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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Discussion in 'Creative Writing' started by Mr Zoat, Jan 27, 2019.

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  1. Coda

    Coda Versed in the lewd.

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    "fully", probably.

    Your choice and positioning of expletive rather inverts the intended meaning.
     
  2. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
     
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  3. OrigamiPhoenix

    OrigamiPhoenix Getting sticky.

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    Rules for SV. Rules for SB. Rules for QQ. The rules between them are mostly the same - especially between SB and SV because SV is an offshoot. Standard forum rules apply; civility, sock-puppeting, spam, illegal content, etc.
    Both SB and SV has explicit rules for gender pronouns and the like, and will punish any deliberate dismissal and taunting concerning such. QQ does not, but they will no doubt consider any harassment about it worth punishing just as much as other misbehavior.
    SB prohibits NSFW content such as pornography or excessive gore. SV prohibits child pornography and won't allow smut, but anything else is fair game so long as it can arguably be considered "high-impact content" and handled maturely. QQ has NSFW sections where all that stuff belongs and prohibits gore involving children.
    Both SB and SV don't allow hate speech; advocation of genocide, violence, discrimination, etc. QQ doesn't mention any of this, but again, this could very likely overlap with other rules.
    Both SB and SV keep politics to their designated sections because they're generally considered off-topic and unwise to have a conservation about outside of the debate arenas. QQ doesn't allow politics, period. Even mentioning modern events in the political sphere is bending this rule.

    I don't actually know the full story behind why Zoat was banned from SB, so someone else is going to have to fill you in there, but he was banned from SV for a combination of (rather rudely, imho) expressing his view on gender politics and using the "I identify as an attack helicopter" meme to spite the moderator even though they just told him that, no, that isn't acceptable language on SV. If you want to hear any more about it, pm me (or Zoat, if he's willing) because gender politics aren't allowed to be discussed on QQ.
    And before anyone else tries to talk about it - no, you can't, please stop! We don't want the mods to gaze in this direction again!
     
    Last edited: Jun 27, 2019
  4. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    The one thing we might be violating at the moment is having some NSFW comments out of the NSFW section. I don’t think we really do, but yesterday’s discussion on pedophilia might be cutting it a little close, though not under the rules as set out i the rules page.
     
  5. Silverias

    Silverias Know what you're doing yet?

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    SV definitely has lewdness, it's just in the unlisted thing. "Enthustiastic consent" springs to mind.
     
  6. Grimnar

    Grimnar Versed in the lewd.

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    He wasn't. He got dinged for mentioning a planet name when episode 7 came out and the mods went fucking retarded. So he missed his daily post and moved to SV. He's still able to post on SB.


    You consider people making jokes rude? What sad sack of crap.
     
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  7. Coda

    Coda Versed in the lewd.

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    No, he got dinged for mentioning that the Millennium Falcon was in it.

    To describe how absolutely absurd this is, the Millennium Falcon was on the movie poster.
     
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  8. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    My thoughts on both issues are listed in the FAQ. But it wasn't the name of a planet, it was the fact there were rebels in it.
     
  9. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    Question. Why can't OL Paul use his rings communication system to call BL Paul, then leave? He can toss Zatanna the Sapphire Staff if YL Scott tries to stop them, because lets be honest, OL is stronger by himself than the guy with no AI in his ring. With Zatanna, they could beat Olympia also and head home before lunch tomorrow.
     
  10. Maxx Crowley

    Maxx Crowley I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Could have sworn Olympia was blond.

    Anyway, I think it'd be hilarious if OL just went "Yeah....nah." And just up and ported himself and Zatanna back home. Seriously, the lack of kidnapping villains being told to go fuck themselves and deal with their own shit is sad.
     
  11. Chaoswind

    Chaoswind Lord of nonsense

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    Nice catch, yes Paul should be capable to contact Blue Paul.

    Pretty sure Mr. Zoat hates you now.
     
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  12. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    Noooooo, he would just give me an honorable mention in the next "Common Sense" chapter. I love the second greatest superpower of all (let's be honest, 'billionaire' is the greatest supersower, Elon Musk is proof of that)
     
  13. Valint

    Valint I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Yes x100.

    Except... if someone does give a reason, and it's a bullshit reason that they're giving for politeness' sake, I think they only have themselves to blame when instead of resolving the issue, it ends up with the other person trying to figure out how to overcome the bullshit reason.

    "We can't date because it wouldn't be appropriate" is all but telling someone that you want to date them, but they just have this obstacle they need to overcome, and Paul's insistence on pretending to be a different age than he internally identifies as made that reason seem even more bullshit to her than it does to him.

    He finally got around to just giving a "No" (here, for those who might not recall), but before that, I don't really blame Zatanna for seeing a fuckton of mixed signals.

    ... yeah, I'm kind of not seeing the reason why (a) Paul was their only or best option, and (b) why he should give a fuck.

    I hope we get a better reason than "Because you just need to ignore that or there won't be a story."

    His excuse never held up anyway. He eventually just had to give her a straight answer, which was "I love Jade. I like you as a friend, but nothing more, and that's not going to change."

    That another version of Paul fell in love (maybe?) with another version of Zatanna doesn't really change that statement about how this Paul feels.

    It might, however, lead Zatanna to think that, if she was only more like Zorina, it would have all worked out, which probably doesn't send her down a good path.
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2019
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  14. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    That's true, you can just refuse outright instead of a excuse, but the problem is that refusal tends to be... loaded.

    If you tell a typical person "no", they might accept it at face value, or they might try and figure out why you said no. And a lot of the time, those reasons would be due to perceived inadequacies or some such, and then it becomes this whole complicated mess where you have to try to convince them that that isn't reason, but they may not believe you, and so on.

    With a teenager, that's not a "might". That is almost certainly what would happen. Especially since OL can't give the real reason, and Zatanna thinks that OL is also a (slightly older) teenager, and teenagers tend to be so desperate for intimacy that not being interested in the first place is relatively rare. OL was stuck between a rock and a hard place, trying to let her down without also demolishing her self-esteem.
     
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  15. Gantradies

    Gantradies Not too sore, are you?

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    i guess the question would be if the/a AI had genuine Artistic Talent vs just copying something else,like with any sentient, though it gets fuzzy when you consider that there's artistic merit in altering/reinterpriting existing works too,and fuzzier still when the potential ability to thick/act much faster then organic norms would make cheating believeably more easy....
    it would actually make a good topic for an in-charicter debte Between Canis and several others..
     
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  16. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    This being Canis, I'd half expect him to disqualify most AI because they can't feel pain. Art is suffering, especially for someone from Apokolips.
     
  17. Threadmarks: Some Time Ago on Earth -14
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Earth -14
    Shadowcrest
    27th October 2011
    09:27 GMT -5


    I stand at parade rest outside the Don's drawing room, waiting for my invitation to enter. Given the events of the past year I could probably-. No, Zorina was very clear on that point. I could barge in and he'd have to take it, but if I decide to treat him as an underling then he can't be part of the Management and I have to be. A Manager can walk in on a Made Man. Made Men don't walk in on Managers.

    And to be fair, the Don has been perfectly happy to admit how much he owes me and the team. And aside from one extremely worrying moment when Doctor Chaos nearly talked Jonathan around to his way of thinking, the team has been solid in its support. And while I'm not sure that they all totally get what's happening around them with the Syndicate and.. post-Syndicate-domination America, neither overt nor covert observation shows anything worse than minor grumbling about having to actually pay for things now.

    Emperor Rickard was a mistake, and a costly one. But with The Answer, Don Giovanni, Capo Scott, Barracuda and the Director gradually being accepted as the new Management by the surviving Made Men, things are gradually getting-

    "Sure, Uncle Gio."

    -to a point where we're actually somewhat in control of things.

    The door opens, and I adopt a somewhat more relaxed posture as Zaccaria Zatara walks out. He's.. not a member of my team, having been dispatched to the New York base of the Zatara family in order to learn the family business by the cabal that directs the family business back in Sicily. As a result I haven't really had much to do with him, though he's always been polite when I've visited at Zorina's invitation. Now, he sees me waiting and his face… Stills in the manner of someone who has learned not to let their face betray them but hasn't learned how to affect the expression they desire.

    "Power Ring Blue."

    "Good morning, Master Zatara."

    He stares into my eyes for a moment, then gestures over his shoulder to the door. "Uncle Giovanni wants to talk to you."

    "Then I will attend to him at once." I nod politely. "Good day."

    He keeps watching me as I step around him and walk towards the door. Not sure what I've done to put his back up. The Don already said that he wouldn't be joining the Young Offenders, and not just because he isn't on President Wilson's radar yet. I'd use a nano-infection on him to eavesdrop and try to find out, but as Zorina said, her family regularly check for things like that and he'll feel obliged to strike back. And while his version of the family's magic only works on non-living things, that category includes both 'air' and 'power rings'.

    I push open the door and.. see that the Don already has company. He sits at the head of the table, while Mister Scott gifts me with an unsettling smile from his place at the Don's left. Zorina sits primly at his right, while Charles Tong sits on her right. But not her immediate right, and the gap and the abandoned teacup indicate that's where Zaccaria was a minute ago.

    "Power Ring Blue." The Don gestures to the empty seat next to Mister Scott. "Take a seat. We've got something to discuss."

    "Thank you for inviting me." I pull out the chair and sit down, briefly glancing at my Manager. Usually, Mister Scott isn't slow to tell me what he expects from me at this sort of meeting, but I'm not getting anything-

    "Tea?"

    -from him-. I jerk my head around as Mr Tong holds up the teapot. Ah yes, the one respect in which the New Management definitely beats the Old Management: much less alcohol. While I don't like tea any more than I like liquor, at least it doesn't burn my throat.

    "Thank you, yes."

    Mr Tong puts a sterling silver tea strainer over a cup and pours a dark-coloured tea into it. Cup filled, he sets the pot down and gestures to the sugar bowl. "Sugar?"

    "One, please." He uses a small set of tongs to deposit a single sugar cube into the cup before passing it over. "Thank you." I leave it to cool in front of me and turn to the Don. "What can I do for you, Don?"

    "I want to know what your intentions are towards my daughter."

    Unlike his nephew, the Don has excellent facial control. I don’t remember much about Giovanni Zatara from the comics, but I'm reasonably sure that he wasn't anything like as physical as the Don is. It isn't all muscle, not after two decades of running a Zatara Family branch from behind a desk, but he's still pretty tough-looking. My eyes dart to Zorina for a moment, but she's keeping her face deliberately blank.

    "Zorina is an extremely capable young woman-."

    "I'm not asking you for her school report, Paul. I'm asking about your personal intentions."

    "I don't-. I'm not romantically interested in her. Quite aside from the fact that I'm twice her age, I actually find her casual and unthinking ruthlessness quite unsettling."

    Zorina-. There's a small smile on her lips. And I don't know why.

    "I see." He takes a sip of his own tea, then returns the cup to its saucer. "Do you know why Zaccaria lives here?"

    "Training? I had been assuming that the Zatara Family intends to expand further into America, and he was here to learn the territory."

    "No."

    "Then… Are his parents weaker than you, mystically?"

    "Not a bad guess, but no. He's here to succeed me when I die." He sees the concern in my face. "Not now. Decades from now." He snorts quietly. "Whatever Wilson thinks. Zatara family tradition is that successful branches pass from father to eldest son. Since I don't have any sons, my sister Zenobia had a word with our mother and arranged to have her second son sent here."

    "What.. about Zorina?"

    "That's up to her. She won't get put out on the street, but she can't run the business."

    "That's.. ridiculous. She's got the skills, the magic ability-."

    "And?"

    "And you're saying that there's a blanket ban on her doing it because she's female. I didn't realise that your family discriminated-."

    "That's not it."

    "I'm sorry?"

    "We don't regard women as less important. You think fighting is more important than raising children? You think I don't respect my mother, same as I respect my father? No. No. It's just tradition that there are some things women do and some things men do. Not that I think it makes a whole lot of sense either." His expression hardens. "My own papa told me, my wife's body barely cold in the ground, that he wanted me to remarry. For Zorina's sake. Like I… Like I can't raise my own daughter right. Because raising children is what the women do."

    "I'm.. sympathetic, but-."

    "Zorina wants to take over after me, and there aren't a lot of ways that can happen. If Zaccaria wasn't here, we mighta been able to swing it. But he is, and picking a fight with the rest of the family wouldn't be a good idea. The other option is marrying well and running the business through her husband." I frown-. "Not another Zatara. But someone appropriate. We usually like to marry other magicians. It improves the chances of the children getting the powerful version of our family magics. But it doesn't have to be, as long as they've got something to offer the family. You're a Syndicate Made Man. A lot of our people respect you, respect your judgement. And you're probably going to join the Management one of these days."

    "Giovanni, if you want me to.. do interviews to-."

    Zorina giggles. It's a sound that worries me.

    "No, he wants to make sure that you haven't seduced me with your-" She widens her eyes slightly. "-wily ways." She turns to Giovanni. "Happy, Daddy?"

    He glowers. "I wouldn't say happy. He's right, he is twice your age."

    Zorina smiles confidently. "He's also Mister Scott's apprentice. The two of us being together will make it clear to everyone that the Management are here to stay."

    "Um. Zorina, I thought you were hitting on me because you enjoy making me uncomfortable. I didn't realise that you-. I mean, do you… Love me?"

    She smiles, shaking her head. "No. But… I respect you. I like you. I only joined the Young Offenders so that I could find a useful idiot to mind control, but you… You have potential."

    She pushes her chair back and walks around the table to me.

    "I'm sixteen in just over three months." She leans forward and kisses me on my right cheek. "Save the date."



    "Um? Excuse me?"
     
    Last edited: Jun 28, 2019
  18. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

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    Zatana is going to have all sorts of thoughts once she understands how her counterpart arranged the marriage.
     
  19. Zeromaru2

    Zeromaru2 Versed in the lewd.

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    No matter where Paul goes, he just can't escape girls half his age from hitting one him.
     
  20. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    That was a much better reason than what I thought happened.
     
  21. Temp0101

    Temp0101 Not too sore, are you?

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    Yeah pretty much what I expected, but I wonder what they're doing in space exactly. Looking at Rage Paul's romantic situation and pretty much any other Paul makes me pity Hope Paul.
     
  22. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Oh yeah, totally a role model. Zatanna is going to look at this and think "This is fine, we could have a relationship after all!".

    Yep. Definitely. Nothing unsettling here.
     
  23. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Indeed. It would be a considerable insult and loss of Face.

    Now that's a fascinating combo there.

    -to a point where we're actually somewhat in control of things.

    Still has much to learn, this one does.

    Actually scary when you think about it... The perfect assassin.

    Worry. Definitely Worry.

    Forget worry, Internal Panic rising!

    Ironically truthfulness here helps your case...

    Because managing a criminal empire is not work for respectable women?

    Old-fashioned fellow...

    It improves the chances of the children getting the powerful version of our family magics.

    Wily, or more 'noble' ways?

    And poeple would probably assume it was an arranged marriage anyway.

    Welp...

    Fascinating, and sheds a lot of light on how they ended up in that position. Let's hope Zatanna doesn't get ideas...
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2019
  24. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    He doesn’t like tea?:eek: How can he call himself British?
     
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  25. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    It should be: She widens her eyes slightly.
     
  26. Razorfloss

    Razorfloss I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Internal screaming
    I now wonder how awkward this is going to make Paul and zatanas relationship
     
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  27. ForeverShogo

    ForeverShogo Not too sore, are you?

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    Why do people keep saying they hope Zatanna doesn't get ideas? The conditions that made the Zorina/Blue marriage happen don't exist in her own universe.
     
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  28. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
     
  29. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    Now when I say Oo, you say Long!

    Not with that attitude.
     
  30. Bigking321

    Bigking321 Not too sore, are you?

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    Lol. Poor blue.

    So does he have absolutely no say in the matter then?
     
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