#I'd be so supervillain about it

[rusteddreamsstories]

But Have You Thought About...  Here was Matthew trying to harsh my buzz.  I knew that I was going to have a best-seller on my hands.   “We. Will. Finally. Have. Money.”  I iterated to him. “Me, your uncle, you... we’ll have so much fuck-off-money that we will not have to worry about our health care or bill collectors or unexpected expenses ever again!  We can get the food you want all the time!  I’ll be famous!  Not that I care about the fame, I just... want us to not have to WORRY about things anymore!  And with a bestseller... Oh, Matt, it’s going to be the ULTIMATE best-seller!”   I danced around, throwing out my arms. “It’s for us, too!  Have you ever read a book with a disappointing ending?  Or one where a character you loved died and it made no friggin’ sense?”   “Don’t you torture and kill your characters all the time?” Matt contended, “You brag about it!”   “Enough about me and my dark writer’s tastes and my love of drinking up salty reader-tears!” I shouted.  I’d pinned a towel to the shoulders of my tee-shirt like a superhero cape - or a villain-cape.  I felt like I needed a cape for this moment for some reason, and since capes were not exactly fashionable, a towel would have to do.  “Anyway... I kill off characters when it makes sense!   But, you know what? I’ll concede this.  Some readers may not think it makes sense.  They won’t have to say goodbye to their favorite characters anymore!  It’s perfect for everyone!”   “Do you know how much porn you just created?”   “I live on the Internet, of course I do.  This shores up one of my weaknesses!  You know my asexual, sex-repulsed ass cannot write good porn!  And I know from being in fanfiction circles that it’s what soooo many people want!  This book will read their thoughts and if they want it, they get it!  And I do not have to worry about my lack of skill!”   “Uh... you do remember that toy-commercial we just saw on Nostalgia Critic about the dancing unicorn-toddlers singing about poop, right?  You’re just going to unleash more of THAT into the world!”   I sighed.  “As long as it keeps people in their weird little corners. If a reader wants that, it will happen in their heads.  The book is not universal.”   “YOU JUST CREATED AN SCP!!!!”   “Um... It’s not designed to literally suck anyone into the story and give them a life that they never want to come back from.  The Story that Writes Itself will remain words on the page.”   “IT’S STILL AN SCP!”   “The SCP Foundation is not real.”   Matt sat down heavily in the gamer-chair in the living-room.  “What happens when someone wants to make a movie out of your book, Shads?  No one will agree on what movie to make!”   “I told you about tumblr and ‘Goncharav,” right?  It’ll be like that! It’ll be fun!”   “People will fight about it!  You’ve been in fandom!  You’ve been cyberbullied in fandom!  You know what fandom is like!  It’s crazy!”   I briefly contemplated the concept of “Misery.”  I’d never seen the film in whole, nor had I read the book, but I knew of the concept.  I mean, my book would be absolutely made to prevent such happenings by crazy fans because what happens to the characters are exactly what they want to happen, and perhaps, for a few readers, the story would be neverending.  You know, not like that movie I loved from my childhood that actually frickin’ ended and had the most horrific, low-budget sequels imaginable.  False advertising and the eventual ending of the franchise was a mercy.  Crazy-evil ladies with sledgehammers would be safely ensconced in reading my book, with no need to come after me or to engage in the crazy fandom behavior that characterizes most fandoms when they disagree on interpretations of characters and plots.   But Matt was right... A book that was different for every reader WOULD cause untold arguments and fandom-fights.   “What if people are so interested in reading it that they stop working?”   “Work sucks,” I said.  “You know I’m a socialist at heart.  Maybe my book will worm its way into the hearts of people who secretly feel the same way as i do and inspire them to overthrow the ruling class and create a more equitable society.”   “You’re crazy, Shads... well, crazier than usual.  Also, what if it doesn’t go that way?  If people read what they want? What if the book is about Donald Trump being a superhero for some of them?”  Oh shit.  Oh shit, oh, shit, oh shit!   I had been following a Let’s Read on Youtube in which the reader was subjecting himself to a book someone had written arguing that Donald Trump was the true Messiah.   Oh, no, no, no....  My book... indeed would belong in the halls of the SCP, if it existed.  I would inspire its fandom to tear each other apart!  It would keep people reading, reading, reading to the point where they’d forget to feed themselves!  They’d be trapped in their own ideas instead of being exposed to the fresh ideas of fresh authors!  It might deify horrible, horrible people because, let’s face it, many people in the world are horrible...  I couldn’t publish this book.  At least...not until I’d worked out the kinks!  

"Well, it just doesn't seem…ethical." Your friend slowly says to you. "Ethical?" You yell back at him. "Who cares about morals when I have created a masterpiece! A book that learns what the reader likes and changes its script accordingly. Imagine that, the perfect book!"

[eggplant-crusader]

I think DC should hire me and pay me my current salary to write a whole ass 100K-word stephcass bildungsroman and my deadline should be like, December 2035. I think they would not regret it. It would be a very smart business decision on their part. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

[terrestrialnoob]

Harley crawled into the apartment. It was organized, but it looked like the occupant didn't have a lot of time for cleaning. She walked softly through it, taking it in. There were photos of her target and what had to be her family, but no friends or romantic partners. Some had a pair of older adults, matching traits meant bio-parents. More of the photos were of the target and a younger boy - a little brother, the highest likelihood of becoming another target if things go bad.

Harley continued forward, following the light to where her target was. She stood in the doorway, looking in.

Dr. Jasmine Fenton, Arkham Asylum's newest psychologist, just got her degree and everything. She did what most newbies do, actually thinking she could get through to the Joker. Harley didn't want to say it was impossible, but everyone who tried ended up in a new job or dead. Harley would try and make sure it was the former and not the later.

Harley watched as the redhead read over a file as she ate from a takeout box. She didn't want to scare the girl, yet. The scaring her away from Joker came later. So, she had to wait for the perfect moment to-

"I know you're there." Jasmine didn't look up from her file, but held out the last box of Chinese food in Harley's direction. "There's plenty if you want some."

"Awe, you ruined the surprise." Harley walked out of the shadows of the hallway into the girl's home office. She snatched the offered box of food and took a few bites as she jumped to sit on the desk.

"I'm hard to sneak up on." Jasmine said, closing her file and finally looking at Harley. "So, Dr. Quinzel, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit this evening?"

"Oh, call me Harley!" She laughed, she wasn't called Dr. all that often any more. She tapped her chop sticks on the file Jasmine just closed. "I thought you'd like a consult on your new patient, Dr. Fenton. I've got a lot of experience with him."

"I prefer to go by Jazz." She said with a smile, "While I appreciate the offer, I'd like to see how far I can get on my own. And, sorry, but I'm pretty sure your license was revoked."

Harley nodded as she swallowed to get the noodles out of her mouth. "I get it! You're new, fresh outta school, gotta prove yourself. But Joker ain't the guy to do that with. He eats people like us for breakfast, and in all the years he's been in Arkham, no one's been able to get anywhere with him."

Jazz sighed, "I don't like to believe people are lost causes. There's always something we can do to help."

"You can't help everyone, especially when they don't want it. And it's not just a question if whether or not he can be saved or whatever." Harley set down the now empty box, Jazz pointed to another one that still had food in it, but Harley declined. "If you keep it up, he'll think you're worth his time to torment. There's no telling what he'll do when he inevitably gets himself out again."

"I'll be fine." Jazz said, but Harley had to cut her off before she said something stupid.

"It's not just you! You've got family out there he can target, your parents. Your Brother! Anyone you date will become a target! He'll do everything in his power to make your life miserable!"

Jazz chuckled. "If he wants to target my family, his funeral. My parents are - were supervillains. They've really only become less- well, hyper-focused on eradicating an entire race of being- in the past few years. And my brother - I'm pretty sure he's conditionally immortal. So that's nothing to worry about."

"If it's conditional, Joker will find a way around it." Harley said, but she had to admit, this might have been an unnecessary trip. "You sure y'ain't got nothing to worry about? What about you? How conditional is your mortality?"

Jazz smiled. Her mouth seemed too wide and with too many teeth. "Oh, I am nowhere near immortal. But..."

She stood up and the room was suddenly a black void. Toxic green eyes and mouths filled with glowing white teeth opened around them. "I doubt anyone could get close enough to test it."

The room was suddenly back to normal, but whatever that thing was was still there. Harley could see its eyes watching her with amusement from inside Jazz's oversized cardigan.

"Well, I guess this really was a wasted trip. You've clearly got it covered."

"Not entirely." Jazz said, her hand wend up to her neck to rub nervously, "Well, you see... I don't really have a lot of friends. People tend to get - uh, creeped out, you know? Or chased off by my parents or brother or whatever..."

"You wanna be friends?" Harley laughed so hard she almost fell over.

Jazz's face turned bright red and the shadow eyes looked way less amused. "Yeah, stupid question. You've clearly got your own things going on."

"No! No, no." Harley had to take several deep breaths before she could look Jazz in the face again. "I 100% wanna hang out with you!"

"Really?"

"Oh yeah." She took another deep breath, "I mean, I really should have made a support system before trying to take on the Joker back when I worked for Arkham. This" she pointed between them "can only end well."

Jazz's face turned brighter than the sun. "Oh my gosh! This is amazing! We should - I have Thursday's and weekends off - What - what kind of things should we-"

Oh man, Jazz was like an excited kid. She must have had a really lonely childhood... they can psychoanalyze each other later. "Come over for girl's night next week. I'll tell my gf and bff to expect an extra person... Does the-" she motioned to the cardigan creature "-go everywhere you go? Does it need food?"

"Oh, don't worry about Jet, they only eat who I tell them to."

Harley barked out more laughter. "You're going to fit right in!"

Now featuring a Part 2

[fanaticalthings]

Give me crime lord!Jason who's actually on good terms with the batfam. Not only would it actually be helpful when it comes to missions surrounding underground/illegal operations (Jason would be able to retrieve way more insider knowledge) but also I think having a supervillain family member that you're chill with is just untapped comedic potential that needs to be taken advantage of.

---

Damian gets into a petty fight with Bruce, and the next day, instead of waiting for Bruce to pick him up from school, he calls Jason, who shows up in full Red Hood regalia and just rides off with Damian.

Of course everyone at school sees that Wayne's son just got snatched by Gotham's most notorious crime lord, so ofc when Bruce gets there, sees Damian missing, and hears a series of panicked whispers about a gun slinging, criminal biker riding off with a prince of Gotham, Bruce immediately knows what's up and just sighs, already anticipating the many publication companies he's gonna have to bribe to stay silent.

---

Sometimes, they need Jason's help with intercepting certain illegal trades within the underworld of, not just Gotham, but just common areas where shady businesses are most prevalent. And when Bruce requests that Jason brings evidence of said illegal shipments to the cave, Jason will smugly respond with "I can, but it'll cost ya"

And Bruce is all exasperated like, "Jason, please, this mission's been going on for a month, I just want to get it over with."

And Jason's just looking down at the crate of smuggled materials, recognizes that it's highly sought after by many rogues (maybe it's machinery parts or rare chemical substances, etc) and ofc Jason's about to be petty as hell when responding to Bruce:

Jason: I don't think you have any idea how valuable the stuff I have is. If I sold this myself in my part of the underground, I'd make a fortune!

Bruce: Jason

Jason: Butttt, if you're not willing to pay me for this, y'know, despite being a billionaire, I guess I could just auction this off to another willing client

Bruce: Jason

Jason: I hear Lex Luthor's been cookin' up something new for Superman. I wonder if he'd be interested?

Bruce: Son, please.

Jason:

Bruce:

Jason: I'll give you a family discount.

And it's just a back and forth of this EVERYTIME. And Jason only does it when he's collaborating with Bruce. None of the other bats have to deal with Jason demanding money.

---

There was one time, during a Wayne gala where practically ALL the kids (except Jason, dude's still legally dead), had to show up. And around halfway through, the Red Hood just crashes through the skylight and then just fucking kidnaps Bruce Wayne, in front of everyone. And of course the gala has to be cut short.

Meanwhile, Bruce, in Jason's custody: I CANNOT believe you, son. WHY of all times would you do this? You are GROUNDED, I don't care if you don't live with me anymore, this is just UNACCEPTABLE-

Jason, completely ignoring him, holding up a tablet with news article headlines about this incident: Bruce, look at this shot they got of me crashing through the ceiling, I look fuckin' badass

And then when the fam (in costume) come to "save" Bruce, in a blink and you'll miss it moment, Bruce catches Cass and Jason whispering something to eachother in the corner and them fist bumping before Jason books it out of there. He can already feel a headache brewing.

And generally speaking, I feel like the batfam could be way more efficient with this arrangement. You got the regular team of bats, investigating from above, as well as being able to infiltrate socialite environments as Waynes. Then you got Jason, who can keep an eye on all the lesser exposed and lucrative activities whilst he keeps the underground businesses under his control. I feel like it would be a win win situation that would be hella interesting to see explored.

[coolcoolcoolbutwtf]

Fentons family's guide Section on being an evil assistant to a supervillain

_________________________________________

Fentons family's guide to being an evil assistant to a supervillain

Guide by Jazmin Fenton in case of employment with a supervillain.

Being an evil assistant or henchmen is surprisingly a very stable source of an income stream all things considered.

You just need to find a boss. A as in singular it's very important, who is pathetic and or stupid enough to constantly have their large scale plan failing even without the hero's Involvement.

And while their large scale plan for taking over the world with a weapon of mass destruction could be feasible if only they didn't think to actually use it. Using it to threaten the world leaders for sway is the correct way. It is the most unused method the one being used most is the method of actually using the weapon of mass destruction for mass destruction.

You as the evil assistant then have the responsibility to make sure that the villain doesn't/ can't use said device to destroy the world. The heroes can help. Later then take the blame for the failure absolving you of involvement.

Being a good evil assistant is babysitting the evil boss.

_________________________________pg 9___

"Oh man never thought I'd actually need to use the 'Fenton guide' Jazz made me." Danny mumbled quietly and heaved a sigh of relief when he had found it among his hastily packed together bag.

Jazz had been the one making both of their emergency bags when she had told him about the guide. He hadn't appreciated it then now he truly did now with everything going on.

God he missed Jazz so much. He wanted to see her so badly he wanted to hold her hand like when they were kids. He really wanted her hand to squeeze his back in reassurance that everything was going to be fine.

Danny tried holding back his sobs at the thought. He couldn't stop the mist in his eyes or his hands shaking holding the little booklet.

But he wanted her safe and far away from everything even more. He wanted his friends to be safe with his sister. It didn't matter if he had to be far away working getting those crystals every way he could think of. His friends and sister needed money to keep them safe, hidden and taken care of. They needed that money and crystals and if Danny had to choose between his morals and fright he would always choose his true family. Morals be damned.

• • •

He hadn't expected the costume to be so good in quality. That had surprised him the most the second being how easy it would be getting a job with villains. Turns out working as an "meta" henchmen who knew everything from fighting to logistics and machinery was a rarity in this dimension. Who would have guessed it with all the metas and enhanced humans going about? And omg they even have aliens in this dimension!

Getting the money for the crystals had been going surprisingly smoothly. Everything had been going so smoothly that of course it had to be ruined! The villain Danny was working for had gotten noticed and promptly got beat. Which meant he didn't have an employer anymore at least until a breakout was orchestrated. So no more job until then.

And Danny had finally managed his way to the middle hierarchy in that organization! Now he would need to go looking for evil henchmen positions again! It wasn't even a good season to go looking for openings in other organizations.

Damn it that bat furry in Gotham and his flock of birds. Don't they get how hard it is for a henchmen to find descant work!?

Maybe he should go with the duo villain and assistant type next time.

Thank you so much for reading I hope it was enjoyed!

Danny in the lair after having saved his villain boss from Batman after said villain had their scheme blown up in their face. Danny knew the plan would fail miserably but at this point he didn't care. He stopped trying to help when it came to schemes ages ago.

+Some art

Idk if I've posted this idea before but I've had this thing bouncing around in my head for a while.

[acapelladitty]

Okay, I haven't finished the show yet, but I NEED more Cooper content and you did amazingly last time. That being said, I NEED (am asking you politely, whenever you have time and/or wish to write this) Cooper being overstimulated. Pretty please, and much thanks!

- Supervillain-Smut

For you baby? Anything! Have some Cooper being overstimmed and teased just below the read more 👀💦😈

Of the many downsides which came with the Ghoul transformation, arguably one of the worst which Cooper had long come to terms with was the loss of sensation across the leathered skin which covered his body. A valuable boon in a shootout, it let him focus his attention on the action at hand without worrying too much about the damage, but when the guns were holstered and the cold nights settled in, that same loss of sensation was a right pain in the ass when he was trying to get his rocks off.

Although, it was a reality of his situation which didn't seem to affect her and the wickedly cruel things she enjoyed putting him through on a regular basis.

"Come on, handsome."

Perched atop his thighs as she stroked her soft hand along his painfully hard cock, her warmth seeped into his own as it took every piece of willpower in his old bones to not knock her to the floor and sink himself as deeply into her cunt as he could to get some relief.

But a bet was a bet, and he wasn't one to give up without a good fight.

Already having been pulled back from the edge of release twice, his cock felt heavy and overheated as it jutted against his stomach. A small patch of pre-cum decorated the leathery skin where the livid head of his cock brushed against him with every jerk and slight cant of his hips.

"It looks almost painful, Coop." She mused, trailing the pads of her fingers along the prominent veins which lined his cock - the texture there something he knew she was fascinated by as it often stretched her out in ways that had her muffling her cries into his shoulders. "Maybe we should stop. Give it a little time to rest."

"Promises, promises, handsome."

"If you stop touchin' me, darling, then I'm not gonna be responsible for the outcome." Cooper grunted, the final word glancing up at the final syllable as her soft thumb rubbed a solid line across the ridge where his shaft met the head - a sensation which made his balls tighten and his throat stutter as it fired intense waves of pleasure across his stiff frame. "I'd throw you to the floor and show you things that not even the monsters who walk alongside the worst of them would dream about."

"Tastes like you."

"One I intend to keep, darli-fuck."

Hissing the expletive as her pointer finger teased at his slit, she gathered a small bead of his pre-cum and brought it to her lips. With a salacious flick, she swallowed down the slight taste with a pleasant hum.

Unable to help the grinding of his hips, Cooper bucked subtly into the air as he watched her filthy actions. Those same lips had sucked him dry many a time with such finesse that he found himself going out of his way to perform little acts of kindness for her in the hope that she'd see fit to grace him with another performance.

"Quit teasin' and get to it before I blow a hole in your head and finish myself off." He warned, hands gripping her thighs so roughly that he knew little crescent bruises would soon loom in the area.

Obviously ignoring his threat, her hand dropped to cup at his balls roughly, squeezing and rolling them between her fingers as a growl of pained arousal made his cock twitch, untouched.

"Oh, it's gonna blow alright. But only when you've been good enough to deserve it."

A bet was a bet.

And Cooper Howard would be a stubborn son of a bitch to the bitter end as he twisted his lips into an off-kilter smile and forced himself to relax into her touch.

"Whatever you say, darlin'."

[mistresscitrusslice]

The Season 2 Opening. We Must Discuss.

First of all, small beans. Instead of static, lifeless statues, this time we get moving humans. Mel features significantly more than I expected, so she'll probably be a much more major character than I expected for a non-champion character and I'm so happy for her. I believe the use of moving people instead of statues signifies that immense change will be happening. What we thought was literally set in stone in Season 1 will be turned on its head in Season 2.

Okay, on to the really concerning matters.

Yuhuh. Jinx moves too fast for me to get a good screenshot, but she gestures like this around her face a lot. I think we all already know about the Caitlyn-Jinx parallels, but my sister suggests it could be a red herring for the actual resemblances she has to Silco.

Sis gets credit for the following observation, but Caitlyn's daydream sequences about shooting Jinx are controlled and clearly separated from reality unlike Jinx's.

However, sis has not seen ep 2 yet, where Caitlyn does have that moment in the arcade where she shoots her vision of Jinx among the wooden dummies. Not only does this more closely resemble Jinx's hallucinations, it also parallels Jinx shooting the harmless crow in s1 e5. By the time the strike squad are about to leave, she can clearly tell that what she thought might be Jinx was really just a harmless wooden standee. Startling, but harmless. She shoots it anyway.

Caitlyn is totally gonna spiral more, and maybe she'll start losing her grip on reality too, but for now, she has more in common with Silco than she does with Jinx. Did anyone else get reminded of Silco's coat when Ambessa put the supervillain cape on Caitlyn? The collars don't look similar but they still eerily resemble each other, you get me?

Ok back to intro stuff

Vi wipes off her name from her face. That's two tattoos that are rendered impermanent in this opening theme. In the Fenty x Arcane video, they mention that Mel's golden freckles are tattoos. Later in the intro song, we also see her golden freckles gone. Change, impermanence. That seems to be a theme here.

Vi is literally erasing her name from her face. In any normal circumstance, I'd say that means she wants a change of identity, a desire to start over. However, I know that Vi's League lore involves amnesia. Does she really drink herself into that bad of a stupor? Jkjk. I assumed that her amnesia was replaced by the Stillwater imprisonment to explain how she got topside and with the enforcers, but perhaps I was wrong. Maybe they do still intend to go the amnesia or partial amnesia route with her.

The teasers implied that Vi shares the genetic trait that has Jinx predisposed to hallucinations. It's possible that this eventually contributes to her loss of memory, but I wouldn't call it quite yet. However, if this happens during her emo era when I'm assuming she has no support system, she'll be very vulnerable, unlike if it were to happen while she was still partnered with Caitlyn, in which case they could easily fill in most blanks in her memory.

I have no idea what to make of this. It's clear as day what they're paralleling, but why? Why the flashlight scene? My best guess is that they're trying to draw on déjà vu, implying a repetition of history, but why this particular moment? They could've easily chosen anything else in Jayce's s1 arc. He has many more memorable moments than this. Let's see, I'm literally making this up as I go.

This meeting was a pivotal moment for Jayce. Both his meeting with Viktor and his meeting with Mel changed his fate. The Viktor one is pretty self-explanatory, but without meeting Mel, they would've both just gotten exiled or locked up again. With Mel, they had someone in power who could vouch for them.

That begs the question, is Jayce meeting someone new? Or is this a reintroduction to someone he's already known before, a new meeting after a long time apart or after a significant change, maybe a change in them both. I believe it must be someone who was involved in the original hallway scene.

Jayce is either looking at Mel again or at Viktor. Given the amount of Viktor/Mel parallels in Season 1, I believe Jayce is looking at Viktor after he's undergone his likely final evolution. That'll obviously be another pivotal moment for him... but will it be a good one like it was with Mel? Viktor has power now. He's performing miracles. He's, like, two steps away from parting the Pilt River like it's the Red Sea. He seems to hold a grudge against Jayce, though, for *checks notes* saving his life? Jk I know he feels like he's losing autonomy and like Jayce didn't respect his wishes with the Hexcore and Jayce obviously couldn't let Viktor die when he'd fought so hard to stay alive before.

Anyway, I feel like this could easily be both a good omen and a bad omen for Jayce. More than anything, I feel like it'll be an epiphany. He is quite literally seeing the light. The light at the end of the dark tunnel? The light of the heavens at the end of his life? The light of a revelation sent by a god he once knew as a man?

Seeing Mel screaming bloody murder during the opening, this was the first place my mind went to. The pose doesn't match up exactly, and Jinx/Powder's screams are definitely wilder, but I feel like there's definitely something here. Is there anyone else who screams like this, thrusting their head forward and keeping their arms back?

We also see the shadow hands from this earlier shot:

I'm thinking of the Black Rose (is that their name?) kidnapping her in thin air, incorporeal hands reaching at her and snatching my joy the love of my life Mel away. It could also represent people grasping at the power Mel wields, both as the wealthiest Council member and as a Noxian princess, one of the closest people to Ambessa, the one wielding the most power right now.

Mel is really out of her depth right now. Her power and influence is up for grabs if she dares to blink and let her guard down. I'm also surprised that we don't see her fight back at all when there's danger around. I thought she might have more battle experience as she was raised by Ambessa. For those people wondering about her magical powers, I think she would've used them by now if she had them. Council attack aside, which could've been Viktor's magic, she wasn't able to do anything about the memorial attack or her own kidnapping. I think they're trying to show us that Mel is not as untouchable as she presents herself. Under the right circumstances, she's just as vulnerable as any civilian.

The sliver of light? My sister pointed out that it looks just like the crack of light between two double doors. Almost closed... or barely open? It appears in pretty much everyone's shot in the opening, but it's right down the center of Mel's face here. Is she torn between two sides? Is this about an impossible choice she has to make?

The spotlight is also on her. That's two sources of light. It looks like a red sun. All eyes on her as the surviving voice of the Council?

And her expression... shock, fear, horror. The heavy breathing, the look on her face... I feel eerily like I've seen it on someone else before. I can't place who, but I'm getting déjà vu from this. Does anyone else recognize this expression and these mannerisms?

[the-modern-typewriter]

Love your writing! I always love seeing villain x villain in all its wonderful forms, and was wondering if you could do a snippet based around that? You always write such interesting dynamics, I'd love to see what you do with this

"I'm sorry."

The villain tensed at the words, not looking up at their lover through the bathroom mirror. Not that they had to. Their lover was standing in the doorway behind them, staring a million miles away, and yet their attention was still somehow fixed watching the villain scrub the blood off their hands. Their voice was oh so careful. A long-awaited train pulling up at the station.

The villain knew every flicker that might pass their face, the way that they chewed on their lip when they were thinking, the way objects around them might idly float when they were distracted by those thoughts.

They absolutely did not have to look.

(They did not want to look. They could not bear to look.)

The toothbrush was hovering several inches out of the cup. The taps kept threatening to turn themselves off, like an invisible hand was fiddling with them. The villain had to keep yanking them back on.

"I know you thought we were the same," their lover continued, into the silence. "I know-"

"-We're not the same. We've never been the same." The villain cleared their throat. "You're more powerful than I could ever be. Yada yada-"

"No."

"No, you're not more powerful than me?"

"No, I just wasn't going to say it. It's not what I'm talking about. You know it's not what I'm talking about."

The villain wanted to tell them that power was always what the two of them were talking about - the supervillain simply didn't notice because they always had it.

They clenched their jaw, falling silent again. Maybe their lover wouldn't say it if they just kept quiet. Maybe they could live in a little bubble of forever where it hadn't yet.

"I don't want to destroy the world anymore," their lover said. "I don't - I don't think I've wanted to do that for a while. I'm sorry."

And they'd gone and said it.

"You're sorry." The villain scoffed. Their ears buzzed. "Oh, well that's alright then! All is forgiven. Kisses and prayers. Anything else?"

Their lover moved closer, releasing their death grip on the door frame.

The villain wanted to snarl that they - they of all people - didn't get to be scared. Didn't get to look at the villain like they were terrifying.

Their lover stopped behind them. The villain could imagine them swallowing, imagine them searching the villain's face in the reflection because they'd never quite managed to become a native speaker in the villain's soul in return.

"I don't want to own it either," the supervillain pressed on. "I know you're angry, but-"

"Oh, do you? Do you know that I'm angry?"

"I could never do what you did today. I asked you not to kill them-"

"-It would have been stupid to leave them alive."

"I asked you not to!"

"I asked you for a lot of things, but that didn't stop you being such an utter failure, did it?"

"Don't talk to me like that."

"Today was our chance." The villain's heart screamed. "We could have got everything we were working on, but you blew it."

"I didn't blow anything! I didn't want to do it." Power started to simmer in their air, heavy and suffocating. "But you - you'd still burn it all down if you could, wouldn't you?" the supervillain asked. "If you were me."

"I'm not."

"If you were."

"But I'm not, so it's a pointless conversation, isn't it? I said don't."

The villain slammed the now-entirely-floating toothbrush pot back onto the sink, catching the supervillain's hand freeze in the reflection where they'd been about to reach soothing for the villain's shoulder. Maybe their back. Either way. A placating touch. Like snipping the wiring on a bomb. It made the villain want to bite. To claw. To explode.

"I love you," the supervillain said, voice cracking. "Isn't it enough that I love you? Isn't it - I know we - you're so angry. All the time. I know I was angry too. When we met. I know I promised - I know I made promises. A lot of promises."

"You'd hardly be the first person to break a promise, I wouldn't get too cut up about it. You did say you were sowwy."

"And I know you've done so much for me, stepped in whenever I was too - when I couldn't. But I - I asked you not to kill them."

"And I already said it would have been stupid to let them live."

"I asked you not to."

"Yes, well, we've established that you're god-powerful, not clever."

The mirror cracked.

"Don't talk to me like that."

Then don't betray me.

The villain smiled, finally turning to face their lover, drinking up the roiling fury inside them. "Tell me again about anger, love?" They said instead. "Better yet, tell me about that hero you want to get all reformed for."

"This isn't about them."

"No?"

"No. This is about us. You. About -" Their lover seethed, fingers flexing. Then, disappointingly, they closed their eyes. They wrestled the monster of them back beneath their skin and the villain was so alone again. "I don't want to be angry anymore. I am so tired of being angry with every one and everything. Aren't you?"

The villain folded their arms.

"I don't want to do this," their lover said. "I - today was the last straw. I've been meaning to talk to you about this for a while. I've just not been able to find the words. You're so-"

Their lover opened their eyes again. They scoured the villain's face again.

"Was it ever about me? Or just about the mission? About my power?"

Of course it was about them, and of course it was about the power. There was a bad taste in the villain's mouth.

"Do you think that hero of yours loves you for you?" the villain asked. "Do you think they know you like I do?"

"I told you this isn't about them."

"Just convenient timing then."

"I guess you've answered my question. I guess you want to end this, now that you can't get what you want from me."

Their lover had the audacity to look sad; as if the villain was the one who had brought up break up.

The villain turned away again, back to the sink. "We both know I can't make you do anything you don't want to do, and you've clearly made your choice, so I don't know why you're still here. What do you want from me? My blessing?"

"I want you to stop."

"Alas, we can't all have what we want."

"Would it be so bad to stop? To just - just live. You could come with us. With me."

Us. The villain swallowed, hard.

"You think," they replied quietly, " that after everything we've done, everything I've done for you, they're just going to let me live?"

Their lover quietened. As if consequences were a thing for other people. Maybe they were.

The villain shook their head.

"Just go," they said. "Before I really do get angry."

Before they started crying. Before they started begging the supervillain not to leave. Before it really, truly hit that everything they'd devoted their entire life to was gone and there was simply nothing left behind.

They did not look at the supervillain as they left.

They did not have to see the horror.

But, still. They knew.

[tossawary]

I do like time travel fics for a variety of reasons. It can be fun to see a "perfect run" fix-it fic running through the canon storyline again. There is a little suspension of disbelief required for some of them, because at some point, the little changes for the better or big tragedies averted should start to mess with the world. Very good time travel fics take this Butterfly Effect into account.

It is VERY fun to think about time-traveling characters who immediately break the plot, because they fail to or don't even try to keep things on a certain track. I love seeing authors use this jumping point to explore entirely new directions for canon. It's off-roading time!!!

Some characters are happy to work within the systems of their worlds. They'll put up with the little indignities of having do to things again and are able to act their way through a redo. (And apparently have incredibly good memories, like, damn.) The cost of keeping things roughly the same is something that they're willing to pay in order to reap specific benefits at the end of the journey.

Other characters would prefer to break the systems of their worlds. They have no patience to play by someone else's rules if they have the power to do otherwise. They may think that the world is broken as it is and needs to be changed. They may be unable to let certain injustices happen again no matter the cost to their ability to predict the future. (I admit, I have a preference for this, because I think it's more interesting, and if the protagonist is a heroic figure, I like the idea that every single life is worth trying to save if you can try.)

Anyway, this is all to say that I just read the last 100 chapters of "Naruto" and apparently Naruto was the only person keeping Sasuke from following through on his unhinged and vague supervillain plans at the end there. If you sent Sasuke back into the past, let's say from a battle with Kaguya going poorly back to the Uchiha massacre or something, and he retains his adult body or any of his abilities (full Sharingan + Rinnegan)? I cannot see that Sasuke trying to give Konoha a shot again. I don't think he trusts like that anymore.

I think he would immediately 1) kill Itachi if Itachi forces him to do it and he can't convince Itachi to join his side, 2) kill Danzo and any ROOT agents who get in his way, (2.5) kill Zetsu and Madara if he can find and catch them, and also Obito if Obito forces him,) 3) kill or try to kill the Third Hokage, and potentially 4) try to declare himself the new Fifth Hokage. Winning a lot of these fights just by taking eeeeeverybody by surprise. Or something like that, you know? I think he'd at least try to immediately do some reckless revenge murder.

If time-traveling Sasuke is stuck in his child body for a redo, and can't set himself up as the new dictator of Konoha or the new shared enemy of the shinobi world or whatever, then I think that he might just run off and join Orochimaru again. I think he would make early deals with Orochimaru for the relative freedom that offers.

Like, Sasuke just does not strike me as a particularly stable person who gives a shit about maintaining a comfortable life for everyone around him. He does not care about Konoha's image. He does not want to settle complacently into a comfortable life within this corrupt state. I think he'd rather drag out the rot and set everything on fire than sit through the frustrating false civility of politics or go to school again, if he had any choice in the matter.

A time-traveling Sasuke would not behave like a time-traveling Naruto or Sakura! So, if I had to do a time-traveling Sasuke, I'd probably reach for the "break-it" rather than the "fix-it". Konoha struggles to deal with this new, mysterious, Rinnegan-wielding Uchiha who appeared out of the middle of an incomplete massacre, just killed the Hokage, and declared himself the new one, completing the Uchiha coup at the eleventh hour. (People are saying he looks like Uchiha Izuna come back to life, apparently???) Oh, shit, someone secretly go get Tsunade and Jiraiya right now, fuck.

[flightfoot]

How Alya's mistreated by the saltdom and the writers

I've written this for the @yall-hate-kids-tourney, but figured that I'd publish it on my own tumblr as well for an easy reference point for others who want to illustrate how badly Alya's been treated - mostly by the fandom, but she's been somewhat screwed over by the writing as well. I've written it so that even people who have never heard of Miraculous before can understand my problems with the way Alya's often depicted, and I will probably use this essay for that purpose repeatedly in the future. It's over 4500 words, so buckle up!

---

The amount of hatred Alya gets in the fandom is absolutely insane. There are over 800 fics tagged with "Alya Cesaire Bashing", and that's just the ones that actually TAG it - many of them either use a a non-canonical tag or just take their demonization of her as canon. It's not just that a lot of fics bash her either, but that the fics that bash her are disproportionately popular. If you go through the "Miraculous Ladybug" tag on AO3 and sort by kudos, I'd say around a third of the top 500 most popular fics use this gross caricature of her in order to justify inflicting some sort of insane punishment on her, or at least replacing her with "better" friends and leaving her to wail in despair.

Basically, Alya is the best friend of the main character, Marinette. She's really into superheroes and aims to be a reporter someday, to the point that the first time a supervillain cropped up in the series, she immediately got out her bike and cycled after him so that she could be there when a superhero showed up to fight him (Lois Lane would be proud). She runs a blog called the "Ladyblog" which reports on what the superheroes are doing, and sometimes makes some fun videos, like about the most impressive feats of one of the superheroes. 

More relevantly though, she acts as Marinette's support a lot of the time, often being the one to push her to confess her feelings to Adrien, to help her with plans she comes up with, to talk things out with if she's having trouble processing something, and trying to act as the voice of reason if Marinette's gotten to into her own head. It can sometimes head into Black Best Friend territory of having her mostly stick around to support her bestie, but she DOES get a decent amount of screentime and focus at least.

Then the first episode of season 3 aired, and the fandom went BALLISTIC.

This character, Lila, debuted back at the end of season 1 as being this attention-seeking liar who pretended that she knew a lot more famous people than she actually did, including being best friends with Ladybug. Alya, being a naive 14-year-old, believed her and put Lila's interview on her blog. Since Marinette IS Ladybug, she knew this was not true, though she was initially more freaked out about the possibility that Adrien (the boy she has a crush on) would find her supposedly amazing life to be entrancing and that Lila would steal Adrien away from her, to the point that she actively wanted to stop Lila and Adrien from spending time together to prevent Adrien from falling for her.

Fast-forward to Chameleon, the first episode of season 3, and Lila's back and lying some more, this time about having Tinnitus (which would mean that she needs to sit at the front of class, next to Adrien). The class has a whole seating rearrangement in order to accommodate the move, and because some of them just wanted to change seats. Since Marinette was late that day, she didn't get to give input, so she wound up sitting alone at the back of the class, instead of next to Alya like she usually did. She's upset by this, but can't prove that Lila doesn't actually have the disability (she doesn't even have evidence that Lila doesn't have hearing problems, it's just that her story of how she supposedly got the disability is suspect), so she puts up with it for the class period.

Then lunch time rolls around and Marinette tells Alya and Alya's boyfriend, Nino, that Lila's a lying liar who lies. Alya asks why Marinette hates her so much, since she barely knows Lila (this isn't the first time that Marinette's nitpicked at Lila's stories, but she's never actually managed to prove that Lila's lying, Lila's good at coming up with explanations for any hole Marinette exposes in her tales). Marinette tells her how, after Lila first arrived at school, she followed her and Adrien, eavesdropped on them, and then saw Ladybug show up and tear into Lila for not knowing her. (Presumably that's what she says, the episode skipped past her actual recounting of what she saw). Alya and Nino are more concerned with the fact that she stalked Lila and Adrien, with Alya also being skeptical that what she heard might have been out-of-context, given how common out-of-context eavesdropping is in fiction for causing issues, with Alya saying, "A good reporter always verifies her sources. Can you prove she doesn't actually know Ladybug?"

Since Marinette can't actually prove anything without revealing that she's Ladybug, she decides that the sane and reasonable thing to do is to throw a wadded up napkin at Lila while she's eating lunch, and when she catches it (Lila's pretending to have a sprained wrist), to loudly declare that she obviously doesn't have a sprained wrist. Lila quickly pretends that catching it did actually hurt, the classmates Lila was sitting with scold Marinette for hurting her, and then Marinette goes off to seethe in a bathroom, where Lila finds her and threatens to turn her friends against her if she continues trying to expose her lies. 

Then at the end of the episode, Adrien goes to sit with Marinette at the back of the class to keep her company, the teacher thinks that Marinette ALSO has hearing issues so she's brought back to the front (and away from Adrien again), Lila pretends that her hearing has been fixed so she can sit at the back with Adrien, and Alya spots that Marinette looks miserable about sitting alone at the front, so she chooses to sit next to Marinette to keep her company and everyone ends up going back to their old places, except that Lila's sitting at the back of the class now.

And that's it. That is, for the most part, what kicked off the entire Alya hatred and demonization onslaught. While there ARE more things that happening in following episodes, they have a pretty small effect on the demonization Alya's put through, almost all of it is derived from Chameleon and hasn't changed much since then.

So for starters, in fanfics Alya is often made to ditch Marinette constantly to hang out with Lila instead. This never happens. She's often exasperated when Marinette starts talking about how Lila is awful and points out that she doesn't have proof of that, but she doesn't avoid Marinette, and the closest she ever comes to hanging out with Lila outside of class events is when she called Lila over to babysit hers and Nino's younger siblings when Marinette canceled at the last minute.

But most Alya-bashing fics don't just leave it there. Oh no. If you look through a bunch of the most popular Miraculous fics, you'll see Alya made out to be some sort of ringleader for the class in bullying Marinette, hitting her, pinching her, poisoning her, destroying her things, saying nasty, heinous things to her, the works, and inciting the rest of the class to do the same, sometimes to the point that even LILA is shocked at her cruelty. Usually in these cases, Chloe, who is canonically the class bully (and Marinette's bully in particular) is inexplicably Marinette's primary protector against the eeeeeevil Alya, becoming Marinette's best friend and support and basically taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits, despite the fact that canonically, Chloe's as susceptible to Lila's lies as anyone else, and that in season 5 Chloe actually became Lila's partner in crime in trying to hurt Marinette in particular. (I don't like how Chloe's treated in canon, but that's a different story).

I've never even seen any justification given for why Alya's so frequently made to be outright violent or cruel towards Marinette, it's just widely accepted in fiction now, even with nothing pointing to her ever being malicious like that. There ARE other things Alya canonically does that I see her taken to task over though, but that fall apart when you examine them.

One of the biggest offenders is criticism towards Alya over how she handles babysitting. In Christmaster, Alya and Nino pick up Nino's little brother after Marinette babysits him for them while they're on a date, in Timetagger, Marinette's slated to babysit for them while they're on a date but cancels at the last minute, so they call Lila over instead, and then in Simple Man, Marinette books herself to babysit Alya's and Nino's younger siblings and the daughter of one's of her mom's friends, a little girl named Manon, all at the same time.

Alya receives heavy criticism for not paying Marinette for her babysitting, for having Marinette babysit for her secretly behind her parents' back without their knowledge, and for pressuring Marinette to babysit for her even though Marinette's so busy.

A few problems with this.

1. We see babysitting happen several times, sometimes with Alya helping Marinette with babysitting Manon and sometimes with Marinette just babysitting Manon without anyone else's involvement. At no point is payment brought up, and yet the absence of such a discussion is only ever used to demonize Alya.

2. There is no evidence that the babysitting Marinette does for Alya's sake is done behind her parents' back, the only thing pointing to that is a lack of Alya ever flat-out saying that she has her parents' permission to have Marinette babysit for her, but there's no evidence of sneaking around. MARINETTE, however, DOES canonically ditch her babysitting duties by having Alya babysit for her without the parent's knowledge. In Prime Queen, Marinette accidentally double books herself to do an interview as Ladybug at the same time that she's supposed to be babysitting Manon, so she calls Alya over to watch the interview with her, lies to her that she's just gonna go downstairs for a few minutes to talk with her parents and for Alya to please watch over Manon while she does that, and then leaves to do the interview while Alya watches over Manon the whole time. Nadja definitely didn't know that this happened, because she was surprised and worried when Alya and Manon called in during the interview with Marinette nowhere to be seen. In addition to this, in Simpleman, Marinette foists off all the children she's babysitting onto her grandpa against his will so that she can run off and help with Adrien's photoshoot after he calls her. The people demonizing Alya for supposedly having Marinette babysit for her secretly are not upset about the examples of Marinette canonically doing these things.

3. Of the three times that Marinette has, to date, been scheduled to babysit for Alya's sake (Christmaster, Timetagger, and Simpleman), for Christmaster she spent the next several hours after finishing with babysitting making Adrien's 50th birthday present (he's currently 14 years old), so I wouldn't say she was pressed for time, for Timetagger, she literally called Alya at the last minute to say she was too busy to babysit and Alya said it was no biggie and made other arrangements, and for Simpleman, Alya offered to cancel her date and take care of her younger siblings herself the instant she saw that Marinette was already babysitting Manon, and Marinette told her to go ahead and go on her date and that she'd look after her siblings.

So clearly, the people clutching their pearls about how horribly irresponsibly Alya is handling babysitting and how she's wronging Marinette in the process don't actually care about babysitting ethics here, because otherwise, Marinette would be getting the brunt of the hatred, not Alya. Despite this, I've seen a fair number of posts in the past tearing into Alya's babysitting for the reasons I already gave, and a bunch of fics that make it so that Alya pressures and guilt-trips Marinette into babysitting for her when she's struggling to keep up with all her work, only to have her parents find out and be horrified by how Alya's lied to them about who's been doing the babysitting and that Alya's been getting an increased allowance because of that, so they pay Marinette out of Alya's allowance and ground her, take away privileges, just have this be used as an excuse to punish Alya for supposedly wronging Marinette.

And then there's the subcategory of Alya demonization towards her for putting up Lila's interview on her blog without verifying that Lila was telling the truth. Admittedly, this was foolish, but she's 14. Retractions exist for a reason. And yet, fics frequently have her reputation be completely destroyed because she put up one interview that had a false statement by the interviewee in it, and sometimes even to be completely blacklisted from ever being a journalist in the future, things that are completely insane and would have even the most storied and well-respected of reporters be unable to ever get a job. 

She also frequently gets demonized and bashed for "believing Lila over Marinette". My major issue with this: what she's specifically believing Lila over Marinette for is on the topic of "is Lila an awful person". I don't think it's unreasonable to have a higher standard of proof for believing that someone is an awful person than for believing that your friend might just have some biased interpretations. Alya thinks that Marinette doesn't like Lila mostly because Lila has hit on Adrien, Marinette's crush, before. This isn't unreasonable considering that Marinette's first reaction to Lila is to freak out about her stealing Adrien away, and that when this other girl, Kagami, started hanging out with Adrien, she freaked out about that too. Specifically, she called a meeting of all her female friends to try and stop Kagami and Adrien from going away together to London for the weekend in Backwarder, helped Chloe in trying to get Kagami covered in food at a fancy red carpet movie opening in order to drive her away and steal her seat next to Adrien for the movie, and when she and Kagami were paired up for a "friend-making game" where the goal was to locate where Adrien was in Paris and the prize was to spend time with him, she pretended to genuinely want to be Kagami's friend so she could sabotage both of them and prevent Kagami from spending time with Adrien. So it's not like the belief that Marinette might be unfairly biased against Lila because she's made moves on Adrien is an unfair assumption.

In addition to that, on the occasions when Lila HAS tried to frame Marinette for something, Alya hasn't believed it, or hasn't been shown to believe it at least. In Ladybug, Lila tries to frame Marinette for cheating on a test, for stealing a necklace from her, and for knocking her down the stairs. Despite the evidence Lila planted, Alya doesn't believe it and investigates to try and find out what really happened. She doesn't uncover any solid proof, but she still believes in Marinette. She doesn't believe that Marinette's assumption that Lila's behind this is necessarily correct, since Marinette's leaping to that without presenting proof, but she doesn't believe that Marinette's the culprit either. And in the two following cases when Marinette's framed, Alya never actually gets a chance to say what she believes after the accusation is made against Marinette.

Just... the amount of demonization towards Alya TO THIS DAY, often for things she NEVER EVEN FREAKING DID, is absolutely insane. Even over 5 years since Chameleon aired, fics with Alya being made into this malicious, awful bully so that Marinette can get some new friends to publicly denounce her, get her arrested, or otherwise be punished are frequently on the front page of the most recently updated fics on AO3, and are often some of the most popular ones. If you go to "Fandom-Specific plot" on Tvtropes, saltfics like these have multiple files going through all the common salt tropes. When looking through fics, I frequently search for Alya's name because she's often the first person to be unfairly demonized, so if she's safe, then everyone likely is. 

I suspect that racism plays a major factor in this. It doesn't make sense that Alya's often painted as being a violent, malicious bully and leader in getting the rest of the class to physically hurt and terrorize Marinette, I haven't even seen analysis arguing that she'd do that... but it tracks with the "Black Brute" archetype. This becomes even more obvious with Chloe, who's white and canonically DOES do some of this stuff, taking on Alya's canon role and some of her personality traits in these sorts of stories.

Then there's the standard Alya's held to for how she handles her blog. It's way higher than anyone would hold real-world reporters to, much less 14-year-olds. But it makes sense if you factor racial bias into account, and how Alya, being Black, is going to be held to a higher standard than anyone else, and be punished more for failing to meet that standard.

For things like the babysitting double standard, it makes no sense if you're actually looking at the stated criticism, given that the same criticism isn't leveled at Marinette... but it makes perfect sense if you're going off the assumption that Alya, as Marinette's Black Best Friend, is supposed to solely function as her support and that she's simply fulfilling her duties by always being there for her when needed, including for babysitting, but that if Marinette ever attempts to repay in kind, then Alya's being unfair towards her because Alya's obligated to always support Marinette, but that relationship is supposed to be a one-way street. Alya is supposed to function as Marinette's support, never the other way around.

And as for the way Alya's demonized for asking for evidence before believing that Lila's lying, well... again, Alya's expected to act as Marinette's support, and her "failing" that in any way, even if it makes sense from her point of view, is viewed as a betrayal. She's supposed to be loyal to Marinette, and only to Marinette, not to think for herself or to have multiple other friends or values that she needs to weigh. And anything that she does to go against that "justifies" Marinette intentionally trying to hurt and punish her for failing to live up to her role.

In conclusion, the way Alya's treated by the salt side of the fandom is grossly unfair, often has little connection with anything she canonically did, and has some gross racist implications, and is likely at least partially spurred on by racism, especially with how common and popular it still is to this day.

Addendum: How Alya is screwed over by the writers.

While Alya is primarily screwed over by the fanbase, there are some aspects of the writing that exacerbate her ill treatment. In season 4, Marinette confesses her secret identity to Alya, letting her know that she is Ladybug. Despite now knowing why Marinette was so convinced that Lila wasn't friends with Ladybug, and that Lila's interview stating that she's best friends with Ladybug is a lie, the subject just... never comes up, even when Lila starts being important again. It's not that Alya's ignoring what Lila lying on those subjects means, it's more like the writers just completely forgot that Lila told those particular lies, since Marinette doesn't bring them up either. This creates an inconsistency with the fanbase, who really, really, REALLY haven't forgotten those lies. 

There ARE ways to explain this - Lila lying about being friends with Ladybug in order to try to boost her reputation, especially when she's the new girl, isn't really all that heinous. Marinette lies a lot as well, even if you don't count lies told to protect her secret identity or other "necessary" lies, sometimes out of embarrassment, sometimes to to try and prevent someone's feelings from getting hurt, and sometimes because she thinks it's the fastest, easiest, or most certain way to get the outcome she wants. And yet, even though Marinette lies a lot, she's not ostracized for that since it's usually not for malicious reasons - foolish reasons at times, but rarely malicious. It would make sense that Lila too, wouldn't be thought too badly of for merely lying in an attempt to make friends.

None of that actually comes up though. Alya later, in Confrontation, states that, "Marinette, you know we'll always believe you. But every time you've accused Lila, there's been no evidence. And at worst, it was just a misunderstanding." Marinette doesn't say anything about the previous times Lila has been proven to lie, so it seems like either it was decided offscreen that the more understandable lies she's told don't matter, or that the writers just plain forgot about them.

There were other opportunities created by Alya knowing Marinette's identity that were ignored. Alya concludes that Adrien backing up Marinette's statement that Lila's bad news was just due to him wanting to defend his girlfriend. This is also a bit of a writing flaw, while wanting to back up his girlfriend's stance IS a decent reason for Adrien to be biased against Lila, this is Adrien we're talking about here. He's nice and understanding to a fault, and is known for giving people the benefit of the doubt and second chances. It makes far less sense to believe that he'd believe the worst of Lila, even if Marinette does, than it does for Marinette to be biased against Lila. That being said, Adrien wouldn't have been present for Lila's more indisputable threats and statements directed against Marinette, so he can't actually verify for sure whether or not there could've been some misunderstanding.

There WAS, however, someone who was always with Marinette, and who could actually back up Marinette's statements more definitively. 

Tikki. She was present for every threat Lila made, for everything she ever claimed. While it's possible that both Tikki and Marinette may have misunderstood Lila in the same way, it's far less likely, especially since Tikki would have had different biases from Marinette. Tikki could be an important witness. Yet that never comes up, is never proposed, because that would end the plotline too quickly. 

Alya was also screwed over in the immediate aftermath of Lila being exposed, though not by the writers per se? There was a short scene planned after Lila's exposed where Alya apologizes for not believing Marinette about Lila being a liar and generally an awful person, we've even got leaked footage of it, but it appears that it was cut somewhere between being written and voice acted, and the episode being aired. 

All of this only really affects detailed arguments about how well (or poorly) Alya's story arc with Lila was handled, its affect on the actual fanfiction produced about Chameleon salt was minimal, I saw no change in its frequency, severity, or general handling of the characters with any season after season 3. I highly doubt that even the changes I suggested here would have done much to persuade the saltdom against Ron the Death Eatering Alya, especially since a lot of the hatred against her has so little to do with the show.

There IS some hatred thrown at Alya for non-Lila related reasons - well, reasons that aren't DIRECTLY Lila related, most of that hatred still stems from people hating her for Chameleon stuff and then retroactively justifying it by looking back at other things she did that irked them. The most common one (that actually has some sort of argument to it, not the "Alya's a horrible babysitter and is abusing her friendship with Marinette" nonsense I listed in the main essay) is that Alya's pushy about getting Marinette together with Adrien. 

This is more a product of Alya's usual role in the story than anything. I mentioned in the main essay how Alya sometimes falls into "Black Best Friend" territory, and this is one of the biggest examples. One of her most common roles throughout the series is as the person who pushes Marinette to actually confess to Adrien, to hang out with him, to pursue her romantic desires even with her anxiety holding her back, and to be honest with herself during the times when she's trying to deny her feelings for him. She's Marinette's sounding board whenever she's having an anxiety spiral about... actually, just about anything, and acts as the voice of reason when Marinette gets in her own head too much.

Thus, Alya sets Marinette and Adrien to end up somewhere alone together, or tries to push her to talk to him, or to be honest during the times when she tries to "move on" from Adrien by denying that she still has feelings for him (which is blatantly untrue). She IS okay with Marinette dating someone else though, if she honestly seems to want to do that. She had no problem with her dating Luka, for instance. She DID protest Marinette's seemingly sudden interest in Chat Noir, but that was mostly because Marinette seemed to be grabbing at her new attraction as an attempt to run away from her feelings for Adrien, something that Tikki ALSO noted.

That's another thing - Alya's the character who's most frequently thrown into this role, but she's not the only one, nor even the most extreme one. A new character that was introduced for the Miraculous New York Special, Jess, observed how Adrien and Marinette acted around each other, and decided to try to get them to confess their love by faking a supervillain attack on them, with the supervillain kidnapping anyone that no one loves in order to compel Marinette to FINALLY confess to Adrien. (Alya thought it was stupid, but agreed to help since it might actually work). When Marinette, Adrien, Luka, and Kagami went out to the wax museum together, Luka intentionally locked Adrien and Marinette in a room together so that Marinette would stop running away and would be forced to talk to Adrien. Marinette is written in such a way that other characters are compelled to meddle in her lovelife, because otherwise she'll continue making her own extreme plans and pining away, but never actually confess her feelings. 

So while Alya could be said to be "pushy" to an extent, it's mostly for Marinette's benefit. I would like if this was a less frequent role for Alya - I think it does her a disservice, since it locks her firmly into Marinette's orbit rather than emphasizing who Alya is as her own character. Most of the hatred towards Alya for this is tied up in "Die For Our Ship" being directed at Adrien though, with Adrien bashers hating that Alya's trying to set Marinette up with what they see as an inferior option. Ironically enough, while Alya's role in this situation is one of the primary examples in the show of her being treated by the writers as a "Black Best Friend" who exists to serve Marinette's character, it's actually one of the cases where I think racism is a pretty minor part of the hatred by the fanbase over it, since I think that's mostly motivated by hatred towards the Lovesquare.

In conclusion (again), there is an issue with the writers bending Alya's character in order to tell a particular story, particularly a Marinette-centered story, while ignoring how little sense that makes with what happened earlier on in the plotline, or how it centralizes Alya's role and character around Marinette in ways that exacerbate already existing writing patterns in media. 

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for @qwertynerd97 behind the cut. If I had a nickel for every time an unethical billionaire cloned the superhero archnemesis he's obsessed with, I'd have two nickels. Which is not a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. (( chrono || non-chrono ))

They really do get to Amity in, like, surprisingly good time, all things considered? At least Tucker’s surprised, anyway. If nothing else he would’ve expected a random ghost attack he’d have to teach Superboy how to fight ghosts really quickly during to happen, given . . . literally everything about his entire life since the age of fourteen, pretty much. Or maybe a supervillain or something, since Superboy’s in the mix right now and all. 

Mind, Tucker definitely did go over how ghosts work and all on the flight over and also during they two convenience store snack/pee/walk breaks they took, since he would personally like to avoid the demi-Kryptonian whose DNA he desperately needs free access to getting overshadowed. And also, like, it’s just a dick move to take anybody to Amity Park without mentioning the ghosts and how to deal with them. 

There are just . . . so many ghosts. So many. 

So, so many.

Superboy hopefully actually listened to at least most of the “Amity Park: Ghosts, Spirits, & Not Getting Your Ass Spectrally Kicked By Either 101” speech and didn’t just tune him the frick out for infodumping on him too hard and talking his ear off, but it at least seemed like he was listening? Like, he asked some questions and stuff and seemed to be following along okay, more or less? Mostly? 

Tucker really, really hopes Superboy listened to the ghost speech. 

“Okay, so like, avoid anybody too glowy for right now, maybe?” Tucker says as Superboy lets him down on the sidewalk just down the block from FentonWorks, which Superboy is currently squinting through his sunglasses at. Which, like–fair, Tucker figures. Definitely fair. “As in let me deal with anybody too glowy for right now, that’s probably just for the best right now. Like I’ll tell you who’s cool and who I’m gonna have to soup and who we need to flee from in a blind panic, yeah?” 

“‘Soup’?” Superboy repeats skeptically. 

“Thermos thing,” Tucker clarifies. “Remember the Thermos thing? We call it souping, sometimes. Also I mentioned we need to not say anything whatsoever to Danny’s parents, right, like I definitely mentioned that being a thing?” 

“Seven times,” Superboy says. “One of which was a seventeen-minute rant about their shitty tech skills.” 

“They don’t test! They don’t even have any basic safety protocols in place!” Tucker hisses. “Literally they got one of their kids literally killed via a portal to the Infinite Realms with no safety locks on it and didn’t even notice! Like I’m not this liminal because the Fentons have safety locks or literally any basic shielding or food safety knowledge! Which, on that note, don’t eat anything they offer you, if they offer you anything. Probably they won’t, they’re not really the type to think about basic human needs or general human politeness, but yeah.” 

“Yeah, I’m still not clear on the whole ‘liminal’ thing,” Superboy says. “The liminal thing is confusing.” 

“So are literally our entire lives,” Tucker replies frankly, making a mental note to get him a mini-primer or something. Maybe some notes or a spreadsheet. Like just whatever Superboy can brush up on while they’re poking at his DNA or whatever, basically. There is no such thing as knowing too much about ghosts, as far as he’s concerned. “So anyway, yeah, just lemme take the lead with the Fentons. Actually any Fentons? Just–let me take the lead in general, for right now. Like–uh. Please?” 

Probably Superboy is not gonna be down with that, actually, because he’s–actually Tucker’s not sure, is he an emancipated minor, or . . . ? Like, dude makes his own money, obviously, and he does his hero work solo, plus it’s not like he called any parent/guardian about leaving Hawaii on basically a whim, so . . . yeahhhhh. 

“I’m down with that,” Superboy says with an easy shrug, spreading his hands. “Your stomping grounds, man, not mine.” 

Tucker stares blankly at him for a moment, then decides not to look that gift poltergeist in the mouth. 

“Cool,” he says. “Uh–thanks. Uh–this way?” 

“Oh yeah?” Superboy asks, cocking an eyebrow at Fentonworks’ whole . . . Fentonworks-ness as he looks at it over the top of his sunglasses. Tucker boils in embarrassment, and also boils in renewed bewilderment about how pretty this dude’s eyes are. Just–pretty. So pretty. Tucker just came out to rescue Danny’s clone-sister/daughter/cousin and he is honestly feeling so attacked right now? “Good thing I sprung for the local tour guide.” 

“In my defense, this town is so much weirder than you know,” Tucker says. “Just–so much weirder.” 

“There’s this eternal party in space I just go to whenever I’m bored,” Superboy says. “Got a teleport thing that takes me, it’s kinda sick.” 

“. . . okay so your opinion of ‘weird’ is not universal, is what I’m hearing here,” Tucker says after a moment. Danny would friggin’ love that, if they weren’t all freaking out about Dani right now. 

“That’s what they tell me,” Superboy replies with another easy shrug. 

“I’m definitely making the mistake of assuming you’re a normie, yeah,” Tucker says, which is definitely a mistake he keeps making, for whatever reason. Probably, like, habit from interacting with literally every other living being he’s encountered in his life up until two years ago, he guesses. “Alright, yeah anyway, Fenton parents, threat level . . . orange, I’d say? Like not full red, but we’re getting there. So, uh–follow my lead, and please don’t maim them if they try to net you. Or shoot you. Or shoot you with a net, that’s also a–uh. Yeah.” 

He spares a moment to suffer in mortification over the way Superboy’s pushed his glasses up into his hair to squint at him, then flees–strategically retreats–towards FentonWorks. 

It is just very clearly time to strategically retreat, is all. 

Or, uh, time to figure out how to handle Danny’s parents, Tucker mentally amends with a wince as he gets close enough to see their stupid van haphazardly “parked” more on the sidewalk than the street. Parts of it are actively smoking; the rest is dripping bubbling ecto. 

“Trippy,” Superboy muses, floating up a few feet to peer over the top of his sunglasses at the top of the van. Tucker dives forward and automatically grabbing the guy in an attempt to yank him down out of the air before anyone mistakes him for a ghost. They very much do not have time for that right now, especially right outside the Fentons’ place. 

Unfortunately, his yank less yanks Superboy down than it yanks himself up, which is officially the closest he’s ever gotten to doing a pull-up, so he guesses that’s cool or whatever, but also not helpful. 

“Did I mention how you shouldn’t fly around here?” Tucker asks, maybe a little bit dangling off Superboy’s waist right now. Like, just a tiny little sort-of bit. “Because if I did not, that was a serious oversight on my part. So, uh, please come back down here, dude.” 

“Says the dude who’s climbed up here,” Superboy snorts, but does, mercifully, actually settle back down on the sidewalk. 

“I would not describe that as ‘climbing’ so much as ‘failing’, but you do you,” Tucker says. “C’mon, we’re going in. Try to look, uh . . . less like a superhero.” 

“I am literally incapable of that one, buddy,” Superboy says dryly, raising an eyebrow at him. “On account of how they made me in the literal exact image of the superhero.” 

“. . . yeah alright, that wasn’t a fair ask,” Tucker admits with another wince. Well–Danny’s parents aren’t that observant when they’ve got a distraction distracting them, and obviously they need distracted, so . . . it’ll probably be fine? Probably? 

. . . . . . maybe they should just sneak in Danny’s bedroom window, actually. Maybe that would be the smarter play right now.

[artist-issues]

that was real dumb. From a storytelling point of view, truthfully. Why would you take the only character who has some real-life characterization, some stuff that grounds the show and makes it's main element feel at least a little rooted in reality, and unravel all that characterization—and then kill him off?

Let me back it up.

It's a teen treasure-hunting show. Nobody wants to watch that unless all those individual words feel realistic enough to be relatable, and compelling. Teen. Treasure-Hunting. Emphasis on teen, otherwise I'd watch National Treasure.

you have the boy hero who's dad was a treasure-hunter and mysteriously disappeared. Thats not very realistic, its a little fantastical, but you can make it feel realistic if you work hard, and compelling if he's a good actor with chemistry.

you have the hot girl who's part rich-kid, chosen-poor-kid, who hangs out with the underdogs just...because. Okay, that's a little cliche, a little "my parents don't understand me, I'm a rebel without a cause" in the cheeseball way. Clearly gotta be the girl-in-the-group, gotta be eye-candy. But you can make it feel realistic if you work, and compelling if she's played by a good actress with good chemistry.

you have the boy who's a brainiac and he hangs out with the underdogs because they'll be nice to him even if he's a weird brainiac, just...because. He's like the good-boy in the bad-boy group. Another cliche, but that's fine. That won't take too much work to explain, and it's not super compelling, but it rounds out the crew, and again, it'll work if you have a good actor with good chemistry.

you have another hot girl who's basically perfect and joins the hero group later—she's rich but she's more compassionate to poor people than literally anyone around her for unexplained reasons, she can be inconsiderate but that compassion thing comes in clutch if consequences ever roll around to keep her likeable, she's funny, charming, strong when she needs to beat someone up for girl-power but damsel-in-distressy when her boyfriend needs to look heroic, willing to turn on her whole family for the love of our hero, whatevs. Cliche, but you can even make her feel real if you work. Points for an actress who's good and has chemistry.

and then you have loose-cannon, comic-relief boy who's like our hero but grungier and slightly less heroic so that he doesn't steal the spotlight. He can break up tension when you need a break from tension, OR he can bring it in when you need to start drama, because like we said, he's a loose-cannon. Fine. Cliche—

—oh but wait. His dad abuses him. Oh, that's some real stuff right there. Real-world stuff. Not "my daddy's a supervillain murderer," or "my daddy ran off and disappeared treasure-hunting," or even "my daddy doesn't like my friends." It's right in between the cliches and extremes. It's real-feeling in a way that everything else isn't.

But maybe they'll overdo it and make it super-tragic, super-dramatic, they'll shoot it in a way that's too gratuitous, he's got PTSD but it's way overdone, he's all weak and mumbly or he's got to be taken care of by the rest of our motley crew like a soft boy—

No? No, they're not doing any of that? No, they shot it in a realistic way that portrays the horrible tension of the relationship but doesn't linger too long, too melodramatically? No, the character isn't making this his whole thing—hems actually acting like this is just a part of life? A sucky part of life, but a normal part of normal life for him? Woah. Thats real stuff right there. And it causes the trauma and the rage and the heartbreak but...all that stuff just simmers...under the surface? Realistically under the surface? He brushes the abuse topic off with people who care about him, but he's perfectly willing to use the abuse topic to get out of trouble with adults who are on his case? Like a real teenager in real life who grows up around this and experiences it might?

Wow. That doesn't take much work to do, at all. It writes itself. It is real and true.

More than that—little things—when a character says a heroic line of drama-film dialogue about treasure hunting, this comic-relief boy always winds up saying something...random and sort of shallow? He says something about weed or repeats what the dramatic kid said in a funny accent? Like a real teenager would in real life? Like a real kid, who really responds to everything as if he doesn't think much about The Future or Epic Destinies?

He eats moldy bread when everybody else is poring over a treasure map? He flirts inappropriately when he should be dramatically waking up in his concerned lover's arms after getting hurt saving her? He makes really stupid decisions, not because they need to cover a plot hole or because he's "the dumb one" but because...he's a badly-raised teenager who genuinely has always had to look out for himself? He says something simple and real when any other character would've said something daring and poetic?

And put on top of all that that he's played by an actor who's really good at his job and has great chemistry with everything that breathes onscreen?

That's the character that puts the teen in "teenage treasure hunting show." The real, believable adolescent-who-doesn't-think-beyond-the-moment. The reason watching this team of cliche treasure-hunter stereotypical breakfast-club Romeo-&-Juliet cast is even interesting.

By having JJ be a trailer-trash punk who's dad beats him up, who loves to have a good time with his friends and takes his anger about his lot in life out on a silly us-versus-them rich kid group every chance he gets? By being the character with one foot in "reality" and the other in "adventure" out of sheer "I've had nothing my whole life so I don't know what Considering My Future is, and I might as well be cocky" attitude?

He grounded the show. You can believe John B would drive his van into a moving plane, and Pope would be able to win in a fight against a grown-man drug-dealer, and buried treasure exists and can be found by kids—you can believe all of that because of JJ. Because one character feels real, your subconscious goes, "I know that the writers know what 'real' is because JJ stood up covered in bruises in that hot tub, so I trust them to bring 'real' back in somewhere down the line."

I'm not saying there's nothing else realistic in the show. I'm saying, he felt the most really real.

And they killed him.

I don't care how pretty and neat it is to see my hometown in their show, I'm not watching it anymore, it was already way not worth it, but that's just ridiculous.

Don't even get me started on the way they killed him, and by whom, and how it was shot, and at what point in his "character arc" it was done. Ridiculous.

[little-pondhead]

So, for the Supervillain Danny and Everlast Trio Villains Au's....

What about Jazz?

Since I understand everyone's villain alter ego is based around their trauma and becoming their own antithesis and what not, I'd like to think that Jazz's alter ego would be a bad girl, kinda like Ember and Kitty (the former who mind controlled her twice and the latter who almost took her place while slowly corrupting her), maybe with a hint of Spectra (the school councilor thing, the hospital thing, and that one time with all three of them).

Instead of being the nice, normal girl who tries to be perfect, she's a loose cannon who does all the wild teen stuff, doesn't care about anyone accept for those who are in her 'gang', and will absolutely resort to violence the first chance she gets. Maybe she also has some kind of mind control powers, given how these incidents relate to her being under someone else's control.

Maybe she doesn't come around as often, because she has college and the like, but once she does, things get messy as she takes the chance to let out all her school related stress.

you have read my m i n d

Jazz had almost no childhood since she helped raise Danny from a very young age. She's intelligent and respectful and really wants to be an excellent example for Danny, so she acts as such. Therefore, Jazz never got to go through her 'teenage rebellion' phase. She wears modest clothes and upholds a pretty solid moral code. So here I present Nightingale, the punk-rock social justice warrior who comes and goes like a hurricane. She takes on the name Nightingale to avoid confusion, but once the JL realizes she and Fenton are related, some of the members consider going on a very long vacation to another world so they don't have to deal with this shit.

Now for her powerset, I'm not entirely sure if she should play meta or not. It's a common trope in fics that Jazz has been ecto-contaminated from her parent's experiments, thus giving her some sort of body enhancement. I played on that to give her a set of ears and teeth that match Danny's. She may not have ghost powers, but if she's fighting alongside Team Phantom, she must have some freaky abilities, right? (I love the mind control idea, btw) I feel like Jazz would be the Exception, where she's obviously enhanced in some way, but it's not an obvious power she can consciously separate herself from. It's like trying to tell your body to stop using your eyes. Unless other outside forces are preventing it, Jazz can't really not use her enhanced strength or speed. It drives the JL nuts because either Nightingale is a very weak meta or just an Olympic-level teenage athlete, and no one will spill the beans.

Also, this is personal preference, honestly, but I think it'd be really fucking funny if the DC universe is where Jazz and Danny have all their sibling fights. At home, they have to put up a united front so their parents don't get suspicious and the house doesn't kill them. (Also so none of the rogues takes advantage of their anger at each other) But they're siblings. Even if Jazz and Danny are the best of friends, they have to have arguments over the stupidest stuff. That's practically rule number one of having a sibling. So they go there to blow off steam and duke it out like they've always wanted to. It's mostly to release tension and stress, but each fight is getting more and more elaborate, and this whole thing is ridiculous. None of the heroes get paid enough for this. They're just gonna sit back and watch the show.

[artbyblastweave]

For the Hero-fy ask meme... how about Bane?

First and foremost, I'd play up the understated but present-from-the-beginning Luchador angle- he's a globetrotting vigilante whose chosen method of observation is goading his target du jour into a showcase fight. He harasses supercriminal organizations, with a preference for those headed by powered criminals, meticulously hitting their moneymaking operations until they're forced to send someone with powers to deal with him, at which point he makes a point of putting the errand boys in traction in an over-the-top theatrical way, taking part of their costume as a trophy. He does this until the person at the top of the totem pole is forced to come out to contend with him, or until he's publicly dispatched enough of the go-betweens that he can credibly accuse said leader of being a coward who can't handle their own business, causing them to lose face among their peers. This is a guy who's made it his mission in life to force all of these costumed performers back to their roots- a guy who understands, on a fundamental level, that to be a costumed hero or villain is an exercise in mythmaking, in showmanship, and he's going to make you pay the piper on that- haul you into the spotlight, make you take a tumble to grow his legend. By forcing a lot of crime lords into that paradigm when they really weren't prepared to live and die by that sword, he's ruined quite a few of their lives by publicly exposing them upon defeating them, claiming bits of their costume as trophies. He's the man who broke Roman Sionis, the man who broke Blockbuster, the man who broke Every DC-comics Supervillain-on-the-side CEO you can name.

Also, as an important part of the bit, I'm picturing that he travels with an entourage, who hijack local sound systems to provide real-time sportscaster patter over his fights. In the 90s he made a killing selling supercuts of his fights on DVD, though nowadays pirating has cut into that significantly- so it goes.

[flightyalrighty]

Posting here what I already posted on twitter:

So ofc I gotta finish Infested and its sequel but after that point I'd like to use Ko-Fi to sell issues of my own original comics. I do have two different ideas in mind. One about a supervillain who infiltrates a supergroup (that his nemesis is part of 😳🏳️‍🌈)

The other is of Davy Jones doing his best as a working class freelance ghost hunter because no one really believes in him anymore. Would anyone be interested in either of these stories?

I know y'all follow me for SONIC and all -- But what about other stuff?

I would sell these comics as full issues on my Ko-Fi but perhaps I'll also keep a membership going to see stuff like WIPs and script pages and whatnot + lower tier membership stuff if people wanna read it like a weekly webcomic instead of waiting for whenever new issues drop. The benefit of original stuff ofc is also that I could sell these as physical printed books indefinitely without worrying about a C&D.

[meowmeowmeowmeow4x]

Supersons +1 prompt answer Parte Dos

Parte Uno

Original Prompt

Jon couldn't help but take a peek at the large metal ring constructed behind the massive form of Dr Fenton, its size and shape dwarfing man and son. He couldn't watch for much longer, however, as their encounter with Daniel was expedited by Damian's impatience. Maybe he was just itching for a fight, or a supervillain to beat down. Either way, as Superboy, it was his job to make sure Daniel walked out with all his limbs intact!

"Daniel Fenton." But Damian was interrupted just as fast as he had started.

"Ew, no, it's Danny thank you very much. Only my parents when they're angry, and- bleh- Vlad, call me Daniel."

Damian scowled (he was doing that a lot today). "Daniel Fenton, we have some questions for you."

"Guess that's not gonna happen."

Time to intervene. Jon stepped between Damian and Danny, arms outstretched, with a friendly but diplomatic smile. "What Damian here means is we're suuuuper curious about your dad's research, aren't you Damian?"

"...Yes."

"If you wanna know more about my Dad's research, why don't you uhh." Danny bobbed his head at Mr Fenton's direction, the man in the midst of grabbing onto an unfortunate bystander and extolling the virtues of his next invention.

"Your father has proven lacking in his ability to explain his own work, which is why the responsibility now falls on to you, Daniel Fenton, if that's even your real name."

Wow, laying it on real thick, aren't you Damian.

Danny very pointedly ignores the death stare (hehe, death stare) from Dami to look to Jon. "And you are...?"

"Jon, I'm here with my dad too! He's a reporter, but some of this stuff's got me bored out of my mind. I mean, a flying toilet? Really??"

This manages to get a chuckle out of Danny. "You saw that too? And here I thought I'd get to see some normal inventions around here."

"I know right! I feel subconscious even with bathroom stalls and stuff. What are you gonna do, bring a flying curtain?"

"Honestly I know some folks back home who could find it handy." Danny said, a mysterious smirk on his lip. What could be so mysterious about a bunch of streakers back home? Or...

"Would you like to elaborate on that statement, Fenton?" Damian cut in. "Or the function of the garish-looking gateway erected by your Father?"

"Oh that? That's the Fenton PortaPortal."

"Porta what?" Jon asked.

"The Porta Portal. Portable Portal. It's like the one back home, 'cept it's light enough to move around."

"Portal to where exactly?"

Danny shrugs. "The Ghost Zone, where else?"

"You mean to say your parents have breached the afterlife using science?"

"Hah!" Danny laughs. "But it won't work, trust me." There was that knowing grin again.

"You seem pretty sure, Danny. Also wait, you have one of these back home?"

"Yeah, and it let in the raging hordes of the undead on my town. Overshadowing (that's possession btw), taking over the school with meat, box-based assault, replacing people like changelings, that one time a ghost tried to blow up my sister with a laser, that one time the Ghost King kidnapped the entire town and transported it to the Realms..." Danny listed out various dangerous situations like it was Tuesday, ignorant of the dawning horror upon his audience's faces. Jon himself was starting to feel a little green. Ghosts? Hundreds of ghosts? Each of them capable of possession, and according to Danny, much more?!

"How has the Justice League not heard of this kind of thing?" Jon tried, but failed to hide the slight shiver in his voice.

Danny shrugged. "Guess they dismissed our calls as pranks or something."

"Your father wishes to unleash the legions of undead upon Gotham?!" Damian stepped forward, getting up in Danny's face.

"Woah woah woah, chill out man. Mom and Dad actually learned from the last time and built like eight layers of shielding around the portal, not that it'll be necessary since it won't work anyway."

"And why are you so sure? Did you sabotage it? For whwat purpose would you tamper with your own parents' inventions?"

"Dami, maybe we shouldn't jump to conclusions." Jon said, trying to pull Damian away without any obvious use of super strength.

"Yeah Dami, I'm just a kid, like you. You see an engineering degree anywhere that can be used to sAboTAgE anything? 'Cause I don't."

Damian glared at the other boy for just a second longer, before Jon was finally able to pry him off the poor kid. "I'm so sorry, Damian's just kinda intense sometimes, he really means well I-"

"It's fine. Besides, I'm bored as hell over here too. Since we're about sixty-nine million years below the average age of this place. what say we hang and laugh?" Danny got up and stretched his legs.

"Sure! Hey you seen the oven that's supposed to bake pizza in under ten seconds? Come on, Damian spotted this amazing design flaw, you just have to come with."

As Jon dragged them away, Damian muttered under his breath, deviously. "Good job, Kent, escorting Fenton to a secondary location for further questioning."

~~~~~ They spent the next hour roaming the convention centre, laughing and snorting their lungs out at the inventions, and the rich suckers lapping them up. Although Damian was initially as frosty as Superman's ice breath, Danny's mention of a glowing green ghost dog managed to gain his attention, if veiled behind suspicion and accusation. Looks like no squeezing was necessary, but the idea of a whole town of magical beings that possessed as easily as they breathed still made Jon nauseous.

"My parents actually get me keep him, without the threat of dissection, it's amazing!"

"Your parents dissect animals?" Damian spat out with all the hatred of a thousand dying suns.

"Ghosts, and they never have. Kept getting away. For some reason. Nowadays they're more into non-invasive study. and by non-invasive I mean totally invasive of things like privacy, and alone time." Danny grumbled.

"I feel you, man." Imagine having a dad with super hearing. Or growing up with the world's greatest stalkers.

"Privacy is an illusion." Damian being normal challenge IMPOSSIBLE

They had no more time to banter before Dr Fenton's booming voice echoed across the centre.

"AND NOW FOR THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR, THE SHOWCASE OF THE FENTON PORTAPORTAL AND THE LATEST IN FENTON SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY, BEHOLD!"

"Just watch." Danny said.

Jack slammed his fist upon the on button, which was thankfully on the outside this time. The circular rings around the portal spun and spun, creating an electric whirring sound building up to a crescendo...

Only for the portal to fizzle out, as the crowd's jeers reached a fever pitch.

"Told you so."

Danny's triumph lasted not for another minute, however, when his body shivered and a cold mist broke through his lips. "Shit." He muttered. At least Jon and Damian were looking away. Danny's eyes scanned the crowd. Jack Fenton's sorrow was wiped away as the sensors in his suit came to life. He whipped out a comically large ecto-gun, shouting. "I KNEW IT! WE'RE UNDER ATTACK FROM GHOSTS!!!"

Danny needed look no longer as piercing laughter filled the auditorium. A swarm of green bats descended upon the centre, causing chaos and confusion. Those among the crowd sensible enough to run for the exits found themselves halted by bars locking them shut. Jack opened fire, but was overwhelmed by dozens of ghost bats.

Danny looked for anywhere he could silp away and transform. Damian and Jon did the same. None of them could an opportunity, as two pairs of hands swept them off their feet, and bindings tied them together. Their eyes widened as they gazed upon their captors. Two men adorned with white face paint. One in a gothic waistcoat, the other with green hair and a purple suit.

The infamous Joker, and the not as infamous Freakshow, both in hysterical laughter.

"I really gotta give it to you Danny-boy, that sabotage act you pulled really put us for a loop!" The Joker gasped out between laughs. He pulled out a remote with a large red button. "But I, the Joker, have out-sabotaged your sabotage! AHAHAHAH"

The Joker pressed the buttom, causing the portal to roar back to life.

"Damian!" Bruce Wayne yelled.

"Jon!" Clark Kent shouted.

"DANNY BOY!" Jack cried out, but they were too late to stop the swarm of bats carrying all three boys through the newly reactivated portal, and were too late to follow before the whole thing blew to pieces in a fiery halo.

To be continued....