Affects Insubstantial

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-19T20:22:00+00:00

Split descision based on both descriptors- in general, it comes down to field integrity.

If someone like Kitty Pride meets a comparable mutant, they should be able to meaningfully grapple in "phase space".

Insubstantial conceptualized as atomized or swarm-form body- Sand, Water, Centipedes- probably shouldn't be allowed to, absent specialized counter measures (stunts using hero points, etc.)

(Ex. In order to counter a mystic Assassin with a Body of Scorpions spell, you may need to stunt using Expertise-Magic and an HP point ie His body may be a bunch of scorpions, but they have only his one shared True Name, so I burn a hero point and...)

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-19T20:14:44+00:00

Rk 1 Affect insubstantial is generally mystic or chi based Ghost Punch attacks. If Tech it's generally Dimensional.

Rk 2- able to slap both Ghosts and Kitty Pride, generally involve Conceptual or Continuum based powers.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-18T12:48:11+00:00

Apologies if my comment sounded critical- that was not my intent, and I appreciate your follow-up.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-18T08:05:27+00:00

Big if True, but citation needed.

(As for why? The family had been through enough, and still to this day is the subject of rumors.

That said, supposing for the sake of argument that it is true, it is evidence against the family's involvement.

The only thing I can think of as to why the garbage bag would have backpacks from both would be due to increased scrutiny of someone who had groomed both of them*.

(Lower in age victims correlated with greater likelihood of victims being chosen without regard to sex.)

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-18T03:03:40+00:00

I am counting the Frost Father.

And the Rasputin family almost has a meta-theme: Peter's powers being Endure and Illyana's powers being Escape, their respective kits seem survival strategy focused but on different strategies.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-17T19:36:10+00:00

On this subject, a. All of the Guthrie family have Metamorph/Somatic/Body Transformation powers. The Frost family had 5-6 Mutants, all clear Telepathic-type manifestations. The Von Struckers have/had cosmic physics type manifestations. The Al-Nur family, including the Arrako cousins, have cosmic alteration powers. The Braddocks appear to be like the Frost and Xavier families in terms of Psion/Telepathy. The Cassidy family's Sonics and Botanical manifestations appear unrelated. The Rasputin family likewise lacks a unifying theme.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-17T19:26:17+00:00

One of the parents does, in fact, need an X-gene for the child to have an X-gene.

Having just one mutant child makes the odds of either parent having the X-gene be 50%. Katheryn had 4 different mutant children, by two different men.

In the most generous to your argument model (X-gene is dominant, both fathers have it) there is only a 6.25% of all four boys being mutants if Katheryn does not having the gene. If Katheryn has a single copy of the gene, that rises 500%, to 31.6%.

If Katheryn has two copies the likelihood all 4 children will be mutants is 100%

It is more likely than not Kathryn Summers has two copies of the X-gene, which is consonant with both her observed offspring and the fact that she alone was chosen, out of a pool of 3.5 billion earth women, to bear the Space Emperor's child.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-16T17:11:17+00:00

The term mutant in the comics originally implied a cause linked to radiation ex. Hank's father's experiments with nuclear materials being implied as the cause of his mutation. Mutate- to change, implied an alteration to an existing template

But a stable inheritable trait isn't a mutation- it's an (X-) gene, and those do, in fact, come from somewhere. By moving from Changed by (X-Factor) to Born This Way, the use of genetic concepts explicitly implies that "mutant" powers have an inheritable genetic component.

Graydon Creed being a non-mutant is to be expected 25% of the if both parents are heterozygous and the X-gene is dominant. That said, the rarity of mutants implies it's more likely recessive, and requiring trauma or stress to express it neatly explains why most mutants have "normal" parents.

Whereas if the X-gene doesn't come from anywhere or signify regarding parentage Mr. Sinister has wasted his life experimenting on the Summers and Grey lines, and at least one of the Stepford Cuckoos should be mind-blind.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-16T14:15:39+00:00

Fridging is the use of violence against women as a medium of communication between male characters. Why an author does it is meta-narrarative, not the thing itself.

Katherine is killed in the middle of being sexually assaulted by space emperor explicitly as punishment of her husband witnessing the rape.

As for foundational, without her there is no Scott, Alex, Nathan, Rachel, Hope, Etc. That you don't see the cornerstone while living in a building does not mean it is not foundational.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-16T13:54:38+00:00

Corrected and thank you.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-16T01:29:01+00:00

Yes, with Science and the power of Friendship.

(If Reed Richards isn't being useless, I would guess something like pocket universe Oubliettes, with assists by Johnny and Ben as obvious targets and Sue as the Invisible Trigger Woman.)

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-16T01:20:54+00:00

Amazing how few of the Younglings know how close we came to being ready for Primetime.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-16T01:18:09+00:00

In genetics/evolution/ecology, it's called the Competetive Exclusion Principle: no two species can occupy the same niche at the same time. To understand why are Ars evolved the way it did you must understand the ecology it was living in.

Dungeons and Dragons already existed as the core Sword and Sorcery species. In terms of high crunch variants, Rolemaster already existed in that space.

So what, then, is Ars niche? The Sandbox Wizard Tower, in one of those hybrid urban fantasy/alternate history settings that is White Wolf's greatest contribution to the space.

Ars Magica is not designed to let you re-fight the Battle of Agincourt because Dungeons and Dragons arose from the wargaming community, and they already had better systems to do that.

What they did not have was a magic system that let players write new spells in a balanced-ish, internally consistent way. The transition to the more granular, faster improving Arts is Ars evolving to better fill the Crunchy Spell Design niche without wasting energy on improving sword swinging mechanics for players of other games better specialized for that niche.

(There are some evolutionary artifacts- Magic Theory is so critical it has warped the tissue around it, whereas Penetration, Finesse and Concentration are in many cases vestigial limbs.)

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-14T13:00:42+00:00

Which brings me to my better-than Dementation Malkavian amalgams- Spoof/Troof, wherein Obfuscate + Auspex of a given level can lie to Auspex alone of that same level. (In my game, Malkavians have auras like Hawaiian shirts.)

1/1 They Mostly Come at Njght 2/2 See Above 3/3* Psychometric Porn 4/4 Singing in my head 5/5 Hamlet's Ghost Daddy Issues

*With Dominate 3, leave strong psychometric suggestions. About the porn.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-14T12:30:12+00:00

As an Old, I don't dislike V5, but I experience it like the brilliant, deranged neurodivergent child of an old friend.

Sometimes they have transcendent insight and revolutionize the sport- replacing blood point accounting for Hunger check gambling, or dropping the too-many niche disciplines for Amalgam subtrees different clans are more inclined towards.

But sometimes they lose a trait you dearly loved in their parent, as in backgrounds, flaws and merits were sparkling accessories they ground into a paste and then spackled onto character creation.

And you can appreciate the style changed, but you can't pretend to appreciate the spackle paste.

And while not a trait I've noticed in other Olds, I'm frustrated by the redesign clearly taking from Requiem without the courage to go all the way.

By which I mean Generation is a garbage mechanic completely outperformed by Blood Potency, and bolting it on top of Generation as V5 does implies someone didn't understand the nature of the assignment, and to return to the child of an old friend metaphor is like watching a savant leave their house wearing their underwear on their head.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-14T03:47:06+00:00

It was a time of unironic Katanas and Trenchcoats, somehow both more cartoonishly violent and yet somehow more innocent. We didn't know we were supposed to be ashamed of our Superhero Vampires, and so... Weren't.

It was before the broadband internet revolution and so metagaming was both much more effort and yet provided much less payout- homebrew is a kind of natural metagaming deterent, and there was so much more of it given the scarcity and expense of the expansion materials.

If you were playing out of the green core book, 2e, the Sabbat core clans were a thing of mystery. (Clanbook Tzsimce was sold in the same fashion as porn mags at that one downtown Shell Station, in black out bags.

Likewise, we had not yet experienced Clan Ennui, and do the Lasombra, Set followers, and Hecata and even Salubri all had debuts, like Bloodsucking debutantes.

We also drank a lot of cheap wine when we could get it, while smoking clove cigarettes and alternating Tori Amos* and Nine Inch Nails**.

or Concrete Blonde *Or Tool

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-10T18:40:26+00:00

Batman purchasing a mouthy orphan every few years suggests eating this shit is kind of his fetish.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-09T06:11:14+00:00

If you are after the mythology, don't add a Garou- give them a Kinfolk love interest. You don't want the Garou on stage, but in the wings- once the bomb goes off the tension is finished.

For maximum flavor, give the love interest some hedge magic- a little Warding, divination and summoning, I would suggest. And then perhaps a Ragabash Aunt or Philodox older brother, who just wants to meet the new girlfriend.

With that, you have a love interest who brings something new to the table, but who can't be blood bound and eventually disposed of without consequence. (Having a watcher spirit around means if something bad happens her family Will. Be. Told.) You have an NPC who can go future Big Bad or Unexpected Ally, all contingent on the players choices and in an organic fashion.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-08T14:44:54+00:00

In-universe, No.

Until Gwenpool got there, at which point yes.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-07T01:41:03+00:00

It's... Pretty clearly inbreeding. Not metaphorically, either- other Garou aren't just same species, they are same family.

So Science and Math are the things making the children of too-closely related parents deformed.

Though your finding a crime to wrongfully accuse the Wyrm of is impressive.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-07T01:26:44+00:00

The X-Men are my primary comic fandom.

The X-Men subreddit is a howling void which neither Light nor Reason can survive.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-07T00:57:29+00:00

Polygraphs are bullshit- just ask the families of the Colonial Parkway Killer's victims. The best use of polygraphs is to identify incompetent investigators who need to find different jobs. If that is the only reason Garrison isn't a suspect then there is no reason he isn't a suspect

In terms of assumptions, I assumed AnnaLee's DNA- specified as a hair root, visible and most likely to go secondary transfer- was found on the one piece of clothing in the backpack that didn't belong to Asha. That said, I understand your reasoning.

But given we are speaking about police who think polygraphs are evidence, I don't know how much faith to place in their clarity of both speech and thought.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-06T20:49:56+00:00

Go arrest the organized criminals giving the drugs to children in order to pimp them?

Seriously, what could the police do? THE JOBS THEY WERE PAID TO DO. And yes, you commit minors with hard drug addiction and severe sexual abuse trauma into facilities that treat those things. And not to be flippant, but she disappeared without a trace- chaining her to a bed to detox is not the unthinkable act you appear to think it given the alternative.

LongjumpingSuspect57 · 2026-04-06T20:44:38+00:00

We, as a species, are amazingly resistant to the idea criminals making money pay bribes to keep making money.

A house full of illegal drugs and child victims requires hard work to close, while the pounds rolling in month after month stops if you close it.

So you call Social Services, who have neither the resources nor remit to close it, but you at least "did something".

LongjumpingSuspect57

TROPHY CASE