Life Ore Death - DC Feruchemy [Young Justice]

[Obloquy]

Dirt-simple omake sugggestion: Mistborn/Misting instead of Renka as the OC. I'm not sure if that's up for quick/engaging scenes on its own without substantial text devoted to it, though.

Click to shrink...

Well, I got hit by the writing bug. Don't worry, I'm writing LOD too. So PoV character April got recruited by the Mistborn Insert as a sidekick and he gave her a bit of Lerasium for her powers about 3 weeks before this snippet. Mistborn's base of operations is London, England.

17 October, 2008 __ [Friday] April's PoV

"Hey bubs, this is a no bird-hunting zone," I baited, dropping to the mouth of the alley a bit hard but letting pewter keep me feeling swell.

Three bozos had cornered a woman in an alley with bad intentions; from what I'd heard flying over, she was a streetwalker, but that didn't mean she deserved it, and they weren't clients.

I'd got them to turn around and look, so I flared iron, braced against the lamppost at my back, and pulled every bit of metal in the front part of the alley. Except the dumpster, of course.

Belt buckles, wrist watches, and pocket packed with coins yanked the bozos toward me. Pewter was a warm rush in my belly, and I socked my fist straight into the first guy's cheekbone. I dropped the pull before the rest got to me, but they were stumbling dragged off balance, so I jumped off, kneed the next guy in his head, and kicked the knife outta the third mug's fist.

I burned zinc again, and hit them with the fear as best I could, trying not to get the woman too.

"Don't move!" I ordered, and they froze. "Get your guts on the ground, hands behind your loafs, and I don't break any more bones, because you're under arrest."

I kicked the one guy who tried to say it wasn't a crime when it was her job, and got down to tying their wrists. Boss made sure I always had cameras, voice recorders, cord, and stuff for the night.

"Yeah, 'cause that explains why she was saying no, crying, and got a knife cut on her cheek to go with that black eye," I spat. "Hey, ma'am, I got some anti-sceptic stuff if ya want it." I wasn't as big a fan of burning brass, but it got her to calm down, and zinc got her confidence up enough to come out and talk to me. It took about another five minutes for the bobby car to show up.

"Boss?" I hesitated when he got out of the front.

"We're a bit late because they were already picking up a drug bust-," that he'd smashed up, obviously, "-when you set you're beacon. Ma'am," he nodded politely to the battered woman.

It took him a bit to talk her into the front of the car to give a deposition, but then...

"I'm sorry I got out of range again," I apologized immediately. "I just heard..."

"I understand," he sighed. "and because it worked and you foiled a serious crime this time, I'm going to let you off the hook. And you did use your beacon." I nodded furiously.

"If you wanna put me through more paces..." I suggested. I didn't really mind training, even the physical stuff I had to do without burning pewter, which always felt like a cop-out to me.

"You can always do that on your own, since you don't break those rules," he dismissed. Then, "I think it's time to introduce you to another pair of metals." I perked up.

Cor! He said he'd do two a week to start with, and we're two days early. Not a big treat, but soon...

"Time for number seven and eight?" I wouldn't beg, I resolved. He chuckled.

"You know, there was an order I was going to introduce them to you... but I've been thinking I have no reason to stick to that. Might as well keep some stuff for later." Which means he's never gonna tell me two or four of the metals until I'm old and gray, unless I figure them out first, but he might just give me all the others to play with sooner. "Welcome to the Temporal Quadrant, kiddo."

"If anyone else called me that," I grumbled without any bite, and reverently took the vial.

"Cadmium and its alloy bendalloy are your new best friends for when - and I do mean when, not if, when - you get in trouble over your head. They would be my favorites if they weren't also..."

"Also what?"

"Not inconvenient, but specialized," he decided on. "They are incredibly good for what they do."

"But naw so good outside of that," I finished. "So. Time, righ'? Push and pull... Cadmium doesn't reverse time, does it?" That'd be too crazy to do. No way, even if it is magic.

"No, but burning cadmium, called pulsing, creates of bubble of slowed time around you. Everything within a few meters will still seem normal, but past that it'll be moving at super speed."

"But I'm caught in it too?" I complained.

"Yes, but it works very well with a partner, like me or the police. It's one of my favorite tricks to use on big raids. I go in alone, herd the bad guys into a pulser bubble, keep alive for a few minutes, and outside a few hours have passed and there're several score reinforcements circled around us."

"So it's for when - not if, when," I parroted, "I get in too much thick of it. I slow them down-,"

"So I and the police get a few hours to find you and get ready to jump in. Bendalloy creates a bubble of high-speed time, the reverse. Slider bubbles are smaller, less than half the radius."

"So what happens if ya burn 'em together?" I wondered.

"You get a bubble of canceled out normal time, a slow bubble around it, and normal time beyond."

"Cor," I praised. "Do the bubbles move, or am I stuck in the middle?"

"When you start to burn, the bubble forms in a perfect sphere with you at the exact center. As long as you keep burning, you can move around inside the bubble. You can leave the bubble, but it's better to stop burning first; if you leave the bubble pops. Not as bad as Tineye overload...."

"Right, got it, I'll experiment safelike and not do it in the field." I did not need another lesson when he'd had me burn tin and overloaded my senses, even if tin was my favorite metal so far.

"Get it in your stores," he ordered, meaning I should drink up, "but don't burn it yet. Well, bendalloy is okay, but only do cadmium if there's an emergency. No need to waste hours tonight."

 

[Obloquy]

Public Service Announcement

Hey everyone, so since we just finished Episode 24 - Hallowed Saints and Souls there's no point in putting it off any further.

Season 1 of Life Ore Death is ending soon, specifically with the next episode, #25.

The story won't be ending obviously, but it just makes thematic sense for me to put it here given the extra content I've worked in through original episodes, the severity of canon Misplaced, and other such things.

So, next weekend we'll be starting the Season 1 Finale. Just one problem.

I'm all dried up on title ideas for the episode. Seriously, my ideas list is stuff like:

• Fate and Fortune since Dr. Fate is involved and Klarion has Jinx as an apprentice
• Fortunes, Fates, and Flaws with Renka as the Ruinous aspect of things breaking, breaking down, etc.
• I've thought of calling it the First Finale since it is, and that's better than my first idea of Final Exam as a title
• Early Ending is my other arguable idea, but the point is I'm not super-fond of any of the above

So for those interested, I'm starting up an impromptu contest, lasting from now until I post the first installment this coming weekend. If there are still no good ideas I'll extend it another week, but otherwise I'm just calling it Episode 25 - The First Finale, I think.

Events will involve the general sequence of Misplaced as in canon, where on November 5 a cabal of magic users led by Klarion splits the world in two, with kids & adults on opposite halves. People, naturally, freak the flip out.

Just put up a post one or multiple title ideas for the Episode, and the winner gets my usual offer (your choice of spoiler Q answers, the option to decide a future plot arc or a specific event, creation of an original character or inclusion of your favorite existing one, etc.).

Those of you who participate, thanks for your help.

Yes, a former gladiator of rome, a southern belle, and I don't remember the third one.

I wonder how Renka would react to the idea of people becoming demons while retaining their personalities.

For those who didn't read the series, the former gladiator tried to kill everyone who ever summoned him because he figured anyone summoning demons had it coming, and the former southern belle was basically Scarlet O'Hara as a shuggoth.

Click to shrink...

People altering their connection so that they are directly tied to a specific force instead of the universal background of investiture, without necessarily changing their Identity or their Memories, is something she wouldn't have any inherent problem with.

Heck, that's a pretty good description of what happens in making most non-Threnody Cognitive Shadows. All ten of the Heralds as well as the Fused work that way, Kelsier required only a little more finagling, and the Returned keep their personalities despite losing their memories. Not sure about Elantrians, but they might be similar.

That said, she'd still advise heavily against dealing with even those demons, and given the gladiator's opinions and actions toward the people who summon him she'd expect him to support her, at least.

Edit: from memory Simon seriously boosted his arcane knowledge when he confronted the Mayor of Gotham and defeated him in that weird white dimension

Click to shrink...

Was this Mayor Hill, because he's the current mayor, but there will be eventual elections.

Though I have to wonder if Batman was dead while this was going on, because not noticing what was going on with

Just did a quick wiki troll, and "Mayor" is referring to "the magical overseer of Gotham" responsible for controlling the flow of supernatural beings into the city, right? Talk about confusing.

Well, as I said, Simon Dark doesn't exist in Earth-16 at the moment, and won't be showing up for a while even if I decide to change that. The current "Mayor of Gotham" might, or might not, I've already got enough story ideas at the moment.

 

[mCooperative]

Suggestion:

• Childhood's Hour

Because:

Article:

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov'd—I lov'd alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view—

Source: 'Alone' by Edgar Allen Poe

(Emphasis mine)

was the first thing to come to mind.

Between the being disconnected from the world and seeing it separate ways, the sources from which mysteries and emotions are drawn, the Klarion demon (and probably the metaphorical demons that this event represents), the connection with Captain Marvel and lightning, and everything else, plus the multiple meanings of Childhood's Hour (describing the events of the whole 'world populated by only children' thing; and the connection with the childhoods (histories), over or not yet over, of the team as a whole; and the 'hour' in which it's the world's children who must rise to meet the day), it just seems like an idea.

Yeah that's about all I got.

 

[ccstat]

Hey all, I wrote an omake scene set immediately after Renka arrived on Earth. Thanks to Obloquy for the chance to play in this story.

****
April 17 01:22

The long grass made shushing noises in the dark, and Joanna rolled her eyes. Everyone was telling her to go to bed, even the wind. Which was dumb because she was wide awake and definitely old enough to keep the same schedule as the rest of the crew. She picked up another discarded popcorn bag and used it to gather the sticky blob of cotton candy on the bench. Someone's drink had spilled here, too, and she'd need to come back with a rag to wipe it down.

With an audible ka-chunk the lights on the duck game across from her shut off, along with the rest in this row of the arcade. A moment later there was another chunk, and the other row fell into darkness. Not very dark, though. The rest of the fairgrounds were still lit up enough to splash light in her direction. Still, with a bare sliver of moon in the sky she couldn't see well enough to be sure her trash pickup was thorough, so Joanna started back to their trailer.

Not that she took a direct route. Why hurry when she'd just have to go to bed when she got there? Why did everyone think that nine-year-olds had to be in bed by midnight anyway? The carnival didn't even close until then. How was she supposed to help shut it all down if she was asleep? So she wandered past the roller slide and the tilt-a-whirl, then wove through the shuttered kiosks holding silly hats and plush animals and inflatable toys. The kiosk lights were already out, and as she reached the picnic tables the lights on the tilt-a-whirl chunked off behind her. She did a little skip and twirl. Mr. Asamoah just had to shut off two more sections, and she'd be able to see the stars. That was her favorite part of staying up late. Well, that and the chance to walk around without the crowds. And not having to lie in her boring bed. And sometimes listening to Carlos' stories when there wasn't much to help with. And… yeah, staying up late was the best ever, for lots of reasons. But the stars were definitely up there. Joanna giggled at her own joke. High up on her list of favorites, she'd meant, but unplanned puns were the best puns.

No, that wasn't true either. Planning out puns was lots of fun too, even if her mom was way better at it. Joanna tried to think of one about stars. Maybe she could use the constellation names? There had to be something with Little Dipper. Maybe if she tried it in Spanish? Osa Pequeño y…. Inspiration didn't strike, and Joanna shrugged. Maybe later.

A distant section of the fairgrounds went dark, and Joanna found herself standing in an island of pink and green light from the Ferris wheel. She wasn't alone. ¿Qué? ¿Quién es? The woman was tall and had a tangle of curly black hair around her shoulders, and she was staring up at the wheel with her mouth open. The lights chasing each other around the structure faded into red and blue, then danced into flashing white and orange. The woman didn't move, didn't react to Joanna at all.

Was she on drugs? Probably, judging by her outfit. She was pretty thin, but she had on a dirty XXL T-shirt with a Looney Tunes character on the front, and there were holes in it. It was long enough that it came down almost to the middle of her dark thighs, and… wait, was she wearing anything else? The lights caught a metallic glint on the woman's legs, silver against black. Was she a robot? That would be totally awesome!

Joanna knew lots about robots from TV, and some of them were even real. Villains liked to use robots, true, but why would a villain attack their carnival in the middle of the night when the crowds had all left? And some robots were definitely good, like the Red Tornado. Best of all, Joanna wouldn't get in trouble for talking to a robot like she might for talking to a half-naked druggie woman.

"Hello?" she called, and skipped forward. The robot woman jerked and looked at her, giving a funny head tilt. "Are you lost? I'd love to help. It's nice to meet you, I think robots are super neat."

"Qathart alo? Vola tathi da?" Her voice didn't sound like a robot's, but that might have just been some awesome sound synthsizer. More importantly, it didn't sound like someone on drugs, so Joanna wouldn't get in trouble even if she wasn't a robot after all.

"Oh, do you not speak English? ¿Habla Español? I don't know any other languages, but Mr. Asamoah speaks Italian and French and, like, three different languages from Africa. He's from Ghana. Where are you from?"

"Renka salo teht. Galan Renka faral Scadrial et. Holton et sa?" The probably-a-robot woman smiled and tried a few more words, but Joanna didn't recognize any of them.

"Sorry, Mr. Asamoah should be here in a minute, and --" The lights shut out with a chunk, and Joanna turned to point. "Yeah, he's right over at the breaker box. I bet he can understand you." When she turned back, the woman was gone.

"Joanna?" Mr. Asamoah called. "What are you doing out here? Pilar said she sent you to bed."

"I was cleaning up, but then I met a robot! She liked the carnival, and she might be from Africa."

"A robot. That's nice. Time for bed."

Joanna hesitated, torn between defending her story and fighting to stay up, but quickly settled on, "But I want to look at the stars!"

"Look at them while we walk. Pilar wants you to get some sleep. You know we start early on Saturdays."

Joanna pouted, but didn't argue any more. Half her attention was on the stars, and the other half was watching the darkness for more robots.

_______
_______


She didn't see the robot woman again until Sunday morning. The carnival shared the fairgrounds with a farmers market, and there were a few dozen stands set up near the treeline with fresh produce and crafts and things. Joanna was helping Elaine arrange her jars of honey and pickles when a tangle of black hair caught her eye.

The robot was wearing a long skirt along with the T-shirt this time, so Joanna couldn't see the metal bits of her legs.

"I'll be back in a bit," she told Elaine, and skipped away to follow the robot. She stopped and blinked as two bell peppers disappeared under the robot's shirt. Mr. Sanchez didn't turn around or notice, and the peppers were soon followed by a bunch of spinach. The robot walked straight into the trees and disappeared. What? Why would a robot steal vegetables? Joanna shook herself into motion again and chased after her.

A few steps into the trees, Joanna found her hunched behind a bush, waiting. One dark hand darted out to grab Joanna's arm, but it stopped halfway before withdrawing almost as quickly. The intense look in the maybe-a-robot's eyes softened immediately to something kinder, but at the same time the wide smile Joanna had seen faded. The expression on her face now was timid or sad, or maybe both. She hummed, then pulled out the spinach from beneath her shirt, offering it to Joanna. Joanna's eyes flicked to the shirt, and the probably-not-a-robot's shoulders drooped. She pulled out the peppers as well, and set them on the ground. They were followed by a radish and, after a moment, by two carrots. Her eyes lingered on the pile, then she turned to go.

"No, wait," said Joanna. "I was surprised that you were stealing things, especially that you'd be stealing food. But the way you looked at the food means you must be awful hungry, which is sad because that means that you are really definitely not a robot, but also because it stinks not having anything to eat. I know about that, at least a little bit. All of this together is only a few dollars, and I have money of my own I can use to pay them back. You should eat it."

The woman (and it was definitely sad that she wasn't a robot) had watched her through her speech, and seemed to get the idea when Joanna gestured again at the food on the ground. Tentatively she picked up one of the peppers and took a big bite. Her eyes closed in a moment of obvious pleasure, then opened again to watch Joanna warily.

Joanna sat down and smiled, and after a moment the woman continued to eat. Slowly at first, then with increasing gusto she ate the two peppers, including the pithy seeds in the middle. Then, with a tentative bite, she set into the carrots.

"Do you like those?" Joanna asked, pointing at the carrots, even though it was obvious.

"Ikethose?" echoed the woman, also pointing.

"Hmm? Ah, no, I see. You want to know what they're called. Those are carrots. Carrots," Joanna repeated.

"Car-ots."

Joanna named the other vegetables for her too, pointing slowly to each one. "Oh, and the one you ate before," she pointed at the discarded stem, "was a pepper. Green pepper."

"Green Pepah," nodded the woman. Then she smiled and patted her stomach. "Renka." She gestured at Joanna and hummed, tilting her head.

"Renka? Oh, is that your name? I like it. I'm Joanna." She tapped her chest and repeated her name.

"Zo-ana?" Renka asked.

"Close. Joanna," she emphasized the initial sound, then said it again with more of an English pronunciation, hardening the J.

"Jo-an-na," Renka nodded. She gestured at the remaining food and held her hands together over her heart, then gave a small bow. "Tal bat endi." She hummed and quirked an eyebrow.

"You're welcome," Joanna guessed, then realized. "I mean, oh. You want to know how to say thank you." Joanna nodded and repeated Renka's gesture. "Thanks. Thank you." She shrugged "Either one."

"Thanks thank yoo," repeated Renka. She smiled.

For nearly twenty more minutes Renka slowly munched on her stolen food and pantomimed words for Joanna to say. Then, after Renka had asked for the word for moon, she lay on her back and stared at that object in the sky for ten long minutes. It was peaceful. When Joanna suddenly heard the music of the merry go round start up, she remembered the time and jumped to her feet.

"I need to go help, I'm sorry. My mom will be looking for me. It was nice to meet you, Renka."

Renka stood as well, and bowed. "Thanks thank yoo, Joanna." She nodded firmly.

Before Joanna could leave, though, Renka quirked her head to the side and hummed in question, the way she had earlier when asking for words. She pointed off toward the carnival. Joanna looked to be sure, and yes, she was pointing up a bit, right at...

"Ferris wheel," she said, brightly. "That's a Ferris wheel. You should come ride it!"

 

[Kurkistan]

Omake: Tepes Verdant

"So, Tepes, we're here today to- Do you mind if I call you Tepes?"

"Yes. I mind."

Doland stuttered to a stop, taken aback by the negative answer to what was usually a meaningless bit of social lubricant in her line of work. The station always checked and double checked preferred forms of address, pronunciation, and the like before any interview, and her notes clearly spelled out "te-PISH".

Tepes spoke into the ensuing awkwardness. "It's an unfortunately common misunderstanding which I'm hoping to correct, starting with this interview. I was advised as to the importance of 'code names' in local culture before my debut, and so chose one and introduced myself to the press as such. After much contemplation I settled on 'Tiposh', which in my native tongue means 'Verdant One.' Quite a fitting name, I think."

At that Tepes gestured at himself, and Doland duly noted how the colors were brighter and more intense around him; yet somehow the darks remained dark and the light colors didn't become blinding. Half the stage in the area around the herculean figure was simply more vibrant than it naturally ought to be. Tepes's own outfit was... Well it did not do for a journalist to call a guest "gaudy", but let it simply be said that even magical powers that made everything around a hero more beautiful could only do so much.

Tepes continued. "But unfortunately your 'internet' lacks the capability for such nuance—or spelling—and so some rather... unfortunate parallels were drawn."

Doland laughed in a dutifully rueful fashion. "So you don't go around feasting on the blood and souls of the innocent, then?"

Tepes shifted. "Well... no definitely not those two things."

Doland paused. Offstage and behind Tepes's shoulder she saw her producer desperately waving a placard. It bore a hastily scrawled "nail dwn: d/dn he EAT SOULS."

"So, just to clarify for our viewers and quash these rumors, you do not consume souls?"

"It's... a complicated matter much bound up in certain physical and metaphysical realities, and really the entire concept of a 'soul' is contradictory to a large extent and conveys much more weight and meaning than a single Breath could really encompass..."

"That seems like too many words for a 'no'," Doland said, scooching her chair back a bit and distinctly out of Tepes's aura—soul eating aura? Were those colors the swan song of every living thing around him? He was said to leave patches of gray nearby whenever he used his powers...

"It's an entirely voluntary, painless, and harmless process, I assure you. Why, ever since I was born back into the world—as a god among my people, be sure you note that part—I've received offerings of Breath, and each supplicant walked away quite a bit happier and richer than they'd walked in, going on to live full, healthy, and happy lives. Why a little loss of color perception and weakened immune system is nothing compared to that!"

"What was that last bit?"

"Nothing! It was nothing! Let's move on, shall we, and talk about my heroics? I was thinking of cutting out the middleman, linguistically speaking, and just going by 'Verdant' moving forward," Verdant said. "Yes yes I know what you're going to say, 'sounds very plant-themed,' but really-" here Verdant gestures at the dazzling effects of his BioChromatic aura "you have to admit it fits!"

"Back to the soul-eating, though-"

---

Verdant fumbled with the remote briefly before finally turning off the TV, tossing the plastic contraption away in disgust.

"It went on like that for the rest of the interview! Here I am deigning to visit this two-bit 'show' for my rebranding campaign and all she wanted to do was focus on the misunderstanding that started this whole mess in the first place!"

"Yes. How unreasonable." Batman, to Verdant's discerning eye, did not seem entirely sincere in his empathy. "How is your shapeshifting practice going? Given the number of such 'misunderstandings' that you cause it's important that you be able to walk about in society and acclimate to our culture."

"Ugh. You don't get it: I look like how I think I should, all the time, and I think I should look like an ideal of masculine strength and attractiveness! Do you know how hard it is to go against that? I have to internalize a fundamentally different, fundamentally wrong self-image in order for 'shapeshifting' to happen at all! I mean look at me!"

Verdant had a point there. Batman—or Dark Winged Rodent Man, as Verdant had rather memorably first called him—represented the very peak of human physical conditioning, and even he didn't boast Verdant's god-like physique. Verdant looked like he could bench press a horse. He had bench pressed a horse (-equivalent) on a bet, the other week.

Batman pressed on. "And yet you said during your intake interview that you are physically 15 years old, and in your first life died of a wasting disease—this some time after 'saving all the other orphans and their puppies from a fire.' Wouldn't it be more healthy for you to spend time in something approaching your natural form, and to interact meaningfully with your peers?"

Verdant muttered something to the effect of "stupid yellow lasso" before slumping off to practice degrading his self-image.

---

---

A/N: Decided to go the route of slotting in a different Sanderson work, Warbreaker/Awakening in this case. The idea is that Tepes/Verdant is a Returned who ended up on Earth-16 because <reasons> with a small cache of Breaths, and has an ongoing need to eat other people's souls secondary soul-related metaphysical offshoots to both stay alive and grow in power. Magic-system fudgery would allow him the unique ability for people near him to voluntarily give him their Breath; and maybe for him to give it back in turn, though that second option risks him becoming a Breath-factory more than a hero.

Writing words is hard. I forgot the word-writing was such hard.

Edit:
Rewrote the last scene a bit as it's been sticking in my craw. No important changes.

Spoiler: Original scene

Verdant fumbled with the remote briefly before finally turning off the TV, tossing the plastic contraption away in disgust.

"It went on like that for the rest of the interview! Here I am deigning to visit this two-bit 'show' for my rebranding campaign and all she wanted to do was focus on the misunderstanding that started this whole mess in the first place!"

"Yes. How unreasonable." The ManBat, to Verdant's discerning eye, did not seem entirely sincere in his empathy. "How is your shapeshifting practice going? Given the number of such 'misunderstandings' that you cause it's important that you be able to walk about in society and acclimate to our culture."

"Ugh. You don't get it: I look like how I think I should, all the time, and I think I should look like an ideal of masculine strength and attractiveness! Do you know how hard it is to go against that? I have to internalize a fundamentally different, fundamentally wrong self-image in order for 'shapeshifting' to happen at all! I mean look at me!"

Verdant did have a point there. Batman constantly pushed himself to the stay at the very peak of human physical conditioning, and even he couldn't boast Verdant's god-like physique. Verdant looked like he could bench press a rhino. He had bench pressed a rhino (-equivalent) on a bet, the other week.

Batman pressed on. "And yet you said during your intake interview that you are physically 15 years old, and in your first life died of a wasting disease—this some time after 'saving all the other orphans and their puppies from a fire.' Wouldn't it be more healthy for you to spend time in something approaching your natural form, and to interact meaningfully with your peers?"

Verdant muttered something to the effect of "stupid yellow lasso" before slumping off to practice degrading his self-image.

The only thing of relevance is downgrading his strength a bit to a horse (~900 lb). I'm going for essentially Captain America style "abilities" at base, so call it ~2x peak human ability across the board.

 

[Obloquy]

Eight JL Associations

Exploring ties between individuals in the Seven Founders

1) J'onn & Diana share the burden of being the two veterans in the Justice League. Neither of them really knew the other, and J'onn didn't arrive until a decade after her formative adventures in WWII, but they still share an entire generation of world events and outlived enemies that the others don't really understand.

Neither knew each other before they met in the battle against the Appelexians, and their friendship didn't grow immediately, but once the seed was planted, it grew quickly. All that started it - beyond J'onn's ability to feel how kind Diana was through his telepathy - was a discussion where he recognized a decades-old film she had watched part of and never finished, having forgotten its name. This quickly cascaded into a slew of shared pop-culture references and outdated opinions about now-retired figures; Diana and J'onn meet up every two months or so for a black-and-white movie night. Other League members are always invited, and a few others have even hosted, but they are the two who make it all happen, and who always attend.

On a more morbid note, J'onn is guiltily grateful that there is one League member he need not expect to outlive, all other things being equal, while Diana respects him for being older and more experienced than herself, sparing her the necessity of always playing Team Mom to 'the new generation'.


2) J'onn & Bruce have a relationship defined by shared secrets. Martian technology has storage devices for telepathic data that no human (with or without telepathy) should be able to access with anything resembling ease, if they even knew what the devices were in the first place. Combined with J'onn's ability to telepathically excise information permanently from his own mind - a difficult, time-consuming, and headache-inducing feat, but one he is capable of - J'onn has been a convenient JL member to amass, in total, backup copies of more than 40% of Batman's redacted records and classified contingency plans.

In the event of Bruce's death, "John Jones" is to be involved in the execution of Bruce Wayne's will and distribution of property, while Martian Manhunter has also agreed to follow the final, posthumous instructions for the contingency of Batman's demise. Despite this, they rarely have much in the way of close contact in recent times, beyond the conferences they hold about the Team. J'onn is disturbed, despite himself, by the structure of Batman's mind, being one of the few to familiarize himself with how abnormal it is despite Batman's functionality as an individual.

Batman is similarly unnerved by all the differences between human and Martian psychology and behavior he has observed (and sometimes thinks he is the only one to have noticed), as well as the openness inherent to telepathic communication. They are co-workers, and comrades-in-arms against evil, but they keep a politely profession distance in their everyday interaction.


3) Diana & Clark have the relationship of greatest mutual admiration between them. Individually, they are the two most publicly known and popular heroes in the League, if not the world. Especially in the United States, Superman's great feats and greater, humble charisma have quickly made him the most well-loved hero in the world. Wonder Woman, however, has the better part of a century's heroics across the globe, in public and in secret; if Superman is the most intensely loved by those who know him, then she is the most widely loved, and populations who've never heard about Krypton's Last Son will happily testify to Diana's achievements.

On a more personal note, they both regard each other highly. Clark Kent is grateful to know a woman who has so much more experience than he in both living with such overwhelming power, and in learning to be a person with or without it. She was the first person to well and truly trounce him in a straight fight, as is to be expected when a strength-reliant brawler goes up against a trained veteran, and the look on Ma Kent's face when he escorted her girlhood hero through the front door as a Christmas guest remains one of his happiest memories.

Similarly, Diana finds Clark's good nature and humility in the face of his abilities to be emotionally invigorating, after a half-century of rooting through the dirty depths of man's world and running up against almost every superpower super-egoist that had hidden there. She's happy to gently mock his relationship ineptitude, and is the number one supporter that he should "just tell her, Clark," and Lois to love him for both sides of who he is. That said, she will unhesitatingly support him when he's down - especially after the time that he and Lois dated for almost half a year before she broke it off - and those gossip rags about romantic relations can swim the Styx to Tartarus, for all she cares.


4) Barry & Orin are connected most meaningfully by their wives; as the only two happily married men among the seven founders, they've had a habit of sharing glances and aside comments across the room for quite a while. Orin stood at Barry's wedding (having given him advice on how to propose), and Barry is in turn the only member of the Justice League ever to attend dinner with Mera, Orin, and Orin's surface-dwelling father.

Barry was the first member of the Justice League informed of Mera's pregnancy, and Barry's civilian home is listed as a classified Atlantean safe house in case of truly severe emergencies. There are few things they share outside of the good fight, personable humor, and their many brief moments of mutual understanding, but the things they share inside those categories are numerous.

With his speedy mobility and his ability to run over water, Barry is the first League member Orin is likely to call for support if an ocean fight breaks the surface, and on the one occasion a (non-Central City native) villain deduced Flash's identity, Orin immediately dispatched members of his guard to protect Iris until the situation became stable.


5) Diana & Barry have known each other the longest from among the seven founders. They never worked together as heroes before the League's formation, but Barry first met Diana at a charity fundraiser, the arrangement of which she and Jay were cooperating on. He's really glad that she's fairly judged him on his own merits and achievements in the time since, and not reminisced about how awkwardly his gawky teenage self had stammered when coming face-to-face with one of the world's most beautiful women.

Diana, meanwhile, was skeptical of his ability to fill Jay's shoes when the change was announced, but will now openly admit that he has done her old teammate proud and then some. She also trusts Barry to be discrete, which is different from her trust in Bruce's secrecy. It was Barry who performed the blood tests to assess any relationship between her and Donna, and she has had him covertly run material evidence from a few 'delicate' cases through analysis, during those times Bruce had been too busy with Gotham's never-ending fight. He was the first one to guest-host her and J'onn's movie night, bringing along Iris, and Diana (in an appropriately anonymous disguise) officiated his wedding vows.


6) J'onn & Barry bond most strongly over their ability to consistently communicate unfettered, and their ability to challenge each other in games. Thoughts process much more quickly than spoken sound, so J'onn is used to slowing down a large amount from his automatic and comfortable communication speed in everyday interactions.

When engaged in telepathy with Barry, he has to race to keep up, and the two can casually share stories of their entire days in the time it takes to drink down a cookie crumble milkshake (you know which cookies J'onn likes) without stopping. At the end of Barry's time hosting a movie night, the two discovered that they are very evenly matched at chess; Batman can still beat them both, but only in regular chess, and they prefer to play speed chess when they're playing.


7) Clark & Hal have a relationship formed of fondness, respect, and favors. The idea of an interstellar space cop greatly appealed to the orphan from another planet, and Hal Jordan's access to civilian-safe Lantern database entries has provided Superman with more information about his birth planet than any other single source.

The two of them took a trip to the Rao system by way of Hal's warp capability, and recovered a wealth of artifacts and technology that are now stored in the Fortress of solitude (which Hal helped Clark program and set up, as the Kryptonian language and tech data was accessible on his ring).

In appreciation, the reporter Clark Kent did some digging into Hal Jordan's history, particularly his discharge, and turned up… Well, suffice it to say that the full set of events were never published for the public, and it was less explosive a revelation than Eiling's treason, but it got Hal a good name among important people and sent some nasty criminals to jail. Non-discolsure agreements and national security classifications cover the rest.


8) Clark & Bruce are, for all their opposite positions and opinions, the closest set of friends in the founding seven. They balance each other even as they argue, and have worked together the most often both before and after the Justice League's formation. The Dark Knight brings grim reality to Superman's optimism with a humbling reminder of all the living, breathing, thinking and feeling people who get hurt and need salvation.

In turn, the Last Son provides a ray of hope that even the worst losses are survivable, and that many good and decent people exist in the world, possessing power and unwilling to abuse it as too many others do. Bruce made his first set of contingency operations at Superman's request, after a mind-control incident that came too close, and every piece of kryptonite in the cave is a piece Clark has given Bruce. Clark has spare keys and security codes to Wayne Manor, and he is always made welcome when he visits.

Bruce, in exchange, offers Clark first refusal on all Wayne Tech interviews, (claiming its to avoid undue favoritism to his ex, Lois,) and subtly does his best to encourage Lois's attentions toward the farm boy. He and Alfred were the first people in the hero business invited to the Kent Farm for the holidays, and Clark's family has successfully made Bruce relax and laugh. (Both men are incredibly grateful that Alfred and Ma Kent have shared cooking tips, even if only the alien one of them will ever say it.)

__________________________________
AN: Just a little snippet I started working on. Don't read too much into the arrangement of the people pairings: I got them by rolling a d8 after I'd assigned numbers, and then I just ran with it. Hope you enjoyed!

 

[Obloquy]

People's Preoccupations

All Work and No Play makes Jack a Dull Boy, and even those on each side of super-heroics appreciate the time to relax and recuperate when they can. Here are a few fun facts about what certain adults do in their spare hours, in the LOD universe.


Flash is one of the few who doesn't have much to do in his spare time, if only because his speed means that his recreation and his activities can be so… He does enjoy listening to music, or to books on tape, though, as the steady speeds and tempos keep him grounded.

Lex Luthor designs games. Not plays games, like chess; he designs new games with new boards, new pieces, new rules… the works. It takes a number of tries to work out all the kinks, but he enjoys the chance to decompress, and it still brings him profit - he's twice before bundled up several of his creations and sold them as a computer game. (It takes his mind off the fact that he's never managed to beat Ra's al Ghul at chess, despite repeatedly trying.)

Orm breeds shellfish in his spare time. He doesn't do it for consumption (of shrimp), or to sell the pearls (from his oysters), but because he enjoys having them in his power and helping them become what he considers the best. He uses no magic in doing this, as a point of pride, but he has anonymously won several awards at shows for his work. (He never handles lobsters, though, ever since an incident as a child that almost took two fingers off.)

Superman cooks. His Ma is one of the best cooks he knows, and she insisted he learn growing up, because girls always appreciate a man with a way around the kitchen, and it was an important life skill that he had to do the human way, reminding him that his powers would never influence every part of his life, and that he would never be so super he couldn't bake an apple pie. Clark Kent is popular in the Daily Planet for many good reasons, but one of them is his habit of bringing in goodies every week.

J'onn J'onnz makes magic happen for children. He'll go to a park and shape-shift into something for the children playing there. Sometimes it inanimate, like a tree perfect to not climb on, or a piece of new equipment, but he'll also change into animals. Many Chicago children have awed stories of that time a robin fluttered down to eat breadcrumbs from their hands, or a cat seemed intelligent enough to play tag with them, and their innocent appreciation and wonder warms his heart when he feels it

Ra's al Ghul dabbles in alchemy and chemistry. Well, he more than dabbles, but in his spare time he limits himself to the simplest of reactions and experiments, watching the predictable changes with a child-like glee. He once spent two years (not total, but just in his free time) writing up a list of what brands of vinegar with what ratios of baking soda produce the most effusive bubbling.

Brain is an idle translator. It's an affront to his sensibilities how many excellent works are available in only one or two languages - or how horrible some of the translations are - so in his free time the genius will find an enjoyable work and translate it into French. Most of these are published for a commission when he's finished, and the money helped him get a start on his labs in the first place.

Aquaman hasn't done it much since he went to Atlantis, but he was incredibly fond of model trains as a younger man, and his childhood home still has a room dedicated to his assemblies. He's tried to either get them working under water, or get his interest shifted to Atlantis-appropriate equivalents like coral, but neither has been much successful.

Queen Mera is a teacher at heart, and she writes lectures in her spare time. Not just about magic or even a subject like politics, but she has unread lecture scripts on topics from piscine medicine, to the geology of undersea volcanic vents, to fashion trends and outfit assembly. Many of them she expects will never see the light of day, but she has something to say on almost any subject someone could ask about.

L8 likes working with his hands, and is a surprisingly capable propmaker and carpenter. Since L8 has been living with Savage, and been unable to make excursions outside, he's sublimated his restlessness with doing the sorts of maintenance a busy immortal is inclined to put off. Savage has noticed incremental increases in the quality of his furniture, many of which are old and made of wood. A little extra shine here, some scratches gone there, a chair suddenly being much more solid. Savage does not acknowledge L8's satisfaction at these improvements, nor does L8 acknowledge Savage's appreciation. But the arrangement suits them well enough. (contributed by Writer of 2814 on SpaceBattles)

Wonder Woman plays darts with daggers, or does Cat's Cradle. She didn't call it Cat's Cradle growing up, (it's one of the oldest pastimes in history, and was in Themyscira before their isolation,) but it was excellent practice for patience, focus, and dexterity. In later years, it's also been an excellent way for her to bond with young women at the shelters she sponsors. In more private areas like her office, she has notched wooden boards set up on walls as targets, and she'll occasionally spend a few minutes tossing them at targets and picking out pictures on the wood with her blades.

Queen Bee doesn't carry weapons in the field, usually, but she is a practicing marksman, and has occasionally de-stressed at a shooting range, shattering clay pigeons. She's only rarely ever shot a living being for real - she usually doesn't have to - and it wasn't all that enjoyable, so she keeps to her clay targets and has other people handle most of the bloody parts when it has to happen. She does carry more advanced energy weapons for self-defense, etc., but she reserves lead slugs for unalive targets and avoids mixing business with pleasure in that part of her life.

Klarion has a thing for lava lamps, and enjoys just watching his collections flow for an hour or two. Some of them are enchanted, but most of them are entirely ordinary water, wax, and glass. He shows up occasionally at hippy gatherings or flea markets, and does almost nothing destructive except for distributing his pamphlets and buying extra lava lamps. Other than that, he writes, but this pastime is practically a business itself. Klarion writes pamphlets, instruction manuals, 'old and mysterious tomes,' and other ways which can chaotically spread mystic knowledge to idiots who won't know what they'll be getting into when they try it out.

Batman is rarely one for free time - he has apps to keep abreast of corporate stocks, he has a rigorous exercise regime, and he has a need for cat naps to keep up any kind of sleep schedule - but in those few minutes where he can't fit in anything more useful, he reads mystery stories. Not the bloody kind, but the fun kids' kind; he owns every Encyclopedia Brown book in the series, and one of the few human touches in his bedroom is a shelf of those and other Who-dunnit Tales to entertain himself before bed.

Vandal Savage hunts. He does it in the old school styles, when he gets the urge, taking a day or two off to go out in the wilderness, and spear down a deer or a boar to roast. When he doesn't have the time for that, the man goes rock climbing (without equipment), either on an actual cliff face or at an indoor wall.

The new L7 collected rocks. Just rocks. Not for their mystical properties or their thaumaturgical value, but simply for their aesthetics. It didn't matter if it was common sandstone or raw adamantium ore, as long as it had an interesting pattern that caught her eye, she'd collect it and add it to her private display in her study. She didn't really keep them for long, as familiarity bred content, but that was all right. There was always the next rock. Sometimes, if they were a particularly interesting specimen, she would integrate them into a project. Nothing important or load bearing. A bauble here, a stone hilt there, or even just a paperweight. Somewhere they could be seen and, if one were of a mind, appreciated. (contributed by Writer of 2814 on SpaceBattles)

 

[Obloquy]

What Wally got for his Birthday​

Many thanks to industrious on Space Battles for some of these suggestions!

Mary & Rudolph - birthday meals and a get-out-of-dishes free card for the day. Also, Rudy had bought some games (board & video both), so since Wally was off from school he called in a personal day at work and the three had family game day until Wally went to Mt. Justice.

Barry & Iris - Iris gave him his birthday greeting, Barry got Wally some materials to run experiments with and reserved some lab time for him to do so on Justice League equipment, and Iris got him some books she thought he'd like.

Jay & Joan - money and a birthday card.

Dick - Concert ticket reservations to a few bands/events Wally likes. They're all over the place, sure, but travel isn't exactly a problem for him.

Kaldur - a decorative shell arrangement, and Kid Flash merchandise from Atlantis, which has started paying more attention to Aqualad's friends.

Roy - came in for a visit, got Wally some mementos from his travels, mostly bits of foreign Kid Flash fan stuff, and a few samples of soda & snacks from foreign places for him to try out.

Conner - two sets of heroic gloves, to protect his hands in battle and punch things a little harder, and a promise for them to spend a day looking around the Fortress of Solitude with some supervision.

M'gann - made the cakes, and along with some minor knick-knacks she also gets him a copy of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Renka - two matching "cufflinks, tie pin, and another decoration" sets that are subtly decorated with Metallic Arts sigils and the Flash lightning bolt, which she made by hand. She also bought him a set of supple lambskin gloves.

Artemis - some restrictive foam capsules (like in her arrows) altered so that he can stick them on something and race out of range before they go off on a timer. Also, some Costco bags of trail mix.

Zatanna - a new video game she thinks he'll like, some Tabletop RPG gear that won't trigger any bad memories, and a genuine lucky charm.

Joseph - a photo collage of images pulled from newscasts and from Mt Justice security records of the awesome stuff Kid Flash and his friends get up to.

 

[Hestia&theCourt]

I don't actually know anything about the Green Lantern or the rings.

Click to shrink...

I have no idea how important this will be in the future, but... *adjusts hat dramatically* My time has come.

So, the way this goes is that emotion in DC exists in a spectrum of some weird energy that's essentially solid light. This spectrum split off from the White Light of Life {Let There Be Light} that was the first thing to exist aside from the Black Light of Death {Peace Only in Death}. Anyone who knows what they're doing (and a few lucky bastards who don't) can draw on these lights, but only by feeling the appropriate emotion. (In the case of White, you need to truly be living life and not just surviving, but it also allows you to use any color other than Black. Black, on the other hand, essentially requires suicidal ideation and a desire to kill everyone else for the same reasons.)

Green, in the middle of the spectrum, is the color of Willpower {Conquer Your Fear}. The Guardians of the Universe use this color due to its relative stability, and that's how we get Green Lanterns. This color has few weaknesses, aside from being eroded by Fear, but also has fewer relative strengths. People using this color tend to grow more stubborn over time. This is probably the only active light in-story right now.

Yellow is the color of Fear {Avoid Pain}. Sinestro, a renegade Green Lantern, uses this light in his Sinestro Corps in order to try to scare the universe into being more orderly. This light requires you to both feel fear and want to inflict fear, though this may be because in the comics, the rings were made in a dimension where every property of the universe is inverted. Either way, people can use this color with relative stability, but tend to become cruel and sadistic over time.

Blue is the color of Hope {All Will Be Well}. Ganthet, a Guardian who is typically ostracized from the rest of his kind for daring to have feelings, created the Blue Lantern Corps to harness it. This light requires you to be both extremely hopeful and extremely inspirational, which means there aren't many candidates. That being said, the candidates who do exist are pretty much saints, their primary personality weakness being a tendency towards passiveness. However, Blue supercharges Green, sometimes counters Orange, always counters Yellow, and while it doesn't typically function for more than basic abilities when not exposed to Green, when it is exposed to Green, it can do shit like turn a red star into a blue one, reversing millennia of aging in an instant.

Violet is the color of Love {Love Conquers All}. The Zamarons, an offshoot of the Guardians who left in order to express their emotions without judgment, created the Star Sapphire as a headband at first. But that just made its users yandere, so instead they went back to the rings and formed the Star Sapphire Corps, recruiting women who have loved and lost, transforming their grief into a mission to preserve love, in all its forms. As one of the far ends of the spectrum, Violet changes the minds of its users very quickly, but in exchange allows for the ability to see love and the form it takes, follow bonds of love long distances to reach specific people no matter where they are, muffle Yellow, engage Orange, and even encase other Lanterns in "love crystal" to eventually forcibly convert them into Star Sapphires.

Red is the color of Rage {Never Forgive}. Atrocitus, the last survivor of a truly colossal fuckup from the Guardians, uses this light to recruit the oppressed for his Red Lantern Corps, with the short-term goal of letting them tear their oppressors to bloody pieces and the long-term goal of destroying the Guardians who took everything from him. This light is on the other far end of the spectrum, which means that it affects minds about as quickly as Violet does, frequently turning its users into mindless berserkers. On the plus side, their offensive potential is unmatched among Lanterns, as they spew out red plasma blood from their mouths that will dissolve almost anything. This is done because the ring replaces their regular blood with that plasma blood, though, so if the ring is ever removed, they'll go into cardiac arrest and die without swift intervention from Blue and Violet combined to purge the plasma and replace it with regular blood.

Orange is the color of Avarice {Mine!} Larfleeze is the only known user of this light, since he's murdered the other candidates in order to keep all the power for himself. As a result, he is a single individual with the power of an entire Lantern Corps. Buuuut that comes with a downside: marinating in that much power makes you go insane even faster than you'd expect. Think Gollum, then multiply that by a few thousand times. But the Orange light is good in a fight against almost any color, especially since it can "eat" Green energy and magic and convert it to Orange, and turn anyone killed by the user into a loyal construct made only of Orange light.

Finally, Indigo is the color of Compassion {Compassion be with You}. Abin Sur formed this Corps as a way to quietly and subtly keep the Guardians in check. This color attempts to do what is best for others, though by a rather fucked-up metric. Sure, sometimes it makes sense to perform mercy kills, but since they're one of the only colors that can easily heal, you'd think they wouldn't need to. Either way, their ability is that if another color is nearby, they can channel that emotion in order to use the associated light. They also have nigh-untraceable long-range teleportation and the capacity to forcibly convert people with little-to-no empathy into brainwashed compassion puppets that feel nothing else unless channeling an emotion. In fact, their entire Corps is pretty much made out of those, though removing the ring will typically restore them to their regular selves.

Tl;dr: Green is Brave Space Cops, Yellow is Fearful Space Terrorists, Blue is Hopeful Space Philanthropists, Violet is Loving Space Social Workers/Marriage Counselors/Activists, Red is an Angry Space Mob, Orange is Space Donald Trump, and Indigo is Well-Intentioned Space Extremists.

 

[Krazyfan1]

To her credit, Lois Lane is a very intelligent and perceptive person.

It's just that she's also very trusting of her friends, and Clark is a shockingly good liar/actor.

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plus theres the whole

Spoiler