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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. DAT_NOOB

    DAT_NOOB Accused of writing in a far away land

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    Holy shit I'm hyped for that right now especially since hubris was an important part of Ancient Greek myth and paul has that in spades
     
  2. w34v3r

    w34v3r Versed in the lewd.

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    Is it really hubris when you are better than the gods though?
     
  3. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    Yes. The Greek word for sin, hamartia, originally meant "error" in the ancient dialect, and so poets like Hesiod and Aeschylus used the word "hubris" to describe transgressions against the gods.

    That's where the modern definition and the religious use of the word come into conflict.
     
  4. jonasquinn

    jonasquinn I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    To be fair Paul is functionally immortal so he has potentially centuries before he has to worry about dying and even then there's a good chance that with the sudden flow of alien souls Hades might actually be more powerful than Zeus and/or the Ophidian just won't accept Paul not being in her domain
     
  5. rdfox

    rdfox Know what you're doing yet?

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    Linda might actually want to consider the US Army as a possible career path. Yes, she'd have to work well with humans, and yes, she'd have to go through basic training without using her superpowers to mulch her drill instructors, but I suspect that she'd enjoy being part of the Corps of Engineers. After all, if you ask any member of the CoE what they do for a living, they'll explain that, primarily, they train for their two combat roles by practicing building things, then practicing blowing them up.

    The "building things" part wouldn't be that much to Linda's liking, but I bet she'd thoroughly enjoy the Demolitions part of the job. After all, the credo of the combat engineer is, "There is no problem in life that cannot be solved by a properly sized, shaped, placed, timed, fused, and triggered explosive charge." :V
     
  6. Steelplaza

    Steelplaza Custom Title

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    I suppose that depends on if Zeus requires sincerity or if the gesture of knuckling under through gritted teeth is enough for him.
     
  7. Gantradies

    Gantradies Not too sore, are you?

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    eh, Zeus is an egotistical cockwaffle of a over-sexed manchild who's lucky his Ex-Wife didnt do onto him what Cronos/Kronos did to his grandfather (violent castration) the nth time he stuck it in a mortal after hollowly promising he wouldn't- by this point, honor or keeping oaths....really isn't -really- his thing- he lost any right to be pissed over Hera divorcing him literal millennia ago, and this isn't the Classical era - the power dynamic paradigm has shifted significantly- he can't get away with wildly smiting mortals in retribution for his own mistakes left and right anymore ...
     
    Last edited: Nov 6, 2019
  8. PrinceJonathan

    PrinceJonathan Versed in the lewd.

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    Or they realized death has a revolving door and were using suicide to visit friends and family on the other side, or take a vacation. They'd eventually come back to life in a week or so, but their returns were never recorded.
     
  9. Xelloss

    Xelloss Know what you're doing yet?

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    Speaking of Cronos, TIL that Cronos (Κρόνος), Titan and father of Zeus, is different from Chronos (Χρόνος), personnification of time.
     
  10. Eponymic

    Eponymic Getting sticky.

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    I appreciate the effort you put into managing the Hellenic pantheon, especially considering the hash DC Canon made of it. It's nice to see the Mycenaean, cult, and personal relationship aspects attended to.

    Your attention to world building, detail, and history is clear and quite nice. Though, considering his role in rebirth, death, and multiple lives Dionysus seems oddly absent.
     
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  11. Tzeentch

    Tzeentch I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    MAIDEN: Oh, DON'T call us "Furies", dear. Not that.

    MOTHER: NEVER that.

    CRONE: "The Kindly Ones" is much more accurate.... don't you think so too, my precious?
     
  12. Jiro

    Jiro Getting sticky.

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    In this universe people have immortal souls which retain sentience without a connection to a brain. If you affect someone's personality or intelligence with a physical change to their body, does that affect their soul too? Or does a criminal affected by a brain modification suddenly want to become a criminal again as soon as he dies? (And if you lost your criminality because of a brain modification, does your afterlife give you credit for that or do you still count as an unreformed ciminal?)
     
  13. SirKaid

    SirKaid Know what you're doing yet?

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    The soul in DC is mostly a record of the person it belongs to. If a person had catastrophic brain damage that resulted in a personality shift then their soul would reflect that.

    I say "mostly" because there's magic that can alter the body via the soul. It's not purely a one way street.

    For the most part, though, the body is the important bit in determining the makeup of the body-soul system.
     
  14. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    Except when they are the same person, because Greek myths varied by location and time if not storyteller by storyteller, so the myths were even less consistent than DC comics.

    Plutarch Of Isis and Osiris "And they are those that tell us that, as the Greeks are used to allegorize Kronos (or Saturn) into chronos (time), and Hera (or Juno) into aer (air) and also to resolve the generation of Vulcan into the change of air into fire, so also among the Egyptians, Osiris is the river Nile, who accompanies with Isis, which is the earth; and Typhon is the sea, into which the Nile falling is thereby destroyed and scattered, excepting only that part of it which the earth receives and drinks up, by means whereof she becomes prolific."
     
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  15. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    No. It has not. Zeus is still the King of the greek pantheon, as BestGirl explained it, no matter how powerful Hades grows, Zeus is more powerful still. Also, Hades cannot gainsay Zeus' punishments.

    It really doesn't matter your opinions on Zeus, what matters is a happy afterlife experience.

    Zoat wrote BestGirl as saying that Uncle Zeus is more powerful than her dad, no matter what.

    The Ophidian being in charge of his afterlife experience is most likely true, yes. But until proven, caution is good.
     
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  16. WorstMirari

    WorstMirari the girl in blue

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    begins

    (hi I'm catching up on months of backlog and finally made a qq acc. we still do typo corrections, yeah?)
     
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  17. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    ...

    No?
     
  18. Aeess

    Aeess I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    I think you misunderstood something, taking souls in doesn't make Hades stronger, in fact each soul reduced is potential poweer because he lets them draw magic from Erberos, which is his own power source, so after taking in millions of souls Zeus actually has the upperhand in any confrontation.
     
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  19. WaleXdraK

    WaleXdraK Not too sore, are you?

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    Wait a second, could someone please refresh my memories about the whole feud with Zeus?
     
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  20. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    I would assume that Dionysus would be most please with Paul. After all, new babies are being born on Thamiscara for the first time in well over a thousand years. Surly those mothers would be rejoicing and praising Dionysus for the new and healthy life. (sure Paul helped, in a mechanical/medical way, but the normal way of reproduction would have produced similar results.)
     
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  21. Gilhelmi

    Gilhelmi Know what you're doing yet?

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    So Zeus had an affair with Dr. Sandmark, producing little Cassandra Sandmark. This came to light when Paul was talking about the Greek Gods with Diana and he mentioned her. Turns out everyone thought that Zeus was back on the wagon and not having sex with everything with legs. This really hurt Queen Hera (Zeus wife).

    Fast forward, Diana helped Paul become a citizen of Thamiscara, and he decided to worship the gods. He choose to worship Eris (goddess of chaos). Then a "mysterious woman" appered to him and asked him to talk to her Aunt who was crying over the whole affair at the temple of Hera. Paul goes and tells her that Hera should divorce Zeus.

    Turns out "SURPRISE" the Aunt was Queen Hera herself and the "mysterious woman" was Eris. Hilarity ensued.

    For the full transcript, the main arc starts here
    https://forum.questionablequesting....stice-si-story-only.8961/page-22#post-2458337
     
  22. nick012000

    nick012000 Gone for Good

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    IIRC the Twelve Labors of Hercules happened because Hercules got enslaved to a king for 12 years as punishment for murdering his wife. It seems plausible that an analogous situation with Paul would involve Zeus just flat-up telling Paul to work for Wonder Woman or Queen Hyppolyta for 12 years or something.
     
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  23. Ardy

    Ardy I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    There are so many "servicing royalty" jokes in there
     
  24. Threadmarks: Sprited Away (part 10)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    18th February
    10:09 GMT -6


    "How did they die?"

    Daniel Brown's grave is neatly kept, and the flowers in the stand next to the headstone are in good condition. At fifteen, he was one of the younger suicides.

    "Shotgun blast to the chest."

    "Shotgun?" Garth looks away from the grave and turns his attention to me, his hands about a metre apart. "Aren't shotguns about this long?"

    "About that, yes. The pathologist wasn't sure how he pulled it off. Technically, the cause of death was either shock, septic shock or blood loss, but… It's not a way many people would choose to die. It would have been painful and not particularly fast. That's why I mentioned the 'slow and painful' option earlier."

    "Are the.. others like that?"

    "There's no particular pattern. Drug overdoses, extreme risk-taking and self harm are all common, but over the total number unusual forms like this are more common than the statistical average."

    I'm not seeing any black, but then again… I'm not sure that I would. My vision is empathic after all; this corpse isn't feeling anything.

    Hm.

    "Linda, was this graveyard properly sanctified?"

    "That is not for me to determine." She shrugs. "People earnestly pray here with sufficient frequency that it is hallowed enough for most purposes."

    Running out of covert ideas.

    "Right, the interstate turnoff it is! It's a bit of a hike-" I turn away from the grave. "-but perhaps we-"

    There's a boy… Probably in his early teens, standing and watching us from just inside the graveyard. He's slightly overweight, and I feel a pang of sympathy at the sight of the acne covering his face. He's wearing thick-rimmed glasses and his hair is an untidy black mop.

    "-can take a bus or something."

    And then I feel it, a weak mental probe. It's out of character for a tourist to be able to block things like that, but I really can't take the risk of something like that worming its way into my mind.

    Ring, stop putting everything into Greek.

    Compliance.

    "Good morning!" I smile politely and raise my right hand in greeting.

    "I'm trying to look at your thoughts, but I can't see them."

    At least he's honest about it.

    "I know how to keep telepaths out. Have you heard of a man named Henry King Junior?"

    He just sort of stands there, arms held limply at his sides.

    Oh. Right.

    "Did you.. know Daniel?"

    "He was in some of my classes. I knew him, but he didn't know me."

    O.. kay…

    I open my empathic vision a little, but I'm not really seeing anything particularly unusual. The lack of fear is interesting, but I suppose that if he's known what everyone around him was thinking and could project into them then he wouldn't have much reason to fear other people. Of course, legally that's pretty questionable, but mind reading isn't illegal in most states and mental suggestion… Isn't inherently illegal in most places either. In Oregon it would bump up the severity of an offence but wouldn't be a crime itself unless he actually started puppetting people.

    "Do you know why he did this?"

    "He was ugly."

    Ah… The pictures I saw looked fairly normal to me. But I suppose that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

    "Everyone's ugly on the inside. Sometimes they see it."

    And of course the problem with a telepath in a non-telepathic species is that, A, there's no one around who can recognise what they're doing and B, there probably aren't any people around who can stop them because you don't have to be a very powerful telepath to ruin most people's days.

    Ring?

    Nigel Patterson, 15. Good scholastic record. No criminal record.

    Of course, if he's telepathic, getting answers to test questions wouldn't be all that hard.

    "How do you mean, 'ugly'?"

    "They all have things that make them afraid or ashamed. They force them way down inside but they spend so much effort and time pretending that they're not there that things get all muddled. Muddied."

    Garth glances at me, his tattoos on low-glow. I give my head a small shake and make a 'stop' gesture with my right hand.

    "I see. I'm not like that."

    "I can't see your ugliness because you're keeping me out. But it's there, under the shield."

    "No, I have this shield because I've fought telepaths and telepathic weapons before. A little over a year ago I was forced to take a good long look at my own ugliness." I shrug. "It's not an issue any more."

    Nigel.. shudders, his jowls wobbling in a way I find quite disconcerting.

    "Show me."

    Okay. Turning off my shields around a telepath. I have practised regaining control in this sort of situation but it's not particularly easy. On the other hand, this boy isn't exactly M'gann, is he? Quick scan of the area for telepathic weapons…

    And I relax my mind and let my conscious be free.

    I feel the probe and deliberately don't stop it, letting the.. mildly uncomfortable presence touch my thoughts. With an experienced telepath there are ways to encourage them to look in particular places, but… Yes, he isn't examining in a structured way. I feel momentary flashes of feeling and memory as he prods at something he's probably the only person in the state to be able to perceive. I'll need to talk to his parents about getting him some tuition.

    And now he's shaking all over.

    "Ah, are you alright?"

    "It's beau-beau-beautiful."

    He gently removes his glasses from his face with his right hand and uses his left to wipe the tears from his eyes. Then his legs give out and he collapses onto his bottom.

    I can still feel him on the edge of my mind, just… Feeling me. It's just about the least invasive thing he could do, and I'm… Not sure if I should let him keep doing it or cut him off.

    "Nigel, we're a bit busy. Are you going to be alright? Do you want us to phone someone for you?"

    "No. I'm fine. Just leave."

    I'm unsure, but… I glance at Garth and Linda but get a pair of shrugs.

    I restore my resting shields and lead the way out of the graveyard.
     
    Last edited: Nov 7, 2019
  25. Ardy

    Ardy I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    Damnit Paul after 2 years you're supposed to be more suspicious than this!!! Telepathy explains all of this and you just happen to find a telepath at the grave of a kid explicitly telling you why the kid would kill himself?

    Come on Paul, get your shit together.
     
  26. King of Frost

    King of Frost Wishing I was somewhere colder no doubt.

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    I'm guessing he's too young to be the cause of the increase in suicides, unless it's a weird tradition that gets passed from one telepath to another as time goes on.
     
  27. thebishop8

    thebishop8 Umm, ackchyually...

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    *him some tuition
     
  28. Rebu

    Rebu hey, little Anna, you're the one

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    If I remember Needful Things correctly, he could've used his toe.
     
  29. batrax

    batrax Making the rounds.

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    Last edited: Nov 8, 2019
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  30. iamnuff

    iamnuff Connoisseur.

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    That's suspicious as fuck, and the fact that Paul didn't string two and two together makes me think that he may have suffered brain-damage recently.

    That dude could not have looked more guilty if he wore a neon sign that read 'Telepathic murderer' around his neck.
     
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