1. Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
    Dismiss Notice
  2. For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
    Dismiss Notice
  3. Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
    Dismiss Notice
  4. If you wish to change your username, please ask via conversation to tehelgee instead of asking via my profile. I'd like to not clutter it up with such requests.
    Dismiss Notice
  5. Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
    Dismiss Notice
  6. A note about the current Ukraine situation: Discussion of it is still prohibited as per Rule 8
    Dismiss Notice
  7. The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.
    Dismiss Notice
  8. The testbed for the QQ XF2 transition is now publicly available. Please see more information here.
    Dismiss Notice

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

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

Loading...
  1. Siskulous

    Siskulous Know what you're doing yet?

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2019
    Messages:
    230
    Likes Received:
    842
    To be fair though Superman is probably right. Kalibak could probably beat Wonder Woman by brute strength, but historically even extreme brute strength is a pretty poor bet against Batman. Unlike Wonder Woman he doesn't fight fair.
     
  2. alid610

    alid610 Light of the Revolution

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2014
    Messages:
    183
    Likes Received:
    254
    Paul you forgot that Despair of the Endless convinced Rao that krypton dying leaving only one survivor would be poetic in the sense of great Despair founding great Hope.
     
  3. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    14,694
    Likes Received:
    728,904
    Despair knew that they wouldn't listen to Jor-El. She didn't make them ignore him. If more had listened or if Tomar-Re had been a bit quicker, things would have gone rather differently.
     
  4. Maxx Crowley

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

    Joined:
    May 10, 2017
    Messages:
    873
    Likes Received:
    4,337
    Yeeeeah....I'ma go ahead and say fuck all that noise.

    If Kalibak is both strong enough to hurt Wonder Woman, and durable enough to absorb her attacks, then there is not a GOD DAMN THING Batman is going to be able to do.

    One hit. ONE HIT. That's all it takes to turn his bones to dust. One clip to that exposed jaw of his.

    Batman doesn't fight fair? Wonder Woman is a master of armed and hand to hand combat, trained by a society that has pretty much perfected that shit. Also? When push comes to shove, Diana will fucking kill you.

    You are talking with entirely the wrong person if you want Bat-wank.

    [​IMG]
     
    Obliviated fan, Drode, Finerc and 8 others like this.
  5. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    14,694
    Likes Received:
    728,904
    At this point in her life, Diana 12 is much less skilled than most depictions of Wonder Woman. Certainly, she's less skilled than Diana 16. There was literally no one in her weight class on Themyscira 12, so she's had a few months at most to learn superstrength versus superstrength combat. She also hasn't really internalised how the modern world functions. Batman's next step was probably to try and get Kalibak to punch a power line; that wouldn't occur to Diana 12.
     
  6. Buggy123

    Buggy123 I trust you know where the happy button is?

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2019
    Messages:
    504
    Likes Received:
    3,746
    Also, DC-Universe humans are almost always substantially more durable and sometimes stronger than real-life humans are. It's never explicitly stated, but it's a more reasonable conclusion than "half of the characters ever depicted have secretly broken most of their bones, and neither us, nor anyone in-universe, ever found out."
     
  7. DrThoth

    DrThoth I trust you know where the happy button is?

    Joined:
    Dec 3, 2016
    Messages:
    697
    Likes Received:
    2,975
    I believe the DCAU wiki states that Hippolyta and Aresia both had super strength, and the latter demonstrated it in her episodes, so while I agree with your other points I don’t think this one has merit.
     
  8. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

    Joined:
    Aug 7, 2017
    Messages:
    1,714
    Likes Received:
    9,865
    Superstrength comes in different levels, though.

    In New Earth continuity, for example, all Amazons are superstrong (as is normal in the comics, since it was true in the Golden Age too), but Diana has super-amazon strength. All Amazons are blessed by the Gods, but the Gods used both hands when heaping out Diana's blessings.
     
  9. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

    Joined:
    Aug 18, 2014
    Messages:
    2,532
    Likes Received:
    20,675
    ...He was a baby when he arrived on Earth. How did he already know marriage between cousins was illegal on Krypton?
     
    DrThoth and anechoic like this.
  10. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

    Joined:
    Aug 7, 2017
    Messages:
    1,714
    Likes Received:
    9,865
    Fortress of Solitude generally includes basically the Kryptonian equivalent of the library of congress. Superman has learned kryptonian martial arts for example.

    In the story in which Superman offered Conner the name Kon-El, the fortress of solitude even had virtual reality home movies of the House of El, including Kal-El's cousin Kon-El, who Superboy reminded him of. So Superman told him "Superboy, I understand you don't really have a name, and you remind me of my cousin Kon-El, would you honor my cousin by taking his name as your own?"
     
  11. Threadmarks: Angelic (part 4)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    14,694
    Likes Received:
    728,904
    28th January
    08:53 GMT -5


    Barely visible beams of red trace lines through the air, each one striking the centre of one of my target constructs.

    "Hah!" Kara slows her flight, smiling as her eyes simmer down. "I hit every one this time!"

    I shake my head. "No, you didn't. Also-."

    The rock-crusher construct I've had chasing her finally catches-

    "Huh?"

    -up with her, momentarily enveloping her feet before trying to crush the rest of her and decaying to orange mist as it fails against kryptonian resilience. She watches the mist decay for a moment until she's sure that it's not about to reform, then returns her attention to me.

    "You stopped moving again."

    "What do you mean? I hit-."

    I extend my left arm sideways and make a beckoning motion, reeling in the target I generated a couple of miles away. She frowns as she focuses on it.

    "You missed this one."

    "How was I supposed to see-? Oh."

    "You now have the ability-."

    "I know, Kal explained it. Microscopic vision, telescopic vision and heat vision."

    "And you can see a wider part of the electromagnetic spectrum. As a civilian, you could probably live your entire life without needing heat vision. But unless you spend the rest of your life with a blindfold, you do need to learn how to focus on things, and how to do so without incinerating them unless-"

    She nods. "Unless I mean to."

    "-you mean to, yes." I generate a dozen targets around me. "Ready to try again?"

    "Can we do it without the rock crusher this time?"

    "That was just to give it a sense of urgency, but… Alright."

    I send the target constructs out in all directions, making sure that they end up at different elevations and directions. I also alter their sizes in an attempt to throw off her ability to judge the distances a little. Kara's eyes dart around as she tries to follow them, then she squeezes them shut with a wince.

    "Problem?"

    She opens them again, blinking, and I notice that her pupils appear to be slightly dilated. She blinks again and… No change.

    "I think I'm stuck."

    "Stuck?"

    She holds up her right hand in front of her face, then moves it in and out. "I can't change my focus. I can see things a couple of miles away as if I'm standing next to them, but anything closer or further away and it's just a blur."

    "Okay. Um." I fly up to her, looking into her eyes as I do so. This never happened to Kon. Of course, his magnification isn't anything like as good as that of a full-blooded kryptonian, and he hasn't been dosing himself with gold kryptonite on a regular basis... "Okay. Shouldn't be permanent, but I'm going to try scan-"

    There's a flicker of red.

    "-ning-."

    I can smell the burning just as I get my construct shield up, the laser from her eyes deflecting up into the sky!

    Kara squeezes her eyes shut. "Sorry! Sorry." … "Are you okay?"

    "Yes. May I ask why you just tried to incinerate-?"

    "It was an accident! I was just trying to-. Unstick my eyes and I-. Pushed the wrong button!"

    Ring scans don't detect any unusual escaping heat from around her eyelids. "Is it off now?"

    She tilts her head back and opens her eyes, twin beams of ruby red failing to burst forth from her pupils. She gives it a moment and then tilts her head back down to look at me, her pupils moving normally.

    "Okay, let's just assume that was a minor cramp thing and move onto a different exercise." I dismiss my target constructs and generate a brightly glowing punching bag construct, a pale construct bunch of flowers and a construct vase. "For your next test-"

    She nods. "Hit the bag really hard, then move a flower into the vase without crushing it."

    "-you have to hit the bag really hard, then move a flower into the vase without crushing it." She rolls her eyes, nodding. "I've reinforced the bag so that it should be able to survive a couple of hits. Begin when ready."

    "Did-" The bag bends as her right fist hits home before I see her move. "-Kal-" She moves to the flower and barely gets it out of the bunch before it falls apart under her fingers. "-ever do-" She grimaces and hits the bag again. "-things like-" She slows down, gently lifting the flower and nearly getting it into the vase before snapping it in half. "-this?"

    "I don't actually know Kal-El that well. Certainly not well enough to share childhood stories."

    The next hit is weaker, but the flower makes it safely into the vase.

    "I'm a little surprised that you haven't asked him."

    "I wasn't that worried about it. I mean, I was, but with everything else… Then… I.. just.. had an off switch. And.. then-."

    "Then I pointed out that it was killing you."

    She looks awkwardly away. "Then you took me to Thanagar and I killed someone."

    "You mean the Man-Hawk?" She gives her head a small nod. "No, you broke its back. The patrol killed it. And given what we-."

    She jerks her head back towards me. "They did?"

    "Yes. Do you.. want to see a recording-?"

    "Great Krypton, no. But.. you're sure?"

    I nod. "I watched them do it. The Man-Hawk you punched wouldn't have survived even if you hadn't hit it; one of us would have downed it and the patrol would have finished it off. The only difference would have been that someone on our side might have gotten injured. Kara, have you been… Worried about that-?"

    "I felt its bones break under my fist!" I just look at her-. "It really.. doesn't bother you at all, does it?"

    "Violence?"

    "Killing."

    "Wasteful killing bothers me. Senseless killing bothers me. Accidental killing bothers me. Ending the life of someone I have decided to kill?" I shake my head. "No, that doesn't bother me."

    "You're a soldier." She nods. "I'm not. I was a mathematics undergraduate. The closest I came to that sort of violence on Krypton was.. walking past a small student demonstration. I'm doing this training so I can learn not to… Break people's spines by accident, not because I want to become a soldier myself."

    "A lot of the time, proper training means that you don’t have to lead with your most powerful attacks. If you learned to grapple or strike with lower levels of force -like Kal-El does- then you could avoid doing that even if you were fighting."

    She doesn't look convinced.

    "But your goal is a reasonable one. Shall we continue?"
     
    Last edited: May 30, 2019
  12. King of Frost

    King of Frost Wishing I was somewhere colder no doubt.

    Joined:
    Dec 4, 2016
    Messages:
    151
    Likes Received:
    1,297
    Well that seems like forshadowing.

    I don't know anything about bizarro kryptonians. I'm not even sure there are bizarro kryptonians outside of Bizarro Superman. But is "losing control of powers" something they're known for? If Match doesn't become Universe 16's Bizarro Superman maybe Kara will have to fill the role?
     
  13. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2019
    Messages:
    2,860
    Likes Received:
    17,209
    More OL and Kara interactions. I'm sort of getting vibes similar to Paul and Kon's early interactions. Will Kara come to see Paul as a trustworthy confidante too?
     
  14. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

    Joined:
    Dec 2, 2016
    Messages:
    873
    Likes Received:
    3,601
    Probably. She already does,to an extent.

    I'm a bit concerned about her vision getting stuck in one mode... Do you think that's going to be significant, plot wise?
     
  15. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2019
    Messages:
    2,149
    Likes Received:
    33,427
    "Hah!" Kara slows her flight, smiling as her eyes simmer down. "I hit every one this time!"

    The rock-crusher construct I've had chasing her finally catches-

    And she didn't even notice the filament either...

    The ultimate form of long-sightedness :p

    Just like a gun: always assume the kryptonian eye is, shall we say, loaded.

    Yes, she can just imagine the consequences of lasering someone, can't she?
    Also, is that ellipsis there intentional, as a sort of literary 'beat panel'?

    Okay, safety's back on.

    She's a smart one. Or she's been doing this a while.

    ...out of the bunch before it falls apart under her fingers.

    Love the concept for strength training.

    Ah, so that's one thing that's been bothering her.

    It does sound nasty, when you put it like that...

    Much like Kon did, too. And Artemis. And Richard. Though the latter two at least used strength dampening tech...

    Heh. Cue training montage. Good to see OL building relationship scores with the Super-family.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2019
  16. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    14,694
    Likes Received:
    728,904
    Thank you, corrected.
    Yes.
     
  17. Handlewithcare

    Handlewithcare Versed in the lewd.

    Joined:
    Feb 6, 2019
    Messages:
    1,289
    Likes Received:
    12,971
    It's interesting to see a take were "suoperpowers" doesn't automatically mean "I now want to beat up people"
     
  18. TheEyes

    TheEyes Well worn.

    Joined:
    Jul 2, 2018
    Messages:
    5,043
    Likes Received:
    49,793
    It's very refreshing, really, and (if OL were inclined to look that way) a major point that he and Kara have in common, given the number of rants he's had against righteous face-punchers. I do rather expect the "In Praise of Eros" version of this chapter to have significantly more references to Kryptonian kiegels. :p
     
  19. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2016
    Messages:
    2,842
    Likes Received:
    15,029
    So, in your story, is lust still the trigger for early use of heat vision?
     
  20. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    14,694
    Likes Received:
    728,904
    The SI... Hasn't asked.
     
  21. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2019
    Messages:
    2,860
    Likes Received:
    17,209
    When did that ever happen?
     
  22. DAT_NOOB

    DAT_NOOB Accused of writing in a far away land

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2019
    Messages:
    821
    Likes Received:
    3,144
    In stars crossed Pt 1 (part something) Grayven made a joke about lust being the cause of Kara's use of heat vision against him
     
  23. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

    Joined:
    Dec 1, 2016
    Messages:
    14,694
    Likes Received:
    728,904
    because that's how it worked in Smallville.
     
  24. DAT_NOOB

    DAT_NOOB Accused of writing in a far away land

    Joined:
    Jan 27, 2019
    Messages:
    821
    Likes Received:
    3,144
    Kara 50 x Grayven is still one of my favorite ships
     
  25. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2016
    Messages:
    2,842
    Likes Received:
    15,029
    Honestly never watched that show. The acting seemed bad. I read about it in some superman comic, that was probably influenced by Smallville.
     
    infinityDivided, Relyt33 and DAT_NOOB like this.
  26. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

    Joined:
    Apr 5, 2018
    Messages:
    2,117
    Likes Received:
    8,238
    Is smallville any good? I’ve heard mixed things about it.
     
  27. DrThoth

    DrThoth I trust you know where the happy button is?

    Joined:
    Dec 3, 2016
    Messages:
    697
    Likes Received:
    2,975
    I don’t think we’re given enough information about DCAU Amazons to gauge variation in strength levels (unless it was mentioned in the spin-off comics that I never read), but I do like Diana being the exemplar in any continuity due to her above-average divine patronage.
     
    Prince Charon and Relyt33 like this.
  28. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

    Joined:
    Aug 7, 2017
    Messages:
    1,714
    Likes Received:
    9,865
    I enjoyed it, despite its flaws, but whether you would share my assessment I don't know.

    Although the Smallville comics had a version of Megan I found interesting. She was introduced as a White Martian first, then a superheroine, so she sported this look [​IMG], never bothering with the "mixing Martian Manhunter's appearance with a cheerleader" she generally has going on for her.
     
    Bramble Thorn, Cuchulin, Ardy and 3 others like this.
  29. Senevri

    Senevri Not too sore, are you?

    Joined:
    Aug 17, 2015
    Messages:
    277
    Likes Received:
    1,059
    Some good. Some horrible trainwreck.
     
  30. Gantradies

    Gantradies Not too sore, are you?

    Joined:
    Jan 29, 2019
    Messages:
    329
    Likes Received:
    1,407
    I’m trying to remember- does Wor-Ul know that Kal’s Father tried to talk reason into the council, is she in denial/projecting her issues with other members of the House, or does she just not care at this point?
    justifiable bitterness or not, she continues to give a pretty poor impression- gotta love the irony of the only member of the admiralty with the guts to tell the SC no being a gutless coward trembling in the shadow of someone decades her junior...
     
Loading...