Kobold King

It's sad that it died down, but I also think it's really nice that so many of us are still around and that we all remember the collab so vividly, with several of us exporting our favorites OCs to newer pastures. I can't say that about every creative writing project I've ever been a part of.

The plans at the time kind of petered out and I don't think it's going to happen.

Me trying to follow a conversation about a superhero web serial I've never read:

Absolutely heartbroken that Ned and Betty didn't remain a couple at the end, but I'm glad they were both mature enough to remain friends even after the breakup. The whole Mysterio subplot by comparison felt like a hamfisted method to make sure Peter (is that his name?) doesn't become Ned's awkward third wheel, which would have gotten annoying fast. It was okay, though. Didn't really have the same emotional impact as the ups and downs of Ned/Betty's relationship, but subplots rarely do. One could interpret Mysterio's bitter angsting over Stark to be a dark parallel for how Ned and Betty could have allowed their breakup to turn into something dark that ruins their friendship, thus making the subplot more of a cautionary tale on letting a bad breakup sour your worldview, but I feel like this message would have been stronger if Ned and Betty had been able to confront him face to face and give a heartfelt speech on why he's wrong. Really hoping the third Ned movie gives Flash some more time in the spotlight, as he's easily one of the deepest and most underrated characters in the franchise. His inner struggles with his pleas for attention and his lack of self confidence about his videos make for some of the most compelling cinema I've seen in years. #flashmob

I'm trying to pick a character summary that's eye-catching enough for me to highlight and ask about, but honestly they all sound like awesome characters.

I'm still changing a lot around, but this is an original project I've been brainstorming off and on for a while now. The core concept is a world where the Monster of the Week trope is almost literal--there are constant crises ranging from deranged supervillains to alien invasions to resurrected tengu emperors trying to take over the world. Keeping the peace is a group called the Knights Nine, a team of superheroes whose members range from good-intentioned moral pragmatists to monsters who would do more damage than the supervillains if the weren't being kept in check. Among their ranks is a body-possessing plant monster from space that goes by the name Verdant, who tends to leave a suspicious number of missing person cases behind it in any crisis it is sent to resolve. There's also a 'hero' named Pulsar, a genius (but insane) billionaire whom I could most efficiently describe as a triple fusion between Tony Stark, Lex Luthor, and Cave Johnson. He runs quite a few facilities that exist primarily to experiment on captured supervillains and other anomalies. The world isn't entirely grimdark--there are a few heroes here and there who've remained uncorrupted by the constant stress of battling summoned demons and anthropomorphic hyena armies. Revolution Sunburst Jones is a character here, and her pacifist beliefs have thus far remained uncompromised. A necromancer who goes by the title Death's Voice has begun a fledgling career in superheroics, and as his powers grow he is becoming more and more effective at it. Samara Treitner, aka "Dark Rose," used to fall into this category. Unfortunately, due to the way her powers operate in this setting, her mind has always been far more susceptible to stress and insanity than other heroes. She went off the grid for years, but when she came back into the public eye it was as a remorseless, indiscriminate killer with only one surviving conviction: to expose the misdeeds of the twisted 'heroes' she'd once been forced to suffer out of reluctant pragmatism, and see them brought low. The world might stand a far lesser chance of surviving without them, but to the creature who's now murdering her way through cities to get to them, that's a sacrifice worth making. I'd also be very curious to hear about your setting, if you want to talk about it!

That's absolutely fine by me--so much of that art was your original initiative that I don't think I get a say in where you apply it anyway. I am pleased I was able to evoke some inspiration in you, though, and I'm sure your original project is going to be brilliant. On a similar note, I'm importing a version of Darkrose into my original setting, and I think 'No More Liars' would make a great chapter title, if that's alright with you.

Often syrup, but they're also great plain.

You mean... not appearing?

I'm picturing it PG-13, with only one allotted f-word. To everyone's shock Nathan uses it when he drops something, immediately becoming stammering and apologetic.

If the rating rules hadn't already existed and you wrote these hypothetical scenes about Red, you probably would have prompted the creation of rating rules.

That raises the very interesting question of whether the ghosts of Epics would remain corrupted.

I'm with Winter. I both want to see this and want to save my tear ducts the agony. Lightwards' interaction would be less angst-y and more of him loudly bemoaning the fact that he always gets the weird Epics as Klaus parades around in a skirt. Whilst a bunch of ghostly college students chime in with remarks like "Oh, he still does that eyebrow twitch when he's mad. Remember when he used to threaten to fail the whole class when one of us had our phone out?" Sam would keep her distance under the reasoning that an Epic this weird can't be good news for anybody, but if given the opportunity would be extremely grateful for the opportunity to have some communication with her father and sister. Especially her father, for which she has a ton of unresolved feelings of anger, grief, hurt, betrayal, and other complicated emotions for. Darkrose would have a psychotic meltdown if her mom started talking to her through Klaus, but to be fair, there are a lot of things that could trigger a psychotic meltdown from her. Finding a bad spot on her banana might cause her to massacre the entire population of the town she's in.

It's actually a really complicated question since his Warriors retain some meager memories and self-identity--even his dinosaurs remember their old lives to some extent or another. So spiritually there's a question whether the souls of the dead would be watching from outside their bodies or if part of Lightwards power is subjugating their spirits after death. Without knowing how souls work within the Reckonerverse it's rather an impossible question to answer, really.