Avatar of AndyC

Status

User has no status, yet

Bio

Opinionated nerd for hire.

Most Recent Posts



GIFTS

Chapter 2



The Fortress
Somewhere in the Arctic Circle
July 16th, 2013


"So," Conner says, his hands in his pockets as he looks around at the vaulted crystalline ceilings and morphing liquid-geo displays, "This is the Fortress, huh? Kara never let me in here while you were gone-- she said it's because she's worried I might have some Cadmus sleeper-program left in me, but I think she just does it to tease me."

"Well, you won't have to worry about that anymore," I say as I enter in a sequence of gestures at one of the many computer terminals. After a moment, the swirling nanite cloud forms into a slim pentagonal key with the El family crest at the head, and I pluck it from the cloud and hand it to him. "Your very own command key. Now you've got full access to everything the Fortress and Kelex can do, just like Kara and me."

Conner eyes the key, then gives me a skeptical look, but ultimately takes it and puts it in his jeans pocket.

"This is still really weird," he says, looking downward. "Not coming to the Fortress, I mean, just.....this whole thing, it's......I don't really know how to deal with it."

"I know how you feel," I say, trying to put a hand on his shoulder, but he walks away before I can.

"You really don't," he mutters as he walks off, down the winding corridors towards the Interstellar Zoo.

"Don't mind him, he's always like that," says Kara, flitting through the air as she greets me. "Everything with him is always so grim and so serious. I've been telling him he needs to start dating; it'd do him a world of good. Maybe see if Batgirl's seeing anyone? Or if Wonder Woman knows any Amazons who are looking for--ooh! I know! That Raven girl from the Titans! She's always all 'ohhh, look at me, I'm so dark and misunderstood, isn't that coooool,' she'd be perfect for--"

"You know he's got super-hearing like us, right?"

"Pffft, I say that to his face all the time," she shrugs it off.

"Still, I'd appreciate it if you'd go easy on him," I say, taking a sterner tone, "He's having a tough time getting used to, you know......the situation."

"Okayyy, fine," she relents. "Speaking of, how are you doing?"

"Oh, you know," I shrug, "about as well as someone can be doing, given everything that's happened while I was.....away."

Kara raises an eyebrow.

"You're saying that like you went on vacation," she says. "You were dead, Kal. I was supposed to look after you, help raise you, and by the time I came to Earth you'd already lived out your life. I only knew about you through stories, hearing the members of the Justice League talk about you, seeing your statue in Heroes' Park. Now you're back, and you've been acting like you'd just stepped out for a long lunch or something."

I sigh.

"Honestly? I've just been trying not to think about it," I admit. "The world's changed so much since Doomsday. And not just the 'tights and fights' part of my life. Lois is having a hard time with all of this. And I'll be honest, it's not easy for me to get my head around it, either. So for now, I think it's best if I just focus on the job and let everything sort itself out."

"Well, if you ever need an ear, I'm always here, cousin," she says, opening her arms wide. "Hugs?"

"Okay, but-

"Huuuugs!" she exclaims, squeezing me with enough force to crush a mountain.

"Nnngh!....Kara.....can't breathe--"

"Oh! Ogmigosh, sorry!" she gasps. "I got a little carried away there."

"Not to break up the touching moment here," says Conner, re-entering the main hall, "but that Kelex computer just told me there's a pretty massive storm approaching Thailand. Do we wanna, I dunno, go help people or something?"

"You're right! We should go save people together! It'll be awwwwe-sommmme!" She exclaims, zipping out of the Fortress's main entrance and into the open air. Before I go, Conner grabs my arm.

"Hey, um, Superman," he says. "God, I don't even know what to call you. I mean, are you like, my dad now? My big brother? Or--"

"Let's start with Clark," I say with a slight chuckle.

"Right, right, um, Clark," he nods. "I know everyone's going through a weird time right now, and maybe I'm not the best about dealing with it. I just wanted to say, y'know.....thanks. For being cool with, y'know....with me."

"Don't worry about it, Conner," I say. "I don't where you came from, or what Cadmus or ARGUS or anyone else wanted you to do. You're family now, and whatever you decide you want to do, whoever you decide to be, I've got your back."

That may actually be the first time I've ever seen him smile.

"Now come on," I say, giving him a pat on the back. "We've got a force of nature to fight. You up for it?"

"I'm always ready," he says, cracking his knuckles.

I take to the skies, and look down to see Conner bounding across the frozen plains, taking a half-mile or more with every stride.

Things are strange these days, everything's so uncertain. But it's times like this where having people who are there for you means the world. My second lease on life was a gift, to be sure, but having a family to share my life with this time.....that's a whole other gift entirely.
So Byrd's character proposal got me thinkin'......not about doing a similar character, but an otherwise out-there property with an established history in comic books, and one that could be a great catalyst for team-ups.

Byrd may prefer to do mystery stories, but me? Well.......I like to think big......



GIFTS

Chapter 1



Metropolis
12:00pm EST
December 25th, 2007


Ma and Pa were never the devout church-going type, but Christmas was always something special to us. My parents would plan sometimes months in advance to find exactly what I wanted, and when I was old enough to start giving back, I'd go to the ends of the Earth- sometimes literally- to do something special for them. As a kid, I'd show off and do something crazy like move every boulder and heavy rock in every acre of our fields and make a statue. As I got older, it became more personal, like learning how to painstakingly restore the old broken pocket-watch that had been a Kent family heirloom since the Civil War. Point being, this is the time of year I go to great lengths to get the people in my life the thing they want or need more than anything else in the world.

Christmas morning in Smallville was wonderful; Ma was up before dawn making breakfast because she knew I'd insist on making it myself when Lois and I arrived. We caught up on all the daily goings-on in the old town and what we were up to in the big city, and exchanged gifts after I put the dishes away. Over the past few months, I'd secretly brought all of the heavy machinery from the barn to my Fortress and had Kelex retrofit them all with menial AI systems to drive themselves, and we surprised Ma with a completely automated self-sustaining farm. She found Pa's old baseball glove and re-stitched it together for me. She was always better at finding the perfect gift than me.

I would have stayed longer, but sadly, my job doesn't allow for holidays. I spend the rest of my morning putting out fires, stopping a few potentially fatal car crashes, and helping Captain Turpin and his men take down the Helgrammite, who had apparently assumed I'd taken the day off and thankfully didn't seem to be in the mood for a fight when I arrived.

With things relatively calm, it's time for my next stop, and the I'm the least certain about trying.



The tower is one of the most imposing man-made structures ever assembled, stretching even higher than the Burj Khalifa. I've been told that with normal human vision, the very top of the spire isn't visible from ground level on a cloudy day. And yet, despite reaching heights that would collapse most known designs under their own weight, the place is shockingly sturdy. Through disasters, bombings, rampages from super-powered criminals and terrorists, and even the Dominator invasion, the tower has never sustained more than cosmetic damage.

I'll say this for Lex Luthor: he's one hell on an architect.

The upper floors of the LexCorp tower blossom out on one end like mushrooms on the side of a tree: layer after layer of helicopter pads and observation decks, added in recent years to accommodate visitors from the sky. For someone who's never been able to stand the sight of me, he sure did go out of his way to make sure I had plenty of places to meet him for our occasional conversations.

Today, as I touch down on the uppermost observation deck, I see he's not out to greet me with his usual smugness. I peer through the layers of reinforced ferro-crete and poly-alloy structure to see him at his desk, typing away at one of several laptops arranged around him. Of course he'd be hard at work on Christmas Day; while I'm sure he's never said it out loud, he's the type of person who's had "bah, humbug" on the tip of his tongue all his life.

"The door's open, Spaceman," he calls out, not even looking up from his desk as I approach the office. I raise an eyebrow at how clearly I'm able to hear his voice- usually the windows in LexCorp Tower are so perfectly soundproofed that even I can't hear through them. I suppose he's created some way to selectively filter sounds coming in and out of the Tower, similar to my own senses, but that's another question for another day. Today, I'm here for a talk....and to deliver a gift.

"Keeping your nose to the grindstone, I see," I remark as I step into the clean, almost sterile office. Every piece of furniture, every light fixture, every piece of art, was precisely engineered to be in its exact space, giving the room an impressive but soulless air. "I'd read that a few years ago, you'd replaced most of your board of directors with high-functioning AI to handle the day-to-day business at your company."

"Yes, well, after the Brainiac incident I soured somewhat on the idea of turning that much work over to software," he says, a bitter tone in his voice. "Now, what do you want? Here to scold me on another project that doesn't adhere to your Commandments? Maybe make a few more accusations that I'm some criminal mastermind even though you just can't seem to whip up the evidence to prove it? Or did you come here to blubber and beg me to see the light so we can be friends?"

"Actually," I say, brushing off his rebuke and producing a small gift-wrapped box, "I just wanted to give you your Christmas present."

Lex finally stops typing, one eyebrow raised.

"Did you bring a soccer ball?"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh come now, you have to know about the Christmas Truce," he says, looking up from his desk with a mocking smile. "It's 1914, and Europe is in the first stages of tearing itself to pieces. A whole generation of bright-eyed young men are thrown into the meat grinder and empires are broken forever. The destiny of the world hangs in the balance of two lumbering alliances trying to clog the enemy's throat with the corpses of their young. But ah, it's Christmas. So the Germans and French and British all climb up out of their trenches, sing songs, trade trinkets back and forth, and play a friendly game of futbol. It's a tear-jerking story that really shows the inherent goodness of the world and the magic of the season.

"So, I ask you again,"
he says, an edge sharpening the smile on his face, "if you want us to have a little Christmas truce, did you bring a soccer ball?"

"No," I answer plainly. "I thought you might like--"

"Might like what?" Lex cuts me off, standing up and rounding the desk to face me eye to eye-- or really, eye to chin for him. "This is supposed to be some gesture to show me that you're not all that bad, right? That maybe, deep down, you really do care? Do you know what Christmas is to me, Superman? Christmas is my old man buying me a new video game I'm never going to play, a new suit I'm never going to wear, or a new car I'm never going to drive, to make up three hundred and sixty-four other days of his fist, his insults, or his indifference. Just like every other higher power that either puts you through hell or ignores you, only to turn around and hope a token act of kindness will make us all forget how awful you really are."

He snatches the box out of my hand, contemptuously ripping off the wrapping paper and digging his hand into the box.

"So let's see what the mighty and merciful Man of Tomorrow got for the man who opposes everything he believes," he says. "Some sappy reminder of happier days, or a souvenir from some amazing adventure, or a........what............what is this?"

In his hand is a small, seashell-like bowl of shimmering crystal and dark dull metal. Inside the bowl seems to be a handful of bright white sand which shifts and stirs with his movements, but never spills out even as Lex turns it upside-down.

"It's a small matter compiler, I tell him. "It pulls trace elements out of the surrounding environment and re-configures them on a subatomic scale into any substance you want, once you understand how to operate it."

Lex scowls at it, perhaps annoyed by how interested he is.

"And how do I operate it?" he asks idly as he turns it over and over in his hand.

"I'm not telling you," I say with a grin. He stops fiddling with the device and glares. "On Krypton, this was a toy meant to entertain children. I'm sure you can figure out how to make it work with no problem."

"Ah-ha," he says with a bitter laugh. "So that's your 'Christmas present,' mocking me."

"Daring you," I correct him. "This little device can only make objects about the size of an apple, but the principles remain the same no matter what the scale. With the right design, you could make one big enough and powerful enough to feed everyone on the planet, manufacture shelters for the homeless, custom-build medicine for the sick, and conjure it all literally out of thin air...."

"....or build a whole new society from the ground up and rule over it myself," he says, his eyes fixed on the trinket. "I could make anything with a device like that, and you're just giving it to--"

"No," I say, deftly snatching it back from him, "I'm letting you look at it, and daring you to make a better one."

There's a long pause in the air between us.

"Get out of my office," he says coldly.

"Merry Christmas, Lex," I respond with a wink.

"GET OUT!!!!

I duck out of the way to avoid the laptop that Lex hurls at me, which shatters against the bomb-proof window as I leave. Taking to the sky, I find myself wondering if I got through to him. Someone like Lex Luthor won't accept a mere present, or a peace offering, or a token of friendship. But if there's one thing he will accept, it's a challenge.

We'll see if he ever puts that gift to use. In the meantime, there's plenty of day left, which means there are going to be plenty of people who'll need me to use my own gifts.

All in a day's work, I suppose.
@AndyC if you ever need your resident speedster for JL shennanigans, just ask.


Of course. There's ample opportunity for the traditional "Superman and Flash race around the world for gits and shiggles" arc.


SUPERMAN
"Being Superman isn't about what planet you're from, or what powers you have, or what symbol you wear on your chest. It's about what you do. It's about action."
Clark Joseph Kent♦ April 18th, 1978 (39) ♦ Male Neutral Good

C O N C E P T A B S T R A C T:
My first attempt for Superman in this RP was....a little too ambitious for its own good. Not to mention meta to the point of outright pretentiousness. After spending so long away from roleplaying, I'm going to dial it back and make sure I've still got the fundamental chops to do justice to my favorite character. No weird time warps or fictional awareness, just prime-era Superman at the top of his game, fully formed and easy to interact with. I may get weird with it later, but first and foremost I want to have some fun, save the world, maybe bench-press the moon a couple of times, that sort of thing.


N O T E S:


Superman's powers, supporting cast, and rogues' gallery are more or less the same as they always are. I'm willing to make edits if, f'rinstance, someone wants to play Supergirl differently from what I have in mind, but the general idea is that everything is accessible and within people's expectations. The exact details may be a little different here and there, but it's nothing too wild.

T I M E L I N E:



Okay, Take Two:

SUPERMAN
"Being Superman isn't about what planet you're from, or what powers you have, or what symbol you wear on your chest. It's about what you do. It's about action."
Clark Joseph Kent♦ April 18th, 1978 (39) ♦ Male Neutral Good

C O N C E P T A B S T R A C T:
My first attempt for Superman in this RP was....a little too ambitious for its own good. Not to mention meta to the point of outright pretentiousness. After spending so long away from roleplaying, I'm going to dial it back and make sure I've still got the fundamental chops to do justice to my favorite character. No weird time warps or fictional awareness, just prime-era Superman at the top of his game, fully formed and easy to interact with. I may get weird with it later, but first and foremost I want to have some fun, save the world, maybe bench-press the moon a couple of times, that sort of thing.


N O T E S:


Superman's powers, supporting cast, and rogues' gallery are more or less the same as they always are. I'm willing to make edits if, f'rinstance, someone wants to play Supergirl differently from what I have in mind, but the general idea is that everything is accessible and within people's expectations. The exact details may be a little different here and there, but it's nothing too wild.

T I M E L I N E:


Okay, so the whole idea was that as the story went along, the exact nature of Superman's erasure would be uncovered and reveal why places like Metropolis were erased with him: rather than just a simple time warp, Luthor had become aware of his fictional nature and (with help from Mxyzptlk) re-wrote the universe's 'story' so that it doesn't include Superman. Since Metropolis is Superman's city, if Superman was never part of the story, then there was no reason for it to exist-- same with Smallville: no point in Clark's hometown taking up narrative space if there's no Clark to grow up in it. But, because of Superman's impact on influencing the creation of all the other superheroes that still currently exist, the narrative structure of the universe demands he be there, hence his mere displacement rather than complete removal.

All that said, I don't think the concept is going over well, and doesn't fit with the way this RP world works. Since I haven't posted in IC yet, I'm going to just go ahead and rescind my application. I'll apply again when I've got something that fits the scenario better.
It's not necessarily removing all those people, just relocating them. The people who would have lived in Smallville would have simply instead lived in the surrounding towns; likewise, the potential population of Metropolis would have just spread out throughout whatever vague area of New England the city's located in, like Clark himself.

And from a purely practical standpoint in terms of the RP itself, was anyone really planning to have a character arc in Smallville or Metropolis that I took away from them? If it's going to be an issue, I can scrap it and work with something else, but if it's not stopping other players from using their characters in the way they want, I really don't see the problem.
@Lord Wraith That's correct; with the exception of Clark himself and the supporting cast mentioned in the CS, if it's a major part of Superman's mythos, it currently doesn't exist.

The current status quo is that Clark doesn't know he's Superman, or that such a thing as Superman ever existed. He and Jimmy Olsen live together in an apartment in New York, working for an online newspaper with Lois Lane.
@AndyC, I should have clarified this early as it would have saved a lot of discussion in the Discord but you mention in your proposal that you want to tell your Superman story without imposing on anybody else. Does this mean we should be treating your Superman as existing in his own timeline separate from the Prime Timeline of the RP.

Basically, is your Superman intended to be an Elseworld story separate from the rest of the RP? If the answer is yes, that's totally cool as in the OP I mentioned doing just that. I'm just trying to clear up some details that have the rest of the cast rather confused about.


Sorry for being unclear. Clark definitely does exist and will be interacting with the other characters in the game; it's just his previous past that's currently 'non-canon.' Clark will slowly but surely unlock aspects of his old life as he remembers it (Kryptonite, his involvement with the JSA, etc), and other players can decide whether or not they want their characters to remember those things as well. So, for instance, Superman might have a perfectly clear memory of fighting alongside Captain America, while Cap doesn't recall it at all.

© 2007-2024
BBCode Cheatsheet