Redsnake

Very good! enjoyed muchly. Has overtones of Mr Terry Pratchet....love to see more!

Welcome welcome

For villain-teaming I find defiant a little more vocal generally, but both servers will always have people around, who will respond to a polite direct tell for team, most of the time.

My alts are below in signature always happy to see a friendly new face for teaming if I am on just drop me a tell

ahh excellent news. I created tanker over the weekend. She's up to about level 6 or so now I think.

Will drop you a tell next time am on. @Staturess

Toon is called The Fairy Godmother Invul/Mace

See ya soon!

Ahhh chuckled so much first time I read this. Real classy! Still holds it charm second time round

Aha....puberty....at least I could still hold out the hope of getting taller back then! :P

I am interested in this, have been holding back off of a SG for my villain on Union for just such an opportunity.

Please send an invite to Claw Tails, who is a lvl 6 brute

You can also reach me on @Staturess if I happen to be elsewhere and will login to get the ball rolling.

Ta

Thanks for all the leads guys.

*Goes off to start brewing the coffee*

Hi,

Is it too late to start a new tank toon for this team? Would be a fresh build as been looking to try out the tank AT in environment where can learn exactly how these are played to best advantage So sounds perfect.

Let me know and I will get a clicking, I assume is on defiant?

If would be better for me to be at certain lvel to begin working in team, let me know. Although sounds as if may have hard time catching up if you are all playing this team quite frequently.

Hi there,

I am trying to put together some supporting material for some creative ideas have going at the moment. One is a poster like image and the other a newspaper column/article.

Question is could someone please suggest some packages/tools which could help me to create these. I have seen both newspaper/magazine type pieces done by people which look really authentic as well as full colour magazine covers.

What tools are people using to do this? If someone says paint and word....and the use of their boundless creative talents. I may cry, since I lack a lot of the later and was hoping to bolster my efforts with some cool tools in the former category.

Thanks in advance
Redsnake

True. And no worse perhaps then recent ground swells caused by Rikti drop ships. Nice to see our Paragon facilities built to last

Hey Ban-Sidhe,

Liked this story very much. I don't normally read through something this long at work! But you had me through-out! Is very nice piece linking into the comic, which I remembered from before.

One minor thing that came to mind on the ending though, was hasn't she just put her parents in danger with the strong display of powers right next to/inside the hospital!??

hmmmm.....niggly thing! so feel free to ignore me as liked the ending regardless.

:P

HI,

Just my two pence, as one of the afor mentioned newbie RP-ers in the game I really like this idea. I am forever jumping around the RP SG groups sites and the forum, but tend to get a little lost and also not the best place if am looking for a specific piece of plot history or background info.

Big thumbs up, can't wait to see it.

Does this include creative writing or is it just for visual arts?

I couldn't draw a stick man with a stick, but would enjoy talking to any like-minded budding authory types

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads." Erica Jong (American writer and feminist 1942)

The gun fire continued and with relief Yanti saw the mugger turn his gun on his comrades, the smirk on their faces a moment ago as they'd jeered and egged him on to confront her now quickly replaced by surprise and fear as they begin to scatter from the rapid firing gun. One turning too late to run is hit square in the back, falling forward he lets out a small scream and then is silent on the ground. Yanti looked on with a mixture of fascination and disgust, but unable to turn her gaze away. Is this what she can do now? Is this her so-called...

"Talent!...That's what you have my girl!" that was what the producer had said and he'd probably have meant it if he'd realised what she could do when he'd tried it on with her.

Thinking back on the image of him walking down the street still wearing the yellow-tight costume stretched uncomfortable across his lower half still made her smile. Even the ploomed feather sticking out from behind him hadn't slowed his skipping happily along, as passer-bys pointed and laughed. She hadn't thought about it then, how she'd managed to convince him to do it, twisting around his words and thoughts till suddenly he was nodding and generally happy to put on his little creation instead of trying to force it on her.

She supposed you could describe it as patterns. The human mind and its reactions made up of layers and layers of patterns knitted together and intertwined into a mesh of a colourful whole. Except instead of seeing the whole, Yanti had always seen the threads. Studied enough she could work out how to gently pull away a single thread so that it tugged and changed the whole picture, the whole person for a moment at least.

She'd always known it was easy enough to get someone to do something they already wanted to do, whether they knew it or not. Massaging one area of the mind to influence another in unexpected ways. But, it was a whole new game getting them to do something against their nature, to put something specific in their mind that hadn't been there before, patch it together somehow and make it real. Perhaps it was the fact he'd hit her, whacking her squarely across the face as he dropped the garish thing down at her.

"You'll wear what I want you to wear girl!" leering at her his face so close and spitting at her as he spoke. But lying on the floor suddenly she'd wanted to try, she didn't want to convince him she'd do it later, or that he'd much prefer something less like some warped big bird erotica outfit for his show. She wanted him to suffer a bit and then the thought crystalised, she'd let him think he wanted to know what it felt like to be trussed up like a showgirl for himself. It was absurd at the time, but what surprised her most wasn't that she'd succeeded, but that it had been so easy.

Now, looking back across the street Yanti hid behind a dumpster in the side alley watching for the returning mob. She couldn't remember the multiple steps that had taken her from that day to here. She only felt the rapid beating of her heart as she watched the gang all come back looking around for her now. Lastly the dazed gunman walked stumbling back, his eyes still a little glazed from her previous trick and he looked around as if not seeing his surroundings at first, then his eyes fixed on the body still lying in the street and a sudden anguished shout came from him.

"[censored], [censored], geez man...who did this, who...I" and there his voice broke as if he remembered now suddenly and full of horror "oh my god, i didn't mean it man, oh my god, my god." "somebody help, get an ambulance, somebody. Arghh, I'm sorry, oh god I'm sorry bro, I don't know what happened. I just...."

Gunshot echoed past Yanti's face as she'd been fixated on the two men the older one cradling the head of the body lying in a dark pool of blood. He looked up then over at her place, his eyes fixing on her and she looked at their wet rimmed edges. I could make it go away for you...make you think it was all ok, for a while, for a moment. But the thought was swallowed up as she felt another bullet come whizzing over from the gang as they made their way cautiously over to her.

She wrenched her gaze away from the man's eyes, turning to sprint down the alley away from the angry shouts. Guilt reeling through her mind she'd lost the desire to fight today. Yeah talent she thought to herself, if that's what you called it.

Liked it. Liked it very much keep up the good work

Thanks Zortel, much obliged.

Hi,

Could i ask the question that comes before this one,i.e. how do I obtain something that will track the chat logs. I thought I saw a link to some software or command that did this, but can't find this original post anywhere now.

Thanks in advance

Hi all, so is related to the RP war post, (also kind of a shameless plug ). So we're all blissfully unaware of the upcoming war about to descend us. Or are we???

Here is newspaper report recently inspired by both this and the numerous lag posts on the forums. As well as an aborted RP Taskforce last Thurs, because of serious lag for some players. RP possible even when the playing the game isn't.... gotto love it.

http://uk.boards.cityofheroes.com/sh...222#Post904635

Hi, sorry if this is in the wrong place, but is related to recent post I have put up on this board. Just noticed that there is some automatic censoring that happens with the posts.

My question is, is if i self censor, i.e. place *@#+%£ at relevant points in my story e.g. sh*t. Is this ok? Or does this voilate some sort of board rule?

I don't like the fact that the auto sensor pretty much interrupts the flow of some of speech in stories I've written, plus sometimes see a big [censored] label against a word you automatically think of the worse swear word in that place, when actually i was going for something a lot LESS harsh in my eyes.

If someone can let me know what the etiquette for this kind of thing would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Look for the other reason
14th July 2007

An interview with Dr Lionel A Goodman on recent anomalies across the Europe and US affecting the world's strongest fighting forces - Hero and Villain's alike.
By Ms.Reporter

Reports continued to roll out over communication waves today into the 2nd week of abnormal occurrences inflicting scores and thousands of Heroes across Paragon. Dimensional shifts causing transportation of people up to 5 meters away from original locations, coloured spectral anomalies blurring all and part of vision for large lengths of time and even temporal bubbles which are considerably slowing the trigger of powers are just some of the reported symptoms. The instances varied in their intensity, but in the worse afflicted cases many heroes have been taken out of action directly as a result of this. With frustrations and tempers running high many people pointed to the criminal organisations as the underlying source of the disturbances, but this reporter is able to relay reliable intelligence from those in Rogue Isles that similar incidents have inflicted multitudes of Villains from going about their illegal business.

Official statements from City Hall have been limited with efforts from New Corps, an independent support organisation for heroes, focusing in on those able to assist in capturing evidence either in scientific or magical methods to analyse the problem. In the last release from the diagnostic department at NC, the situation is said to be improving gradually and many heroes are only relieved to be finally hitting the streets again with whatever protective measures have been deployed.

However, there are voices outside official channels which are less than satisfied with this simple line. Dr Lionel A Goodman, a scientist and researcher respected in the environmental disturbances specialism for over 15 years has recently fallen outside of the scientific community's favour with his elaborate and detailed articles circulated on so called conspiracy theories. Meeting with the Doctor at a nondescript bar yesterday evening, you could be forgiven on first glance for agreeing with his sceptics. A tall bookish looking man, Goodman looks older than he should, streaks of grey already running through his dishevelled hair matching the lack of care he clearly shows to the rest of his appearance. Without his white lab coat he could have be mistaken for any of the drunken wanderers filling the corners of the room, but as he approached to shake my hand and introduce himself, his face betrays a certain intensity and earnestness that conveys to you a sense of urgency. And there is no mistaking the determination in his eyes, which holds an assured confidence in them despite what his peers have publicly said of him.

After ordering a beer, we settle into a corner of the bar and I begin by asking him why he has left his job at the department to pursue what others have described as a waste of an otherwise glittering career.

"Simple really," he answers curtly taking a large swill of beer, "I didn't see I had a choice. Once I knew I was right and those morons at the corporation weren't going to fund my research or release my papers. I had to go to someone that would"

When I press him for the details of this source of new support, he is plainly cagey and steers the conversation back to his real passion, the subject of his controversial papers.

"For months I'd been telling them this wasn't some one off happenings. The rifts in the optical spectrum. The slowing in reactionary times of so many heroes. They kept looking into it one at a time, one at a time, all these random reports they were putting down to latent power developments in one mutant, a gadget reading malfunction in another, but no one connected the dots. No one still is" No one except you I imply and surprisingly he doesn't smile at this obvious move at flattery, instead his face turns stern as he continues.

"They don't see the big picture. God they never do! 5 years ago it was the same, all the little signals, disturbances we didn't put together. Until it was too late, until they were ready. Like waiting around in some cosmic lunch queue when we're the ones being served up" They? I probe.

"THEY! The Rikti of course. The biggest dimensional gate crashers of all time, setting up in our back yard 5 years ago way before that night in May and setting up for weeks, may be months right now." I point out that the reports from the invasion have always stated all activities were undetectable to us prior to May 23rd, that it was only afterwards that the extent of the alien prior infiltration was discovered.

"Sh*t! are you an investigative reporter or what! That's just a line for Joe Hero, it isn't the truth, they knew what was coming. Maybe not the whole thing, but there were signs, you just need to look for them. They're not going to write it on the friggen wall for you. You think the Rikti would miscalculate again like they did last time. The sons of [censored] know who we are now, they know about the Statesmen and the heroes and even the [censored] Arachnos. Think about it. If you wanted to put as many of your enemies out of action ahead of a full out invasion how would you do it. Would you stamp your armour platted footprint all over it, or would you slide in with some sneaky guerrilla tactics, nip at everyone, build it up gradual and even so it looks random, until everybody's so busy looking inwards that they don't see you coming"

Beer is spilled all over Goodman's arm and the table from his outburst, his arm bandying around elaborately as he stresses each point. People from around the room glance across at us nervously and clearly think him a madman, but he seems oblivious to this and presses on pulling out a wad of folder papers from his pocket spreading them on top of the sticky table in front of me.

"Here, look! Readouts from my Pulse IoN Generator tests. Look at the graphs; 183ms, 301ms, 1351ms, 3530ms. The numbers have been steadily building everywhere. I've taken figures from my own experiments as well as other reports. I put them altogether and it matches the readings from Dr Sciences records in 2002." I interrupt him momentarily to ask him how he has access to such records, but he waves this question away irritably.

"My dad worked with him, one of the team who helped locate the portal. Not that it did him much good, died in a Rikti street fight 2 days before they put the plan into action." I offer him my condolences, but his eyes turn hard at this. A renewed anger returning to his face. "Look at the numbers! Don't give me sorry's when the whole worlds about to make its biggest mistake all over again. We weren't ready then! And we aren't ready now. I just hope to god we haven't left it too late and we get our act together soon."

We? I ask him. And he stuffs the papers into his pocket taking the last small swill of beer left at bottom of his glass. "Yeah, I'll be out there fighting when it happens. And I've got a few surprises hatched up for those bastards when they decide to pop their heads out above ground" And at this his anger seems to subside hardening inside him into something more solid and deadlier that makes edge slightly away from him.

"I'll keep warning all you [censored] heroes and anyone who will listen to get their sh*t in order and quick time, cause they are coming and when they do if you're not ready, then you're just fodder for cannons."

I press him to elaborate more on this statement, but I see the interview is over as he gets up from his chair to leave. He takes a half step, but then turns around suddenly and comes back to me, a torn look across his face, he presses the half damp papers into my hands. "Publish it, take it all and let people know whats happening. Maybe they'll listen to you." And with that he walks out of the bar bumping unceremoniously into a few people who are trying to come in through the doorway at same time.

They shout at him and look at his retreating back as he completely ignores them, striding purposely on his way.

"Crazy dude" one of them says to his companions as they move aside and I think to myself, I hope you're right mate I really do. But, looking down at the papers in my lap the streams of data and scribblings flowing over pages and pages of precise graphs and calculations, a date is scribbled in the corner in red angry pen, I don't feel sure of that, not so sure at all.

((Yes the lag issues are bad and yes many a good hero has been taken out of action because of it, but the thought that crossed my mind after seeing the nth person having to log because they just couldn't get through a mission was how do you explain, I mean really explain it hope you enjoy this article as a small distraction to anyone not being able to play currently because of their problems))

* * *
The beeping sound pulses insistent and steady keeping her from the quiet oblivion she craves. Crisp sheets seem to touch upon her arms and a cold light slips in through the crack of her barely opened eye. Through misted vision she sees the outline of two figures and for a moment her heart jumps, the strong memory of the recent shadowed figure still seeming to hound her thoughts, but the voice that speaks out is old and familiar to her, a voice she hadn't heard in months.

"I don't care what facilities you have here Dr Greaves, our physician and his team have been treating her for years and we will be moving her tomorrow"

"Sir, your daughter has only just come out of surgery and moving her is totally unnecessary....we can restore her spine reflexes I'm sure with the right combination of simulators" the other voice replied, an edge of frustration showing clearly.

"You will certainly not be restoring anything..." was the languid reply from the older voice and she recognized the milder tone as forewarning that the young doctor was treading too closely to her father's legendary temper now.

"But Lord Farringdon, it would not be right for us to delay the healing process any longer"

"I will decide what is right for my daughter!" The voice broke in anger, shouting the last words and roughly clearing away the last of her fogginess.

"Perhaps I should decide what is best for me....don't you think father?" Her voice was raspy and she could feel the effects of the smoke still clogging her lungs and throat. She coughed loudly, the spasm lifting her head from the bed and the doctor moved to the side table taking a glass and jug to pour her a glass of water. She took the glass from him thankfully shifting to sit upright.

"Ms Farringdon, I'm sorry to have woken you, but it is perhaps apt. I was explaining to your father that we need to place you on a metabolism accelerator. We needed to suppress your healing while we operated to remove the eye, but your stats do not seem to be returning to their normal levels on their own. A small dose now would ensure we could run you through some tests and then...."

Removed....removed.... The word hurtled into the forefront of her thoughts and suddenly she become all too aware of the ache across the right side of her swollen face. Her eye. Of course it was gone, how could it not be, but somehow she had thought that deep down under that darkness something would still be there. She reached up now her hand touching upon the soft cotton pack and gauze covering where the spine had been. It shocked her for a moment, maybe she thought the hard surface of the spine would still be there somehow, but the sudden feel of soft emptiness instead shook her even more, as she imagined a gaping dark hole lying in its place.

She moved her hand away shaking and a blackness seemed to seep over her vision inking across the room in front of her, its shadow darkening the room like a fast setting sun. As the last of the light of the hospital room disappeared she felt the cloudy darkness pressed in around her and suddenly it seemed to be smoke filling her lungs again and the crackling of fire she could only hear. And she knew he was out there in that thickness somewhere, if she could only see him, ingrain that smile, that look on her memory, she needed to remember. She could feel the strain of searching, her face and body pressing hard against the smoke like wall and more than once she thought she could make out an outlined figure, a glint of dark metal occasionally blinking at her, there then not there.

"Felicity? My God Felicity, stop!..." her father's voice came from outside the fog and suddenly the room flooded back to her. In her hand she gripped broken glass, the water mixing with fresh blood coming from gorges of parted skin, making watery red droplets fall on the white bed sheets.

She looked down at her hand, confused at the the blood that was hers and the angry cuts across her palm. "Couldn't see him" she said defeated to herself and she let the last of the half remembered images drift back into the depths of her mind - seeming to sit stagnant like a shard of pain in her now empty socket.

"Here hold her arm here" the doctor leaned across and pulled her father's hand quickly and firmly placing it around her wrist "keep the pressure and the hand high, I'll get the nurse" and he turned and hurried out the the door. Her father obeyed caught off guard by the doctors movement and shifted uncomfortably in his position.

Felicity felt her father's strong fingers against her wrist and looked down to see the wrinkles across his pale skin contrasting so vastly against the blue elastic sheen of hers. And she thought, this was the first time he had touched her in years, since the last of the changes, long before she'd decided to go away on this mission. As she looked up and met his soft grey-blue eyes, he seemed to think the same thought and flinched as if to let go, then realised he couldn't.

She held his gaze, a fierceness and sadness filling her now as she stared at him, her one eye challenging him, demanding for some remembrance of the young laughing girl, the girl with pale skin and no diseases to cure,no oddities to hide from their relatives and high-class friends. He seemed flustered then, his own eyes only reflecting the changed girl before him and struggled with some internal thought before breaking away.

"I'll should call your mother...She'll be worried." He said, taking out his phone, not noticing her blood from his hand smearing onto its gleaming shell.

"I'm sure mother has more to worry about...like where her next scotch is" she blurted out and the harshness of her words filed away her sadness somewhere else, some other place and time to deal with.

She dutifully took up her wrist with the other hand and at that point the doctor blundered back into the room, a nurse following him carrying a suture tray and bandages. He took in the image of her now holding the injured hand and the man facing the windows of the hospital room with his phone to his ear and frowned openly. He moved as if to say something, but seemed to think better of it and turned his attention to Felicity bringing her hand to him and carefully began to pick his way around the glass cleaning the angry fissures of the wounds.

Her father's voice spoke loudly from his corner "Hello, hello...Peterson, yes its me, go get Lady Farringdon, tell her its urgent...."

And after a while, from the other end of the phone a groggy and slurred voice spoke "Hello....James?"

"Yes, its me dear...I've found her" he said

"oh thank goodness....and is she..."

"She's ok...she's" he hesitated ignoring what he thought were sounds of ice tinkling the inside of a glass in the background and looked into the reflected glass of the hospital windows, clearly seeing the reflection of Felicity on the bed. "she's....the same". he finally replied. Felicity snorted at this.

"But, that can't be.....this was the chance to change her back, reverse it, that can't be it...." The pitch in her voice heightened and there was no mistaking the gulp that followed as Lady Farringdon swallowed the pouring of whatever drink she had.

"It was meant to bring her back, James....it was everything we had." And the woman's voice broke an in-take of breath sharply holding her back from what sounded like tears.

"No, no...its not everything." He quickly replied "The doctor and his team will find something else, they'll do something"

"NO!" Felicity shouted from her bed, making the nurse jump back knocking the suture tray and its implements to the floor. She looked down embarrassed and mumbled something about getting another one, before quickly walking out. The doctor looked apologetically at Felicity, but continued to pick out the fragments of remaining glass from inside her hand. Whatever she had to say, she was not going to get a private audience to do it.

"No...." she repeated quietly "no more doctors" and to emphasise her point, she pulled her hand away closing her fist. The doctor looked up and caught the intensity of her gaze made more menacing from its singularity.

"You are coming back. You must. There's still other things we can try, do, we can still make it...right" her father said, momentarily forgetting the open line on the phone still in his hand. His words seemed desperate and feeble. Unable to convince even himself.

"No father, I don't think we can" she replied and her shoulders sagged "it was everything, this last shot. Making this all go away, like it never happened, but it didn't. And I am...the same. One eye down and none the better for it." she smiled manically at this "So I can't go home. Not to more tests or radiotherapy or growth inhibitors or pills or needles. Not to mother's drinking and your tip-toeing around like I don't exist. Just...just no more...ok?" The last of her words were quiet and in her mind she saw that same look he had had when he'd pulled away and she knew that the laughing girl was gone - to him and to her.

"But..." he started, but the muffled voice from the other side of the phone stopped him. He brought the phone back up to his ear and softly almost unable to hear her, the woman's voice spoke slowly.

"Come home James....Let her be....Its over." And then a dial tone click.

His face fell as he shoved the phone still covered in blood into his pocket.

"Dr Greaves, I hope you'll at least discharge my daughter and do what you can for her" he said gruffly, but his voice had lost all previous authority.

As he passed the front of her bed to leave he looked once more directly at her. His eyes unflinching this time, holding her gaze.

"Don't be angry at us Fil" He said, using her childhood nickname that suddenly caught her by surprise. "We did what we thought was best." and with that he turned and left, bristling past the returning nurse in the doorway.

Felicity felt his absence then as if he had never been in the room and with a crushing fear she remembered being little Fil lost in the garden after playing hide and seek, lost in the dark and crying. As she felt the droplet against her hand and looked down to see two small puddles of blood joining the others on the white sheet she realised the gauze over her empty eye was soaked in blood. Perfect red teardrops seeping from behind the material and falling to the already stained bedsheets, ruining them beyond repair.

((I would like to join-up. Am new to game and very new to role play, but this sounds fun if you'll have me. Character is

Ms.Reporter - Sonic/Energy Blaster (lvl 10)

Here is her bio...
Investigative reporter for the Paragon Times in her younger years, now retired but not retiring Jane Wilson was not going to let a few young colourfully dressed youths taken on the biggest story of the century. Pulling in a few favours from some magical contacts in order to obtain a relic from Scottish folklore, she s now endowed with formidable power to project and focus her voice. Now with this new lease of life, she is looking for the next big story and expose directly from the heroes front line.

C'est tout!
))

Thank you for all your ideas and help on this....actually really helped. Was stuck in idea that natural meant normal human, but you're right guess it just can mean the powers are inherently natural as opposed to triggered by something magical or technology or whatever...

Romanov - you hit on the nail what i was originally thinking along lines of before got hung up on whether someone could actually become that skilled in so called mind-tricks. But quite happy can develop this now.

Think I've also got a great little story worked up for how the whole thing comes up during one of their shows Sitriel, great idea!

Thanks all! Off to sharpen my pencil now

Hi,

I have a problem at the moment with one of my heroes and trying to work out a back story. Basically she is an Illusion/Empath, but for origin I selected Natural.

(mainly cause its the only one i hadn't selected yet, so chose it off the cuff)

But now trying to think up a plausible "natural" back story that explains how I can turn people on each other or heal wounds just doesn't seem to work.

My finger is hovering over the delete button and thinking of starting again on this toon. If it doesn't feel right, can't get into the role right....?

Anyway, wondered how other people may have overcome this with their characters or in fact if anyone had any bright ideas on how this could work.

I got as far as writing a bio which involved her working as some sort of assistant to a magician/entertainer in the Darren Brown like vein, as some of the stuff he can do is pretty close to almost "power-like" but getting that off broadway and into hero life, can't quite make the leap without feeling some sort of magical/scientific etc nudge is required?

Anyway.....ideas??

Yes being a girl tends to be part of the pre-requisite to attending said school, (its was on the entrance exam and everything )

...Being mal-adjusted, hard-nosed b**h at the end of it due to over-exposure to estrogen, tends to be an interesting side-effect only.

Big brother this year is pretty boring for anyone who lived it for 7 years! You didn't miss out on any fantasy boys...if they'd let you loose in there you'd have been chewed up and spat back out