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

I'm not a fan of magic in DC or Marvel. It lacks internal consistency. I've toyed with the idea of doing a magic using SI primarily to address that. Also because elemental magic is cool and it bugs me that Zoat has it be the most basic sort here.

 

I don't think the Silver City could make him replacement demons to build a sword out of. I don't think anyone outside one of the Skyfathers (or whatever DC calls the pantheon heads) could do it, and iirc theurgy would be entirely incapapble of creating demonic magic, being its opposite.

However, if I were Paul I'd try to take out Neron and some of his more powerful lieutenants and fuse their bones into a sword; you wouldn't get a godkiller like the Sword of the Second and Third was, but it would be effective against pretty much everything except a god, which is really quite a lot.

Also, I think it would be hilarious if Paul made a second sword out of Glory, considering that she's basically the nega-First: her two slightly less powerful siblings actually managed to kick her out of hell.

 

Hol' Up.

https://doomwiki.org/wiki/Arch-vile_(Doom_Eternal)

 

I agree on the (complete) lack of consistency. Unfortunately that's part and parcel of having 100+ different writers making stories in shared universe while not having time or motivation to fact check who knows how many issues their predecessors made. That and not carrying enough to figure out implications of various instances of magic have on the setting. I don't have much desire to see even more elemental magic users. Everyone and their dog seems to use it in from of blasts (or bending at most). But if you ever do end up writing it I'd give it look.

 

The angels made the Second and Third of the Fallen in the first place to distract the First an keep him from doing more terrible things

 

I feel like he wouldn't make it in the shape of a sword if he wanted those capabilities, though from a Doylist perspective, Zoat probably wouldn't have had him lose it in the first place only to get a new one.

Depends on how you do it I reckon. If one equates blasts or bending to the normal constructs produced by a lantern's ring in this fic then imagine what the equivalent to some of the advanced techniques shown might be.

 

Neil Gaiman attempted to answer the multiple magic styles thing in the original Books of Magic comic, which was also a bit of a tour through DC's magic characters and their fantasy comics history. IIRC, the answer then was "magic is basically a force, and the expression is dependent on societal traditions, mores, thought processes and individual beliefs".

And blood. Lots and lots of blood.

 

For those being surprised at how Oz is acting... this is Oz.

 

OK, Glory. In Sunnydale. Which strongly implies Dawn. And, potentially multiversal apocalypse of a highly unfortunate variety. Which might fit in with what Mr Big Blue Hand is up to?

Glory and OverGirl are probably about as strong and fast, it's practically impossible to compare/evaluate beings on that level. Glory has got access to ritual magic, which is... unfortunate. Assuming OverGirl has the usual issues with magic (though maybe with some warning/prep time she can use its energy) if Glory counts as 'magic' one blow could splatter her. Relying on your flying brick to go HtH with the local evil brick, unwise.

Buffy and Co. have probably got obscure prophecies about what is going on, if the PtB (or whoever feeds info to the Slayer Spirit) have got their act together. And, none of them are noticing anything strange about Dawn. Who is totally ignorant about what's going on.

Yup. Messy. And going to get more messy. Though some might consider Spike having his heart ripped out entertaining... The Mayor is not going to like superheroes 'dancing around' in his city, and his magical resources are pretty major...

 

Even as a little kid I always imagined kicking Finster out of his own lab and taking it for myself because even back then I knew he wasn't using it to the full use it could be.

 

This right here. FTL transition her ass to Venus and problem solved.

 

It's 1997. Dawn doesn't exist yet.

 

Interesting, as Dawn was regarded as the reason Glory came to Hellmouth City... I guess this might imply Glory is a playing piece moved there by the local Powers that Be? To deal with intrusions into the local universe? I don't know, of course.

And I'm pretty sure you wont tell us. Yet.

 

She detected the portal Paul, Raúl and Democratic Socialists girl used. That is why she came to Sunnydale early.


Remember in other episodes it has been mentioned that parallel travelers have a lingering energy signature when they go from one universe to another, in the same way time travelers leak chronowhatervers.

 

So, Glory has been travelling cross-county, in Hulk-style leaps, after forcing Ben to take her shape, in whatever US hospital he happens to work in, at the time? Or, her aim is bad and she teleported in high? Trying to figure-out exactly where the extra-universal intrusion is? Could be interesting...

 

Glory could have come because Krona's actions are doing some things to the other universes and she sensed it.
Remember Krona's actions led to Overgirl coming to Earth 16. so maybe he is trying to get his hands onZaul and that alerted some individuals that something was going on.

 

What year does season 5 take place in-universe?

 

OK, so Oz doesn't first appear (except in passing) until Episode 4 Season 2 (October 1997), and this is a reasonably inexperienced Oz. So, he probably isn't a werewolf, yet.

Mr Zoat has said this is 1997, which seems to fit with that.

For those interested, Wikipedia has a great deal on BtVS. For those really interested there are, online, text versions of all the dialogue, episode-by-episode... Some have regarded these as a major resource for fanfic writers trying to stick to canon...

I think the idea was that the first transmission dates of BtVS episodes were supposed to match, pretty closely, with the in-universe dates...

 

Raul has at least managed to retain his tendency towards politeness.

Oddly enough I think the love entombment will be more effective than raw destruction in this case. Glory isn’t very killable so sealing her in a brainwashing can for a few thousand years is probably a longer lasting solution.

 

Blood and story, rules of individual magic subsystems are determined by 'societal traditions, mores, thought processes and individual beliefs' i.e. collective Dream. It works on a large scale - if you said that collective belief determined how magic works on a scale of a planet that would work; but it really doesn't work on a small scale - if every practitioner/group of practitioners beliefs affect how the magic works in their neck of woods you end up with Fate situation (and fuck that). All those years your character poured into mastering their groups' magic pointless as soon as they enter another groups' territory.

I really like Gaiman's portrayal of magic But. It doesn't really help if you want anything even remotely resembling consistency in your story.

 

Yeah. In fact, if Oz is still considers himself new to the existence of vampires and the like this is pretty damn early.

Pretty sure August of 1997 takes place between Season 1 and Season 2. Which means this predates Oz appearing in the show. It'd also mean he shouldn't really know vampires are a thing yet. He didn't learn vampires were a thing until January of 1998.

Buffy should also be staying with her dad for the summer, so I wouldn't expect her to make an appearance.

Though I guess you can always chalk up any differences to ripples caused by Black Ring Paul.

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As for Mayor Wilkins . . .

He stumbled on the Hellmouth in the 1800s, not long after a Slayer was killed there by some demons. He ended up making a pact with them to avoid being killed himself. The pact involved him agreeing to found a town that would be friendly to demons feeding on its inhabitants. There were also some other deals struck that gave him immortality. The ageless variety. He doesn't get unkillability until the 100 days leading up to his ascension to Olvikan.

Also, it's really fucking weird that during the lead up to ascending he flat out can't be killed. But then, once he actually ascends, oh yeah, totally killable now.

He's actually a genuinely nice guy who also does evil shit to obtain the power to rule the world. Because he thinks he'd do a pretty good job of running things, and because he wouldn't be beholden to any demons. Later on you even have the gang kind of miss how good he was at running Sunnydale. Something along the lines of, "He was evil, but at least the bureaucracy wasn't a mess and the potholes got filled."

Anyways . . . Good news for Red Lantern Paul. The Mayor should be totally killable right now.

 

As others have said, this appears to be the season 5 Big Bad, showing up roughly 3 seasons early,

Oz didn't introduce himself, no, but Raul recognised him from his own memories of the show. Oz likely is just chalking it up to 'superhero stuff'

Sunnydale was at least 100 years old. Mayor Wilkens was officially portraying his own grandson as far as the human inhabitants were concerned. He was the Big Bad of Season 3 after having been revealed to be the subtle 'power in the shadows' running the city while keeping people from noticing the monsters. He was portrayed as fitting the trope of 'Affable Evil', and actually didn't mind the Slayer being present in town (She dealt with jerks threatening to mess up the town/region before they could disrupt his plans)

 

General public also doesn't do parkour.
I don't recall if homo magi were a thing in WTR. But if so, vanilla sapiens are probably pretty meh with magic and might instead go for psionics instead since that seems to be humanity's equivalent of Kryptonian powers.

 

I honestly never understood arguments like this. Learning parkour requires you to get really fit but general athleticism aside the main benefit is the 'coolness' factor, it doesn't allow you to violate laws of physics on a whim. I can't do math to save my life but if it was a generally accepted fact that learning to do integral calculus in your head will give you literal fucking superpowers you can bet I would pour myself into it even if all I get in the end are D&D cantrips.

So sure, if you want to make learning magic so hard that most people wouldn't bother you can - your story - but that isn't actually what we see in DC comics. Given the portrayed difficulty there should be far more magic users around and more importantly they sould've been around since the dawn of time. The world would realistically be literally unrecognizable even if only 1% of population bothers learning the Craft.

 

Um, that’s… that’s not even close to right.

 

Glory, uh?

Good thing it was red, Grayven would have easily killed her.

 

I mean, there could be a Somebody Else’s Problem field on magic - and it was at one point more popular. Also magic being caused by belief might only work to a point. If every child believes that waving a stick over a top hat and saying “Abracadabra” makes whatever is in it disappear, doesn’t mean it will.

 

Wait... Oz fucked off from Sunnydale in season 4. And he learned about vampires in season 2. So we're probably not in the Dawn times yet. Glory probably sensed a dimensional traveler and was like "Yes please now please".

Except she's not that polite or intelligent to say that. So more like "gimme".

 

Or super science, or... Basically, in-world, you could assume that there's an external influence, and Boss Smiley almost certainly isn't it. The world is linked to a 'master' world, call it Earth Prime, if you like. Or, using Zelazny/Amber logic, DC Earth is a Shadow of that 'higher' world. So, details may vary, but the broad brush strokes... Yes, you can talk 'transfictionality', but the linked worlds approach can be attractive...

(I've also come across the term 'causally linked', but that's fancy talk. )

 

WILKINS: Well, gosh!