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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. Trifith

    Trifith Your first time is always over so quickly, isn't it?

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    Sheraga shergar actually.
     
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  2. Sceptic

    Sceptic Critical Irrationalist

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    Jersey benne? King Edward? Shetland black? Vodka?
     
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  3. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Episode 12. Doom Patrol Go.

    I think that's actually worse than what I put Grayven through.
     
  4. Maxx Crowley

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

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    I always heard of the Doom Patrol. But I don't think I've ever read them, or anything about them. Minus the fact that I THINK Beast boy came from there.
     
  5. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Don't worry, you still have time to make it up to us by putting Grayven through even worse.
     
  6. Sceptic

    Sceptic Critical Irrationalist

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    Before or after Paul? Oh yeah, and his SI too, I guess.
     
  7. King of Frost

    King of Frost Wishing I was somewhere colder no doubt.

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    At the very least his Teen Titans iteration did. Though obviously this version started the show as a normal person but got his powers from M'gann. Unless Zoat changed that for the story, I haven't actually watched Young Justice.

    All I know about the newest season is that The Light has a metahuman trafficking ring going, which holy hell Lex Luthor how far are you willing to fall for this group? And that Granny Goodness is openly operating using her most known name.
     
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  8. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    Lex was never very high to begin with. Paul just doesn't want to see it because Lex has the potential to contribute greater than he already has. Lex won't ever do so though, because he values his pride and rage more than his spoken values.
     
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  9. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    Well in general, they started off as a bunch of "freaks"- A man who lost his whole body in an accident, a woman who can grow and stretch, a pilot who is possessed or astrally project a black energy entity, etc.

    Then DC gave them to Vertigo and they went full on weird.

    Like dealing with golems made out of skin dust and love letters there were never read, a cosmic conspiracy led by a set of Punch and Judy puppets, the Tower of Babel is being rebuilt underneath the Pentagon by the Architects of Reality who broke off from the extremely genderfluid reality warping shapeshifters that humanity is descended from, a cosmic entity that claims to be God and Jack the Ripper, and an imaginary friend out to destroy the world with nanites.
     
  10. Legend of Ruina

    Legend of Ruina Moderator

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    Basically the original Patrol was Elasti-Girl (Rita), Robotman, Negative Man, and the Chief. Elasti-Girl was honestly rather poorly named, her power was actually (occasionally uncontrolled) size changing. The Chief was a mad scientist, responsible for assembling the group, making Robotman’s body, and providing Negative Man with bandages that kept him from irradiating everything near him. Meanwhile as not actually members you had Mento, Rita’s millionaire suitor who created a helmet that gave him telekinesis and telepathy, he was kinda a prick, and actually applied to join the team, but was rejected (Unanimous vote was required, Rita voted no).

    Meanwhile Beast Boy was a similar case, a disaffected youth who had an abusive guardian embezzling his fortune after his parents died. Amusingly at this point the animals he turned into weren’t green, so he actually did have a secret identity thanks to running around with not a single bit of skin showing.

    Eventually things progress, Mento and Rita get married, they manage to win a legal suit Beast Boy’s current guardian and adopt him. Things are nice and happy. Then one of the Patrol’s nemeses goes completely insane (long story, involving competitive attempts to brainwash her between the Chief and the Brain), goes on a rampage, allies with another of their more serious nemeses to kill both the Doom Patrol and the Brotherhood of Evil. In the end the Patrol proper (Mento and Beast Boy are off doing other stuf) is trapped on an island and given an ultimatum of choosing between their lives or the lives of 17 normal people on a nearby island. The Patrol decides to be idealistic and sacrifice themselves.

    Mento is kinda understandably devastated by this, and so he ends up not doing much afterwards besides serving as a guardian for Beast Boy. Both end up blaming Mento for the loss of the Patrol. Mento eventually goes crazy and becomes a supervillain after a crossover with Swamp Thing and Constantine, back when Constantine was just part of Swamp Thing’s supporting cast.

    For the Patrol there’s a followup wherein Robotman is revealed to have survived. The following comics are kinda bland until they suddenly start taking drugs. The important thing to know for the relatively sane bits of continuity are that Rita’s the only one who actually died, and the Chief was revealed to have been really crazy and behind the accidents that lead to everyone else getting their powers. Basically canonical manipulative Dumbledore.

    There’s a lot of weird stuff mixed into what I generally refer to as the on drugs bits of continuity, but that’s what’s likely to pop up. Also Robotman is the one constant on the team, everyone else is replaceable. Writers would frequently murder large chunks of the cast before passing it on. Or murder large chunks of the cast after having it passed to them.
     
  11. Threadmarks: Z-E-R-O (part 17)
    Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    2nd January
    15:09 GMT -7


    Littleville's grown a little since the sixties, though it's still not exactly densely populated. The largest industry in the area is farming, though they also still have the heavy manufacturing that made the Thunderbolt Syndicate's attacks possible. Quite a lot of the American Army's old 'specialist' weapons used to be built around here, borderline mad science machines that were never reliable or cheap enough to make it into mass deployment. But as electronics improved and became more reliable, the local plants weren't able to adapt to the new reality.

    Still, while the legal facilities explained the illegal expertise and equipment, there isn't anything in the records I've been able to access which explains the presence of a device that can actually grant superpowers. Some of what happened could have been explained by sophisticated tools or power armour, but the vast majority simply can't.

    Ring, anything out of the ordinary?

    Low level exotic energy residues detected. Locations largely overlap those of reported fights between local superheroes and known exotic weapons. No other significant anomalies detected.

    Fine. I transition to a point three kilometres above the town library and then descend at speed. And every time I do that I wonder how much of a risk it actually is. I know that transitions leave a residue that can be traced. The problem is that for the first time since the original glow experiments a colour other than green is being used en masse. I know that the Guardians chose green due to the fact that it causes minimal mental alterations. John's ring didn't have any records of them studying the side effects, but… Having a Lantern flying around a Space Sector and generally not picking more than one per world per generation would minimise the problem anyway. And most of them didn't have the raw power that I do. And I know that they generally don't use-

    I trigger the kinetic belt to arrest my descent, landing lightly to the surprise of a handful of townsfolk. I smile and wave politely before proceeding inside.

    -several techniques that I do.

    "H-hello?"

    My smile broadens as I make eye contact with the librarian. "Good afternoon, sir. I'm looking for copies of the town newspaper, nineteen sixty five to nineteen seventy, if that's at all possible."

    "Ah, sure. Any.. particular reason?"

    "I'm trying to track down your local superheroes. I mean, I imagine they'd all be fairly old by now, but there are any number of up and coming superheroes who could benefit from their experience."

    "Those crazy guys from the sixties? I always thought they were probably government agents. Hey, Pat!" He comes out from behind the desk and waves down one of the aisles. "Gotta take a guy to the records room. Cover the desk for me?"

    "Sure thing."

    "It's this way."

    He leads the way up an internal staircase and along the landing to a door marked 'Periodicals'. He then gets out a key and unlocks the door.

    "We're getting some kids from the local college to scan all this stuff onto computer and index it so's people can actually find things. But a lot of the originals are real delicate."

    "How far have they got?"

    "Nineteen fifty." He pushes the door open and shows me inside. "Of course, they're working on plenty of other publications as well. Used to be a couple of major print factories in Littleville, so that's a lot of magazines." I bow my head as he leads me over to the racks containing the carefully protected newspapers. "Ah, sorry, I guess that's not going to make your life much easier."

    "Oh, the life of a superhero."

    He walks over and turns the wheel to open one of the interlocking stacks. "You'll probably want to start in here-."

    "No, thank you, that's fine. Ring, scan."

    Compliance.

    "You.. don't need to look at them?"

    "My rings can scan and sort them faster than my eyes and brain." Though not instantly, with this many paper copies to go through.

    "Find anything helpful?"

    "Not yet."

    There are a few appearances listed here that I didn't already know about. Checking the area covered… Within easy travel distance of plenty of places where whoever was doing this might live. I'd have liked to see if the neophyte superhero always headed straight from his… Or given that I already know that the dial can change a person's sex, her home. But since this was very definitely before mass camera usage, there just aren't enough pictures for me to work with. Whoever this was, they weren't all that bothered about public acclaim.

    I wonder if..?

    "I don't suppose that anyone has made a compilation of photographs made by private citizens, have they?"

    "Not that I know of. Why are you looking for this stuff now, anyway?"

    "I have reason to suspect that the device which granted them their powers has reappeared. I want to ask its original user or users about it."

    "Well if that don't beat all." He edges towards the door. "Hey, I might know someone who could help with that. Should I give them a call?"

    I nod. "Please."

    Okay… Police reports are on an electronic database, so if I compare response times that might give me an idea of travel distances.

    "Been a while. Let's see… Four six seven seven six seven."

    Cross-referencing police reports with newspaper reports… No, there's not much more here than-.

    **Who has the dial?**

    My construct gutters as I stagger under the mental force! I look around and-.

    A floating brain a metre across shielded by a telekinetic barrier, pink and white cables running across its surface and into a pulsating organ on its underside.

    **Who has the dial?**

    Space between us bends as its shield narrows and bwugh! I'm sent flying through the wall, my environmental shield flickering at the force of the impact! I take control of my flight before I can hit anything else, heavier armour appearing around me from subspace and construct armour covering that. Looking back at the wall of the library I see the brain float towards the hole, another fluctuation in its telekinetic shield grabbing the brickwork and making a circular section explode outward.

    "Please evacuate the area-"

    I stick a construct barrier in the way of the flying detritus, blocking it before it can hit anyone.

    "-in a calm and orderly fashion!"

    With the debris blocked, people in the surrounding area come to their senses and start running away just as fast as they can. I suppose that it's been so long since a super fight happened around here that the locals have lost the instincts for bystander survival.

    I return my attention to the brain as it floats out of the now enlarged hole.

    "Who are you?"

    **I am the Scintillating Psionist! Give me the information I want or everyone here dies!**
     
    Last edited: Feb 10, 2019
  12. RichardWhereat

    RichardWhereat Aia airëa Fëanáro.

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    Oh you. Couldn't be the Titillating Tester, or the Psychopathic Psychic...
     
  13. Tbryan

    Tbryan Know what you're doing yet?

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    Horror?
     
  14. Vaermina

    Vaermina Well worn.

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    Paul really should have asked "why" everyone does things the way they do before deciding "my way is better"...
     
    Last edited: Jan 31, 2019
  15. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    Some of what happened could have been explained by sophisticated tools or power armour, but the vast majority simply can't.

    ...other than green is being used en masse.
    (This may depend on your preference for spelling)

    And most of them didn't have the raw power that I do.

    I'd have liked to see if the neophyte superhero always headed straight from his…

    ...Suspicious reaction...

    Taking a guess here: H-O-R-R-O-R? ;)

    Curiouser and curiouser. Now why would a small-town librarian have a Dial, I wonder?
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2019
  16. Ngamer11

    Ngamer11 Experienced.

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    @Zoat, little off topic, but who are the current members of the Justice League in both timelines. A few updates ago, Robin said that aside from Red Rocket and Alan, there were two more new members. I assume one is Zauriel. Is the other one Blaze?
     
  17. Mr Zoat

    Mr Zoat Dedicated ragequitter

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    Thank you, corrected.
    No, Doctor Mist and Blaze.
     
  18. OrigamiPhoenix

    OrigamiPhoenix Getting sticky.

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    Is this what you mean:

    467767
    HORROR

    Or is there some reference I'm not getting?
     
  19. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    horror. It’s simple number with like letter replacement. 7=r 6=o 4=h (upside down). Someone mentioned it yesterday as part of a crossover with Superman when someone puts horror into the dial.
     
  20. Queshire

    Queshire Not too sore, are you?

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    It's been mentioned before, but you can also use the dial to dial HORROR instead of HERO to, presumably, turn into that thing.
     
  21. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    Simple - the town is the dial - whenever you put hero or horror into something with a dial (like an old phone) the equivalent happens.
     
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  22. Ganurath

    Ganurath Apologizes For Nothing

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    On... on phones that don't have keyboards, the numbers are correlated to groups averaging about three letters each. The number 1 gets skipped, so 2 is ABC, 3 is DEF, 4 is GHI, 5 is JKL, 6 is MNO, 7 is PQRS, 8 is TUV, and 9 is WXYZ.
     
  23. Mquz

    Mquz Versed in the lewd.

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    Honestly, this seems like it would be fine, especially if he was warping to villains. If it does something non a non-local scale - like opening a brief hole to the greed dimension, that also doesn’t seem so bad - on Earth at least (would probably mix with White entity radiation or something and just make people a little more greedy at most).
     
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  24. Chojin Patriarch

    Chojin Patriarch Veteran Lurker

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    I was being kinda sarcastic. More likely, the librarian is someone from, or related to someone from, the sixties 'Dial H for Hero' series...

    Here's a scary thought: What if someone made a smartphone app version of the Dial... Superpowers at the touch of a screen. Yikes...
     
  25. Korfayron

    Korfayron Making the rounds.

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    Or Mentok the Mind taker
     
  26. moralrelativity

    moralrelativity Recovering pendant.

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    Shouldn't that be "Titillating Teaser"?
     
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  27. Bigking321

    Bigking321 Not too sore, are you?

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    While I don't disagree, he is asking these questions now and that's character growth I can get behind.
     
  28. Stsword

    Stsword Versed in the lewd.

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    Hmm, interesting.

    So more than one dial, since this person transformed using a dial to ask where another dial is.

    But no mention of Fairfax, New England in the eighties, which is where and when the Chris and Vicki adventures took place.
     
  29. edmantgoog

    edmantgoog Not too sore, are you?

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    Read hero.com and villain.net
     
  30. BR549

    BR549 This is filth! FILTH!!

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    As a footnote, that's for late phones and keypads. Before that for quite a while Q and Z were actually put on the 1 - occasionally you'll still come across an older pay-at-the-pump keypad that still has that layout.
     
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