Trine story notes

TRINE

Table of contents:
-Summary
-Characters
-PART 1
-Issue 1
-Issue 2
-Issue 3
-Issue 4
-Issue 5
-Issue 6
-Issue 7
-Issue 8
-Issue 9
-PART 2
-PART 3

Summary:

Two best friends decide their city, New Lamenton, ranked one of the most 'boring and mundane' places to live on Earth, is in dire need of some entertainment. Remembering their dreams of being superheroes from their youths, they put on shows no one is going to forget any time soon.
Their fame and success soon attracts people other than tourists and they find their city might not have been as boring as they once thought.

These three individuals eventually clash, fates entwined, as they all learn in their own terms to what it truly means to be a "superhero".

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Characters:

-Hugh "Wells" Greene (Archenemy) - The brains of the duo, he builds and maintains all their super tech. It was his idea to put on the shows after an incident leaves him with only about a year left to live. He plays the role of the bad guy, the nefarious Archenemy who boasts about taking over the city with swarms of Archbots. He enjoys being lager than life, but is mostly a recluse in his down time.
He's a genius, JD was the only friend he has before he moved away when they were just kids.
His face is half-embedded with shards due to him experimenting on a mysterious meteorite (can be a tie in for some other /coc/ stuff but for now it's just unexplained) which he later utilizes as JD's weapon.


-Jonathan Dominic Easton "JD" (The Ghost) - He runs track and is friendly with everyone. When his oldest friend came back into his life with a super plan, he jumped at the opportunity. He plays the part of the hero using a gadget that grants him speed and adjustable intangibility. He lacks the flare needed for being a larger than life hero, so he has to really think about and practice his lines in advance.
The mysterious crystal leaves a greenish trail behind him when in use lending him the moniker, Ghost.
Has a younger sister and a baby brother.


-Andy Splinter (Theta) - A vigilante on a mission. She came to New Lamenton hunting an underground criminal organization and believes Archenemy is working with them. She begins regularly crashing the street performances forcing JD and Wells to improvise as well as work double time to keep anyone from actually getting hurt.
Armed with an array of self-made gadgets and her trusty sidearm, Andy seeks to enact vendetta on the covered-up murder of her father as well as cleaning the world's scum in the process.

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PART 1

Issue 1:

Open with showing the city and the bored expressions on the faces of the masses as they go through the daily routine. (Make sure there's at least one guy in the crowds with more detail, maybe wearing a coat and sunglasses, checking his watch).
No narration, no context, and then BAM, enter Archenemy.

He descends from the sky over a park on a floating platform connected to various large speaker boxes to make sure his voice is heard by all. His Archbots surrounding the park.

People stop to look up at the gravity defying device as the masked man riding it flutters his cape about and begins speaking loudly.
"People of New Lamenton, your quiet existence ends now! For too long I have witnessed your idyllic lifestyle, your sense of tranquility left unbroken whiling away your time without a care in the world! I will take your boring meaningless lives and give them purpose under my new order! Participation... is mandatory!"

JD/Ghost jumps into the fray
>For the past week, New Lamenton – that's my hometown – has been under attack by mysterious robots
Shows a montage of the robots flying through the sky or newspaper clippings.
>led by a self-styled supervillain calling himself Archenemy
Shows Wells in his super suit hamming it up, committing "crimes" that aren't really crimes, but look criminal.
>But today is the day I put on my mask and make my debut as a 'hero'.
Shows JD putting on his super suit.

>"I am the Ghost"
Shows him jumping into the fray, batting away a robot
>"A hero, here to stop you!"
The fight happens, over top of it more words
>But the truth is, this 'villain'...
Shows them fighting some more
>Is my best friend

During these flashbacks we could go full hog on narration like golden age comics.
Narration box: "[X] years ago, [X] years old the Ghost (JD) and Archenemy (Wells). Two best friends who enjoy heroes, "

A scene of them watching the news on TV (either Atomic Esquire or Nuclear Knight is on the TV having just defeated some robot monster), then back to present as a news crew gets a good shot of Ghost smashing an Archbot.
A past shot of them playing heroes in a backyard and striking poses, a present shot of Ghost striking a pose and Archenemy posturing.

Narration box: "Until one day tragedy struck" show a car crash or whichever method of death you feel appropriate "Wells' parents were involved in a horrific accent leaving him orphaned".

Show Wells sad and moving away to live with other relatives.

Narration box: "Years roll by, Wells' intellect blooms only for tragedy to strike a second time!" and the sphere he was working on blows up embedding the shards in his face.

Then it switches back to JD's mental narration "Can you believe that? Next thing I know my old friend shows up again dying from cosmic poisoning!"
Show Wells getting back in touch with JD with JD having a shocked/concerned expression as Wells looks upbeat about his grave circumstances and facial injuries.
"And asked me to be a part of his grand plan!"
Wells hands JD a sketch pad with a diagram of the time dilation bracelet on it.
Wells decides to spend his remaining time alive pretending to be a super villain and builds a super suit for JD so they can have mock battles and bring in tourism for the city they grew up in. Need a way to show boring city becoming a lively city through crude diagrams Wells made.

Cuts back to present and JD activates the time dilation bracelet and we see him moving in "super speed" mode (after images and blurred surroundings) as he finishes off the last of the Archbots and Archenemy flies away on his hover platform saying "Know this, 'Ghost', you will come to regret your actions here today, for I am the Archenemy! I am the menace which plagues mankind, I am your missing keys, your unlocked windows, the stove which you forgot to turn off! No one can defeat me for good and I shall return!"
You know, full HAM.

Cut to later, the TV is reporting on the new superhero who repelled the attacking robots.
Both of them out of costume cracking open sodas
>Wells: "Cheers to us, bringing excitement to the people of our city."
and toasting to JD's debut and how it was a success.
>"But seriously JD, you gotta work on your witty banter."

Cut to a different location where we see the silhouette of a woman cleaning a gun illuminated by the same news report.

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-Events that take place over the next 4 to 6 months can be considered their golden era full of grandiose performances and showboating.
-Lighthearted stuff and stories can happen here

Issue 2:

Wells has robots, he calls them Arch Bots.
The robots all have a base core form that can easily have things attached to them, without need for modifications to the core form. In the base form they probably look very skinny with spider like limbs or something.


We open up with Wells welding things in his hidden base, there's stuff everywhere, in piles on the floor, hanging from the ceiling, mounted on the walls, everywhere.

We see JD navigating his way down through the cave system, he's carrying bags. He walks into the room Wells is working in and announces himself by actually saying "Knock knock, got your supplies" he's carrying groceries.

Wells stops what he's doing and takes the welding mask off "Oh, cool, I'll be done in just a sec, I've got a mini-fridge over there." he points to the other side of the room.

JD puts the stuff down "You know, this place is like a maze, I can't believe you found somewhere like this around here."

Wells is still working on some big armor robot thing "It's amazing what you can find if you know what you're looking for."

JD opens up the fridge and grabs a bottle of soda/cola/pop/whatever Canadians call it, "Yeah, no fooling."

JD takes a swig "Where did you even get most of this stuff?"

Wells pauses " ... You'd be amazed what some people throw out, most of this stuff is recycled material."

JD is just silently taking another sip.

Wells "Could you hand me that tool belt over by you? It should be underneath some of the stuff on that table."

JD puts the bottle down and begins lifting things, he grabs the tool belt and turns back to Wells asking "Is this it?" as he does so, the belt taps the bottle of soda knocking it to the floor, splashing the beverage onto a small charging station for one of the Archbot cores

JD: "Oops."

Wells is still working, he hasn't turned around "Huh? What did you do?"

The archbot core powers up, it detaches from its charging station and takes off, smashing through a pile of stuff before bouncing off in another direction

Wells has turned around now with his welding mask up "What did you do?!"

JD frantically points at the charging station with the soda bottle spilled next to it

Wells puts up his hands with his fingers curled in shock and panic as the malfunctioning core whizzes past his head "Catch it!"

JD and Wells both make mad dives for it, they collide in the middle of the room as the archbot flies upwards and bounces off of the ceiling

JD grabs his wrist where the device it and activates it, in a flash time seems to stop, the archbot core is on a collision course for another pile of junk, there's a transparent after image of it ahead and behind it, the after image ahead of it is colliding with the pile, causing the pile to have a displaced transparent after image of it falling.

JD walks over to the core and plucks it out of mid air, the after image ahead of it disappears.

Back at normal "speed" JD and Wells are looking at the deactivated archbot core

JD: "Wells, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
Wells: "It's fine, I can fix it."

Time cut to a few days later with JD coming in with more groceries. "Hey Wells, groceries."
Wells is busy working "Thanks, I'll be done in a minute."

As JD puts the bags down, the archbot core flies over to him and stares him in the eyes before darting off
JD: "Oh cool, you fixed it."
Wells: "Yeah, after I got it dried off and removed the sugar, the parts were still good to go, so that was lucky."

The archbot core floats back holding a bottle of soda in one of its metal tube arms, holding it up to JD
JD looks surprised before smiling and takes the bottle as the archbot core flies past him and grabs some tools to bring over to Wells
JD: "Wow, you've really stepped up your game."

Wells stops with a "Huh?" as the archbot core is holding a tool, presenting it to Wells. Taking it with a "Huh?" Wells looks at it puzzled, it's the one he needed "Its been acting kind of buggy."

Wells and JD are both looking at the archbot core floating in front of them
Wells: "He's been acting kind of strange since, but this is new. I didn't program him to do this."
JD: "Huh. So what's your deal, little buddy?"
The archbot core looks at him, then to Wells "Primary directive: be useful to Wells."
Wells looks a little dumbfounded while JD laughs "I guess he's decided he likes you."
Wells: "He?"
JD: "Yeah, you've got yourself a thinking machine! I'm gonna call you... Sid!"
The archbot core looks at him blankly "Designation... Sid."


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Issue 3:

We show how the city reacts to their first superhero ever, knowing that other cities have their own as well.
Some will love it, some will be pissed off by it, some will be indifferent to it.
Once the excitement starts bringing in tourists and revenue to the city, I think even the locals who didn't like them will warm up to the whole thing or at least not vocally dismiss them.

It opens with JD at school, he's overhearing some other students talking about the new resident superhero/villain.
Walking home he hears some businessmen discussing how they can profit and some old people complaining about all the noise.
Overall the city is in a pretty good mood.
The next "battle" is planned for later.

Cut to a shot of city hall, then to the interior with a circle of shady people (think Council of 13) sitting at high desks with some guy in the middle and they're telling him "We leave this matter to you."

Cut from there to a shot of the citizens watching the super fight, their dull faces lighting up with excitement, children crowd around windows to watch the super guys fight, news vans scramble to cover the event. Some are even placing bets on the outcome and some businesses might have special offers going during the fight.

As the mock battle ends and Archenemy has already fled the scene, the guy from city hall appears and throws himself down in front of Ghost to get his attention before he can disappear, he's a salesman appointed by the city council to get permission to begin the marketing campaign.

The salesman looks skeevy as fuck, but he flashes a badge to show he's from the city council to verify his legitimacy instead of just being a random guy. He uses the morality angle on JD since he's a boy scout and all that (and also lauding the fact that the greatest supers get brand deals like this)
The sales guy gives him a card so the Ghost can call him to set up a meeting.

JD shows the card to Wells and they talk it over. Wells is skeptical but approves of it anyway since it furthers his agenda via more publicity.
They make the call on a burner phone that can't be traced and set up a meeting for the next day at the park.

At the park, in like a gazebo or something, the Ghost meets with the salesman.
The salesman isn't stupid, he knows the mock fights are just that, mock fights, but his lips are sealed, he's not telling anyone. He also tells the Ghost that City Hall also caught on and want to cut a deal with the Ghost and Archenemy and wonders where the large ham is.
The Ghost feeds him a line about how Archenemy wants to stay in character even when he's not in the spotlight, so he can't meet with him in person. The salesman comments "Alright, I get it, the Archenemy is a consummate professional, I can respect his commitment to not break the immersion."
The Ghost then reveals Sid, whom Wells speaks through for the meeting.

The salesman begins his pitch to the two. The contract they work out means they get legal street performance permits and the city gets royalties from the merchandise. The royalties from the sales that would go to JD and Wells are placed in a city fund to cover any damages that might happen during their performances.

There's a scene of JD and Wells toasting to another day gone off without a hitch as the news plays in the background reporting on the fight they had.

Then it cuts to a bloody mess in a warehouse that Theta is walking away from while the same news report is playing on the TV the people she just killed were watching.

It's an establishing shot to show how deeply she contrasts with the two main characters and how she's going to bring a storm with her as she heads to their city.

You could even go so far as to not show her face, but do show her shape so we know the bad news character is female, then when it comes time for the main characters to meet her, throw in a bunch of new female characters to keep the readers guessing which one she is.
Is she the new transfer student? The new girl who moved in a block away who Ghost saves from getting hit by a drunk driver? The new waitress at the place JD and Wells frequent?
Something like that.


Someone could try using Ghost's likeness to sell minty gum, or offer a sale on mint items on days where Ghost and Archenemy clash.

Theta shouldn't be "saw" edgy. More like "clean" killing where she makes the kill as quick as possible when killing is the chosen solution.

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Issue 4:

Theta arrives in the city with the intent to kill/capture Archenemy since she sees him as a link to the people she's after.
Theta's single-minded nature should be something we focus on. Once she has her mind made up, there's no changing it.
Something that should bite her in the ass and cause mental strain when the reality does not actually match up with her mental image.

At first to her, Archenemy is a ruthless evil mad man who must be put down, even if he's just doing seemingly harmless stuff.

Ghost saves a girl from getting hit by a drunk driver, it's the first time he's done something unscripted in their mock performances.
JD is kind of shook up about the real danger that just happened, there's also a new girl working at his favorite place to get food.

During the next mock fight, when Theta first interrupts one of their fights, they assume she's a fan because her colors are similar to Archenemy's.


Wells lies to the city council saying she's a new part of the act to shake things up to keep the shows from getting stale. Wells is supposed to be selfish, as far as he's concerned as long as JD isn't getting screwed over, he'll do whatever to keep the show going since he only has like a year to live.

Depending on how many criminals meet her and live, the rumor of her being a real psychopath gets going.

Some underworld people are on the city council. They can't call Archenemy out on his lies because that would expose their connections as well, so they hope the issue will resolve itself.

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Issue 5

Halloween/carnival/festival/some big celebration.

Hero and villain masks of Archenemy and the Ghost are being sold. JD's younger sister like Archenemy better than the Ghost.

JD and Wells are concerned about Theta, after she disrupted one of their performances and put civilians in danger with her overly brutal tactics, Wells feels he needs to up his game to defend himself if she shows up again.

something bad is going on behind the scenes and they're using JD and Wells (unbeknownst to them) as a distraction for this crime. Theta gets wrapped up with their shows again while fighting the bigger bad guys.

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Issue 6

Theta solo issue

Begins with her going over the motions of normalcy, rehearsing what is publicly acceptable behavior, all the while remembering her dad, the things she's done, what she's willing to do, and other grim serious stuff. She might even recall a particularly difficult "job" where someone got away.
She keeps saying to herself that she needs to master smiling, people smile around other people.

This is, of course, all leading up to her putting on a Christmas elf costume and being a holiday greeter/clerk in a mall. Possibly looking at action figures of Archenemy.

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Issue 7

Let's say JD and Wells are having a day off to just hang out and bro it up. They go have lunch somewhere and get talking, telling jokes, the usual stuff you do with friends.

So JD tells a particularly funny joke and it gets Wells laughing, the only problem is his laugh is the same as his evil persona's laugh and that's turning heads.
JD plays it off saying that Wells does a really good impression of Archenemy and that defuses the situation.

But Theta, the overly brutal vigilante girl, was also in the restaurant and heard this, kicking off the downward spiral that leads to the end.

The days after that JD and Wells notice their performances are no longer being crashed by Theta. They're happy about this, but Theta is actually watching from a far, studying them, then tailing them after the fact to confirm if it's true that they're really in league with each other.
Once she's confirmed it, that's when she starts going deeper off into the deep end than she already was.

She starts having flashbacks to whatever training she had as she tries to force the realization out of her mind that it was all a game of pretend she got fooled by.

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Issue 8

Wells knows his condition is getting worse, so after one of their no longer interrupted performances he should try to end it there by saying that's the last one or say something that might push JD away to make sure he won't be near when the shards go critical. This is something I'm still not sure how to handle, but there's the luxury of time since it's still far enough down the line to think more on as we get to it.

JD and Wells will have a falling out. Wells will do it because he knows he's going to explode and wants to keep JD from getting caught in the blast. He has Sid (arch bot) for company and explains to him his reasons for doing this.
Wells goes someplace far out of the way so he doesn't kill anyone when the shards in his face finally go critical and detonate.

Theta makes her move on Wells after she witnesses their "falling out" since she figures that'd be the best time to eliminate Wells.
Wells gets serious in fighting her since she lets on that she'll go after JD next.

Theta finds Wells at this point and the two fight, the fight takes them into the city, panic erupts, people evacuate.

One of Wells' robots is the only one who he told the plan to and finds JD to tell him what Wells was planning (pushing JD away to save him and what the current situation is)

The robot I think would have the primary order of "be helpful to Wells" which lets it bypass any orders like "don't tell JD" or "stay put" since the most helpful thing it can possibly do in that situation is find JD.
This is the culmination of its experiences since it can now think of ways around orders.

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Issue 9

Sid finds JD and explains the situation.
JD puts on his super suit and pushes it beyond its limits to get back to the city since he feels he needs to at least try to save Wells.

Theta finds out Wells is nothing like her head-canon puts her on the spot, but by then she's too far committed to attacking him to back down. Her finally being made aware, painfully aware, that SHE is responsible for turning Archenemy into the ruthless vision she had made of him in her head should be the breaking point near the climax of the first "part".
Maybe she decides, after she's beaten him and learned the truth, to stay with him as his tech and SCIENCE shards embedded in his face are about to go nuclear since she now sees herself as a source of evil in the world.

-JD arrives and punches Wells so hard in the face that the shards embedded in his face transfer energy to JD and sends him back in time 2 years.
-As Wells is flung backwards by the force of the punch, future JD (taller, buffer) catches him and that's the end of part one.

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PART 2
-Part two eventually focuses on what future JD was doing in the background during part one.

-At least one year before the story starts (so 2 years in the past) - JD from the future is flung into the past and starts preparing for the exact moment he catches up to the present
Sid goes back in time with JD and is like his sidekick in preventing a time paradox (think Skeets in Booster Gold). He's the one who connects to the internet or whatever and tells JD that they're in the past and what the date is. JD realizes he has time now.

-Make contact with a super group, explain the situation, making plans, and making sure no one dies during the time Theta fucked up their routine.
-Atomic Esquire and his clone Nuclear Knight are the foremost experts on time travel in the super community and get assigned to help JD

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JD is being mentored by Atomic Esquire and Nuclear Knight, the two heroes with THE MOST experience with time travel in the game/setting. They affiliated with The Justice /co/mrades, an international group. They take JD to Summer Home, the underground training city for the J/co/, it's the perfect place to train him for like a year so he can't cause any paradoxes or time ripples. Then the second year starts, which is the year when the street performances begin and JD is on the scene for round two.

And you know what's going to happen in round two? Everything that should happen, because all the super crazies with their dinosaur serums and nanobot swarms are going to get got before they leave the warehouses because JD doesn't remember any of that shit happening, and if he doesn't remember it happening, then that means it better not happen or else time will collapse under a paradox. Just because he doesn't remember it happening doesn't mean he has a guaranteed victory, it means he HAS to win or time destabilizes and he's fucked right out of existence into Oblivion (where things go that don't exist anymore).
That's how I'm making sure the stakes are high and not non-existent while he's on the repeat year.

And of course he'll be seeing what Theta gets up to since she was also fighting these people with the smuggled super tech when not harassing their street shows.



At some point future JD follows Wells and witnesses an underworld transaction for robot parts or whatever the materials are solving the mystery from part 1 about where Wells was getting his materials.
JD has an "Oh, Wells, what did you do?" moment and realizes there actually was some truth to what Theta was saying about NL having an underworld.
Sid has a bit of an existential questioning now that he knows some of his components came from the black market.

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-Sid is still able to receive Wells' orders once he and past JD start up their performances which gives future JD the heads up he needs. Or he still has a log of when and where all the events took place at.
-Future JD works in the background to make sure no one dies as he already knows where and when everything will happen and what to focus on. He cannot interfere with these events and it hurts him a lot inside.

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JD learns the city is actually a major smuggling route.

The crime bosses who control the trade don't live in the city, but they have lieutenants who manage their investments. Theta could be taking them out while trying to track the goods to their source.
It could be weapons, super weapons, dangerous drugs, unstable super tech, things like that. Gives JD something to do while waiting for time to pass, like a lieutenant who's base got attacked by Theta tries to arm himself with super tech and go on a rampage and future JD puts a stop to that before it happens since he doesn't remember it happening.

Though the main problem with this sort of thing is it doesn't have very high stakes.

JD wins because it didn't happen the first go around? That's a little boring, don't you think?
This is why I want Atomic Esquire and Nuclear Knight giving him advice. They know better than anyone that time is a big mess of stupid bullshit that makes less sense the more it makes more sense.

Just because it didn't happen the first time doesn't mean it can't happen if you end up repeating it. If he fails to stop such an event, he fails to preserve the space time continuum, the continuity if you will, and that will royally fuck up everything.

Like reality erasing large portions of itself kind of fuck up.

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At one point he has to impersonate himself to throw off suspicion when someone starts looking into the secret identities of the new supers in town.

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PART 3

Picks up after part 1 ended with Wells being treated by Dr. Castle from the Justice /co/mrades.
Doctor SCIENCE is an enemy they've studied extensively which has has given them knowledge about the dos and don'ts of time travel and they've identified the shards as coming from him.

JD needs to confront Wells about his underworld transactions.

The underworld puts a hit out on the three of them for trashing the town, JD is already well prepared for this.
Wells was less so, and is saved by Theta.
Theta gets back to why she came to NL in the first place and now sees JD and Wells as more of an asset than a threat to be eliminated, she is uncomfortably friendly with them now. It creeps them out a little.

Begin fighting underworld mob syndicates.