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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

Reader mode
Simonbob said:
I got an Aboriginal lady ranting at me because of my skin color, not 6 months ago.

A bunch of people still care.
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And there are dipshits who claim The South Will Rise Again! still doesn't make it anything more than history. That said people can bring politics into anything, or be whiny about anything.

Darwin?
 
Hoard (part 11)
  • Threadmarks
    • 11th January
    17:34 GMT +2

    Seven attackers, four of which survived their injuries and one of whom is conscious. Also worth noting that Zatanna is now strong enough to swing the Staff of Love hard enough to mash someone's skull. And not realise that she's done that until she tried neutralising their invisibility and the target body area was missing. Exercise, or arcane enhancement? I'll ask after the mission is over.

    And she's still on my arm for some reason, Ms Vadim's book floating in front of her. "Do you have any contact with the local gnome warren?"

    Ms Vadim shakes her head. "I don't even know where it is."

    Inspector Gherea sighs the long-suffering sigh of a police officer who knows he's in danger of falling down the rabbit hole but whose sense of duty won't let him break off. I've noticed that I've heard quite a few of those since becoming a superhero. "What is a gnome warren?"

    Zatanna floats the book towards him, and he nearly steps back before taking it. He looks it over quickly, then shakes his head. "As informative as the pictures are, I can't read Latin."

    Ms Vadim takes it from him. "Gnomes mostly live in large underground structures called 'warrens'. Some are thousands of years old, built of stone long before humans settled those parts of Europe. Others are more recent. Gnomes seldom live on their own. They can use their magic to prevent humans finding them."

    "And it could be anywhere?"

    "They prefer to live away from towns and cities. Their magic isn't strong enough to force thousands of people to ignore them." Her eyes narrow as she looks at our prisoners. "Usually. These are something new. Or possibly something old."

    "I don't know." Zatanna appears unconvinced. "It's just one picture. Didn't Anton Arcane-" Ms Vadim actually shudders, and her right hand makes a very small horns gesture. "-used to live in this country? If he'd gotten hold of a gnome, he might have turned them into something like this."

    I shake my head. "I've scanned unman biological material before. While I can't categorically say this wasn't him, it doesn't have any sign of the usual biological agents he used. And he seldom repeated himself."

    Inspector Gherea frowns. "Who is Anton Arcane?"

    "Romanian Nazi and biomancer. He's dead now, but his work still sticks around."

    "'Nazi' as in 'far right', or-?"

    "No, a proper Second World War, used to work in death camps Nazi. Hang on, I'll send Cranius a picture."

    Ring, scan. Message: Dear Doctor Cranius, recently encountered physiological abnormalities in Romania. Do not believe them to be Arcanian but would appreciate your confirmation. Yours, Orange Lantern.

    Message sent.

    The Inspector frowns, glancing at the maybe-gnomes. "Can they understand us?"

    "My scan of the one Ms Vadim stabbed suggests that they have the neural complexity to understand complex speech. As such, my rings ensure that they can understand me-" I make eye contact with the one I electrocuted, and his eyes widen slightly. Yes, not as cunning as you thought. "-but I don't know whether they speak English or Romanian or something else. Ms Vadim, can you think of any reason why mutant gnomes would be targeting you?"

    "The only reason I can think of is that I have heard of them, where most people-" She glances at the Inspector. "-are ignorant."

    "The Inspector mentioned that you had certain.. unusual contacts. I would normally respect your privacy, but if there's some sort of proxy conflict-."

    "No."

    "The thefts are happening over all of Eastern Europe. We were assuming that they were stealing for the value of the metal, but the other possibility is that they're looking for a particular artefact and only have an approximate description to work from. The United States has a deal with Atlantis for checking artefacts for magic before putting them in museums, but most places don't. If they're prepared to come after you in your place of business-."

    "Then I will contact people who can protect me."

    "Give them this." I take a bag of cloned, purple healing rayed blood out of subspace.

    "Why are you assuming they're vampires?"

    "The bite marks."

    Her right hand goes to her neck. "What.. bite marks?"

    I raise my eyebrows. "You really want me to say out loud?" Her eyes widen. "I used to work with John Constantine, and I'm still alive. When I'm invited to meet a dodgy street magician I do scan them first." I shake my head. Which she can't-. I switch back to my lighter armour and shake my head again. "Look, it's not a big deal for me. We sell this stuff to vampires in America, it's in the KordTech catalogue. I met.. seventeen? Back when we were testing it. They're all still… Animate, if not exactly alive."

    She nods a little nervously, and takes it. "That… Thank you. And I will ask, but I do not believe that my contacts are doing anything which would threaten gnomes."

    I turn to Zatanna. "Anything about the odd-looking gnomes in there?"

    "No, not really. The author says that the work they took the picture from said that these creatures served as foot soldiers for dragons, but… They don't seem to have been convinced that the older source was authentic. They met gnomes, and none looked like that or acted aggressively. Gnomes don't make good soldiers."

    "Dragons."

    "The last semi-reliable sighting of a dragon in Europe was in the twelfth century. I think if there was a giant fire-breathing lizard around then someone would have spotted it."

    "Inspector, does Bucharest do emergency evacuation drills?"

    "We have.. civil contingency plans for fires and terrorist attacks, but-. Are we going to be attacked by a dragon?"

    "If one hasn't attacked in the last nine hundred years, I'd guess not. If one was hibernating or something… I can't think of anything that's changed in the last few months that would have woken it up. Heck, we don't even know that the other thefts were conducted by these things." I frown. "Zatanna, these are the same creatures as-?"

    "It's the same magic, and they're roughly the right size and have the climbing ability. I don't know if it was these ones personally…" She frowns. "Hm." She releases my arm and walks over to where the blood splattered from the brain she crushed and kneels down, right hand on the staff and left hand touching the blood. Threads of violet light worm their way down from the star sapphire, along her right arm and down her left, flowing into the blood. A small violet model monster gnome appears floating just over it, and Zatanna's eyes unfocus slightly.

    "Zatanna?"

    "No. They came right here. They smelled her magic." She stands, the mini-monster fading and the blood on her fingers evaporating.

    I nod. "Would you please update Kaldur?" I turn back to my electrocutee and put my power armour back on. "I need to ask this one some questions."
     
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    • Mr Zoat said:
    "... If one was hibernating or something… I can't think of anything that's changed in the last few months that would have woken it up..."
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    Hah! If an angel invasion didn't wake one up, nothing would.
    Vaermina said:
    The rule with Nazi super-scientists is they aren't dead till you've seen the body.
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    Until you've seen the body, ring scanned it for life, used Zeus' bondage cord to check for life, followed them to the afterlife, assimilated them, and hit them with the Sword of the Fallen.
     
    Pinklestia said:
    And then you guys got their asses kicked by Emus. Heck no wonder Australia started as a prison, the place is quite deadly.
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    Yet it's getting it's ass kicked by rabbits. Very little in nature is "tough" in a broad sense. It's usually a rock- paper-scissors kind of thing.
    Vaermina said:
    The rule with Nazi super-scientists is they aren't dead till you've seen the body.
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    They saw the body when it was getting it's ass kicked by Swamp Thing.
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    And she's still on my arm for some reason, Ms Vadim's book floating in front of her. "Do you have any contact with the local gnome warren?"
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    Thankfully on this site it can all end in a threesome instead of tears, I'm pretty sure Cheshire was mentioned to be Bi in the comics so even odds on that later. She seems to be willing to wait a few years if needed.
     
    Queshire said:
    Don't complain if you get bopped for it then.
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    The sensible thing for someone who feels differently from me to do is to attempt to explain and justify their position, with the aim of changing my mind. The stupid thing to do, the thing which promotes an us vs them mentality, is label it to associate it with a more extreme position and ban it. Various people on the thread and later by PM attempted the former. The mods did the latter.

    For example:
    The statement that 'In the 1990s, in the US, HIV disproportionally affects gay men' is not homophobic. Aside from anything else, it's true. If you wish to argue against it you have to have better statistical evidence that the person arguing for it, but the lack of emotive language suggests that they would be receptive to the idea.
    Whereas the statement that ''Gay men are disease-carrying scum and should burn in hell' is homophobic. Once a person believes that there probably isn't much you can do, but I would respect someone who used statistics on rates of infection and demonstrated reasons relating to social practices and education to show that orientation itself wasn't the deciding factor.

    Dakkan Sall said:
    "If one" I would presume.
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    Thank you, corrected.
    Really, Paul? REALLY?!!?
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    It's not quite as bad as it looks. He knowns how she feels, but she hasn't been pushing it recently. He assumed that she wasn't going to.
    lancelot said:
    Thankfully on this site it can all end in a threesome instead of tears, I'm pretty sure Cheshire was mentioned to be Bi in the comics so even odds on that later. She seems to be willing to wait a few years if needed.
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    Cheshire 1 or Cheshire 16?
     
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    Mr Zoat said:
    The sensible thing for someone who feels differently from me to do is to attempt to explain and justify their position, with the aim of changing my mind. The stupid thing to do, the thing which promotes an us vs them mentality, is label it to associate it with a more extreme position and ban it. Various people on the thread and later by PM attempted the former. The mods did the latter.

    For example:
    The statement that 'In the 1990s, in the US, HIV disproportionally affects gay men' is not homophobic. Aside from anything else, it's true. If you wish to argue against it you have to have better statistical evidence that the person arguing for it, but the lack of emotive language suggests that they would be receptive to the idea.
    Whereas the statement that ''Gay men are disease-carrying scum and should burn in hell' is homophobic. Once a person believes that there probably isn't much you can do, but I would respect someone who used statistics on rates of infection and demonstrated reasons relating to social practices and education to show that orientation itself wasn't the deciding factor.


    Thank you, corrected.

    It's not quite as bad as it looks. He knowns how she feels, but she hasn't been pushing it recently. He assumed that she wasn't going to.

    Cheshire 1 or Cheshire 16?
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    Initially I presumed that you were referring to stupidity in general instead of the stupidity of the mods in particular. I don't really have much to say on that particular thing. Sure, looks like you got shafted.

    Looking at what you said as a general principle though, there's a couple things that I can't quite agree with.

    Primarily, I feel that the need for someone else to explain their position is only one half of the equation. It is also important for one to search out and learn under their own agency in order to get the most accurate picture.
     
    Queshire said:
    Primarily, I feel that the need for someone else to explain their position is only one half of the equation. It is also important for one to search out and learn under their own agency in order to get the most accurate picture.
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    Sure, ideally, but how many people routinely check things that they know to be true without prompting? I believe the Earth to be in the shape of a slightly flattened sphere but I've never, for example, tried to send a camera to the edge of space on a balloon to check the claims of flat earthers.
     
    Eponymic said:
    I'm saying that the Australian Frontier Wars we're just as abusive and abhorrent to the indigenous peoples as the Maori Wars, Treaty of Waitangi be damned.
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    *headesks*

    it.
    gets worse.

    see, the story you often hear is the Aussie army with machineguns lost vs emus.

    the thing some people left out, is the guy in charge had the brilliant idea of herding them together, and setting up in a CIRCLE around them....
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    Threads of violet light worm their way down from the star sapphire, along her right arm and down her left, flowing into the blood. A small violet model monster gnome appears floating just over it, and Zatanna's eyes unfocus slightly.
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    Sweet baby maritans. She can model people. 0_0
     
    Vaermina said:
    Zatanna may just have to clobber him with her staff a couple times before he get's a clue...
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    It was mentioned much earlier in the story that OL does know how Zatanna feels about him. He can see the violet light.

    She's also way, way too young for him, even if you take into account the age he's pretending to be. He'd still be a creep.
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    I also can't think of a way to say that as a transhumanist I genuinely support people who wish to become helicopters without sounding sarcastic. Thoughts?
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    'Sounding,' in this context, is in the mind of the observer. While I have accepted that you were being weirdly and annoyingly pedantic, rather than my initial impression of actual bigotry (sorry about that), the mods et al on SV.com have already pre-judged you (hence the term 'prejudice,' if anyone reading this did not know that), and will automatically assume the worst regardless. With them, and people who believe them, you literally can't say that without sounding sarcastic and nasty. You may not even be able to say that you support people who want to become spacecraft without being assumed to be a sarcastic bigot, because far too many people (including transgender individuals and many who support them) don't have the first clue what 'transhuman' is, and would not necessarily accept it as valid if it were explained to them.

    (If the above is too close to politics, I'll happily remove it and PM Zoat instead - or remove it and not bother, if he's already read it.)

    Mr Zoat said:
    I turn to Zatanna. "Anything about the odd-looking gnomes in there?"

    "No, not really. The author says that the work they took the picture from said that these creatures served as foot soldiers for dragons, but… They don't seem to have been convinced that the older source was authentic. They met gnomes, and none looked like that or acted aggressively. Gnomes don't make good soldiers."
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    Kobolds?
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    Sure, ideally, but how many people routinely check things that they know to be true without prompting? I believe the Earth to be in the shape of a slightly flattened sphere but I've never, for example, tried to send a camera to the edge of space on a balloon to check the claims of flat earthers.
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    Well yeah, we have people for that
     
    Mr Zoat said:
    Cheshire 1 or Cheshire 16?
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    Honestly, any good ninja training scheme includes at least nine semester hours on seduction, including same gender seduction. While that does not increase the chances she is bi, it does pretty much garrenty she isn't in denial about being bi if she is.
     
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