With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
- Status
Prince Charon
Just zis guy, you know?
He seems more 'lawyerly' to me, rather than 'inhuman.'
The Bushranger
In the Danger Zone
- Location
- TSAB Asura
Not like that, I may have needed to be clearer. It's species names, not generic names. You feed ducks, but you specifically are feeding Muscovy Ducks and Mallards, for instance.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
I read him more as excessively formal, and speaks English as a second language. The lack of any contractions is fairly noticeable, and usually indicates someone who isn't fluent in English. None of the lawyers I know talk anywhere near as formally as Icon is portrayed, although I guess he is somewhat similar to the stereotype of a lawyer.
I get a similar vibe from the various Chinese characters that Grayven has interacted with.
Grind (supplementary, Renegade Option)
- Location
- Hampden Park
1st November
11:35 GMT -6
Miss Shimmer eyes me warily from just outside her laboratory door as I approach. "What are you doing here?"
I blink. "I live here."
She frowns. "No, I mean, why are you here at my lab?"
I smile. "I'm trying to show an interest in your work?"
She closes her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. "I haven't made any progress working out how to recreate the portal to Morgan le Fay's world-."
"No, no." I hold up my right hand. "Not with the work I set you. With your own studies."
She shakes her head again. "I'm not doing anything that's got anything to with-."
"Sunset." I tilt my head to the right. "I'm trying to show an interest in your work. Just… Being sociable, subletting landlord to tenant. I'm not demanding, I'm just aware that.. I haven't been paying as much attention to you as I have to some of the other residents except when I need you to do something."
"And you've got nothing going on right now."
"And-. Well." Ah… "I'm not exactly rushed off my feet at the moment, but when you're as powerful as me there's always something you can be doing. And let's be honest: you're a lot more independent than the children are. But." I lightly lay my right hand on her left shoulder. "I do want to make time for you. You're a valued part of the team, and that needs to work both ways."
She looks at me for a moment, then turns her head away. "Yeah. Okay, sorry, I-." She exhales. "I'm still not-." She looks uncertain.
"You're expecting me to do a Celestia?"
"No." She irritably brushes off my hand, then sags slightly. "Maybe? I don't know. I'm not good at… Social.. stuff."
"I used drugs to turn myself into a giant grey mutant and lied to everyone about it." I shrug. "None of us are perfect."
"Um. I guess."
"And I thought you and Iname were getting along well?"
"I-." She turns away and places her palm on the door's scanner. "Can we just talk about work?"
"We can talk about whatever you want to talk about."
The door slides open and I follow her inside. Hm. I remember a television series I watched back on Earth Prime where a wizard used lights to project a magic circle on the ground. Far easier to program it in and then press a button than to draw it out every time. Miss Shimmer has taken a more lego approach: metal parts designed to tessellate with one another are arranged in a warded enclosure or stacked neatly at the side of the main workshop. I don't recognise the particular configuration, but that's a decent opener.
I gesture towards it with my right hand. "What's that for?"
"Hm?" Miss Shimmer has responded to my intrusion into her territory by going right to her work station and metaphorically hovering. "Oh, ah, I was trying to…" She looks away awkwardly. "It didn't work, I just haven't needed the space, and I don't like the genomorphs being in here without me."
"What was it..? Supposed to be for?"
She hesitates, then shrugs. "I've been trying to use what I've learned about thaumaturgy to recreate unicorn magic. Wilson unicorn magic, not fae unicorn magic, however that works."
"Every failure is a chance to begin again more intelligently!" She gives me a black look. "How did it go?"
"I thought… Now I can use Earth magic, I thought I could build some sort of conversion device. Based on what I know about unicorn magic I came up with models for how it could work…"
"That's science for you. Come up with a theory, test it, and if it doesn't hold up then you know how the universe doesn't work."
She shakes her head. "I don't think I'm wrong exactly. But… I don't think magic on Wilson works like it does here. I-." She frowns at me. "Do you actually read the books you get for me?" I shake my head. "Ugh. Some of it matches up with what works here, but I think some of the… Not the operating principles exactly, but… Some of the constants are different?"
"So no wizard to unicorn converter?"
"It's theoretically possible, but…" She shakes her head. "It would take years to work out what the differences were." She shrugs. "I mean, without access to Equestria."
"Have you tried asking Zatanna for help? I got the impression that her talking backwards thing worked for just about anything."
Miss Shimmer's jaw tightens. "Yeah, that…" She huffs. "It just feels-. Stupid. Using a magic I don't understand to cheat. And.. talking backwards!"
"How are words more stupid than glowing keratin?"
"Because I grew up with one and not the other. And it's not like-." She throws her arms up a little and starts pacing. "It's not like I didn't know there were other ways of manipulating the environment using magic. When I was a little filly I used to nag the palace gardeners to show me how earth pony magic worked."
"Because you wanted to learn how to be an alicorn."
"No! I didn't even know that was possible until Celestia showed me myself in Starswirl's mirror as an alicorn. And then-." She looks like she's swallowed something unpleasant. "Celestia wouldn't tell me anything about becoming an alicorn. After a while I thought that maybe she just didn't know, or maybe it was symbolic or something. Then…"
"Then..?"
She shakes her head. "Some pegasus pony managed it. One moment wings, next moment wings, horn and about ten centimetres taller."
I nod. "Which.. means that Cel-."
"Yeah, which means she was lying to me the whole time. It's not like I was serious when I said I wanted to dissect her!"
I nod. "Dissections are for life, MRI scans are every six months."
"Exactly! I mean, we didn't have MRI scans, but I could have done something." She throws out her arms wide this time. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Follow Friend Computer's wise and benevolent guidance like a good meat robot."
"What? No, we don't have computers. I was supposed to mindlessly follow Celestia's orders!" Her pacing naturally turns her away from me as I briefly consider explaining 'Paranoia' to her and decide against it. "But yes! 'Meat robot'. That's exactly it!"
"But getting back to your work..?"
"The only example of Equestrian magic on Earth is this end of the portal. And I don't think I can build a laboratory in Filly-. In Philadelphia."
"Might be difficult. I could probably get a temporary one authorised…" I frown. "Is there any way to move it?"
"I don't-." She turns around, frowning. "I don't know. Celestia called it 'Starswirl's Mirror', but I couldn't check its provenance. And she wouldn't let me study it either."
"I didn't notice any particular object on this side. Is the anchor point in the air? Does it move… Actually, if there's been a portal there for who knows how long, is there a way to detect other examples of Wilsonian magic on Earth?"
She frowns again, this time in thought rather than frustration. "Actually, there… Should be. Let me just do some calculations."
11:35 GMT -6
Miss Shimmer eyes me warily from just outside her laboratory door as I approach. "What are you doing here?"
I blink. "I live here."
She frowns. "No, I mean, why are you here at my lab?"
I smile. "I'm trying to show an interest in your work?"
She closes her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. "I haven't made any progress working out how to recreate the portal to Morgan le Fay's world-."
"No, no." I hold up my right hand. "Not with the work I set you. With your own studies."
She shakes her head again. "I'm not doing anything that's got anything to with-."
"Sunset." I tilt my head to the right. "I'm trying to show an interest in your work. Just… Being sociable, subletting landlord to tenant. I'm not demanding, I'm just aware that.. I haven't been paying as much attention to you as I have to some of the other residents except when I need you to do something."
"And you've got nothing going on right now."
"And-. Well." Ah… "I'm not exactly rushed off my feet at the moment, but when you're as powerful as me there's always something you can be doing. And let's be honest: you're a lot more independent than the children are. But." I lightly lay my right hand on her left shoulder. "I do want to make time for you. You're a valued part of the team, and that needs to work both ways."
She looks at me for a moment, then turns her head away. "Yeah. Okay, sorry, I-." She exhales. "I'm still not-." She looks uncertain.
"You're expecting me to do a Celestia?"
"No." She irritably brushes off my hand, then sags slightly. "Maybe? I don't know. I'm not good at… Social.. stuff."
"I used drugs to turn myself into a giant grey mutant and lied to everyone about it." I shrug. "None of us are perfect."
"Um. I guess."
"And I thought you and Iname were getting along well?"
"I-." She turns away and places her palm on the door's scanner. "Can we just talk about work?"
"We can talk about whatever you want to talk about."
The door slides open and I follow her inside. Hm. I remember a television series I watched back on Earth Prime where a wizard used lights to project a magic circle on the ground. Far easier to program it in and then press a button than to draw it out every time. Miss Shimmer has taken a more lego approach: metal parts designed to tessellate with one another are arranged in a warded enclosure or stacked neatly at the side of the main workshop. I don't recognise the particular configuration, but that's a decent opener.
I gesture towards it with my right hand. "What's that for?"
"Hm?" Miss Shimmer has responded to my intrusion into her territory by going right to her work station and metaphorically hovering. "Oh, ah, I was trying to…" She looks away awkwardly. "It didn't work, I just haven't needed the space, and I don't like the genomorphs being in here without me."
"What was it..? Supposed to be for?"
She hesitates, then shrugs. "I've been trying to use what I've learned about thaumaturgy to recreate unicorn magic. Wilson unicorn magic, not fae unicorn magic, however that works."
"Every failure is a chance to begin again more intelligently!" She gives me a black look. "How did it go?"
"I thought… Now I can use Earth magic, I thought I could build some sort of conversion device. Based on what I know about unicorn magic I came up with models for how it could work…"
"That's science for you. Come up with a theory, test it, and if it doesn't hold up then you know how the universe doesn't work."
She shakes her head. "I don't think I'm wrong exactly. But… I don't think magic on Wilson works like it does here. I-." She frowns at me. "Do you actually read the books you get for me?" I shake my head. "Ugh. Some of it matches up with what works here, but I think some of the… Not the operating principles exactly, but… Some of the constants are different?"
"So no wizard to unicorn converter?"
"It's theoretically possible, but…" She shakes her head. "It would take years to work out what the differences were." She shrugs. "I mean, without access to Equestria."
"Have you tried asking Zatanna for help? I got the impression that her talking backwards thing worked for just about anything."
Miss Shimmer's jaw tightens. "Yeah, that…" She huffs. "It just feels-. Stupid. Using a magic I don't understand to cheat. And.. talking backwards!"
"How are words more stupid than glowing keratin?"
"Because I grew up with one and not the other. And it's not like-." She throws her arms up a little and starts pacing. "It's not like I didn't know there were other ways of manipulating the environment using magic. When I was a little filly I used to nag the palace gardeners to show me how earth pony magic worked."
"Because you wanted to learn how to be an alicorn."
"No! I didn't even know that was possible until Celestia showed me myself in Starswirl's mirror as an alicorn. And then-." She looks like she's swallowed something unpleasant. "Celestia wouldn't tell me anything about becoming an alicorn. After a while I thought that maybe she just didn't know, or maybe it was symbolic or something. Then…"
"Then..?"
She shakes her head. "Some pegasus pony managed it. One moment wings, next moment wings, horn and about ten centimetres taller."
I nod. "Which.. means that Cel-."
"Yeah, which means she was lying to me the whole time. It's not like I was serious when I said I wanted to dissect her!"
I nod. "Dissections are for life, MRI scans are every six months."
"Exactly! I mean, we didn't have MRI scans, but I could have done something." She throws out her arms wide this time. "What was I supposed to do?"
"Follow Friend Computer's wise and benevolent guidance like a good meat robot."
"What? No, we don't have computers. I was supposed to mindlessly follow Celestia's orders!" Her pacing naturally turns her away from me as I briefly consider explaining 'Paranoia' to her and decide against it. "But yes! 'Meat robot'. That's exactly it!"
"But getting back to your work..?"
"The only example of Equestrian magic on Earth is this end of the portal. And I don't think I can build a laboratory in Filly-. In Philadelphia."
"Might be difficult. I could probably get a temporary one authorised…" I frown. "Is there any way to move it?"
"I don't-." She turns around, frowning. "I don't know. Celestia called it 'Starswirl's Mirror', but I couldn't check its provenance. And she wouldn't let me study it either."
"I didn't notice any particular object on this side. Is the anchor point in the air? Does it move… Actually, if there's been a portal there for who knows how long, is there a way to detect other examples of Wilsonian magic on Earth?"
She frowns again, this time in thought rather than frustration. "Actually, there… Should be. Let me just do some calculations."
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yingyang590
East of eerie, North of normal, West of weird
Why is Equestria called Wilson again?
Queshire
Wants a pink flamingo for their lawn.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Because of a stupid youtube video I believe.
That sure was an update. Plenty of letters. Lots of punctuation.
Empiricist2
Let's play doctor!
- Location
- Baton Rouge
Equestria is apparently the name of the country, and the planet is never named. So someone on YouTube called it Wilson because they thought it was funny, and Zoat agreed.
Evil M. Lurker
What Lurks at Midnight
- Location
- The City, USA
- Location
- Wishing I was somewhere much colder, I asssume.
I believe the in-universe explanation is that while the Equestrians don't have a name for their planet, Earth does? I assume that means it's actually a planet we can detect and we've named it Wilson.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
In-universe, Wilson is in another dimension, so I doubt it. I'm pretty sure it's just Grayven simultaneously being a dick and a nerd by referencing things nobody else could possibly have any frame of reference for.
- Location
- Germany
Blah blah what's the difference? blah
GilliamYaeger
M'crazy.
Well, at least he hasn't drunk the kool-aid for real yet.
Maybe? It's accessible enough that Future OL recruited Nightmare Moon for the OLC.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Future OL could also casually create orange rings, alter his biological state (he turned himself into a pony), enter the astral plane, and casually go to worlds that have had no contact with Earth-16 beyond Ambush Bug shenanigans, so I'm more inclined to think that was due to Future OL being ridiculously OP (plz nerf), rather than Equestria being particularly accessible.
Is it weird that Sunset shimmer is becoming my favorite character in a DC comics fanfiction? Well at least in the renegade timeline.
I am really looking forward to her arc finally playing out and not just to see Grayven interact with Equestria. I think it was supposed to happen April 1st right?
Anyway I'm not sure if that is embarrassing or just a sign of good writing by Zoat but either way I am happy with this update at least.
I am really looking forward to her arc finally playing out and not just to see Grayven interact with Equestria. I think it was supposed to happen April 1st right?
Anyway I'm not sure if that is embarrassing or just a sign of good writing by Zoat but either way I am happy with this update at least.
The Bushranger
In the Danger Zone
- Location
- TSAB Asura
Soooo what you're saying is she's Vegeta trying to become Super Saiyan.
- Location
- Hampden Park
Thank you, corrected.
"You can't be the Alicorn of Greed, Sunset Shimmer. "
"Why?"
"That weird orange stallion got the job a while back."
- Location
- U.S.
You know, I don't really like MLP, but in this context i don't really have much of a problem with it.
I don't think its *not* a decent show, I haven't watched it at length but I'd be very surprised if it had gotten as popular as it has with as wide a demographic as it has without being at least decent. I just... can't get past the premise. I know that seemingly "children-oriented" cartoons can have legitimate appeal for more mature audiences, I'm a fan of Steven Universe and that's sorta in that vein, its just.... ponies. And unicorns. And the literal magic of literal friendship and happiness. There's a line somewhere, where the silliness is too much for me to take it seriously as a work of art and enjoy it, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is most definitely past it.
But at least in this fic, the silliness is toned down a bit by a hard clash with a realistic and sensical take on a already relatively serious universe. Maybe there's a universe where there is literal friendship magic and ponies with magic horns, but if it connects to a universe with mostly-normal laws of physics and people who live normalish lives then it can't be as bad without literally breaking the normal universe.
I don't think its *not* a decent show, I haven't watched it at length but I'd be very surprised if it had gotten as popular as it has with as wide a demographic as it has without being at least decent. I just... can't get past the premise. I know that seemingly "children-oriented" cartoons can have legitimate appeal for more mature audiences, I'm a fan of Steven Universe and that's sorta in that vein, its just.... ponies. And unicorns. And the literal magic of literal friendship and happiness. There's a line somewhere, where the silliness is too much for me to take it seriously as a work of art and enjoy it, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic is most definitely past it.
But at least in this fic, the silliness is toned down a bit by a hard clash with a realistic and sensical take on a already relatively serious universe. Maybe there's a universe where there is literal friendship magic and ponies with magic horns, but if it connects to a universe with mostly-normal laws of physics and people who live normalish lives then it can't be as bad without literally breaking the normal universe.
- Location
- texas
...Damn that's a neat call back. I loved Silverblade.
Yes, and the mom from Hello Megan! was Sandra Stanyon, Jonathan Lord's girlfriend and costar from Silverblade.
Maybe someday I'll read a YJ fic that makes full use of that.
Imagine Megan's response to finding out the dad from her favorite show is a superhero.
Then there's the fact his superpowers come from ancient Atlantean magic.
Sandra could be a family friend of the Logans, so that's another way one could tie it to things relevant to YJ.
They liked their sly references to the wider DC franchise in YJ, Magog was one of the Marines in the telepathic training session as another example.
Ganurath
Literal Enthusiast
- Location
- A Valid Location
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Or how Giovanni's sacrifice at Roanoke had thematic parallels to his fate in Hellblazer? Granted, that means that Batman was metaphorical John Constantine...
- Status