King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
You can try. No guarantee on Jade actually doing it but you can try.
Lex Sedet In Vertice: A Supervillain in the DCU CK2 quest
- Thread starter King crimson
- Start date
- Superhero
Torgamous
Aspiring Gynoid
- Pronouns
- She/Her
She'd be totally on board with body theft and I think she'd see a kindred spirit in Ultra-Humanite the same way she did with Ivo.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Ahh, I got confused about which thing you were talking about.
Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Plan PLANNAME
- Location
- On the Case!
You get 1 reroll. Here:
Bold mine.
There are several things I don't like about Simon's plan, but the biggest has to be the runes action. I think the DC will be much higher than he thinks it is. Besides that he assigns Jinx to it which I think she will negatively contribute to. I think she won't add a bonus and instead add a negative.
Also Moving Mari to expand McCabe Fashion and not Enchant LexCorp Tower is such a waste that isn't worth the narrative. Sometimes the narrative is important and is worth it, but other times you have to realize that the narrative isn't more important than completing another action. In this instance one of these actions is a 100 times more important than the other.
[X] Plan Covering All Our Bases
Lord Ultimus
Beautiful...
- Location
- Undisclosed Warehouse
[X] Plan PLANNAME
- Location
- Somewhere and somewhen in time and space
[X] Plan PLANNAME
Right, thanks for reminding I'll add that in
Good point, I'll add her
The issue with Barbara is that we constantly have to balance between giving her actions she wants to do and giving her actions that could backfire horribly if she joins Batman and having her design our cybersecurity system is probably one of the latter
I definitely get where you're coming from, my only real reasons for this are Mari's high Martial and having a semi-magical artefact might at least lower the malus for not having someone with actual magic assigned to it
Personally I'd rather avoid having Cerise do it at all costs considering that that means that even if we succeed we'll never be able to trust that she didn't sneak something in there
Though theoretically that is the best opportunity to have Roxy find out if she's doing anything suspicious
I get where your coming from but even by herself Pamela has pretty good odds of making a very good impression on Black Adam and we kind of need Lex to deal with the rune in my opinion since trying to figure out what the mysterious rune of someone that's very possibly a puppet of Circe does could be very difficult
And even if having Alex is overkill it might give us extra magical advantages from a great success
I'm glad to have your approval, my one concern is admittedly that Vivian is a bit of a snob and she may turn down perfectly functional options as a result but hopefully the others will reign her in a little
This was definitely one of the ones that I struggled the most with coming up with but in the end I came up with three reasons for it 1) Cerise tends to act pretty suspiciously even when she's not actively assigned to something that interests her and Roxy and Mercy might be able to catch her out 2) If Cerise does work for Circe she might theoretically be pro Superman just because Diana is anti Superman and 3) This is an action that we kind of really need to succeed because failing to criticise Superman could backfire horribly on us
While Carol would definitely be great at the plane action my thinking here is more that with their being two actions left on rebuilding Metropolis if we get just a subpar success, or god forbid fail it, Superman will finish it off and probably get the majority of the credit which would both piss off Lex and rob us of our earned PR bonus whereas Nathan and Carol working together both guaranteed to succeed and have good odds of finishing it themselves
And Carla would almost certainly be all for designing a new fighter jet and will still succeed on the action if not as much as Carol would
You're right that Lincoln is very much not a people person but she's explicitly somewhat capable at running things despite that and we have a bit of a history of having potentially game changing technologies having subpar releases and kind of becoming irrelevant
Ideally we'd have Mari on it but it's likely enough to succeed on its own that I'm not worried about not having her on it, especially when we've just let her work on fashion last turn and are buying out one of her competitors this turn as well
My logic is mostly that Mick has actually met Supes and Jinx's love for theatre/cinema and understanding of modern technology and communication will work together to make them effective at it
Plus it keeps Jinx away from Cerise and with the other most influential adult in her life
Well they are our best Intrigue team beyond including MickMight be crazy enough to work!
You make a good point but my concern with having Nygma work on our cybersecurity is that he's the kind of guy to leave a back door you can find if you solve the Hong Kong crossword from 1967 or something
Yeah, I've already changed that thanks though
Thank you, though next turn we should probably put her on something to do with law enforcement to help satisfy her vigilante urges
I mostly kept Caitlin in there because unless my maths was wrong Lex, Cass and Rebecca weren't going to get a reroll when it was just the three of them and Caitlin adds a significant amount to the roll
And while ideally I'd love to have Lex meet with Black Adam I'm confident in Pamela's ability to make a good first impression and I'm worried that if Cerise realises we're on to her she'll set of the runes early and we have no way of knowing how difficult the rune action is
Even if it is a little overkill worst case scenario we blow it out of the water and learn more about runes as a result
I'd love to do that as well but that feels like kind of action that we should have a hero unit for,w chin we can't afford right now, plus the more we teach Royal Flush things they want to know and earn their trust the more likely they are to listen when we try to teach them the boring stuff
Exactly, plus with Lex and Nygma helping them search the SCU is more likely to find Ultra Humanite before Superman and get at least some of the credit for dealing with him
Can we take two of the actions? If so we should definitely reach out to Eiling as well
The issue there is that Rudy Jones is a greedy, entitled idiot that just gained the ability to steal other powers, any offer we make him he'll assume he deserves better, he'll probably want to steal the power of any powered individual we send to talk to him and he really doesn't like people that are smarter than him
The way I see it our best option is to let him fight Superman to see what they're both capable of and hopefully see Parasite beat Superman, even temporarily, and the. Figure out what Albert Michaels did so we can try and replicate it
- Location
- barking
[X] Plan Covering All Our Bases
- Location
- On the Case!
I know you might have saw this in my response to Simon, but again we do get 1 reroll:
Bold mine
Sorry if it comes across as harping on it to much, I just want to make sure that plan makers know these mechanics because they are important.
- Location
- California
I have a slight concern with this, the enchant the tower DC is 40, whereas the expand option is only dc 5. If expanding McCabe fashion rolls low, it can still pass, and I don't think rolling a 1 will hurt too more than a 4 due to being in a similar range, in contrast the ward option failing can cause more problems for us, such as damaging the tower or possibly knocking our other wards offline as a result of rolling in the single digits (or something like with the antimatter explosion that drew attention). Mari can definitely get a big success on expanding her business, but she can also safeguard us from something I'd argue could be far worse if left unattended.
The previous turn we had Mari on developing and selling high fashion clothing, and it rolled a 98, so I don't think she'd mind focusing on wards this turn for us.
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So unrelated question, if we were to have someone adopt Amy Reinaday who would it be?
Gumiho
Reach heaven through violence!
We should probably see what Amy is like in person before trying to foist herboff on someone.
True but we seemingly can't do that before we decide to have someone adopt her so we should probably have a vague idea of who we'd want it to be beforehand
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So status report on how things are looking. I want to give you the full 24 hours to get your votes in before personal actions come into play. As such there won't be a mainline update today specifically. That being said I'll get some kind of bonus content up for you guys
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Well, assuming Jinx doesn't anti-contribute, on a 40 or higher my team rolls an exploding crit and scores at least a 160 on the dice. On a 39 or lower, I get a roll somewhere between 61 and 99.
It's possible that this is a DC 200+ dice roll, but there is absolutely no reason to just assume it is. "DC ???" does not automatically mean "we know for a fact that this is insanely difficult."
Also, your later argument extends to this. Which is more important? Making a very good first impression on Black Adam as opposed to a mediocre one? Or finding out what those runes do specifically this turn?
Why do you think that? I'm genuinely curious, and willing to find other ways to get things done if convinced.
Not sure I agree. The rewards of Mari succeeding on the "enchant tower" action will inherently be muted because she's not a magician. Furthermore, said rewards are basically "upgrade defenses by a tick, over and above what you already have." Which is nice, but ultimately can probably wait a turn; we are not fragile or defenseless now, after all.
And the real reward of "expand McCabe Fashion" isn't the expansion of McCabe Fashion. It's Mari's continued loyalty. Which I honestly think is more valuable to us than the contributions she'd make on the "enchant tower" action.
[grins]
Thanks for reminding me, but I'm pretty sure I'm still right.
Here's the thing: Lex+Cass on Learning get a combined 38+2*24 = +86 on the die roll from combined stats. What you really want to get amazing exploding crits is to have two or three heroes with a combined bonus in the '90s, so that the probability of chaining together multiple rerolls is maximized. Two rerolls at +90 is better than one reroll at +120, for example. There's a risk of NOT getting a reroll, of course... But that mainly matters if you are deeply worried about failing, not when you're simply trying to engineer a high probability of high-scoring success.
Now, +86 from two heroes is good, but a bit borderline for this. It gives us the chance to score up to three rerolls, but we have to roll a 15 or higher on the dice each time. We have only (I'm rounding, by the way) a 61% chance of a desired triple-reroll crit, an 11% chance of a double-reroll crit, a 12% chance of a single-reroll crit, and a 14% chance of no crit at all.
We get this instead of a 100% chance of a single-reroll crit with a higher bonus. The 72% chance of getting to apply the hero bonuses three or four times tends to outweigh the chance of getting to apply a stronger hero bonus once unless this is a roll where you Absolutely Must Not Fail, but it can be a close-run thing.
So there's an argument in favor of hedging your bets with a third hero... but you still want that third hero to keep the combined bonus at, like, 98 or 99 or something, not over 100. Because otherwise you sacrifice your chance of getting a double-reroll crit.
The antimatter explosion was a failure by a 100 point margin; we rolled a 75 on a DC 175 Learning check involving an inherently hazardous project.
The scope of a failure tends to be proportionate to the margin of failure, along with the inherent riskiness of the undertaking; I'm not too worried about things on the same scale happening here.
Mm. That is the best argument I've heard so far on this particular subject, as of the moment I'm writing.
Well I obviously can't speak for @Zale but what I would argue is that Cerise is currently Jinx's favourite person and she adamantly believe that she gave her the runes to help her and as far as she's concerned that's all she needs to know
If we assign her to help us analys and research them she probably won't want to believe anything bad she learns from it
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you're forgetting to take into account that Lex gets +7 to his stat for every subordinate he has on an action so he and Cass would actually get +93
- Location
- On the Case!
In the personal action description of Cerise Jinx is happy with the runes. She fully trusts Cerise and thinks that she is helping her. I think this this trust and belief in Cerise means she won't help us in investigating the rune. Why would she? Obviously Cerise did this to help her control her powers so nothing more needs to be found out. I could see her adding a negative or simply not adding her score at all.
Do you even know the wards we are missing out on right now? The current wards that we have researched, but haven't applied are Anti-demon wards, Inscription runes, Shield wards, and Bad intent monitoring wards.
Personally I think the bad intent monitoring wards are time critical. Not only for helping catch Cerise in case she pulls anything like Cold Engine bomb again, but for other mundane employees to in case some employees from The Menagerie still hold their ideals or grudges against the rich.
More than that we have no indication that Mari has low loyalty right now. Give me a sign that Mari has low loyalty and then I'll believe that your action choice is justified, but currently I don't see that.
I am deeply worried about failing. I would rather guarantee the success than make the gamble at all on an action this important.
While this is irrelevant to the plan creation I just wanted to note that I already know about the various hero combinations and how to game the mechanics. I think that's pretty clear from my calculations on how to maximize Lex's chances of success on studying magic:
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You know what I kind of want to do next turn? Make a research push to develop a kit of equipment to provide the SCU with
We research lasers/weapons, new armour and develop a police model of exosuit and then send them off to the SCU the turn afterwards
It puts the SCU even more in our debt, keeps our city safer and makes it more likely that they can resolve situations without Supermans help
We research lasers/weapons, new armour and develop a police model of exosuit and then send them off to the SCU the turn afterwards
It puts the SCU even more in our debt, keeps our city safer and makes it more likely that they can resolve situations without Supermans help
- Location
- California
To add a bit to that line of reason, when Mari asked us to let her work on an action of her choice, she specifically asked to work on a clothing line rather than expanding her business (Turn 17).
We put her on it the next turn (Turn 18)
So that success plus the one last turn I believe would already have established some decent goodwill, expanding McCabe fashion will make her owe us but is not what she would pick if she had the chance to ask us for something, just my thoughts on this.
Also something I'd like to mention for consideration, when I was working on a plan, I put Mari and Jinx on enchanting the tower, due to coop/stats/Mari being direction to Jinx's magic, but also because Mari was the one trying to be there for Jinx, before Cerise started trying to pull her to her side. I'm pretty sure if the rune is dangerous to Jinx, Mari will be the first to plant her fist in Cerise's head:
Cerise hurting Jinx would probably be her last act on this Earth before Mari unleashes the animal kingdom on her. Their coop score is low enough that Mari wouldn't hold back:
Punch and Jewlee Interlude: Homicidal Holiday
King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
So I don't know how good this is. I tried to balance a very difficult line with Punch and Jewelee of making them seem insane and unpredictable but also make it possible to follow their thoughts. I'm not sure how well it went. I tentatively consider this canon (it certainly draws on things that have happened in canon, Punch and Jewelee starting their careers by stealing stuff from ARGUS and becoming murder/robberhobos) but I don't think it landed quite as well as I though it did when drafting. I also struggled a bit with balancing comedy with depravity and I'm not sure how well it landed. Let me know what you guys ultimately think cause I tried a lot of different things in getting this piece together and I want to know what worked and what didn't.
Punch and Jewlee Interlude: Homicidal Holiday
Clyde Phillips AKA Punch
Everyday was the same. Day in day out. Same boring job. Same boring friends. Same boring life Same boring end. And it all spiraled over and over again. Same boring job. Same boring friends. Same boring life Same boring end.
Things weren't okay. His lust for life had gone away and as he got to talking with his darling wife he'd found she felt a similar way. That was sad. And bad. It made him go mad as he longed to run free and play. And yet everyday life was so boring. Be a good person, follow the laws, eat your vegetables, don't murder your dinner guests, up is down, left is right, jump as high as the president says, wish everyone a good morning and a good night. Everyone painted in the same shade of grey and made to live productive and peaceful lives talking about the weather and sports and other things.
He wanted to die. To change things. To kill. To rearrange the strings. To let loose and scream and set everything ablaze. But everyday life seemed to crush him through snow and rain and heat and gloom and everything in between. He'd go postal if that wasn't already his job and he'd been round the bend so many times he could make whole loopy-scroopy circles with which to paint the world a different shade.
It would all come to a head soon and he'd completely and totally snap.
Julia Phillips AKA Jewlee
It all felt so vapid and childish. No one appreciated spontaneity anymore. You had to act on a schedule dictated to you by ticks and tocks and you'd be dancing to the tone of boring plain faced clocks. People weren't people any more. They were all puppets and robots and androids and such. Cellphones would monitor your brainwaves and the secret police would scoop you up and hollow you out if you started to harbor seditious thoughts and deviated from the role of a proper citizen. It's why she and her dearest husband hadn't touched the technology at all. But the poison was in everything. The TV would make you stupid and unable to focus and everyone was constantly placated by bunch of flashes and pans and glitz and glamour wrapped up in illusions chewed up and spat out until they all danced in sync.
She hated it. Even the puppet shows at Coney island had gotten stale and routine and bogged down in mindless frittery and fluff designed to restitch all the stuffing in someone's head until they wear a whole different kind of talking bear. Keep your head down, keep the peace live boring little meaningless little grey lives and everything will be at ease. All the same, all lame, where were the fun and games.
Eventually she'd gotten fed up with things that she'd pulled out all of her life savings from the bank. Then she'd grabbed her dearest husband's as well after he'd told her he felt a similar way. With all that money she bought guns and armor and knives and all sorts of fun new toys to make things end in a bang. Then she'd told her dearest husband what she wanted to do to shake up the monochrome monotony and he'd gotten on board faster than she could say hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
Clyde Phillips AKA Punch
At first the plan was to go and shoot up some place with a bunch of civilians. Maybe a school or a shopping mall. Something suburban enough to really be at odds with mass murder but still fun and engaging with pleasant weather. Of course that was boring. Everyone and their mother could have a family outing offing other families outside. It was so passé and boring and cliché and more funny foreign words used to mean boring and lame and useless and stupid and worthless. No they were going to go out in a blaze of glory that wouldn't just be fun but would also be spectacular and memorable.
Honestly it took them hearing about some killer clown on the news for them to decide a new direction to go in. The man was far to into Bats to really ever be a proper role model but he was a snappy dresser with a spiffy sense of style and a custom made spotlight for his fun. So he and his darling wife had agreed to play dress up and pretend on top of their brand new game. It was exciting and innovative and fun. He originally wanted to be called the Joker and his darling wife would also be known as the Joker. Unfortunately the bozo in Gotham had already taken that name and image was important. After all as fun as it was to imagine a headline that said "the Joker watched the Joker kill the Joker while joking with the Joker" people would be too stupid and brand conscious to ever let that fly. It was why nobody named all of their children Kevin. Or Conroy. Or Frieda. Or Friday. Or West-Side-Dory-Triple-Deluxe-with-Cheese. People were boring and stupid.
And so they set out to go on an adventure. Or the costume store. Whichever let them shoot people first. He made sure to be a good costumed crazy person and wore his underwear on top of his pants. They took the mailmobile to the store. They walked in and prepared to put on a show. His darling wife shot the store owner. He didn't want to feel left out so he shot the man again. Then his darling wife did it again. Naturally he had to follow it up. They fired again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Then they got bored.
He made sure to grab a jingly hat. Then he grabbed elf boots and the most spectacular colored checkered pants and shirt. He also got some fancy green underwear to match his jingly new hat alongside a bubble pipe. It was so exciting. He could now blow bubbles and get famous for having fun and shooting people.
Julia Phillips AKA Jewelee
The costume store was a fun excursion but it was all set up for what was yet to come. Naturally with the chance to be fashionable for free they helped themselves to the costumes after the owner volunteered to act as stress relief and waived any payments for costumes or property damage. Such a nice man. They probably should have stopped shooting after the seventh time.
Oh well she got her big bright yellow boots, her checkered skirt and weird should thingies and some big gloves to go with it. She and her dearest husband put on their masks and were ready to have a night on the town. However as they started heading towards their next show she got an idea.
"Punch dearest" She said to catch her dearest husbands attention while he drove the mail car he'd had from his old boring life. Fake names were important.
"Yes, Jewlee the love of my life?" He responded as he continued to speed.
"Do you want more fun gadgets and gizmos?" She asked already knowing what his answer would be.
"Yes more toys to play with sounds like just the thing to spice up this adventure" her dearest husband answered.
"Well then we have our next stop to make" She declared "We'll steal some stuff tech stuff from Metropolis considering that some stiff suits are collecting all that junk when we can make better use of it"
Punch AKA Clyde Phillips
"Honey I'm home!" Punch yelled as he shot up the house of some hapless ARGUS agent. Honestly not only did they have terrible taste in wallpaper but they also never expected to be attacked at home. The yellowpages were a home invaders best friend for hitting the right target.
"Shhh!" His darling wife, Jewelee responded as she shot the dead suit's wife as she tried to run "The babies sleeping"
"They have a baby?" Punch asked perplexed. His darling wife just shrugged and moved on as they started ransacking the house looking for any hidden treasure. He fired another shot being fired as Jewelee unloaded into the downed woman to make sure she was dead. He found an id badge and all the passcode stuff that the suit had had. His darling wife had found a baby.
"They do have a baby!" Jewelee brightly declared "Do you want a baby?"
Punch thought hard on this question.
"Does it come in purple?" He asked. "Or have some other nifty thing about it"
"No just a boring regular baby" She responded. And there was an answer. Why would he want some regular baby if it wasn't even his.
"Throw it in the trash" He announced "I don't want it"
They had a big day tomorrow and they had to get all the dismemberment work done tonight. They didn't have time for a useless waste of meat while they were having fun on their own.
Jewelee AKA Julia Philips
The next morning started with the two of them playing house. Jewellee made her dearest husband lunch in a brown bag like boring people did and he put on a suit and a badge that was supposed to make him look smart but actually made him look stupid and stabbable. Luckily Jewelee knew that he'd get out of the horrid clothes soon and into something much more fun as soon as they'd grabbed some stuff.
"Don't forget your eye and finger are in the lunch bag" Jewelee reminded her dearest husband. He informed her that he wouldn't and then gave her a long passionate kiss goodbye as he went off to work. She hate, hate hated boring suburbia but it was so much fun turning it on its head. She helped herself to all of the good things in the fridge before reading any classified documents left at home. She couldn't watch TV for fear of the TV beams making her into a slack jawed idiot.
Punch arrived back late with all kinds of goodies including a heaping helping of rayguns. The two then drove off in a brand new stolen car before stealing another car and continuing along their merry way. As soon as the big men up top figured out what they'd done, they'd be hunted down but that was all the fun of the game. She knew that Punch found their new game just as fun as she did. After all it was now a race to see if they could make it coast to coast while having fun abandoning all their inhibitions. She couldn't wait until they found a nice bank to rob for the classic appeal.
So many places to go, sights to see and people to kill. Punch and Jewelee were going to have a ball on this homicidal holiday before they were gunned down in a blaze of glory.
Punch and Jewlee Interlude: Homicidal Holiday
Clyde Phillips AKA Punch
Everyday was the same. Day in day out. Same boring job. Same boring friends. Same boring life Same boring end. And it all spiraled over and over again. Same boring job. Same boring friends. Same boring life Same boring end.
Things weren't okay. His lust for life had gone away and as he got to talking with his darling wife he'd found she felt a similar way. That was sad. And bad. It made him go mad as he longed to run free and play. And yet everyday life was so boring. Be a good person, follow the laws, eat your vegetables, don't murder your dinner guests, up is down, left is right, jump as high as the president says, wish everyone a good morning and a good night. Everyone painted in the same shade of grey and made to live productive and peaceful lives talking about the weather and sports and other things.
He wanted to die. To change things. To kill. To rearrange the strings. To let loose and scream and set everything ablaze. But everyday life seemed to crush him through snow and rain and heat and gloom and everything in between. He'd go postal if that wasn't already his job and he'd been round the bend so many times he could make whole loopy-scroopy circles with which to paint the world a different shade.
It would all come to a head soon and he'd completely and totally snap.
Julia Phillips AKA Jewlee
It all felt so vapid and childish. No one appreciated spontaneity anymore. You had to act on a schedule dictated to you by ticks and tocks and you'd be dancing to the tone of boring plain faced clocks. People weren't people any more. They were all puppets and robots and androids and such. Cellphones would monitor your brainwaves and the secret police would scoop you up and hollow you out if you started to harbor seditious thoughts and deviated from the role of a proper citizen. It's why she and her dearest husband hadn't touched the technology at all. But the poison was in everything. The TV would make you stupid and unable to focus and everyone was constantly placated by bunch of flashes and pans and glitz and glamour wrapped up in illusions chewed up and spat out until they all danced in sync.
She hated it. Even the puppet shows at Coney island had gotten stale and routine and bogged down in mindless frittery and fluff designed to restitch all the stuffing in someone's head until they wear a whole different kind of talking bear. Keep your head down, keep the peace live boring little meaningless little grey lives and everything will be at ease. All the same, all lame, where were the fun and games.
Eventually she'd gotten fed up with things that she'd pulled out all of her life savings from the bank. Then she'd grabbed her dearest husband's as well after he'd told her he felt a similar way. With all that money she bought guns and armor and knives and all sorts of fun new toys to make things end in a bang. Then she'd told her dearest husband what she wanted to do to shake up the monochrome monotony and he'd gotten on board faster than she could say hippomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.
Clyde Phillips AKA Punch
At first the plan was to go and shoot up some place with a bunch of civilians. Maybe a school or a shopping mall. Something suburban enough to really be at odds with mass murder but still fun and engaging with pleasant weather. Of course that was boring. Everyone and their mother could have a family outing offing other families outside. It was so passé and boring and cliché and more funny foreign words used to mean boring and lame and useless and stupid and worthless. No they were going to go out in a blaze of glory that wouldn't just be fun but would also be spectacular and memorable.
Honestly it took them hearing about some killer clown on the news for them to decide a new direction to go in. The man was far to into Bats to really ever be a proper role model but he was a snappy dresser with a spiffy sense of style and a custom made spotlight for his fun. So he and his darling wife had agreed to play dress up and pretend on top of their brand new game. It was exciting and innovative and fun. He originally wanted to be called the Joker and his darling wife would also be known as the Joker. Unfortunately the bozo in Gotham had already taken that name and image was important. After all as fun as it was to imagine a headline that said "the Joker watched the Joker kill the Joker while joking with the Joker" people would be too stupid and brand conscious to ever let that fly. It was why nobody named all of their children Kevin. Or Conroy. Or Frieda. Or Friday. Or West-Side-Dory-Triple-Deluxe-with-Cheese. People were boring and stupid.
And so they set out to go on an adventure. Or the costume store. Whichever let them shoot people first. He made sure to be a good costumed crazy person and wore his underwear on top of his pants. They took the mailmobile to the store. They walked in and prepared to put on a show. His darling wife shot the store owner. He didn't want to feel left out so he shot the man again. Then his darling wife did it again. Naturally he had to follow it up. They fired again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again. Then they got bored.
He made sure to grab a jingly hat. Then he grabbed elf boots and the most spectacular colored checkered pants and shirt. He also got some fancy green underwear to match his jingly new hat alongside a bubble pipe. It was so exciting. He could now blow bubbles and get famous for having fun and shooting people.
Julia Phillips AKA Jewelee
The costume store was a fun excursion but it was all set up for what was yet to come. Naturally with the chance to be fashionable for free they helped themselves to the costumes after the owner volunteered to act as stress relief and waived any payments for costumes or property damage. Such a nice man. They probably should have stopped shooting after the seventh time.
Oh well she got her big bright yellow boots, her checkered skirt and weird should thingies and some big gloves to go with it. She and her dearest husband put on their masks and were ready to have a night on the town. However as they started heading towards their next show she got an idea.
"Punch dearest" She said to catch her dearest husbands attention while he drove the mail car he'd had from his old boring life. Fake names were important.
"Yes, Jewlee the love of my life?" He responded as he continued to speed.
"Do you want more fun gadgets and gizmos?" She asked already knowing what his answer would be.
"Yes more toys to play with sounds like just the thing to spice up this adventure" her dearest husband answered.
"Well then we have our next stop to make" She declared "We'll steal some stuff tech stuff from Metropolis considering that some stiff suits are collecting all that junk when we can make better use of it"
Punch AKA Clyde Phillips
"Honey I'm home!" Punch yelled as he shot up the house of some hapless ARGUS agent. Honestly not only did they have terrible taste in wallpaper but they also never expected to be attacked at home. The yellowpages were a home invaders best friend for hitting the right target.
"Shhh!" His darling wife, Jewelee responded as she shot the dead suit's wife as she tried to run "The babies sleeping"
"They have a baby?" Punch asked perplexed. His darling wife just shrugged and moved on as they started ransacking the house looking for any hidden treasure. He fired another shot being fired as Jewelee unloaded into the downed woman to make sure she was dead. He found an id badge and all the passcode stuff that the suit had had. His darling wife had found a baby.
"They do have a baby!" Jewelee brightly declared "Do you want a baby?"
Punch thought hard on this question.
"Does it come in purple?" He asked. "Or have some other nifty thing about it"
"No just a boring regular baby" She responded. And there was an answer. Why would he want some regular baby if it wasn't even his.
"Throw it in the trash" He announced "I don't want it"
They had a big day tomorrow and they had to get all the dismemberment work done tonight. They didn't have time for a useless waste of meat while they were having fun on their own.
Jewelee AKA Julia Philips
The next morning started with the two of them playing house. Jewellee made her dearest husband lunch in a brown bag like boring people did and he put on a suit and a badge that was supposed to make him look smart but actually made him look stupid and stabbable. Luckily Jewelee knew that he'd get out of the horrid clothes soon and into something much more fun as soon as they'd grabbed some stuff.
"Don't forget your eye and finger are in the lunch bag" Jewelee reminded her dearest husband. He informed her that he wouldn't and then gave her a long passionate kiss goodbye as he went off to work. She hate, hate hated boring suburbia but it was so much fun turning it on its head. She helped herself to all of the good things in the fridge before reading any classified documents left at home. She couldn't watch TV for fear of the TV beams making her into a slack jawed idiot.
Punch arrived back late with all kinds of goodies including a heaping helping of rayguns. The two then drove off in a brand new stolen car before stealing another car and continuing along their merry way. As soon as the big men up top figured out what they'd done, they'd be hunted down but that was all the fun of the game. She knew that Punch found their new game just as fun as she did. After all it was now a race to see if they could make it coast to coast while having fun abandoning all their inhibitions. She couldn't wait until they found a nice bank to rob for the classic appeal.
So many places to go, sights to see and people to kill. Punch and Jewelee were going to have a ball on this homicidal holiday before they were gunned down in a blaze of glory.
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King crimson
Confusion Will Be My Epitaph
- Location
- Los Angeles
I don't know too much about the new 52 versions but what I remembered the New Earth versions being described as was "often treated like jokes but just as unpredictable and dangerous as the Joker". Furthermore these guys were able to survive every suicide mission they went on and ultimately retire. As such I definitely wanted to go with a somewhat darker take to highlight the fact that for all that they look and seem like harmless comedic goofballs, they are competent, dangerous and compared to the Joker of all people.
I wouldn't quite call them fans. More like people who generally like some of the things he has said about chaos and run with it in a totally different direction. They don't really mimic the Joker beyond "hey his costume's neat lets take a similar iconography for ourselves".
The Joker claims to be about nihilism and he's far too fixated on Batman and by extension Gotham to really be comparable to Punch and Jewelee. He also likes to play mind games a lot more than either of those two. He also does things to make a statement most of the time.
Punch and Jewelee meanwhile are two individuals who are ultimately about hedonism. Unlike Joker who claims to be trying to prove something and has a single nemesis he targets Punch and Jewelee do not care about anything other than having fun. There's no real point to anything they do beyond "we found it fun". I kind of had them characterized in my head as a Bonnie and Clyde duo mixed with a toned down Francis E. Dec (who I recommend you read if you want to check out how a genuinely psychotic person might view the world) with some slight touches of hedonistic sociopaths.
They'd also deny themselves as "fans of the Joker" so much as they'd claim that they're fans of the imagery he takes on. In terms of actual methodology and behavior the two groups have little in common besides the fact that their both crazy, murderous and dress like clowns.
Granted I don't think that necessarily came through best due how the piece turned out but I do want to note that there was some attempt to distance them from him. And that I'm hoping to give them distinctly different characterizations.
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