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Reply Subj: That's close enough. Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2010 at 09:33:53 pm EDT (Viewed 548 times) | |||||||
Quote: Quote: Remind me to actually show the Lair Accountant sometime.Quote: Actually show the Lair Accountant sometime.Thanks. Quote: Quote: Quote: Although only mentioned briefly, it sounded like Liu Xi is fitting in ok and even seems to be contributing jokes. Nice short addition, now we just have to wait for the first New Lair Legion story.Quote: Quote: Next issue we'll need to start showing how all the interactions can work.Quote: I am kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop so to speak - because Liu Xi does have that barrier to fitting in that I mentioned. She's the youngest member of the team, and also the one with the most checkered history (not including Messenger, who left), so there may be some question among Legionnaires whether she deserves a spot. There's a number of issues that we'll need to flesh out in the issues to come, and Liu Xi's history, heritage, and self-confidence are some of them. Quote: Quote: This is one that's really worthy of more story. We know so little of Yuki before her accident. She must have had family, friends, schoolmates, lovers. She was already a proficient investigator long before she got the metal and plastic - but how? Did she have a mentor? Enemies? Rivals? Why did she set up shop in GMY originally rather than Paradopolis?Quote: It will come out eventually, I suppose, but Yuki has tried very hard to erase her past life. She believes herself to be reborn the day she got her new body. So there's a story-wise reason there's not much info - because Yuki doesn't want anyone to know.That's what makes us readers want more. Quote: Quote: Remind me if we ever found out her former name too.Quote: It was mentioned once, Vicky Cameron figured it out. I'd have to look it up once I remember which of the hundreds of stories it could be in.It's the kind of info we really might need to use for dramatic effect someday. If an adversary can name her then he's a serious threat. You can be sure the Hooded Hood knows, for example. Quote: Quote: She's also got a little experience of the occult and has managed to use ritual objects.Quote: There's a very specific reason she learned that stuff. In the tales preceding her newly learned skills, multiple baddies managed to strip her of her elementalist power, making her helpless. She doesn't want to keep being helpless. Since she had a predisposition to magic being attached to her spirit, she took to additional magical training fairly easily.Vinnie might say that a girl of her abilities and sensitivity dabbling with the occult is like putting a ballerina in a rugby match - her special nature makes her both adept but very vulnerable to the forces involved. Quote: Quote: In this case i think that's an important part of her mystique.Quote: Chiaki herself doesn't really know where she got her ability from or why. She just knows it's always been there. She also thinks she has it for some higher purpose, which is why she uses it for the force of good.She needs to talk about those views sometime. Quote: Quote: And she's protective of her jackets.Quote: They're expensive!Indeed. Quote: Quote: I tend to write Yuki as the most colloquial, most likely to use contractions and slang, and Chiaki as the most formal speaker.Quote: That's about right. Quote: There are two dimensions to Chiaki's speech - like most Japanese, she has a highly formal side, where she speaks very clearly, charismatically, always in charge. Then there's among friends, where she will speak more softly and talk more about how she feels and what she's afraid of. She's also possibly the only truly multilingual charismatic speaker (Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean).Noted. Quote: What's funny is, Chiaki puts up a very brave front in the most dire of circumstances, but underneath that is a 5'3" young woman who relies on training but has no real super-powers to fight with, so she's usually terrified when her life's on the line. She believes her mild psychic tendency is a higher power trying to guide her and keep her alive, so she doesn't squander that gift by playing with it.Again, worth featuring in-story. Quote: Quote: Liu Xi's romance life has given us quite a lot of stories.Quote: That's because she deserves some good luck after everything she's gone through recently.  Quote: Liu Xi is very serious about relationships. She bonded immediately with Vinnie, and she's very attached to him. If something happens to him, or he leaves, she'll be completely broken hearted and a wreck for quite a while. If something caused it, they'll be the source of endless burning wrath to the point where her friends will have to convince her to stop so she doesn't destroy herself in the process.Excellent. Quote: In shorthand, for the others:Quote: Lara had one real relationship in her life - her ex-live-in-boyfriend back home, who was her first and is now engaged to someone else. She's unbelievably broken-hearted about it, but is trying to keep a brave front. Lara is a die-hard romantic, which is why she would never try to interfere with anyone else's relationship or potential relationship. She also becomes attached to people, and she's well aware of it, so she'll avoid a relationship with someone she believes will never be as into it as she is. Whenever her heart is broken, she tries to swallow her pride and hide it.Quote: Yuki, like with everything else in her life, she has no vision of long-term at the moment. Most of her relationships are short-term flings, and it's amazing the one with Al B Harper lasted as long as it did. She gets into a relationship for the change of pace, and for the thrill. If her heart is broken, she seeks more excitement to make herself feel better.Quote: Anna has absolutely no concept of relationships at the moment. She thinks she understands them, and she has experienced loss, but the distance she has had to keep from everyone in her life to this point has left her vulnerable. She's likely to someday tumble recklessly into love.Quote: Chiaki has had short-term relationships before, but work and heavy travel has always doomed every one of them, so she never really fully gave herself to a relationship. Even when she briefly dated Hatman, she kept her distance a little, and she still feels that's what destroyed it - and she still regrets that (side note: Lara, after talking to Jay a lot, realized that he too keeps his distance in relationships, which is why she believes he's "not her type" - so the failure was really mutual). It might seem odd, but she's just as much at risk as Anna for falling recklessly in love with someone, if it's the right person. But if it fails, she's more likely to blame herself than react angrily.Useful stuff. Quote: Quote: I generally try to make sure that Yuki acts instinctively, developing tactics on the fly as she reacts and enjoying the thrill of it all. Chiaki is even more intuitive but that gives her a better strategic overview - she would plan a fight in a way Yuki wouldn't ever bother to. Chiaki is more clasically "honorable"; Yuki's more willing the cheat.Quote: Quote: I've noticed that Liu Xi doesn't use violence as a first resort but she will often use her powers rather than her personal skills as if she's avoiding revealing herself.Quote: Liu Xi is still stinging from a couple murders earlier in her life - and she takes what Chiaki told her, about repairing the damage through doing good, to heart. So she tries to use as non-lethal means as possible. She'll use her powers first because a) she also doesn't have confidence in her own fighting ability just yet, but she's learning; and b) because she doesn't have a strong grasp of English, she's not confident in her negotiation skills. That might reverse sharply if she was able to negotiate in Chinese.Liu Xi also has longer-range powers is is more effective outside combat distance. Quote: Quote: I try to balance Anna's naivite, confidence, lack of confidence in other things, expert database, and limited experience of "real life".Quote: Anna has a natural confidence because she's not quite as clumsy as most humans - once she knows how to do something, she's fairly sure she can do it. If she does fail it's harder for her to become injured than a human, and her memory is less prone to fault or failure.Quote: She's also very curious, but she's afraid of doing things that may harm someone or bring bad publicity if she screws up. She's also absolutely terrified of dying, so mortal threats to her person would often result in her behaving like a scared child, without the encouragement of a friend.Noted. Quote: Quote: If I'm not careful Lara tends to devolve to "standard female superhero" dialogue and responses. I'll need to work on that.Quote: I have a story I'm working on with Lara talking to the Hooded Hood, and the dialogue is a great example of what she does. She's kind of a smartass, but also somewhat serious. Somewhere in between Chiaki and Yuki - Lara is charismatic at times, but can't resist annoying the hell out of her enemies by poking fun at them.Quote: The best way to figure out how she'd respond is to keep in mind that she's a retired formerly teen super-hero. She's jaded to most of the lameness of villains out there, so while they're threatening her she's rolling her eyes and poking fun. But then she also knows how to be serious and charismatic when she's really concentrating, and if she's cornered and the chips are down, she can be seriously violent and dangerous, too.There are a number of characters who I'd put down as having "default American speech" - G-Eyed, Vinnie, Vizh and CZ in the current line-up, for example. The challenge is ensuring their lines can be as distinguished as the trademark patois of Donar or Yo or Mumphrey. | |||||||
