This place will never die.

This chapter is dedicated to /u/lapisdust, for their kind words and encouragement. I don't know if I'll be able to figure out the whole story anytime soon, but I really appreciate it. Also, here's the archive.

One of these days I should probably shift this to someplace else, like a forum or some other subreddit or something. That'll be an interesting set of feedback when that happens, I'm sure. In the meantime, my writing continues. (It's a sickness, really)

Update!

Archive!

To those who still stick around to read my little story, I sincerely thank you! (And as always, any feedback is appreciated.)

Slow and steady writes the story.

New!

Archive!

And once again, thanks for reading!

I may take forever, but I'm stubborn as a mule.

Update! Wheeeeeee!

Archive, for those who wanna catch up.

Kinda wonder if I should start putting these somewhere else, but not really sure where to put them.

Usual stuff applies, feedback is more than welcome (I ain't gonna get better otherwise), and a big THANK YOU to those who stick with my little story through all the months with barely any updates to show for it. I really appreciate it.

Because why not?

Latest!

Archives!

Anyone ever made this character that can seperated his limb/body/organs and they become a creature/minion he can control?

Hello Resh. It's come to my attention that this subreddit has died and I'm more than a little upset that this happened right when I'd decided to try and participate. To me Resh was special. It was a mostly serious attempt at continuing the world Wildbow created in the Wormverse and it had done a pretty good job with a world the felt related but different enough to stand on it's own. It was populated by interesting characters who carried on the legacy of the original serial in the complex lives they lead.

I have received tacit permission from Foxfirelavender to do whatever to revive this sub, therefore I am declaring Resh's Renaissance. All are invited to participate in adding to and retconing elements of the setting.

For my first subject, I want to go right to the core of the setting and address the Triumvirate. The present Triumvirate is gone with Adamantine taken by NamedbyaFish's departure and Futhark and Unity having never really been develop. Therefore, I'd like pose a question: why should Resh have a Triumvirate? Bet's Triumvirate was a consequence of the Cauldron conspiracy to create the Protectorate and there were originally four founders. The Triumvirate being a triumvirate (association of three in office or authority) was a consequences of the death of Hero. Resh's Triumvirate was a consequence of this and the Triumvirreddit pun. As I see it, it's likely that there would be more than three or four founders of Resh's Wardens and that some of them wouldn't be top tier capes. Right now I'm looking for anywhere from eight to twenty capes to be founding members with back stories to explain why they were keen on forming a national level super hero organization or how they met the other founders. With that I'd like to introduce my submission:

Name: Skip / James Abram

**Backstory:**James Abram was born into a lower middle class family on Earth Aleph in the seventies. He made a name for himself as a brilliant student and manage to snag a full scholarship to MIT where he study computer science. The first contact with Earth Bet was made during his first semester and he watched with rapt attention as more and more information on the parallel world with the heroes and monsters came through. By his graduation date James was as knowledgeable about Bet as nearly any individual on his home Earth. He was always abreast of the latest news even as he started a very successful software company. Two decades and tens of millions of dollars later a powerful cape calling himself Ballistic appeared on Aleph making the rounds on the talk show circuits. James contacted the young parahuman and they agreed to meet to discuss merchandising opportunities. What actually happened was a very long question and answer session about cape life and Earth Bet. Some high dollar whiskey may have been poured and Ballistic may have admitted something about his powers origins that he would normally have omitted. The meeting ended with James making a lot of open ended promises and forming a new obsession: Become a super hero. A year and a half and a lot of greased palms later he had managed to contact Cauldron and acquire their services. James spent most of his fortune on the vial but he definitely got his money's worth.

Three months after that Golden Morning occurred. James was taken by Khepri but his powers were not utilized except for transport and even then they did not play nice with the portal network which ultimately resulted in him being dropped off an a random earth with the hope that he'd be safe. Of course Kephri never did get back to him and he remain on what would become known as Earth Resh. When Skip discovered that he was trapped on an Earth that was not his own, bereft of his fortune and all of the ties of his old life, he chose to throw himself completely into his new identity and become a full time cape. When the threat posed by the Malthyse became evident he was among the capes to approach the President and Congress about forming a national scale organization modeled off of the Protectorate. With in the Wardens he does a lot of work on PR, image, and recruiting all things which he had at least passing familiarity with from his time as a business man. His time spent as a programer shows through in his tendency to fixate on details at the cost of losing track of the larger picture.

Power: Skip is a short range teleporter with certain abilities that make him a very powerful blaster. He is able to move himself to any point in a twenty meter sphere centered around his body. More over he is able to move any object within this area to any other point with in the area at will. This effect is not Manton limited and can therefore be used to transport people. Going any great distance obviously requires multiple short jumps but he can perform up too two jumps in a second with passengers or three jumps in a second if he only has to worry about himself with average traveling speeds 44 and 67 mph. The other major feature of his power is his ability to move people and objects into a sort of personal pocket dimension. People and objects stored in this space do not experience the passage of time and can be constantly accelerated at a rate of 0.3 meters per second per second and can be released traveling at whatever speed they have attained in any direction. An object stored for one minute can be fired at a rate of forty miles per hour, five minutes can get them moving at two hundred, and an hour can reach more than mach three. Whatever rate of acceleration is applied to one object is applied to all objects so it isn't possible to accelerate projectiles and store rescued civilians in the pocket dimension at the same time. Storage requires constant attention and will fail if skip is unconscious or sufficiently distracted (by pain for instance) all objects will exit the pocket dimension traveling away from him. Moreover the greater the volume of objects in his pocket dimension the longer it takes for him to teleport meaning that he is slowed by storing too much matter.

Skips abilities make him invaluable both offensively and as a rescuer as he can fire high velocity projectiles or store the critically injure in temporal stasis until they can receive care. This is of course tempered by the fact that he can't do both at once.

As with anything I'm open for comments or criticism. It's my hope that several people will join in and that I can do weekly topical world building threads in order to breath new life into this community.

Whoo, sorry for the long break. I'll unfortunately be unable to update as much for a while. But never fear, I shall not forget you!

As for the latest update, I went a little weird with it. For those just joining us, here's the archives, any feedback is appreciated, and once again, thanks for reading! :D

So. As some of you may have notice I am no longer a mod.

This is a choice I made waaay earlier in the year because of school commitments and real life issues. Its only been recently that I've actually dropped the mantle of modship.

I will return at the end of the year, as a mod I am not sure but until then I wish you and Resh the best of luck.

~jellysnake

Your mind escapes oblivion as you gain conciousness. As your eyes take a long time to adjust, the blur initially clouding your vision gives way to the dull, grey ceiling before you. You seem to be lying on your back. Embedded tubes allow the room you find yourself in some uneasy, fluctuating light. You don't remember anything about yourself or the past.

What will you do?

Praise the Stumble. Praise the Stumble praise the Stumble praise the Stumble. Praise the stumble.

Praise the Stumble praise the Stumble.

Hiho and willkommen.

I can't think of anything good to say (aside from Ellenbogengesellschaft) so here is part IV:

Mortar IV

"Let's see how long that'll take"

Turns out "not very" when you are procrastinating on more important things.

Mortar III

Something I randomly started to write out while bored. Haven't send the power for approval yet, so this isn't canon right now.

Michael

So remember when I said "I do have some more written for the character but have to look at it again and actually finish it"

Well I didn't lie, I had some more, its just that the whole retcon incident took my motivation with it at the time because it forced me to go back and change a bunch of stuff in the story.

Finally exams are approaching, and that means TONS OF MOTIVATION FOR LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE THAN STUDYING.

So I went back and fixed stuff. I have another chapter that I still have to fix and change around a bit. Lets see how long that'll take ;D

Mortar I

Mortar II

It's new.

Hello! Welcome to the third iteration of the approval thread. This is the place for you to post your capes for approval. Ultimately, the mods are the final word on approval, but you're both allowed and encouraged to leave feedback on the capes other people have posted.

If you have capes who have been approved in past threads, they do NOT need to be submitted again.

To make things easier on the mods and on other people who want to look at and understand your capes, we would ask that you include at least the following information in your submissions:

Name: Your cape's real name, cape name, or both.

Alignment: This will be heroic, neutral/rogue, or villainous at a minimum, but feel free to include more than just that.

Powers: What your cape does. Please try to be specific enough that other people can get a decent idea of how your cape might operate by reading their power description. Just putting "aerokinetic blaster", for example, is less than helpful. Remember, you're the only one who knows exactly what your cape does. Everyone else only knows what you tell them.

Other information: This is where you would put any other information you feel would be relevant.

As an example, let's look at a submission for Skitter:

Name: Skitter

Alignment: Villainous.

Powers: Mental control of "bugs" within 3–4 city blocks. Bugs are defined as anything you would default to thinking of as a bug rather than by any biological classification. Her control over the bugs in her range is complete and automatic, and she gets an intuitive understanding of their biology and the ability to utilize their senses. She can control every bug in her range individually, and has a secondary multitasking ability that increases as needed to keep pace with the number of bugs she is controlling.

Other information: Aspires to heroism, but is disillusioned with heroic organizations. Very creative with her power.

The approval wiki page has more information on the process and what the mods are looking for if you're interested.

Old approval threads: 1, 2

Warm air blasted my face as I pushed the door open, filling my nose with the musty smell of old books, and a set of wind chimes rang out to announce my arrival. The door closed with a creak and a thump behind me as I stepped into the building. I stood still and looked around, shivering involuntarily and taking a moment to savor the warmth after the biting cold outside. The little bookstore was empty, and quiet but for the hum of the radiator.

"Hello, Doctor Greyson," came a muffled voice from between the stacks. "I've got your—"

The voice cut off for a moment as a man shuffled his way out from between the stacks. He was facing me, judging by his shoes, but the stack of books in his arms was high enough to cover his face. He moved carefully towards the front counter, the stack of books in his hands wobbling as he went. For a moment, I just watched him. A book halfway up the stack slid precariously to one side, and he had to lean awkwardly in the other direction to keep it and the books above it from falling over.

"Uh—" I coughed to clear my throat "—I'm not Mr. Greyson," I said, my voice scratchier than I remembered it being.

The man set the books gently down on the front counter before turning to me. "Sorry about that. I've been expecting someone, and I don't usually get many normal customers on days like today. Anyway, is there anything in specific you're looking for?"

"Ye—" I coughed again "—yeah. I've got a... friend, I guess, who got in an accident a little while ago and wound up a little bit, uhh..." I trailed off, unwilling to force out the last word. It felt almost dirty, using the word on myself like that. Like I was disabled when I was using my power. It was the opposite; I was disabled when I wasn’t.

"A little bit...?"

I shook my head. "Point is, I'm looking for books and a dictionary for blind people."

"Ah; braille? Alright, then, just follow me. I don't have too many books in Braille, but I think there are some near the back," the man said as turned and gestured for me to follow him.

"Braille doesn't really have dictionaries, as such," he continued as we walked, "but I seem to recall some books for younger children having a sort of cheat sheet with the alphabet side by side in English and Braille. For the parents, if I remember right, to help them understand so they can teach their kids."

I nodded, then realized the man couldn't see it and made a sort of awkward affirmative grunt instead. The man took a casual step to one side, avoiding a precariously-stacked tower of books easily taller than I was. I wasn't so adept. I stepped sideways, but not enough, and my shoulder caught the corner of one of the books. I stumbled off balance and slammed against a bookshelf, and close to two feet of book tower thumped to the floor behind me.

I sank to the floor, bowing my head to hide between my knees. "Sorry," I mumbled. My face burned with shame. I hated this. Hated being unwieldy, unaware of where my own body was and what it was doing. Blind. Why had I even come here like this?

A soft crinkle from my pocket as I shifted a leg reminded me. Money. For all that my other senses were better, they weren't able to distinguish colors. Paper money all looked the same, and I didn't have enough change to buy what I wanted. Three dollars and seventeen cents wouldn't pay for a book, let alone the three or four I wanted to come out of here with.

"Are you okay?" I nodded once, not looking up. My muscles were sore all over, and I was scraped and bruised in any number of places, but I had been like that since I walked in the door. If anything, my little stumble had just aggravated some older issues.

A short time passed in silence, and then something thumped down onto the back of my head. I made a noise of surprise, my voice cracking. The man stood in front of me, a small stack of books in his hands. “I don’t have much, I’m afraid,” he said, “but there’s enough to give your friend some selection, at least.”

My eyes flickered from the books in his hand to the books on the floor around me. Some of them looked old—wasn’t he going to say something about how I’d just maybe-totally ruined them?

“Oh, don’t worry about those,” he said with a smile, apparently noticing my gaze. “They’d been sitting there in that stack for too long anyway. This just gives me a reason to shelve them properly.” He was very polite about it, but that didn’t actually make me feel any better.

I heaved myself to my feet, hissing slightly as sore muscles and bruises complained at the abrupt change in position. I held out my hands to take the small stack of books from the man, then pressed myself against the bookshelf to let him pass me and lead the way back to the front of the store. I changed my grip on the stack as I followed, flipping the books to examine each in turn. I didn’t really recognize any of the titles—if I had read any of them before, it was long-enough ago that I didn’t remember it. That was fine.

I checked the inside cover of the children’s book on the top of the stack, and sure enough it had the alphabet in both English and Braille, side by side. I nodded to myself; that was good. If there hadn’t been one, pretty much my whole trip here would’ve been wasted.

By the time I meandered my way out from the stacks, the front counter had been cleared of the stack of books left there when I entered and the man was waiting patiently behind it. “Will those do?” he asked.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak without messing it up somehow, and placed the books on the counter. The man went through each book on the stack, checking the back of each one and ringing them up with calm, almost hypnotic efficiency. Six in total. “That will be thirty-two dollars and eighteen cents,” he said when he was done.

I blinked, pulling myself back into the moment. “Right.”

I grabbed the bills from one pocket, rooting around in the other with my free hand to grab what felt like the right amount of change. I counted out the bills and coins in my head as I stacked them into a pile, sliding the pile over the counter when I was done.

The man held out a paper bag, apparently having stuffed the books inside while I wasn’t paying attention. “Your receipt is inside,” he said when I reached out to take it from him. “Thank you for stopping by, and stay warm.”

I nodded. “Uh, you too. Thanks.” I turned to leave.

There was a single man on the street when I got to the door, his hands keeping a dark overcoat wrapped tightly around him as he approached. I stepped outside and held the door open for him, and he gave me a short nod as he stepped inside. “Ah, Doctor Greyson,” I heard as I let the door swing shut. “I’ve got your…”

The alley where I had left my backpack earlier was sheltered from the wind. That was a blessing, if a small one. I walked to the nearest dumpster, setting my bag of books gently down on the ground, then braced myself against the side of the dumpster and shoved. The dumpster didn’t budge. I pulled back, finding better footing before slamming my shoulder into the dumpster’s side, gritting my teeth at the shooting pains the action sent through me.

That seemed to do the trick. The dumpster started rolling, and the initial motion made it easier to keep it going. It still wasn’t by any means easy, but luckily I only had to move it a few feet. There was a section of wall behind the dumpster where the outer bricks had crumbled, leaving a shallow depression backed by the wall’s inner layer of cinderblocks. Before I had gone to the bookstore earlier, I had emptied my backpack into the wall, using the cinderblocks like cubbies to hold it and its contents.

Now I pulled everything back out, piece by piece, taking the opportunity to organize things as I did. I didn’t have so many things that organization was necessity, really—everything would fit even if I just crammed it in—and it would be superfluous once my power was active, but for now at least it made me feel better. I made sure to set aside my pen and hole punch as I packed. I was going to need them.

When I was done, I turned and sat down with my back against the wall. I shivered, the cold of the asphalt seeping through my jeans. The paper bag rustled as I pulled it over to me and pulled it open, fishing out the children’s book and settling it on my lap. I grabbed my little hole punch, then punched a hole in the top outer corner of the book’s first page. A marker, to help me orient the book when I was viewing it through my power.

I set the hole puncher aside and pulled out my pen. On the inside of the cover, there were two copies of the alphabet, English letters to the left of their Braille equivalents. I uncapped my pen and wrote over the English versions, pressing down hard. I went over each letter multiple times, repeating them until I could feel the indents as easily as I could feel the Braille. The black ink was drowned by the black letters, but that wasn’t the point. At the top of the page, I wrote outer English, inner Braille. That, like the alphabet, I repeated over and over until I could feel it. Another marker—one I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need, honestly, but it didn’t really cost me anything to have it. Done with my work, I hauled myself back to my feet and stuffed my new books and my pen and hole punch into my backpack before closing it up. Finally, I was ready to go back.

I settled back, leaning my head backward to rest against the brick and closing my eyes. I forced my muscles to go slack, nodding mentally when I didn’t tip over. I had been caught by surprise before—it was weird how many muscles it could take even to hold yourself sitting in some positions. I wasn’t going to fall over here, though, so I left my eyes closed and reached out for the mental switch that governed my power.

Nothing seemed to happen for the first few seconds after I flipped the switch, but I knew that if my eyes were open I would see the world around me dimming and blurring as my vision shut down. I could never quite get over how disconcerting that was, so I tended to simply leave my eyes closed instead, taking the time to steady my breathing and count seconds in my head in preparation for what was coming next. By the time I hit five Mississippis I could notice the effect on my hearing as well, the ambient noise of the city dropping away until I could only hear my heartbeat, and then that vanishing too. Taste and smell vanished as a pair, their absence more noticeable than most people would have expected. Touch was the last to go, the soreness of my muscles, the ache of my various bruises and scrapes, the cold still seeping into me, and every other tactile sensation vanishing without so much as a single pin or needle.

I stopped counting Mississippis. They were useless now, with no frame of reference to tell me how fast I was actually counting them.

My power billowed out around me, a bubble of awareness that spread around and through objects in ways that didn’t make sense—until they did. Rippled through the walls behind and in front of me, through the buildings they were part of, and through the walls on their other side, and then continued. By the time it stopped, I could see everything around me for a little over a hundred meters in any direction.

Well, maybe see was the wrong word. It wasn’t sight, not really. To start with, there was no concept of color, no idea of “in front of” or “behind.” I could define things relative to my body and the direction it faced, but that was something I had to do myself; it didn’t come intuitively.

My musing was interrupted by the other reason this sense couldn’t be called sight. Strings faded into existence as my awareness finished expanding, stretching between every connected object and every pair of people, each one humming their nature. All together, they were a veritable symphony describing the world in motion around me. My awareness was filled with them, thick enough in some places that they should have obscured everything else, but they didn’t. I saw around and through them the same way I did everything else.

I took a moment to bask, soaking up the information in the strings like a lizard might soak up the heat of the sun.

When I had acclimated—when I had gathered the information presented to me and taken the measure of the place I had reawoken to—I turned my focus to my own body and my backpack. My body stood more gracefully than it would have if my power were off, the total knowledge I had of its position more than enough to compensate for the loss of my kinesthetic sense and ability to feel touch. I pulled up my backpack up onto my back and left the alley. I found the book in my backpack with a hole punched in one page, using that to determine which cover was the front and which was the back. I didn’t need my second marker after all—it was easy to line up the English and Braille.

I started to read, the fact that the books were both in my backpack and closed not hindering me in the slightest. I could view every page and the symbols on them, keeping a portion of my focus on the children’s book’s cover to translate the Braille on the pages into letters that I understood.

Yes, I decided as I continued down the street, it’s been too long since I’ve done any reading.

One thing I've learned with this little arc is that I don't think I'm that good at writing human drama. It's kinda why I did this, to help stretch my muscles and give me a writing workout. Here's hoping my form was good!

Story

Archive

And as always, thanks for reading!

So yesterday I came up with an idea I really like for a cape. A changer sort of like Lung in that he/she has an escalating power. The cape becomes more and more powerful the longer he/she stays awake. The reason I really like this power is the fact that to be effective, the cape has to stay completely sleep deprived, leading to bad decisions/conflicts. Perhaps the shard would start taking over more and more the more sleep deprived the cape is.

The problem is I'm not sure what I want to be the actual change that takes place when the cape stays awake for longer and longer. Particularly not sure whether I want the changes to be simply physical or whether it manifests in other ways as well.

Also suggestions for names would be good, Insomnia seems the obvious choice for a name, but I'd like something more interesting.

Hey people, other than that amazing hospital event going on, there will be a different event happening March 5th at 3:00 eastern (subject to resheduleing) on the irc channel.

The premise is as follows: a villain calling himself the Huntsman has put a force field (that allows beings in but not out) up around the town of Hatsfield USA. He has put up a broadcast inviting all manners of villains and killers to cause as big a ruckus as possible blowing up hospitals, killing innocents and taking down the most dangerous targets. The one who impresses him the most whether by quantity or quality will be crowned Huntmaster and given a choice of various prizes.

Your mission (obligatory should you choose to accept it) is to either prevent the crazies from painting the walls with intricate murials of human remains, to be crowned the Huntmaster or to simply survive.

Interested? Submit your cape and sign up as a participant! If you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.

It’s 2:00 AM, and alarms have started going off down at the San Francisco hospital. You may take on one of several roles outlined below and investigate the source of the disruption. This is a small scale event, designed for several low to mid tier heroes and any reasonable number of unpowereds. Due to the low-stakes nature of the event, we will make all reasonable effort to line this up with everyone’s schedules but may be forced to start the event without some participants. Honestly, our top priority is to actually get this thing started and finished, and only after that will we work on making it fun. But don’t worry, fun it will be! Good luck. More detailed information on possible roles to play is below, but you can always fill a role we haven’t listed.

Please do not abuse metaknowledge (though you may have heard of participating capes already) or act out of character, and this should be a blast.

##Roles for Participants

Security guard

Starts within the hospital and is likely the first to engage villains

Some experience/training and preparedness

Knowledge about surroundings

Goal is likely to ensure security of others and take down threats

Skills may include Brawl, Finesse, Investigate, Street Smarts, Threaten, or Willpower.

Bystander

A normie, even by normie standards

Starts within the hospital

Likely goals are getting out unharmed, doing something dum- heroic or making sure relatives are safe etc.

Unprepared and unequipped, improvise

DPA Agent

Arrives outside the hospital with limited knowledge about situation

Training and experience

Good equipment

Prepared to deal with situations like this

Operates cooperatively with allies

Goal is to arrest villains, ensure security of civilians

Skills may include Accuracy, Alertness, Barrage, Brawl, Command, Computers, Finesse, Grapple, Martial Arts, or Medicine.

Hero Arrives outside hospital with limited knowledge about situation

varying levels of training and experience

Preparedness may depend on prior experience.

Goals may be to subdue villains, ensure security of civilians, increase popularity with the public.

Here is the story, and here are the archives.

Thanks to those who are still sticking along for the ride, I hope to make it a good one! Please leave any feedback, comments, or general discussion you want to mention in the comments below.

And as always, thanks for reading!

Whelp, I'm going incredibly slow, and will likely miss the next weekend or two due to home stuff and work, but I think I've reached a point in the story where I feel more comfortable writing. Hopefully that will mean faster updates in general, and in the meantime I ask your patience.

That said, here's the latest entry in the Vivo series! I'd considered changing the name of the series again, but I figure I kinda like the current name, and don't want to keep switching names out unless I think it's very important to the story. For those who need it, here's the wiki page that has all the story entries so far!

Feedback is greatly appreciated, and as always, thank you for reading!

In Earth Resh, is there an Artificial Intelligence? beside dragon if she exist

Who is the S-class threat?

Tale

Mostly an introduction piece for Slingshot, a new villain roaming San Fancisco, and member of PGC. While this takes place a few weeks before he joins the team, it is more foccused on giving a feel for his character.