Poor Vinnie.

And now Vizh has got me wondering about a Dancer/Tom meeting.

> > As for going to Egypt, he has bills to pay. > Liu Xi would point out that he can't pay his bills if he's dead.

Vinnie would respond that if he's dead he's no longer got to pay the bills.

> > For all his social awkwardness Vinnie's actually a pretty fair occultist; maybe not Xander-class but good enough to hold his own against his family. > What's ironic about that (since you brought it up) is Liu Xi's been learning at an exponential rate. The Parody Master and Exu are to blame, because she doesn't want to be a victim anymore. The next person who picks on her is going to find she's no longer a meek one-elemental-trick pony, because she wants to become useful and not just a victim. She has been learning various enchantments and spells, and has possession of a condensed Necronastycon. > I haven't figured out yet is whether Vinnie knows about it. He might noticed she's more confident, that she's been borrowing certain books, etc, but he might not know how much she's been learning.

If Vinnie finds out that Liu Xi's messing with the Necronastycon he's going to be big-time worried, since he knows the sentient book to be inherently evil and corrupting, and a tool of Nyarlurkotep and the Fairy Great Old Ones for the destruction of the world as we know it and the return of the Elder Gods.

And his reaction would be mild compared to the Shoggoth's.

> > > I think Koo Koo Kachu is was too close to saying "nothing can stop me now" to succeed. Though since he's trying to reorder reality he's exactly the kind of person Faite may decide to annoy regularly. He's also the kind of person that Lara Night would have had to thwart if it wasn't out of her jurisdiction (that's an example of what her job would be back home). > > We've established that the Parodyverse is made of stories. It's a consensus reality. If enough people can be made to believe the same thing at the same time then that will always have been the way it is. > Faite probably knows that too, and is likely prepared to throw a huge monkey wrench into the works at some point before it becomes too late. > Even so, Koo has a basic problem. There are people who can see through illusions like that (like even Magweed for instance), and there are people who will reject it because they dislike it so much. He's going to either have to kill them or find some way to keep them out of the loop until it's too late - and I doubt him trying to kill Magweed will go over well.

First, to clarify: the Ancient Egyptian world that Tom's entered isn't illusion - it's what reality has become. The illusion is the facade of modern Egypt still being there with business as normal. Anyone who sees through that illusion falls into reality - with the subsequent changes to them.

Secondly, a problem with shared multiverse multi-writer set ups is that there will always be exceptions. There's a case for Donar and the Ausgardians spotting and reacting to Koo's plot; or for Xander disrupting it; or for Dark Thugos to take exception; or whatever. There's literally hundreds of characters who could conceivably be written to be the exception that could bring down Koo's plan.

However, for there to be a sense of drama there has to be a sense of threat. If everyone's thinking "Yeah, he'll never win, because Mumphrey's pocketwatch will warn and protect him and he'll come and easily slap the baddie down" then the story's dead before it starts. So the narrative has to keep readers from going there, and leave people speculating, "Well gee, maybe there's a chance this guy could pull this off before the regular world-savers get a chance to stop him. I'd better keep rooting for our hero to stop him and keep reading the story."

> If Lara ends up in an I Dream of Jeannie outfit she's going to hurt Koo Koo Kachu, and badly. And she can do it, too. That's the kind of thing that can change "this isn't really my job" to making it her job.

If she ended up in that outfit in Koo's reality then she'd find nothing wrong with wearing it. And she might finally get a Vizh illustration.

> And why would Lara remember her original background and history? It's because she's not from the Parodyverse. Her background and history is rooted to another time and place. She might be forced to remember that the Parodyverse was always like that, but she'll always feel like something is wrong. And that doesn't include Faite's interference, where she might seed memories of the way the PV is supposed to be to selected people like the last time.

See comment above on exceptions.

> > But more of the villain's plots next time. > Yup, he's definitely going to get hurt.

Possibly.