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Desdendelle said:
The thing is, though, "Lee" is a proper name. Would you also have the same interest in the "Jack" part of "Jack Slash"? The "Gregor" in "Gregor the Snail"? The "Mathers" in "Mama Mathers"?
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Considering the fact that "Jack Slash" is evocative of Jack the Ripper (perhaps the world's most infamous serial killer) and "Mama Mathers" leads the criminal organization known as the Mathers Clan of the Fallen, I am left wondering if a specific historical figure named Gregor inspired his choosing that name. However, that's all on Wildbow, who I wouldn't trust to give a straight and consistent answer if his life depended on it.

Again, I only wondered in Oni Lee's case because the translation of the Kanji used for Lee was translated in story, implying a greater meaning in context. Much like how Lung means Dragon, Kaiser means Emperor, and how Alexandria is the female form of Alexander, which means "Protector of Men"...
 
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Jacen1 said:
It has been mentioned, specifically, that Oni Lee uses Kanji to write out a note, and uses a Kanji that can be translated as "Plum" as the character for "Lee". If he was trying to confuse things, he would have used a mix of writing systems, not pure Kanji
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Ok, my new headcanon is he was intending to name himself something clever ans poetic, and then some idiot mistranslated it as "Lee" instead of the reading he intended and it never got corrected because the PRT are terrible about correcting villain names and by the time it happened, he was already too far gone to bother correcting people. Meanwhile, the ABB just calls him "the Oni".
 
By the way.

The reason Canberra doesn't even need a containment zone is because something was massively interfering with all Thinker powers in the area. This even included Ziz.
 
FaerieKnight79 said:
Why? I was in a play-by-post Beyond the Supernatural campaign once, and my character was an occult detective. My character had an extensive occult reference library, and I myself happen to have a decent occult reference library. Nothing super rare or exotic, but basic books that I'd imagine would be a solid foundation for an occult detective's library. One of the reference books I have is on occult symbology. Well, the GM had created a graphic for a summoning circle the badguy had used. So I pulled out my reference books and did some research in preparation for my next in-character post. So when my character comes up with a theory about what was summoned and why after noticing the symbology is all wrong for a demon summoning, the GM quietly started taking notes and changed the planned storyline to account for my findings.

As it turned out, the GM had no deep meaning planned for the summoning circle. It was just something he'd drawn that looked simi-occult. His plan was to basically give a handout pointing to which demon was summoned if anyone researched the summoning circle. My having actual reference materials which I used to analyze the summoning circle? Completely unplanned for. But he decided my conclusions would create a much more interesting adventure then "Gee, a demon lord has been summoned. We should stop it." And you know what? It did.
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That right there? As a GM, that is what I -live- for. ^^ When the players are invested enough in the plot to actually think about it and do research in their off-game time, you know you've 'won' as a DM. ^^

FaerieKnight79 said:
No, more of the drawing wasn't made with any actual occult symbolism (at least, none planned). It was just suppose to look occultish. The GM's planned results of research was the name of the demon lord that had been summoned. We'd already known it was a demon summoning circle. The actual symbology however pointed towards love, death, divine patronage, and rebirth. Which, knowing it was a demon summoning circle was... odd. The resulting revamped adventure the GM ran based on my findings was far better then what he had originally planned. Instead of a generic "summon demons for Reasons" themed adventure, the warlock we were tracking down turned out to be a man who was trying to find a way to restore his wife to life. His wife, who happened to be a fallen angel.
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The point was that you said "simi-" instead of "semi-". it was a joke at a typo. Or at least, that's how I read his post. ^^
 
Byzantine said:
Some kind of mass Mind Blank, maybe? It would make everyone invisible to thinker abilities.
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It was previously established that Taylor in particular, and presumably Dragons in general, screw with Thinker Powers. So Amy's presence alone would screw with Ziz, since she is said to perceive the world through her pre-and post cognition, and cannot perceive the "now". This would make Amy, and anyone she's interacting with, a Blind Spot.
 
Jacen1 said:
It was previously established that Taylor in particular, and presumably Dragons in general, screw with Thinker Powers. So Amy's presence alone would screw with Ziz, since she is said to perceive the world through her pre-and post cognition, and cannot perceive the "now". This would make Amy, and anyone she's interacting with, a Blind Spot.
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And yet, Lisa hasn't seemed too hindered by being in Brockton Bay, where both Taylor and Hunts-The-Ice are hanging out.

Now, if there were some other dragons in Canberra, this might carry a bit more weight. But I don't know about it being just Amy herself thoughtblocking Ziz.
 
jmcdavid said:
And yet, Lisa hasn't seemed too hindered by being in Brockton Bay, where both Taylor and Hunts-The-Ice are hanging out.

Now, if there were some other dragons in Canberra, this might carry a bit more weight. But I don't know about it being just Amy herself thoughtblocking Ziz.
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Lisa's power is one of the most insanely overpowered Thinker powers in the Wormverse. Remember, it works on Endbringers, which are specifically immune to similar powers. And even she has problems with capital-D Dragons.
 
jmcdavid said:
And yet, Lisa hasn't seemed too hindered by being in Brockton Bay, where both Taylor and Hunts-The-Ice are hanging out.

Now, if there were some other dragons in Canberra, this might carry a bit more weight. But I don't know about it being just Amy herself thoughtblocking Ziz.
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Lycanthromancer said:
Lisa's power is one of the most insanely overpowered Thinker powers in the Wormverse. Remember, it works on Endbringers, which are specifically immune to similar powers. And even she has problems with capital-D Dragons.
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Thinker Powers seem to fall into three sub-categories: Enhanced senses, Enhanced Cognition, and Predictive Modeling. The first of these is the most reliable, and covers things like better vision, better hearing, and enhanced sense of smell. The second includes Lisa's deductive capability; the ability to take in available data and work out conclusions and concealed information. This requires no extra data sources, though they can help, but as long as they do not, then they can come up with bad results, but are hard to block.

The final type, Predictive Modeling, requires a vast network for data acquisition, and can be thrown off by even a single unknown variable. Any out of context problem can disrupt this sort of power. This is how Coil models timelines, and he had problems with Taylor. This is how Ziz's pre-and postcognition work. This is how Path to Victory works. This is even how Dinah's power works, though hers has a built in error correction ability in that it only gives probabilities, not assumed certainties. These are the type of Thinker Powers that the presence of a single Dragon can most screw with. Not the ones with enhanced senses; to them, a Dragon is no different from any other data source, even if they do get novel data from a Dragon. Not the second type; they may get bad results and "processing errors" leading to headaches, but at least their power still works at a basic level. It's the powers that require absolute data accuracy that fail around those that fall outside of what the Shards can model and predict.

While the above is a response to Spoiler responses, it is not itself a spoiler for the story. Thus why it's not in the Spoiler.
 
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Jacen1 said:
Again, I only wondered in Oni Lee's case because the translation of the Kanji used for Lee was translated in story, implying a greater meaning in context. Much like how Lung means Dragon, Kaiser means Emperor, and how Alexandria is the female form of Alexander, which means "Protector of Men"...
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Based on the emblem on her costume, I'd say Costa-Brown's costumed identity is named after the Library of Alexandria, not a female version of Alexander.

Vyrexuviel said:
That right there? As a GM, that is what I -live- for. ^^ When the players are invested enough in the plot to actually think about it and do research in their off-game time, you know you've 'won' as a DM. ^^
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What's the point in owning reference material IRL if you never use it?
 
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FaerieKnight79 said:
Based on the emblem on her costume, I'd say Costa-Brown's costumed identity is named after the Library of Alexandria, not a female version of Alexander.
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Sure, but both interpretations are valid. It could even have been meant to be both.

Thats the thing with symbols and names. They can carry multiple meanings.
 
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FaerieKnight79 said:
Based on the emblem on her costume, I'd say Costa-Brown's costumed identity is named after the Library of Alexandria, not a female version of Alexander.
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Didn't I already say that ... ? *Confused noises*
Haiku said:
Or it could be referencing her thinker power by way of "Library of Alexandria". Or both.
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And well, Alexandria (the city) was named after Alexander the Great (or Not-So-Great if you're from Iran).
 
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