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A big flaming stink posted:This time, on the Wandering Inn, its the most boring sport in the world! I dreaded reading this as I am neither American, nor do I follow sports, least of all baseball, but it turns out that chapters like this are what I live for because all I really want in any show or movie or book is for everyone to get along and have fun together.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:04
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TWI regular chapter I liked this chapter. The addition of magic made the baseball more fun, and it was nice for some slice of life lightness after the darkness that was the whole dungeon kidnapping arc. I’m intrigued to know how the artifact distribution will play out, and I like hearing that Halrac is starting to be considered more than an ordinary Gold adventurer. If he gets the invisible arrow bow he’ll be looking more Named by the second. TWI Patreon chapter Which is all too bad, because getting back to the goblin storyline is a bit of a wet fart. Another chapter detailing a character’s misery with no real plot advancement. I know that there need to be set up chapters for a pay off to be satisfying, but this storyline has been spinning its tires for a while now. Also, more oblique references to Veltras having a plan that the audience doesn’t get explained, so that’s still a fun through-line from pirateaba.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:06
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I thought it was heavily implied that Veltras' plan was to herd they goblins towards Laken's town and have them take out the goblins and/or vice versa. . I came to this before today's chapter.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:22
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Lone Goat posted:I thought it was heavily implied that Veltras' plan was to herd they goblins towards Laken's town and have them take out the goblins and/or vice versa. . I came to this before today's chapter. Well, right now they’re herding Rags’ goblins AWAY from Laken’s town, unless they humans are just running them in circles for 6 days. To me, the “obvious” set up is herding the goblins towards Liscor, using them as an initial wave before following with a Human army to attack the Drakes. But no matter what the plan is, I dislike the way we’ve been getting hints but no actual explanation for the past... generously 2 months, but really since Veltras was first introduce even longer ago than that.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:32
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ooh ok I guess I will need someone to make a We've Got Wandering podcast because I'm just dense as hell 
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Dec 18, 2018 18:37
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Lone Goat posted:I thought it was heavily implied that Veltras' plan was to herd they goblins towards Laken's town and have them take out the goblins and/or vice versa. . I came to this before today's chapter. The idea I got from the Niers interlude was more that he would "save" Laken. Emperor would be useful for the goal of uniting humans to kill southerners.
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Dec 18, 2018 18:40
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I'm sad that there won't be any more PracGuide for a month. Speaking of which, apparently the next book is the last, but I feel like I remember something being mentioned about the current book, which was intended to be the second to last, ending up too long and needing to be split into two
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Dec 18, 2018 23:32
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Ytlaya posted:I'm sad that there won't be any more PracGuide for a month. there was a comment in one of the last chapters from the author that there was originally intended to be 5 books, but that book 4 (this book) went far longer than he expected so he was going to split book 4 into two seperate books, meaning there would now be 6 books total
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Dec 19, 2018 01:52
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tithin posted:there was a comment in one of the last chapters from the author that there was originally intended to be 5 books, but that book 4 (this book) went far longer than he expected so he was going to split book 4 into two seperate books, meaning there would now be 6 books total Yeah, but if that's the case wouldn't there be two more books?
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Dec 19, 2018 02:33
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah, but if that's the case wouldn't there be two more books? No, it just means that "book 4" becomes "book 4 and 5" - i expect that sometime over the break, erratic will stick a book 5 split somewhere in book 4 (just before they go to the underdark?) with book 5 ending at the current epilogue Proposed Book 5 / final book becomes book 6, which is still planned to be the final book.
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Dec 19, 2018 02:40
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Just read the recent Ward chapter. This is mostly unrelated to the events of the chapter, but I'm still genuinely confused at (very minor spoiler that just mentions a side character who shows up) how Etna functions as a villain who isn't willing to kill people. Like her power (throwing molten globs of glass) is the dumbest thing and I can't think of a single use for it that isn't lethal or potentially lethal. Also, Birdbrain continues the trend of combat thinkers being extremely OP. It seems like it's almost impossible to fight someone like her or March if you're not bullet-proof (and no one on team Breakthrough other than sorta Sveta fits this bill; Victoria would easily be dealt with by someone who can quickly pop off two accurate shots).
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Dec 19, 2018 20:56
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So my goon friend has launched a webfiction and, not wanting to interlink their author life with their shitposting life, roped me into posting it here for them. Basically, they dislike the bit in every other xianxia where the crippled slash unable-to-cultivate protagonist suddenly becomes The Absolute Best - and so this is their take on the genre from the bottom, through the eyes of a random mortal caught up in the affairs of immortal kings who have the power to wipe out an army with a snap of their fingers, and sit atop empires that are practically meatgrinders full of people desperately trying to claw together enough resources to become magical powerhouses. https://qaod.wordpress.com/
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Dec 20, 2018 04:27
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Speaking of Xianxia, I've been re-reading Forge of Destiny (starting with the re-write up until it's current chapter), and it really amazes me how the author has managed to have this whole cast develop and change over the course of the story; early Ling Qi is a very different character from her later self. It's funny realizing that Meizhen at the beginning is about at the level of the scrubs Ling Qi owns with her mist during the tournament preliminaries. Speaking of which, during my first read-through I never noticed how the necklace thing was actually Cui noticing Meizhen staring at some girl's boobs, lol.
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Dec 20, 2018 09:10
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ThirdEmperor posted:So my goon friend has launched a webfiction and, not wanting to interlink their author life with their shitposting life, roped me into posting it here for them. Oh, hey, I read this a while back. Have they considered putting it on one of the sites that xianxia communities group around, such as RoyalRoadLegends? That'd get them more attention than just the Wordpress.
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Dec 20, 2018 09:19
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Oh, hey, I read this a while back. Have they considered putting it on one of the sites that xianxia communities group around, such as RoyalRoadLegends? That'd get them more attention than just the Wordpress. you read it a while back? I only see one chapter posted yesterday - is there more somewhere? It seems pretty interesting.
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Dec 20, 2018 21:40
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Oh, hey, I read this a while back. Have they considered putting it on one of the sites that xianxia communities group around, such as RoyalRoadLegends? That'd get them more attention than just the Wordpress. They're going through the review process for RoyalRoad now, yeah. And the author has a bunch of chapters already written that they've showed around to get criticism.
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Dec 21, 2018 06:06
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Huh, I read a really neat theory about MoL. I don't believe it, but it's a fun exercise. Someone suggested that red robe might be an earlier iteration of Zorian. The theory goes that pre-brain tinkered Zach spread around a bunch of temporary markers to convince people that the loop was real, including one which went to Zorian. Their suggestion is that having Zach's soul intermingled into his actually mellowed Zorian out, and having knowledge of the loop and access to a marker without that influence prompted him to be the scary, cutthroat bastard that Zach always mentioned Zorian kind of came off as to people who didn't know him. Zorian hones his mind magic, enlists lichdad to hack his marker, mutilates Zach's brain, and beats feet out of the loop. I think it has too many problems to work, especially since I think it was very heavily implied that red robe was wearing his cult robes when the loop started, and because I have trouble picturing even the massive jerkass that was Zorian 1.0 agreeing to spearhead an invasion to kill tons of people he knows. That having been said, boy am I interested to see where that's going- it seems like the whole story has been loudly whispering that we don't understand everything that's going on with Zach, but I really don't see any combination of Zach is RR/Zorian is RR/Z or Z's simulacrum is RR that wouldn't come off as trite and cliche at this point, and I'm pretty sure the author is above that level of cheap twists. (Although, there has been so much talk of simulacrums, whether they have a soul, and how their personalities diverge over time that I can't believe the story will wrap up without having some kind of payoff in that department.) Also-also, I was fine with LoopZorian brutally murdering himself, because we've been following him, not his original, but I just realized that anyone he reads in now that the loop is over will very likely flip their poo poo; Kael doesn't have much of a reason to care, but from Taiven or Kirielle's perspective he just straight-up murdered someone they really cared about.
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Dec 21, 2018 07:37
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Red Robe's not psychic. Zorian is a better mind mage before he even gets real training. The real issue with Red Robe is that he exists at all. How the hell did Zach ever get hold of QI's crown? Even current much older Zach can't take him. The soulbound twins in Z&Z's class also got names and background, but never any follow up at all - and that seems like it could do relevant stuff. Honestly suspect the author just forgot though. mossyfisk fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 21, 2018 10:18
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mossyfisk posted:The real issue with Red Robe is that he exists at all. How the hell did Zach ever get hold of QI's crown? Even current much older Zach can't take him. Zach tells random people about the loop. One of them is secretly QI or someone who would report it to him (RR). QI figures out that his crown can interface with the time stuff. QI convinces/forces Zach to use the crown to add one of his agents (RR) to the loop. QI wipes Zach's memories of the incident Then much later, QI tried to drop either Zach or RR from the timeloop and accidentally adds Zorian.
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Dec 21, 2018 10:39
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I don't know if Zach's necessary at all, Red Robe can use the dagger no problem. QI just needs to know about the loop and use his crown. I have no idea why he'd pick someone to be a looper that is narratively interesting, though. Red Robe should just be "some Ulquan Ibasan spy".
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Dec 21, 2018 12:14
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mossyfisk posted:I don't know if Zach's necessary at all, Red Robe can use the dagger no problem. QI just needs to know about the loop and use his crown. I have no idea why he'd pick someone to be a looper that is narratively interesting, though. Red Robe should just be "some Ulquan Ibasan spy". This is honestly the direction that I think is likeliest, simply because none of the characters we know anything about have any connection to Ulquan Ibasa. (I'm also fairly sure RR had the power first, not QI, simply because QI wouldn't have voluntarily not had a marker.) I wanted it to be Zach's simulacrum because holy crap that theory was awesome, and I also wanted it to be Fortov because that guy came up constantly, was only on camera for any length of time after RR left the loop, never served a narrative purpose, and is such a useless dick that he'd be funny as a serious threat. But we've learned so much about so many of the characters that I'm really struggling to think of a reveal that won't come off as lame. (Of course, the fact that it's been drawn out for this long implies that it will be a reveal, because you can't tease a secret identity for like 83 chapters and then go 'oh, yeah, it was just some guy'.) Also, this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but when I did my re-read I noticed that there was a one-time aberration in chapter 24, when instead of one girl entering the train in Korsa there were two. It was probably just meaningless background detail, but I always wondered if that meant RR was doing something in Korsa to set up part of his thing. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 13:01 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 21, 2018 12:59
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Omi no Kami posted:Also, this doesn't have anything to do with anything, but when I did my re-read I noticed that there was a one-time aberration in chapter 24, when instead of one girl entering the train in Korsa there were two. It was probably just meaningless background detail, but I always wondered if that meant RR was doing something in Korsa to set up part of his thing. Could it maybe have something to do with that weird throwaway line in the most recent chapter where something seemed familiar about the first years on the train?
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Dec 21, 2018 13:37
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mossyfisk posted:Red Robe's not psychic. Zorian is a better mind mage before he even gets real training. Zach probably got the crown in the past the same way he did when Zorian was with him. That is to say he and Red Robe cooperated in some capacity to ambush the lich and take it - or maybe they offered the lich something tempting enough to get him to "lend" the crown. It's been demonstrated that it definitely isn't impossible to separate the lich from his crown and we have no reason to suspect that Zach was significantly weaker when he was working with Red Robe as opposed to when he was working with Zorian (he doesn't really seem to get notably "stronger" from chapter 1 to the current chapter) so Zach+RR getting the crown doesn't strain my credulity. Of course that assumes that Zach and Red Robe were working together at some point but I don't think that's hard to imagine at all considering how gullible Zach is plus the fact that in order for Zach to get his mind tampered with he probably had some degree of trust in the person doing the tampering (much easier to imagine him being tricked or betrayed than overpowered). tonberrytoby posted:This might lead to a nice explanation why Red Robe was even added to the timeloop.
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Dec 21, 2018 14:56
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Argue posted:Could it maybe have something to do with that weird throwaway line in the most recent chapter where something seemed familiar about the first years on the train? I think the bit in the latest chapter might've just been a red herring or fun callback; the exact same thing happens in chapter one, the girl is excited to be at Croatian Hogwarts and asks him to show off, which gives him an excuse to deliver some exposition on how mana shaping works. It could also be a setup for super-terrible, tragic turn where his soul is somehow screwed up, and his memory is slowly unraveling, but that sounds dumb even to write so I think it was just a callback to his first day in the first iteration of the loop. sunken fleet posted:I don't think red robe and QI are on the same side though? When we see them interact (in chapter 23? 24? i dun remember) QI is suspicious of Red Robe and starting to doubt his usefulness. He doesn't treat him like they're close or like Red Robe is one of his trusted subordinates or anything. Zorian speculated the only reason Red Robe bothered with the invasion stuff at all was to keep Zach preoccupied with the invasion and not bothering with him / noticing his hosed up memories. Hmm, the timing of how and what RR learned about the loop is also really relevant here. Paranthax(sp? The primordial guy?) implied that he could only directly communicate with people when the gate was unbarred, which implies that for RR to make a deal he would've had to unbar the gate and speak with him directly. Buuuut, I can't see a younger mage being that useful beyond his access to Zach, so my assumption was always that RR opened the gate, the primordial told him "You can leave whenever you want with my help, but from the instant you step out you've got 30 days to set me free," then RR elected to remain in the loop for additional time to refine the invasion, since it was his best shot at fulfilling his end of the deal. But yeah, RR's allegiance has always been reaaaally unclear to me. The key fact that makes a lot of suspects unlikely in my mind is that he's allegedly already involved with the cult pre-loop, but even that is conjecture. He obviously has enough sway to run the invasion, but that could've been acting by proxy through QI, and I believe Zorian explicitly identified and ruled out all fifteen of the guys who were senior enough to wear those robes? So it really could be as simple as RR being a kid with a relative/circumstantial connection to the cult who had the robes sitting nearby. (I've always mentally pictured him as a somewhat immature teenager, largely on the basis of how surprised and chatty his reaction to being shot was.)
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Dec 21, 2018 16:34
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Omi no Kami posted:I think the bit in the latest chapter might've just been a red herring or fun callback; the exact same thing happens in chapter one, the girl is excited to be at Croatian Hogwarts and asks him to show off, which gives him an excuse to deliver some exposition on how mana shaping works. It could also be a setup for super-terrible, tragic turn where his soul is somehow screwed up, and his memory is slowly unraveling, but that sounds dumb even to write so I think it was just a callback to his first day in the first iteration of the loop. But that is pretty unlikely, more of a twist for the sake of a twist. RR's current loyalties don't need to be the same as they were when the loop started. Right now he almost certainly is working for the Primordial.
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Dec 21, 2018 16:50
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tonberrytoby posted:I do have another theory for a twist ending, where Zorian or Zach or both are actually QI's Manchurian candidate. Yeah, and something that struck me when I did my re-read is how little he actually matters in the grand scheme of things. When I first read it, in my head he escaped around the 50% mark and Zach came in at around 75%, but I'm fairly sure the implication is that he beat feet after the events of chapter 26, and he basically hasn't mattered since then. I was half-expecting Z&Z to anticlimactically blow through him like tissue paper in their first rematch, simply because of how much both characters have developed since. Also, I don't think I can buy that they're heading towards a sleeper agent/manchurian candidate thing (although they definitely have been teasing a Zach vs. Zorian thing for ages, and at this point that's basically the only way I could see it happening), but Zorian being a sleeper agent would explain his marker; I always had a little trouble accepting that crazy random happenstance resulted in QI's soul mutilation spell screwing up in just the right way to clone it. Omi no Kami fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Dec 21, 2018 |
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Dec 21, 2018 19:32
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Well Zorian has been preparing at least What with him attempting to find a way to circumvent mind blank
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Dec 21, 2018 21:04
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Yeah, that in particular is what makes me think a Z vs. Z something is inevitable. Without that I would've probably gone into the finale expecting them to remain low-key buddies and just bust up some cosmic horror with the power of friendship, but since Silverlake and RR very explicitly do not use mind blank, it's obviously a setup for that one thing. Incidentally, in reading/thinking about the big, dumb RR mystery, I found that a lot of people are under the assumption that absorbing Zach's soul was a big part of what mellowed Zorian's antisocial, hyper-aggro rear end out- is that the general assumption? Because I didn't get that impression at all... I figured it was such a small piece that it pretty much got instantly eaten by the larger mass, and most of his social skills were simply a result of maturing over however many years he was in the loop, plus learning how to shield his mind so dealing with people didn't constantly suck.
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Dec 21, 2018 21:20
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Omi no Kami posted:Incidentally, in reading/thinking about the big, dumb RR mystery, I found that a lot of people are under the assumption that absorbing Zach's soul was a big part of what mellowed Zorian's antisocial, hyper-aggro rear end out- is that the general assumption? Because I didn't get that impression at all... I figured it was such a small piece that it pretty much got instantly eaten by the larger mass, and most of his social skills were simply a result of maturing over however many years he was in the loop, plus learning how to shield his mind so dealing with people didn't constantly suck. I, for one, agree with you there. Most anti-social teenagers end up growing out of it and Zorian has certainly had the time to grow. Plus, as you said, almost all of the issues that caused him to be so prickly have been more or less resolved so it follows that he would mellow out as a result. Attributing his character growth to magic feels cheap to me.
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Dec 22, 2018 01:24
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sunken fleet posted:I, for one, agree with you there. Most anti-social teenagers end up growing out of it and Zorian has certainly had the time to grow. Plus, as you said, almost all of the issues that caused him to be so prickly have been more or less resolved so it follows that he would mellow out as a result. Attributing his character growth to magic feels cheap to me. Yeah; Zorian's character growth is one of my favorite parts of MoL, so I think it's lame to just attribute it to him absorbing some of Zach's personality.
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Dec 22, 2018 20:32
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Ytlaya posted:Yeah; Zorian's character growth is one of my favorite parts of MoL, so I think it's lame to just attribute it to him absorbing some of Zach's personality. Yeah, in particular that whole early bit where he started training his telepathy and went through like 20 chapters of "...huh, people think and feel irrational things that don't match their behavior on a 1:1 basis? Weird," might've been my single favorite section of the story. Speaking of which, to its credit I don't think there's any specific section that of MoL that I genuinely disliked. The last 30ish chapters have felt weirdly rushed compared to the rest, but since not rushing would probably result in the story doubling in length, even that's fine with me.
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Dec 23, 2018 03:34
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Omi no Kami posted:Speaking of which, to its credit I don't think there's any specific section that of MoL that I genuinely disliked. The last 30ish chapters have felt weirdly rushed compared to the rest, but since not rushing would probably result in the story doubling in length, even that's fine with me. I feel like the plot progression has been paced really well, but that a lot of Zorian's magical development happened really fast (or at least it feels that way in retrospect). Like, I remember a long time of Zorian gradually training shaping, developing his mind powers, etc, and then suddenly A BUNCH OF SIMULACRUM GOLEMS AND AN IMPROVED BRAIN AND DIMENSIONALISM (ETC). I get that this is largely because the simulucrums basically let him exponentially increase his rate of learning, but it still lacked the feeling of easily understandable progression that existed during the earlier parts of the story. The simulucrums in general always kinda bugged me, because I feel like it's kinda unrealistic that a simulacrum would be able to not care about its imminent demise (not to mention that it feels like a simulucrum would be the sort of magic that would require decades to learn to do).
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Dec 23, 2018 03:47
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Ytlaya posted:I feel like the plot progression has been paced really well, but that a lot of Zorian's magical development happened really fast (or at least it feels that way in retrospect). Like, I remember a long time of Zorian gradually training shaping, developing his mind powers, etc, and then suddenly A BUNCH OF SIMULACRUM GOLEMS AND AN IMPROVED BRAIN AND DIMENSIONALISM (ETC). I get that this is largely because the simulucrums basically let him exponentially increase his rate of learning, but it still lacked the feeling of easily understandable progression that existed during the earlier parts of the story. The simulucrums in general always kinda bugged me, because I feel like it's kinda unrealistic that a simulacrum would be able to not care about its imminent demise (not to mention that it feels like a simulucrum would be the sort of magic that would require decades to learn to do). Yeah, I had a lot of the same issues. Like, I can appreciate the idea of mass-duplicating yourself and doing a bunch of magic stuff in parallel, and watching a formerly below-average guy flatten entire city blocks on a whim is good fun, but it doesn't make particularly compelling reading, especially compared to the earlier, more deliberate pace. I wonder if there wasn't some benchmark looming in the near future (Zorian vs. Zach, or the big final showdown), and the author realized that in his present state Zorian simply wasn't set up to believably win? In a way, I wish the later sections of the story kept the initial premise of Zorian being an unusually smart guy with strictly average or below-average magical talent, and his entire thing was built around "What can someone who sucks do with a lot of practice". That's where I thought we were going with all the shaping drills, and the mind magic seemed like a clever way to make him uniquely effective without turning him into a one-man army. (My stock criticism for almost everything I read is 'I wish it had lower stakes with a more grounded approach', though, so that's probably more of a me thing than an objective critique.)
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Dec 23, 2018 04:15
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Ytlaya posted:Also, Birdbrain continues the trend of combat thinkers being extremely OP. It seems like it's almost impossible to fight someone like her or March if you're not bullet-proof (and no one on team Breakthrough other than sorta Sveta fits this bill; Victoria would easily be dealt with by someone who can quickly pop off two accurate shots). Consider what combat thinkers are probably hooked into and what their functions would have been for the wider organism and combat thinkers being dangerous makes sense. Also, I'm not sure there's anyone in Breakthrough who is an effective counter for a combat thinker.
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Dec 23, 2018 19:04
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Something with a similarish premise to White Collar Cultivator, but with seemingly less of a cushy setup and general plot convenience for the protagonist? I'm interested enough to keep reading.
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Dec 24, 2018 04:04
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I'm kinda wondering if Rain's emotion power might be a bit stronger now, since it was rarely mentioned prior to the Fallen conflict, but it's come up a couple times recently and been shown to have an actual non-negligible effect on people (and given Victoria has natural resistance and still felt it, it makes me wonder what impact it had on regular people). I feel like there's gotta be some sort of nuance to his emotional ability, since it's always been sort of vague in description. Though in a way there might be an advantage to a power like that being subtle enough that people don't notice it's a power. Like, you could have Rain surreptitiously show up at a meeting where you wanted the people to conflict with one another (though I guess that wouldn't generally have a heroic use).Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I had a lot of the same issues. Like, I can appreciate the idea of mass-duplicating yourself and doing a bunch of magic stuff in parallel, and watching a formerly below-average guy flatten entire city blocks on a whim is good fun, but it doesn't make particularly compelling reading, especially compared to the earlier, more deliberate pace. I wonder if there wasn't some benchmark looming in the near future (Zorian vs. Zach, or the big final showdown), and the author realized that in his present state Zorian simply wasn't set up to believably win? The best way I can explain the simulacrum stuff is that it gave me the same sort of vibe as a lot of asian web novels, where a character suddenly gets an ability that is OP to the point that it detracts from a more "earned" feeling of growth. Those stories will usually start with the protagonist being weak/normal, but then they get some really OP ability and it's downhill from there. Like, it makes plenty of sense in the context that this particular magic isn't used by others just because it's normally not accessible, and that Zorian's circumstances gave him access to it, but it almost entirely negates the "Zorian is weak/average at magic" stuff. It also just doesn't feel very plausible for simulacrums to be a spell that doesn't cost much mana to begin with. While they explain that they share Zorian's mana pool, it seems like simply creating and maintaining the simulacrum would be its own major drain. Fortunately, unlike said asian WNs, MoL has an actual plot and still keeps things somewhat grounded (like, even now, they still make it pretty clear that Zorian and Zach couldn't actually defeat the government or something completely ludicrous).
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Dec 24, 2018 04:37
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Ytlaya posted:I'm kinda wondering if Rain's emotion power might be a bit stronger now, since it was rarely mentioned prior to the Fallen conflict, but it's come up a couple times recently and been shown to have an actual non-negligible effect on people (and given Victoria has natural resistance and still felt it, it makes me wonder what impact it had on regular people). I feel like there's gotta be some sort of nuance to his emotional ability, since it's always been sort of vague in description. Though in a way there might be an advantage to a power like that being subtle enough that people don't notice it's a power. Like, you could have Rain surreptitiously show up at a meeting where you wanted the people to conflict with one another (though I guess that wouldn't generally have a heroic use). Yeah... from a structural point of view I appreciate how much busywork the simulacrums save, because it was getting to the point where he was spending half of each restart stealing things and building things, but it does weirdly overinflate his capacities in a lot of regards. All in all though, I'm just quibbling over a small point; even though the escalating power levels and godlike combat stuff felt weird, I think it still makes for a fun story.
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Dec 24, 2018 15:01
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Gearhead posted:Consider what combat thinkers are probably hooked into and what their functions would have been for the wider organism and combat thinkers being dangerous makes sense. Also, I'm not sure there's anyone in Breakthrough who is an effective counter for a combat thinker. Let's see... Birdbrain's combat perception doesn't just help her aim vertically, it also helps her perception of what everyone else is doing, as far as I can tell, which makes planning against her hard. But her bullets are still bullets, and there's plenty of people who are literally bulletproof. The enhanced perception also makes me wonder if you could overwhelm her senses somehow, and it'd leave her extremely vulnerable to anti-thinker powers like Mama Mathers, and presumably perception-dampening powers like what Grue had would also interact with her power, although it's hard to say what the exact result of that would be. The problem is really just that Breakthrough isn't really set up to deal with someone like her, not that Birdbrain is totally OP. All-or-nothing would also sort of mean that once you HAVE a counter for her, she's effectively helpless to do much, whereas someone with less hyperspecialization has more wiggle room.
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Dec 24, 2018 23:46
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PetraCore posted:Plus, I've never gotten the impression combat thinkers don't have counters. Most of the combat thinkers we've seen so far are pretty hyperspecialized, Birdbrain included. The obvious problem is they're mostly going to show up narratively when they're in situations that give them an advantage. If I'm understanding Birdbrain right, I think she gets a top-down perspective of things, which means her power might not work if you were indoors. But even then, as you said some parahumans are bulletproof (though honestly not many; it seems like most parahumans, including Brutes, can be dealt with by guns), and I don't think Birdbrain is Literally Perfect with her shooting; she's just far better at aiming, but she still has to choose who to shoot at, etc. That Operator Red guy's powers were far more bullshit, because they were defined in a way that seemed to heavily imply "you literally cannot defeat him in combat unless you put him in a situation where victory for him is completely impossible." Speaking of combat thinkers, I'm curious about what Anelace's specific powers are. He had some ability to infer the actions people took in an area from evidence, and he was also capable of fighting in a way that seemingly allowed him to avoid gunfire, etc. Not sure what would clearly explain both those things.
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Dec 25, 2018 03:15
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Ytlaya posted:If I'm understanding Birdbrain right, I think she gets a top-down perspective of things, which means her power might not work if you were indoors. But even then, as you said some parahumans are bulletproof (though honestly not many; it seems like most parahumans, including Brutes, can be dealt with by guns), and I don't think Birdbrain is Literally Perfect with her shooting; she's just far better at aiming, but she still has to choose who to shoot at, etc. I got the same impression as you re: Birdbrain, but of course it can't just be visual if she can pass on what Breakthrough are quietly discussing. Which is part of where the danger is, especially if her power works indoors, because it makes it really hard to hide from her. Technically I think that also makes her a 'scan thinker', since her power is about awareness and information about the area around her? I like that a lot of powers end up in overlapping categories, it makes the categories seem more like something imperfect developed in-universe rather than the Cold Hard Rules Of The Universe.
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Dec 25, 2018 03:35
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