the better Marvel work. Especially in terms of color, shadows, and composition. It's a whole different medium. (Literally.)

[Kayriel]

Likely because webcomic artists don't get the paybucks of a Marvel-licensed artist? D= And when you've got alot more time to work on it, as well.

[Ailis]

Also, most comic books are illustrated by multiple people.  One person does the rough sketching, another inks, another shades, and so on.  Very few on-line comics I have found have multiple illustrators except for Lullaby (http://abacuscomics.com/lullaby.htm).  Still, Marvel grade art isn't necessary to tell a story: it's just eye candy.

Mmmm...  Eye candy...   *flips through Spiderman*

[Reese Tora]

do like i do . go to the library it's free and they have back issues in the form of blade and white graphic novels as well, these novels are labeled essentials for some reason but hey i just go with it.

Sadly, I do not live near a decent library. Sigh.

I wish I read real comics...

Yer here, so you do.

I love my online comics, yes I do, my precious, but I have yet to find a comic that has art comparable some of the better Marvel work. Especially in terms of color, shadows, and composition. It's a whole different medium. (Literally.)

Looking just at the quality of the line art, many web comics have equal or better art compared to drawn comics.  A lot comes down to individual style, of course, and to how much effort the colorist and shader are going to put in.

As mentioned, most web comics are a labor of love by a single person or occasionally a small team.

I would consider webcomics to be an extension of the drawn medium, rather than a seperate medium, which allows for tricks that are simply not possible for traditional media (infinite canvas and animation, to name a few)

[Magic]

Now, one thing that would be very useful as a cubi shapeshifter is to make a hollow faux body to do all the preliminary attacking, take some damage to it and make it seem to 'die'', then rise up and slaughter the gloating adventurer when he least expects it. 

Unless one of the adventurer group can sense magic well.  Then your real body will be discovered.  Tactics like this must be used only in certain situations where applicable.

Tri-wings, suprisingly enough, can morph themselves into an entire town, buildings included. How do you find a needle in a haystack?

Well, when you can shapeshift extra limbs, anyway, I don't believe dismemberment is an issue as long as you keep your head. ... How far does their shapeshifting power GO, anyway? Does anyone know if they have total cellular control over their bodies, or is it just a mass-energy conversion? If the former, then I can see Cubi being damn impossible to kill, as a smart Cubi could instill physical regeneration in their form - or purposefully move vital organs out of the way of nasty attacks. If the latter, they shouldn't be able to create anything "more" than the base material of their natural body, nothing larger or with more matter than they themselves naturally possess.

Amber hasn't quite gone into that much detail yet. The only real explanations given for metamorphosis was in the (until further notice, should be considered non canon) post I made once, Doctor Ink lecturing in Met. I class. Metamorphosis is a pseudomagical skill that depends on the 'cubi's willpower, imagination, and mind. As such, they have a sort of "limited" total cellular control over their bodies; in so far as you can only go as far your mind will take you.

Unfortunately, this gives some limitations. There's pain. If you are being hurt by a massive blade, you generally have a hard time thinking of anything other than the pain. How then would you concentrate on something like moving your vital organs out of the way? Of course, the Met. I course does train you in this, with sessions in which you try to keep your shifted form stable despite application of pain. The latter of which I am all to happy to oblige students with. (This, admittedly, would have helped Abel's fear of the 'trial by blunt object' brigade, but it would still hurt.)

The logical solution, move every last nerve ending out of the way? Well, that would work, but then you'd be too busy thinking; with which nerves to move relative to where the blade will hit, where to move them, and actually concentrating on moving them, in addition with your vital organs. By the time you've thought about all that, unfortunately, your head would have been lopped off by the adventurer because you were standing there idle for a good five minutes. There's only so more information you can process at a single moment in time.

How about bundling all your pain receptors and vital organs into an unlikely focus point before the battle? Well, then you run into problems with your anatomy. And this addresses moving your vital organs in the first place. First few problems arise when it takes you longer than it normally would for you to breathe, as you moved your lungs somewhere else. Or when you find yourself out of breath because you shrank your lungs to make it harder to it. Or when you put your stomach above your esophagus somehow and the hydrochloric acid starts pouring backwards to the unprotected esophagus. There are so many reasons why your organs are where they should be.

It is, thusly, far more effective to move out of the way. To dodge like a normal person would. It would only take one synapse (1/7th of a second) long to do that and it would move everything relevant out of the way of that huge blade coming at you.

Moving on to regeneration. You run in to the same problems. First of course, pain. You can't regenerate when the pain of your being sliced open like an orange is clouding your mind. Second, is your knowledge of anatomy. If you can't imagine what a spleen looks like or what kind of tissue it's made of straight off the bat while you're fighting someone, you immediately run into problems. Oh, sure, you'd probably win the battle with the adventurer, but you'll die of overwhelming post splenectomy infection (OPSI) which can kill within a few hours, because you got the spleen wrong.

<Ink> "I am a 'cubi! I shapeshift! You hurt my spleen! I regenerate it!.. wait, what does a spleen look like?"
<Haz> X3
<Dannysaysnoo> heh
<Poofyspikes> Lawl.
<Ink> Then he runs into problems with blood poisoning from asplenia.

'Regeneration' is like performing surgery on yourself. If you don't know what you're doing, don't.

To conclude, regeneration and 'internal' dodging? Far too unfeasible in the heat of real combat. Metamorphosis is a gentler skill than that, one must never forget it is primarily used for subterfuge and of course, novelty.

[Tapewolf]

Amber wrote at one point that the regeneration was automatic, although it might be possible for some 'Cubi to find a way to control it.

As for dodging a blade, IMHO it would be easier to simply harden the part it's going to hit, like Demons do.  This is surely possible (and likely fairly easy) since it's possible to make the tentacles hard enough to stab or cut with.  (Unless the tentacles are somehow special, of course)

I wouldn't be too surprised if it was this kind of technique which Aniz used when Abel hit him with the chair.

[Ailis]

As to tri wings being able to morph into a whole city, and the coresponding pain disrupts concentration issue, could an adventurer simply stab a few cobbles, walls, and such to test if the city was real?  (Granted, this raises the issue of property damage if the adventurer was wrong, and also what would make them suspicious in the first place?)  Would a cubi old enoughto have third wings be well trained/disciplined/used to pain that they wouldn't lose the concentration required to maintain the "city morph"?

[Magic]

Edit: REVIEW: my post has a disclaimer that it should not be taken as canon, I wouldn't know any more than you would.

Just to clear that up, that's regeneration via controlled shapeshifting. The 'automatic' regeneration sounds sort of a different ability and probably far more canon than this block of text.

And, sitting there and taking blows is still a very foolhardy thing to too, even if you turn your skin into a suit of armour. (i.e. What if your enemy cooks your insides by heating your 'armour' up like an oven?) I would think that dodging is still the best thing to do, or outright avoiding conflict to begin with. Aniz, as with all other 'cubi, know that when you're fighting, your cover is generally blown and you're screwed. You can even make yourself more screwed by killing more than you really intend to.

[Kayriel]

Edit: REVIEW: my post has a disclaimer that it should not be taken as canon, I wouldn't know any more than you would.

Just to clear that up, that's regeneration via controlled shapeshifting. The 'automatic' regeneration sounds sort of a different ability and probably far more canon than this block of text.

And, sitting there and taking blows is still a very foolhardy thing to too, even if you turn your skin into a suit of armour. (i.e. What if your enemy cooks your insides by heating your 'armour' up like an oven?) I would think that dodging is still the best thing to do, or outright avoiding conflict to begin with. Aniz, as with all other 'cubi, know that when you're fighting, your cover is generally blown and you're screwed. You can even make yourself more screwed by killing more than you really intend to.

For these responses, your tea should taste like joy. But now, onto my reply. Obviously these would not be the tricks of a novice or even your regular plot-centric cubi, but I was exploring the possibility, even if only to a Cubus of incredible power. I've come across opponents before who were able to divide their attentions equally, something of a "dual mind" aspect, where concentration is handled subconsciously, though it still requires effort, and simultaneously they can focus on the battle at hand. The Cubi seem to be within this realm of ability from what I can tell, though I only have personal experience to fall back upon, and no insider information.

With the kind of effects possible through total cellular control, such as the carbonizing of flesh at impact points, creating a biological diamond-like substance, or providing a crystal prism to reflect certain sorts of spells, or perhaps even disembodied remote cellular order - infecting an opponent with the flesh of the Cubi so that they may affect their enemy at range in some fashion. Even if your information is non-canon, it is warming to find someone who would respond to a post in this way, and I'd like to entertain more theories and observations, in any case.

[AnizInDisguise]

Where did you get the "tri-wings can morph into an entire town" idea?

[pyrohamster]

I would turn into a banana and sing the banana phone song when people get near me.  banana!

[Kayriel]

And then a Mythos might eat you just to shut you up. =D Horrible, evil song. =.=

[pyrohamster]

Before the mythos could eat me i would turn into a nascar hat.

[Pagan]

Psst... That only works agaisnt most cubi. I doubt mythos mind eating redneck.

[Chaos]

When you think about it, I would have fun with any of the cubi abilities. I mean, combined with the existence of magic, the possabilities are endless.

Immortality
- Nough' said. Any reasonable intelligent cubi would realise that with the application of 20-30 years time, they could become richer then most beings and still have the entirety of their life before them. That and the ability to arrange for some truly Machiavellian plots to further our own wants and ends. Though to be truthful, I just want to be rich!

Shapechanging
- Probably the most limited of the set, however, it is still cool as all. Especially with the wings, tentacles and stuff. I know me working at a computer would become more efficient, and though it never was canon, if you can see out of the wing heads, it's another world of fun. Perverts get their pantie shots, fighters get an extra fist, and the handyman has an extra hand. On the other side of things, if it's too hot, you can change your skin, if it's too cold, you can change that too. You never have to worry about whether that dress will fit.

Emotional Feeding
- The most fun of all. A reason to try to surround yourself with emotions. I could see myself as a despair cubi, working as an attendant at a funeral home, or the barkeep working at the comedy club to feed off of laughter. There are thousands of places where you could stick yourself to get a significant boost in power. Like pain? Try being a medic!

Magic
- This is the most diverse, and as I run out of time, the shortest. It's the ultimate mystery, and with time on your side, you have all you need to do truly great things. If magic feeds off of you, combine that with the emotional feeding for a powerhouse!


Now I want to write fanfiction.

[Tapewolf]

Immortality
- Nough' said. Any reasonable intelligent cubi would realise that with the application of 20-30 years time, they could become richer then most beings and still have the entirety of their life before them. That and the ability to arrange for some truly Machiavellian plots to further our own wants and ends. Though to be truthful, I just want to be rich!

Also, you have fewer ongoing expenses.  Food, for instance, is a treat rather than a necessity.  Taxes notwithstanding, all you really need is a roof over your head and even that's mostly a convenience.  Now you are liable to spend more on clothes than a Being, not just because 'Cubi powers tend to include a highly acute sense of fashion, but also because they don't need to sleep.  You might of course, to keep up the disguise, but if you don't, you'll be wearing the same set of clothes for 24 hours a day.

Probably the most limited of the set, however, it is still cool as all. Especially with the wings, tentacles and stuff. I know me working at a computer would become more efficient,and though it never was canon, if you can see out of the wing heads, it's another world of fun.

Amber said it works, although it obviously takes some training to use since it's like having a new pair of eyes turn up in the back of your head.  And yeah, I've done the tentacle data-entry thing in my 'Future History' story 

I also figured that you can live a life of crime by morphing the tentacle into a lockpick which you can adjust to the lock on-the-fly, which my character 'Snell' does.

Now I want to write fanfiction.

Indeed.  There's so many weird and wonderful things you can do with 'Cubi...

**EDIT**

You missed 'thought-reading'.  Another of Snell's little tricks was to impersonate a checkout person at the supermarket and steal the PIN numbers from people's minds as they entered them into the machine at point of sale (*).  The supermarket's copy of the till receipt should provide most of the other info you need to construct a copy of the card.

* I don't think the US does this yet, but in the UK and probably Europe, most sales are made by entering the card's PIN to a secure terminal instead of a signature.

[Naldru]

In the United States, "debit cards" (the money comes directly from your bank account) require the entry of a PIN number and can be used like a credit card to pay for things.

I don't know if the register records enough information to duplicate the card.  If it can, that would be a security vulnerability.  Some systems don't even record the credit card number, using a transaction number from the computer at the other end, instead.

However, you could record all of the needed information if you were willing to modify the software for the register.  However, in this case, you could record the PIN number as well.

[Tapewolf]

In the United States, "debit cards" (the money comes directly from your bank account) require the entry of a PIN number and can be used like a credit card to pay for things.

Yes, that's the stuff, except here it's done for both credit and debit cards. 

I don't know if the register records enough information to duplicate the card.  If it can, that would be a security vulnerability.  Some systems don't even record the credit card number, using a transaction number from the computer at the other end, instead.

I wrote that a couple of hours before my weekly supermarket trip.  On my receipt it has printed everything except the PIN, and the card number shows only the last four digits.
However if you can mind-read the PIN, you can probably get the card number somehow.

If you can't mind-read it, you could, perhaps, turn your hand to the consistency of putty so that when you take the card to swipe it for the store savings card, the embossed number remains on your fingertips 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Or you can swipe it across a card reader, and pick up that info from the mag strip.

Someone I know had that happen when the waitress looked at the card, said it looked dirty, gave it a quick swipe across her apron, then ran it through the machine.

Yes, it really is -that- fast.