grayarcadian
Since: Mar, 2011
May 3rd 2012 at 1:46:09 PM
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Occasionally, it seems we have some disgruntled and overly entitled Watchtower enthusiast come through and edit the page, disputing what "belongs" to them and what "belongs" to us. First of all, the story does not "belong" to anyone. The medium of a serial publication already negates that whole idea. The community became a collective exercise the day the first plot started in May of 2004. Second, you quit. This does not negate your importance and contribution to the overall story, but it does lower your rights to play grab-hands on the current direction the story is headed in without you. Third, you had the right to keep the story going, same as we did. You chose not to. Now, please go use your time more wisely.
"We're the custodians of folklore." - Denny O'Neil restoring.worlds AT Gmail
grayarcadian
Striving to put right what once went wrong
Since: Mar, 2011
Striving to put right what once went wrong
May 3rd 2012 at 1:25:40 PM
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- Harsher in Hindsight: Issues #20-#21 of the New Teen Titans comic (May-June 1986) are affectionately known as "The Mission from Hell." The Titans were (temporarily) mostly broken up after incidents involving or happening roughly around the time of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Wonder Girl, who is left in charge with an empty nest, calls in Aqualad, a newly-minted Flash, a Hawk without Dove, Jason-Robin and her ex-boyfriend Speedy. At the request of King Faraday, they help to protect a peace conference which is being threatened by Cheshire. Yes, the Cheshire Speedy had a relationship with. This was where it was discovered they had a child together. Issue #21 closes on some supposed to be heart-warming reconciliations between Terry Long and Wonder Girl and also Speedy and Cheshire, including him getting to hold his daughter for the first time. Also, Wally getting to explain his new role as The Flash to his hero-avoidant then-girlfriend Francis Kane. Now, look at these events through the lens of:
- Wonder Girl and Speedy still being in love, but not pursuing those feelings due to the machinations of Dark Angel.
- Aqualad being suicidal after the loss of Tula.
- King Faraday being mind-controlled by Diablo to be Gamemaster.
- Wally-Flash not knowing what he's doing and trying to imitate Barry Allen. His behavior around this time is often-cited by his peers in-game as to why "growing up and becoming JLA members" is no longer concidered an option if the Titan in question wants to keep their sense of self.
- Wonder Girl having a miscarriage after a fight with Cheshire when she hadn't known she was pregnant which actually stopped Aqualad from killing himself. After getting treatment, which she swore him to secrecy about, the next day she finds out about Lian's birth.
- Jason being the voice of reason among his older, more experienced peers. In Nation-canon he received a statue in the memorial hall upon his death for this and the work to free Raven, which is different from in pre-reboot DC-canon.
- Having Speedy, Wonder Girl and Flash return to Cheshire, Terry Long and Francis Kane with the idea that this is a relief to them. In Nation, all three couplings have been potrayed as abusive and/or unhealthy relationships.
- Realizing that Lian would have been concieved just about the time of Wonder Girl's wedding to Terry Long with the compressed timeline. Can you say rebound?
grayarcadian
Striving to put right what once went wrong
Since: Mar, 2011
Striving to put right what once went wrong
May 3rd 2012 at 1:24:00 PM
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- The Woobie : Tempest was the focus of a 5 year story arc involving bad things constantly happening to him. Towards the end of the arc there was a series of flashbacks
which mostly focused around his courtship and subsequent loss of his lover Tula. The intent had been to break with the path DC comics had him on and set up Tula's resurrection.
- Admin reply: What the writers ended up doing was causing Garth to earn the nickname "King of the Woobies" among the player and reader base. On the upside, now that Tula is back, there are jokes about Atlantean funishings being super-sturdy.
grayarcadian
Striving to put right what once went wrong
Since: Mar, 2011
Striving to put right what once went wrong
May 3rd 2012 at 1:14:23 PM
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- Crack Ship - Averted...mostly. Most of the ships have some basis in comics, or (in the case of canon/OC pairings or pairings that came about due to canon differences) were handled matter-of-factly. There is no explanation for Kory and Hugo that isn't made of crack, however.
- Admin Reply - One person's crack is another person's one true pairing. I personally feel ill looking at the Roy/Kendra relationship and my head exploded from the 60 or so years of collective canon that I feel it violates. (Not to mention the "pretty bird" stuff.) There is one player we have that loves the 'ship to itty bitty pieces and thinks it showcases the ultimate triumph of free will over fate in matters of love. To each his own. Oh, right, and there's some people that believe marriage and families have no place in comics at all. Well, they're free to pay $2.99 an issue or start their own damn game
- That said, we do try to avoid crack ships and have for a number of years. At the beginning of the com, though, (before my time, I should note) there was some thought about making JLA Watchtower more of a DC-themed multi-verse game with direct connections to the Lunatic Cafe community. That's why we have Hugo. When you have something that mind-bending, you do one of two things. You edit it out, or you run with it. We ran with it, and Hugo, despite the incredible crack he offers up, was able to be a useful OC-type character overall. His player had to leave for health/stress reasons, which lead to his apparent death. Sadly, not much can be done for OCs when they're players leave, which is why we have some pretty strict rules about those.
- Admin Reply - One person's crack is another person's one true pairing. I personally feel ill looking at the Roy/Kendra relationship and my head exploded from the 60 or so years of collective canon that I feel it violates. (Not to mention the "pretty bird" stuff.) There is one player we have that loves the 'ship to itty bitty pieces and thinks it showcases the ultimate triumph of free will over fate in matters of love. To each his own. Oh, right, and there's some people that believe marriage and families have no place in comics at all. Well, they're free to pay $2.99 an issue or start their own damn game
- Discontinuity: pretty much the sentiment explaining how JLA Watchtower
and DC Nation became an Alternate Continuity. One of the original intents was to parallel the events in "regular" DC Comics, but events like Infinite Crisis and the controversial Nightwing #91 disgusted some of the players so much it was then decided that the game would establish its own damn continuity.
- Admin reply - First, a history lesson: JLA Watchtower was founded May of 2004 by a few folks from the Lunatic Cafe community who were playing DC characters. The nexus of this bunch were two players who wanted to see Nightwing and Oracle married. The funny thing is one simple change never stays simple. (If you want a terrific graphic novel version on this, I suggest "The Nail.") The dominoes from one or two small changes kept setting off bigger and bigger changes so no matter what we tried to work in from the comics it needed to be altered more and more. Now, I believe strongly they were mostly logical changes, but YMMV. When we left JLA WT, we took the canon because they wanted a Crisis to bring things back in-line with the comics, so they might not be a Discontinuity anymore. We are
- As far as Tarantula's role in the life of Nightwing. Some fans called rape. Some didn't. We actually had a unanimous vote of "that was rape" with about three dozen players at the time. The Nightwing player, who was a survivor, did not want that what they felt was needless trauma done to the character, so it never happen. We just edited Mirage's canon after years of putting it off for that exact reason.
"We're the custodians of folklore." - Denny O'Neil restoring.worlds AT Gmail Hide / Show Replies