- Location
- Singapore
After she becomes an Adult. Leave the child soldier thing to Batman.
-
Going forward, links to content from Twitter (now X) will no longer be embedded. Pre-existing links should not be affected.
Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
- Pronouns
- Reader
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
I mean, we have brought Cass into a combat zone before in Markovia...
But at least we don't make daily outings of it.
But at least we don't make daily outings of it.
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
Let's jumpstart the dimensional travel research; there's a whole multiverse of daughters to adopt!
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
And when we had her play the 'make them talk game' with those Intergang thugs. Fair, i dont recall anybody dying but still.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Now that wasn't our fault.
Well, mostly wasn't.
We were expecting Cassandra to go all Living Lie Detector on them, not to grab a hammer and start breaking people's fingers. In theory we could have predicted that Cassandra might do something like that, but even if we'd discussed it beforehand, it's quite likely that's we'd have guessed 'no.' After all, David Cain wasn't even teaching Cassandra to speak; who would have expected him to teach her how to interrogate?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So some fun facts and interesting tidbits about the alternate timeline/elseworld that I didn't managed to mention in the piece itself but wanted to include:
I don't see her hating Stephanie or anything like that but I imagine her as a somewhat grating great-grandma who gets a bit on Stephanie's nerves because she's always comparing her to her more successful and serious sisters and who tries to get her to act "as befitting of her station". Not something that would develop into a serious issue because Stephanie has other support structures but enough so that the relationship would be perfect.
I kind of prefer it as an elseworlds story because while it is a really fun and neat hypothetical, it's a story I think works best when it's not overexposed and is best experienced in small doses.
- Barbara Luthor is the only member of the Luthor siblings with a drivers license and she also has a motorcycle license
- I tried to loosely bring it up in the omake itself but could only fit it obliquely but Jinx and Barbara do not get along at all.
- Barbara Luthor assigns genders to her AI within her own head. Model S and Oracle are female, Pluto is male and Conqueror Worm is genderless.
- Mr. Frost, the D'Aramis twins and Lana Lang were never hired in this alternate timeline as Barbara effectively replaced them functionally by acting as a strong stewardship hero unit so the need to hire those individuals was less pressing for LexCorp
- Cassandra has a lower diplomacy and learning stat compared to her canon counterpart. She's also notably less verbose than her canon counterpart.
- Cassandra at one point played ping pong against Stephanie using nunchucks instead of a paddle and won
- Cassandra developed a talent for sketching in this timeline
- The shark tank that Cassandra mention's Barbara owns is located in Barbara's room. Cassandra has named each of the sharks within the tank after a type of missile (Alamo, Maverick, Skybolt, Skipper, Tacit Rainbow, Astra, Black Arrow, Redeye, Gabriel, Hades, Jericho, Little Joe, Mamba, Lance, Mauler, Regulus, Talos, Tartar, Scarp, Gimlet, Grail, Scrooge, Stormshadow, Polaris and Dart are the names of all of the sharks)
- Cassandra collects weapons and stores them in her room with the Sword of Beowulf being among the many that are kept there
- Stephanie will occasionally recruit Cassandra to clear parts of video games for her or assist her in dealing with people defeating her online when she's annoyed.
- Cassandra knows how to play the violin but doesn't often do so. She can also play the piano.
- Barbara's degrees are in Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Mathematics. She's currently attempting to complete a degree in Economics. She's technically an Ivy League graduate although Lex paid a lot of money to basically let Barbara move ahead academically.
- Barbara has never attended high school
- Cassandra doesn't want to attend public schooling at all and prefers working with tutors.
- Stephanie briefly attempted to learn ballet but gave up after realizing she didn't like it
- Stephanie has appeared as an extra on some of Oswald Loomis' shows under a pseudonym. Cassandra and Barbara never have
- The language learning spell was still invented in this timeline for Cassandra's use. The spell was later used on both Barbara and Stephanie as well. Stephanie however is the only one of the sisters fluent in Elvish (the language invented by Tolkien) even if Barbara can loosely recognize it.
- Stephanie has several hollowed out stuffed animals that she uses to hide things in her room.
- Stephanie once realized that she could get free pizza by ordering it to the tower and then making the driver arrive late due to security checks. She was eventually prohibited from using this trick.
- Mercy considers Barbara to be the sister most like Lex although she works the most with Cassandra and considers Stephanie to be the most unpredictable of them all
- Snowy is oftentimes terrified of Barbara due to her wearing glasses. He does however have a great relationship with both Cassandra and Stephanie
- Each of the girls has a private bathroom connected to their bathroom that's entirely their own
- Much like how Lex has a painting of Zeus killing Cronos in his office, Barbara has a painting of the birth of Athena in her office.
- Stephanie Luthor and Lois Lane have never met face to face in this universe
- Barbara Luthor owns stock in both Wayne Enterprises and STAR Labs
I mean this might be me having some misunderstandings of the character dynamics but I think of the three Luthor sisters, Lorelei would actually have some issues with Stephanie. Barbara and Cassandra would likely get along with her no problem as they both absolutely excel at what they do to an incredible degree but with Steph I could see issues arising where Lorelei ends up somewhat knocking her efforts because she's not nearly as good as her sisters in most appreciably measured fields (to oversimplify Barbara is the smart Luthor sister, Cassandra is the strong Luthor sister and Stephanie is the "nice" Luthor sister). On top of that Stephanie is kind of like Lionel in that she's a lot less refined than the rest of her family (everyone else eats some fancy gourmet breakfast while Stephanie has waffles with lots of syrup. Stephanie insists on wearing light-up sneakers even though that's something I don't think Lorelei would approve of etc.) and I can see that bothering Lorelei a bit so she acts to "correct it".
I don't see her hating Stephanie or anything like that but I imagine her as a somewhat grating great-grandma who gets a bit on Stephanie's nerves because she's always comparing her to her more successful and serious sisters and who tries to get her to act "as befitting of her station". Not something that would develop into a serious issue because Stephanie has other support structures but enough so that the relationship would be perfect.
I like it a lot too but I don't think it would be preferable as canon. The format of these kinds of stories is actually a lot more slice of life than what the standard fare for the quest is so all of the complications and annoyances and problems quest goers would likely face aren't really all that important in the grand scheme of things. Superman would still be a colossal pain in your ass even if it doesn't seem that way because the omake didn't really focus on that at all.
I kind of prefer it as an elseworlds story because while it is a really fun and neat hypothetical, it's a story I think works best when it's not overexposed and is best experienced in small doses.
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Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If any of them were to do it for longer than that, ballet feels like it could be a "Cassandra's equivalent of a poetry phase" thing.
My brother once discovered that he could get free candy from the country club by telling the cashier his name. He was eventually informed that that just meant they charged dad later, but much candy had already been acquired.
Steph is the gaslight, Cass is the gatekeep, and Barb is the girlboss. If Steph's field is appreciably measured, she's doing it wrong.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I mean that's kind of relevant but with pizza there very specifically was a marketing strategy invented in the 80's called thirty minutes or free where if the pizza didn't arrive thirty minutes after you ordered it, the food was free. It's since been scaled back because it lead to a lot of reckless driving but variations of it still exist and it is technically exploitable if you live in an area that's difficult to get to and you want to be an asshole.
What Steph basically did was find a pizza place that had a "30 minutes or it's free" marketing campaign, ordered pizza from their and then waited for the security check to burn 30 minutes before getting her pizza as the delivery person was stopped before he reached her address, thus the pizza was free. People pulled shit like this IRL when companies kept the policy and while it's not really a thing now it was a thing in the 90's.
This is less childish ignorance and more childish malice and opportunism mixed with a degree of cleverness.
These titles are great and I now want to make use of them in some way.
I agree with you on that being how they loosely function as there is some crossover and they will switch roles if needed but the fact of the matter remains that if you're an outsider looking in you've got two sisters who have very visible measurable achievements who are clearly succeeding, and one who lacks that. As such I could see Lorelei having some issues with Stephanie if she has an outside perspective on her activities and behaviors as opposed to the semi-omniscient perspective view of the readers who got to see how each sister thinks and functions together in a variety of settings.
To tie this back to the initial point I was arguing it's not that Stephanie is in anyway actually lesser or that her achievements being difficult to easily measure being a point against her in reality but rather that it is very easy to think that Stephanie is lesser in some important way because it's difficult to see exactly what she's doing and I could see that being a sticking point for Lorelei considering that legacy was important to her and that a lot of her issues with Lionel stemmed from trying to push a child to "reach their full potential".
Finally getting around to this and giving an answer.
The bone growth formula is still a frightening permanent power boost. Currently basically grows a multilayered exo-skeleton attached to an endoskeleton that constantly regenerates and can absorb a lot of shock. The user's muscles, including the heart, have been enhanced so that an individual can move surprisingly quickly despite being much heavier and much larger. The formula adds about an extra foot or two of height and about a hundred extra pounds of weight. People who use the formula can move frighteningly fast in terms of short term acceleration and motion being able to generally hit about 30 mph at top speeds (which is a bit faster than the world record for running). With the blood cell improvements and the reduced throat complications someone using the formula can run continuously for much longer periods of time and the reduced throat complications make it easier to eat and communicate was well.
The user still takes on a very monstrous appearance and they lose a bit of dexterity. They can take being shot by most firearms fairly easily, are naturally resistant to heat based damage, and you could probably hit them with a car and have the car come off worse for it. There are no immediate health complications for the most part, except it does occasionally cause lockjaw to develop after years on end, but it does generally shorten the user's lifespan as it becomes impossible to perform surgery on them. Hearts do still give out on average earlier than most but it's generally not expected to occur for a few decades at least. Additionally there are still problems with entering water if you've taken the formula.
Does that sufficiently answer the question or is there something I'm missing that you'd like me to go over more?
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
So... basically, if you envy Killer Croc, but prefer dry land, then Bone Growth Formula starts being legitimately tempting. Huh.
I wonder if atlantean technomagic might be able to help with some of that. It seems like they might have some useful ways to do things without surgery, and the ability to breathe underwater indefinitely handles a lot of the "but I can't swim" issues.
I'm also thinking that the "little old lady osteoporosis cure" plan on the Bone Growth Formula may be... OBE. We'd have to figure out how to make it *not* produce a horrifying bony exoskeleton and so forth. @King crimson is that accurate?
The other side of things is that if we have any metas who are already monstrous, this starts being potentially very tempting for them indeed. I mean, Killer Croc is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that we might be able to get in touch with, and he probably wouldn't want to lose the aquatic mobility. Similarly, we might be able to track down man-bat, but I'm betting that he'd lose the flight, so that's maybe not so appealing.
I'm also wondering if we have that much further to go here. It sounds like we do still have maybe another round of tuning or two, but we might want to start work on the Gingko fruit stuff, and see if we can combo them later. I guess I hadn't realized how close to a reasonable quality of life we'd gotten the things.
I think the tuning round(s) probably should not involve Dr Moon.
I wonder if atlantean technomagic might be able to help with some of that. It seems like they might have some useful ways to do things without surgery, and the ability to breathe underwater indefinitely handles a lot of the "but I can't swim" issues.
I'm also thinking that the "little old lady osteoporosis cure" plan on the Bone Growth Formula may be... OBE. We'd have to figure out how to make it *not* produce a horrifying bony exoskeleton and so forth. @King crimson is that accurate?
The other side of things is that if we have any metas who are already monstrous, this starts being potentially very tempting for them indeed. I mean, Killer Croc is the only one I can think of off the top of my head that we might be able to get in touch with, and he probably wouldn't want to lose the aquatic mobility. Similarly, we might be able to track down man-bat, but I'm betting that he'd lose the flight, so that's maybe not so appealing.
I'm also wondering if we have that much further to go here. It sounds like we do still have maybe another round of tuning or two, but we might want to start work on the Gingko fruit stuff, and see if we can combo them later. I guess I hadn't realized how close to a reasonable quality of life we'd gotten the things.
I think the tuning round(s) probably should not involve Dr Moon.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Hm, you're right, I think I missed that angle while reading- reading-while-distracted is sometimes a problem for me.
- Location
- California
Pamela and Karl on the gingo fruit learning action would maximize what they can get from its properties due to Pamela's expertise, and then Karl can apply that to the bone formula the next turn with any hero besides Dr. Moon to get some decent upgrades to improve the malleability of the skeleton without compromising too much strength. Perhaps an upgrade that sheds off excess bone, similar to how a lizard can cut its own tail off and regrow the cartilage later on.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Atlantean technomagic could but it's not a viable reproducible method of solving the problems. I think you might've been referring to Atlantean biotechnology which is what's been encountered far more frequently and is what the artifacts you were granted are for the most part and in that case I can safely answer that they could help if you could figure it out.
Also the Bone Growth formula does solve osteoporosis it just also has it's downsides as well. Solving the issues of appearance and selective access for surgery would be the biggest hurdles you'd need to clear to start marketing it to the public sector for health. You're more or less accurate here.
Two things. First off the top of my head there's Catseye in Japan, Scott Lowe, and if you want to call in a favor you could ask Eiling for access to Angst (I believe his creation very briefly came up in quest) if you're just looking for "monstrous metahumans".
Secondly Man-Bat is not a metahuman but rather a deliberate artificial mutation caused by splicing. Provided there are no preexisting conditions anyone could become a Man-Bat and as the Terrible Trio proved that technique/formula could then be further modified.
Don't feel bad about it, it's perfectly normal to miss stuff and when we're speaking hypotheticals about an alternate timeline it's easy to make a mistake or to miss an angle while reading what's basically just a fun elseworlds story.
I will say on a somewhat unrelated note that I personally think that Lorelei's take on Cass would be the most interesting because if I remember correctly Lorelei Luthor believed in eugenics and Cass' whole conception is a really messed up attempt at eugenics and so the dynamic there would probably be interesting to see it play out. It'd almost certainly be a positive relationship but I can't imagine it not being awkward or uncomfortable at times which just seems interesting in and of itself.
Edit: To add onto the unrelated rambling playing out what Lionel thinks of his grandaughters in said alternate timeline is something I think would be really interesting because it's unclear how much his issues with Lex would transfer over and how he'd perceive his granddaughters. Its interesting to think about this kind of stuff.
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
Okay, sure... but it seems like it would be difficult to get "easy access for surgery", "non-monstrous appearance" and "covered in boney bulletproof plates" all at the same time. Or am I overthinking this?
Well, sure - but the important bit is the "monstrous" part rather than the "metahuman" part. Basically, once someone is irreversibly monstrous already, having the bone growth formula make them look monstrous... isn't nearly so much of a downside.
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
You're somewhat overthinking things. It's possible to get all three covered at the same time but it is difficult. You're running into the fundamental engineering problem that the better the defenses are, the harder it is to perform surgery and then there's an aesthetic component being dumped on top of that.
Even with someone like Superman who doesn't struggle with appearance at all has the fundamental issue that if he needs treatment for say appendicitis it's going to cost millions of dollars and be an experimental treatment because his defenses are working against him in that situation.
Edit: To be clear you're not overthinking the complexity of the issue at hand but you are overthinking my statement that "it does solve osteoporosis it just comes with side effects that makes it so most people wouldn't take it". I didn't mean anything particularly deep or impactful with that line so much as I was clarifying a point of potential confusion later on down the road over what's needed for the formula to cure osteoporosis.
I'm not trying to knock your original point. I just wanted to point out what I thought was an oversight on your part. You said "we could track down Man-Bat". By pointing out that Man-Bat is not a metahuman and is instead can be created out of any human not suffering from health complications with little fuss if you've got the serum/methods used to make him, I was attempting to point out that you don't need to track down Man-Bat, you could track down how to make a Man-Bat and then get as many as you want for testing. Man-Bat's transformation is reversible but the principle of the matter is still there. You have the option to create your own Man-Bats if you want to.
Furthermore by pointing out that the formula could be altered I wanted to highlight that another statement of yours is missing something. You mentioned that you figured Man-Bat would lose flight with the bone formula which made it unappealing. If the way to make Man-Bat can create other splices with other animals, then you could hypothetically create something like a Man-Wolf and then not have to really sacrifice any major form of mobility in exchange for using the bone growth formula. I don't know if that's more appealing to you but that is an option you have that kind of works around your issue even if it doesn't necessarily solve it.
I'm not attempting to refute anything you said about people who appear monstrous being more likely to be willing to take upgrades to make themselves look monstrous. I was attempting to point out places where I felt you'd unintentionally incorrectly limited yourself and missed options available to you that were relevant to some of the avenues you'd briefly tossed out about potentially pursuing.
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Barbara probably has the same status for batman as catwomen, in which she is a villan, but he wont fight her full force if he doesnt have to, because he fells like he owns her for what happened to her dad
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Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
Why do I get the feeling that an older Stephanie Luthor would essentially be a peppier Regina George?
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I've got a few things to say about this statement. Firstly in quest canon, Batman and Catwoman don't have nearly as good of a relationship as they do in the comics. He's way more likely to hold back against Two-Face than he is against Catwoman.
Secondly Barbara Luthor is not really a "Batman villain" in any meaningful capacity and she's certainly not one he can fight like most of his enemies. Barbara does hate Gotham and acts against it but her primary focus for the most part is on Metropolis on places where LexCorp is in and is growing. Furthermore a lot of what she is doing to Gotham isn't stuff Batman can directly fight. Using perfectly legal but very shady business tactics to slowly destroy a city already suffering from its own problems isn't something he can counter like with a normal villain. He can somewhat counter it because he's also Bruce Wayne and he has money to spare but it's not at all like how he needs to deal with his regular villains
Thirdly in the timeline I briefly mentioned at the start of the omake as being when the divergence happened, there's not enough time for Batman to have gotten to know Jim Gordon before he died and Barbara was adopted. Batman's not likely to feel he owes her anymore than he owes any other child whos parents were killed by the mob. He can empathize with her and feel bad for her but Batman can also empathize with Harley for being in an abusive relationship with the Joker without compromising his plans or feeling like he owes her something. The timeline makes it so that the death of Jim Gordon is not impactful for Batman because Gordon died before they ever really met or became friends.
She's blond, uses manipulation, is social and adept at navigating relationships, comes from a very wealthy and fairly permissive background, is petty and cares about perception and image. She fits pretty neatly into the potential mold of that kind of character.
I think the biggest difference between older Stephanie Luthor and a Regina George-esque character is that she's got controlling figures in her life whom she wants to please in the form of the rest of her family.
That being said if an older Stephanie Luthor were placed into some private high school setting for the rich and wealthy where her sisters and father aren't around to manage her then I could see her acting like a peppier Regina George only with a lot more actual power behind her as she could probably destroy the lives of her classmates' parents if she really wanted to.
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Some Stuff on Blood Magic
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
Some Stuff on Blood Magic
So someday I'll get around to finishing up this series as I tackle it slowly bit by bit. They are mostly broad sweeping terms but I think it's interesting to know of the historical development and history of these various kinds of magic. Again there's a lot of bleedthrough and mixing and I'm presenting a fairly simplified history as a complete history would involve me going and giving every culture on earth an entry and explanation but I still think this is neat even if it is very broad strokes. I am working on a mainline update or two but this caught my attention first and was less work so it got completed first.
Defining Terms
Blood magic is one of the most complex and varied forms of magic in existence as it continuously branches and grows ever more complicated with time. Blood magic is any magic that deals with familial ties. Blood is often a central part of this kind of magic but it is not inherent to it despite the name suggesting otherwise. A seventh son of a seventh son having vast magical power is technically blood magic even if no power was transferred. Magic that transfers along family lineages can be considered blood magic. As such a lot of magic users have some degree of blood magic even if they don't necessarily specialize in it.
The other flip side of blood magic is that it can be used create spells to target entire families of to transform someone into having a metaphysical essence of that family. Blood magic is amongst the most versatile fields of magic and is absolutely terrifying when used to its full potential.
Blood magic is inherently tied to family in some way shape or form and is ubiquitously blended with an inordinate number of other kinds of magic. It can be both passive and active and takes on a near infinite number of forms. All eugenics programs centered on magic are dealing with blood magic.
Some History
The name blood magic is slightly misleading in a modern context but it stems from how the magic developed in its earliest stages. Blood magic is a type of magic that predates civilization. It's often theorized that the very first blood magic based spell is the one known as the "Blood Brother spell" where two individuals perform a ritual where they each shed some blood that then mingles and the magic user binds them together as "blood brothers". As time went on blood magic grew to focus primarily on either targeting black or white magic on an entire family all at once. It often involved rituals with some kind of blood being involved.
It is only with the development of civilization that the second sort of blood magic began to form. Lineages that inherently granted people magical capabilities and powers began to get recorded as springing up with the most notable coming from various demigods throughout history. Most magic users did not consider this to be the same as blood magic and as such didn't really look into it or try to develop it all that much further.
Blood magic did develop, mostly in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, to involve sacrificing your own blood or the blood of a relative or the blood of an individual with unique ties, to some entity to grant them power and gain it for themselves. Blood magic began to gain a connotation for involving sacrifice that would later be proven to be untrue but the stigma does still lean over it somewhat for full blooded practitioner of that kind of magic.
Ancient Greece furthered the study to darker areas. While they did enact their own developments on existing uses for blood magic, many strains of lycanthropy developed out of people experimenting haphazardly with blood magic or performing foul deeds to family. The Ancient Greeks eventually developed taboos against certain sacrificial rituals and blood magic involving becoming kin to an animal.
Ancient Rome picked up some of those same cultural taboos and mostly continued to develop blood magic as a way to curse or bless family lines. Notably emperors would often engage in some degree of blood magic to be more divine and a particularly adept mage managed to create a spell that killed all of the first born children in an area. Blood magic grew widespread under the Roman empire.
The rise of Christianity did lead to more persecution of blood magic that involved sacrifice or rituals but the practice remained alive and well, well into the Middle Ages especially in areas that had already developed a strong culture involving blood magic that persisted long before Rome arrived. In the northern parts of Europe a "berserker technique" where an individual used blood magic to become metaphorical kin to an animal and thus take on its properties was developed independently of similar techniques developed in other parts of the world (and admittedly with different animals and rituals). Many magic users, especially those with famous ancestors, would conduct rituals to enchant themselves so that all of their descendants would be capable of performing magic similar to them.
The biggest evolution of magic in the middle ages however was the development of homunculi. People had attempted to create artificial creatures before but they'd almost always attempted to do it from scratch. Now with blood magic further developed magic users were able to consistently develop homunculi based on actual people that functioned like people and were fully intelligent. The biggest pioneer in the field was Morgan Le Fay but individuals like Paracelsus also helped push magic users to greater understanding of how things worked.
Going into the renaissance blood magic only solidified, however where once there had been a focus solely on rituals as blood magic, some magicians examined how magical lineages worked and came to the conclusion that it worked via the same principles for the most part. As such these categories that had previously been split were melded to more accurately be contained under one branch of magic.
The New World developed it's own form of blood magic individually unrelated to the European tradition but they were mostly stamped out as the European powers took control of the continent. As the modern era rolled around new traditions and rituals evolved around blood magic and it grew to become as ubiquitous as it now is. Almost every modern magic user has learned to use some degree of blood magic even if expertise in the field is considered nigh impossible to achieve without some kind of magic ritual to make an individual part of every family. In the early 20th century blood magic grew immensely popular but following the Nazi's own forays into the field most magic users dropped interest in that aspect of the field.
Other Types of Blood Magic
Blood Magic is insanely difficult to narrow down and every culture has it's own unique traditions with blood magic. Atlantis for example had incredibly powerful blood magic transform its citizens in Atlanteans and numerous individuals still practice it to some degree or another. The most interesting development that Atlanteans have is that they've taught their magic users to fairly universally be capable of using magic to check lineages.
India is notable in its blood magic for being a lot more focused on healing and transfiguration than most other traditions as the blood of an entity is given from one source in order to transfer a property, usually life to another. They have other types of blood magic but they are generally considered to be unique on that front.
China developed blood magic based curses that could target and destroy entire lineages centuries after they were initially cast and are generally considered rather horrific to be on the receiving end of. They were then further developed into involving blood magic with magical contracts where the consequence of violating the contract would be the activation of one of these horrific curses. Again there is much more than just this but these are some uniquely notable things about them.
Blood Magic in the Modern Day
As mentioned earlier almost every magician uses some degree of blood magic. Even someone like Zatanna who is generally unfamiliar with more advanced blood magic and blood magic based rituals, still technically uses some variation of it as some of her magical capabilities are derived from being a descendent of Leonardo Da Vinci.
Notable British blood magic users include Merlin, who is really one of the leaders in most forms of magic and notably locked some of his swords to the use of only individuals with a specific type of "blood" and Morgan Le Fay who is arguably his superior in this field and is quite possibly the greatest user of blood magic to create homunculi, having created multiple incredibly successful versions.
Eldon Peck is one of the few individuals known to look into more than the basics of blood magic in the United States and is considered frightening for his collection of odd spells from various cultures involving the more twisted uses of the discipline.
The aptly named Brother Blood is quite possibly the greatest mortal blood magic user as the title passes on in a rather disturbing ritual that involves a son murdering their father to acquire all of his accumulated power and knowledge. Brother Blood also has the basics of what demons like Trigon (who plans to use blood magic to turn his daughter Raven into a portal), Belial (who attempted a few basic blood magic based rituals) and Satanus and Blaze (who are the children of the wizard Shazam and can draw on that for more magical might).
Black Bison is one of the more notable users of Native American blood magic due to being able to possess those who share his blood and use magic to enact his plans long after he'd died.
General Functions of Blood Magic
Blood magic is fairly complicated and there are a lot more uses besides the kinds listed here. It is fairly diverse but it always involves "family" in some sense whether literally or metaphorically and its functions as such generally involve either granting properties to a thing or targeting others through their relations. This is by no means a complete list and if anything should be taken as merely a basic sample as opposed to a thorough examination. Here are some of the basic uses of blood magic
So someday I'll get around to finishing up this series as I tackle it slowly bit by bit. They are mostly broad sweeping terms but I think it's interesting to know of the historical development and history of these various kinds of magic. Again there's a lot of bleedthrough and mixing and I'm presenting a fairly simplified history as a complete history would involve me going and giving every culture on earth an entry and explanation but I still think this is neat even if it is very broad strokes. I am working on a mainline update or two but this caught my attention first and was less work so it got completed first.
Defining Terms
Blood magic is one of the most complex and varied forms of magic in existence as it continuously branches and grows ever more complicated with time. Blood magic is any magic that deals with familial ties. Blood is often a central part of this kind of magic but it is not inherent to it despite the name suggesting otherwise. A seventh son of a seventh son having vast magical power is technically blood magic even if no power was transferred. Magic that transfers along family lineages can be considered blood magic. As such a lot of magic users have some degree of blood magic even if they don't necessarily specialize in it.
The other flip side of blood magic is that it can be used create spells to target entire families of to transform someone into having a metaphysical essence of that family. Blood magic is amongst the most versatile fields of magic and is absolutely terrifying when used to its full potential.
Blood magic is inherently tied to family in some way shape or form and is ubiquitously blended with an inordinate number of other kinds of magic. It can be both passive and active and takes on a near infinite number of forms. All eugenics programs centered on magic are dealing with blood magic.
Some History
The name blood magic is slightly misleading in a modern context but it stems from how the magic developed in its earliest stages. Blood magic is a type of magic that predates civilization. It's often theorized that the very first blood magic based spell is the one known as the "Blood Brother spell" where two individuals perform a ritual where they each shed some blood that then mingles and the magic user binds them together as "blood brothers". As time went on blood magic grew to focus primarily on either targeting black or white magic on an entire family all at once. It often involved rituals with some kind of blood being involved.
It is only with the development of civilization that the second sort of blood magic began to form. Lineages that inherently granted people magical capabilities and powers began to get recorded as springing up with the most notable coming from various demigods throughout history. Most magic users did not consider this to be the same as blood magic and as such didn't really look into it or try to develop it all that much further.
Blood magic did develop, mostly in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, to involve sacrificing your own blood or the blood of a relative or the blood of an individual with unique ties, to some entity to grant them power and gain it for themselves. Blood magic began to gain a connotation for involving sacrifice that would later be proven to be untrue but the stigma does still lean over it somewhat for full blooded practitioner of that kind of magic.
Ancient Greece furthered the study to darker areas. While they did enact their own developments on existing uses for blood magic, many strains of lycanthropy developed out of people experimenting haphazardly with blood magic or performing foul deeds to family. The Ancient Greeks eventually developed taboos against certain sacrificial rituals and blood magic involving becoming kin to an animal.
Ancient Rome picked up some of those same cultural taboos and mostly continued to develop blood magic as a way to curse or bless family lines. Notably emperors would often engage in some degree of blood magic to be more divine and a particularly adept mage managed to create a spell that killed all of the first born children in an area. Blood magic grew widespread under the Roman empire.
The rise of Christianity did lead to more persecution of blood magic that involved sacrifice or rituals but the practice remained alive and well, well into the Middle Ages especially in areas that had already developed a strong culture involving blood magic that persisted long before Rome arrived. In the northern parts of Europe a "berserker technique" where an individual used blood magic to become metaphorical kin to an animal and thus take on its properties was developed independently of similar techniques developed in other parts of the world (and admittedly with different animals and rituals). Many magic users, especially those with famous ancestors, would conduct rituals to enchant themselves so that all of their descendants would be capable of performing magic similar to them.
The biggest evolution of magic in the middle ages however was the development of homunculi. People had attempted to create artificial creatures before but they'd almost always attempted to do it from scratch. Now with blood magic further developed magic users were able to consistently develop homunculi based on actual people that functioned like people and were fully intelligent. The biggest pioneer in the field was Morgan Le Fay but individuals like Paracelsus also helped push magic users to greater understanding of how things worked.
Going into the renaissance blood magic only solidified, however where once there had been a focus solely on rituals as blood magic, some magicians examined how magical lineages worked and came to the conclusion that it worked via the same principles for the most part. As such these categories that had previously been split were melded to more accurately be contained under one branch of magic.
The New World developed it's own form of blood magic individually unrelated to the European tradition but they were mostly stamped out as the European powers took control of the continent. As the modern era rolled around new traditions and rituals evolved around blood magic and it grew to become as ubiquitous as it now is. Almost every modern magic user has learned to use some degree of blood magic even if expertise in the field is considered nigh impossible to achieve without some kind of magic ritual to make an individual part of every family. In the early 20th century blood magic grew immensely popular but following the Nazi's own forays into the field most magic users dropped interest in that aspect of the field.
Other Types of Blood Magic
Blood Magic is insanely difficult to narrow down and every culture has it's own unique traditions with blood magic. Atlantis for example had incredibly powerful blood magic transform its citizens in Atlanteans and numerous individuals still practice it to some degree or another. The most interesting development that Atlanteans have is that they've taught their magic users to fairly universally be capable of using magic to check lineages.
India is notable in its blood magic for being a lot more focused on healing and transfiguration than most other traditions as the blood of an entity is given from one source in order to transfer a property, usually life to another. They have other types of blood magic but they are generally considered to be unique on that front.
China developed blood magic based curses that could target and destroy entire lineages centuries after they were initially cast and are generally considered rather horrific to be on the receiving end of. They were then further developed into involving blood magic with magical contracts where the consequence of violating the contract would be the activation of one of these horrific curses. Again there is much more than just this but these are some uniquely notable things about them.
Blood Magic in the Modern Day
As mentioned earlier almost every magician uses some degree of blood magic. Even someone like Zatanna who is generally unfamiliar with more advanced blood magic and blood magic based rituals, still technically uses some variation of it as some of her magical capabilities are derived from being a descendent of Leonardo Da Vinci.
Notable British blood magic users include Merlin, who is really one of the leaders in most forms of magic and notably locked some of his swords to the use of only individuals with a specific type of "blood" and Morgan Le Fay who is arguably his superior in this field and is quite possibly the greatest user of blood magic to create homunculi, having created multiple incredibly successful versions.
Eldon Peck is one of the few individuals known to look into more than the basics of blood magic in the United States and is considered frightening for his collection of odd spells from various cultures involving the more twisted uses of the discipline.
The aptly named Brother Blood is quite possibly the greatest mortal blood magic user as the title passes on in a rather disturbing ritual that involves a son murdering their father to acquire all of his accumulated power and knowledge. Brother Blood also has the basics of what demons like Trigon (who plans to use blood magic to turn his daughter Raven into a portal), Belial (who attempted a few basic blood magic based rituals) and Satanus and Blaze (who are the children of the wizard Shazam and can draw on that for more magical might).
Black Bison is one of the more notable users of Native American blood magic due to being able to possess those who share his blood and use magic to enact his plans long after he'd died.
General Functions of Blood Magic
Blood magic is fairly complicated and there are a lot more uses besides the kinds listed here. It is fairly diverse but it always involves "family" in some sense whether literally or metaphorically and its functions as such generally involve either granting properties to a thing or targeting others through their relations. This is by no means a complete list and if anything should be taken as merely a basic sample as opposed to a thorough examination. Here are some of the basic uses of blood magic
- Killing off a specific part of all family units in a set area
- Creating curses that target entire families all at once
- Gaining some supernatural ability from an ancestor
- Possessing a descendant
- Enchanting an entire bloodline so all of them have gained some kind of altered property
- Ensuring that all descendants of a specific person have the capability and inclination to be like that person
- Marking someone as family for the sake of of ensuring targeting of spells and defenses more effectively
- Transferring properties of one entity to another by making them "more alike"
- Lycanthropy and various other sorts of transformations between being half animal and half human
- Creation of homunculi as artificial children
- Creation of homunculi as clones of an individual
- Locking the use of magical artifact to a specific individual or bloodline
- Fooling wards and containment spells by making a direct relation take on your metaphysical properties so you can move through them
- Accumulating knowledge and power of an ancestor
- Sacrificing blood of yourself or of a family member in exchange for empowerment
- Preventing someone from being capable of ever reproducing
- Some rituals that magically swap bodies are involved in this
- Healing by using blood to transfer life energy
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Ah. I think you might have been misunderstanding the intent of my comment, then. My entire objective was to figure out how to leverage the stuff in its current form - find people who would happily volunteer for the procedure (and become loyal LexCorp employees afterwards) and who wouldn't lose anything by it because they were already monstrous.
At the same time... okay. Fair point. It's true that we could potentially develop a higher payoff for those who were willing to become monstrous by developing and including beastman transformation (thus getting more augmentation for your monstrousness buck). It's worth pursuing in the same way that the gingko fruit is worth pursuing.
The issue, though, is that from a quality of life standpoint, "become monstrous" is a huge cost. We can sort of make up for it some by offering them social acceptance and a viable tribe in LexCorp, and that'll make up for it partially, but it's still kind of a big deal. If we can find someone who's already monstrous (or perhaps a small pack of them) and offer them both major upgrades and a viable tribe, however, that's a huge potential benefit with which to tempt them in the door, and to keep them as happy, grateful, well-adjusted minions once they're in.
...but I'm sitting here thinking about it, and with the grasp of DC comics that I actually have... I can't really think of anyone who we could reach out to on this one. I don't know anyone in DC who's monstrous in an irreversible way, who's based on human (rather than looking that way because that's just how their species of alien looks or whatever) and who's of an appropriate power level that they might be interested in joining up with LexCorp in return for a steady paycheck, social acceptance, and an injection of Bone Growth Formula. In Marvel there's plenty - a fair number of weirdly-shaped mutants, at least a few spiderman villains, and so forth. In DC? I can basically think of a few batman villains, and every one of them is actually a no-go for one reason or another (killer croc likes the water too much, wouldn't work on clayface, man-bat is reversible and also wouldn't want to lose flying, and a bunch of the rest are undead, demons, plants, or something similar). I feel like there's got to be at least a few out there, but I'm not thinking of any.
Can anyone else think of any?
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So here are 30 just of the top of my head (these are just "monstrous individuals in DC comics who are humans"). There are a ton more than this these are just the first that came to mind. I hope it helps.
- Parasite
- Atomic Skull
- Cheetah
- Clayface (Karlo)
- Clayface (Hagen)
- Clayface (Pane)
- Clayface (Fuller)
- Zebraman
- Freak
- Tapeworm
- Hyena
- Weasel
- Hunchback
- Plasmus
- Cinderblock
- Hector Hammond
- Bork
- Cockroach Andy
- Bubbasaur
- Talon (Static Shock)
- Carmen Dillo
- Ferret
- Tantrum
- Tarmac
- Tar Pit
- Blue Devil
- Red Devil
- Lady Luna
- Tusk
- Elephant Man
- Location
- Singapore
Bubba Brown (Dakotaverse)
Bubba Brown is a Bang Baby who can turn himself into a large dinosaur - hence his criminal moniker, Bubbasaur. Bubba Brown was among the hundreds of gang members who fought in the Big Bang, a major turf war that would determine which gang was Dakota's most powerful. The situation worsened with...
dc.fandom.com
...Now I really want to recruit him so he can meet Jack. "Dinosaurs do not exist."
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So I am working on things and the next update should be ready tomorrow but in the process of getting things ready (and somewhat inspired by people's comments as well as just wanting to brainstorm ideas for the creative writing contest), I came up with a bunch of potential stories set in the Tales of the Luthor Sisters universe/timeline. Feel free to take a crack at writing them yourself if any one of them particularly intrigues you or sounds like a lot of fun. None of these are canon in any way shape or form (even for the non-canon universe) and are more just general skeletons for stories that could occur in that setting). Here are some of the basic ideas/pitches
If any of these catch your fancy I encourage you to try your hand at writing them.
- Three Versions of Vengeance: Another set of three anthology stories this time showing off the uglier sides of the sisters with how they get revenge. Stephanie's story is about a girl at the school Stephanie being new enough to not know not to cross her and being bold enough to call her "the stupid Luthor" to her face which infuriates Stephanie. Stephanie then spends the rest of the omake bullying the girl in deniable methods until she's a complete and total pariah. This is a potential opportunity to introduce "Sands" (an alternate version of Cassandra Sandsmark) as Stephanie's best friend and enforcer. Cassandra's story has Superboy beat her in a fight. Cassandra is infuriated by this and sets up a plan. She deliberately leaks false information to Superboy so that he'll show up at a location and then violently beats him to near unconciousness. Barbara's story has some hapless individual crash their car into Barbara's causing her to be late to a meeting if utterly unharmed. Barbara then arranges for this individual's life to be completely destroyed and when the individual questions why she did it Barbara admits that she doesn't even remember the individual but that she did it out of a matter of principle.
- Three Birthdays: A set of anthology stories about the Luthor's celebrating their birthdays. Stephanie's birthday is a lavish spectacle with a lot of people invited and lots of decoration and fanfare and presents. Cassandra's birthday is celebrated internally at LexCorp and she's given a few new things to play around with and enjoys herself. Barbara doesn't celebrate her birthday as she's focused on being the best heiress possible but her sister's get her a cake and some handmade presents.
- Girl of Steel Versus the Luthors Three: A story where Supergirl comes into contact with all three Luthor sisters and has to deal with them concocting some scheme while intergang does evil in the background. Supergirl ends up mostly on top when everyone is forced to work together to stop Intergang's use of Brimstone and the story plays on the typical Supergirl-Batgirl dynamic with Barbara and Supergirl finding some degree of respect for each other but believing that they could never be friends and remaining enemies
- Swapped Sisters: Ultra-Humanite attempts to kidnap the Luthor sisters and a mishap occurs potentially involving a member of the Superman family. The sisters all swap bodies and shenanigans ensue until a resolution is naturally found.
- A Luthor Fourth of July: Basically the Luthor sisters at the most important LexCorp party of the year where they meet with politicians and generals. It's mostly a fun setting for character dynamics.
- Three Lazy Days: Basically a different variation of the vacations anthology where instead of vacations it's more general family activities. Stephanie's story has her trying to play various board and card games against all of her family members only to realize that they're way better than her and can optimize the hell out of a game much faster. The story ends with Stephanie declaring that she's only going to play card and board games with auntie Mercy. Cassandra's story involves the sisters having a fitness/exercise day together. Barbara's story has her taking her sisters to the Astro Mall incognito so they can practice faking being normal and having fun.
- Three Educations: An anthology covering some of the sisters educational experiences. Stephanie plays queen bee at a private high school for the children of the incredibly rich and influential. Cassandra gets into a very good university while dual majoring in two bio based fields while struggling to get accepted into any sports teams like she wants to due to being younger than everyone else at the college. Barbara meanwhile deals with trying to get as many degrees as Lex did at her age while also struggling to get her company, Delphi, off the ground and running.
- Three Valentines: Basically an excuse to ship characters together and show the relationship dynamic the Luthor sisters have with their significant other. Their significant others gender isn't important but the significant other ought to be able to give something to LexCorp. Additionally to keep things clean I think it's best to avoid going for the easy way out and pairing the Luthor sisters with someone from Gotham. It could be fun to write if you're into shipping.
- Three Opinions from Lois Lane: Basically just Lois musing over her thoughts on the Luthor sisters. The general gist I've got for it is that she dislikes Barbara and basically sees her as a younger more arrogant female version of Lex which she somewhat takes issue with, she sees Cassandra as weird standoffish and somewhat in bed with the rest of her families crimes and suspects that she might be hiding a crush on Clark Kent and she views Stephanie as a mostly innocent child and potential collateral damage that she wants to avoid if she exposes her father and oldest sister's crimes.
- Three Articles: An anthology series about an article each of the siblings wrote. Barbara's is an informative article about the improvements and benefits of AI that is circulated in academia for the most part although bits of the paper due get cited in less scientific versions as well and it is posted online. Cassandra's article is published online and is about how Superman has affected life in Metropolis with a critical slant. Stephanie's article is a satire of Lois Lane's writing that she managed to get Cat Grant to publish.
If any of these catch your fancy I encourage you to try your hand at writing them.
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Sirrocco
Pedantic
Okay, of those, we can start by striping out the ones who don't actually have bones in their bodies.
So, no on Tapeworm, Tar Pit, the 4 Clayfaces, Tarmac, Plasmus, Cinderblock.
Some of them are shapeshifters, or otherwise capable of relatively easily regaining human form (and regularly do so by preference). Those also probably aren't gong to be that good a sell Those include Hyena (a werecreature), Weasel (actually a dude in a suit), Bubbasaur (voluntary transformation. At the same time, we absolutely should try to pick him up - he's a bang baby with a useful power who wants to go straight), Tantrum (only when angry or enraged), and Lady Luna (only when the moon rises),
Some of them look... reasonably close to human. That's going to mean that turning monstrous isn't as much of a cost for them (since they've already lost the "just blend in" aspect of things) but they might not want to give up the degree of human appearance they have, especially if they are a relatively good-looking versin of weird.
- Freak's hair-thing certainly looks odd, but it doesn't seem to interfere much with her looking mostly human.
- Cheetah looks inhuman, but in a "the furries are still totally into you" sort of way. Like, she'll get looks walking down the street, but the kind of looks she gets is going to depend on which street it is (and which version of cheetah). She certainly has less to lose than someone who looks baseline human, but she still might not want to be turned into a hulking bone-monster. Many versions of Cheetah seem to enjoy working the sex appeal, and the bone growth formula woudl rather interfere with that. Also, we'd need a version that didn't hate Diana. Still, if we do get a full-monstrous form Cheetah, and they decide they like the upgrade...?
- Zebraman looks similar levels of weird to Cheetah, and it's probably going to depend on which version of him it is, and what that particular individual cares about.
- Talon (Static Shock) seems unlikely. She looks near-human, she hates the fact that she doesn't look fully human, and her current transformation gives her flight, which the Bone Growth formula would probably deprive her of. Likely not worth it, overall.
...and then there are the ones that are worth at least considering.
We've seen Parasite. He's been pretty violent/disruptive so far, but it might be possible to bring him in once we get the Vigilante Accountability Act up and running. Really, though, he's much more interested in things like "can embrace my wife and kids" rather than "make me even bigger and stronger and tougher". Beyond that... we might not want to brig him in. He's already inclined to go after Superman, and has a powerset that's good at it. Funnelign him advantages on the sly might be a better way to play things.
The Atomic Skull is a very real possibility, and we should look into dealing with him if we can. "Thinks he's a superhero, and that Superman is a supervillain" is a great sweet spot.
The Alain Mauricet version of Hunchback might work quite well... if he were not a Batman fanboy. The fact that his transformation was derived from clayface formula is a bit of a concern, but h doesn't seem to have gotten the shapeshifting or the bonelessness, so hopefully not too much of one. Still... Batman fanboy. Would probably require a LexCorp Tower in France somewhere. The other Hunchbacks were all normal people wearing disguises.
Hector Hammond... is a definite maybe. He seems to like wealth, and have personal issues with Green Lantern. Neither of these is a bad thing. He's got a monstrously large head, and a fragile body that limits his ability to get around. We'd have to make sure we could actually work with the guy (and that he wouldn't have problems with Carol), but I could see him being potentially interested in the Bone Growth Formula, especially if it gave him back a degree of physical mobility.
Bork would be pretty much perfect. Blatantly monstrous appearance, existing brute abilities, and most of his motivations come down to things like "I'd like to get really good medical care for my mom" and "Getting a job and/or a decent social circle as a giant orange monster is really hard". If/when he shows up, we should absolutely snap him up if we can, and as far as I can see the Bone Growth formula has basically no downside for him.
Cockroach Andy is... a maybe? On the one side, he's street-tier, and has been transformed into a humanoid cockroach. He's got basically nothing to lose, and could almost certainly be drawn in with the promise of steady employment and reasonable social links. On the other side, I'm not sure how the formula would work with a guy who's switched to "chitinous exoskeleton" as their primary way of doing business.
Carmen Dillo is a distinct possibility. Don't know all that much about him, but he really doesn't look at all human, nd if he was sticking with petty crime and stealing food, it probably wouldn't be too hard to get him off the street. The only question is whether or not he'd have the skills to make it worth it.
Ferret is... more of the same. Freaky head-shape, petty criminal, smelling powers, might be worth it?
Blue Devil's case is... weird. He's just a guy in a suit, and then the suit is bonded to him (and he doesn't like it and works hard to try to get it off) and then he turns into an actual demon (but tries to be a superhero anyway). Not entirely out of the question, but I feel like he'd turn it down until he was actually full-demon (and therefore wouldn't plausibly be able to return to human form) and at that point I'm not sure how well the formula would work. Still... not impossible. Red Devil's case is tied un in the same thing, and thus also a bit on the weird side. It also involved getting on Neron's radar in a significant way, and that's... not somethign to be done lightly.
Tusk is a definite possibility, assuming he's interested. He's already got the strength and toughness boost, at the cost of severe, monstrous ugliness. He might well see doublign down on that one as a win. I'm unclear of his background, though. He's on the "mildly criminal" side, but is he the sort who would want to work at LexCorp?
Elephant Man looks like exactly the sort we'd want for this thing - a thug-for-hire with existing strength/toughness powers and a nicely monstrous apearance. Definitely worth looking into.
...an I'm tapped out. Hopefully someone finds this useful.
So, no on Tapeworm, Tar Pit, the 4 Clayfaces, Tarmac, Plasmus, Cinderblock.
Some of them are shapeshifters, or otherwise capable of relatively easily regaining human form (and regularly do so by preference). Those also probably aren't gong to be that good a sell Those include Hyena (a werecreature), Weasel (actually a dude in a suit), Bubbasaur (voluntary transformation. At the same time, we absolutely should try to pick him up - he's a bang baby with a useful power who wants to go straight), Tantrum (only when angry or enraged), and Lady Luna (only when the moon rises),
Some of them look... reasonably close to human. That's going to mean that turning monstrous isn't as much of a cost for them (since they've already lost the "just blend in" aspect of things) but they might not want to give up the degree of human appearance they have, especially if they are a relatively good-looking versin of weird.
- Freak's hair-thing certainly looks odd, but it doesn't seem to interfere much with her looking mostly human.
- Cheetah looks inhuman, but in a "the furries are still totally into you" sort of way. Like, she'll get looks walking down the street, but the kind of looks she gets is going to depend on which street it is (and which version of cheetah). She certainly has less to lose than someone who looks baseline human, but she still might not want to be turned into a hulking bone-monster. Many versions of Cheetah seem to enjoy working the sex appeal, and the bone growth formula woudl rather interfere with that. Also, we'd need a version that didn't hate Diana. Still, if we do get a full-monstrous form Cheetah, and they decide they like the upgrade...?
- Zebraman looks similar levels of weird to Cheetah, and it's probably going to depend on which version of him it is, and what that particular individual cares about.
- Talon (Static Shock) seems unlikely. She looks near-human, she hates the fact that she doesn't look fully human, and her current transformation gives her flight, which the Bone Growth formula would probably deprive her of. Likely not worth it, overall.
...and then there are the ones that are worth at least considering.
We've seen Parasite. He's been pretty violent/disruptive so far, but it might be possible to bring him in once we get the Vigilante Accountability Act up and running. Really, though, he's much more interested in things like "can embrace my wife and kids" rather than "make me even bigger and stronger and tougher". Beyond that... we might not want to brig him in. He's already inclined to go after Superman, and has a powerset that's good at it. Funnelign him advantages on the sly might be a better way to play things.
The Atomic Skull is a very real possibility, and we should look into dealing with him if we can. "Thinks he's a superhero, and that Superman is a supervillain" is a great sweet spot.
The Alain Mauricet version of Hunchback might work quite well... if he were not a Batman fanboy. The fact that his transformation was derived from clayface formula is a bit of a concern, but h doesn't seem to have gotten the shapeshifting or the bonelessness, so hopefully not too much of one. Still... Batman fanboy. Would probably require a LexCorp Tower in France somewhere. The other Hunchbacks were all normal people wearing disguises.
Hector Hammond... is a definite maybe. He seems to like wealth, and have personal issues with Green Lantern. Neither of these is a bad thing. He's got a monstrously large head, and a fragile body that limits his ability to get around. We'd have to make sure we could actually work with the guy (and that he wouldn't have problems with Carol), but I could see him being potentially interested in the Bone Growth Formula, especially if it gave him back a degree of physical mobility.
Bork would be pretty much perfect. Blatantly monstrous appearance, existing brute abilities, and most of his motivations come down to things like "I'd like to get really good medical care for my mom" and "Getting a job and/or a decent social circle as a giant orange monster is really hard". If/when he shows up, we should absolutely snap him up if we can, and as far as I can see the Bone Growth formula has basically no downside for him.
Cockroach Andy is... a maybe? On the one side, he's street-tier, and has been transformed into a humanoid cockroach. He's got basically nothing to lose, and could almost certainly be drawn in with the promise of steady employment and reasonable social links. On the other side, I'm not sure how the formula would work with a guy who's switched to "chitinous exoskeleton" as their primary way of doing business.
Carmen Dillo is a distinct possibility. Don't know all that much about him, but he really doesn't look at all human, nd if he was sticking with petty crime and stealing food, it probably wouldn't be too hard to get him off the street. The only question is whether or not he'd have the skills to make it worth it.
Ferret is... more of the same. Freaky head-shape, petty criminal, smelling powers, might be worth it?
Blue Devil's case is... weird. He's just a guy in a suit, and then the suit is bonded to him (and he doesn't like it and works hard to try to get it off) and then he turns into an actual demon (but tries to be a superhero anyway). Not entirely out of the question, but I feel like he'd turn it down until he was actually full-demon (and therefore wouldn't plausibly be able to return to human form) and at that point I'm not sure how well the formula would work. Still... not impossible. Red Devil's case is tied un in the same thing, and thus also a bit on the weird side. It also involved getting on Neron's radar in a significant way, and that's... not somethign to be done lightly.
Tusk is a definite possibility, assuming he's interested. He's already got the strength and toughness boost, at the cost of severe, monstrous ugliness. He might well see doublign down on that one as a win. I'm unclear of his background, though. He's on the "mildly criminal" side, but is he the sort who would want to work at LexCorp?
Elephant Man looks like exactly the sort we'd want for this thing - a thug-for-hire with existing strength/toughness powers and a nicely monstrous apearance. Definitely worth looking into.
...an I'm tapped out. Hopefully someone finds this useful.
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