Talk:Life Hacks/no-pan/Push Billy's Dad into attacking you

I've had a thought rolling around in my head for a while. Patricia is very anti-violence, but how would she react to this situation? Xander did, indeed, choose to re-direct Hank's fall in such a way that his head would slam into his knee, but that is something that requires a fair amount of training and would look like Hank just accidentally tripped and happened to land that way without Xander doing anything. And then, Xander is trying his best to render medical attention. (So far as the training involved, I could do something like what Xander did, but me and my opponent would have to both be standing and I could not make it look like an accident. Or rather, I could, just not like I had no involvement. It would look like I was trying to do a non-harmful take down and I clumsily smashed them into my knee. I do know people who could do precisely what Xander did though, including my Sensei. It is more a matter of skill than superhuman ability, but of course Xander's superhuman ability helps.) At any rate, no one except someone who has the same kind of training would even suspect it is possible for Xander to have done that on purpose. An untrained outside observer would just see that Hank tripped while trying to attack someone who was backing off and did nothing. (Of course, then there is the fact that he used some pretty inflammatory language leading up to this incident.) Jemini (talk) 02:14, 30 October 2016 (CET)

I see your point. I'm a little conflicted then. I wanted the violent route to improve the relationship with Roni (white-knight hero-worship) but close off the path with Patricia. This would basically probably be a watered down version of both as a result. Maybe Patricia wouldn't ask Xander to mentor Dante, but if Dante asks she would grudgingly accept? If we go that route, I would like an option in there for him to really kick Hank's ass, giving a big boost to Roni, and shutting down Patricia unless something radical is done (like the duck or some manipulation). --Elerneron (talk) 03:16, 30 October 2016 (CET)

I will have to think about that one. I have primarily been having Xander use actual martial arts. The thing about martial arts is that ALL actual arts that are used in combat use a lot of grappling and little fist use, historically speaking anyway. This is true of the two large epicenters of martial arts tradition, Roman and Chisese, and also of most indiginous martial arts such as Celtic stick fighting witch is a good study for anyone into martial arts in to how these principals just seem to develop similarly anywhere they come up. I have been having Xander primarily use a particularly subtle defensive style from Japan that is based around being aware of how you look to observers, using subterfuge to make it seem like even if you completely thrash your opponent you always have plausible deniability that you didn't even do anything and can even try to say you don't even know how to fight. That does make sense as being the ultimate evolution of martial arts mastery in my mind, but it makes perfect sense for Xander to want to show off and use something a little more showy out of sport fighting origin. Sport fighting is where most striking styles come from. Striking styles basically develop in environments where people are not encouraged to drop striking from their methods, because grappling does just work better than striking. About the only reason one would avoid dropping striking for grappling is because striking looks cooler to an outside observer and grappling is something where you have to know martial arts in order to appreciate what the fighters are doing. Therefore, people who engage in sports fights are the very most encouraged to keep striking as part of their style.

At any rate, I will try and think of a real martial arts and sport arts route for the encounters, the sport arts would be the ones where he really lets him have it. Also, I have planned for a route where Hank winds up trying to pull his gun and Xander winds up really letting him have it with a legit martial art, probably by tackling him and riding him down the bleachers and likely causing catastrophic damage or death. (I haven't yet decided whether he is going to be dead or have a level of broken bones akin to having been in a car wreck if this happens.) Jemini (talk) 04:08, 30 October 2016 (CET)