> > In other words if people were going to be vaporized, she would try to stop it intelligently if she could, but she learned long ago that sometimes it's important to heed fate and not become a part of history at the expense of the future.
>
> I'm being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers, but if she saw a regular junior cast member about to be eviscerated I'm confident she'd act to prevent it, however illogical that might be in the long-term run of things.
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If Lara doesn't have the foresight to avoid the situation, there are others that do, and can force her to avoid it. Faite, the Psychic Samurai, still maybe Lisa - not to change an ending, maybe but because Lara isn't supposed to be in the ending and therefore needs to be moved.
Another I didn't even think of before: If the Carnifex wants her away from there because it's his "territory" I'm sure he can find something else for her to do.
> > But maybe if she's given incentive to do nothing, it'll make more sense. Like during the Moderator series when Faite pulled people out of the middle of a battle and told them they couldn't die or the memory of what was before would die with them.
>
> That only works if there's nothing urgent in front of the character. If the hero watches as a tank runs over a baby and allows it because of some "higher purpose" it's very hard to retain sympathy with that hero of their higher pruipose.
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If Lara is given incentive not to get involved, though, she'd make sure she's not anywhere around to watch. Chiaki is one of the few who can convince her of that, if she's sure Lara would die from it.
> > If you notice she rarely gets into superhero street fights like Hatman and CSFB! often do. Lara goes for subtlety first before trying to overpower someone - the latter is usually a panic reaction to near failure, and as Lara has been spending more time in the PV, she's becoming less prone to that.
>
> But here I'm talking about a situation where only direct immediate physical intervention can offset tragedy. Even the Hooded Hood's fallen for this one on occasion, and suffered for it thereafter.
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As an alternative, Lara has taken severe injury before (when the Doorman tried to stop her heart). She has amazing self-healing ability, which means nearly dead isn't enough. So Lara might only appear to be dead for a short while.
> > What if she does this but plans it that way? In other words, she hits the bad guy hard, in order anger, annoy, and bait him, and then runs away and leads him somewhere he can be ambushed. That keeps the bad guy away from innocents at least, and is a strategy the Psychic Samurai would teach: If you don't have the advantage, bring the enemy into one.
>
> That reaction verges more on (2) above than on (3) as described.
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That's what's funny about the Psychic Samurai. The pulling-an-amazing-comeback thing is fairly normal for her. If she really applies herself she can probably make it work for others too.
> > That's probably the best option - not just because I care about the character, but because I'm taking into account the PVB regular readers. I've tried using alternative or unlikely heroes in tie-ins and such, and it's never received well. They might perceive it as taking the spotlight away from the favorites, i.e. Hatman, CSFB!, etc, because Lara Night is not a "resident character". That's a factor to weigh into this also - that realistically, Lara is perceived in the PV as a support character.
>
> I think it's more a narrative thing than turf wars. If you've watched any particular character strive to overcome difficulties then you want that character to finally be the one to succeed. Anything else feels like a cheat.
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I didn't want to imply a turf war, just what people are used to. If Lara goes in for the final kill, the first thought on most readers' minds is, "What the hell? What about Hatman? CSFB? Dancer? Even the Librarian?" I've actually gotten responses to that effect, that having Lara, or Chiaki, or Liu Xi resolve the storyline, while it's a nice ending, that overall it downplays the power of Hatman etc. Maybe not angry responses, but just a general friendly note not to let my characters pull the Parodyverse out from under the established characters.
I assume you'd get the same replies, at least in passing. Then again, maybe it's just me.
> In an ongoing connected storytelling universe there are some characters whose regular struggles in particular niches overspill into pretty much any story. Up till UT#322 any supernatural baddie seeking to conquer the Parodyverse would have to find a way past Xander, for example, whether the story was about Xander or not. Things have been so established that it would have been unrealistic for Xander not to be involved somehow, albeit often behind the scenes pulling the strings.
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Okay, that makes sense.
What I'm saying though, is this: It would have made an interesting tale if the Psychic Samurai was forced to swordfight the Moderator at the end in order to save everyone's lives. He wouldn't delete her because she called him a coward, always taking the easy way out. She has to use a combination of violence, speed, and trickery to beat him, because he can deny his injuries if it's not a death blow. It would have made a pretty good fight, a hard win, and afterward she'd end up dealing with her conscience for having killed someone she knows.
Or Faite, who was hiding on the sidelines for so long. If she would have fought the Moderator it would have blown the special effects budget of all of Marvel's movies combined.
But then the readers would have felt cheated, because the Lair Legion never made a comeback and banded together for an epic battle against the Moderator. As compelling as a fight like that would have been, it never would have been accepted.
> > 3. Lisa could anticipate a horribly calamity happening to Lara and send her somewhere else, like Chiaki would do.
>
> I'm not sure Lisa's allowed to do that, even obliquely. She's not authorised to prevent endings.
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What if Lara is in danger of getting in the way of the proper ending? Then Lisa can keep her busy. Like secretly, what if Lara taking charge in this latest event causes the Carnifex to feel threatened and take up the matter of her and the Lair Legion personally? He might, since she's the only one which he doesn't have a clear assesment of her abilities. It might be better for Lisa and the managers of stories not to let Lara derail things like that.
> > 4. A wholly ironic one: The Chronicler could accept that Lara does indeed have a purpose, and try to make up for his treatment of her by giving her an important task to do. Lara would give it priority, trying to get it done to mend fences, so to speak, and be completely distracted from the more dangerous event.
>
> He's more likely to suddenly lift her from the fight and expel her from the Parodyverse - except that in itself would change the story and violate his office's purpose.
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It's more likely Faite will pull Lara out. Faite might know something of what might happen if Lara is badly hurt in the Parodyverse, like maybe it could cause some kind of paradox or epic clash most people aren't aware of. Since Faite's job is to maintain the balance of power in the PV, that's her territory.
> > > > Or that new alien race I added may have something for her to do at the time. Or maybe Lisa. Or she could be given a singular task that will leave her as a casual observer, or possibly in the dark, about what's going on.
>
> I'm thinking that Lara could take the spotlight in first contact, and maybe even investigate the Shee-Yar Imperium with the aliens. I'm sure there must be some cosmic nasty that could plan something horrible with ninety billion corpses.
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The first contact I'm working on already. I don't know how long she'll be with the aliens yet, though.
> > > That's why I was wondering about Lara meeting the aliens. If she's embroiled in first contact then she'd definitely in Option 4. And I admit thatm of all the elements in the Saving the Future story so far, the aliens are the ones I haven't thought of a way to integrate yet.
> > It all depends if I can time it correctly. She's not likely to be on the alien ship for weeks or months. Hours maybe. 
>
> Depends if she consents to go back and speak for Earth to the consortium. As I recall, Lara's an experienced space traveller well able to cope with things like that.
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Lara can't speak for Earth, it's supposed to be off-limits. Her presence on the
Heart of Light would have to be secret.
> > > That's going to be challenging for me to update on archived pages.
> > I might see if I can make the Show script smart enough to distinguish old numbers instead.
>
> That might be an issue for Comicboards as well.
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I added that detection feature. Comicboards has much bigger issues, though, because I have to make it forward from another script.
