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HH

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Anime Jason 
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Member Since: Sun Sep 12, 2004
Posts: 2,834
Subj: Re: Vinnie and Liu Xi
Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2016 at 04:58:59 am EST (Viewed 1 times)
Reply Subj: Re: Vinnie and Liu Xi
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 at 12:32:11 pm EST (Viewed 801 times)



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      Here's a question: given that the Hood is effectively using the child of the woman Liu Xi murdered as a hostage for Liu Xi's compliance on the LL, would Liu Xi remain silent or would she eventually reveal the threat she's under to the team?



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    Liu Xi would probably tell Yuki first directly. She knows that Yuki is able to see reason and is no stranger to grey areas, so she would make a good ally for softening the blow with the rest of the LL finding out.


This may be useful to know if I ever write more UT material and need to pick up on this plot.

However, there's also the possibility that if Liu Xi starts sharing, something terrible happens right there, right then, to Yuki (major processor failure leading to brain death or something), and then the Hooded Hood turns up to retcon it and give Liu Xi the chance to reconsider her confession. I'd have to think about it.



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    If she can't talk to Yuki, she would try Chiaki next. She knows Chiaki would not be nearly as agreeable as Yuki, but she's fair, and once she's won over, she's a fearless and stubborn advocate.


Chiaki might have a sense that if she listens to Liu Xi on this occasion she will die.


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      There's some truth in that. On the other hand, Vinnie has a very "seat-of-the-pants" approach to magical stuff that is part of his effectiveness, so that emotion-led improvisation does work for him a lot.



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    Faite would counter that it is indeed effective, but it's not the effectiveness she worries about; it's the cost.


What is the maximum price one should pay for saving the Parodyverse?


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      In part that's due to his upbringing, but it's also because now he may have to make big judgement calls. So if he's allied to someone who may object to him sacrificing millions to save billions, or who isn't comfortable with him making decisions on behalf of a whole race, or whatever, he can't be too close to them in case they oppose him.



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    This is the real reason he's hurting Liu Xi. It's not the direct damage, but that he doesn't trust that she's collected friends, and made some *really* powerful help available. Rejecting all of and going off to damage himself like that is starting to hurt her feelings as well.


Well, we do know that the two of them eventually have irreconcilable differences.


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      The other issue is that the sorcerer supreme comes with enemies, as well as Vinnie's personal rogues gallery. Many of those enemies would be pleased to strike at or even suborn allies and support mechanisms they feel the sorcerer surpeme has come to rely upon too heavily.



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    True, but he also has a few potential friends who are not at all afraid of his rogue's gallery. Even Liu Xi has been studying Xander's books, and probably knows as much or more about their weaknesses than he does. She hasn't said anything to him about it because she doesn't want to hurt his confidence.


Even Vinie isn;t aware of all the entities out to get him. But head of the queue right now is probably Sage Grimpenghast, teacher of decpetions, the most powerful and effective of the current pack of hell-lords. He's already gone after Vinnie through his ex-fiancée. He went after Nats through Uhuna and Regret. His preferred attack is by taking the best things in his enemies lives and twisting them into weapons against his foes. Vinnie isn't willing to let that happen again if he can avoid it.

I don't know if we'll ever get round to the reveal in-story, but Grimpenghast's intention to do that with Liu Xi hit a brick wall when the Hooded Hood invited him to back off, since Liu Xi was "pre-plotted". Shortly afterwards the whole tangle with the Void Scholar and Slithis made Liu Xi too prominent for Grimpenghast to get at. Coincidence? The Hood isn't above tipping off other cosmic types like Faite or the Chronicler if it suits his needs.



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    [Vinnie] must really admire the Psychic Samurai, too. A self-made five-foot-two woman who depends on no one, and survived among gangs and super-powered beings for years with barely a scratch. And she made her own money while she was at it.


I suspect Chiaki is a bit more alien to Vinnie, being so far from his own experience. Vinnie had the reverse origin, where he had everything and turned away from it. He's now living a subsistence level life as alternative to power and wealth as one of the evil de Soths.

Even Vinnie's youngest sister, the Young Heckfire brat Privilege, now has more temporal wealth and influence. I need to do a story about that sometime.



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      The trick would be to arrange a situation where Chiaki would have to enter peril knowing it might kill her because her honour or compassion requires it of her.



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    A lot of people have tried and failed to do just that. Her gift also helps her know when she's going to need some backup, and while she's usually kind of a stubborn loner, she's not suicidal. She knows how to arrange some substantial backup.


That interplay between the possibility of avoiding and the inevitability of facing a planned event is where the story happens.


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    A bit more on her gift, just for fun: It gives her different kinds of messages. Sometimes it's just a sensation of impending doom, and she uses her own logic to figure out what it is. Other times, she'll get to watch flashes of visions of potential outcomes.


Presumably she's seeing elements of some potential futures that can be averted.

It would be interesting to see her in a scene with exiled Caphan and current Junior Vespiir, who was forehead-branded and cast out ownerless because she had forbidden prophetic gifts. Vespiir has never had formal training in her abilities. Indeed, until she came to Earth she was taught they made her an abomination and she was treated accordingly.



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      There was that incident with Lara and CSFB!, as I recall.



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    Lara hates people bringing that up. She's still mad at CSFB! for telling everyone.


Noted. When he knows he will probably amend his blog page.


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    When Lara is working she stays completely focused, and would completely ignore any of Vinnie's usual accidental flirting, or CSFB!'s fun and interesting playfulness. She believes she makes enough mistakes while she's paying attention.


Wouldn't she be better persuing a relationship outside the superhero community?


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    [Yuki] would give [Vinnie[ an extra punch for saying it was "necessary". But then she would make him get up off the floor, clean up the blood, and fix it. Beatings alone are pretty useless.


I think we're just at the limits of how these views and theur holders can communicate.


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    I guess it's better than Chiaki, who wouldn't harm him, but she would grab him by the ear and make him go in the middle of the night and apologize and promise to make it right. She wouldn't even give him time to make excuses. He would be going. Now. Yes, she did work as a part-time schoolteacher at a private school.


Vinnie is too honest to apologise unless he thinks he's done something wrong. And honestly, Vinnie learned to take mystical precautions against being grabbed by someone while he slept when he was about four years old, or he would never have survived growing up in his family.


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      I think [Yuki]'s also quite impetuous and cocky, which serves her well almost all the time, except when it doesn't.



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    She only does that because nothing bad ever came of it.


So far. In many ways, in the absence of Trickshot, Yuki is the LL's short fuse now.


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      Speaking of the Hooded Hood, his big dramatic flaw is his ego, which tells him that he alone can rectify the wrongs of the Parodyverse and instate a multiverse of just order under his absolute control.



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    Like I said before, he could benefit greatly from Faite telling him that absolute control is an absolute illusion. It might shatter his whole belief system, but he might put his energy into less futile pursuits.


It would more likely spawn a byzantine series of plots over many years to demonstrate to Faite that her argument was wrong.






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