- Location
- Hampden Park
Thank you, corrected.
With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
- Status
A very short story.
Yes, he knows he's in a story, that doesn't mean he can predict everything and game the system.
He's seen plenty of stuff that didn't match his expectations. He can't even be sure he's the/a main character for the story. Hell, even if he's a self-insert, that doesn't stop some authors from putting their characters through hell.
Respite (part 5)
- Location
- Hampden Park
16th August
01:47 GMT -6
"How are..?" I sigh. "I suppose that Bubbles and Magic are dead."
Mother puts down her coffee mug. "They were quite elderly Cats."
I nod sadly. It doesn't surprise me, but given how long we'd had them… Since.. Teekl I haven't even thought about getting a pet. And Wolf-.
What was I..?
"So, do you feel up to looking around? I-. Do you remember that I had a comic called Transmetropolitan? I don't remember if I ever showed it to you."
Mother shakes her head. "What was it about?"
"It was set in an American megalopolis, and it was about government corruption and people's responses to it. Technology changes but people stay the same." I shake my head. "The reason I mention it is that one of the things they did is, take people who'd been cryogenically preserved, reanimate them and then send them out into the world. And.. most of them, when they saw how weird it was, sort of… Couldn't cope and went into a mild fugue. Permanently, in most cases."
"What's it like, then?"
"Most places still aren't that different. Maybe what Earth Prime will be like in thirty to forty years. And then there are things that are totally out there. Most big cities have portals-. Remember Stargate?" Mother nods. "Not exactly like that, but if you step through one you turn up at another. I've basically killed off long haul air travel, global warming is a memory-."
"That's amazing!"
I shrug. "With the technology here, it's more amazing that no one did it before me. At the moment I'm focusing on restarting Human space travel, which… For some reason was still using rockets like NASA Prime."
Mother looks thoughtful for a moment. "Thaddeus called our Earth Earth Prime. What does that mean?"
"For the sake of convenience, different parallel universes get assigned labels so that we know what we're talking about. Ours is Prime, this is Sixteen, and… I've encountered one or two others."
I don't know if telling Mother about the other versions of me is a good idea. Clearly none of them have made contact with Mother yet. I've wondered, sometimes, if whatever it was that dragged us from Earth Prime copied us and sent us everywhere, so we're not just different versions of the same person but different people who used to be the same person. Earth Prime is unique in its characteristics, Blue-me's Bleed portal had the exact same characteristics as mine… It makes sense…
"Was there anything visible when I left? Like, a.. weird glowing hole in space or something?"
Mother shakes her head. "I don't know. By the time Cells4Life phoned me it'd been a couple of days. When I went to your house it didn't look like anything was out of order, and the police didn't find anything."
"It probably wouldn't have been possible to detect anything with Earth Prime technology." Though they must be going… Crazy… Now…
Um.
Um? What was I..?
Ah.
"So how's everyone in..? Um, on.. Earth Prime?"
"Fine. Peter and Karen's cottage is mostly finished now-."
"Have they sorted out the drive yet?"
"No, it's still brick and mud. But the… You know the room where we put our coats?" I nod. "That's got a settee and a fireplace now. Your Dad's still swimming regularly."
"Anything radically new?"
"None of the rest of us have been pulled into a parallel universe and become superheroes, no."
"And how's everyone taking the news?"
"Shocked. When the radio first started playing messages I thought it was.. some sort of… A trick. There wasn't any sign you'd actually died, you hadn't left any sort of note or done anything…"
"Anything that suggested that I was planning to go off somewhere and kill myself." I shrug. "Good news: I didn't." I frown. "So… No one apart from you and Dad know?"
"What were we supposed to tell them? Now there's an actual thing there to point to we can.. tell people. We should probably let the police know first." Mother… Mother? Mother exhales, her hands playing with her mug. "You've probably got more experience with that sort of thing that I have. What do you think we should do about it?"
I huff. "No idea. Technically, it would be the job of the Foreign Office to establish relations… If they wanted to. But we can't make the portal bigger than it is now. Trade's pretty much impossible, as most of the really useful technology we've got wouldn't work on Earth Prime. And we'd probably get sued by DC."
"I don't think it works like that."
"Probably not."
Mother finishes off the last of her coffee as I think about how I want to do this. No, let's see what she wants to ask.
"So… Are you the only Orange Lantern?"
Ah. "The only one on Earth, yes." Am I? Yes, of course I am. But why? There's no logical reason for me not to have recruited additional local help. We're not short of avaricious Humans, I'd be around-. Oh! No, of course! How could I forget Lex taking a ring from me? "No, sorry, I-."
How could I forget Lex taking a ring from me?
Damn, that's… That's not even subtle. But what else..?
I look Mother in the eyes. Heh. Once you know to look…
"I'm sorry, I didn't mention it before. But you're looking very well, Mother."
"Thank you?"
"I'd say that you haven't aged since I last saw you. At all. And I've never referred to you as Mother before today, except sarcastically. A dozen times in this conversation alone I've experienced moments of confusion resulting from what felt a lot like telepathically induced doublethink, because they trained us to spot that as well. And I'm sure there are things I'm missing, or was made to forget or not notice."
"Who are you?"
01:47 GMT -6
"How are..?" I sigh. "I suppose that Bubbles and Magic are dead."
Mother puts down her coffee mug. "They were quite elderly Cats."
I nod sadly. It doesn't surprise me, but given how long we'd had them… Since.. Teekl I haven't even thought about getting a pet. And Wolf-.
What was I..?
"So, do you feel up to looking around? I-. Do you remember that I had a comic called Transmetropolitan? I don't remember if I ever showed it to you."
Mother shakes her head. "What was it about?"
"It was set in an American megalopolis, and it was about government corruption and people's responses to it. Technology changes but people stay the same." I shake my head. "The reason I mention it is that one of the things they did is, take people who'd been cryogenically preserved, reanimate them and then send them out into the world. And.. most of them, when they saw how weird it was, sort of… Couldn't cope and went into a mild fugue. Permanently, in most cases."
"What's it like, then?"
"Most places still aren't that different. Maybe what Earth Prime will be like in thirty to forty years. And then there are things that are totally out there. Most big cities have portals-. Remember Stargate?" Mother nods. "Not exactly like that, but if you step through one you turn up at another. I've basically killed off long haul air travel, global warming is a memory-."
"That's amazing!"
I shrug. "With the technology here, it's more amazing that no one did it before me. At the moment I'm focusing on restarting Human space travel, which… For some reason was still using rockets like NASA Prime."
Mother looks thoughtful for a moment. "Thaddeus called our Earth Earth Prime. What does that mean?"
"For the sake of convenience, different parallel universes get assigned labels so that we know what we're talking about. Ours is Prime, this is Sixteen, and… I've encountered one or two others."
I don't know if telling Mother about the other versions of me is a good idea. Clearly none of them have made contact with Mother yet. I've wondered, sometimes, if whatever it was that dragged us from Earth Prime copied us and sent us everywhere, so we're not just different versions of the same person but different people who used to be the same person. Earth Prime is unique in its characteristics, Blue-me's Bleed portal had the exact same characteristics as mine… It makes sense…
"Was there anything visible when I left? Like, a.. weird glowing hole in space or something?"
Mother shakes her head. "I don't know. By the time Cells4Life phoned me it'd been a couple of days. When I went to your house it didn't look like anything was out of order, and the police didn't find anything."
"It probably wouldn't have been possible to detect anything with Earth Prime technology." Though they must be going… Crazy… Now…
Um.
Um? What was I..?
Ah.
"So how's everyone in..? Um, on.. Earth Prime?"
"Fine. Peter and Karen's cottage is mostly finished now-."
"Have they sorted out the drive yet?"
"No, it's still brick and mud. But the… You know the room where we put our coats?" I nod. "That's got a settee and a fireplace now. Your Dad's still swimming regularly."
"Anything radically new?"
"None of the rest of us have been pulled into a parallel universe and become superheroes, no."
"And how's everyone taking the news?"
"Shocked. When the radio first started playing messages I thought it was.. some sort of… A trick. There wasn't any sign you'd actually died, you hadn't left any sort of note or done anything…"
"Anything that suggested that I was planning to go off somewhere and kill myself." I shrug. "Good news: I didn't." I frown. "So… No one apart from you and Dad know?"
"What were we supposed to tell them? Now there's an actual thing there to point to we can.. tell people. We should probably let the police know first." Mother… Mother? Mother exhales, her hands playing with her mug. "You've probably got more experience with that sort of thing that I have. What do you think we should do about it?"
I huff. "No idea. Technically, it would be the job of the Foreign Office to establish relations… If they wanted to. But we can't make the portal bigger than it is now. Trade's pretty much impossible, as most of the really useful technology we've got wouldn't work on Earth Prime. And we'd probably get sued by DC."
"I don't think it works like that."
"Probably not."
Mother finishes off the last of her coffee as I think about how I want to do this. No, let's see what she wants to ask.
"So… Are you the only Orange Lantern?"
Ah. "The only one on Earth, yes." Am I? Yes, of course I am. But why? There's no logical reason for me not to have recruited additional local help. We're not short of avaricious Humans, I'd be around-. Oh! No, of course! How could I forget Lex taking a ring from me? "No, sorry, I-."
How could I forget Lex taking a ring from me?
Damn, that's… That's not even subtle. But what else..?
I look Mother in the eyes. Heh. Once you know to look…
"I'm sorry, I didn't mention it before. But you're looking very well, Mother."
"Thank you?"
"I'd say that you haven't aged since I last saw you. At all. And I've never referred to you as Mother before today, except sarcastically. A dozen times in this conversation alone I've experienced moments of confusion resulting from what felt a lot like telepathically induced doublethink, because they trained us to spot that as well. And I'm sure there are things I'm missing, or was made to forget or not notice."
"Who are you?"
Last edited:
RichardWhereat
Feanor did nothing wrong.
- Location
- Australia
Finally! We're getting into the meat of it all.
So it wasn't a recruitment drive? Dang.
Or he doesn't remember that it is a recruitment drive, yet.
Blazinghand
O cursèd spite
- Location
- California
Good job, Paul! Let's see how this plays out.
- Location
- Australia
"an American"... Unless this is just another part of Paul's confusion.
SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Zoat, you should get rid of the quotation mark after "notice". It's the same speaker speaking both paragraphs, with nothing in between.
Finally! I was going crazy not knowing how we got to this point.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
Should that be Cells-Four-Life? Also, the second line seems to be missing both quotes, and the last missing it's initial quote.
- Location
- place
Lowercase "cats," unless this is like capitalizing species names like Genomorphs or Tamaraneans.
Didn't go back to look at previous examples, but something strikes me as off for "-."
Missing end quotation.
Missing end, both, and beginning quotation, unless this is intentional as part of a mindscrew, since they're all next to each other.
Also the middle one would need a period if the previous "-." were correct.
Last edited:
- Location
- Courthouse
Missing end quotes x2.
Aabcehmu
Confusion as a Natural State of Being
- Location
- Chicago, IL
- Pronouns
- Any/All
I mean, I thought it might be up since Zoat has previously been dead-set on spelling out pronounced numbers.
- Location
- Wishing I was somewhere much colder, I asssume.
Is... Is that weird? I do that too. Saying "I am number 1." feels so wrong. "one" feels so much more appropriate there.
I mean, even if it is weird, and I'm pretty sure it's not, it's not even remotely the weirdest quirk Zoat has in writing.
"Whaw."
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Or rather, the Vegetables...
- Location
- Earth
It's definitely not weird. I remember being taught in school that the preferred format is for numbers ten and below to be spelled out, but for numbers above that to be written with digits. So it's definitely not abnormal to spell out the number, at least for the lower numbers.
- Location
- Hampden Park
Thank you, corrected.
Long time readers may remember the name of the company for whom I used to work.
Looks like the actual chapter will be starting next update. Excellent.
- Location
- Christchurch, NZ
No one says "do you have eye-oh-ess ten?", for that matter.
- Location
- Australia
I pronounce iOS that way. I think you mean people don't write it that way.
- Status