Hi all,

Having just finished a major story arc for my Postboot/Reboot/Post Zero Hour Legion fanfic, I realized that one major difficulty I had was deciding on my Legion lineup. My final Active roll call is 42 members long, and I seriously considered ending with a lineup of 48 in fact.

(not counting supporting cast, Reservists and Legion Cadets, but I don't feel as big a need to manage the size of those groups! I just keep adding Cadets to my list )

I thought it would be interesting to see how other writers, especially those whose fics are ongoings, decide on their Legion lineups. More than the "who", I think the "why" and "how". Especially as I think the other active writers here all have upwards of 35 Active Legionnaires!

I'll start - when deciding which of my Legionnaires to keep, I focused on (warning, spoilers for those who read my work :p):

1) Diversity - mostly power and personality, although "look" became a small factor as well in the sense that I want to include more non-caucasian humanoids (Particon, Condo Arlik) and more non-humanoids (Lume, Babbage). That's one reason I dropped Magnetic Kid when I had Magno (spoiler!) rejoin as well.

2) My "synergy" with the character - there are some characters I just think I'm really good at writing, and some I need a better handle on. I think many will agree that I "get" Polar Boy (as Blizzard) and Spider-Girl really well, so despite Brek's lack of canon appearances and Sussa's weaker powers, I brought them in. I had an easy time writing Condo Arlik because I made him Lyle's boyfriend, so he got a flight ring too. On the other hand, I had some difficulty writing Kent Shakespeare, and because his powers duplicated many others' I made him take Reserve status.

3) The character's natural evolution in the stories (both canon and in my own writing) - Tenzil was a strong candidate, but I ultimately decided against because I kept having him saying that he didn't see the appeal of constantly being in danger. His powers haven't changed either, so I felt he lacked a compelling reason to change his mind. I'm still keeping him as a Reservist though and am strongly considering having him become full-time Active in the near future. On the other hand, Chuck (spoiler!) recently gained powers in my story AND has history of being in the field (he joined the Legion Subterfuge Squad in Legion Worlds), so it made sense. I almost kept Dirk Morgna as a Reservist too, but I took a second look and decided he enjoyed the thrill of missions, so made him Active too.

Other cuts I reluctantly made were Dragonmage, who inadvertently caused the destruction of Dryad AND Gil'd when he freed the Elementals despite being warned not to; and Thunder, who has a life of her own in the 90th century and (spoiler!) can now return there in her powered form. Finally, I wanted to promote Amp (Girl) Ming Sul and even expanded her powers, but realized that I hadn't given her enough screen time in my work to justify her inclusion just yet. And her "official", canon appearance as a Legion Cadet (Legion 25 only) wasn't impressive enough either, unlike for example Nightwind's or Infectious Lass' (in Gail Simone's story Legion 35-38).

I hope other writers will share their thoughts and thought processes I think this could be an enriching discussion for all of us.

Really interesting question! I know I'm super-green, but I hope you don't mind my two cents!

Diversity of forms and powers and race and gender...totally agree with you. The Legion should look like they come from different planets. To me, there's no reason why they all have to be super Caucasian, and making the cast more diverse can serve the narrative better: sure, humanoids are mostly cool with the gender/race/creed of other humanoids, but you can still show there's room to improve with stuff like how the galaxy at large treats robotic life, or how beings like Drake are perceived, etc.

Also one of the most important things to be about the Legion is their size and the scope of their mandate: they protect the entire United Planets, and I love them most when their numbers are in the 30s/40s for active members. It differentiates them from other teams, and gives a lot of room for a lot of nuanced personalities.

That being said, one of the things I look for is groupings when I'm plotting out arcs. Teenagers, no matter the era, tend to cluster in friendly groups, and the Legionnaires should be no different. Tenzil and Chuck are obvious friends to me, as would be a more Postboot Drake with a more SW6 Ferro (who I have paired and they end up calling themselves "The Gruesome Twosome" and they're just a delight XD), and Luornu is a great lynchpin in getting a lot of the Legion Ladies to crew up into a big collective, depending on how she's written, etc...

The other side to that is where two chracters may clash, and that's sometimes equally fun to play with on missions or the like. Is the more reserved and quiet Tasmia gonna be able to keep her cool if forced to share a cruiser with Matter-Eater Lad for a few days? Would by-the-book Gim Allon be able to reign in Jo Nah and Brin Londo on a mission that requires diplomatic sensitivity? What does an argument about what's ultimately right to do for the galaxy look like between Rokk Krinn and someone like Blok or Tellus? These can be great moments and one of the benefits of a big cast is just how much you can mix-n-match.

Thanks for joining in Not-So-Bad Lad! I'm really glad you added your thoughts to the mix. You make some good points on considering potential character interactions and having a nice mix of personalities in!

I think Postboot Triad is a great character in that regard, she already has 3 different personalities.

On diversity, I very much agree with you as well. That's one reason why I want to keep including the Asian Dragonmage and Amp (Girl) in my own team later on, to join XS, Kid Quantum II, Karate Kid, Particon and Chemical Kid (Condo). As for the non-"humanoids", I really only have Chameleon, Wildfire, Shikari, Gates, Sensor, Lume and Babbage and to a lesser extent Brainiac 5 and Umbra, Nightwind and Infectious Lass (Microbe). Tellus is a good candidate but I'm thinking of tweaking his powerset as right now he duplicates Saturn Girl and Kinetix, and I also have Mentalla as a telepath...

One good thing about forming a Legion team though is that there are so many characters from different 'Boots which can be used, with a little tweaking here and there. And many writers here such as Harbinger and razsolo have included original characters in their teams too.

This is a great topic for discussion, Ibby. Thanks for broaching the subject.

Synergy with characters is indeed important -- for example, I could write Tasmia in my sleep and feel like I got her exactly right, such is my affection and passion for the character. On the other hand, there are characters I like that I just can't quite seem to connect with, the prime example in my estimation being Jan -- one problem with him is I'm not good at hard science, or even basic science really, another is that DnA took the Postboot version of the character to his most logical and disturbing conclusion, and even though I adore "Legion Lost" (it may very well be my favorite multi-part Legion storyarc), there's also a sense of not being able to put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.

And then there's the challenge of writing characters I personally dislike -- you'd probably never guess it now, but there was a time, despite her kick-ass characterization in "The Universo Project", that Imra was one of my least favorite female Legionnaires. She just seemed so square and so icy; it wasn't until I walked a proverbial mile in her shoes by writing her for the first time a few years ago in a major role in one of my stories that I finally warmed up to her. The biggest, and most rewarding, challenge by far, was writing Preboot Rokk and making him accountable for his horrible actions during the Bronze Age; I feel like I accomplished what I set out to do, and more; that said, I still dislike Rokk intensely and hope never to have to write him again. Dirk was a character I used to loathe because Levitz made him such a one-dimensional pig, but after writing him a few times and gaining a better understanding of him, warts and all, I think he's okay. The biggest challenge before me that I haven't taken yet is trying to write Val, for the same reason I hate the Morrison JLA Batman -- he's just so damned perfect to compensate for his lack of super-powers.

The one lineup I have created from scratch is the one for Supergirl's Legion, and I think it's very telling:

Supergirl
Kinetix
XS
Brainiac 5
Leviathan
Apparition
Shrinking Violet
Wildfire
Kid Quantum
Spark

Lots of gals, and only a few guys, none of whom fit the Alpha Male stereotype. If I do continue Supergirl's Legion, I plan to bring in Umbra (of course), Gates, Quislet, and Tellus.

I also keep the lineup from getting to big by having Luornu, Reep/Rene Junior, Nura, Mysa, and Imra as supporting characters rather than actual Legionnaires. In addition, I used Andromeda as an out-and-out villainess, and I was also planning to bring in Garth as Mekt's partner in villainy; they'd call themselves the Lords of Light (because I am shameless in my use of references to 80s TV cartoons.) Another storyline I had planned for Supergirl's Legion involved introducing my version of the Workforce, led by Kent Shakespeare, who would be exposed as a Miraclo-popping fraud, and including Inferno (minus the homicidal tendencies), Evolvo, and Spider-Girl, all of whom would eventually join the Legion.

As for original characters, well, you never know. Time will tell.

Hi there, this is really interesting to read as I don't think I have any hard and fast rules when I'm putting together a story, I just tend to know who's needed (searching for Laurels dad then she's got to be in it, we need a tracker so Gahaji is called up, Brin and her are kind of a couple so he'd be involved, Kinetix is sniffing round the Ruby of Life so she'll follow Mwindaji, and we haven't seen Lu in a while and it'll be interesting to figure out her relationship with each, so that's that team.... Umm space pirates? well Jan of course, and then....) So it's often just whoever feels right. There has been a couple of exceptions, like I wanted Thunder and Sun Boy to talk so I manufactured a story just to have them together sussing each other out. Then I also had a team composed entirely of Orange Legionnaires just for a hoot, and that worked out well I feel.

As for enjoying or not the characters in Canon, well I hated Harmonia in the comic though grew to really like writing her, same with Dirk. I've struggled really bad with Brek, Rokk and also Jaqcues, though making Daniel slightly autistic and friends with Glorith was a great idea that I've ran and ran with, much to the benefit of the story I think.

I try not to use the same characters in every storyline and plan out characters growths and development into each arc, sometimes obviously and sometimes as a way to plant a seed for something further down the line. Sometimes it works though not always, and I'm fine with that and hope that whoever reads my tales is too.

It's my belief that any creative endeavour starts to lose its vitality if it's over-thought out. With that in mind if I have a silly idea (hey, Orange legionnaires against a world!) I just let it happen and hope for the best.

I chose to introduce new characters because I didn't want to be merely a nostalgia fiend, as much fun as it is, and the Legion is the one group that it's okay to grow to huge proportions. It's okay to introduce a talking Tiggerram and a swarm of sentient stones, alongside the perfect telepathic teammate and a karate kid legacy as its the one place you'll ever see them together.

Ultimately writing is escapism for me, like everyone else I need to let off steam from time to time so imagining 4000 star bandits getting their asses handed to them in a space battle is a good way to do, or so I've found.

My advice, two words: have fun!

Thank you! I'm really glad you said that, Harbi, because I have been guilty of that over and over (at last, the reason for so many unfinished Fickles fanfics revealed)! With my current (non-Legion) fanfic project, I'm taking a much more easy-going approach which, so far, has paid off quite nicely.



THIS!

Cheers, Harbi.

Hi Fanfie and Harbi, really happy to see you both chiming in too!

I agree re synergy, and that it helps to like a character. But I too have had some success with characters I dislike. I find that what's most important is "knowing" the character.

(Thanks too for sharing your future plans for Supergirl's Legion, Fanfie. I love your lineup, devoid of alpha males. (I dislike the super-alpha males which is why Threeboot Jo is the Legionnaire I hate most!).

The two points that Fanfie cited from Harbi's post are my two key takeaways too!




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I also loved Harbi's insights into how to pick characters for a storyline or team. That kind of planning makes juggling an enormous cast of dozens much easier.

During my time in Arkham the hospital this year, I filled notebooks with crummy sketches and pages and pages of the continuing adventures of Rainbow Girl.

Which I am slowly transcribing into electronic files, and gradually uploading into Legion World. I expect it will run about 20 chapters, and 100,000 words. Or more.

(As I had no internet access while committed recuperating, and no control over what was on television, and spending most of the time in bed… Dori was my consolation, escape valve, entertainment and creative outlet.)

My point—and I do have one—is that although the Adventures of Rainbow Girl focuses on a single character, she does wander around the Legion Universe and meets, according to my last count, over one hundred established Legion characters, and another one hundred new characters of my own invention. Not that I was trying to include two hundred characters in the story, but I wanted Dori to explore the Universe, and they just showed up.

Maybe sometime I’ll take a week or two break from mere transcribing and post a Who’s Who in the Earth-K paracosm. Maybe not.

Of course, we are not writing for publication here, so I cannot argue with ‘have fun’, and ‘don’t overthink’.

Otherwise, I would quote the Masters who say ‘writing is 10% inspiration, and 90% editing’; ‘writing is a job, just like any other job—you have to work at it’; ‘I can’t wait to write the synopsis and query letter for my book, said no author, ever’; and ‘kill your darlings’.

And may I say, I admire every single person who posts artwork here, a talent which I sorely lack. What is the word for 'tone-deaf', except drawing, rather than singing?

That's one reason why I haven't killed anyone in my stories yet Well, except for the four White Triangle Daxamite terrorists who went insane after taking anti-lead serum, I had them die...

I've done a little professional writing, and Klar is spot on with all of this XD, but it's gotta be balanced with Harbinger and Fanfic Lady's feelings on fun, or Trepanning starts looking like a reaaaaal attractive option

And like a total dork, I forgot to list out my Legion as was done earlier, and I apologize! My Legion has been breaking down in the outlines as falling into a few 'stages' of membership, and since I like my rosters like I like my coffee pot (full to bursting!), I'll break it down that way for ease!


Original Twelve

Cosmic Boy - Rokk Krinn of Braal
Saturn Girl - Imra Ardeen of Titan
Lightning Lad - Garth Ranzz of Winath
Triplicate Teen - Luornu Durgo of Carggg
Phantom Girl - Tinya Wazzo of Bgztl
Atom Girl - Salu 'Violet' Digby of Imsk
Matter-Eater Lad - Tenzil Kem of Bismoll
Colossal Boy - Gim Allon of Mars
Kid Quantum - Jazmin Cullen of Xanthu
Weather Boy - Myke Chypurz of Luna
Chameleon Kid - Reep Daggle of Durla
Bouncing Boy - Chuck Taine of Earth


The Brande Meta-Institute

Brainiac 5 - Querl Dox of Colu
Invisible Kid - Lyle Norg of Earth
Superlass - Mona Zor-El of NeoKandor
Superlad - Dev-Em of NeoKandor
Anti-Matter Lad - Drake Burroughs of Luna
Chemical Queen - Condo Arlik of Phlon
Decibel Kid - Myke-4 Astor of Calish-Aetia


Draftees

Animal Lad - Ilshu Nor of Lallor
Jenni Quik - Jenni Ognats of Aarok
Galaxy Girl - Shikari Dawnstar of Thanagarrus
Kinetic Kid - Zoe Saugin of Aleph
Reflecto - Stig Ah of Rimbor
Power Lass - Laurel Gand of Daxam
Nemesis Kid - Hart Druiter of Myar
Star Boy - Thom Kallor of Xanthu
Calorie Queen - Taryn Loy of Bismoll
Sensor - Jeka Wynzorr of Orando
Dream Girl - Nura Schappin of Naltor
Gates - Ti'julk Mr'asz of Vyrga


Try-Outs

Princess Projectra - Wilimena Morgana Daergina Annaxandra Projectra Velorya Vauxhall of Gemworld
Sound Sorcerer - Tyroc Stewart of Marzal
Solar Boy - Dirk Morgna of Earth
Light Lass - Ayla Ranzz of Winath
Shadow Lass - Tasmia Mallor of Talok-VII
Karate Kid - Val Armorr of Earth
Automatic Lad - 1-45ENG 'Babbage' of Robotica


Joined Independently

Fortress Lass - Tress Dox of Legion Headquarters
Element Lad - Jan Arrah of Trom
Ultra Boy - Jo Nah of Rimbor
Timber Wolf - Brin Londo of Zuun
Stone Boy - Blok of Dryad
Cloud King - Jacques Foccart of Earth
Polar Boy - Brek Bannin of Tharr
White Witch - Mysa Nal of Tharn
Ferrous Lad - Duglas Nori of Pasnic


The Legion of Takron-Galtos

Ms. Medusa - Sussa Paka of Hardcore Station
Radiation Roy - Roy Travich of Dracksler
Power Ring - Rond Vidar of Earth.

Cool lineup! Looks full to brimming with all sorts of cool personalities.

More and more I'm wishing I had bumped Tenzil up to active status, but I think I'll do that in my next fanfic Volume... I can think of some good stories for getting there...

I'd always recommend Tenzil as a Legionnaire He and Chuck and Luornu and Nura sort of embody the cool weirdness of the Legion in a lot of ways, because their powers take a lot of thought but can really be impressive, and they illustrate the "Everyone has something to contribute, anyone can be a hero" philosophy that I think is really a core tenant of the Legion.

And that's the reason I have... As much as I absolutely stand by the "have fun" philosophy of fan fic writing I do think you get more enjoyment from it when you work at it, especially if the original idea is ridiculous (let's get all the legionnaires with Orange skin and have them battle a cannibalistic alien race with reality warping abilities on a distant world - a ridiculous idea and a (hopefully) good outcome after plotting it out).

You are right Klar, writing is work, but then so is playing a piano or using a paint brush, and from my experience creativity flows better if you enjoy the action of realising it . I think we are saying the same things just from a different angle. Writing a story takes time and effort, so I suggest you try to enjoy it.

Editing is horrible though.

Oh, and even my stick figures look disfigured so anyone who can draw deserves to be canonized. At the very least!

I think we are all in agreement then. Writing, even for "fun" or as a hobby, is hard work. But we have to be sure we enjoy the process, because if we overthink the results will be worse.

I can't draw worth a darn too though Ibdid make these cute devil and vampire figures that I put on any cards I give Blaze...

I can't draw to save my life, so I love seeing the artwork here. I really wish more artists would post their work though. You're all so talented!

This is a great topic, thanks IB! All of us who maintain a regular series here have really different writing styles and different strengths so I love reading stuff like this that gives some insight into the way writers think

I started writing my own fic as an exercise in discipline so that I could apply that to writing my own original comic...hasn't quite worked out that way but my Legion has taken on enough of a life in my imagination that I am more than happy just writing their adventures and seeing how they grow. I picked the team straight after Legion of 3 Worlds (without XS & Gates because as much as I love them it made no sense to me they'd leave their own team behind), and kicked this whole thing off by introducing Infectious Lass to the team because it drove me crazy that DC had referred to her as a member of the team when we'd never seen it.

I have had a few roster changes since then, but no really dramatic shake-ups. For the most part anyone I've added are characters I feel have been around long enough to deserve a place on the team (eg the Subs or Nightwind) or more obscure characters who I felt were ripe for exploration (eg Gas Girl, Dragonmage, Kid Computo). Even the original characters I've introduced to the team have pretty strong ties to Legion lore. I have loads of ideas for completely original characters but for some reason I prefer to keep these for supporting characters or bad guys. I guess with 5YL being my favourite Legion era I'm kind of inspired to see where the classic Legion characters develop when they're given free reign to evolve.

Every character I've had leave the team has been plot or characterisation-driven. I would have loved to keep Sensor Girl and Shadow Lad for example, but their stories led to them not being here for now. I don't really build the team in meta terms very much, I just kind of let the characters write their own stories in my head. For the same reason, as much as I'd love to have Saturn Girl & Lightning Lad be more active they won't really let me do it

One common theme I've noticed a lot of people have brought up is the challenge of writing characters you don't like; I definitely subscribe to this. I traditionally haven't really liked Dawnstar or Timber Wolf but I've forced myself to write them both, and surprisingly I feel like I have a really good handle on them.

Glad you like the topic raz and happy you chimed in, I think you have the longest running series of all of us so curious how you plot out your lineups.

I think you and I agree on the "let characters write their own stories" thing, which is why I myself had to drop Dragonmage and Tenzil from my active lineup and very nearly Dirk. Good thing though is that it does not close the door, only means there are a few more detours needed

I think among us all, Harbinger is the one with the most original Legionnaires (Backlash, Starkling, Dkyun Mu, Thirteen, the newest Karate Kid...) I have the least as I am not that good at creating new ones plus there are so many existing characters I want to use more.

Thanks IB for the topic!

Everyone makes so many valid points such as fun and hard work are both parts of the creative process.

As for how i personally handle my line up choice at first it was fairly easy. I started out with the Legion just after LO3WS and then once they entered U248 they split into two factions. This i would say was still a pretty easy choice. But Like Raz mentioned I also let the characters live in my head and let their story follow where the characters feel the most natural.
My Subterfuge team came together out of the people who would be best suited to living on the lamb so to speak. Invisible Kid,
Dreamer,Gear,Sensor, Chameleon have all been members of the Espionage squad at one time or another so they were all natural choices. Also Dreamer needed to wait for Starboy to leave the hospital. Cosmic Boy was a last minuet addition for this team because i thought a founder should be with this team and he would be the one to make that sacrifice. M'onel was about raw power, as was Wildfire. Karate Kid and Starboy both stayed because I wanted to explore them more outside of the Cadet setting.

And with the Cadets they all just seemed like the types who would volunteer and wanted a good fight, like Ultra Boy.

Once that split happened it now came down to who i wanted to see work with whom. An example is Wildfire and Cos. In the postboot i never really saw them on a mission or interact. I always like seeing different characters that never interacted have to and that's the joy with the Legion, so many combinations to work with.

After personality for me comes power type/ability which can be influenced my mission type. Sometimes i just want to try and work on my handle on how i write their power. Gear is hard for me to write and so in most of his scenes i always try to have him use his power somehow.

Also because i'm working in an alternate reality, where alot of my characters have a counter parts in other realities this gives me both the fun and hard task of making these characters stand out, weather they are an homage or completely different than any other version. But i also don't have a lot of reference from the little i researched. So i sometimes feel like i'm creating new characters.


Lastly with the Cadet Program i don't feel limited at all at the moment, so its becoming a harder process to define whom i'll be writing.

I'm also in need of potential cadets as my Alpha cadets number in the 50's and i only have 37 of the 50.

I hear ya'll on having innate artistic talent and envying those that have it: Bout the only artistic talent I got is futzing around with Microheroes, but it helps give me a rough idea of what I'm going for. And thankfully I know a lot of artistic buddies I can commission.



Dude I love the Cadets; ya'll were talkin about Original Characters earlier and I don't have too many altogether OCs, but I do love picking up pieces of DC/Legion Lore and putting them together to make something new that could really be fun in the 30th Century, and a lot of that ended up in the Cadets I'm working on (Bizzaro Lass and Flynt Brojj as Starro Boy are the two best examples I can think up off the top of my head).

Love reading all these insights! And I agree that the Academy and Cadets give a good opportunity to bring in so many characters that can be developed as potential future Legionnaires.

The academy and the cadets is an inspired idea as it gives us the opportunity to se the potential Legionnaire from the beginning of their career, their relationships and friendships (and rivalries) build up while keeping it all within a controlled environment so hats off to you Omni for it.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I try to keep a mental tally of who I've used recently so I don't repeat them too often, which is difficult to do as there are definite favourites that shout their stories to me ar louder than others. To get around this I tried using a random story generator - I wrote twelve potential plots on paper, scrunched them up, decided which legionnaire was going to be used and then picked a random plot, but I didn't like the results as i had real problems shoehorning the characters into the plotblines so ignored it and went ahead and used my original ideas anyway ... Oh well sometimes hard work really is not worth the effort

I use a checklist too, to make sure everybody gets his/her/its time in the spotlight. I'm not meticulous enough to really make life-changing or earth-shaking changes to each but I do try to explore each character's background and personalities more.

Are you asking for suggestions for new characters?

Heroes of Other Worlds

... and I personally have dozens of characters that I could not possibly write.

Omni, I've got a _huge_ cadet team planned (I wanted to sort of reflect shades of the Threeboot Youth Movement, and for that you need numbers like woah) and one of the ways I went about filling the ranks (after Cadets/Known heroes of the 30th/Secondaries I liked/etc) was find a species or planet not represented in the Legion and work from what was known about them (i.e. a Red Saturnian, or an Atlantean, or member a rep from wherever the Amazons are by the 30th Century) and if you start fiddling with what power you want for them, combining that with their planet/species of origin may give you a good starting point for characterization!

Yes i was. i got distracted while posting and didn't phrase that right.
Thanks Klar! i totally forgot about that thread and any you want to toss my way and let me look at would be greatly appreciated.

And thanks Not-So-Bad-Lad. those are some good ideas to help come up with some more OC's.

I'm trying to keep my cadet program diverse. So between your suggestions and Klar's reminder of the thread for Heroes of other worlds i may bring some new ideas.

IB and Harbi, having a check list is a really great idea for keeping track of how often you use characters.

Omni, also take a look at these alternate hero groups:

1) The Silver-Age Wanderers
2) L.E.G.I.O.N. and R.E.B.E.L.S.
3) The Omega Men
4) Amethyst and the Mages of GemWorld
5) The Space Canine Patrol Agents. Yes, I mean really. Stop laughing. I'm serious.

Good call, Klar!

Also, Omni, you could check out the obscure Knights of the Galaxy, said in some of their appearances to share a century with the Legion. Also, on diversity in the Cadets: The Green Lanterns helped me wwith a lot of alien races I'll be using (I got a Xundarian girl that spins! Woo!), and also a lot of the early Justice League baddies like Kanjar Ro and Despero come from planets that would/could still be around in the 30th Century!

I think the Green Lantern Corps would be a good starting point as well. Lots of amazing alien races out there. Same with the other Corps (Red, Blue, Sinestro Corps, Star Sapphires...)

Thanks everyone for the suggestions i'll look into all of them. I did find one already who maybe coming into play soon.

Since IB was kind enough to start off this discussion on how we choose our line ups i thought maybe i could pose another.

I've been struggling with coming up with missions for my teams and i was wondering how do all of you come up with mission ideas?

Do you think about politics of the team? Politics of the mission and how it will affect the u.p. and the legion.
What demonstrates powers well?

Thanks for adding another discussion point, Omni. I'm glad we're all sharing ideas on how we develop our own stories.

As of now my fanfic Volumes have had a defined beginning, middle and end (how to gather the scattered Legion, recreate their universe, and have the Legion retake Legion World) so I haven't had to think about mission ideas yet. Although, when breaking down the "retake LW from the bad guy's army" story into bite-size chunks, my main criterion was how to break my massive (40-plus!) team into smaller groups and show off both powers and personalities.

I find though that it's not necessary to really think about showcasing powers, as it isn't all that hard to do with any given mission. When thinking of new missions/cases for my Volume 4, I mostly went with loose ends or elements from the Postboot canon or that I introduced in earlier volumes, and then thought about how I could take them forward. Other ideas I thought of are whimsical and tie into my own real-life experiences.

In the end I think it's about stepping back and just looking at the forest rather than the trees, and seeing what ideas pop up. I find that picking who goes on missions is a more "scientific"/checklist type exercise than thinking of what missions to come up with.

Another great topic! Fab!

IB uses a great analogy there about stepping back and focussing on the forest not just the trees.

Usually I have a general master plot for each arc, for instance I created the Shadowmancer as a new villain, so thought about his situation: how does he get his victims, if he's been around for centuries does he have supporters, how will the Legions story interact with his? As it involved pirates I knew Jan had to be in there, and I needed two uniques so Dawny and Drake were in, also the espionage squad needed something to do so Tinya was in, then I wanted a small moment planned between Doug and Troy to show their personalities so that a them in, and I wanted Wonder Woman to kick ass so that was the initial team. With my team being so expanded it was the perfect opportunity to have a gaggle of underused others join in, so that was my initial plotting for that storyline in one paragraph. Oh and Gazelle really needed to fight ninjas, don't ask why as I don't know, but I just knew it was overdue.

In LW4 I'll be introducing a brand new team of villains, a nasty war and a mystery to be solved, as well as the usual random interpersonal moments to keep the characters moving forward. I've plotted our the first arc fully and have the second part fairly well thought through. One of the opening scenes, between Harmonia and Backlash was written over a year ago but haven't had the opportunity to use it until now. it dovetails nicely though so I tweaked it a little to fit in.

I try not to repeat basic stories and shift focus from action to mystery to interpersonal moments quite quickly so it keeps the arcs fresh for the reader.

As for how do I come up with the big ideas? Sometimes it's the characters themselves, there's a biggy coming in LW4 that will surprise you (i hope), or the story idea comes from a general idea - again in LW4 there's a planetary war to stop so that was the starting point, or it could be I want to work with certain characters so figure out a way they can get together. Sometimes it's a silly idea and it entertains me so I run with it - Orange legionnaires against the world and also a space Dragon trying to mate with a space factory, both perfect examples. I also try to sabotage the usual writing trope, for instance they team all get along with each other... Ummm no. Not at all. Oh kinetix is power hungry.... Nope, actually she's being helpful... Etc.

from my experience you shouldnt throw away ideas just because you can't use it right now as it will find a home eventually if you wait.

And play, creativity grows when you release the urge to nail it down. Don't be scared of being silly, don't deny the most outrageous idea. They will keep you going as you have the work to do writing them out properly.

Harbi, you said it so well! A lot of my ideas came to me when I was actually writing the posts - bits like Brek's crush on Zoe and Ferro's crush on Mentalla, for example.

Others came to me suddenly when plotting, like when I decided to give Condo his Chemical King powers instead of Element Lad's transmutation, then I thought, what a shame we no longer have a transmuter... but I can't resurrect Element Lad as he was too far gone as the Progenitor... then BAM! Wait, Monstress died in a way that I can bring her back like how Garth was brought back, AND she retained her personality at the end.

Another is Kono, I wasn't planning to use her at all in my Volume 4 then I realized how much I was harping on and on about Dragonmage not joining the Legion because of what happened to Gil'd and Dryad, then I realized that Sklar was destroyed too so what must Kono feel about that... then boom! (And I mention Gil'd and Dryad in the same sentence, that's significant, hint hint).

So Harbi is right, never throw away an idea but write it down and who knows, an opportunity to use it may come in!

This is so much fun, I love sharing ideas and reading all of yours. As Harbi said, what a wonderful topic, Omni!

Something else else I meant to add is despite plotting out stories before I write them I always give myself room to adapt as the characters all vie for attention so there's likely to be parts that take detours before getting to the punch line.its fun to see what comes out of these flashes of inspiration, as IB so rightly said above, you can be writing a part that you know exactly what's happening and suddenly a character speaks up and you're off on a tangent. IB returning Candi as Element Lass was one such inspired intervention, and im sure you have had a few moments like that too, we all probably have, tthough a tip is don't post these parts until you know where they're going or you'll be stuck with a loose end that'll nag away at you. I've written out a start of a storyline that is really dramatic but I don't know where to take it next so I'll just sit on it, who know maybe that'll be the arc for LW5.

Something else else I've learned from reading other stories here is not to spell everything outright from the start, allow moments, especially the interpersonal ones, to have the space to grow. A prime example is the way Raz writes Comet Queen and Quislets friendship, he's never outright said they are friends but the relationship is there to be enjoyed when he posts it.

But to get back to the initial question, where do plot ideas come from, well look around you - sadly disasters and war, terrorism, ecological mishaps, accidents and general criminal and corrupt behaviour are there to be explored. If you can marry an idea with a long standing characters established story then all the better.

Good luck Omni, you already write brilliant tales, hopefullythe suggestions we can come up with can help you carry on sharing them with us.

I think pretty much all of my plot ideas come from wanting to use specific characters, either Legionnaires or bad guys...looking at their motivations and tapping stuff from their background which hasn't been explored a lot.

Good example is the recent adventure with Fearstorm. I wanted to use Fearstorm again, I have been wanting to touch on Infectious Lass's feelings about Diamond Damsel, I wanted to show off Blok's new enhancements and I wanted to do something with Quislet. The fun part is putting it all together as a coherent bunch of ideas.

I have heaps of storylines that I never have time to get through....there are individual storylines with Tellus and Wildfire I really wanna do soon, I want to touch base with some of the ex-Legionnaires we've not seen for a while, and somewhere in the back of my head Mordru is trying to get an epic storyline happening too. For me, I find that letting the characters kind of dictate where they want to go is the easiest way for me to plot.

I think Harbinger had a really good point too with letting characters have some space to grow in between massive events (and thanks for using Grava & Quislet as examples, I like those two!)...I kind of think about what characters would naturally be drawn to one another (or against one another) and that helps with putting everything together too even if it's not something which is outright driving a story a lot of the time. A fun thing I like to do is sit down with my cast and just think about who'd have a better friendship with whom, and which characters would have weird stuff in common.

Great prompt!

I agree a lot with what ya'll have said: sometimes (like Harbinger with the "Gazelle must fight Ninjas") there is some stuff that just sounds too awesome not to have: I had a note a scribbled down at some point that just said "Chuck and Tenzil fight a Daxamite and WIN." and I knew it had to go somewhere.

And IB raises a great point with Element Lad/Monstress: Sometimes you've got the start of something, but you need that other piece to pop up to make it perfect.

Sometimes like Raz says you just shuffle together a lot of parts that you know you wanna hit! And I gotta agree that you _never_ throw an idea out, cause who knows where it'll work, you know?

What works best for me is scaffolding: I know, more or less, the 'arc' of my Legion from their founding through to their second big class of cadets. There's big tent poles in the middle that I know I want to hit in some form or fashion (like the betrayal of the team by Superlad and the rise of Darkcide) and knowing I want to hit these helps me keep the plot moving forwards but also gives me enough room to be surprised at what shakes out that was not part of the plan whatsoever (Brek has a crush on Jenni, she doesn't reciprocate, and he moves on juuuuust in time for her to realize she wants him). And the big events can of course move and change and shift as you go!

On the missions themselves: I like to try and figure out who was sitting around the HQ at the time, and could respond, and one of the coolest things about the Legion are their size: you could have three or four 'missions' going at any given time and still have Legionnaires to spare! One way I've found that helps me think of missions is what's happened in the story so far and try and contemplate how that would affect the galaxy at large. For example: McCauley is made nervous by the Legionnaires mandate and how it could expose some of his shadier practices, so he founds the Workforce. The problem is he starts with a bunch of superpowered thugs like Flare and Caress he hired just because he found them attractive (cause he's a schmuck). Now they decide they don't just want to sit around waiting to try out their skills around the Legion, so the Workforce decides to stage an Emergency on one of McCauley's factory-planets and the Legionnaires of course respond, leading to a scrap between the two teams.

THIS. This is what helped me plot out and structure my Volumes 1-3, and this is how I'm plotting my Volume 4 too! A lot of the details and smaller events though just kind of come out as I'm writing.

Agreed!

And LOVE the name Darkcide! Can't wait to read your stories NSBL

Thank ya'll so much! And I'm working on the intro now (The Legion forms when their first dozen members repel basically a small army of Mercs from UP HQ) and intros _terrify_ me cause I'm so worried about mucking them up, so it's taking longer than I'd like.

One question I'd like to ask everyone about is Romance: It's a big part of Legion Lore, and how do ya'll go about figuring out how it shakes out in your stories? I just read IB's Ferro starting to notice Mentalla, for example: do you all feel it just happens organically as you write out the characters, or is it something you all feel you need to plan out beforehand?

Most of my romances came about through inspiration. Ferro noticing Mentalla came about because I had Mentalla take control of his body, and then had them paired up on one of the subteams. Ferro used to have a crush on Violet but never acted on it, so that opened the door.

Insect Queen and Particon was inspired by their (undocumented) time together as Amazers, but more because when I was writing them I found they had such synergy.

Brek's crush on Zoe was a sudden dash of inspiration that started when I had them working together to create a shield. I thought about how their personalities would mesh.

M'Onel and Shvaughn came about because of her admiration for him, and I figured out she would be smart enough to figure out his identity as Valor. The real seed was their scene in Legion Worlds 1 where there was a very mild hint of flirtation.

So it is really a combination of their pasts (established canon or otherwise), how I feel they will mesh as a couple, and sudden bursts of inspiration.

PS: looking forward to your stories! Sounds like you have a large and exciting team

Romance, and the flip side of antipathy are dictated by the characters themselves I find. Brin and Laurel Kent made perfect sense, he's trying hard to be an alpha male but is too sensitive to ever pull it off while she's all front and dreadful insecurity underneath - a perfect match I thought. Several others just wrote themselves. Ultimately these are a group of late teen and early twenty something athletes so I imagine they'll be at it like rabbits given half a chance. Just saying...

Defintiely. They're the 'teenagers' of their era-a socially liberal, progressive/permissive era more often than not, from what I can tell-and a lot of them physically empowered, and thrust into positions not only of authority as Law Enforcement, but also dangerous predicaments where they never really know if they're coming home. They almost certainly are going at it whenever given half the chance

Life is short, and sadly some Legionnaire lives are pretty short too I like how Harbi put it - most of them just wrote themselves!

Romance! Some of my romances are callouts to bits of Legion lore that I like....I always thought Infectious Lass & Jacques were cute in the 5YL Legion for example, and I don't think I can see a situation where I'd ever want to break up one of the classic couples permanently either...I wrote a subplot with Chuck and Lu where there was some tension for a bit but I never would have considered splitting them up, and I made a point of getting Cosmic Boy & Night Girl back together again in my fic too.

Some of my same-gender couples I have put together just to have some diversity...eg Power Boy & Dev-Em, Vi and Calorie Queen

Some of them write themselves as you guys have mentioned for your own characters....Blok and Diamond Damsel's very slow journey to relationship-dom is something that both characters have just kinda made happen for themselves, and when I came up with Light Lad I didn't see him hooking up with Ayla, but it just kinda made sense as it happened...Supergirl and Shadow Lad getting close is another example of something I never really consciously planned on, but once I saw it happening I kind of liked how their attraction brings to mind a gender-reversed version of Mon-El and Shadow Lass

Raz's point about gender diversity made me think that most of us have taken characters whose sexual orientations were never really revealed, and made them homosexual/bisexual.

With me, there's Particon and Insect Queen (and depending on how you look at it, Lyle and Condo).

NBSL had Jacques.

Harbinger had Kent Shakespeare.

Raz has Calorie Queen and Dev-Em.

Pretty cool, I think.

Power Boy and Dev-Em...Raz I hadn't thought about that before, but it sounds like it could be cute as hell! And I gotta see your Taryn And IB: _anything_ with more Insect Queen is work my time

And IB is spot-on with the diversity; one of the coolest things about the Legion is just how diverse it already is,not only in romances, but different races and species as well, and almost all the good fanfics I've read about the team just expand that further!

Does not hurt that all of us have upwards of 3 dozen members on our teams

Very true XD But the Legion should be that size, you know? They patrol dozens and dozens of _planets_; I personally love the idea of the Legion being able to break down into like four or five more typical superhero teams, or just dogpile on top of threats like Darkseid or Mordru (which illustrates pretty well, I think, just how hard the villains need to be for the Legion: The Fatal Five, for example, have to be worth almost 10 Legionnaires per member!).

Tharok, the Emerald Empress (and Eye) and Validus are worth way more than 10 Legionnaires each I think. Mano and Persuader maybe not quite as much...

It CAN be hard to think up of threats for the team though. Which would make a nice new topic - how do you guys think of villains, or use existing villains, for your teams? I've only created one new big villain for my team, and maybe one or two minor ones.

It depends on what the story needs: for example, I wanted Tenzil and Violet alone on a mission to build some romantic tension between the two. A mission where only two Legionnaires would be prudent wouldn't call for say The Archmage obviously XD so I went with Magpie being rumored to steal a Kathoonian NightRose from the United Planets Memorial Garden; that way I got a stakeout for the scenes I wanted, and also enough potential Legion-Power to deal with the thief.

But it doesn't always have to directly be the enemy, and the right Legionnaires for the job are often needed. I was planning on a story where a McCauley representative poisoned a planetary atmosphere, so Element Lad and Chemical Queen and Sound Sorcerer (Tyroc) were the three on point to keep the toxic chemical in check and try and reverse the process while Brin and Dawny and Lyle tried to track down the saboteur.

A lot of times I like finding out what characters will do in a situation sort of organically, without planning the response past just what baddie pops up: I started scribbling down a story where Ferrous Lad and Calorie Queen are arguing about the scope and mandate of the Legion an its ethical ramifications outside a coffee shop, and Mordecai burst out of the road in front of them and they have to hold him back til reinforcements arrive and, while they're bruisers, Mordecai is a tough customer and they have to get creative with keeping him in check.

On the full-team threats, there's some great ones from the comics, and I've designed a few myself and the guideline I've tried to use are the likes of Time Trapper and Darkseid and Mordru: could this one baddie (or small group of baddies) threaten not only the Legion, but the Galaxy if they go unopposed?

Cool! All great story ideas, and agree on the point that it depends on what the story needs. This is fiction after all, so it should not be too hard to pick or generate the right type of villain for each story.

That's where coming up with a smaller sub-team or mission-specific team can work out well, because you don't feel the need for every threat to be someone that can take on the entire team (like Mordru, Darkseid or the Time Trapper), or fielding a Legion of Three Worlds style team of super-villains that includes the entire LSV, Fatal Five, Super-Assassins, Justice League of Earth *and* Universo and Mordru (in which case, ten pages of your fic is going to be spent describing the fight scene!). That sort of thing, IMO, is best saved for the climax of a story.

A smaller group can handle a single villain, or smaller group of villains, and possibly be part of a overarching plot, while leaving room for individual characterization and rival match-ups (Magno Lad vs. Cosmic Boy, or one or more Super-Assassins vs. 'that traitor Blok' or whatever).

As for creating villains, the Legion has tons aching for more development (some old, like Molecule Master or Evillo's long-forgotten daughters, Stilleto and Styx, some new like Immortus, Sun-Killer and Akko), and yet it's also fun to throw your own inventions (like Gladiatrix or Princess Pain or Red Seven) into the mix.

Some day I might even be inspired to use my Dominator or Khund teams from the aliens thread linked earlier as villains. Or other random villains, like the old-school 'theme team' called the Interplanetary Gang I came up with (each with powers related to a planet or phenomena in our solar system, like Asteroid Belle with her telekinetically controlled orbiting rocks, or Saturn Man with his destructive energy rings).

Yeah, that's what worked for Volume 3 of my fic - I had to juggle about 45 characters, so I split them up into groups of 3 or 4 each (which was extremely difficult by the way!)

It was fun tossing dozens of villains into the mix as well. Kid Quantum II and Star Boy vs. the Emerald Empress; Andromeda and Thunder vs. Validus; XS having a rematch with Tangleweb... Micro vs. Umbra and Timber Wolf... oh the match-ups!

Would love to see your ideas in writing Set. Sounds like a lot of fun villains there.

Aargh I wrote a massive reply to this and my sprocking computer killed it :[

But basically with villains I have a couple of different approaches....I like using minor villains to develop individual characters if they're not powerful enough to face the whole team; eg I had Orion the Hunter fight Cos and Night Girl so I could get them back together as a couple....I used Terrus to give Dawnstar a bit of spotlight for her power...etc

I like using major villains like the Fatal Five or the Infinite Man to give the whole team a challenge

And with some (usually homemade) villains I have a story in place for them that gets moved along a bit at a time whenever they appear....Bile and the Legion of Substitute Villains rock up every now and then because I like to chronicle his painfully inept journey into villainy. I have long term plans for pretty much all of my Oversight Watch, but as they're not major characters it doesn't take centre stage very often.

As much as I like giving the less dramatic powers a chance to shine it is fun being able to write Mon-El or Supergirl busting out, so I like having a big bruiser of a bad guy every now and then so I can write scenes of people punching each other through buildings and such

Finally, one of my favourite Legion challenges is when they're not fighting a bad guy but the conflict comes from somewhere else. Rounding up wild animals, cleaning up after battles, escaping from dangerous situations...it's fun for me to write and read different situations than just 'bad guy does x, Legion fight bad guy'

I dig the hell out of fiddling with this as well: charity events, diplomatic arbitration, public appearances at museums or schooles, consulting for the Science Police...treating the Legion like the public face for the United Planets can be fun, and can help you figure out how your galaxy works!

Agreed. That also gives Legionnaires with less offensive powers the chance to shine.

Another topic I wanted to open to you all - what rules, if any, do you follow when reintroducing or borrowing elements from other realities?

For example, in my fic set in the Postboot universe, I introduced Lamprey but changed her powers to control over water. I did this to differentiate her from the Ranzzes.

I also want to change Tellus' powers but am not sure yet to what. The purpose is to differentiate him from Saturn Girl, Kinetix and Mentalla.

Would love to hear all your thoughts!

I have been trying to plan out a gauntlet story in which Blok (or Chip) is able to demonstrate in a series of encounters ALL of the powers he has ever displayed before: strength, resilience, energy absorption / redirection (including limited abilities with regard to magical energies), silicon-based telepathy, resistance to organic telepathy, mass absorption (including healing abilities), nullification of anti-gravity, and super-slow super-intelligence.

As for Tellus, telepathy and telekinesis are not powers in themselves, but classes of powers. Saturn Girl, Saturn Queen, Esper Lass, and Mentalla all display telepathic ability in various differing ways. Saturn Girl originally had only sensory abilities, but this expanded to mind-speaking, mind-blasts, and eventually illusion-casting.

Also, as another example, Kinetix’ original powers were more similar to Life Lass than Superboy (Kon-El)

One might limit Tellus’ telekinesis only to liquids, or his telepathy only to projecting delusions. (An illusion is something you see that isn’t there; a delusion is a mistaken notion about the nature of reality: such as believing that you are drowning in air, or that all the stars are watching your every move.)

Thanks Klar, for the suggestions on Tellus. Those are nuanced but material differences, certainly. I may pick a totally different class of power for Tellus though, as my Saturn Girl and Kinetix have both expanded their powersets.

I don't really have any rules as such, as long as they're still recognisable as possessing the character's main traits by the time I'm done (otherwise you might as well just make a brand new character). Turtle, Gazelle, Sizzle, Sludge and Inferno all first appeared in my fic as members of the Legion of Substitute Villains, but Turtle has gone on to be a source of annoyance/love interest for Lamprey and Sizzle I think from memory is on a different home-made team of super powered wardens on Takron-Galtos but I'd have to check my notes on her

I chose to have Tellus' powers be more three-dimensional and have a kind of 'whalesong' like element to them, to differentiate them from Imra's telepathy.

Imra'd communicate like a message laser, targeting a single mind (or multiple selected minds), and nobody outside of that would have any idea anything had been 'said.'

Tellus would communicate more like radio waves, blasting out in all directions, but only those he wanted to 'speak' to would 'get the frequency,' and everyone else would just get a blast of 'static.' In this case, the 'static' would be a sense of something vast moving in the darkness, as if the eavesdropper was a man in a wetsuit, surrounded by dark waters, while a pod of whales passed around them on all sides, or perhaps just a ringing echo of something like whalesong reverberating in their skull for a moment. *Something else else* would have just happened, but they'd have no idea what had been said.

His telekinesis, which I didn't describe this way in my two fics that used Tellus, would work similarly, feeling like an irresistible tide sweeping them towards where he wants them to go, or a watery environment restricting their movements, if he's 'telekinetically grappling' someone to hold them in place. Everyone around him would feel a 'wave' of telekinetic energy, perhaps even a gentle one that rustles their hair and clothing, for minor manifestations, as he activates his telekinetic powers to do something, making it, like his telepathy, very 'unsubtle' compared to someone with a more unidirectional and focused sort of power.

I wanted to add this sort of 'special effect' for multiple reasons;

A) to differentiate him from Imra.
B) to make him feel more alien.
C) to make him feel unusually powerful, almost primal and elemental, and yet also much less experienced and lacking Imra's lifetime of fine control and training, as she was raised among an entire population of lifelong telepaths and he's quite possibly the first telepath of his species (and only indifferently trained by the Gil'Dishpan).

I just checked, and it turns out I used him three times, so far. Once in the Princess Pain tryout, once in the 'Last Stand of the Fatal Five,' and once dealing with the long-delayed fallout from the death of Nemesis Kid and an alchemically powered group from Myar. I mostly address his psychological distance in two of them, and mention the above telepathic differences in the Princess Pain tryout.

Great question again IB.

My viewsare it's okay to duplicate abilities as certain characters will focus on certain points - for instance the difference between Imra creating telepathic illusions and controlling eople while Tellus was more about communication. I try not to alter things too much though have added a fewthings in my own writings, for instance Laurel Kent being affect by being stuck in the temporal stasis by the Manhunter giving her a limited form of tactile psychometry. Nothing too huge but just enough to distinguish her from other invulnerable folks without making her another heavy hitter. Mwindaji finding the ruby of Life was another.

I did think of tweaking Tellus' telekinesis so he found the 'feel' of solid objects uncomfortable to his mind so would be sneakier, so perhaps moving a persons blood - so throwing their entire body around, for instance.

Gazelle is different enough from Brin in my mind that they don't need any tweaking to me. I try to think about how the Legionnaires would use their powers so that it isn't just punch and blasting things every time, though sometimes that's great fun too.

There are numerous ways to broadly and generally classify characters in video games, board games, and so forth.
This is mine, adapted especially for the Legion.

1) ULTIMATES are characters with a wide range of powers, up at the outer edge of power levels.
In the Legion world, examples of Ultimates are Andromeda, Duplicate Boy, Kid Psycho, and Green Lantern.

2) BRUTES are distinguished by their strength and indestructability.
Such as Blok, Monstress, and Colossal Boy.

3) SCRAPPERS have abilities primarily suited to close-in fighting.
Examples are Karate Kid, Timber Wolf, Catspaw, and Gazelle.

4) RANGERS utilize ranged abilities.
Such as Lightning Lass, Cosmic Boy, Echo, and DragonWing.

5) SPEEDSTERS are a special class of scrapper, although half-way to ranger.
Their abilities allow them to attack from a distance by rushing in, hitting, and rushing out.
Any classification scheme is necessarily subjective, but I feel speedsters deserve their own class.
Examples are XS and Bouncing Boy.

6) INFILTRATORS are a class not determined by their fighting style.
Rather, infiltrators have abilities which primarily allow them to go 'behind enemy lines' unnoticed.
Invisible Kid, Phantom Girl, and Shrinking Violet are obvious examples.
7) MAGES have abilities which affect the nature of reality, and not necessarily magical.

Examples are the White Witch (obviously), but also Projectra, Brainiac 5, Star Boy, and Element Lad.
8) SENSORS have powers primarily related to enhanced or exotic senses.
Dawnstar, Computo (Danielle Foccart), Ivy and Dream Girl are examples.

9) TRANSPORTERS are useful in Dungeons-and-Dragons type games, but rare in the Legion.
They allow a groups to move quickly from one location to another. Most are teleporters.
In the Legion world, most transporters are objects, like time bubbles or cruisers.
However, we also have Gates, VeilMist, and Bounty.

10) HEALERS are indispenable in video games, restoring life, health, and energy to other characters.
In the Legion world, we have ReAniMage, and… well, nobody. Dr. Gym'll?

11) This being the Legion, there are a few unique characters that really don't fit into any category.
Matter-Eater Lad, Quislet, Gear, and Stone Boy, for example.

It might be argued that Matter-Eater Lad and Gear are Mages, Quislet is a Mage / Scrapper, and Stone Boy is… I don't know. A Healer, whose powers only work on himself? While asleep?

Obviously, there are characters with double classes. All Ultimates are by definition multi-class.
There are also Legion characters who have progressed through classes.
Chameleon Boy was originally utilized almost exclusively as an Infiltrator. In fact, his power was originally described as 'super-disguise'. Over time, he began to weaponize his body through shape-shifting, and gained Scrapper class.
Saturn Girl was exclusively a Sensor, then gained Ranger powers with super-hypnosis (and eventually, 'mind-blast'), and added a third class as a Mage with illusion-casting powers.

All of this is pretty subjective, as I said. I classify BloodClaw as a Brute, but FireFist as a Scrapper.
And where on the Scrapper-Brute continuum does Timber Wolf fall? It depends a lot on the specific writer.

Fortress Lad might be thought of as Unique, but I classify him as a Transporter: but the place he transports you to is himself.

Your breakdown is probably the best I've seen, Klar. It's certainly more inclusive than most.

City of Heroes broke it's five types into Tankers (most invulnerable heavy hitters, like Colossus or Blok), Blasters (zappers like the Human Torch or Lightning Lad), Scrappers (non-invulnerable hand to hand fighters, like Wolverine or Karate Kid), Controllers (control or restrict movement or actions of others, such as Princess Projectra, Element Lad, Kinetix, Karma or Spider-Woman 2 with her 'psi-webs') and Defenders (healers and 'buffers' like Elixir or our 'amped up' version of Amp Girl).

GURPS had a similar breakdown, with Tanks and Flying Zappers, etc.

I originally tended to think of them along a military schema;
Airborne (flyers, of which very few, such as Angel, are *only* flyers)
Artillery (Cyclops or Lightning Lad are 'pure' Artillery. Lots are also Airborne or fill other roles)
Armor (Colossus, Blok, Hulk, the Thing, etc. are all 'pure' Armor)
Infantry (hand to hand fighters who aren't armor/invulnerable, like Wolverine or Karate Kid)
Transportation (team transport, not merely able to fly or teleport, but able to bring everyone with them, like some version of Raven or Gates, or Ilyanna/Magik. Thanks to Legion Cruisers, Blackbirds, Fantasti-Cars, JLA teleporters and / or Quinjets, lots of people get this as a device.)
Communications (usually telepaths, but thanks to Flight Rings or JLA communications or Avengers ID cards, another thing that can appear as a device)

*Many* heroes cover lots of these roles.
Every Legionnaire has transportation, communication and airborne built in via Flight Rings and Legion Cruisers.
Mon-El is Airborne, Artillery (heat vision) and Armor.
Saturn Girl started as Communication, but added Artillery with mental blasts.

Most of these schemes don't really account for a lot of characters with utility powers (Dawnstar's tracking), or other unusual abilities (Chameleon Boy's shapechanging allows him to function as Infantry, but also allows for infiltration and information-gathering, making him more versatile than Karate Kid or other 'scrappy' sorts). That's where your addition of 'Sensors' and 'Infiltrators' is a cut above the rest.

Due to the number of 'Scrappers' and 'Tanks' the Legion already has (and *everyone* having free flight, communications and life-support gear), I occasionally try to mix things up when considering new characters (either as allies or foes), to come up with buffing / debuffing ideas (like Amp Girl or Princess Pain or Leech), or 'control' characters that affect the environment or hinder people, by spraying sticky chemicals or slippery surfaces or paralyzing harmonics or disorienting lights or whatever (Water Witch, Kid Silicon, Pharmacopiea, etc.).

I agree, nice classification.

Lots of great ideas here.

I have to admit that so far I have not really considered classes of powers in my team building except for keeping a mix of Scrappers, Ranged Fighters and Infiltrators/Others. I mainly try to avoid duplicating powers.

This type of thinking becomes more important as the team gets larger though.

Me and Cobalt had a talk about this for 21CL Lamprey, since we not only had Garth & Ayla counterparts, but I also had Surge in the Academy. The point I made to follow-up was that lampreys have absolutely nothing to do with generating electricity like electric eels. The two suggestions I made were *checks* "turning her name into a pun and giving her light powers (a lamp's rays of light) ala Superboy's Legion Light Lass; or going the opposite route, taking her name more literally, and giving her a pseudo-vampiric iron-draining/anæmia-causing power."

We went with the former.

[There've been other stuff - someone introduced flight rings iB, which we weren't entirely happy about for the present-day setting. Consequently, "health'n'safety rules banned them" to stop common usage, although I've had them "sneaked" into use occasionally "under the table".]

On similar powers - yeah, you can make fine distinctions [one of my yet-to-be-posted bits has Irma and Rachel comparing their telepathy], but in the middle of a fight scene it can be hard to make them clear, unless you put VERY hard limits on what they can do (like how the New Mutants' Karma could only possess people, not do memory alterations and other such telepathic tricks. And even that's fallen by the wayside over the years...)

IIRC, the original write up for Lamprey gave her some sort of death touch, which was deemed an inappropriate power for a Legionnaire. Learning to 'tone it down' to a life-draining / energy-sapping / devitalizing touch could indeed be the best way to push her away from being yet another electricity manipulator (on a team that already has two much better lightning-chuckers).

If it's actually vampiric in nature, strengthening and toughening her, while weakening whoever she's grabbed onto, then it becomes even more useful, as she might clamp onto a Daxamite foe like Ol-Vir and if she can hold on long enough (depending on how quickly it works), gain temporary Kryptonian class strength and toughness as he passes out, making her a little bit like Rogue, in that sense, with some added aquatic elements.

Was I the one who first introduced the flight rings? I remember using them and then editing out when Cobie told me the direction was not to have them used often. I can't remember being the one to actually have them debut though.

Was thinking similar thoughts about the similar powers thing. Having Tellus' telepathy and telekinesis work differently from others with the same powers is great in a reality where those powers are already established, but I want to make more radical changes in my writing to further diversify. I don't want to go the X-Men route with a dozen telepaths and psychics on the same team the fine distinctions others have mentioned above are great for exploring Tellus' alien nature though

I'm posting here because this seems like the most appropriate thread on this subforum. I need help developing powers for a new character. I came up with an awesome codename: Prism Lad.

However, it has been harder to find powers that would fit. I was tempted at first to make him a Rainbow Girl clone (not literally, just the powers), but that just feels wrong given the fact that I already made one in the past.

I looked up Mirror Master, and it appears that his powers come from a pack or gun (depending on the version). I kind of want internalized powers. So I'm down to three ideas:

1) Portal Creation
2) Uses Ice to Create Mirrors (Thinking his actual powers are too generic)
3) Standard Light Powers

Do any of these ideas seem good? Does anyone else have more suggestions?

The only other powered member of the team I've designed thus far has electric powers, if that helps.

Hey Emily!

All of those seem like solid ideas! Another possibility you could explore would be to have his powers be the REMOVAL of color. Since light passing through a prism creates the colors of the rainbow, why not have the character work as a reverse prism, able to sap an object of it's color and tone irreversibly. There's some potential there for combinations with other characters whose strengths or weaknesses are color related (i.e. Green Lantern's weakness to yellow).

Great discussion, ya'll!

Reboot and IBL I love fiddling with Lamprey, and I made her a mutated Atlantean who follows in her people's footsteps as Aqualass - she has some control over water, can absorb lifeforce energy through touch, and can expel a large amount of it by touch as well, so she's got a varied powerset that pushes her further from the other bolt-throwers and makes her sufficiently 'Aqua'!

Some great stuff on Tellus and Mentalla, and for my two cents: I've had a lot of fun basically varying the Titanians to where, while they all at base have some telepathic abilities, their actual 'powers' vary from person to person: I made Otaki able to absorb talents and skills telepathically, and Mentalla's powers deal more with possession and motor control of others, where Imra is more a telepathic communicator with a lot of raw power that she can focus into her mindblasts, and Saturn Girl is a sort of paragon of the Titanians, in that she's just so adroit with her powers were most other Titanians aren't.

And Emily: Prism Lad sounds like he could really rock! In the Legion RP I play the Color Kid player has been reading up on light and its affects, and some of it may be useful to help you out on - it could be that Prism Lad casts a 'rainbow effect' as a byproduct of activating his power, where his real power is to push and amplify light to its Ultraviolet and Infrared extremes. This means he can cast infrared as a sort of heat beam and Ultraviolet as a sort of Photodegradation beam (Check out Photodegradation's article on wikipedia, but essentially it's a sort of light affect that can disintegrate matter!), and I'm using a version of this power for a Legion Cadet in my own stuff!

Combine these with some of the reflective powers you were looking at for Mirror Master, and I'd say you'd have a pretty unique powerset on your hands!

One of Invisible Brainiac's powers is to convert himself to light, pass through a prism and disperse himself into seven selves - one for each of the 7 colors of the rainbow.

There've been a few characters named Prism or Prizm (one a mutant-massacring Marauder at Marvel, the other a Team Titan overshadowed by her more popular teammate, Argent, IIRC).

Both assumed a crystalline form, which is automatically a cool visual, and likely comes with a side-dose of rock-like strength and durability. Being able to refract light allowed the mutant dude to reflect energy attacks (such as Cyclops optic blasts) in whatever direction he choose, making anyone who zapped him basically a free attack on their own allies, as he usurped control of their attack and 'regifted' it to someone else.

What might make it more interesting than just splitting light up into different color frequencies might be for this Prism Girl to be able to shift the wavelength up or down the spectrum, turning a laser attack (or even a really bright flashlight) into microwaves or X-rays or ultraviolet or gamma radiation, giving her a wide range of possible energy types (sort of like how Monica Rambeau can manifest these various energy types, in her case, by turning into that energy). If her ability to refract energy also includes the ability to alter it in other ways, such as to convert a laser into a blinding flash (de-focusing it) or bright sunlight into a weak laser (very much focusing it), or even enhancing or reducing the energy levels of something (turning that laser blast into a weak little sparkle, or that sunlight into a more powerful laser!), then she's got some real potential.

Or her multi-colored crystalline body could break apart on the slightest impact into seven floating colored crystals, each with their own Eye of Ekron-like colored force constructs, and later reform into her normal self. Just to be different.

I really like all these ideas so far. This is a bit of a spoiler, but I'm thinking he was part of a mass experiment in mirrors or light. He was kind of a Radiation Roy; wanting superpowers for the sake of joining a superteam. However, he's disappointed that he didn't turn out to be like a Green Lantern.

I'm a little saddened that Prism already has been taken, but I can't think of anything better. I am hesitant to call him Mirror Master, as the character has to think his powers aren't very useful. If anyone has suggestions for this, let me know.

By the way, do you think it is good for every superteam to have a brick/tank?

I like the ideas everyone has come up with for Prism Lad....I was thinking something along the lines of Sizzle from the threeboot where if he's hit with one type of energy he could refract it as a different form of energy which is similar to what Set came up with I think. Another idea I had probably doesn't really fit with what you're going for Emily, but it is very in the Legion mode of weird powers that need a bit of creativity to use effectively; what if the prismatic effect is a kind of telepathic thing?

eg He would look crystalline, then when someone looks at him he can reflect different aspects of their personality on a different one of his surfaces as a kind of interrogation technique...maybe the Persuader doesn't want to tell the heroes his big plan, but there must be some part of his personality that is basically altruistic that he buries and Prism Lad could project this part of his psyche so the team could get answers from him...I will put some more thought into it and maybe resurrect the heroes of other worlds thread with him

Bit late to the party on my next point, but I like what peeps have said about differentiating Tellus and Saturn Girl's similar powers. It's not something I make a massive point of, but I do try to always describe Tellus's telepathy as being like a tide or washing over someone, or mentioning him diving into someone's mindscape etc....whereas when I write Imra's powers I try to be more direct and less flowery about it as fits her pragmatic personality. Similarly when I had Shadow Lad join the team, I gave him a weapon that he used occasionally and had him use his darkness to compliment an aggressive attack style whereas Tasmia tends to use hers defensively to hide or cover her teammates...it is actually kind of challenging writing someone who CAN be a kickass fighter but prefers to be indirect when the option's available, I like it!

As one who tries thinking outside the box, I would note that a prism is also a mathematical construct: a polygon. So maybe Prism Lad can create solid-light prism-shaped forcefields… for keeping things in.

That is a cool idea, Klar Ken! I will give it some consideration as I may have a second light power user on the team. If one of them uses their powers mostly defensively, it would be different from standard light blasts.

Legion convention would suggest Prism Lad, Prism Kid, Kid Prism, etc. There's also derivations like Prismatic or Prismatix. And it's certainly possible in a universe with three or four people having been named the Flash, and thousands sharing the name Green Lantern, for there to be a couple of Prisms 1000 years apart.



I don't think it's needed. The original five X-Men didn't have a tank. The second Avengers lineup, 'Cap's Kooky Quartet' of Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye and Quicksilver also did without. Ditto the original Teen Titans, and the Perez/Wolfman team's 'tank' was Donna Troy, who certainly didn't fit the Hulk/Thing mold of being an obvious (hypermuscled) tank.

It's certainly a 'standard' though, along with a 'blaster' (like Starfire or Cyclops) and a 'scrapper' (whether powered like Wolverine or Wolfesbane or 'awesome human' like Nightwing or Captain America). A standard brick makes for some ease for both the writer and the reader, as, particularly when there are those in the group with 'thinkier' powers like telepathy or chemical manipulation or magic, writing (or reading) about someone whose 'merely' strong and bulletproof can be a bit of a brain-break or palette-cleanser.

Plus there's the option of messing with expectations and having the bruiser be a gentle artist (like Colossus) or have a non-traditional look (like Molly Hayes, of the Runaways).

Or strapping other powers onto the brick, as with Wonder Man (also able to fly) or Superman (flight, heat vision, super-speed) or Martian Manhunter (oy vey!), etc.

Could be "Prism Prince", a la Chemical King?

And a tank isn't _needed_, but Set raises a good point in that they're bread-and-butter powers. I seem to recall Major Spoilers calling powers like Colossal Boy and Ferro Lad as 'linebackers', which I think is apt; bricks run interference while the fingerwigglers and the big brains try to work out the situation.

So this is what I am thinking:

Final Name will be Prism Prince; I just introduced the character so that is an easy change. I think I will combine the crystalline form idea with the light force fields to start. I might have his powers expand as he learns more about them.

Not-So-Bad Lad, in case my newest series (It's the Facets one) goes far, do you think you could share with me more of your friend's Color Kid power ideas?

Prism Prince has a cool ring to it.

Love the Prism Character ideas, sorry I've been away for a while so missed that conversation, not that would have much to add really.

I've a question as I'm considering something for my fic: how 'real' should the characters lives be? I mean, for instance, we've seen Tenzils dad is a drunk gambler, Gim and Yera had domestic violence issues, Brin had drug problems. So I guess I want o figure out -How real is acceptable? Are there any limits to what would be acceptable?

Hmm. Personally I think almost anything could go as long as its depicted tastefully. And of course, it is developed well. Each writer can gauge how "real" to make things based on the overall tone of his/her work. Some of us have more "optimistic" universes than others.

When was the Gim/Yera domestic abuse stuff?

I don't remember any Gim/Year domestic violence incidents, either. Was this during the Retroboot? (If so -- bad Levitz, bad!)

In answer to Harbi's question, I think the keys to successfully depicting true-to-real-life situations in fiction are plausibility, restraint, and most importantly, to make the characters accountable for their actions. The reason why Vi's coming out and Rokk's violent outburst are among my least favorite Legion moments are because the former was so heavy-handed and the latter had no consequences.

When is Hal Jordan going to be punished for putting us through Zero Hour?

I don't understand. I thought you were a fan of his.

No, I am a huge fan. I was just mocking how bad Zero Hour was and how bad of a decision it was to make him the main villain.

Zero Hour was awful, I agree.

Maybe it was the hints dropped in Legion Lost v2? I don't have the issues handy so I can't pull out the dialogue, though.

Plausibly, restraint and accountability, I agree. Realistic events should have realistic consequences.

Gim and Yera got into physical fights just before she left to go on the Lost mission. While everyone made fun of her smacking him into the ceiling with something that looked like a giant hinged penis I just felt sad that such an established decent character like Gim could be shown in such a poor light...

I agree, Harbi. I'm outraged! Gim was one of my favorite male Legionnaires, precisely because he was a nice, uncomplicated guy who respected strong women (such as his mother, who was once President of Earth.)

Nearly everything about the retroboot was terrible, imo.

I remember that being hinted at by the villain. It was so outrageous I refused to believe it was true.

It was terribly frustrating for me, because it seemed like Levitz was reading our posts here, and trying to give us some of the things we'd wanted, like more ethnic diversity in the Legion (Glorith, Dragonwing, Chemical Kid, Harmonia Li *and* the return of Tyroc!), exotic locales, etc. and yet, it just kind of fell apart in places. (Pretty much everything about Harmonia, for instance, starting with the Titan blowing up intro to her controlling the four western elements instead of the five Chinese elements. Ditto Earth-Man's entire arc. The Legion blowing up a dozen Dominator ships, and the one Cham *randomly* picks to infiltrate is full of Dominators, indicating that the Legionnaires just killed hundreds of people... Brainy grousing internally about wanting to pillage some tech from the Time Institute while, all around him, people died. Saturn Queen building a little fire in outer space for her weird ritual. Yikes.)

I wanted to like it, but it was pretty messed up.

And then Giffen showed up and killed some people, and, pretty much, the title. As is his wont. Ugh.

Harmonia controlling the four elements instead of the Chinese 5 wasn't something I complained about. Avatar: The Last Airbender also used the Western elements despite being heavily Asian, but they did it well. With Harmonia It was everything else about her I disliked.

I also hated everything else you cited though. And I like to pretend Giffen's story didn't happen.

One weird thing about Harmonia is that her first name was also decidedly Greek as well, so who knows what was going on with that.

Thank you, EDE. My sentiments exactly. It was a travesty! I'm just glad I stopped reading it after the sixth issue and learned about most of the worst stuff second-hand.




LOL

Very well put.

As I've always said, Set, when you and I agree on something, we agree 100%. Cheers.

Maybe Levitz wanted to diversify as much as possible. Chinese lady, Greek name, Western classical elements, totally annoying...

Thought some of you guys (especially fellow Postboot writer Omni!) might be interested in Fanfie's thread about what would you do if you inherited the Postboot Legion from DNA?

Would that be after Gail Simones story or right before?

Never mind, I'll read the thread (sorry - didn't see link)

No worries Harbi. I think we can choose whether it should be before Gail Simone's story or after, but I think Fanfie makes it clear in her post that it should be right at the end of the series, and before Legion of 3 Worlds.

Do you guys generally type in advance or write on the spot?

I think it is going to be a struggle for me to get back to writing after Christmas, and am thinking about just writing on the spot to get a lot out.

I'm starting to understand why people generally don't like the first part of a series as much as later parts. I can't wait to finish introducing the characters and solving the origin story so I don't have to do it again.

Emily, I've done both, but I find that what works best for me falls somewhere in between: I make short notes of all the most important bits, and then from there I just write on the spot.

I have a similar approach. I make an outline/skeleton of the plot and fill in the major events. I also make note of elements that I must introduce so that future events can come to pass/will make sense. Everything else I just write on the spot.

Some things I have introduced actually came to me as I was writing (Brek having a crush on Zoe; Ferro having a crush on Mentalla). A certain character resurrection of mine also came as a flash of inspiration while I was plotting things out - I realized that the story pieces I had set up allowed me to logically bring back this character.

I would say, don't box yourself in but be open to going "where the story takes you" so to speak.

I news to finish my first story so I can write the ones I want, but feel a lack of inspiration. Anyone know any songs or speeches that could get me out of this rut?

I recommend something instrumental to listen to. For me, I usually fall back on movie soundtracks. What kind of story am I trying to tell? Is it an action/adventure movie? I'll listen to a rousing John Williams score? Is it a horror or mystery story? I'll go for something by John Carpenter or from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Using music that fits the story you're trying to tell can get those gears spinning in your head again.

Sometimes I read my past work or the work of others to grt inspired. As for music, music from some of my favorite video games helps some times.

I'm finally getting to the end of the pilot/prologue for my series (I am so happy). I want to write a future story in which my characters encounter a society where everyone's superpower determines what they do in life(kind of like the Inhumans at Marvel). I'm divided whether to divide the powers by elements (like Fire, Water, etc) or by roles (street fighter, elemental, etc). Which do you think would be more interesting?

Congratulations, Emily.

Regarding your question, I would say that elements are a bit limiting, so roles would be better.

I think roles would be less limiting as well, and give you more potential to use creative powersets for your characters.

Are there any Legion-related characters you've wanted to write but have been stuck on how to use for whatever reason? What kind of obstacles do you find and how do you get around them?

(Sorry if this has been discussed already, I couldn't find anything over the past few pages)

Jan, because I barely understand basic science, let alone hard science.

Val, because being able to cleave a tank bare-handed is a bit much for me.

Jacques, because I still haven't come around to regarding him as anything more than a cynical attempt to cash in on the Legion's main rivals at the time, the international X-Men.

As for overcoming obstacles in writing characters, my experiences with writing Rokk and Dirk -- both characters I normally dislike -- is to research them as thoroughly as possible and try to uncover something within them that you can feel empathy for.

I prefer writing about the Substitutes and more obscure characters (and original characters) for that reason. When I do that, I have more freedom to do what I want without canon getting in that way.

I like taking established characters and running with them, I get more of a "feel" for how to properly write them that way.

Like what Fanfie does, I research- though all my fanfic writing has been with the Postboot Legion, so it's easier for me because I've read pretty much every comic they have appeared in.

I find Tellus really difficult despite how much I liked his visual in the comic there wasn't really too much to get to grips with. I'm slowly adding layers to him in my fanfic without hopefully forcing it too badly so I have more to work with when I do need to use him. That's the plan anyway. Chemical Kid is another as like Fanfie says above the hard science is just not my bag.

I actively disliked Rokk and Dirk but have tried to make them into more attractive characters without denying their pasts. Harmonic and Dragonwing both annoyed me in the comic so again I've just kind of got on with it and found I really enjoy writing them now.

I think you can get interesting results from forcing yourself to write someone you don't particularly like very much - I don't mind Harbinger's Harmonia, and I never really took to her at all outside of her cool costume in the comic. I remember years ago when I was playing an Avengers RPG I ended up playing the Scarlet Witch, who was my most hated Avenger at the time....she ended up becoming one of my favourite characters of the team, and I have found that I can see all this potential in her now that I wish would be explored more in the comics.

I am on the same page with Fanfic Lady & Harbinger re the science characters too...I don't tend to use Element Lad generally unless it's a story which relates to his actual character more than his powers, or unless there's a specific thing I thought of that would be cool to do with his powers due to having read something interesting about a particular element online or something like that....Chemical Kid even moreso. Brainy's another one who can be challenging to write really well I think, it's the problem of depicting someone who's heaps more intelligent than me

I would really like to do a Mordru story at some stage but finding the right platform for him to shine is the problem...it took me this long to figure out what I wanted to do with a Universo story as well, that's something else I've been sitting on just about since I started writing my series!

As with others above, I have trouble with Chemical King/Chemical Kid because of the science involved. But my main use for Condo Arlik's powers so far has been



A lot of pseudo-science there, and I admit to not researching much on it, but I think it worked well enough

Having Lyle Norg there as Condo's boyfriend AND "coach"/biology expert not only helps me, but it also makes for a wonderful storytelling dynamic and vehicle.

I find Element Lad's powers (or in my fic,)



a tad easier to grasp than Condo's. They seem a bit more basic. Change one element to another. I do need to read up on the elements, though.

One thing that helps me with them is taking established tricks they have done in the comics. For Condo, that's slowing down or speeding up other people's metabolisms; enabling combustion/starting fires; and decaying stuff.

Like with Harbi, I also find Tellus a bit difficult to write. And unlike with Gates, Blok or even Quislet, there doesn't seem to be as much of an established personality in the comics to draw from, or at least not as distinct of one. But when I do write Tellus, I'll probably use the method I used for Lume - draw on existing stories about the character and its homeworld, and see what else I can infer from those. In Lume's first appearance it showed a fear of the darkness of space, so I took that and built on it.

One thing I have tons of difficulty with is writing villains. I find it even harder to create them, so most of my villains will be established characters. I guess one thing that would help me is drawing upon real-life experiences to create interesting and realistic motivations for my baddies...

Magic users are another weak spot for me. But I like what Levitz did with Mysa - she can only use a handful of spells at a time, and these have to be pre-prepared. She needs to research do to her most powerful magic. Those limitations make her way easier to write!

Heroes with wide-area effect powers are tough too. Kid Quantum II could theoretically end most battles by just sending out a flood of quantum particles and freezing time in the immediate era! I have to taking her by surprise a lot. The powered-up Reboot Star Boy too, who basically controls gravity, can just use his powers over a wide area and slam people into the ground. And the invulnerable heroes like M'Onel, Andromeda and Thunder can be challenging as well. That's why I like keeping a library of villains on hand, so I can pick the right ones for a given fight to give these heroes a challenge. And of course, moral dilemmas and so on.

Magic is an interesting point.....I've got Dragonmage and Glorith for my magic users, and I actually really enjoy writing Dragonmage because the limitation of him needing to frame everything he does as a dragonform necessarily limits his ability to be a plot device in every circumstance that comes up.

I am a bit luckier with Glorith because she's only really supporting cast so I don't have to show her in action very often...and I play up her shyness and lack of worldliness a lot so she doesn't jump into the fray with a solution all the time as someone like Supergirl or Zoe might.

I think the advantage of having a team as massive as the Legion is that you can have characters with a ridiculous level of power like any of the Daxamite-level heroes or Element Lad or a Green Lantern, and if you don't want them stealing the show you can just leave them off of a mission and only bring them out when they're likely to be challenged or they can get a chance to show off

Are you including a Green Lantern in your Legion lineup, raz?

But I agree, when the team's at its normal operations (central base with members being sent out on missions everywhere), it's much easier to just have certain heroes necessary for the story available. It's when we have those big epic stories with the entire team on board that the writing and plotting gets a bit tougher, and it becomes necessary to have the bad guys take certain heroes off the table so the fights remain interesting

In one of my recent battles, I had to take Sensor and Saturn Girl out of the fight right away! Imagine, you have someone who can cast an illusion that keeps everybody hidden...

Hahahaha hypothetically you could have a Green Lantern...Harbinger has a Green Lantern....yes, let's go with that

Kinetix is also quite Green Lantern-like...

oh is she? I hadn't noticed...

*innocent whistle*

Oh, is Kinetix in your story Raz, I must have missed that. Maybe you should tell IB as I think he may like her, I could be wrong though...

Oh, Kinetix is okay... she has a pretty useful power, and has a nice visual. I like green, and red hair, and her power lust and obsession with being perfect is something that I am sure a lot of people find relatable...

And I kind of had her come back from being absorbed by Mordru AND restore the entire Reboot universe in my fic because why not...

Whereas when I was brainstorming ways to go with the postboot Legion immediately post-DnA, I somehow ended up with her evil & dead

(And it wasn't even to wind up iB!)

I welcome most interpretations of her character

..." Invisible Brainiac typed quickly, glad the other posters could not see his gritted teeth.

IB carefully added the word "most" to keep his statement from being an outright lie.

Question: Have any of the rest of you gone through phases where the fanfic writing feels less like a fun hobby and more like a dreary job? I know I have, and it usually happens after I've completed the opening installments of whatever new project I'm working on. That's one of the reasons why I have so many unfinished stories. I really want to see my current project, the Retro-Postboot Legion, at least through LSH 100, but right now I'm stuck on LSH 82. How do the rest of you deal with this?

Hey Fanfie, this is something I get when I'm writing something I'm either not entirely convinced by or I know I really want to write the next bit (or whatever fun idea is percolating around my mind). From my experience it also depends if I'm following the over arching plot line or just making it up following some vague idea of where I'm going.

If I'm following a plot through then I go back and work out why I'm stealing; is it rubbish? Does it need tweaking to make it more fun/exciting/intimate etc? Am I just not convinced so should scrap it and work out another way to get to the end.

If I'm just making it up then I just get silly, add random plots and work out some way to entertain myself as I firmly believe that if I'm not entertained then I can't expect anyone else to be.

If I really want to write out that cool idea that's bugging me so much it's interrupting whatever I feel I should be writing then I just stop doing what I'm doing and get on with the fun bit. I've found once I've done that there's more headspace to complete the boring bit I was working and stalling on.

If I'm not convinced then I stop and work out what is missing or what is too much, or what is generally wrong.

If none of them then I look to see how I can foreshorten the peice to get it over and done with.

Or I stop entirely, drink wine, watch tv and think about something else. Actually, this is my preferred solution though I've found that unfortunately its the least productive.

Hope this helps.

Thank you, Harbi, it definitely does help.



^^This is the part of your post that I could relate to the most in my current situation. There's this all-female JLA story that I started a year or two ago, but gave up on halfway through. Recently, in trying to find something to occupy my mind, I re-read what I did finish of that story and I think it's actually quite good and I was really on to something with that project. I just didn't realize it at the time.

So I think what I'm going to do is take a break from the Legion and work on finishing that story.

Thanks again, Harbi.

I have only finished a handful of stories I have written here due to boredom. I find that I have more fun developing the settings and characters than writing the actual story. I usually do best if I have a collaborator or if the story is short. On the positive side, I also enjoy helping others with their stories and my creativity does well in RPGs.

Thanks, Emily. Yes, I can relate to most of what you said. Maybe we should both edit and/or co-plot other people's stories.

I have a rather different perspective.

In my youth, for about a decade or so, I was an aspiring short-story writer. I submitted tales to "Analog", "The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction", "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction", and even "Omni".

My rule at the time was, work a little every day, no matter what. Get something down on paper, then later re-write, revise, and edit.

I never got anything published.

I was a bit more successful with fanfic, with a few items published in a Star Trek zine called Federation, and one small submission to Klordny.

I now write for my own amusement. If I get bored, I quit. Sometimes I go a long time without picking up a pencil or touching the keyboard. But I find creating these little worlds and seeing where the lives of these little characters will go is relaxing and satisfying, and I always come back to it.

It is only on these boards that I have posted my fanfiction, and I feel no obligation to anyone here to keep doing so.

(You may have discerned that I do not play well with others.)

I am considering-- if I can finish it-- finding a Harry Potter fanfiction site to post my novelette, "Malcolm Dursley and the Goblin Wand". But if I don't? There are plenty of others posting their fanfiction. I write for my own recreation.

What helps me is knowing where I want to take my story. Having a definite ending in mind. My stories tend to be long, but the ones I've finished (the collaborative Lord of the Oval novella, and Volumes 1-3 of my fanfic, and a collab with Emily on Raltvee) had a definite end point, and had a definite ending.

I actually worked faster as I got closer to the ending because I felt there was a story in me bursting to get out.

I guess it's all about being inspired. Sadly I can't quite explain how I inspire myself, but it helps to have a clear ending in mind. I do best with stories that have a definite endpoint. I can't imagine myself doing an indefinite ongoing - I have to break it down into manageable "chapters", with each feeling like a complete story in itself.

Klar, the way I look at it is, since I'm seemingly incapable of doing any creative work for a living, then the fanfics I have completed -- and whichever ones I complete in the future -- will be the backbone of my legacy when I'm gone. I like the idea that I help people escape the harsher side of life for a little while, and that's my principal goal. But I also think that by doing fan fiction, I'm contributing something to the ongoing discussions regarding the characters and settings I write about. Unlike a lot of people, I have little or no respect for canon, and I think every take is valid, even the ones which are not to my personal taste.

Ibby, while I don't have a definite end point in mind (yet) for any of my iterations of the Legion, including the one we've collaborated on, I do know exactly at what issue I want to come to the ultimate climax, and that will be L* 100, after which I'll do a few more issues tying up loose ends. So if right now, we're at LSH 82 and L* 38, that's...my Gods, that's a long, long way to go. Point being, if I reach that goal, great, and if not, at least I entertained some people along the way.

Haha, I definitely get this

When I know I've got a cool scene coming up but I need to do the legwork to get there, it can occasionally feel a bit tedious. I know that at some point I'll come around though so I'm happy to wait for that to happen, even if it's a few weeks to a month before I feel inspired to pick up where I left off. I find that forcing it leads to resentment, and resentment isn't why I started writing this series

To be honest, I only actually started writing my own Legion series as an exercise to get myself to commit to putting something out regularly as I have a tendency to lose interest in stuff after a few weeks/months and it fizzles out. I am a bit surprised at myself that I've been writing this series for so long to be honest, and it's really taken on a life of its own in that I would miss it if I wasn't continually updating this world that I have put my own spin on Like Klar said though, at the end of the day I'm doing this for my own recreation - I cross-post to a livejournal but that's only so I have a backup record of it in case anything ever happens to it here, I don't actually have any readers on my LJ....and every now and then I've considered cross-posting to an actual fanfic site, but I feel like I'd really need to start from the beginning and I'm not in a hurry to copy and paste 4 or so years worth of instalments...if it ever stops being fun for me though I'll know it is time to stop and focus on something else.

(Which is perhaps why I loved The Saga of Superman Red and Superman Blue so many years ago.)

Well said.

I love that story, too!

I want to write a short story (so I can finish it for once), but unsure how to condense my thoughts. Would it be best just to focus on one idea, and if I have more, to write other short stories later?

Yes, I think it would be best to just focus on one idea. And if the other ideas have organic connections to the first one, all you have to do is make sure that each short story stand on its own. Then the stories can either be enjoyed separately, or joined together into a tapestry.

I cannot say this enough.

(1) Open a Tumblr account
(2) Follow AmandaOnWriting
(3) Follow WritersYoga
(4) Follow Neil-Gaiman

http://writerswrite.co.za/five-10-minute-fixes-for-your-short-story

Thank you both for your advise. I might end up retooling my idea into a chart, sort of what Exnihil did for the LMB Family Tree.

A little background for my latest musings on the craft of writing:

My favorite auntie, who is not only a lovely person but whom I also consider a role model (she abandoned the corporate rat race at age *sixty-two* to become a small-town school librarian; over a decade later, she's still plugging away at a job she loves far more than any she had in youth or in middle age. Inspiring, or what?) visited me back in June and told me she wanted to get me a belated birthday present. We went to my local comic shop, and I chose a used copy of "Titans Companion 2."

Among the many informative and amusing interviews with various Titans creators that the book offered, the standout for me was the interview with Jay Faerber, who candidly admitted that, while his much-criticized Titans run was overall a good learning experience for him, he only rarely saw any of his original plans for the comic come to fruition -- in fact, after his first few issues, he was pretty much ordered what to plot by the incoming Titans editor, Andy Helfer. None of this was particularly surprising, but Faerber's refreshing honesty and articulate explanations were downright educational.

The final piece of the puzzle came when Faerber compared his experience as the writer of Titans (a gig he had fervently wished for ever since he read his first issue of NTT as a grade-schooler) with his experience as the writer of Marvel's Generation X, which turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable for him, precisely *because* he had no familiarity with, or emotional investment in, the main characters!

That's when a light bulb went off in this lady's head! Why should I fantasize about writing the canon versions of my favorite superheroes when I can write them as fan fiction with no editorial interference? And by the same token, why should I worry about editorial meddling *if* I were to get my supposed dream gig, when I could make good money writing other IPs that I'm far less passionate about for the sheer joys of polishing my craft *and* being able to pay the bills and maybe even have a little bit left over for mad money?

I am well aware that it is quite possibly naïve and overly optimistic on my part to believe that I can start a new career as a freelance writer at age forty-two, but, really I've got nothing to lose -- no kids, no partner, no siblings, no dependents of any kind -- and lots to gain, especially if I do succeed at making at living out of doing something I genuinely enjoy.

But whether or not I succeed at it, fan fiction *will* remain a constant. To reiterate, why would I want to risk getting my heart broken over not getting to write a beloved IP the way I want to, when I can do the same thing any way I want to, just so long as I don't try to profit from it?

So now, we finally arrive at my question (and if you've managed to hang in there, Gods bless you and thank you for your patience.) The question is:

Would anyone here be interested in attempting a little fanfic exercise, where we would make a random list of superheroes and superhero teams, and we each pick one that doesn't mean that much to us, and then we each write a done-in-one fic with the character or team in question? I think it'd be both fun and a good way to polish our craft.

Thoughts?

I've been tossing around this alternate-version of Emerald Twilight in my head for about a year now, but school and internship apps have just kept me from sitting down and writing it.

It's cool, Kappa, it will happen when it is meant to happen. One question, though: I know you're a dyed-in-the-wool Hal fan. Would your alternate Emerald Twilight end in a similar way to what Gerard Jones had plotted before he was shit-canned off the GL book, with Hal going solo as the Protector and Kyle still replacing him as GL?

It would be sort of a combination of the original Jones script plus some elements lifted from GL: Rebirth.

NICE! You've sold me on it.

Like I said, when it's meant to happen, it'll happen.

But what I was proposing was for each of us to write a character or team that we *do not* care about that much, if at all, and see what kind of weird and wonderful stuff we can dredge up and out of our minds...

That's a very interesting exercise, Fanfie! Would love to see work from you and Kappa. I also love (and agree with) your point that writing fanfic, though not profitable, frees us from editorial shackles and allows us to reach fulfillment.

unfortunately, I'm a bit tied up in real life now and can't commit to this exercise. But it's a very interesting one and I would love to read any work that comes from it.

Thanks, Ibby. And I hope you can join in once you find a window of time.

Well, I guess I'll just have to make time then. Keep your eyes peeled for the first part to be posted later tonight.

YAY! Splendid, simply splendid! I eagerly await it, Kappa.

I need help with character design. This is usually the easiest part for me, but I have run into a problem with this one. The character I have in mine is a daughter of Wonder Woman and Batman, from what I want to say is the DCAU world. I am thinking that this daughter was dedicated to the Underworld gods in exchange for her life. I think that would be a nice combination of the two characters (Batman is equated with Hades according by Morrison).

The trouble is I am having trouble finding Underworld deities to give her powers. I would appreciate any suggestions. Here are my current thoughts:

Persephone: Invisibility
Hecate: Teleportation
Ananke/Necessity: Wisdom
?: Beauty
?: Agility

Also let me know if I should just ignore the powers for now and explain them later?

Hey, Emily, so sorry I missed your question.

My answer would be to ignore the powers for now and explain them later. Trust me when I say that it's all to easy for a writer to get lost in little details like that, to the benefit of neither the readers nor the writer herself/himself.

I have a new question of my own:

With such a rough year coming to an end, and in the light-hearted spirit of the holidays, I'd thought we should do a light-hearted question in this thread. So here goes:

What are some of your earliest efforts at fan fiction?

Technically, my first one was "Into the Unknown," a Transformers fic from around 2004 (hosted by a site named, IIRC, Legacy of Cybertron, which appears to have gone inactive a long time ago. )

The whole idea behind the fic (beyond finally getting a chance to write characters that I'd loved, and still love to this day, since the age of 12) was to explain where all those new characters came from early on in Season 2 without any explanation, and why Skyfire disappeared from the TV series with no explanation, after a few appearances early on in Season 2 (my explanations in a nutshell: the new Autobots had been living on a barren planet they'd colonized and renamed Cybernova, and Skyfire died heroically, fighting a hopeless one-on-one battle against Devastator, to save Cybernova from the Decepticons.)

But if we're going to go all the way back to long before the term fan fiction had been invented, then my first fanfics starred Snoopy & Woodstock, and I did them on a regular basis from at least age 3 to age 9. I cribbed a lot of stuff from comics and books and TV cartoons outside of the Peanuts universe: my favorite segment of the "George of the Jungle" reruns was "Tom Slick," so I made Snoopy a racecar driver, with Woodstock as the head of his pit crew. In place of Tom's arch-foe Baron Otto Matic, I blatantly stole the name Baron Von Crow from Richard Scarry's children's books, but I gave him a whole other personality than Scarry's barely-there cipher, as your basic comically evil German blowhard buffoon, "vit der theek ahk-sent" (if he was specifically influenced by anyone, it was Moe Howard's vicious parody of Hitler in one of the few Three Stooges shorts which I think Stooge haters might actually appreciate as pointed satire.) He had not one but two inept henchmen, a pair of storks named Grullo (who always wore a racing helmet and was moderately stupid), and Grint (who had three large feathers on top of his head and was unbelievably stupid.)

So now let's please hear some similar stories from the rest of you Bits regulars. I'm really looking forward to this.

Hi Emily! This seems interesting. I think (and I have a different take from Fanfie) that it would be good to have a listing of your character's powers given how important it is to her character. My answer would be different if you were introducing a team/group bit by bit.

I found a link on the Greek Underworld: http://www.theoi.com/greek-mythology/underworld-gods.html

Cronus was the god of time, and king of the Elysian Islands, home of the blessed dead. Have you considered some time manipulation powers? That could fit into the underworld theme - maybe she can slow down time especially around people who are dying?

HEKATE (Hecate) was the goddess of magic, witchcraft, the night, moon, ghosts and necromancy. How about intangibility?
Speaking to spirits? Maybe she can glow with the light of the moon?

The Fates are mentioned. Maybe she can see the destiny of people - like how they are destined to die, and when?

HYPNOS was the god or personified spirit (daimon) of sleep. What if she can induce sleep? Or invade the dreams of others?

NYX was the goddess of the night. Darkness powers? Invisibility?

First question of 2017:

What are your fanfic writing plans for this year?

Here are mine, and please reply to them in that thread, so we can keep the topics on-topic.

Oh Hi Fate. Yeah, I'm making plans...no, not for Nigel... what? >stares< No, Bits plans. I'm tempting you, you say. Well, that's nice of you to say so... oh, you didn't mean it that way did you...? >sigh<

So, things to be derailed in 2017...

- Some LW pet projects (not Bitsy so moving on...)
- Up to #12 in the Retroboot Continued & flesh out roughs for the next year.
- Read this thread
- Read other folks Bits threads & add thoughts (or rent someone else's if they're better)
- Crossover some Bits stuff into the other forums
- I should really get back to doing some JLA Detroit stuff. I've got it planned out for years ahead. It's the more immediate questions that are an issue like "Just what *are* they doing in Detroit?" and some characters who need a DC niche to have any point to them. I did like getting the Supergirl issues, oddly enough. J'Emm less so. But retroboot first.

Re: Nigel, pssst...Cleome J'ADORES Andy, Colin and their revolving door of other band members. You might wanna post some of their videos in The Anywhere Machine forum.

Up to #12, awesome!!

Gee, I dunno if I'll have time 'cause... I'm enlisting, overseas aid...

Ah, no worries, 'cause Sgt. Rock is going to help you and you'll get back to Legion World safe & sound.

Emily, hi there, I'm going to suggest a middle ground from IB and FLs suggestions in that you may want to have in your mind clear abilities for your character, and only allocate a definite source for the main one or two, but after that keep it a bit vague, hint around who may be the source but let the reader work it out. The reason I'm suggesting this is from my spotty memory of Greek and Roman mythology the underworld was very mysterious so us mortals would not know what we would find there, so anyone who had spent time there and returned would have access to dieties and spirits, etc. that we wouldn't know about. Introduce new underworld characters too if you feel like it, there's been 2500 years since anything new was written about it after all. That would be how I'd approach it anyway. Hope this helps.

FL, my plans for 2017 in Bits is to finish Legion World 4 as last year was so chaotic I never got the chance to get stuck into it as much as I wanted. After that I have big and scarey plans for part 5 that I've loosely drafted out, so hopefully I get on with that too.

And I'll read everyone else's stories and hope they aren't using characters I'm planning on using. I'm looking at Raz now,as I hoped to introduce a Universo story but its been placed on the backburner now.

Happy, creative 2017 to you all.

Tell you what, Harbi (Happy New Year, BTW ), I'll send you a PM right now with the character's I'm planning to use. I'll have it on its way in less than 10 minutes.

You don't have to do that FL, thought thanks for the offer. I like seeing how we each interpret the characters as we write them. I had a post ready to go and was reading Raz's just before I posted it and he introduced Universo, so until that storyline is finished I'll wait so as not to confuse anyone. It was just a moment of synchronization that happen from time to time.

Ah, OK. Well, there's a couple non-Legion related things at the beginning and the end of the PM that I'll been looking forward to telling you, so please read those and scroll really fast through the stuff in the middle.

How bizarre, it hasn't turned up yet, I wonder if that's because I'm using my phone? You'll get a reply as soon as I have it FL.

Thank you for the feedback. I have been busy so I haven't been working on this idea lately. I am thinking of trying to revive RPGs on this site, so I might use the character there. I am generally good at developing characters and settings, but I usually need prodding to finish a story.

That really is bizarre, I don't have it in my list either. Some kind of interweb-glitch, I guess. I only stopped by her for a couple minutes before I go to sleep, so I'll send you a new, improved PM tomorrow.

Harbi, I just sent you the new PM. Please let me know right away if you have any problems with it like you did with the last one.

Any of you ever linger on the last couple chapters of a story, polishing and refining them over and over and over, almost as if, in some twisted way, you don't want to finish the story?

That's where I think I am right now. Help!

Shoot the dog.

LOL

There is no dog.

Unless Mad Harriet of the Female Furies counts? She could certainly give a rabid dog a run for his or her money.

Seriously, though, laughter really is the best medicine. It helps me relax, which in turn helps me put less pressure on myself.

Thanks, He Who.

And save the cat?

Always save the cat.

Save the cat, save the world? (that would make an interesting story)

Fanfie asked earlier about plans. I have been so busy with schoolwork and job-hunting that I haven't even been able to think of my plans! But I do have a very short break coming up, during which I hope to:

1) Write a couple of chapters for my Reboot Legion fic, including at least tying up the trip to Southeast Asia and the trip to Enwa subplots;

2) Catch up and comment on all of your stories (I have read bits and pieces of most of your work - Fanfie, Harbi, raz, Omni, thoth) but haven't been able to write my comments down

Fanfie also asked about previous fanfic attempts. I once tried to write a fanfic set in my high school, but only got a couple of chapters out. Our class had to put on a play for school, I made a script that was read to the class - it made a lot of people upset because it only included 12 people out of 40 other than that, everything I've done has been here on LW, either in the LMB-verse or in the Reboot reality

That's what I'm here for. (That and to over-analyze 40-year-old comic book stories.)

On a serious note, it's easy for the writer to fall in love with his or her story and not want to end it or drive it where it needs to go. This is where Stephen King's maxim comes to mind: "Murder your darlings." Be willing to break your own heart so you can break the reader's. Take it out and stomp it on the ground, and twist it into little pieces.

Thanks, Ibby. Looking forward to your comments.

He Who, I do believe I'll pretend that my story is the head of the office manager who railroaded me into quitting my last day job.

All kidding aside, He Who, your advice is much appreciated, and I am already putting it into practice.

Another thing I like to do is to loosen up by brainstorming a new fan fic just for the fun of it. Picture this -- "DCU Elseworlds: Reign of the Superwomen -- 'Who is the real Superwoman, out of the four contenders who emerged after the heart-wrenching death of Kate Carr/Superwoman? Is it (Don't-Call-Me) Supergirl, the feisty emo-androgyne? Is it Cyber-Queen, the icy, pragmatic post-human? Is it Iron Maiden, the armor-clad avenging angel? Is it Goddess-4000, the self-styled Woman of Tomorrow? Stay tuned.' "

I thought, for the sakes of both my fellow regular contributors to Bits, and the readers following my fics, that I would share the current status of my fic projects, starting, of course, with the ever-elusive resolution to the Legion/New Gods story arc -- I finally finished the penultimate chapter, only to find that the wrap-up persists even more stubbornly in refusing to come together. So, basically, I am setting it aside, along with all my other DCU fics, indefinitely. Now I'm trying to recharge my batteries by starting a Non-DCU fic. It's going well so far, and that's just about all I want to say for the moment, out of worries that I might jinx it if I give away too much. It will be hosted by a site run by a friend of mine, and I'm not going to submit any of it until the story is complete.

Some of you may have noticed the debut of my new Onevision today, "Time Leaves Its Scars". The basic idea has been percolating in me for a year or so, maybe longer. Last night, for whatever reason, I had trouble going to sleep because the ideas for it started just bubbling over. I didn't know that I would start it today. I think that somehow today's death of one of our beloved posters necessitated that I go ahead and start it, maybe as some sort of coping mechanism. He even made it into the story which wasn't intended. Anyhow, the story is not fully formed in my mind, but the ideas are coming hard and fast. I'm not sure how long it will be, when it will conclude or exactly how it will end, but it is what it is.

Anyhow, I just felt I had to say a little something about it.

I'm happy you are writing again, Lardy. I enjoy your writing style, and it also somehow seems fitting for today, if you know what I mean.

Looking forward to the next installments

I finally started writing again.

It's intended to be a three part story, starting with a storyline involving Mekt, called the Legion of Lightning, as he decides to create his own family, his birth family having 'betrayed him' (by his standards).

I'm taking a bit of a chance in starting out dealing with Mekt and some original characters, with minimal Legion presence. They'll show up eventually, and everybody will be kung-fu fighting. But with lightning.

Lardy, Set, way to go, guys!

Will read the opening installments of your stories this weekend.

What really seems weird is how my mind was racing about the story the night before, keeping me awake. I mean, in the moderator's forum, I was the first to express concerns over Abin about a week ago when some cryptic Facebook posts started popping up on his wall, vaguely hinting that something might be wrong. But there had been nothing concrete. So I woke up, feeling like I might have to start writing this thing, and suddenly I learn that Abin/Chuck has passed. It's almost as if he was passing away and leaving me with the drive or push to tell an LW story again for the first time in years. When I learned he had passed, I just knew I had to start writing it. It's a weird way for me to respond to the death of a beloved LWer, but it seemed wholly appropriate.

If it is from him, I'm grateful for the gift!



Thanks! There's SO much exposition that I hope it doesn't bog it down! It's hard to tell a story that flashes from one year to several to show what happens over decades without having to explain a lot!

Lardy, when I was writing "The Every-Boot Legion Volume 1: To Think Like a God" in 2015, it coincided with our dear Lash's first (and, sadly, not last) battle with cancer. One of the main plot points was curing Tenzil of the effects from having eaten the Miracle Machine. Tenzil, as we all know, was Lash's favorite male Legionnaire. I believe there was definitely some intertwining of fiction with reality going on there at the time. And I also think it may be one of my Top 3 best fan fic stories I've posted at Legion World. It's certainly a personal favorite among my own works. Unfortunately, what makes it bittersweet is that Tenzil got better and didn't have any more problems after that...and Lash was not so lucky. After typing this reply, I miss Lash more than ever.

It is nice to have new LMB/LW fiction. I have tried and struggled to write more myself, but I always find it difficult to finish a story.

The ideas for this one are still coming furiously, and I'm anticipating writing more chapters tonight.

For anyone unfamiliar with the Time War, it is a story that both Ex and Cobie were building toward a few years ago. During the interim, it seems all of the creatives, myself included, of the LMBverse have kind of unilaterally pulled away from those sorts of activities. Hard to say exactly why, but if one or two kind of pull away, it can have kind of a ripple effect with the rest. What I'm telling is not the Time war itself; I really have little idea where the story was going, and I still feel that some day the story will be told in one form or another.

Call mine an offshoot of the Time War, I guess. Maybe it's the real future; maybe it's not. If you've read the existing chapters, you know how Lardy himself feels about the subject, at least.

I apologize if my last post in this thread offended or upset anyone. That was the farthest thing from my intention. But I am concerned I might have worded it badly, probably because I'm working through both the recent loss of Abin and the lingering pain of the loss of Lash.

What I was trying to say was that I think there was an exchange of positive energies between me and Lash while I was writing that story, not unlike what Lardy described as Abin giving him the catalytic energy to write his new story as Abin was leaving us.

I hope that makes sense.

I don't see anything offensive or upsetting about what you wrote at all, Ficque. I'm sure many creative people deal with grief in similar ways.

I sometimes think someone may read what I shared about Abin and think I'm just trying to promote my story, but that's far from my reason. I just felt like sharing something that I find virtually unexplainable. My story's there for anyone to read, but ultimately, I'm writing it for myself as I always do.

So I just happened to notice this (like a year later...), and if you are willing to go outside of Greek mythology, would recommend Erishkigal (for beauty) and Izanami-no-Mikoto or Maman Birgitte (a voodoo 'lwa' of death, along with Baron Samedi, Baron Cimitiere, etc.) or something for agility (less 'agility' as in the ability to dash forward in startling bursts of speed, from a statue-like state of stillness, more creepy movie-monster 'agility' than would be traditional, but better suited to a death-goddess). I like Maman Birgitte best for that, since the priest 'ridden' by her moves in fantastic and inhumanly flexible ways, a sign of being possessed by the loa.

Obviously Wiki is great for finding death gods with attributes that fit what you are looking for. Keres seems somewhat suitable for 'agility,' if you want to stick to Greek goddesses.

I had, some time ago, imagined what a female version of Captain Marvel, empowered by the six main Olympian goddesses would look like. Her 'Shazam' word would be Ahadah, after Athena, Hera, Aphrodite, Demter, Artemis and Hestia. But I never really went anywhere with it.

That is amazing timing as I have been thinking of writing that particular story again. I will definitely take your suggestions to heart, Set.

She would be a main character of Huntress fanfic with all the different versions of the Huntress. I know there are a few fans around here so maybe I would be able to finish the story.

I think part of it is that our shared universe is so intertwined. It doesn't feel right for me to write an LMB story without at least referencing elements that all of you have created. It feels less rich somehow. And of course there is the momentum factor.

Much appreciated, Lardy. And I'm sorry I haven't gotten to yours and Set's stories yet. I'd meant to have read them by now, but it's been a...shall we say, "interesting" last few days, and finding out first thing this morning about the death of one of my greatest inspirations (see the Anywhere Machine) has just kept me in a weird funk of a state all day and night.

Hey, I can't complain. I haven't read your fics like I'd hoped to. I sure can't expect you to read mine when I've been lax with yours.

While it's nice to see my story getting some views, it's even nicer to feel those creative juices flowing again! I've really missed lardy, so it's good to take a longterm look at how his life turns out...if the timeline holds!

Ah, yes, my notorious Story Which Refuses To Let Itself End.

Seriously, though, I'm hoping to have it finally done by the end of this month, just in time for the Kirby Centennial. But I've learned it's best I not put any pressure on myself -- especially with stories as complicated as that one -- and just let it happen when it's meant to happen.



I know exactly what you're talking about. Yes, there's nothing quite like that feeling. It's downright transcendental.

I surrender!

Real Life, not so much my personal life as just the world in general, has gotten so unpleasant in the past few weeks, that I just can't go any further with the Legion/New Gods story, or, really, anything that involves continuity (be it canon or my own) or shades of gray or pseudo-realism or intense violence.

To everybody who has been following that story, whether you have commented or not, I thank you and I ask you now to please forgive me for not being able to go any further with that story until an indefinite amount of time has passed.

I do take cold comfort in the knowledge that Jack Kirby himself didn't get to complete his New Gods/4th World saga until more than 10 years after its unintentional anti-climax. The last time I re-read Kirby's complete saga, I came away feeling that, for whatever reasons, the final installment -- the graphic novel "Hunger Dogs" -- was actually better-written and more cohesive than the earlier installments.

Hopefully history will repeat itself for my humble (*cough* slightly pretentious *cough*) little fan fiction.

I have a couple other fan fiction projects in the works, but they are of a lighter, brighter, simpler, and (hopefully) more accessible nature than the majority of my Bits contributions to date. And I'm sure you'll understand that I'm in no hurry to get them finished and ready for posting. And FTR, one of them is Ayla Ranzz's biography -- I still think that the scene in the Legion/New Gods story where she opens up to Salu about a past trauma is the best fiction writing I've done to date.

At least now I'll have lots of time freed up so I can catch up on everybody else's fan fictions.

Go where the spirit moves you Annfie!

As for "Time Leaves Its Scars", guys, it is NOT done! The reality of returning from a staycation has delayed the next chapter to this point. Plus, though I knew the main thing that would happen in the next chapter, there was an aspect of the chapter that I had to think through somewhat. I've pretty much worked that out, but I just have to fond time to actually write it. I hope to do so in the next week-ish!

All I will say about the next chapter is that Lardy experiences a major life event and receives a special visit from a relative!

I find Klar-Ken's recent writing to be very intriguing. I'm planning on trying to start a RPG here in the near future, and your ideas seem similar to my own.

Thanks, Lardy. And "Time Leaves Its Scars" is the very first Bits fic on my to-read list.

I just caught up, Larry! wow! it was great seeing Lardy's reaction to the loss of Legion World and the LMB. also great seeing all those original characters again - Lolita, Kalla, Britney...

Can't wait for the next installment. and i'm all the more eager to see Time War unfold in earnest

Thanks, Ibby!

I don't think I would have particularly used Abin's characters in the way that he had if he hadn't passed. Though the general story ideas had been percolating for quite some time, the details of what characters would appear were fluid. I knew from the start that Cobie would be missing--that was my original inspiration. Then, I added Ex because I knew he would be central to the Time War and Peebz because he was/is the LMB leader. Abin was then added because I wanted to include him after Chuck had just passed, and I found a logical role for him.

I had to then use Lolita because of her huge bond with Cobie--someone that Lardy could naturally share his loss with. And I just love writing her! I never actually wrote Space Ranger and Everyday Girl in a scene, but I felt the references to them were pretty spot-on.

And Kalla---Kalla, after Lardy, is the best character I ever created, so I knew including her was a must. I also dropped some references to other LMB characters, including what I thought might be an appropriate fate for Lon/Timber Wolf. This is a time alteration story, so there may be some wiggle room, here. In any case it feels great to utilize the LMBverse again and craft a story that builds from the lore.

It's an odd coincedence that Cobie himself has been sparse lately! I'd be curious to know what he thinks about all the liberties I took with his stuff! I've a feeling he would approve, but I can't know for sure! I really just ran with it!

Ack! pardon the earlier typo Lardy! stupid autocorrect!

your allusion to Everyday Girl seemed spot on! and having Abin brought a smile to my face.

I'm still hopeful that Time War will have a happy ending... but who knows for sure.

It's great to have an active LMB story! And who doesn't love a good Time War and all the attendant anomalies? Like Ibby, I hope it has a happy ending with the eventual return of Cobaltus and the crew - but so far thing's have been working out pretty well for Tony & Kalla....

Every time I read "Ggrrgg" I get a laugh - and the variation on "make Ggrrgg great again" made me smile.

It's a wonderful tribute to Abin in the sense that his spirit inspired you to write this and his characters live on in your fiction.

Thanks! I didn't know if I could accurately portray Chuck's speech pattern for EDG, so I kinda side-stepped it in a way I thought appropriate.



Well, technically, Time War did NOT have a happy ending according to this story, as that's the whole motivation for the story. But I see what you mean!

Yep, it pretty much has.....so far. If you re-read the opening chapter, there's a small clue that troubled times may be ahead.



I worked with what I had! But to have Lardy become a big part of something that is of Cobie was a major motivation for me.



I had to have some of his characters play some role in this thing, especially because I feel he inspired me to finally write it. I don't know if I could ever do justice to a true Quank Family story, but I just had to include them somehow.

BTW, I hope Ex completes "Long Klordny" some day. He uses EDG and especially My Whee Fem masterfully in it.

I just wrote the first of 2 sequences in the next chapter! It was...very emotional...in a way that really connected with some RL personal experiences that will be apparent when you guys see it. I hope I can do the other sequence after dinner and have it ready to post! <fingers crossed>

you can do it, Lardy! Looking forward!

...Trix are for kids?

I love Trix, therefore I am still a kid

Great new installment Lardy! Sweet little Victoria... her birth was a great moment

EDE! and Fanfie! and thanks for the shoutout, happy that Blaze and I are out there somewhere

nice job setting us the moral dilemma. reverse the effects of Time War, but risk losing what happened after. who gets to make that choice? and i can feel the weary desperation of everyone still remaining.

Thanks for the kind words, Ibby!

I knew this chapter would begin how it did, but the visitation was one I struggled with for a while. I think it was always going to be EDE, but originally, he was going to visit in the flesh. Ultimately, this way seemed to work better for what I've been building and am building toward.

Another part of the difficulty was figuring out where EDE was and what he was doing. You kind of unwittingly helped provide the answer by giving me some feedback and making me think about what your character might be up to in this stage in his life. Somehow, the idea of you and Blaze being married and operating in a humanitarian role really worked for me. I hope you liked the idea.

In hindsight I'm surprised that I didn't think to use IB earlier in the fateful scene involving Legion World and their last-ditch effort to win the Time War. In a way maybe Abin ended up serving the role IB might have played in that scene. I think, though, as Security Chief, IB may have been helping Jerry supervise the evacuation, probably with Blaze helping. I'll never have this story answer every single question to where this LMBer is or that LMBer is--it would hurt the focus and turn the story into something else--but as it serves the story, I'll probably reveal more.

I had to kind of restrain myself from making the EDE visit too much of an info dump. To avoid that, I left out some details, like a reference to Lash and what happened to him in-continuity (at least in this timeline) and reconciling EDE's power-set as hinted at in this story with what we've seen him do before. I may yet find a way to do those things, but it was just too much and would have hurt the flow in this scene.

Victoria gives me a little bit of wish-fulfillment as a writer. I have 2 boys, so part of me yearns for a girl. The reality is we just don't want more children, biological or adopted, but there's always a little ache there that writing about Lardy getting to raise a daughter helps me express. Also, I've seen both of my children born, so it's nice to share and relive this experience in prose. (For the record, I did actually cut the cord with the first son but declined with the second because I was a little in shock at how he came out so quickly compared to the first.)

I'm glad the depth of the dilemma comes across. In a way Lardy has finally gotten everything he's ever wanted, while knowing that dear friends have been lost in the process. Plus, there's another war approaching which threatens all he's built, regardless.

So I'd say this is probably about the middle of the story. I've set up the status quo and all the things that happened to get it there. Now, we're at the tipping point.....

My pleasure! I agree that EDE visiting "remotely" worked better, it helped highlight the dire straits the universe is in at the moment - people spread apart across large distances, communication is sporadic, and all that. It highlights the difference between then and now.

After I read your opening scene, I also got to thinking about what Ibby and Blaze and many others might have been doing then. I thought that as Security Chief, Ibby would be off where he was needed most - which could have been with you and company, but could easily have been elsewhere. Lots of room for us to work that in when the time comes

And I love the whole idea of me and Blaze finding a safe haven for rescued orphans. Pretty cool, I imagine I would enjoy teaching those that have their own metapowers...



Your writing choices worked out really well. I felt the flow of your scene was spot on!

Writing is also a bit of wish fulfillment for me, so I completely understand. It's nice to use writing to explore what could have been, or what could be!

It must be nice to have watched your sons be born! (from social media I know they're great kids )



You definitely articulated Lardy's reasoning well, both here and in the earlier scene with Lolita. Lardy's right in that life is going on for many now, and there is always the possibility that reality will never be restored - and someone should be prepared for that eventuality. It's a bit of a two-pronged approach here, and that works very well given the uncertainty.

I'm super-excited for the next bit!

I definitely think the Scars of LMB story is really coming along. Even though I came in pretty recently to this site, it is nice to see the history and friendship in these stories. It has also reignited an idea I have had for a long time regarding Earth-5/Earth-S and the LMBverse, and who knows maybe I will end up working on that story. I have tried a couple of times to flesh out the future of my characters, but never got to the point of finishing a story.

Thanks for the compliment! There's no bigger flattery than one's work inspiring someone else to do something creative themselves!



I don't know if it's clear, but the pocket dimension they're using contains a large number of refugees, not just orphans. But Ibby and Blaze have taken orphans from that group who have no living family and are raising them as their own.



Thanks! I think so, too!



My latest chapter underlined that inherent conflict even more by showing it come between Kalla and Lardy. I mean, it's not about them choosing realities, but a lot of what Lardy objecting to what she wants to do comes from his having embraced reality as it is and wanting to make sure their home grows into the kind of place his daughter can live happily in.



Hope it was worth the wait!

Nice last installment, Lardy! Victoria is such a dear.




I don't know if it's clear, but the pocket dimension they're using contains a large number of refugees, not just orphans. But Ibby and Blaze have taken orphans from that group who have no living family and are raising them as their own.

[/quote]

Oh, thanks for clarifying. I read it again and I wasn't quite sure if there were other refugees besides the orphans. But it makes sense it would be more of an "everyone we can find, we rescue" kind of thing.


Just read the latest bit, and you capture the ongoing dilemmas quite well! Both Kalla and Lardy clearly love their current world and reality, but they disagree on how best to protect it. It takes some time, but Lardy does realize where Kalla is coming from and why she has a different point of view.

Thanks! I'm kinda in love with my fictional daughter!

I enjoyed using the "bedtime story" format to also reveal whatever happened to Zee the dragon. It seemed an appropriate way to do it!




Lardy has always understood where Kalla is coming from. But he also doesn't want New Ggrrgg to follow the same path its mother planet did, a path that ultimately led to its destruction. Also, Kalla has a pretty dark past. He's afraid she could fall back into some bad habits. Ultimately, he decides to relent because: a) he wants to keep his marriage and family intact by putting their conflict behind, and b) he knows that they can't just be defenseless, no matter the long odds they would be facing.

There's a moment in the opening chapter, which is a flash-forward that I'm slowly building toward getting back to, that might imply the choice did not resolve everything.

That last chapter had quite a lot of impact; quiet, but a big turning point. After spending some time on the Great Darkness Saga and thinking about the Fourth World, it did remind me of Highfather's decision to set aside war for peace. Lardy does the same and settles down to a peaceful, rewarding life with his Kalla and his little princess. Yet the time comes when he can't live in a bubble and pretend all will be well, he has to set aside his ideals to protect/defend his family, home and the people of New Ggrrgg. A tough decision to finally have to take, especially if he fears Kalla might be sucked back into the dark side.

Approximately half and hour ago, I experienced, if not an epiphany, then definitely a valuable revelation RE: writing --

I enjoy plotting stories, brainstorming with other creative people, coming up with alternate timelines, and reinterpreting past sagas.

I am good at writing, and I am very proud of quite a bit of my fan fiction work...but I finally admitted to myself that I don't enjoy doing it.

So, from this point on, what I am most likely to post in this forum are alternate chronolgies, specifically the complete chronology of the Earth-7.5 universe, the one where the troublesome highly challenging Legion/New Gods/Superman Family fan fiction saga takes place.

Some of it will still be fully-formed stories, especially the sections dealing with the Legion.

But those will probably be the last fully-formed fan fiction stories I will ever write. I never say never, but...I'd call it a 99% probability that I won't.

And I will certainly continue to read and comment on other people's stories and art in this forum.

Dear Poster Formerly Known as Fanfic Lady:

I know that you and I have very different tastes as far as literature goes, especially fanfiction, but I just wanted to say:

Ever since coming back to the States, I have been suffering from deep, dark, black depression. So I identify with former pleasures suddenly seeming unpleasant.

If by one-chance-in-a-million, you are inspired to return to sharing your writing, please do not hesitate a moment.

James Thurber: File and Forget (Audio Only; 14 minutes)

They Might Be Giants: Hopeless Bleak Despair (Audio Only; 3 minutes)

Klar, your kind words are greatly appreciated. And thanks, too, for the links. Will listen to them this weekend.

And I don't think our tastes are quite so different. I will always treasure this beautiful and thoughtful review you wrote about one of my Ao3 fan fics.

I want to ask a general question regarding fan characters that are by members who are either inactive or no longer among the living. Are their characters considered free to use or do I have to go through certain people in order to use them in my stories? I have been hesitant to do so in the past because it felt funny, but I am in a position where I kind of need to use them.

Well, I’ll take a shot at this, as long as I’m here.

Miracle Max: There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing that you can do.
Inigo Montoya: What's that?
Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

The joke works because of the cultural taboo against stealing from the dead.

On the other hand, if you knew the decedent well enough to know that they would be pleased to see their characters live on, by all means borrow.

I, for one would be happy for anyone to repurpose any of my characters or plot ideas.

However, from a literary standpoint, it is probably unnecessary, or even counter-productive. Remember that Fifty Shades of Gray grew out of Twilight fan-fiction, and Twilight grew out of Harry Potter fan-fiction. J.K. Rowling herself did plenty of borrowing from her favorite authors.

Take a character you like change his or her name, or even gender, and alter the backstory to more seamlessly fit into your personal Paracosm. The results will almost surely be superior to a simple cut-and-paste.

“My son,” said Rabbi Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, “You must face the stern realities. If you with to become a writer, you must be resigned to peddle your books from house to house, like a vendor of pots and pans. Furthermore, you must learn suffer from hunger until you’re forty.”

“And what will happen after I’m forty?” asked the young writer, hopefully.

Rabbi Elijah smiled encouragingly. “By the time you’re forty, you’ll be used to it!”

Hey, all,

Last night, as I was doing my usual creative brainstorming, I had an idea for a new kind of Bits thread -- JAM THREADS.

No, not as in fruit-flavored bread spreads. I mean as in musicians getting together and just playing together in a loose, semi-improvisational, free-association kind of way. (I actually got the idea when I was thinking of a musician friend I'd chatted with on Monday night, who told me he was planning to jam with some other musicians after our chat.)

Now, yes, it's closely related to the Tag Team threads, with a crucial difference. Tag Team threads are actual stories. Jam threads would basically be an extended plotting-slash-world building session.

Most importantly, anyone can contribute at any time. No pressure to keep the thread going, or to pick up where one poster leaves off.

For example: I was thinking the first one could be something like, "Let's Do a Back-to-Basics, From-the-Ground-Up Re-Imagining of the DCU" (because, at the risk of sounding like a heretic, I don't think the idea behind the New 52 DCU was bad in and of itself -- it was the execution which was botched by a combination of unfortunate occurrences.)

Another possibility: "How Might the 5YL Legion Have Played Itself Out If Erin Instead of Blok Had Died?"

Thoughts?

That sounds cool! We could also "distill" it further by having one thread, and then modifying the thread title every time we move on to a different topic. We could keep one topic open every 2 weeks, and then change as needed.

That way, people can respond to older topics on the same thread - easier for building up ideas.

Great idea, Ibby. That'd make it like the Bits forum equivalent of the Lardy Roundtable threads in the Gymlls and Legion forums.

I'll start work on the thread right now.

That sounds like fun. I would be interested in contributing.

By all means, sweetie! Join in the fun anytime!

I remember when I first joined we had threads like "Children of the Light" where we created fan-fic characters. I was wondering if anyone would like it if I made a 'Children of Takron-Galtos' thread? I've had an idea in my head that once the United Planets fall apart, the villains would be able to take over part of their space and establish a more authoritarian power (think most bad guys in Star Trek).

That sounds super interesting actually Emily, I would be up for it!

I rarely participate in those types of "create your own character/scenario" thread, because I have little bandwidth to spare for creating something new besides my own fics. But I do enjoy reading other contributor's ideas! I say go for it.

I have way too many ideas for one brain to hold. (Some of them are even worth posting!)

Bring it on!

In general, what is the difference in personality between Preboot/Postboot Element Lad and the Reboot Element Lad/Progenitor? I want to do something with elements/alchemy in the Takro-Galtos thread, but unsure of the best way to go about it. I'm not sure if Cosmic King would be egotistical enough to pull the god-act.

Reboot Jan's spiritual beliefs were made more explicit. His belief in non-violence too. He was also often described as "spacey", while Preboot Jan was considerably more pragmatic.

Another question for you all:

Which scenes from your fanfic would you LOVE to have a comission of? I mean, I know we are all imaginative people, but there's something to be said for having a talented artist draw (and color?) your favorite fanfic scenes.

I'll start:

1) The Legion's friends and allies remember the "Lost" Legionnaires in the foreground, gathered around a campfire. In the background, we got a shot of the "Lost" Legionnaires. See here for the list of allies.

2) The Reboot Legion's Kinetix, XS and Gates, and the Retroboot Legion's Phantom Girl, Brainiac 5, White Witch, Tyroc, Saturn Girl and Star Boy restore the Reboot Legion's universe.

3) The "new" Legionnaires are rescued by their allies from attacking villains during Legion Day.

4) The rescuing Legionnaires (and allies) have to fight the magically brainwashed "lost" Legionnaires. See here for the 45 characters involved! I especially want to see Impulse (Kent) vs. Timber Wolf.

5) Montage of the Legionnaires splitting up on their individual missions to reclaim Legion World. We get to see some battles in each place. Some of the scenes I really want to see are Thunder, Andromeda, Kid Quantum II and Star Boy beating up the Emerald Empress and Validus; Nightwind blowing Dune into a transuit held open by Saturn Girl; Live Wire and Blizzard blasting a group of soldiers; Wildfire, M'Onel and Kinetix taking on the Monitor (with assistance from Dirk Morgna and Dragonmage, perhaps, though this is impossible given events in my story);and Triad using tri-jitsu versus fellow Carggite Kuga.

6) Versus the Monitor 1: Kinetix, Live Wire, Saturn Girl, Violet, Dragonmage, XS and a returned Monstress (all crystall-y!) versus the Monitor! Kinetix and Live Wire should be in their normal forms.

7) Versus the Monitor 2: EVERYONE versus the Monitor, in a scene that is a homage to either the iconic panel showing the battle in COIE 10, or the cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths 12

8) Legion Day fly-by with the expanded membership! Includes Reservists, some of whom will be future Legionnaires in a bit...

9) The end of the membership test for Cadets et. al., showing my ~25 test-takers fighting a monster together.

10) Not a spoiler YET, but I would want to have a nice montage of all my Active and Reserve Legionnaires (excluding the Cadets). This would take place at the end of my ongoing Volume 4,which will see a few new faces promoted to Active duty, and perhaps one or two new Reservists graduating from the Cadet program. I don't want all the Cadets there because there would be too many characters, diluting the impact.

ooh good question IB! And I like your picks! When I originally read your Legion Day fly-by I actually had that Alan Davis cover in mind where the whole team is flying and looking all optimistic and happy etc

I am too lazy to actually find the links for mine but off the top of my head....

* The Legion fighting Tharok's army of Validus clones on Elastic Lad's homeworld - I see his planet as being like Kirby on overdrive, with flat out crazy tech stuff everywhere you look

* Infinite Man vs the Legion

* Judgement League vs the Legion after Earth-Man had absorbed the Infinite Man's power and shored up their ranks...I would have to get George Perez to do it though, I think there were like 80 characters in that fight lol

* a group shot of the Star Sapphire Legionnaires facing down Satan Girl in their sexy outfits would be cool

* a more horror-influenced image of Chlorophyll Kid, Phantom Girl and Comet Queen (with Ivy and their token endangered innocent bystander) surrounded by killer plants on Chlor's homeworld - or maybe with them being smothered in vegetation

* and just for the Silver Age WTF factor, that one time that Cham, Luornu, Comet Queen, Gas Girl and Quislet teamed up with Krypto and the Space Canine Patrol Agents in the far-flung future to fight Dr Meowvale and his robot cats

Great pics, raz! I would especially love to see the Judgment League vs. Legion fight. And the Star Sapphires... I've always thought Garth was cute, so him in a Star Sapphire outfit would be whew! I love the variety of the scenes you have there, too!



Thanks, raz LSH v4 80 is such a beauty,and I'm tickled pink that Alan Davis got to draw my favorite incarnation and many of my fave characters!

Well, if I'm going to get wishes, I may as well wish for a pony.

From The First Legion (Marla Latham’s group)
1. The Super-Hero Club (Leeta-87, Mog Yagor, Nimbok, and Hate Face) vs. The Seven Deadly Sinners
2. The youthful White Crane and the Green Lantern Oranx visit the now empty Super-Hero Club Headquarters

From How It All Started:
3. Ral Benem, Staq Mavlin, Dag Wentim, and Kitsuné Dogstar flee Weber’s World in her too-small ship.
4. A mosaic of the Subs on Throon, using the powers of the Citadel and the Giant Cyborg to defend against the Khunds, the Dominion, and the Dark Circle invasions

5. I would love to see this group fleshed out in greater detail (from My DC SF Worlds Legion): https://68.media.tumblr.com/34955721a714cbcb56d0f31ecf30da47/tumblr_oogtnzItqd1uwm5uqo1_540.jpg

From the Rainbow Girl Series:
6. Dori is rescued by the Lantern Corps and Jonathan Elliot from the Poglachians
7. A big spread for The Wedding of Ennis Jahnson and Dori Aandraison, naturally.

From the I, Monstress series:
8. The seven Montresses and Jan Arrah defend "The Promised Land" from The Big Bug Band of Bandits, à la The Magnificent Seven
9. Everybody vs. the Arthropod Legion

From Young Legion-A Tale of Earth-K2:
10. Mordru’s alchemical factory, with the ten Members, and all the middle-aged Legion doppelgängers hard at work.

From Young Legion Book Two:
11. I would be happy with just a picture of all twelve members posing together outside their Clubhouse on Mars. (The restored Legion Cruiser Mark II)

Saturn Girl (Dorrit Ranzz of Winath), Lightning Lass (Dacey Ranzz of Winath), Cosmic Boy (Pol Hu Krinn II of Winath), Chameleon (United Planets Universal Alphanumeric Designation (UPUAD) #U0373-WV451), The Triplicate Girls (Ffiona, Ffarrah and Ffey Ffarr of Carggg), Shrinking Violet (Eulia M’Kord of Orzde), Phantom Girl (Irinia Apero, a Bgztlr Pbazo), Ten (Txalz Luz 5423 of Colu), Polar Lass (Kylda Zimm of Tharr), Matter-Eater Lad Two (Hilarie Norjay of Bismoll), Star-Woman (Kallor Nal of Naltor), and Korvea (Korvea Mallor of Talok VIII).

Spoiler:
12. Christmas at the Taines

Awesome question, Ibby!

Definitely the battle between the Adventure Era Legion and the Earthwar-Omega Era Legion in "The Everyboot Legion Volume 1: To Think Like a God," also in that same story, Tinya and Salu outwitting Colu's drone defenses at every turn.

The entirety of "Fate In Threes" from the "Book of Talok" thread. That's one of my proudest achivements, and I really think I did right by my beloved Tasmia there. Especially the future timeline where she becomes the Majestrix of Talok VIII.

The still-untitled, still-unfinished Earth-7.5 Retroboot Legion...oy, it is such a mess, and yet it has several sequences I'm very proud of:

- Ayla going from playful (surprising Salu with an ultra-feminine makeover) to tearful (recalling her traumatic youth, with a mother who loathed both Ayla's femininity and her own, and the other schoolgirls laughing at Ayla's first attempt to look feminine for the Junior Prom) to playful again (fooling an oblivious Brainy into thinking she's a femme fatale out of an old-time film noir movie.) If I could choose an artist, like Raz choosing George Perez in his post above, I'd be thrilled to see Steve Epting draw that sequence. Or, if we're going strictly by artists who have actually drawn the Legion -- Steve Lightle or Greg La Rocque, or Pat Broderick, or each doing their own interpretation.)

- Wildfire, Dawnstar, and Yera in the 21st Century, teaming up with Kendra Saunders and Alanna Strange and Adam Strange.

- The entirety of the battle on the Sorcerors World, climaxing with my creation Sonya (Harmonia's evil half-sister) literally erupting from the rubble of Mysa's castle.

- And...SPOILER...Glorith and Harmonia going toe-to-toe for the mantle of Time Trapper (a long time ago, when I was doing research for this story, I came to the unshakable conclusion that Paul Levitz had intended for Harmonia to turn out to either have been the Trapper all along, or for her to covet the Trapper's power.)

Thanks for sharing, Klar and Fanfie. Always nice to see what each of us would pick from our own stories!

Hey IB, my initial thoughts were of your fly-by as that is always always welcome and Klar's team (he gave such great descriptions like MEL2 being a taller skinnier Tenzil and the new Violet being a Polynesian farm girl) that I'd love to see them realised in a picture.

From my own fics... Ummmm... Dream Boy, Laser Ape, Ambassador Contact and Nemesis Girl fighting against the Blacks animated corpses.

Any of my newbies from the Legion World series in action.

The battle against 4000 Starburst Bandits on TG.

The Black Witch against Black Adams daughters.

The moment when the Justice Legionnaire's arrive and X's, etc, returned, though that would have about a hundred characters.

Anything with Danielle and Glorith or Harmonia and Backlash.

Starkling taking down Wildfire in the try out.

Rokk and Lydda's wedding.

And a hundred odd more too, if I'm wishing.

Seconded. I consider that to be the moment where you really came into your own as a writer of action sequences.

And I still think you write the best Mysa in the entire Multiverse of Multiverses.

I would love to see Laser Ape in action and the 100+ character meetup!

In my Earth-5 thread, I introduced short vignettes and the stories became plot lines in their own right. I have given it a lot of thought, and I cannot write two stories in the same thread without one of them suffering. If you were me, would you create another thread or just abandon one plot point?

Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once.
--John Archibald Wheeler

Some thoughts on helping you decide:

1) Are the two plot lines interconnected in any way? Do you foresee the possibility of them connecting later on? If not, are they set in the same universe?

2) As I think Klar might have been suggesting, you could write them sequentially (finish one, then the other) but keep them in the same thread. You can create a table of contents or index in the first post, to help track your posts

If one is definitely going to suffer, and they are equally important, then you could develop them separately interlinking them at key points should there be an opportunity to strengthen both as a result.

I do see a couple of ways of interconnecting the plot. I forgot that I originally intended for the robots to use humanoids as the basis for creating new AI, so I'm going to stick with that. When I first asked this question, I was going to create this big sub-plot with cyborgs, but that be better off as an original project.

Each plot is set in the same universe but following two different sets of characters; two of them pretty chaotic beings chasing the ultimate evil, while the other two are playing a spy game. I could make it so that they wind up in the same place, but I got to do it in a way that does not appear too random (Or maybe I am underestimating the audience's suspense of disbelieve).



A table of contents is an excellent idea, I will try to work on one for that thread. It was originally intended to be an anthology so it is pretty chaotic.

Just my feelings re-reading my fanfics

The Lake Isle
by Ezra Pound (1916)

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Give me in due time, I beseech you, a little tobacco-shop,
With the little bright boxes
piled up neatly upon the shelves
And the loose fragment cavendish
and the shag,
And the bright Virginia
loose under the bright glass cases,
And a pair of scales
not too greasy,
And the volailles dropping in for a word or two in passing,
For a flip word, and to tidy their hair a bit.

O God, O Venus, O Mercury, patron of thieves,
Lend me a little tobacco-shop,
or install me in any profession
Save this damn'd profession of writing,
where one needs one's brains all the time.

Definitely not boring Klar, I love your stories!

Thoughts on Writing:

I decided recently to shift my focus from fan art back to fan fiction. But I feel I need a real challenge to get those rusty writing mechanisms pumping again.

I've been reading a lot of old posts in the Legion forums lately, and, despite my dislike of the TMK (and later TM without K) Legion, I am seeing more and more validity in the idea of continuing the Preboot timeline, with no End of an Era (and no further gaps, because other writers have already successfully done that in this forum.)

Much as I've come to love the Postboot, I've tried to write it several times, only to find each time that I'm just not wired to do it (I feel particularly guilty about how badly I miswrote Spark.)

It's the Levitz/Lightle/LaRocque Baxter era characters that are truly in my blood. And much as I dislike a lot of the things that TMK either brought out of them or imposed upon them, I think I could find a way to do it.

There's just one big obstacle for me to overcome: my complete and utter loathing for two aspects of the TMK era that I would necessarily have to deal with if I pick up where Tom McCraw's Weber's World storyline leaves off: The SW6 Legionnaires and Chief Erin.

The latter, I suppose I can just dispose of offscreen, without necessarily killing him (I could say he was transferred to another solar system or whatever.) But the SW6 kids...ughhh, my blood just runs cold at the thought of trying to get into their heads and find their voices.

While I'm clearing the air, I'm not much of a fan of most of the supporting cast that TMK introduced (i.e., just how exactly was the Postboot's Lori Morning any more annoying than TMK's Kono?)

Killing off comic book characters I dislike is cheap and lazy and mean. It's the kind of thing that supposedly professional writers I dislike (I won't name names) tend to do.

So...any suggestions would be welcome, especially from people who appreciate the TMK era more than I've ever been able to do.

Why not just continue from Magic Wars instead?

Or, why not begin just before Magic Wars.

Legion of Super-Heroes #58: "If Thine Eye Offend Thee"
The Emerald Empress (Sarya of Venegar) 'kills' Quislet on Trom, and Projectra / Sensor Girl kills the Emerald Empress (sort of by accident).
Whatever happened to Sarya's pet, 'Tizzles', is never revealed. Just one more Levitz plot line that was never resolved.

Or, write the 5 years later... Your way, start from our favourite character Rokk in a trench coat on Braal and see where your writing muscles take you? Its fan fic so you don't need Blok to die or Mon El to fracture reality by killing the Time Trapper, just have Rokk put the team/a team together and explore a back story for whomever you want to include while you do.

Actually, if you don't do this Raquel, I might

Have fun, whatever you decide to do

C

EDE, that's a good idea, but I tried it already ("Book of Talok: "Fate In Threes" and "Rude Awakening"")

Klar, LOL. I tried something similar to that already, too. ("Alternate Legion v.3 Timeline")

Harbi, go for it! I think you'd do that idea much better than I would.

Thanks, all.

I haven't decided 100 percent for sure that I'm going to go with my original plan. I might tweak it a bit by starting several issues earlier, immediately after the Bierbaums leave (sorry, Mr. McCraw.) There's also the question of what, if anything, to do with the present-day books: "L.E.G.I.O.N." (which everyone knows I love) and "Valor" (which I haven't read any issues of.)

Ok. After a lot of research and a lot of thought, this is my decision:

My intent is to tell good stories about characters that I (and others) know and love (or love to hate) without being hamstrung by continuity.

My aim is to be as faithful as possible to most of what TMK did, even a lot of the things I dislike. This is my effort to be respectful of that era's fans, many of whom are Legion Worlders whom I consider friends.

That said, I can state with certainty that the further away we get from the destruction of Earth, the looser continuity becomes.

Specifically, I've decided that Jan did not survive, that Bounty is not Dawnstar, and that the portions of LSH v4 #50 that McCraw wrote (all the stuff to do with the return of Wildfire, whom I have my own ideas about how to bring back) are apocryphal.

Equally apocryphal are all the issues of Legionnaires and Valor.

My beloved L.E.G.I.O.N. remains canon for the most part, but again, after a certain point (in this case, the storyline about Lydea making peace with her ancestors and her mother, and fully coming into her own as Talok's champion) continuity loosens up considerably.

And finally, if anyone would like to help me flesh out the stuff that I have little or no interest in writing (i.e. The SW6 kids and the TMK supporting cast,) feel free to send me a Private Message.

With the last remnants of the Reboot, Threeboot, and Retroboot Legions now relegated to the backwaters of Paratime, I have begun writing the story of my life.
It is about the same quality as the Fanfic I wrote here as Klar Ken T5477; therefore there is little likelihood that it will be published.
When it is finished, I had considered posting it here, because I suffer from the Internet Delusion. (Having a lot of friends on Social Media is like being a millionaire in Monopoly)
How many IRL would actually be interested?
I will understand silence as "Thank you, Klar, go back to writing Fanfiction".

And why does my Avatar keep disappearing?

I would definitely be interested, Klar. You seem to be about the same age as my parents, and I've long felt, having had good parents, that your generation has been terribly misunderstood because of the sins of an admittedly rich and powerful few. I'm in favor of you posting it here.

I think we'd all be honored for you to share it with us.

I third the above sentiments, which means I'm from Cargg.

I fourth it, which means I'm from the Fourth Dimension.

Thank you for your enthusiam. Four out of seventeen hundred: that's O.25%!
Now my longing for attention is fighting with my desire for anonymity.
I imagine if I do post my bio, it ought to go on the Mission Monitor Board?
And I am so comfortable here in bits.

Hmm... it looks like JRR hasn't posted since November. I hope he's okay!

I hope so too.

I remember JRR / Klar has posted before about his personal situation. I've gone through a few of his old posts, but I can't quite find the one I was looking for.

His last log in was 22 February, so not that long ago, at least.

Thanks, Ibby. That's at least something of a relief.

Aw, I didn't even think to check logins. Thanks, Ibby!

here's hoping Klar / John logs in soon! have PMed him too.

hey all, so things have quieted down a lot in Bits. How are all you creators doing, in these trying times?

For me, I'm physically well. Haven't been writing much in the last year because I have been adjusting to life in the Netherlands. Have a challenging new job, and recently got a new boyfriend. Mandatory work from home has been an adjustment too.

Hope you all are doing well.

Glad to hear you're physically well, Ibby. I am, too. Emotionally, though, I have my good days and my not-so-good days.

Creatively, I've been trying to concentrate on drawing rather than writing, but there is a part of me that still would love to do a big, epic Elseworlds DCU story.

I'd be interested once again in collaborating with one or more of us Bits regulars. I find I'm better at dialogue and action than I am at plot.

Big hugs, Fanfie.

It's great you're pursuing both the drawing and the writing! I don't have it in me now to write anything too complex - I'm trying to write a policy document for work now, and it's tougher than I thought. Would be happy to comment on plot though (not a full-blown collaboration, I'm not in the headspace for that now, but giving ideas and constructive critique).

I have gotten my writing fix on the forums of a mobile game I play. there's a "continue the story" type thread there, of which I'm one of the most active contributors. I find that little bits like that allow me to express myself creatively, without expending too much energy.

Thanks, Ibby.

Giving ideas and constructive critique on plot would be wonderful. When we did that a few years ago with the Postboot Legion, we got some good stuff! If I hadn't felt (at the time) like I was trying to make the Postboot characters too much like their Preboot counterparts, it might have gone on much longer.

Never too late to try again, I suppose.

I'll PM you if I decide to take you up on your offer.

That would be lovely, Fanfie! And it will add some creative juice to my life, too.

Cheers

Cheers, Ibby.

I am doing okay considering I am an "essential" employee. I stopped writing my Academy stories because I got the feeling they weren't very good. I do have a lot of unpublished Academy stories that I could post though.

I shifted my focus to a RPG instead because I have successfully moderated RPG forums.That lasted for about four months. I may start a new game again if I can get enough interest.

I have a lot of species ideas I would like to write about. One is a parasite species and the other is a Collective (potentially based on Bendis's idea of Titan being a Collective).

Emily, I completely support writing and publishing. Even if you yourself do not feel they are good, perhaps others would like them a lot! And, if you're open to it, you could ask for feedback from others on how to improve them.

Stay safe; I hope your workplace is taking measures to protect you.

I'd agree with the others, Emily. There can be a lot of self criticism for work that's just fine. Also, just going through the exercise of putting things up helps the process of developing structure and content.

Thank you both! Since it has been a few months, I might just start a new thread and post my unpublished stuff in that one. Bear in mind some of the stories may seem random as I was not writing them in order....my plan was to build up to this epic event and I do not remember how far I got.

One of the good things about this forum format is that there's nothing to stop you revisiting the posts after they're up. Once you start putting them up, you might find yourself inspired to build up more plans around the epic, as you post.

Thank you, I posted the first story a few minutes ago. The next story is the main ending arc of the epic I was building to (and it is seven pages long!) so I give this story some time to see if there is an audience.

Nice! My new boyfriend and I are going for a walk and doing some chores this afternoon, but I'll read your new story soon.

A helpful article I found the other day:

https://medium.com/the-brave-writer...ative-potential-as-a-writer-593e58f23499

Good, timely piece, Fanfie.

I agree, somewhere out there are people whom any piece will speak to. And if one doesn't put the work out there, how will other people ever find it?

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

My pleasure. If I find any more equally good ones, I'll share them all here.

This past week, I've found myself in something of a creative quandary:

My new Legion fan fic series, Post-Magic Wars Legion, got off to what I consider a promising start, with some really nice comments and some scenes I was very proud of. After only one storyline and the first installment of a new storyline, my thread has gotten almost 600 views. So obviously I'm doing something right.

Problem is, the stories I've been planning ahead for just aren't fun. And part of the reason I began this project in the first place was because the Baxter Era stopped being fun immediately after the Pocket Universe revelations, and the Post-Baxter issues, for all that may be argued about their relative virtues, made the Legion *even less fun* than it already was (yes, there were the three Tenzil issues, but those were the exceptions, not the rule.)

I just find myself feeling extremely misanthropic about humanity, and deeply pessimistic (bordering on nihilism) about where the world is headed in the coming years. That's not an attitude that's conducive to fun stories. I'm even concerned that maybe the reason nobody commented on the first installment of the new storyline (Calorie Queen throwing Lester Spiffany into a fountain because he's a not only a jerk, but also a racist towards Bismollians) was because some of my personal sourness spilled over into my writing.

Maybe I'm just not in a frame of mind conducive to writing the Legion. But if I went on indefinite hiatus, then this would be *yet another unfinished Legion fan fic project* from me.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I'm probably the absolute LAST person who should be giving advice on writing, but here we are...


Well, they were good. But I'd say that the story started out on a very "non-fun" note, but you've been providing a pretty good balance. Based on where you're plotting, do you have any "downtime" scenes where you can mix it up at all; switch out typical character interactions, put them in a silly fish out of water situation? The story arcs I like the best, and are memorable, are where the characters go on a tough journey, but then are able to decompress doing something almost whimsical before the madness starts up again. Granted, coming up with the seeds for that can be the challenge, but they may present themselves.


First, I hope you can turn off the news. God knows it did wonders for my attitude (although I totally missed the gas crisis fun we had this week in states until it was too late). But writing is an internal contact sport, IMO. And writing the Legion is even harder.

I guess my advice is to just write it if there's something you want to say. If it's a tough story, then let it happen, but if you can figure out how to write the world as you'd like to see it, definitely do that.

Also, I think I may have missed that ep. I rely on the Time Scope as to what to read, so if there was a lot of activity, I may have missed it. I'll have to go back and check it out.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, GL. I'll ruminate on them for a while. And do please check out the first ep of the new arc. Like I said, the lack of comments had me fearing I blew it.

Hi Annfie, GL,

I think GL gave some extremely good advice here.

Personally, I don't mind not-fun stories if they show character growth, happen logically, etc. etc.

Thought I would share this.

https://www.writerswrite.co.za/prousts-questionnaire-35-questions-every-character-should-answer/


35 Questions Made Famous by Marcel Proust
01 What is your idea of perfect happiness?
02 What is your greatest fear?
03 What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
04 What is the trait you most deplore in others?
05 Which living person do you most admire?
06 What is your greatest extravagance?
07 What is your current state of mind?
08 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
09 On what occasion do you lie?
10 What do you most dislike about your appearance?
11 Which living person do you most despise?
12 What is the quality you most like in a man?
13 What is the quality you most like in a woman?
14 Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
15 What or who is the greatest love of your life?
16 When and where were you happiest?
17 Which talent would you most like to have?
18 If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
19 What do you consider your greatest achievement?
20 If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
21 Where would you most like to live?
22 What is your most treasured possession?
23 What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
24 What is your favourite occupation?
25 What is your most marked characteristic?
26 What do you value most in your friends?
27 Who are your favourite writers?
28 Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
29 Which historical figure do you most identify with?
30 Who are your heroes in real life?
31 What are your favourite names?
32 What is it that you most dislike?
33 What is your greatest regret?
34 How would you like to die?
35 What is your motto?

Proust Questionnaire for Luornu Durgo Taine
Interview date: just after the events of Legion of Super-Heroes v.7 #23 (August 2013)

01 What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Big holiday table, loving husband, a bunch of kids, family and friends gathered around

02 What is your greatest fear?
I mean, it's not that I'm afraid of death. It's just that I'm afraid I won't live long enough to do everything I want before I die.

03 What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Inconstancy. Not in love. But inconsistency. Changeability. Sometimes I find myself doing things that in the past, I would never have imagined I would ever do. Sometimes I feel like I am not living according to my beliefs-- which only makes me believe that maybe those aren?t really my real beliefs after all.

04 What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Selfishness.

05 Which living person do you most admire?
A few years ago, I would have said Superboy, but he hasn't really been alive since the 21st century, has he? But he was alive to me-- us, the Legion-- for years. My second choice would be Marta Allon. Since completing her term as President of Earth, she has been very active in promoting the Greater Good throughout the United Planets, hasn't she?

06 What is your greatest extravagance?
Chuck would say clothing. I don't have a massive tesseract full of outfits (OK, maybe a little) but what I have is of very high quality. But my attitude is, why spend one credit for a pair of shoes that will wear out in a year, when you can spend 100 credits on a pair that you can bequeath to your grandchildren? And I far prefer timeless, quality style over the latest "fashions" that will be back out of fashion next year.

07 What is your current state of mind?
Hopeful.

08 What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Loyalty. Loyalty to a cause or ideal can be admirable, if the cause is admirable, but unquestioned loyalty to an individual is absurd. People need to prove themselves worthy of your loyalty every day.

09 On what occasion do you lie?
When people ask me how I'm feeling.

10 What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I've always felt I was too short. And lately, I have too much gray in my hair. Yes, I color it.

11 Which living person do you most despise?
H'Hrnath of Nullport Shipyards. He is a petty bureaucrat who likes to use his small, insignificant power to inconvenience others. And he's a coward. And greedy.
I should have said Brainiac 5, right? I mean, he got me killed twice.
Mordru. I should have said Mordru.

12 What is the quality you most like in a man?
Kindness. Compassion. Empathy. Those are all part of the same thing, right? I like a man who is strong enough to be gentle.

13 What is the quality you most like in a woman?
Heroism. By which I mean, she runs toward danger, instead of away. And is competent enough to handle it.

14 Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
I mean, right?

15 What or who is the greatest love of your life?
Charles Foster Taine.

16 When and where were you happiest?
Funnily enough, I really enjoyed my time in the short-lived New Legion Of Substitute Heroes, with Chuck and Rokk and Lydda and Myg and even Grava. It was kind of half-way between the real Legion and Home-and-Family.

17 Which talent would you most like to have?
I've never really been good at making money. Not that we don't have a comfortable life. But I mean, I would like to have the ability to be able to make a lot of money easily-- like R.J. Brande, for example.
18 If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I'd like my old selves back. These new duplicating powers are great, but I miss it being just the three of us-- just a regular Cargggan, you know?
19 What do you consider your greatest achievement?
It hasn't happened yet. But when Chuck and I finally have kids, oh boy!

20 If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A Cargggan Cerberus Hawk.

21 Where would you most like to live?
"Where he was, was Eden." Home is anywhere Chuck is, right? Although we were pretty popular on Wondil 9; it was a nice place. We felt like we were making a difference as part of the Terran colony there. We also liked the cold weather.

22 What is your most treasured possession?
Brainiac 5 once gave me a simplified Coluan force-shield device. I don't really use it anymore, but I appreciated the sentiment.

23 What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
You don't know misery until one-third of you has died. And then another third.

24 What is your favourite occupation?
Teacher. I really enjoyed my term as the head instructor at the Legion Academy on Montauk Point.

25 What is your most marked characteristic?
Boundless, unquenchable optimism.

26 What do you value most in your friends?
I most value those friends who challenge me, and make me want to be better.

27 Who are your favourite writers?
Right. This is kind of embarrassing-- a guilty pleasure. I really love to read Nikkolya Matsuda, the Cargggan gothic romance novelist. They are quick, escapist reads, and I can toss one off and forget about them. I think she must do pretty much the same when she writes.

28 Who is your favourite hero of fiction?
Hua Mulan. I left my family,too, to join a Legion.

29 Which historical figure do you most identify with?
Shayera Hol of Thanagar. She fought side-by-side with the love of her life.

30 Who are your heroes in real life?
The Legion, especially the Founders. And Tinya. And Lydda.

31 What are your favourite names?
Marie Elkins. (Laughs) Bella, Belladonna, and Bellatrix. Aaliyah, Lilliannette, Quetzalle, Lloyd, and Aaron.

32 What is it that you most dislike?
I hate cleaning up. Especially after others.

33 What is your greatest regret?
I was never able to tell Delya how I really felt about her.

34 How would you like to die?
Next time? Peacefully. Surrounded by friends and family.

35 What is your motto?
E Pluribus Unum

Lovely! and thanks for sharing, Klar! It's good food for thought for all of us.

Heehee, Marie Elkins!

Aw, nice shout out to Delya/Mentalla too.

Picking Shayera as a fave, because fighting beside love of her life... AWWWWW.

and kudos for mentioning Mulan too.

Is this the questionnaire that James Lipton would give to his guests?

That is awesome, Klar - I love doing those kinds of questionnaires for characters and Lu's seems pretty spot on. Points for mentioning the short-lived Subs II!

made me laugh but like...really, come on Brainy. Not cool!

Might be good for us, lol!

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/japan-anti-procrastination-cafe/index.html

Hmmmm, I wonder if something like this would even be viable in the states?

personally, it would only work if I had some good ideas already. But I don't think I could rush brainstorming or conceptualization.

of course, the actual writing can help flesh out half-formed ideas...

Hi, all.

It's been a while since I posted in this thread.

With 2022 almost at year's end, I have been looking over at my creative accomplishments and failures within that time frame.

I got off to a good start, but then became overwhelmed by various real life factors, some positive (finding a steady job) and some negative (the death of one of my aunts and my mom suffering a gauntlet of health problems.)

Perhaps because of the resultant darkness in my personal life, all I was able to come up with were a bunch of non-starters, including a couple of truly awful and depressing Legion fic ideas.

Then, a couple days ago, I had my best fic idea in ages: a JLA fic which would conflate the villains Starro and Despero into one good old-fashioned done-in-one JLA story with no pretentions beyond fun. I was even planning to do it as a fully-drawn fan comic!

And then? I got bored quickly because it wasn't challenging me enough. As in, I've been there and done that.

Which puts me in a strange place -- I desperately want to do something creative in a sequential art form, but standard superheroes stuff just isn't thrilling me anymore.

I'm at a loss, and would greatly appreciate some advice.

EDIT: Oh, shit! I just realized I posted in the wrong thread. Could a mod please move this post to the Writer's Thread?

^ moved, as requested

Question about writing stories with big casts and multiple plot threads:

Do you start at the beginning, and then bounce around from thread to thread until you've reached the end of the story, or do you write out each thread separately from start to finish, and then figure out which scenes go where across the structured through-line?

I ask this because until now I've always taken the first option, but I'm seriously considering taking the second option for my current project.

I always write chronologically. not saying it is right or wrong, it just suits the way I think better. especially when my plot threads have to intersect. so I maintain an outline of what must happen, and after writing and publishing every piece I review the outline to see if it still "works", or has to be updated

I've always done the first, and luckily my brain tends to be coming up with the next 'chapter' while I'm typing the first (or I dream it up at work, or while vainly attempting to get to sleep). But I've also almost always stuck to singular plots, even if the fic itself got lengthy, and admire those writers who can do more serialized writing with multiple plots one after another (or loosely interwoven / overlapping, in the best cases).

Only once or twice have I moved a section to earlier or later in the story, because it didn't fit as well where I first 'wrote' it, which is as close as I've ever gotten to that second 'craft the pieces individually and then assemble them in the optimal order' style I've gotten. It sounds interesting, like putting together a puzzle out of story fragments, but I'm not sure my OCD would stand for something that non-linear and freeform.

That's a good question Raquel. I kinda do both - I'll have a long term plan with individual plots mapped out, and have a clear start and finish in mind that has definite points along the way I want to introduce. I start of with these and work my way through allow myself to write a tangent piece if t's taking up my thoughts, like currently I've been working on a story that involves a lot of my new team going to a festival, and while I've fully written out the first five posts and know where I'm going with it I also have these ideas concerning an Academy plot that will only take a couple of posts so to make brain-space to complete the first story I've spent time completing the second. As it is. I'll most likely post the academy piece first just because it's completed already and neither really feed into the ongoing story arc I have planned so it won't matter the order they are posted in. This is particularly nice to have these ready to fire when it's a done-in-one post that helps break up the storylines so it doesn't go from one major plot to another.

I must admit I have about twenty potential stories for my Legion Worlds series in my draft folder that I started then realised they wouldn't fit so they languish there until I have either headspace to complete them or room to include them.

Ultimately, my way of writing is to figure out the whole plot and get started on the beginning though won't stop myself from a little indulging if other ideas to come through - whether that's for plots that are coming up or randoms stories (as if you're only focusing on one part you could miss some gold in another). I guess, a bit of discipline and a bit of playfulness together.

Good luck and looking forward to reading whatever you come up with.

Thanks, everybody. Much appreciated.

some great stuff here...

One thing that really helps me is my Recap thread. TBH it's mainly for me, than for readers. When I'm writing a piece, and something comes up that requires me to refer to a different plotline, the recap thread helps me quickly search for posts related to that plotline and refer to what I wrote... this helps me keep my internal continuity in order

I find that I generally take a linear approach, but there are always exceptions.

Typically, I'll outline the story and the specific beats, and usually I will write them in some kind of linear order, but I may move stuff around a bit, although not too much.

It gets interesting when juggling things happening in different areas at the same time, though, to the point where I need a spreadsheet or map to help me remember who is where.

If I'm writing in reaction to, or continuing from, a specific point, then I'll generally spend time establishing where everyone is and what they would do next. So, linear from the beginning.

With the OP's big cast/ multiple plots, the goals of the cast can be established to give some way points. They don't have to be stuck to, as events will change everyone further. But it gives some structure.

If it's something that's ongoing, then there's scope to build in stories and scenes as they suit. Like GL, there will be beats of various sizes. All of which can be shuffled. The Levitz Paradigm is super useful to ensure that there's no slack, as it visually shows where all the big beats are. The shuffling around can be used to strengthen various subplots, as you can build in foreshadowing events, framing devices etc.

If it's stand alone, then anything could have brought out the idea. The bigger cast would be used to enhance the point of the story, provide counterpoints, and hopefully be strong enough to stop the subject being a Harmonia/Jo panel hogger.

Looking forward to your posts.

Season's greetings to all my fellow writers here at Legion World!

I'm taking stock of what I achieved this past year, and what I didn't achieve.

Sad to say, about the only real positive achievement for me as far as fan fiction goes happened not at Legion World, but at Archive of Our Own, where I finally posted a new chapter of my current Transformers fic, more than one year after having posted the previous chapter.

Here at LW, I tried my best but my best just wasn't good enough. One non-starter after another. Eventually, I had to face the very real fact that I was both burned out and blocked.

But as 2024 approaches, the creativity embers are starting to glow again, and the block is falling to pieces. So, hopefully, better results to come in the New Year.

My admiration for all of you, for your dedication and focus and self-discipline, is now higher than ever. I can only hope to finally find my own particular groove in the months to come so I can be more prolific than I've been over the past few years.

Lastly, I wanted to share that my current project is uncommonly ambitious, even for someone like me who tends to set the bar high. It is nothing less than a fan fic sequel to the late, great Darwyn Cooke's masterpiece, "DC: The New Frontier," set in 1984, approximately a quarter-century after the original story. Any ideas or advice would be very welcome.

Happy Holidays, all, and best of luck on each of your fan fiction projects!

sounds great, Fanfie! glad to see you're getting past your block and burnout!

The New Frontier was one of my favourite self-contained comic book projects, it will be interesting to see what you do with it!

I understand creative block - I have half a room full of art supplies that have been sitting there untouched for god knows how long....so while I am happy that I can churn out fanfic pretty regularly, it is still frustrating that all my other creative outlets have kinda slipped by the wayside.

Happy holidays to you too Ann, and good luck in the new year!

Thanks, guys!

Random plot bunny that I don't have an immediate use for, and don't need hopping around my brain;

A thousand years ago, Saturn had a population of Martian emigrees, sometimes mistaken for being natives of the ringed planet. With some talent for telepathy, but scattered around the moons of Saturn, these Red 'Saturnians' had nothing like the range necessary to communicate between their far-flung moonbases, separated by distances many times the diameter of the Earth, and often blocked by the enormous mass of Saturn itself, so they constructed a series of crystalline 'telepathic relays' and seeded them into the rings of Saturn, allowing them to communicate between their half-dozen bases and colonies. History does not record what happened to them. But those relays remain, and when human telepaths settled on the moon of Titan, they could 'hear' a faint hum through their telepathic senses, one that seemed like a natural emission of the planet, perhaps. Some even speculated that the planet contained a sleeping consciousness, and had the ancestors of today's Titanians been a more romantic (or superstitious) folk, there might still be a religion about this 'sleeping world mind of Titan.'

Still, even now, long after the relay crystals and their origins were uncovered, some myths remain, like the quaint notion that crime is so nearly non-existent (on a world where anyone can anyone else's guilt like a blazing scarlet letter floating over their heads!) is that something in the rings of Saturn projects a field that makes them 'not do crime.' Quite silly. And yet, the background hum, nearly unnoticeable to those who grew up surrounded by it, and it's telepathy enhancing effects, fade away when a Titanian leaves the area of Saturn, and seems like a deafening silence, a 'wrongness' to some, and very much a 'rightness' to others, who feel blissfully free of 'that noise.'

Eve Aries was such a one. She felt like that noise had been hammering at her skull her entire life (even if she, like most Titanians, had not really been consciously aware of it until it was suddenly gone and the silence seemed loud in her mind), forcing her to conform, distracting her, muddling her clarity of thought, and that was finally free to be who she was always meant to be. Which, unfortunately, was a villain.

She used to have some half-baked notion of 'freeing' the rest of her people by destroying these ancient relics, but she has more recently realized that she can *tune* them instead. If she can just get unrestricted access to one of them, isolate it from the rest and do some experiments, she's sure she can 'program' it to both pass on it's new telepathic harmonic to the rest of the network at the speed of thought, and also broadcast not some meddlesome telepathic 'white noise' to her people, but something a bit more lively. Something that inspires them to make something of themselves, and use their telepathic abilities like she does, to take what they deserve from the rest of the mind-blind emotional cripples of the United Planets. She'll show the UP a new Titan, one were the telepaths aren't all meek and respectul, so very careful not to do anything to scare the fragile little mental midgets surrounding them.

A Titan that takes it's rightful place as head of the United Planets. A Titan, that, *naturally*, will need a Queen.

love it! love how you worked in Jemm. and the reasoning for why Eve Aries would suddenly turn evil after leaving Titan is sound!

Thanks!

I had long ago spitballed origins for the various Legion worlds (Braal, Winath, Titan, Carrgg) and how they got settled by Earth colonists (when that was thing), and my first thought was that H'san Natal base on Titan from that old Teen Titans arc, but then I recently remembered that Jemm's people, a whole race of telepaths, lived on the various moons of Saturn! A whole new angle I hadn't explored!

The DCU is just rich with interesting ideas to cross-pollinate with each other, thanks to it's long and varied history. Some see all this 'continuity' as a hindrance, which blows my tiny mind, because it's an opportunity! They've been given this enormous gift full of magic and wonder, and they're like, 'Whoa, that's too big! It confuses my easily-startled brain. Let's reboot and make it smaller and less than it was!'

yup! and with things like time travel, pocket dimensions, and so on, it's relatively easy to come up with ways that potentially contradictory ideas could coexist!

Thank you, Ann!

I wasn't able to do anything really from a motivational point given all the changes going on in my world, but now that I finally have an actual office space in my house again, I'm going to give it a crack at some point in the new year.

Good luck in your endeavors!

yay! more to look forward to from GL, too!

Thanks, GL.

So my current project has evolved into something different than intended. It originally came from two musings:

1. The Titans have never had a battle against the forces of Darkseid, while both Young Justice and the Legion have.

2. It'd be nice to do a story set in 1980 that does for DC's Len Wein/Marv Wolfman/George Pérez Era what Darwyn Cooke did for DC's Julius Scwartz/John Broome/Gardner Fox Era.

In the original plot, Orion was female, feline, and golden-skinned -- that is to say, Koriand'r in all but name.

There was no Scott Free or Big Barda. Instead, Dick Grayson would have shed the Robin identity and taken the Mr. Miracle mantle from Thaddeus Brown.

There would have been no Raven and no Cyborg. Gar would've been shot dead by Terminator while on a jungle mission with Speedy. Terminator leaves Speedy for dead, and Speedy's unlikely savior is Cheshire.

Aqualad would have come into his own to help drive the Deep Six away from Atlantis.

Wonder Girl would have taken over the Wonder Woman mantle after Diana sold out to the patriarchy.

Barry Allen would have been turned evil by Darkseid and DeSaad and destroyed New Genesis. Wally West would sacrifice his own powers, but not his life, to end Barry's threat.

Oliver Queen would have suicide-bombed the Pentagon.

After all the remaining heroines and heroes band together to dethrone Darkseid, Superman would become the new ruler of Apokolips, vowing to turn it into a paradise.

What am I going to do instead? It's still coalescing, but I'll have something ready soon. I just thought I'd share the original plot.

Lots of interesting twists and turns Fickles. Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks, Thoth, I appreciate the compliments.

The reason I'm not going to be doing that plot is that I think it's just too grim, even if it does have a happy ending. New Frontier had serious aspects and real-world stuff, but it was still fun.

I've been re-reading EDE, Lash, and Mattropolis' Groovy 70s Titans threads in this forum to get a better sense of what I have in mind.

Glad you like the original plot as is, though. You're welcome to use it if you want. Anyone is welcome to interpret it their own special way.