ZOMBIE FORUMS

if Jon plans to fire both weapons at the same time, it's very likely that Sarine would get hit by the pistol's round instead of Warrel (seeing as how, given their relative positions in the Oct.20 strip, Warrel's most likely standing in the line of sight between Sarine and Jon. NOTE: although Warrel's not between them in that strip, he will be directly behind Sarine after having sliced up her leg, thus placing him between the two). For the remainder of this post, please permit me to take some liberties such as not poring over such details as the muzzle velocities of both firearms, and the speed of sound, (because i don't want to kill any catgirls, lol)

All physics aside, let's say that Jon does just that. Warrel may be sloppy by Ensigerum standards, (but then, to them, a single bullet passing through one's sleeve when single-handedly killing a roomful of armed gunmen is enough to be considered "pathetic, even for a novice"), he is squaring off against an Elven warrior with relative ease, I wouldn't put so much faith in the hope that his "sloppiness" would be enough to hope that he'll critically fuck up somehow.

So what am I getting at?

Here's what. Warrel probably knows well enough that if he hears anything even close to resembling a firearm's action (the sound of the hammer clicking back, or the release of the firing pin when the trigger is pulled, or any characteristic pre-firing weapon sounds), his instinctive reflex would be to instantly teleport/time fugue out of the way. The guy is no pushover - he not only holds the status of a full monk, but he is also an Ensigerum instructor, so those reflexes are probably hard-coded after so many years of his trade. Before the handgun's round even leaves the barrel, Warrel would be safely out of the way, and the round would continue through its trajectory until it hits Sarine, who is just ahead of where he was, and who also can't move out of the way herself, given that her leg, back and very possibly her spine are badly injured.

ALSO, let us not forget that Warrel and Sara can communicate telepathicly, so even if Warrel didn't or couldn't hear those sounds, all Sara would have to do anyway is telepathicly tell him, "he's aiming at you, get right between him and the elf, and when i give the signal, move over there". Which would be pretty damn simple, seeing as how Sara has her eyes on Jon, and can see everything he's doing.

in either case, Jon would end up fucked, and Sarine would end up dead by friendly fire. Not at all a fun way to end a confrontation.

Now, if I were in Jon's position, (not that I would want to be), I'd first fire the shotgun in Sara's direction in a way that if it hit, only a few pellets from the edge of the blast would wing her (depending on the typical spread pattern from that short a distance). Now even if Sara time-fugued out of the way, that wouldn't be such a bad thing either, but i'll get into that later. After pulling the trigger, Warrel (either because he'd have been warned by Sara, or because of his level of training), would near instantly relocate to a new position, as expected...

NOW here's where things would start to go Jon's way: it appears that when time fuguing, a time ninja briefly appears in both their previous position and the new location briefly (this effect is known in the Star Trek universe as the Picard Maneuver. Yeah, i'm a bit of a Trekkie, but work with me here). Given this effect, Jon could fire his pistol at Warrel's new position while he's in mid-fugue (the effect would allow Jon to briefly see where it would be), thus placing a well-timed round where Warrel will be. Because the effect seems to indicate a committed "takeoff", Warrel wouldn't be able to change his "landing" during mid-fugue, and by the time he "lands", the bullet would (hopefully) be right there, and he'd reappear with an exit wound in his head, (if not both an entry AND an exit).

As for Sara during this, she'd be too distracted by the shotgun blast, either because (a) she'd have been lightly wounded and would probably be tending to her injury or in pain, or (b) because she'd have been too busy fuguing out of the way herself that she couldn't do much to assist Warrel, even if she wanted to.

If Jon keeps his eyes open, that plan could work, and as he suggested himself, he's counting on the Ensigerum's predictable reactions (due to their "fuckwit training") to (a) kill Warrel by predicting his time fugue, and to (b) fire at Sara without seriously harming her, counting on her to fugue out of the way herself.

Considering that this is probably Jon and Sarine's best shot at survival, (pardon the pun) and probably Sara's as well, i'd like to know if anyone has any thoughts about it.

- Ptrix

Except that time fuguing is not teleporting between a starting and ending point, but rather speeding up and moving wherever you want for as long as you want until you decide to stop. Remember Anita's sparring workout against the initiates? Also, if Jon waits for Warrel to "reappear" and then shoots, what's to stop Warrel from just time fuguing again?




Unless Sarine has some serious trick up her sleeve, Jon and Sarine's best shot at survival is Sara deciding to switch sides.

Absolutely true. :3nod:

There have been hints of well hidden doubt in Sara for awhile now. What we don't know is if she is going to act on them or not. It's rapidly getting to the point that she has to decide.

Jon is stuck in the middle, between one target that he doesn't want to shot and another that he's not sure he can. Earlier I noted which hand he has the shotgun in. Here's why; In a normal gun fight, without time fugue, you would have the shotgun trained on the near target and the [more accurate] pistol on Warrel (who has a friendly(Sarine) right next to him).

BTW, with either weapon, he would not be going for headshots. He's going for bodyshots because that's the highest potential hit against any target and these guys are damned difficult to hit under normal circumstances. Also, the shotgun is the better weapon, sawed-off 10-guage with 00-shot, against time ninja because it is more of an area weapon.

Can too. Speaking as a linguist, it's the Victorian-minded grammaticians who what to sterilize the language by keeping it to an unused historic 'standard' who crap on it. Great thing about English is that you can do pretty much whatever you want with it. Like noun verbs, or even verb nouns. Fo'shizzle.

Oh, and less these time mages get double-teamed, quick, Jon and/or Sarine are gonna be dead, quick.

good thing Ptrix and I (as well as others I'm sure) haven't gone to in depth... we'd have a mountain of dead catgirls already. :D

I will say, with a shotgun and revolver there would be extreme little sound to acompany them going off, only thing that would give away the revolver would be the woosh of air that the hammer caused, and on the shotgun the metal on metal contact of the firing pin with its housing... nothing a normal or abnormal human can hear... then again... they are time monkeys.

Yep, that's the reason. That incidentially also explains why French tennagers speak English much better than most European youths.



Me beg to differ, I do. There be ways of talking English more or less good. Even when meaning be deciphered can it more or less akward can be sounding when one as Yoda sounds, yes?

still isn't wrong. just requires more thought and reading comprehension.

Jon's comment or mine? If you don't think there was anything wrong with what I wrote, then I'm just gonna give up.

Welcome back, Ptrix.


Give up, they are adamant in their refusal.

Actually, it was grammatically incorrect, but nevermind.

Go Jon, go!

In fact, while I knew what he should have been saying, from context, it was completely opaque to me ;) That is, until about page three of these comments, when someone re-wrote it. That's when I had my "AHA!" moment. I thought there was an entire line of text missing.

Yes, I also follow David Edding's maxim, from The Riven Codex, "Never, ever, write down to your readers".

Having read it properly, it is complete and grammatically correct. It's just an archaic form. But then, I don't do well with Canterbury Tales either. :D

You're saying that you're a qualified English teacher, but you don't know the difference between grammatical correctness and comprehensibility?

A sentence can be comprehensible without being grammatically correct. Languages have rules that you're supposed to follow, like any other discipline. That doesn't mean that everything you say or write must employ perfect grammar in order to successfully communicate meaning. But for God's sake, don't encourage people to butcher the English language, because eventually it reaches a point where it is incomprehensible and looks and sounds awful.

(As other people have already said, the reason "do me a favour and have been taught" sounds wrong is because you aren't meant to use a perfect tense verb - "have been taught" - with the imperative mood, or in other words as a command.)

Just think of this as a lesson in humility for Sarine. 'Specially since Jon's going to end up saving her holier-than-thou elven ass.

I was exactly the same. I thought he had left out the second line or something. I got my head straightened out in the typos thread.

Jon: "Yo Sarine, if we get outta this shit alive, you'd betta NOT erase my memories after we 'celebrate'!"

heh, "elven ass"

BUTTSECKS

How did I earn a reputation on such matters? I took great care to stay away from grammar in the typos thread :)
I read the "not blaming myself/ma's fault" part three times until I got the context. The "have been trained" part needed only two readings. So yes, I found it... legible.

Interpretations have been supplied in plenty in this thread. My first guess was that he hoped that Sara would be able to overcome/kill him without getting hurt herself. I was surprised that it was a speech bubble instead of a thought bubble, though. The spanking part is meant to provoke Sara, probably to distract her so she doesn't interfere with the shot he's going to fire at Warrel.
Some of the speculations here assume quite a lot of consideration on Jon's part. I don't believe that. He was prepared for the original trap, but what happens now is improvisation in real time, against opponents in fast forward. He's just trying to get a shot fired at Warrel before it's all over for him.
And since it hasn't been mentioned lately: Ellis is gonna die! No, wait: Ellis did it, Ian's gonna die! No, wait... who was it?


I did, kind of. Read them last year or the year before, and liked them too. Nevill Coghill's translation into modern english of course. Middle English is way beyond my capabilities :)

For the record, on a semantic level, Jon is requesting Sara for the hypothetical state of existence in which Sara has the status of being trained is true (trained can either be a state or a past participle asking someone to be trained is stative, not the past), not for her to go back in time and to do the training by the fuckwit (although, considering that she's a time ninja, there's a bit of irony in that ;p).

Anyway, I'm with Kesternvarn in saying that there's no point in arguing this for too long; we can figure out what Jon means.

In the meantime, I think the only character that can't die (otherwise the plot goes to all hell) is Sarine—the Elven council wouldn't be crying a river over her death. Everyone else's death can be used for some sort of vengeance/angst moment. So I wouldn't be surprised if Jon gets killed, but at the same time, I'm not expecting it, but I'm guessing Jon does save Sarine.

The term "Grammatical Correctness" is a lie. Each individual has their own internalized grammar. This grammar is composed of the ways that your mind interprets certain symbols, which includes all of the world not just a specific language. (If you see something written in another language this enters your mind as nothing because you cannot recognize the symbols, not because they have no meaning) So to say that your particular grammar is somehow more correct than another person's particular grammar is not only dictatorial, but also quite narcissistic. There is no "perfect" grammar in existence, and as long as we're not Borg, there never will be.

I am not saying that this grammar is the only one. What everyone here is overlooking is the fact that this is a "spoken" line. The fact that it is written on a "page" also makes it a written line in the secondary sense. Because it is a "Spoken" line, the natural grammar of that character, be it fictional or not, is expressed. The "grammatical correctness" you are thinking of would apply only to the secondary sense, and applies only to something written down.

For Writing there are many many more rules that must come into play for a language to be effective. The reason I was saying that what was written was ok is that it is not to be taken as a written line, Jon is not writing, he is speaking. Because he is speaking he is allowed to say things that would, if written, not make much sense. If you want an example look at the transcript of a 911 call sometime. In stressful situations even more "grammatically incorrect" forms become acceptable.

The reason we're having trouble with this is that I was trained to look at "grammar" as being Descriptive, it does not say what a language MUST do, but rather tries to explain what it DOES do. From the way you say "But for God's sake, don't encourage people to butcher the English language, because eventually it reaches a point where it is incomprehensible and looks and sounds awful." I get the feeling that you were taught that Grammar is PROSCRIPTIVE, and thus a total be all and end all for the formulation of language.

I have to agree that some forms of language are much easier to understand, in part, thanks to their grammatical structure. But to say that they are the only way is just not right. Looking at the world in black and white will only get you in more trouble. There are too many shades of gray and dare I say Colors to this world to close your mind to them. I'm not saying that this makes the world any easier to understand.

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

P.S. Sorry to all the catgirls, I'll send flowers to the funerals.