13-04-10 [VC] Twice Shy

[Hodag]

Well, I guess the answer to the question PMS was asking earlier about how old Lori is to figure out her power level is "pretty darn old" She has seem serious aim skills there. High V for the win!

[KearaT]

So she took out the guy who was going to save Charlotte... And by some convenient miracle Katie as well. If this was an rpg battle we would all be shouting at the GM for blatantly cheating. Not the plan I had in mind. Looks like Char has a few seconds before she bleeds out. The chief parasite obviously meant to kill Char then.

I do not believe that a little thing like that would take out both JC and Katie. I know it's all to set up the Steph/Plank boss fight but I'm just wondering what other powers she is going to magically have.

At the moment I am sincerely hoping the walking flea gets killed now, was on the fence but this is one of the most contrived, unbalanced fights I have seen in a while.

JC wasn't trying to fight Lori, he was trying to save Char from blood loss if i'm not mistaken.. he took his eye off the ball and got taken down from a distance so high that Lori, a vampire that can jump rather well, had to be thrown up to. It just so happened that Lori used him as a rather effective bullet to take down Katie, who wasn't paying attention it seems, at the same time. The distance had to be great because despite the force that Lori put forth against JC, it would've had to have been at least a decent height to make the mess it did.

It's not like she One Hit punched Katie.. she had to use a flying projectile in the form of her team mate to do it. JC is human, I think, more skilled than your ordinary human to be sure but still a human so it's not too farfetched to think that maybe he didn't stand a snowballs chance in hades of getting past Lori in the first place.

Besides it's not like Lori is new to this whole thing.. didn't she take down a rather powerful being who viewed vampires as nothing more than food after being tortured and starved for a long period of time? Experience or no experience, the PETM were in for one hell of a fight the second that they crashed the prom.

[Gargravarr]

Kill her Steph! Kill her painfully and tear her god damn head off! Stake her ten times over then smear garlic over her!

Yeah. I said all that. I want that bitch to die and die badly. Not just for what she's done so far, but because I seriously hated her as a character from Page 1. She is unlikable, unsympathetic and just plain horrible.

While the Methods of the PMS may be called into question, they have got NOTHING on the almighty bitch that is Lori.

So this is how the odds even out? Katie AND JC being taken out in one shot, without any semblance of a fight while the other cheer vamps went down easier? Okay, this really feels like a nerf to the PMS crew just so things didn't feel onesided.

And yes, now I really want Lori to die. Popularity among the fanbase and the VC's unknown populatiry be damned, I want her to be strung by her entrails and hung out to dry. DEAD!

This and this. Though admittedly I'm a little biased since I haven't read any of PMS and know nothing of their "questionable methods".

My animosity towards Lori is also boosted by the fact that by now I'm kind of sick of powerful vampire characters pwning just about anyone who crosses their path.

[Varanus]

So this is how the odds even out? Katie AND JC being taken out in one shot, without any semblance of a fight while the other cheer vamps went down easier? Okay, this really feels like a nerf to the PMS crew just so things didn't feel onesided.

You have to admit the JC bullet Lori made was a HARD hit. I doubt either Katie or JC are badly hurt by it given their supernatural natures, but they will be stunned long enough for Lori and Steph to have their face off.

One wonders if Char knows any healing spells. If she can focus enough to use one to stem the blood flow she could survive.

[GearaDoga]

Well, surprise, surprise...

Elder Vampire, attacked in her own domain, protecting her "family", backed into a corner and fighting for her life...

Versus a timid, twenty-something witch with zero combat ability, a reluctant Dhampyr of unknown (but likely little) experience, and a teenage Werewolf pup. All with a half-baked, poorly executed plan and evidently no contingencies in place for injuries on their side.

That's sloppy, half-assed work even before the fight started. Don't tell me anyone thought this was going to end any differently??

[Grognik]

Nice to see Lori kicking some ass, now hopefully it's Steph's turn to get her ass kicked. Worst thing the authors did was combining the two titles, never cared for the whinny emo asshats of the PMS.

[Hurbster]

Nice to see Lori kicking some ass, now hopefully it's Steph's turn to get her ass kicked. Worst thing the authors did was combining the two titles, never cared for the whinny emo asshats of the PMS.

And I intensely dislike the walking, characterless parasites. Funny old world innit ?

[Hurbster]

So she took out the guy who was going to save Charlotte... And by some convenient miracle Katie as well. If this was an rpg battle we would all be shouting at the GM for blatantly cheating. Not the plan I had in mind. Looks like Char has a few seconds before she bleeds out. The chief parasite obviously meant to kill Char then.

I do not believe that a little thing like that would take out both JC and Katie. I know it's all to set up the Steph/Plank boss fight but I'm just wondering what other powers she is going to magically have.

At the moment I am sincerely hoping the walking flea gets killed now, was on the fence but this is one of the most contrived, unbalanced fights I have seen in a while.

JC wasn't trying to fight Lori, he was trying to save Char from blood loss if i'm not mistaken.. he took his eye off the ball and got taken down from a distance so high that Lori, a vampire that can jump rather well, had to be thrown up to. It just so happened that Lori used him as a rather effective bullet to take down Katie, who wasn't paying attention it seems, at the same time. The distance had to be great because despite the force that Lori put forth against JC, it would've had to have been at least a decent height to make the mess it did.

It's not like she One Hit punched Katie.. she had to use a flying projectile in the form of her team mate to do it. JC is human, I think, more skilled than your ordinary human to be sure but still a human so it's not too farfetched to think that maybe he didn't stand a snowballs chance in hades of getting past Lori in the first place.

Besides it's not like Lori is new to this whole thing.. didn't she take down a rather powerful being who viewed vampires as nothing more than food after being tortured and starved for a long period of time? Experience or no experience, the PETM were in for one hell of a fight the second that they crashed the prom.

That was someone of human strength who she killed as soon as she freed herself, not up there with the best boss fights in the world to be honest.

[Raker]

To an extent, unusual/unlikely mismatches and quick dispatches are far from uncommon in this sort of storytelling, so I don't mind it that much. It was a bit irritating when the PMS acted like the Scooby Gang in the preliminaries that led to this fight, effectively acting like a bunch of dumbasses instead of taking things seriously, but perhaps that's meant to be a sign of 'they're still in the kiddie pool, in spite of what they've done'. I mean, they were stalking and planning to apprehend a nest of vampires who are some degree of unknown ages and who have been staying hidden successfully for a long time, assaulting and/or killing who knows how many people over that time, but for the PMS it was as much about 'hahaha, nerdy embarrassing prom!' as the actual job at hand.

But for me, a larger question is simply this: is there a reason, in these settings, for why supernatural creatures such as vampires are afforded so many protections under the law? If memory serves, the PMS early in the story got into quite a lot of trouble for being too aggressive and too willing to use lethal measures against their targets. Well, alright, I suppose there are possible plausible backstory explanations for that regarding less dangerous or less voluntary monsters-people who could if offered the opportunity and some treatment assimilate into society instead of endanger it.

But is there a backstory reason why this would apply to the vampire cheerleaders? Even a generous estimate of their activities would have them at many, many, many assaults and batteries not to mention decades/centuries old creatures banging a bunch of kids, frequently. Anyone even glancing at the school's history would begin to see some surprising deaths, too. So what is the setting's reason for why the PMS must approach them as though they're misunderstood monsters, so to speak?

[Raker]

My animosity towards Lori is also boosted by the fact that by now I'm kind of sick of powerful vampire characters pwning just about anyone who crosses their path.

Right there with you. Would enjoy seeing someone just come in and Batman the freaking crap out of her, with the bizarre but somehow appropriate mishmash of 'we're awesome vampires, and superior!' alongside 'we're cool cheerleaders, and superior!'. I wonder if the VC are meant to be, like, meta-ironic.

[helios1138]

We all know char will be fine. Personally I'm glad those pms zealots are getting pwnd. Everything the vc has done in this series has been in self defense. Yes they treated len like crap but try to remember in the beginning he tried to KILL them. So far the vc are the only ones who haven't acted evil.

[Raker]

How many dead dudes lay behind the VC in their history? It's already one that we know of, an accidental (opps!) feeding death, or am I misremembering?

As for self-defense, so what, when the VC turn his bud into a vampire and he tries to kill them and free her...yeah. What a dick. To say nothing of the scores and scores, or even hundreds, of people they've mind-wiped and fed from without consent. What does self-defense even *mean* if this fits the bill?

[helios1138]

How many dead dudes lay behind the VC in their history? It's already one that we know of, an accidental (opps!) feeding death, or am I misremembering?

As for self-defense, so what, when the VC turn his bud into a vampire and he tries to kill them and free her...yeah. What a dick. To say nothing of the scores and scores, or even hundreds, of people they've mind-wiped and fed from without consent. What does self-defense even *mean* if this fits the bill?

Leonard didn't even bother to check if heather was happier as a vamp. He just assumed like the PMS that vampire=evil. And if you had to choose between mind rapeing a few peope or dieing what would you do? As for the so called scores of bodies they've killed, iv seen them go out of there way to avoid killing anyone. PMS on the other hand had to be forced to use non lethal methods. Who's really the villains in this senario?

[Storm-forge mystique]

Leonard also didn't kill them, or make any real attempt to. He was ready to kill them, but if he'd really planned to stake first and ask questions later, they'd never have gotten him into that bedroom.

[Raker]

Why would he assume 'hey, maybe she likes it better as a vampire'? Why would anyone assume that, actually? Particularly with the rather enormous personality change, she would have seemed like a completely different person. If someone you knew were attacked and then almost everything about them changed dramatically, would you wonder if they were happier or would you conclude that something was wrong? Easy question, only one authentic answer.

I didn't say 'scores of bodies'.

The choice isn't between 'mind-rape' and 'starvation'. This is a world where vampires can be 'out', so to speak, and there are options available. For whatever reason, the VC have chosen not to avail themselves of that route. But in any event, even if there wasn't, that doesn't give them a pass. It makes it understandable why they would do that, but then, do people have a right to use force to defend against blood being involuntarily drained from their bodies? If that is actually the situation, then it's a wildlife situation and when one animal attacks another, they get to try and attack them back.

PMS killed monsters-and frankly, if memory serves, many if not most of them were themselves of the violent and dangerous-to-humans variety. The VC on the other hand periodically kill a jock here and there and then make the death look like a normal accident in the course of feeding, and regularly and involuntarily feed off unwitting humans whose minds they then violate. They do this not just to live but to...excel at the high school social scene. Yeah.