#and alan is like ''WHAT? yes we are! your mom is evil all mine did was rob a couple banks'

[dezwade]

i know the doylist explanation for this exchange is that this is from the fourth episode of mighty med so the writers hadn't figured out what they were doing with the diazes yet or decided that horace was the one who raised alan

however, taking it as canon opens up the opportunity for the fun and absolutely baseless hc that alan's mom is a villain

i know it sounds farfetched but stick with me here. this line in conjunction with later episodes about optimo establish three things. 1) Alan is in contact with his mom and appears to have a positive relationship with her 2) despite this, Horace was the one to raise Alan and 3) The reason why his mom couldn't raise him is different from Optimo's since neither Horace nor Alan's mom herself seem to think Alan being in contact with her is dangerous

and there are still a multitude of reasons as to why this particular family dynamic came to be but i still think the most fun one is "Alan's mom is a supervillain who is currently in Mighty Max"

[alarawriting]

Inktober #19: Sling

Here’s a scene I alluded to in “Dr. Ultraviolet Meets Her Nemesis” (again, lack of functional website, cannot link because that makes the post unsearchable, but you can click on the tag to find the rest of what I’ve got for Dr. Ultraviolet.)

***

“What exactly is this… stuff?” Ultraviolet asked her sister, with a sneer that she hoped was making it clear she could be using stronger language.

“You asked for books,” Scarlett said, “so I brought you some of mine.”

Ultraviolet tried to count to 10, but Scarlett interrupted at 4. “I think you might really like Chiaoscuro. It’s about a superheroine who falls in love with a magnetic, charismatic villain—”

“It’s a romance novel,” Ultraviolet said.

“Yes. I know they weren’t your favorites but—”

“I despise romance novels,” Ultraviolet said. “Would it have truly killed you to go to a bookstore and get me something I might possibly enjoy, rather than just bringing me whatever dreck you happened to have lying around on your bookshelf?”

“There aren’t any bookstores around here. Everest drove them all out of business. I could have ordered from them, but they’re evil.”

Ultraviolet happened to know that this was absolutely true. The last time she’d been invited to attend the Villainy Connection yearly networking event for supervillains, Everest’s CEO Josh Bevel had been the keynote speaker. Given that she herself was a supervillain, this was hardly a dealbreaker for her. “Libraries exist, then. And what about used book stores?”

“Look, I went out of my way to do you a favor, Violet,” Scarlett said. “It’s not like I don’t have a lot going on. I’ve got four kids, the economy’s been slowing down and people aren’t buying houses so much lately, and I’ve been having issues with Gavin.”

From long experience with her sister, Ultraviolet knew that Scarlett wanted her to ask about her issues with Gavin, but Ultraviolet would have had difficulty caring less. “How hard is it to bring me a book that isn’t a godawful romance novel? Do I look like the kind of suburban mom who’s wasted her life dreaming of some Mr. Wonderful sweeping her off her feet?”

“It sounds like you’re saying that’s what I am.”

“The shoes don’t just fit, Scarlett, they’re on sale and you have ten pairs in your closet.”

“Fuck you, Violet. I didn’t need to come here. You know, the doctors told me you were in traction and you broke an arm and both legs and you might have fractured a vertebra in your neck, and I was worried about you.”

Ultraviolet sighed. “I appreciate that you were worried—”

“And I didn’t just bring you romance novels. This one, All The Pretty Little Horsies, is about the hunt for a serial killer.”

“What made you think I was interested in true crime, either?” They were in a private ward, but the door was open, nurses bustling around outside, so Ultraviolet didn’t say what she really wanted to, which was “I’m a supervillain, my life is a true crime story, why would I want to read about cops hunting a criminal down?” Admittedly there was a huge difference between her genius and ambitions to reshape the world in the image she wanted, and a mundane serial killer getting his jollies by killing teenage girls or something, but on principle Ultraviolet did not want to be sympathizing with cops.

“Well, it’s kind of like what you do for your career, right?”

Ultraviolet couldn’t control the exasperation in her sigh. “Only in the sense that your career involves selling people haunted houses where evil brownies will crawl out of the walls at night and devour them.”

“That… has nothing to do with what I do.”

“I rest my case.”

“Usually I don’t even sell the houses! I prefer being a buyer’s agent. The seller gets money at closing, but the buyer gets a new future. A place that’s going to change their way of life. Something that might be an anchor, a touchstone for them for the rest of their lives.”

“Scarlett. I don’t care. The point is, I’m not a serial killer, I’m nothing like a serial killer, and we are not in the same line of work. I am a scientist.”

“I thought you were an inventor.”

“I am. I’m an inventor and a scientist. All the greatest inventors were scientists.”

“Thomas Edison wasn’t.”

“Thomas Edison was a liar and a thief who stole everything he did from Nikola Tesla, among others.”

“Henry Ford—”

“—wasn’t even an inventor. Dear lord, Scarlett, what did they teach you in school?”

Scarlett glared at her. “You went to the same school.”

“Yes, but I didn’t learn anything there. Everything I learned was self-study. I didn’t actually pay attention in class.”

“Then how do you know that what they taught me was wrong?”

Ultraviolet glanced up at her IV bag, which was full, and at the clock, which was stubbornly nowhere near the end of visiting hours. “Get me some books about scientists. Preferably books where scientists are right, and everyone else is wrong, and all the people who are wrong get eaten by dinosaurs, and the scientists get to say ‘I told you so’ and end up very wealthy.”

“That’s… really specific.”

“It doesn’t have to be dinosaurs. The people who are wrong could get eaten by aliens. Or viruses.”

“I don’t even know how I’d find a book like that.”

“You’d ask at the library, you heathen. Don’t you read?”

“Yes!” Scarlett snapped. “I read a lot of things! Among them, romance novels and true crime, which are apparently not intellectual enough for the great Doctor Ultraviolet to want to sully her eyeballs—”

“Scarlett! Secret identity!” Ultraviolet whispered in a loud hiss.

“No one’s paying attention.”

“Captain Cosmic knows he dropped me. I wouldn’t put it past him to be searching the local hospitals.”

Cosmic had been trying to fly her to the Max, the ultra-secure supervillain prison that so far, no one had managed to break out of. Ultraviolet had used her nanobot lubricant on him to force him to drop her, without perhaps fully considering the fact that they were a thousand feet in the air by the time it took effect. With lubricant in his eyes and covering his hands, Cosmic couldn’t even see her to catch her, and when he’d flailed around by accident and grabbed her foot by trying to figure out where the screaming was coming from, he hadn’t been able to hold on. She’d had to use her prototype antigravity device to save herself, and it hadn’t had enough power to prevent her from hitting the ground hard enough to break most of her limbs, several ribs, and possibly her neck.

She’d already been in traction for two days, completely immobilized – chest taped, head in a neck brace, legs mummified and hanging from pulleys on poles attached to her bed, arm in a sling. She was bored out of her mind. The only entertainment the hospital offered was a television, and just hearing the sounds of daytime game shows and soap operas and Judge Jeri made her want to kill everyone in the hospital, or at the very least her immediate neighbors on the ward who wouldn’t stop watching that crap. Actually having to see it herself might make her brain fatally overheat with rage.

So when her sister had called and offered to visit, Ultraviolet had begged her to bring books, to alleviate the horrible boredom. But this… dreck wasn’t worth the name “book”. It was a bound collection of paper, containing letters arranged into words that had been assembled to produce some sort of simulation of syntactical meaning, that was all.

“I think if Captain Cosmic was here, there would be a lot more shrieking, and people begging for his autograph.”

“He has a secret identity too. He could be walking right past us dressed as a nurse and you would never guess.”

Scarlett sighed. “All right. I’m sorry I said it, Violet. But you need to stop acting like, just because you’re a genius, everything you don’t like or don’t approve of is stupid. And you could be a little bit grateful. I drove way out of my way to visit you.”

“I’m sure your conscience would have nagged at you if you hadn’t.”

“I tell you what. I’ll go to the library and get your books about scientists, and I’ll bring them by tomorrow.”

“That would be suitable.”

“And I’ll bring Alan. He’s sixteen, so he’s allowed to visit, and I’m sure he’d be thrilled to see his aunt and explain the plot of Battle Island to you, or Kraftwerk, or one of those other video games he’s obsessed with.”

“No! Scarlett, I’m not interested in listening to your offspring prattle on about whatever degenerate pastime has caught his fancy.”

“And I’m not interesting in helping a bitchy older sister who can’t even say thank you, but I’d feel bad about leaving you here all alone. So I’ll bring Alan to entertain you.” Scarlett smiled widely. “I’ll tell him that you’re feeling cranky because you’re in pain, so he should ignore any rude thing you say to him. Since you’d be incapable of asking him to stop politely, I guess that means Alan’s going to have a captive audience tomorrow.”

“Scarlett!”

“See you tomorrow, sis!” Scarlett caroled, and left the room, leaving Ultraviolet to fume about the unfairness of it all. If only she could get decent henches, she could get someone to transport her to her base, where her rapid regeneration machine could heal her within minutes. But no, the union had blacklisted her, and you couldn’t trust non-union henches. Totally unfair. Every other villain had henches lining up around the block – even the ones who routinely shot their own employees. But you mutate the henchmen into anthropomorphic sharks one time… and now, because of that idiot Captain Cosmic and because of the moronic Henchman’s Union, Scarlett was going to force her to listen to her oldest child ramble on about whatever stupid garbage he was in love with right now.

If she could only reach her crutches, she’d get out of this bed and hobble out of the hospital right now.

[readbookywooks]

I DIDN'T CALL STEVE THAT Sunday. I told Mom and Dad we'd had a small argument and that was why I'd come home early. They weren't happy about it, especially my having walked home so late at night by myself. Dad said he was going to dock my allowance and was grounding me for a month. I didn't argue. The way I saw it, I was getting off lightly. Imagine what they'd have done to me if they knew about the Cirque Du Freak! Annie loved her presents. She gobbled the candy down quickly and played with the spider for hours. She made me tell her all about the show. She wanted to know what every freak looked like and what they'd done. Her eyes went wide when I told her about the wolf-man and how he bit off a woman's hand. "You're joking," she said. "That can't be true." "It is," I vowed. "Cross your heart?" she asked. "Cross my heart." "Swear on your eyes?" "I swear on my eyes," I promised. "May rats gnaw them out if I'm telling a lie." "Wow!" she gasped. "I wish I'd been there. If you ever go again, will you take me?" "Sure," I said, "but I don't think the freak show comes here that often. They move around a lot." I didn't tell Annie about Mr. Crepsley being a vampire or Steve wanting to become one, but I thought about the two of them all day long. I wanted to call Steve but didn't know what to say. He would be bound to ask why I didn't go back to his place, and I didn't want to tell him that I'd stayed in the theater and spied on him. Imagine: a real-life vampire! I used to believe they were real but then my parents and teachers convinced me they weren't. So much for the wisdom of grownups! I wondered what vampires were really like, whether they could do everything the books and movies said they could. I had seen Mr. Crepsley make a chair fly, and I'd seen him swoop down from the roof of the theater, and I'd seen him drink some of Steve's blood. What else could he do? Could he turn into a bat, into smoke, into a rat? Could you see him in a mirror? Would sunlight kill him? As much as I thought about Mr. Crepsley, I thought just as much about Madam Octa. I wished once again that I could buy one like her, one I could control. I could join a freak show if I had a spider like that, and travel the world, having marvelous adventures. Sunday came and went. I watched TV, helped Dad in the garden and Mom in the kitchen (part of my punishment for coming home late by myself), went for a long walk in the afternoon, and daydreamed about vampires and spiders. Then it was Monday and time for school. I was nervous going in, not sure what I was going to say to Steve, or what he might say to me. Also, I hadn't slept much over the weekend (it's hard to sleep when you've seen a real vampire), so I was tired and groggy. Steve was in the yard when I arrived, which was unusual. I normally got to school before him. He was standing apart from the rest of the kids, waiting for me. I took a deep breath, then walked over and leaned against the wall beside him. "Morning," I said. "Morning," he replied. There were dark circles under his eyes and I bet he'd slept even less than me the last couple of nights. "Where did you go after the show?" he asked. "I went home," I told him. "Why?" he asked, watching me carefully. "It was dark outside and I wasn't looking where I was going. I took a few wrong turns and got lost. By the time I found myself somewhere familiar, I was closer to home than to your house." I made the lie sound as convincing as possible, and I could see him trying to figure out if it was the truth or not. "You must have gotten into a lot of trouble," he said. "Tell me about it!" I groaned. "No allowance, grounded for a month, and Dad said I'm going to have to do a bunch of chores. Still," I said with a grin, "it was worth it, right? I mean, was the Cirque Du Freak superb or what!" Steve studied me for one more moment, then decided I was telling the truth. "Yeah," he said, returning my smile. "It was great." Tommy and Alan arrived and we had to tell them everything. We were pretty good actors, Steve and I. You'd never have guessed that he had spoken to a vampire on Saturday, or that I had seen him. I could tell, as the day wore on, that things would never be quite the same between me and Steve. Even though he believed what I'd told him, part of him still doubted me. I caught him looking at me oddly from time to time, as though I was someone who had hurt him. For my part, I didn't want to get too close to him any longer. It scared me, what he'd said to Mr. Crepsley, and what the vampire had said to him. Steve was evil, according to Crepsley. It worried me. After all, Steve was prepared to become a vampire and kill people for their blood. How could I go on being friends with someone like that? We were chatting about Madam Octa later that afternoon. Steve and I hadn't said much about Mr. Crepsley and his spider. We were afraid to talk about him, in case we let something slip. But Tommy and Alan kept pestering us and eventually we filled them in on the act. "How do you think he controlled the spider?" Tommy asked. "Maybe it was a fake spider," Alan said. "It wasn't a fake," I snorted. "None of the freaks were fake. That was why it was so brilliant. You could tell everything was real." "So how did he control it?" Tommy asked again. "Maybe the flute is magic," I said, "or else Mr. Crepsley knows how to charm spiders, the way Indians can charm snakes." "But you said Mr. Tall controlled the spider, too," Alan said, "when Mr. Crepsley had Madam Octa in his mouth." "Oh. Yeah. I forgot," I said. "Well, I guess that means they must have used magic flutes." "They didn't use magic flutes," Steve said. He had been quiet most of the day, saying less than me about the show, but Steve never could resist hammering someone with facts. "So what did they use?" I asked. "Telepathy," Steve answered. "Is that something to do with telephones?" Alan asked. Steve smiled, and Tommy and I laughed (although I wasn't entirely sure what ?telepathy? meant, and I bet Tommy wasn't either). "Moron!" Tommy chuckled, and punched Alan playfully. "Go on, Steve," I said, "tell him what it means." "Telepathy is when you can read somebody else's mind," Steve explained, "or send them thoughts without speaking. That's how they controlled the spider, with their minds." "So what's with the flutes?" I asked. "Either they're just for show," Steve said, "or, more likely, you need them to attract her attention." "You mean anyone could control her?" Tommy asked. "Anyone with a brain, yes," Steve said. "Which counts you out, Alan," he added, but smiled to show he didn't mean it. "You wouldn't need magic flutes or special training or anything?" Tommy asked. "I don't think so," Steve answered. The talk moved on to something else after that soccer, I think but I wasn't listening. Because all of a sudden there was a new thought running through my mind, setting my brain on fire with ideas. I forgot about Steve and vampires and everything. "You mean anyone could control her?" "Anyone with a brain, yes." "You wouldn't need magic flutes or special training or anything?" "I don't think so." Tommy's and Steve's words kept bouncing through my mind, over and over, like a stuck CD. Anyone could control her. That anyone could be me. If I could get my hands on Madam Octa and communicate with her, she could be my pet and I could control her and... No. It was foolish. Maybe I could control her, but I would never own her. She was Mr. Crepsley's and there was no way in the world that he would part with her, not for money or jewels or... The answer hit me in a flash. A way to get her from him. A way to make her mine. Blackmail! If I threatened the vampire I could say I'd get the police after him he'd have to let me keep her. But the thought of going face to face with Mr. Crepsley terrified me. I knew I couldn't do it. That left just one other option: I'd have to steal her!