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dycefic · 3 years ago

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Have An Evil Day

No prompt this time, just a sequel to ‘Welcome To Evil-Mart’

Working at Evil-Mart is usually… well, it’s retail. It’s physically exhausting, you have to deal with a lot of idiots without being overtly rude, and your feet hurt. Even though the hours and pay are very good, the benefits are great, and our bosses treat us well compared to most retail employees, it’s still not what I’d call a fun job.

But it’s not what I’d call dull, either. Especially not on days like today.

I was promoted to supervisor after the Food Poisoning Incident, so I have a little more authority and a little less obligation to be pleasant and I got issued a weighted cosh because sometimes Evil-Mart customers get… feisty. I’d never had to use it, though, because those who hadn’t seen what I did to Majority Rules, either in person or on one of the cell-phone videos that circulated afterwards, had at least heard about it. They didn’t give me any trouble.

I was halfway through my shift, and the worst things that’d happened had been running out of croissants and a machine oil spill in Aisle Seven, when our greeter pressed the alarm button, which sent an alert to my handset. As front-end supervisor, that meant me, so I went over. Sam, who is unusual in the henching community for having actually aged out rather than ‘being retired’ jerked his chin in the direction of a tall, swaggering figure. “He just came in,” he whispered.

I did a full double-take before I took it in. Superdyne. Fucking Superdyne.

We’d all heard about his dramatic heel-turn a couple of months ago. The whole world had heard about it. Superdyne, who’d skated closer and closer to the line for years, had decided to cross it in a blaze of bloodshed. He was a villain now, he said. There’d been a whole speech about how ingratitude had driven him to it blah blah blah.

I work at Evil-Mart. I’m from a hench family. If someone becomes a supervillain because they hate Mondays or want to turn us all into dinosaurs or whatever, I don’t judge. I will sell depth-charges and laser guns to anyone who can prove they’re over eighteen without hesitation. But even we get kind of grossed out by the ‘I am forced to turn evil because I haven’t been given enough love’ thing. People who are actually so fucked up by emotional abuse or neglect or some superhero killing their family, we’re fine with them. But they don’t say that’s why they do it, and most of them need a lot of therapy to even realize it. People who actually say that’s why are entitled dickwads.

And now the dickwad had walked into Evil-Mart like he was entitled. Like he thought he was one of us.

“Lockdown protocols,” I told Sam quietly. “On my authorisation.” That takes a minute or two, though, so I went over to talk to Superdyne. “Sir, I have to ask how you even knew where to find this place.”

He smirked at me. “I have my ways,” he said smugly. He’d either bribed or beaten someone, that was my guess. “So this is where the villains shop? We all thought you went to Wal-Mart.” He laughed, like he thought it was clever.

“Yes, so you all say,” I said dryly. I didn’t feel like pretending he was the first person to make the bad joke. “My next question, sir, is what made you think it was a good idea to come in here.”

He spread his hands. “I’m one of you now!” he said happily. “I’m a bad guy! So now I guess I shop where the bad guys shop!” He looked around, frowning a little. “Although I was expecting more weapons and explosives. A… more villainous atmosphere. I didn’t know Evil-Mart had fresh produce.”

“I don’t advise buying herbs here unless you’re a magical practitioner. Some of them have… unusual effects.” A lot of our produce is normal stuff, but some of it not only isn’t legal, it doesn’t exist anywhere else.

“Oh. Well, that makes sense. But the bright lights and the bakery?”

“We have excellent gluten-free breads. In many ways, Superdyne, this is just another store. We have sales, we mark down the breads in the afternoon, we even have a PA system.” I pulled out my handset, and thumbed the button that tied it to the PA. “Attention, shoppers,” I said in my most soothing Customer Service voice, which made him grin. “Evil-Mart wishes to inform you – “ The countdown on my handset reached zero, and I turned to look at the entrance as a huge blast door thudded down. That was the last part of the sequence – staff outside the area were already in lockdown and security were on their way. I smiled, and continued almost without a pause. “- That we are in lockdown at this time, due to the presence of Superdyne in the store. Please remain calm, and be advised that security are on their way to deal with the problem. If you have a personal grudge that you wish to address with Superdyne at this time, he is standing near Register Six with a stupid expression on his face.”

He was staring at me, stunned. “But… but…” he stammered, and damned if he didn’t look puzzled. “But I’m one of you now!”

“No,” I said flatly. “You were always evil, that’s true, but you’ll never be one of us. And for the record, I’m one of the people with a personal grudge. All those henchmen you’ve killed and maimed had families, asshole… and they all shop here.”

He swung at me, then, but I spent years in hench training. Even someone super-strong can be dodged, and once I slammed my cosh into his groin a few times his punches got a lot more aimless. Around then, Tiger Ty came over the register, claws out and snarling, and I figured I should stand out of the way.

About ten minutes later, I turned on the PA again. “Clean-up to Register Six,” I called, in the same special voice. “Category 7, class three. Shoppers, please be advised that lockdown is now lifted but Register Six will be closed until clean-up is completed.”

Hunter, who’d been working Register Six, came out from underneath it. He looked a little green. Well, he was still in his teens, this was probably his first fatal mobbing. “What’s Category 7?” he asked in a shaky voice. “I haven’t heard that before.”

“Biohazard.”

“Oh. Class three?”

“Send three people. He was a juicy one.” I stepped away from a spreading puddle of blood. “Run and get a couple of caution signs we can put around this mess.” I eyed it measuringly. “And one of those fifteen-gallon plastic tubs with a lid, I’ll damage it out.”

He eyed the mess. “Are you sure that’s big enough?”

“Yeah, the average human is only about seventeen gallons by volume, and I’m not going to put all the blood and mush in there, just the big pieces.”

He gulped. “Ah. Yes, ma’am.”

I called after him when he ran off. “One of the black tubs, not a clear one!” Which honestly should only be common sense, but you can’t count on a flustered teenager to have common sense.

We frown on killing customers at Evil-Mart, up to a point… but when a particularly murderous super-hero walks into our store, well, that’s something else. I’d have to fill out a ton of paperwork, though.

I had to chase off one of Doctor Malign’s minons and two members of the Genetic Reign before the clean-up crew arrived, both of whom urgently wanted samples. In the end I scraped a few pieces of liver and unidentified organ into two of the bags we use for possibly-contaminated money just to make them go away. (They’re good customers, and it was just going to go in the trash anyway.)

By the time the clean-up was done, all the big pieces were boxed up, and I’d finished the paperwork, my shift had been over for twenty minutes, and I’d been asked to come up to the boss’s office.

“Listen, I have no issues with how you handled the situation, I want you to know that.” Mr Trent leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingertips together. “It was quick, it was efficient, and… given your personal history with Superdyne, not to mention mine and that of half of our customer base… richly deserved.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. It came out too meek, and I cleared my throat and straightened up. It’s hard not to be intimidated by Mr Trent, when you’re in the same room with him. It’s not his fault, and he does his best, but even under the strictest control his fear-inducing powers tend to unsettle anyone who gets too close. We all know he’s not doing it on purpose and we try not to show our reactions. “Do you have any orders regarding the remains?”

“Doctor Order wants them.” He rubbed his chin. “Get someone from the pharmacy to prepare samples for him, please, including brain tissue. He’s our primary supplier, and we can’t offend him. As for the rest… as you know, I’m retired, and I don’t usually participate in the Endless War.” One of his hands dropped to his left thigh. His prosthetic leg is some of Doctor Order’s best work, but the injury that led to his retirement had been brutal even by our standards. “But this is different. Superdyne came here. To our place of safety. We need to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”

I nodded. “Do you want the remains dumped somewhere public? Some kind of dramatic display?”

“No. Something more direct.” He rubbed his chin again, then tapped the intercom on his desk. “Iris, please send up Miss Fedorova from Marketing and Mr Levy from the warehouse.”

“Yes, sir,” Iris responded, and he clicked off the intercom again.

“The three of you worked together very well, during the food poisoning incident,” he explained. “And I believe they can assist us in a satisfactory conclusion.” He hesitated, then smiled ruefully. “Perhaps you should wait outside until they get here. I can tell I’m unsettling you.”

“Sir, I know you’re not – “

“Not doing it on purpose.” He sighed. “I do appreciate how hard you all work to make me feel… accepted, I really do. But I’m very annoyed right now, which makes control more difficult for me, so I think we’d both be more relaxed if you waited outside while I do my meditation exercises.”

I waited outside. When the three of us went into his office again, the miasma of low-level fear was definitely a bit lighter, and he smiled. “All right. Now, this conversation is going to be very confidential, and I will remind you all of the agreements you signed when you were employed.” We all chorused agreement, and he nodded. “Good. Now, this is very much a secret, even among Evil-Mart staff, but we do have a few online clients who are… ah… on the other side of the fence.”

Ms Fedorova blinked. “What?”

Knuckles sighed. “We ship to a few heroes,” he explained. “The ones who are… less homo than sapiens, if you get my drift.”

I didn’t, and from her expression Ms Fedorova didn’t either. Mr Trent spread his hands, drawing our eyes to his fingers. Which as a rule nobody looks at, because there’s fourteen of them, with four joints in each finger, and we know he’s self-conscious about it. “The less… purely human ones,” he said quietly. “One of the reasons I created Evil-Mart was to give those who can’t pass for human, like me, a place to be… people. To have dignity. So that the obligate carnivores weren’t reduced to living on pet-food or scavenging for scraps, so that those with complex metabolisms could get the supplements they need so that people who are still people, for all their outward differences, could shop in safety. There are a great many more monsters, demigods, abominations of science and other non-standard persons among our set than among the heroes, and I wanted to meet their needs, as well as selling weapons and Lair-away-from-home sets and so on.”

“And there are a few heroes who order from us for that reason,” Knuckles added. “The ones who can’t get medications to suit their metabolism, or need to eat things that you can’t get easily anywhere else.”

I nodded, because that much I understood. We have some very esoteric ‘dietary supplies’ that start with fresh, healthy, well-treated and disease-free prey animals frozen whole (from mouse up to calf and goat kept in stock, larger sizes by pre-order, halal and kosher certified where possible) and end with human blood (rejected blood bank stock mostly, we have an arrangement), and human flesh and organs (sourced from hospitals, morgues and crematoriums, guaranteed no murder, at least not by us). “Well, I suppose that makes sense. I’m surprised we ship to them, though.”

“Oh, they don’t know we know. It’s all assumed names and secret bank accounts.” Knuckles grinned. “But Mr Trent has all our online customers identified before we ship. And for the ones who don’t have any other options, well… we let it slide.”

“I can see why you don’t want that to get out.” Ms Fedorova tapped her chin. “What does this have to do with disposing of the body? I was planning to set up a really ghoulish display in a public place somewhere, I already have some sketches.” Marketing for Evil-Mart is… well, it includes more than designing our sale flyers.

“No. We’re going to deliver them to a hero… one of the ones who owes us… and make it very clear that just because someone decides to admit he’s a villain, that doesn’t make him one of us and it doesn’t entitle him to union services,” Mr Trent said flatly. “I want to make it crystal clear to all of them that a heel turn does not mean their sins are forgiven, or that we will accept them as anything other than a very brief amusement.”

Late that night – we were all on overtime, but it couldn’t be done in daylight – we wheeled a cart down the run-down hallway of a shoddy apartment building. “This is a terrible address for a hero,” Ms Fedorova muttered. “Are we sure he lives here?”

“I deliver here a couple of times a month.” Knuckles was pushing the cart. “I’m sure.”

“Okay.” Ms Fedorova cleared her throat, coughed once or twice, and suddenly her voice was deeper and her very faint Russian accent was as thick as pea soup. “This is intimidation tactic,” she said, grinning toothily. “Do not act surprised.”

I knocked on the door, but let Knuckles do the talking. “Delivery, Mr West,” he called, using the fake name the guy had been giving.

It worked… the door was unlocked and opened almost immediately. “I scheduled the order for next – “ the mark said, and then we were pushing inside, slamming the door behind us.

“Do not be alarmed, Mr… Dinoid, is it?” Ms Fedorova said, folding her arms. “Evil-Mart is knowing all along your real identity. But you are needing to eat, and we are not turning down regular business, so we make no trouble.”

Knuckles rolled his eyes behind her back at how much she was hamming it up, but I waved a hand. Let her have her fun. So Knuckles started unloading the boxes onto the table while she talked. “First, your Budget Bunny Box. Your favourite, da?” The next box, smaller, plunked down. “Two fresh chickens, halal certified, healthy and having lived good life, gift for good customer.” Knuckles dumped the plastic tub on the floor. “And mortal remains of Superdyne, with note.”

Dinoid was staring at us, but that made him shift into a combat stance, his long claws spread. “The… Superdyne’s dead? And in there?”

“Well. Most of him. The big pieces.” Ms Fedorova shrugged an impressively Russian shrug. I hadn’t even known that was a thing, but when she did it, it was obvious. “You must understand, when a mob tears a man apart, it is hard to find every little piece.”

“I’m pretty sure Doctor Malign and the Genetic Reign took off with doggy bags,” I said, as if I hadn’t handed them over myself. “And Doctor Order probably has some of him too, by now. So looking out for clones would be a good idea, I don’t know if that’s in the note.”

Insofar as that reptilian face could show readable expressions, he looked shocked. “Why on earth would… why? He changed sides? And why did you bring him to me?”

“We know your address, we know you don’t want to turn us in because we’re the only ones who can supply your meals, and our boss wanted us to make this very clear.” I indicated the note. Since Ms Fedorova was hamming up her Sexy Russian Supervillain act, and Knuckles was very obvious Muscle, I figured it was on me to be the Reasonable One. “He might have stopped being a hero, but that didn’t make him one of us. That didn’t make him acceptable to us. Our boss wants it made very clear that your failures shouldn’t expect to be accepted by us… or even spared by us.”

He shifted slowly, the tip of his tail twitching. “I… see. I understand why you would reject Superdyne. He was notorious for killing and maiming people on… your side. But I know other defectors have been accepted. Philomel, for example.”

“Philomel was child of villains. She is young, she is rebellious, she sides with heroes for a while.” Ms Fedorova shrugged. “Is understandable, da? The young do foolish things. She comes home, all is forgiven.”

He nodded slowly. “Tenebrous?”

“That story I don’t know.” Ms Fedorova glanced at me.

I nodded. “Tenebrous was just a kid. He was twelve when Varide recruited him. Nineteen when he broke with the guy. Varide put a kid into combat, left him with massive PTSD, then ditched him when he had a breakdown and went too far. Mx Frantique at least made sure he had a safe place to stay and some therapy.”

“It’s happened a few times.” Knuckles rested his elbows on the cart’s handles, his inhumanly big, strong hands dangling. “But there’s a process. A system. If someone’s sponsored by a villain in good standing, like Frantique sponsoring Tenbrous, they can be accepted. Nobody gets to just choose to join. Especially not a smug, entitled prick like Superdyne.”

Ms Fedorova suddenly leaned forward, scowling. “And why are you called Dinoid? You are not dinosaur. You are clearly monitor lizard. Golden monitor, I think.” She reached out and prodded his arm. “And not healthy, either. Look at colouration! You do not keep environment humid enough. Are having trouble with shedding, da?”

Now we were all staring at her. “You’re a lizard expert now?” Knuckles asked.

She shrugged. “What? Is hobby. Mamma’s little Varanus Acanthurus are pride and joy. Sadly, cannot keep larger monitors in city. Is unkind.”

Dinoid ran a hand over his head slowly. “Not many people realize,” he said slowly. “That’s why I order from you guys. I used to get frozen… food… from a pet supplier, but then I got contacted by someone who told me there was another option.”

“Is good thing. Those pet suppliers, they are rogues. They do not keep animals healthy, can get diseases or mites from those things.” Ms Fedorova sniffed. “I would never buy from them. My babies would get sick.”

He actually chuckled, then, seeming to relax a bit. “You’re not wrong. After… this happened… I got really sick a couple of times before I figured out what to eat, and where to get it. And even the reputable suppliers don’t always have the healthiest stock.” He opened his mouth wide, making a gagging noise. “You have no idea how bad that ‘reptile food’ is. Eating whole animals may be a little disgusting, but it’s nothing to some of that stuff.”

“I believe it,” I said emphatically. “There’s a reason Evil-Mart has such an extensive pet-food line. The horror stories we hear from some of our customers… well, you’d believe it, I bet, but most humans just look confused.”

Knuckles nodded, and spread his hands. “People who can’t pass for regular humans… or even for people, the way most normies see it… are a lot more common on our side of the fence than yours. That’s why we delivered to you. We figured you really needed it.”

“Does he order from the pharmacy?” Ms Fedorova was around behind him now, examining his back. “He is having calcium deficiency, am betting. He needs nutritional supplement.”

“I take a nutritional supplement,” he said defensively.

“The one for normal-sized lizards is not enough for man-sized monitor/human hybrid,” she said firmly. “Check pharmacy section next time. We are having excellent selection of supplements for hybrids, and chart to tell you how much to take for body-mass.”

He looked back and forth between the three of us. “You people are… not what I would have expected from an evil supermarket.”

“We may be… morally challenged,” I said, shrugging, “but we’re not heartless.” I looked around his tiny, shabby apartment. “Unlike some of your lot. I thought you were on a team. Why are you living here?”

He ducked his head. “I couldn’t live at the base,” he said, his tail drooping. “My… I made people uncomfortable. And the stipend isn’t much.”

“Isn’t much? With the merchandising deals they have?” Ms Fedorova sounded shocked, and the accent had dropped back a lot. “I know for a fact that if the accountants ever got hold of their books they’d owe more in back taxes than… well, than Evil-Mart would if our illegal product arm ever got discovered. And we pay our taxes on the legitimate stuff scrupulously.”

Dinoid blinked rapidly, though I couldn’t tell whether he was more surprised by her suddenly dropping her act or the idea that Evil-Mart pays taxes. “You do?”

“Of course. Not under that name, of course, there’s a shell company.” She sniffed. “All villains do. Al Capone, you know. We’re not getting caught that way again.”

Knuckles and I both nodded when he looked at us, and he shook his head. “Huh. Makes sense, I guess.”

“It does.” I looked around again. The place really was crappy. “I know it’s a personal question, Mr… West, but under the circumstances I’d like to know… how much is that stipend?”

He looked down at the floor for a while, then cleared his throat. “Uh. $1100 a month.”

We all stared at him. Ms Fedorova’s mouth fell open. Knuckles looked shocked, and I was horrified. “$1100 a month?!” I asked, my voice coming out louder than I’d intended. “For risking your life on a superhero team?! I have teenaged cashiers working part-time who make more than that!”

He looked almost as startled as we did. “For working a cash register?!”

“Evil-Mart pays pretty good.” Knuckles shrugged. “But that stipend is disgusting.”

“You are being exploited,” Ms Fedorova said, sounding really aghast. “That is terrible. Why, baseline henchman pay is twice that, and there are danger bonuses and…” Her voice dropped suddenly. “You don’t have a union, do you?”

“A union? Of course we don’t have a…” He trailed off. “You mean you do?”

“Of course we do. An extremely well-armed one.” Ms Fedorova folded her arms. “Henchmen And Allied Industries has represented us for generations. The last time a supervillain executed a union henchman for failure, he was boiled in oil… literally. On camera. Oh, of course some of the less reputable villains just pick up small-time trash from the streets, untrained rabble from the gangs and so on, so they can treat them as disposable, but we union members are skilled workers, with rights and protections. I bet you don’t even get overtime.”

“Of course not. Crime happens when it happens, and we have to…” He trailed off. “You guys get overtime?”

“We’re getting double time and a half for this conversation. And an extra day off.”

His eyes widened again. “Really? Wow, that’s… even when I was working a regular job, before this, I didn’t get pay like that.” He looked down at his hands and bared his teeth in what looked like an unhappy expression. “And now I can’t work anything but this kind of job. People don’t like having a scary dinosaur in their restaurant.”

There was a long pause.

“You can cook?” Ms Fedorova asked carefully.

“Yeah. I worked in my parents’ restaurant before… this.” He gestured at himself. “They were killed when we were attacked, and I was… changed.”

We all looked at each other. “After you’ve returned Superdyne’s remains to whoever you consider appropriate,” I said, grabbing a notepad and scribbling down my number, “I’d like you to give me a call. Evil-Mart is always hiring in the bakery and deli, and I mean always. Most bad guys aren’t great cooks. We don’t know why, it just seems to be one of those things.”

“You want me to join the bad guys?”

“I want you to work in a bakery. Villains and henchmen need to eat, and so do their families. Nobody’s going to ask you to rip superheroes in half, just maybe make a sandwich that won’t give anyone food poisoning.”

“That’s a regular concern?”

“Six months ago the three of us ran Evil-Mart’s physical store completely unassisted for most of a day because the only people who weren’t down with food poisoning were the ones who’d had the vegetarian and kosher meals.” I shuddered at the recollection. “Trust me. Someone who can cater staff functions without a major disaster would never have to live in an apartment like this working for us.”

“And we get full benefits, including dental.” Knuckles was shaking his head. “I bet you don’t even get hospital.”

“What hospital would take me? I always figured I’d go to the zoo and talk to the vet if – “

Ms Fedorova actually put her arms around him. “You,” she told him firmly, “are going to resign your terrible exploitative job, and then I will personally sponsor you to the union immediately. I have a spare room. You will like it. Humidity and temperature can be set just how you like, and Mamma Yelena will take you to real doctor expert in health of hybrids.”

“Those exist?” he asked, sounding a bit overwhelmed.

“Yeah, the Genetic Reign has like three of them,” I said sympathetically. “Listen, you can take some time to think it over, but you don’t have to put up with this kind of exploitation just because you don’t look human. Nearly a third of Evil-Mart’s staff can’t pass, and they’re treated just like everyone else.”

Superdyne’s dramatic demise got a lot of news coverage. Apparently it came as a real shock to the ‘good guys’ that there were some monsters even the superest villains wouldn’t embrace.

Dinoid no longer exists. Ismail Jameel works at Evil-Mart, and has expanded our fresh food lines a lot already. He’s a nice guy, and after Ms Fedorova told everyone how disgustingly he’d been exploited by those so-called ‘heroes’, he was welcomed with open arms. Literally, in at least one case – he’s dating someone from the warehouse, I’ve heard, though I don’t know who. He says we should rename the store, because we suck at being evil.

But evil is a really relative term. It can mean the blackest depravity, or a moment of viciousness, or even just ‘people on the other side’. Evil-Mart is called that because everyone, at least everyone on our side, is welcome. Plus, we all think it’s funny that the least-evil megacorporation is called ‘Evil-Mart’. What can we say? Bad guys have a sense of humour too.

Have an evil day!

#welcome to Evil Mart #good is not just good #evil is not just evil #people are complicated #and so is retail #tw graphic #tw gore #tw violence #tw murder #it's a supervillain story #supervillain shit happens #you are now warned

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redwinterroses · 3 years ago

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RIIIIIIIIIGHT SO.

I just finished chapter 13 of Dog At The Door and holy hot cross buns batman if you're not reading this fic you NEED to. It's literally one of the best written fics I have ever read in my life and I've been reading fanfiction for over 15 years, lol.

I went back and reread the entire fic to lead up to chapter 13 and I decided to treat it like I used to treat things I had to read in college so I took notes as I went and please I am warning you this post is incredibly long. Almost 3k words. PLEASE do not hit that "read more" button unless you're good with having to scroll past it all and also spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.

~*~

Rereading Dog at the Door reactions (spoilers, obviously):

· Doc finding Ren’s body to be cold and for a second thinking he’s actually dead—my heart

· “That’s Ren, alive and kicking.” Oh…no, Doc. No it’s not.

· The first “Where is my hand?” hits different the second time through

· Gah the ice and winter imagery ALL over the place—my English degree brain wants to watch and see if that shifts to warmth at any point as we go? Thoughts for future Red to think.

· It’s fascinating to me to see Doc constantly thrust into the prey role. This is a guy who is very much not that person normally, but something about the Red King is beyond anything he’s really encountered before—or at least not since Dinnerbone—and it pushes him into an entirely new role that he clearly chafes in

· “I should get back to work on your new arm soon,” he says, making a mental note to add claws to the fingertips. Honestly Doc why tho. XD

· “It feels like something Ren would want him to do.” </3

· Side note: I just watched Doc’s freaking hour long shulker farm vid, and that’s making it a lot easier to hear his voice in this fic

· I’m more curious about the hand.” New Ren laughs a bit at his own words, as though there’s something funny about that phrasing. I MISSED THIS LINE THE FIRST TIME THROUGH

· The bead curtain being cursed hippie treasure XD

· The fact that Doc just so quickly accepts that Ren is gone—maybe not permanently, but at least for now—is kind of heartbreaking. Because you know he hasn’t really accepted it, he’s just… deciding not to feel anything about it. Just nod and move on and pretend you don’t need to stop and cope with the possible/probable death of your best friend and the fact that Someone Else is wearing his skin. That’s so sad.

· “high-fiving the finished hand with his own metal hand.” Aww… Doccy.

· “He shoos away the images of New Ren holding him up by the throat supervillain-style and turns around.” Hmmmmmmm want that fanart. Scary New Ren/RK is good stuff. (post-chapter-13 Red popping in with a WHAT THE HECK)

· “that makes him seem like a ghost in Ren’s body.” YA KNOW. LIKE HE IS.

· Okay side note time: why is the Red King here? Ya know? Like – in 3rdLife the idea of a possessing spirit of bloodlust makes some sense. But why stick around? Was RK trying to escape the 3L server, or was this not deliberate? At what point did he take over from Ren—at Black Heart Altar? In which case, was the whole idea Ren’s to begin with, or was he influenced? Maybe it happened the first time Ren died? The Red King took over then—or at least started to? Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts…

· Wait more theories—what if RK is connected to the ????? entity that spoke to Martyn when he died? In which case, cMartyn said he was considering making that canonically a Watcher (he ended up not doing it, but he also didn’t do anything that contradicted it either). I’m not saying RK is a Watcher… but boy he sure does stare a lot, don’t he.

· Holding the screwdriver like a dagger—mmmm

· Okay funny thought: all this frost, RK’s gonna need to be real careful about rust lol. And straining the metal, tbh, all that freezing and thawing is going to have an effect but the rust idea is making me laugh

· Until I realized it would look like blood and it’s not funny anymore

· “Renbob is in the beanbag stuffed next to the driver’s seat” right so is this where Renbob sleeps because I have been wondering—

· “something about having two people look like Ren when neither of them are makes Doc stop to take a shaky breath” *sob*

· “Renbob clears his throat, looking up at Doc with a smile that is so obviously fake that it hurts.” Ugh the LOT of you stop repressing everything you’ll give yourselves a collective hernia

· “he’ll probably have to break the news to the other hermits, too, Iskall and False and all the others.” All these painful lines I somehow missed the first time through

· Awww warm air comes in when Renbob opens the door—with the flowers and everything, Renbob is so easily associated with spring, I love this contrast.

· Aaand there it is, yup, RK is shocked to see his face on Renbob, and Renbob is shocked to see that this is so clearly Not Ren.

· They both recover pretty quickly, though. Survivors, both of them.

· RK calls Renbob their “ferryman” and I’m not sure if I was supposed to get “crossing the river Styx” vibes from that But I Did. (does RK think he’s dead? That they’re all dead?) (post-chapter-13 Red here with a little bit of wordless screaming.) (and also a bit of pride that I picked up on this.)

· “And what a help you’ve been! Fixing me up, replacing my hand.” Hi yes, 911? there’s a dagger stabbed into my feels.

· “he’d rather remember rage than see another person’s heart break.” Dang that’s such a raw line. Oof.

· ”the Red King says, his voice hoarse with tears.” Really interesting that this blood deity can feel such emotions—like, anger or even fear, I can get. But to see this entity upset to the point of tears is fascinating.

· “There is a crown on Doc’s workbench.” Right, yeah so like—is RK unwillingly manifesting these artifacts? Because that’s wild, man. …how long before he manifests an “enchanter”?

· “I’ve never seen it [the crown] clean before.” Okay that definitely implies that maybe RK didn’t come around until after Black Heart Altar?

· “The Red King has the crown in his lap when Doc turns back around, claws gently tracing over the engravings, leaving frost patterns behind.” I really wish I had art skills because there’s this image in my head of a drawing of the crown held in RK’s hands, with his face (one eye glowing, one in shadow) reflected in the surface, and frost patterns following behind a claw that’s daintily tracing the surface. But I can’t draw so—

· RK asks for a change of clothes. What was he wearing when they rescued him, I wonder? The Red King outfit with the fur capelet? Or Ren’s Stargazer outfit? Which begs the question: where does Stargazer fit into all this? Was Ren’s return to Hermitcraft RK free, but when he came so close to dying to Sith, RK found that as a gateway to take over? (Post-13 Red here, Looking Intently at this note.)

· Awww… the image of a one-legged RK clutching new clothes to his chest and hopping down to change in the bathroom… That’s weirdly endearing. He’s less menacing when he stands up somehow. Less lurking, maybe.

· Oooohhhhh he messed up his back sleeping on the floor. Gotcha.

· Doc keeps telling himself (and RK) that saving him and working on these parts is “the right thing to do” and while he’s not WRONG I just want to see him realize that it’s not only the right thing, it’s realistically the only thing, because if he didn’t, then he’d have to deal with the fact that he’s lost his best friend and we can’t have that.

· “I don’t need to eat” ummmmmm no hold on this definitely implies that RK is possessing a dead body and I’m not okay with that where is Ren

· LOLOL “I can’t stand to see [you do] this” is such a raw line to be about watching Doc eat cereal with his hands

· “The voice doesn’t belong to who he thinks it does.” Ugh, Doc. This isn’t the first time he’s lost a close friend to Something Else, something otherworldly.

· “All of them are waiting for him, waiting for him to do something more, something better—” aaand there it is. Doc’s characterization in this fic in a single sentence.

· Doc waking up and thinking he’s seeing Ren and RK’s hesitation and the gentle “I’m not Ren”—OH MY HEART

· RK’s coffee = Renbob’s friendship bracelets

· Randomly can I just say that I love how RK’s dialog is all in italics? It concerned me at first because I thought it was going to keep pulling me out of the narrative, but instead it really just feels right. Also I’m looking forward to the moment when he says something and it’s not in italics because it’s REN and oh my lands please give this to me I beg you (post-13 Red here with a bit more mindless screaming)

· “watch your tongue with me, Atlas, because I’m the one person you can pass the sky to.” Okay okay okay—English studies brain coming out. This suggests that there is a burden RK and Doc can share: something Doc is currently struggling against that only RK can help him with. In the moment, I don’t know if this is really fair of RK to say—after all, Doc does technically have Renbob too, if we’re just talking about Doc’s unhealthy coping mechanisms. In fact, if that’s the context, then Renbob is a much better fellow-Atlas because he and Doc have known each other much longer and they’re both dealing with the loss of Ren. BUT, knowing about the upcoming conversation where Doc and RK both realize that they’ve lost someone (Ren for Doc, Martyn for RK) this line suddenly has a lot more weight. Again, I don’t think that in that moment RK quite has the right to pull this zinger. But in later context, it turns out to be true after all. They are the only two with this particular shared pain.

· Doc upset with himself because he can’t get over his “stupid hang-ups” DOC MY LAD. “I’ve lost my best friend, you’re in his body, and I don’t know how to process any of these emotions” is not a “stupid hang-up” PLEASE stop blaming yourself for everything!?

· “I’m so tired” in the middle of his nightmare—oh my gosh. That hurts so much for some reason.

· I also very much wish I had the ability to draw the image of Doc with tears on his face, staring dead-eyed down at his workbench while RK looms over from behind, pinning his wrists to the table with one metal arm and one frost-bitten one, a look of exasperation and concern on his face. Why can’t I draw the things

· “How do you know Etho” “I watched him die.” OW ow ow ow ow

· Doc takes this as calmly as only someone used to living in a world where death has low consequences can. Oh. Oh—that means… huh. Doc isn’t used to losing people permanently on any basis, especially not death. So no wonder he doesn’t know how to process Ren being gone (I can’t bear to write “dead” there). He literally doesn’t have context for it… and what context he DOES have is like—I mean, Etho and Bdubs came back. Ouch.

· “Twenty-five.” The Red King makes the number sound like a threat. Yet another banger line I missed the first time through. Imagine waking up and thinking you’re in 3rd Life again but instead of 14 players there’s almost twice that many and you think you don’t know any of them.

· I still don’t quite understand the “when was etho added/should have known there was something different” bit or why RK is so emotional about it… but I have trust that it’ll make sense at some point. (post-13 Red: ...is this something about the fact that he thinks he's dead...so he thinks Etho has died before? Like, that 3rd Life wasn't Etho's first hardcore? ...I feel like I'm almost grasping this but I'm missing an element somewhere.)

· And now a sword. RK. My man. You need to stop manifesting things—especially when they scare the ever-living daylights out of you.

· I absolutely adore the in-universe lore that Fire Aspect is a PvP enchantment because it threatens dropped loot, and yeah I very well might steal that. (Along with something I read at one point who-even-knows-where that Knockback is a coward’s enchantment, because I love that too.)

· He really shouldn’t. / Doc picks up the sword by the scabbard and hands it to him, hilt extended. Doc you already trust this guy so much and you don’t even know it—but is it just because you still subconsciously trust the face he wears? Or is it something deeper?

· Ugh, the “I was supposed to kill someone for him” conversation/scene is SO FREAKING GOOD

· “I don’t want it. Not like the crown.” Why, though? Why doesn’t he want it? Because it’s more to do with death than kingship? OH. Oh, I hadn’t even considered that. I’ve been thinking of RK as this like, god of blood and vengeance but maybe he’s not. Maybe he hates the bloodshed (“the blood! It’s drippin’ in me eyes… I’ve been blinded by the violence…”) just as much—more?—than Ren did/would have. Huh. That’s a new facet.

· Oh my heart the “have you ever lost someone and it was your fault” line. Dagger to the feels. Dagger to the feels.

· This like… “I’m on a roll and even though I know I should stop I really don’t want to” mode? Man. That’s relatable. Especially when you’re working to avoid dealing with something else.

· “Not making it for you—it’s for Ren” oh ouch ouch ouch the denial suddenly breaks through it’s okay, Doc I’m with you on this

· The second time reading through it’s far clearer that Doc has a blind panic attack here—when he starts rambling that Ren’s coming back, he’ll be there for season eight and RK goes to…do whatever he was going to do and Doc just blanks out. The manic productivity should have been a warning sign, the poor guy is crumbling.

· “Doctor” and “he’s not sure he deserves that title right now” UGH Doc needs a hug someone please hug him and tell him it’s all going to be okay. Someone please hug me and tell me it’s all going to be okay.

· “his hand on his throat” over the scar from the Red Winter axe? </3

· “I did do that. I have done that.” RK admitting to it actually having been him in Doc’s nightmares?

· Okay sorry the conversation about beating Dinnerbone will never not be funny to me

· RK mentions that people used to call him m’lord or Ren, and then mere minutes later you have “Ren. You couldn’t save him because of me, could you?” He knows exactly what’s going on here. Not maliciously, but he’s no dense-head, he’s put the pieces together. (post-13 Red: MOST of the pieces. Most of them.)

· Watching Doc slowly stop fighting his nightmares—like, the first time, he fights. The second time, he accepts it but still struggles. And this time… this time he gives up before it even starts. That hurts, man.

· Good grief the whole “get my head chopped off” / “you really don’t want that” bit. O.O I’m not sure what emotion I’m feeling but I’m Feeling An Emotion.

· “Snow’s new. Dream’s not.” </3

· …Doc’s not gonna be a fan of snowier-snow after this trip…

· "Dr. M77" Actually he’s Doc Monster, RK, but we’ll let it go. XD

· OKAY BUT THIS EXCHANGE? The “how are you feeling” / “better” / “you’re a bad liar” / “I said better not great” that’s such a good exchange and I don’t know why every other time I’ve ever seen it used they stop at the lying accusation? Doc with the snappy comebacks, man.

· Aaah, Doc and RK, two establishment bros bonding over a shared disdain for hippies.

· The bit about the fella who wore an iron helmet and called it a powdered wig—fear is in my heart. *shoves Scar into an obsidian box and blocks it closed*

· “Who was Ren to you?” </3

· Doc is more than willing to spread the flames, to sear his loss into RK’s bones. / The king’s face stops him. Ren’s face stops him. Holy CRAP is that a good set of lines. So much going on there, and ALL of it good.

· Again. I wish I could draw. I would draw RK sitting on the edge of the bed, gently hugging a collapsed-in-on-himself Doc. </3

· “And I hate the devil that forced us apart, that mixed my blood with his.” *adds another layer to Scar’s obsidian fort*

· OKAY STARTING CHAPTER THIRTEEN I made the mistake of logging into Tumblr earlier and saw people screaming so I’m sure I’m not ready for this but here we go

· Oh no RK has been hippie-ified

· “You started a paramilitary organization because you have hay fever?” *dies laughing*

· Ugh I need to go back and watch s6 I’ve only seen the tail end of Mumbo’s side of things and there’s so much I don’t know.

· HAHAHAHAH I do know the trident bit though—

· Wait he said Scar

· PANIC

· “Kingslayer. bloodthirsty. Time King. The coward. And the mastermind behind it all, the loyal soldier to the very end, the whole damn reason either of us are in this mess.”

· HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP HOLY—

· “Is this the afterlife I deserve? After everything, this is the hell I’m going to endure?” I AM SCREAMING

· Doc pinned to the wall with ice, struggling to breathe—I CAN’T WHAT IS HAPPENING

· ((You know I’d get through this a lot faster if I stopped pausing to write reactions—))

· “A break in the ice. A whisper of spring.” Symbolism. Symbolism.

· “Ren was dead when I found him again,” NO I REFUSE TO READ THIS

· “don’t use the hand I built you to hurt yourself” DOC. SIR. MY HEART.

· RK don't run, RK get back here—what are you—

· I

· JUST

· ACTUALLY

· SCREAMED

· AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

· *several long moments of just breathing*

· *rereads*

· Holy crap on a garbage cracker with an extra serving of what-the-heck sauce

· REN

· Okay lol okay hahaha calming down

· I literally threw myself back in my chair away from the computer reading that last paragraph. I don't usually... physically react to things I read. LOL. Heh. I’m. Ah. I’m not emotionally invested in this or anything.

· Holy crap.

· Okay. Okay. Okay.

· Um.

· Great chapter, guys. Awesome stuff. Really good. I’m absolutely okay right now and it’s all totally fine.

· …please enjoy your break and get lots of rest and I very much look forward to the return of this fic you have no idea.

· I need to go breathe for a little bit.

EDIT: no, you know what--I'm not going to be a nice polite fangirl over here and quietly hope y'all see this I'm straight up tagging you, @fluffy-papaya and @betweenlands. THANK YOU but also how dare.

#The only reason I'm even posting this is for my own remembering later #and i guess if fluffy or solar want to see my mindless ramblings -- go nuts #long post #redwinterreacts #redwintertalks #dog at the door

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veliseraptor · 3 years ago

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got tagged for two fic writer memes yesterday! the one from @ameliarating first:

How many works do you have on AO3?

509.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

3,432,24. dang! that’s a lot of words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I have written for...counting the MCU as one fandom, on AO3 I have written for 32 fandoms, including at least one work in:

MCU, The Sillmarillion, Caliban Leandros, both DC and Marvel Comics, the book Barebacked by Kit Whitfield, Doctrine of Labyrinths, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Black Jewels, Dragon Age, Lucifer, Dexter, Temeraire, Gentleman Bastard Sequence, Supernatural, A Song of Ice and Fire, Greek Mythology, Lymond Chronicles, Merlin BBC, Code Geass, Good Omens, Death Note, and White Collar.

this is not a comprehensive list of every fandom I’ve ever written for, because it is not including ones that live only on FFN or Livejournal.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Life In Reverse tops the list (11066), aka my 200k Loki-centric post-Thor AU fic that I wrote between 2012 and 2018 and with which I have a decidedly complex relationship at this point. I love it but also I no longer think it’s my best work but also I credit it with teaching me a fuck of a lot about writing and writing longer projects in general.

With Absolute Splendor is rapidly catching up, to my astonishment (6559), despite having been posted for less than half as long. Aka the wedding planning fic that’s really just me mucking about in my Jiang Cheng and my Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian feelings, at length.

some good mistakes (4618) was my first foray into the Untamed version of “characters who hate each other going on resentful roadtrips together, feat. Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng.” I have gone on to write others and will continue to write more.

Unraveling (3069) is a little bit of a surprise but also not - it was originally just sort of WWP stuff for my ‘what if people remembered that blunt force trauma is a really bad thing actually’ problem that pops up sometimes, re: Loki at the end of The Avengers, and then it kind of turned into a whole thing. I personally think it’s the weakest of the installments of the series it belongs to, but it is the first one and also the one that gets least into the broader family dysfunction and depression stuff that probably is less everyone’s thing (but is what came out this fic that mattered more to me, personally).

I am a little surprised to see Steve Rogers’ Halfway House for Notorious Supervillains (3068) here too! I was expecting one of the more...idk, mainstream concepts from the MCU to win out? But I also wasn’t expecting two Untamed fics to make it here, either. But I am stupid proud of this fic even if it is very extraordinarily unfinished. This is one of those unfinished fics that will nag at me unless and until I finish it, at least a little, because the concept - if I do say so myself - is so goddamn good and I think I was executing it pretty well, too.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Pretty much never. I was never very good at it and now I’d feel like I had to go back and reply to all of them and I just. I can’t do that. and when I do try to just start at the beginning I get overwhelmed very fast and start avoiding it.

Basically I decided that if it’s a decision between wrestling with myself to reply to comments versus actually doing more writing I’m going to end up landing on the latter as feeling both more doable and more productive.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

probably it’s The Worlds Forgotten, the Words Forbidden for sheer level of “so then what was the point” of it all. but like. I’ve definitely written a few extraordinarily miserable fics, and by “a few” I kind of mean “a lot.” Other nominees I’d put down might be nor autumn falter (for currently personally making me suffer most), once there was a way to get back home (for I think having the ouchiest summary), and Waiting for the Summer Rain (which remains one of my personal favorite Supernatural fics I wrote).

but like. there are 43 fics I have marked with Major Character Death warnings and every single one of those, pretty much, has a downer ending.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I have written several though not in a long time! My craziest probably remains the Morgoth/Cthulhu short I wrote that actually got sporked because someone took it seriously (???) enough to do that. But the craziest that actually has any merit, (I’d argue) is probably the Maeglin/Viserys one.

not linking to either, if you want to go find them I don’t think it’ll be that hard.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yeah, a few times on a few different things. More if you count “people who seem to like the fic but love telling you how much they hate the female characters you’re writing about in it” as ‘hate’ which I would but isn’t, you know, quite as straightforward. If I had a nickel for every time someone bitched about Jane in Life in Reverse, though...lots of nickels.

Do you write smut? if so what kind?

Sure do! But what does ‘what kind’ mean, I don’t know how to answer that question. I feel tempted to just put in my “Mike’s Hard Kinks” image edit in this space.

I guess usually I tend to write smut that at least involves a little bit of a kink? I don’t think I’d feel comfortable writing entirely kinkless smut. I think I’d feel weird about it, the same way I do when I write really nice fic, generally.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I think I did back when but I don’t remember anything about it. I feel like it was one of those mass data scraping things where my fic happened to be among those caught up in it.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! several actually, mostly into Russian and Chinese. every time it happens I’m immensely flattered that someone wants to put in that kind of work on something I wrote.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I think I’d be very, very bad at it.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Depends on when you ask me! I could probably give you a top five but then I’d remember six that I forgot to mention five minutes later. I guess if I were to think about ships that feel like they hold very special particular places in my heart... Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen, Steve Rogers/Loki, and Min/Rand come to mind.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

oh god do you want the whole list cause honestly I could just like. screencap the entirety of my “in progress” folder with a crying emoji watermarked over it. and that’s not getting into the fics that are like...half formed babies in my consciousness but not anywhere on paper.

and also I just hate to admit that I might not finish something.

you know what? the Lucifer/Good Omens crossover I started would’ve been a lot of fun. I’m probably never going to finish it, but it would’ve been great if I had. I know other people did it too but my contribution could’ve been amazing.

I can say this very boldly with the near certainty that I’m not going to finish the fic so no one will be able to disagree.

(...also the Last Herald-Mage fix it. that was going to be a good fic too, and also will probably languish unfinished forever.)

What are your writing strengths?

I’m pretty sure dialogue is my strongest point. Dialogue and emotions, which is why I always end up just wanting to write about characters talking and having feelings at each other.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing action sequences throws me into conniptions every time I have to do it and I will take drastic actions sometimes to avoid doing it at all, which probably weakens the work as a whole.

Also, I don’t plan ahead and this means I write myself into corners kind of a lot. If I wasn’t writing long, dense fic it wouldn’t be a problem but here we are.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I tend to avoid it unless it’s in the context of, as in CQL/MDZS fic, leaving certain terminology untranslated. I’m pretty sure I almost never write full exchanges of dialogue in a different language than I’m using for the narration within a fic, and generally speaking my reaction to other people doing it is at least mildly negative.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter was technically the first fandom I wrote for, but it was a crack fic I wrote to make my friends laugh more than anything; I tend to count Wheel of Time as my first actual fandom for which I wrote my first actual fic.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

some days the answer is “all of them” and some day the answer is “I don’t like anything I’ve written in my entire life” and I never like giving this a definitive answer. yesterday I reread efforts in a common cause (the bound copy!! thanks @spockandawe) and you know what, that was a good fic and I’m proud of it, so I’m going with that one, for this meme, today.

tagging: @mostfacinorous, @jaggedcliffs, @silvysartfulness, @mikkeneko, @kasasagi-eye, @curiosity-killed, how many people am I supposed to tag for this one anyway

#lise memes #confessions of a frustrated writer

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neakco · 4 years ago

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The Lost Temple Ch.4

Ao3 First Prev Next Masterlist

Where Tim debates if sending his youngest brother out to murder an ancient order of monks is unethical.

Ch.4 The Calm

Marinette explained that she hadn’t seen any signs of the temple yet. So it was decided they would consider every area covered today as searched unless the remaining sections turn up empty.

Their new plan also had them sticking together, just in case. Just in case of what was never mentioned but Tim was starting to think it either had something to do with gods or magic.

As they once again shared the watch Tim decided to risk asking a question he had dismissed earlier. “How did you untie the ropes so quickly?”

He watched a few different emotions cross her eyes before settling on mischievous.

“I have a small god in my pocket.”

He laughed quietly, “I don’t even know if you are joking. You are a mystery Marinette.” A mystery he wouldn’t mind taking a long time to solve if he was being honest.

Her laughter soon joined his, “How about I tell you when all of this is over.”

“So you don’t plan to disappear off the grid after returning to the monks?”

Marinette’s mirth evaporated, “I don’t want to return.”

It felt to Tim that in that moment she had removed his soul to scrutinize every sin and good deed before finally giving it back.

“I trust you more then I have ever trusted them.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. “Adrien and I have known them for five years now.”

Tim was curious but he could also tell this was a very sensitive topic, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“I know, but it feels good to tell someone.”

He watched and waited patiently. This was the first time he felt as if she wasn’t suppressing any of her emotions and he didn’t want to ruin it.

“The monks figured they could control us, by the time the learned they were wrong it was too late. We were too powerful.”

Tim wanted to make a joke about how they didn’t look powerful, but deep down he knew that wasn’t true. There was definitely something just under the surface if you knew what to look for. Tim had spent to much Tim with those more than human to ever dismiss Marinette and Adrien.

“They tried to kill us when we were 16 three years ago.”

That stopped Tim's thoughts. What sane person tries to kill sixteen year olds?

“Adrien's father had just been revealed as a supervillain and arrested.” He was definitely staring, this was a lot more information than he expected her to offer freely.

She apparently noticed his look and understood, “It is common knowledge and if you are even half as good a detective as rumours say then I know you will find out eventually.”

He watched her collect her own thoughts for a moment and noticed his own were silent for once.

“We survived the attempt without a scratch. For a while we figured that would be the end of it. We started to pick up the chaos of what remained of our lives. We wanted to be kids, at least for a couple more years. We hadn’t been kids in so long…” She trailed off for less than a breath. “Then they appeared again.”

Tim didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she continued speaking in a darker tone.

“They took the only people we care about. Said that if we do this one thing that we won't have to worry anymore.”

“You don’t believe them.”

“Would you?”

“No, probably not.” He reached into one of his pouches and pulled out a card in the shape of his logo and handed it to her. “I doubt the monks will expect you ask for help. This has my emergency line and the number for Mount Justice. When you decide to pull off a rescue then you just need to ask.”

Marinette surprised him when she hugged him, tears streaming down her pretty face. “This means so much more to me than you could ever know.”

Tim, not really knowing what to do, did his best to hug her back. There was a small voice that sounded like his youngest brother telling him it was stupid to trust two teens that he had stumbled over in a jungle, but he was pretty good at ignoring the Gremlin when his gut disagreed.

Adrien eventually came by to tell them they were late for breakfast. Tim hadn’t even realised so much time had passed.

They came back to camp to see Bart already bouncing off trees.

“Adrien, tell me about your girlfriend.”

“Kagami?” Tim watched Adrien sit down with a cheese danish that had him questioning if the blonde was as good a baker as Marinette.

“She is as fierce and protective as a dragon.”

Marinette sat down next to him with a chocolate danish. Where were these coming from? Tim wondered if they could get him a mocha flavoured one.

“You know kitty, I am actually surprised the monks managed to grab her. She is rather deadly with a sword after all.”

“I am mire surprised they didn’t grab Luka.” Adrien grinned ferally. “Do you think he tossed them in La Siene? I rather doubt they know how to swim.”

“Who's Luka? You’re boyfriend?” Kon asked before taking a bite of…was that steak?

Okay, now Tim knew he was being pranked. He turned to glare at Bart who just grinned and handed over a large slice of coffee cake.

“Luka is actually my ex, but I still count him as one of my best friends. Enough about us, what about you three? Anyone special waiting for you back home?”

Bart laughed, ��Nah, I am still celebrating just being alive.”

Tim could see Marinette adding Bart into her club as Kon scoffed, “Hard to find someone okay with dating a hero.”

Tim nodded, “Too many secrets. It isn’t like you can explain why you are ditching a date to run towards danger.”

“Or why you are late and covered in bruises, burns or blood.” Bart chipped in.

“Actually that one is easy enough when you live in Gotham.” Tim sighed, he really wished that wasn’t the case.

Adrien nodded along solemnly, “The only ones to understand are heroes and villains.” He looked towards Tim brimming with mischief. “Is it true that Batman had a threesome with Gotham's Sirens?”

A yo-yo flew into Adrien with such force that the blonde actually flew from his seat. Tim was up before the boy had gracefully landed on his feet, but relaxed upon seeing the toy, no the weapon, return to Marinette.

“Kitty, no.”

“M'lady you wound me. That actually hurt. I just wanted to make him blush.”

He watched her tuck the yo-yo away at her back before turning to Tim, “You really don’t need to answer him.”

Tim grinned, “I honestly don’t know. Pretty sure I deleted that info from my brain. I mean, would you want to know your mentor's sex life?”

Adrien and Marinette both shuddered.

“Our trusted mentor was 186.”

“and a half.” Adrien interrupted.

“186 and a HALF.” He watched her glare at the blonde while his own teammates shuddered.

Tim found himself more impressed then anything else. That was an unnaturally long life, unless their trusted mentor was secretly Ra’s. He doubted the Gremlin's grandfather was ever a monk though, rogue or otherwise. Plus, unlike said Gremlin, these two didn’t have the aura of killers. He would bet they had seen death, something in the sometimes haunted look they would get. These two had seen some sort of war and lived.

“Hey Red, are you still with us?” Marinette was very close and looking at him with concern.

“Yeah, I was just thinking.” He saw that most of the breakfast mess had already been cleaned up and decided to throw caution to the wind. “Have you or Adrien ever killed anyone?”

“What?” Marinette reeled back from him in shock.

Adrien looked like an offended cat, “No!”

“Well, there was that erased timeline…” Marinette trailed off.

“You told me I was under mind control! And I doesn’t count when only you and Bunnix can remember it.”

“Sorry, forget I ever asked.” If that timeline-hopping, punk rabbit was involved then he already knew more then he wanted to. Missions given to them by her were always the most chaotic.

In order to change the subject he pulled up his holo-map. “Working off the theory that our enemy has already searched their area.” He highlighted a good portion of the map purple. “Then this small area here should be the only area left to search.”

“We are actually assuming the enemy is competent?” Kon asked.

“Even if they aren’t, it will be a lot harder to search their territory without drawing attention.” Marinette added. “If today doesn’t work out then we can work out a strategy.”

Tim marked out their path in gold, “Two hours there and about 12 hours to search before we call it a night.”

“Unless we find it.” Adrien smiled.

“Unless we find it.” He agreed.

As always, feel free to reach out if you have any background lore questions. I am more than happy the elaborate the chaos.

Taglist @toodaloo-kangaroo

#maribat #the lost temple #adventure #some angst #some humor #rin writes

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forevercloudnine · 4 years ago

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pre-new 52 scarebat ship meme

(I actually have no idea what to call this period of comics. The dc wiki calls this the “New Earth” universe... it’s like, everything after Jason Todd was retconned out of being a circus acrobat up to Flashpoint. Anyway like a month ago I asked @heroes-etc to send me questions for this version of scarebat from this ship meme but then forgot that I did it because I got distracted by other ships. Sorry Jonathan...)

4. Who can’t keep their hands to themselves?

Bruce does DO physical affection — I mean, how many comic panels do we even have of him making out with Catwoman on rooftops — but he’s not especially forthcoming with it. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that his love interests are more likely to instigate contact than he is, especially when that love interest is a villain like Selina or Talia (can you even IMAGINE him trying to take them off guard in a fight by grabbing their face for a kiss? Because I cannot).

He does occasionally instigate affection with his children/proteges, though usually it’s in instances where they obviously need comfort. Bruce isn’t always great at handling complicated emotional situations, but grief and trauma is something he understands very intimately, and he never hesitates to physically reassure people who are in that kind of pain.

In situations where someone isn’t in the active process of being traumatized, he’s less forward with physical affection. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll reject it if it’s instigated — depending on who you are, of course. I’m guessing he wouldn’t put up with hugs from random members of the Justice League. Superman is his best friend and he would probably try to wiggle out of 90% of Kal hugs if doing so was physically possible. Most of his loved ones don’t really spring physical affection on him unless they need it or it’s an especially emotional moment, however. It’s not really Bruce’s primary love language.

Jonathan seems even less physically affectionate than Bruce, though obviously doesn’t have a lot of opportunity to demonstrate how he feels either way. Master of Fear offers the only example of him expressing explicitly romantic affection that I know of (unless you count his terrorizing Becky Albright in New Year’s Evil as physical affection, which... might be how he’s thinking of it...?), and it’s entirely instigated by Sherry Squire. He does ask her to the Halloween party, but she’s the one who takes him down to the furnace room for some “one-on-one” time and tells him to kiss her.

He also notably does not actually get a chance to kiss her, mainly because the whole thing was a prank meant to humiliate him. This might be why he doesn’t try to instigate anything similar with his next crush, Dr. Linda Friitawa (again, unless you count Becky Albright, but I can’t find New Year’s Evil to read anywhere so my only knowledge of his interaction with her comes from Tumblr. I’m like 80% sure he was supposed to be interested in her romantically, but asking someone to do supervillainy with you isn’t the most direct way to express attraction, so I’m taking that as more obliqueness from Jonathan).

He never expresses any direct romantic interest in Linda, but at the very least he clearly cares about her more than he cares for most people, since he, like. Defends her in conversation and apologizes to her for things that aren’t even his fault. Which means a lot, coming from a sociopath with no regard for human life. They do hold hands at one point, but Linda reaches out to him first, and he waits to see if she’s going to back away from his reciprocated touch before he reaches for her other hand.

He never instigates anything further with her, possibly out of fear of rejection. Unfortunately, it turns out that this was a good call, because Linda was only pretending to be nice to him while Penguin was paying her to experiment on Jonathan without his knowledge. When Batman figures out what they’re doing, she immediately fucks off and starts dating Black Mask.

Even more unfortunately, his 45 seconds of hand holding with Backstabby McMad Scientist is probably the only mutual physical affection Jonathan has ever experienced in his entire life, so honestly I have no idea if he would be more into it as a concept if it was offered to him more often. He’s clearly willing to return physical contact when it’s initiated by someone else, so maybe it is something he would seek out in an actual relationship? He DOES get handsy with Bruce when he has Batman tied up sometimes.

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other?

Trip out on fear toxin, both of them, hands down. There are few things more embarrassing than, as Jonathan aptly describes it, being “reduced to whimpering quivers” in front of your enemy. Especially an enemy who’s presumably jotting down notes on your worst fears, since Batman/Scarecrow fights tend to just be competitions in who’s more frightening.

11. What do they hide from one another?

I mean, obligatory mention of the fact that Bruce hides things from absolutely everyone (with the possible exception of Alfred, because Bruce trusts him as completely as he is capable of trusting anyone, and also because it’s really hard to hide things from a parent whose involved in every aspect of your life and already knew you before you developed your pathological need to obfuscate your feelings and intentions).

As Wonder Woman pretty aptly describes during the Tower of Babel arc, even Bruce’s closest allies are never going to hear the full story from him. So it’s deeply unlikely he’d ever be 100% truthful with a supervillain, even if they got close AND Jonathan reformed.

But it’s notable that Jonathan’s fear toxin has actually given him a more honest look into Bruce’s psyche than he would ever purposefully give to people who aren’t close family members. And by “close family members” I again pretty much just mean Alfred. Unfortunately for Bruce, nothing forces emotional transparency like mind altering drugs. Fortunately for Jonathan, nothing forces emotional transparency like mind altering drugs! Not that I’m recommending that anyone drug a romantic partner into being honest with them. But Jonathan is a trained psychiatrist, so I assume his psychological know-how combined with insights gleaned from the dozens of “sessions” he’s had with Batman in the past would leave him more prepared than most to decipher the mystery that is Bruce Wayne. (@heroes-etc: riddler is SEETHING.)

Jonathan meanwhile is more than capable of putting together a clandestine scheme, but in respect to himself he’s actually pretty straightforward. Though his driving motivation in this continuity gets more and more complicated over time, from the early 90’s “I just like fear” to the early 2000’s “my Granny tortured me with birds when I was a child and now I’m obsessed with inspiring the same fear and submission she forced on me onto others,” what doesn’t change is his willingness to monologue about it to anyone who’s listening.

Also, anything that Jonathan is unable or unwilling to go into detail on, Bruce is more than capable of puzzling out himself. In Scarecrow: Year One he successfully tracks down Jonathan’s old home to recover and read through Granny Keeney’s diary, and after Scarecrow’s Master of Fear origin was published, it’s clear that Bruce has done his research on Jonathan’s childhood. There’s even a (presumably unintentionally) hilarious scene where Bruce pauses mid-rescue of a man that Jonathan has kidnapped and traumatized with fear toxin to lecture him on having bullied Jon in high school.

Is this really the time, Bruce???

(@heroes-etc: oh 100% he nailed that timing.)

13. When do they realise they should get together?

Well, circling back to Tower of Babel, it’s revealed when Ra’s al Ghul has Talia steal Bruce’s contingency plans for defeating the Justice League that Bruce has “borrowed” Scarecrow’s fear toxin in case he has to take down Aquaman.

This was back when Scarecrow had a number of different toxins that induced different phobias, or made people hallucinate hyper-specific nightmare scenarios (such as “being eaten alive by roaches from the inside,” for some terrible reason). Batman notes in his contingency files that Scarecrow has already done the work for him; presumably Jonathan had already designed a formula to induce hydrophobia, so all Bruce had to do was steal a vial of it from a crime scene.

(The sentence “Why not make him incapacitate himself... perhaps through fear?” alone is like 90% of why I think these men would get along like burlap on fire if they ever actually cooperated on something. Also, unrelated, but the polaroid of Jonathan he has in the Aquaman file is weirdly adorable.)

Bruce’s plan for Arthur is incredibly effective, and notably also Bruce’s only contingency that isn’t either inherently lethal or a ruthlessly sociopathic betrayal of emotional vulnerabilities that had been revealed to him in trust and friendship (RIP Kyle Rayner).

(Notably, Bruce’s plans for Kyle and several other leaguers directly involve using their worst fears against them, even without a fear toxin conveniently tailored for this purpose. Bruce just really likes using fear as a weapon against people.)

After Tower of Babel, Bruce obviously needed to create new contingencies, since the whole point is that they were secret plans that no one could see coming. In canon, Bruce goes on to create the A.I. satellite Brother Eye for this purpose (which backfires even worse than his first set of contingency plans, because of course it does). But I think an interesting alternative could have been Bruce tapping Jonathan for more toxin strands tailored to taking down the Justice League. If Bruce Wayne offered to pay Scarecrow’s way out of Arkham in order to develop formulas that could neutralize the world’s most powerful superheroes, is there any way that Jonathan would turn him down? I mean, obviously he would plan on betraying Wayne at some point, and Bruce would similarly be working against Jonathan’s best interests. But maybe if they set aside their “who’s scarier” dick measuring contest to work together for once, they could come to recognize their shared passion: scaring the shit of people.

Also, the Jonathan in this continuity really likes books. And you know what’s a reliably sustainable source of books that can’t be confiscated by the authorities? Dating Bruce Wayne. The manor alone probably has an insane amount of rare books that have been hoarded by his family over the years. It’s like a weird reversal of the Beauty and the Beast, where the rude rich guy who gives a library to the love interest he may or may not have technically kidnapped is the pretty one.

21. Where do they get nervous about going with one another?

If they were dating, I’m guessing Jonathan wouldn’t want to go anywhere in public with Bruce at all. Bruce Wayne is a celebrity bachelor, and celebrity bachelors get a lot of attention, and people who take celebrity bachelors off the market get a lot of NEGATIVE attention. The public reaction to Bruce settling into a committed relationship with anyone would be the kind of weirdly resentful gossipy judgement that the girlfriends of famous princes or actors or musicians always get from tabloids and entertainment television, but in Jonathan’s case it would be a million times worse. Not just because he’s a supervillain, because if there’s any town that would expect its most eligible bachelor to eventually date a supervillain, it’s Gotham. But more specifically because “ugly social outcast” is one of Scarecrow’s most enduring character traits. Not exactly the traditional trophy wife. And though Jonathan’s Scarecrow identity seems to distance him from a lot of the shame he suffered growing up, I’m guessing that the kind of spiteful vitriol that would follow him anywhere he accompanied Bruce would at the least bring back some very unwanted memories.

Bruce probably doesn’t have the same discomfort Jonathan would with being seen together in public. He doesn’t care if people think Bruce Wayne is insane or lacking in judgement as long as they don’t think he’s Batman, and I’m sure he’d find a way to spin “dating a man who prefers to dress exclusively in burlap” into something appropriately characteristic of playboy idiocy. But while he'd definitely respect Jonathan's wishes to stay out of the public sphere, he would probably enjoy any opportunity to bring Scarecrow into Gotham high society, since his presence would definitely shake up a party, and Bruce is generally extremely bored at any social event where he doesn’t have anyone to snark with. And with Jonathan’s scathing wit as entertainment, Bruce might one day fulfill Alfred’s wish and actually make it through an intermission sometime.

I’d say that Bruce would be nervous about taking Jonathan out for “field research,” but I’m sure it would be one of Scarecrow’s requirements for any long term collaboration, so it’s something that he would have to get used to pretty quickly. He would probably endeavor to keep Jonathan away from anything that could retrigger his less healthy behaviors. On the other hand, it’s not like Bruce does that for himself, so it stands to reason that he probably wouldn’t be able to successfully control Jonathan in that regard either.

It doesn’t help that one of Jonathan’s primary motivations in villainy is his childhood, which is... exactly the same thing that Bruce is fixated on. A significant portion of Scarecrow: Year One is the two of them waxing poetic about how similar they are in this regard.

Relating to this, even though it might be a terrible idea, I don’t think Bruce would be able to resist encouraging Jonathan to reconnect with his mom. Bruce would never recommend for someone like Cassandra to seek out a relationship with her father, but if someone he cares about has a LIVING parent who WASN’T abusive to them? It seems unlikely that Bruce wouldn’t advocate for reconciliation. Jonathan’s dad obviously never cared about the teenage girl he knocked up or their bastard child, but Karen Keeney is a different story. DC Holiday Special ‘09 makes it clear that Jonathan was taken away from her against her will, and she’s spent a significant portion of her life wracked by guilt imagining what the woman who abused her was doing to her son.

Ultimately she attempts to commit suicide because she feels personally responsible for every terrible thing her son has ever done, which is tragic because really she’s the only member of the Keeney family completely blameless in the creation of the Scarecrow. In Scarecrow: Year One Jonathan clearly resents her for leaving him and moving on to have another baby that she actually did keep, which I would call a really paranoid case of jumping to conclusions if it didn’t seem extremely likely that Granny Keeney told him his mother didn’t want him and left him to be tortured on purpose.

(Side note, it is REALLY weird how young Karen Keeney is depicted in Scarecrow: Year One. At times her son looks older than she is, and it doesn’t help that her second born child is an infant for some reason. Even if Jonathan is only thirty years old here, then unless she had him at younger than fourteen, she should already be in her mid-forties. Why did she only have a second child so late in life? The implication with her abusive husband is that she ended up getting trapped in a bad relationship for survival when her family kicked her out as a teenager for disgracing the family by having Jonathan. It would make way more sense for her child with him to be at least in elementary school. Also the scene would have been way more interesting if Scarecrow’s sister was old enough to talk.)

Thankfully Deadman manages to convince Karen to hold on to life long enough for someone to call 911, and she ends up surviving the suicide attempt. But were Jonathan ever to reform, it seems like reconciliation would be really healthy for both of them, since miraculously Karen still seems to care about Jonathan despite everything he’s put her through, and they’re both clearly still suffering from the after effects of Mary Keeney’s abuse.

Bruce would be enthusiastic about this prospect for obvious reasons, although he would presumably still be nervous about the possibility of everything going terribly wrong. And even if everything went perfectly right, he would STILL be nervous, because everytime Jonathan goes to see his mother there’s a chance that she will mention the time that she kissed Batman full on the mouth. And that is not information you would ever want your psychologist boyfriend to know, unless you want to be mocked with Freudian buzzwords for the rest of your natural life.

(...This would also count as a thing that Bruce hides from Jonathan.)

#scarebat #jonathan crane #scarecrow #bruce wayne #batman #i just they're neat #it's all about those shared interests #and by shared interests i mean subjugating your enemies through fear #ship meme

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thebibliomancer · 3 years ago

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Essential Avengers: Avengers #252: DECIDING FACTOR!

February, 1985

Who on Earth is strong enough to smash Hercules? Hint: there’s two of them!

Well I have my guess but I happened to guess right so I won’t be sharing. Let’s sayyyyyyyy.... Más y Menos.

Its very rude of DCAU’s Más y Menos to be picking on Hercules. Maybe sí podemos but that doesn’t mean ustedes should.

Anyway.

Last times on Avengers, Vision walked through a null field created by Annihilus and promptly fell in a robot coma and had to be put in a tube. He regained consciousness and Starfox hooked him up to the Titan supercomptuer ISAAC after which Vision started behaving oddly. When half of the Avengers got back from Secret Wars, Vision convinced Wasp to step down as chairman and nominate him. He’s created a second branch of the team in California under Hawkeye’s leadership. He’s pushed the president into making the Avengers chair a member of the Cabinet. He hid Starfox’s secret sexy power from the rest of the team. And just last issue, it was revealed that Vision and ISAAC have built a take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device with Vision only lacking the will to pull the trigger on it.

So, uh, stuff is afoot.

Vision stuff. And, oddly enough, Doc Sampson stuff.

Vision is very impressed on seeing what seems to be Doc Sampson’s demo reel and offers him membership in the Avengers.

Doc Sampson turns him down because he doesn’t see himself as hero material and he already accepted an offer to join the faculty of Northwestern University.

Vision: “That needn’t rule you out, doctor! What would you say to heading a new, Midwestern branch of the Avengers? I should think you’re make an excellent group leader!”

Wow, Vision. You’re coming on a little strong there.

Midwest Avengers seems like the kind of thing that would be made up to spoof the expansion team idea, kinda like the Great Lakes Avengers of later. But if Vision seems desperate to get Doc Sampson to join the Avengers, well I think he is desperate.

Vision talked to ISAAC of his frustrations on trying to spread the power and influence of the Avengers. He has his take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device but he doesn’t seem to want to use it. So he’s trying to repeat the trick with the West Coast Avengers. Sign up more and more Avengers. If you told this era of Vision about the 50 State Initiative, he’d be all over it.

But Doc Sampson turns him down. For the best. God only knows who Vision would have finagled into being on the Midwest Avengers in Chicago.

Doc Sampson: I wonder if I made a mistake in turning down the Vision’s offer? Being part of such a team would have given me an opportunity to observe some highly unusual psyches up close. But, no... I could hardly maintain an impartial detachment in such a situation.

Yeah. A Doc Sampson led Chicago-branch would have been an implosion waiting to happen. And Sampson will get his chance to pick the brains of a superhero team later with X-Factor. He does not maintain an impartial detachment.

On his way out, Starfox very much wants to discuss this newspaper headline. As he’s from a more advanced space civilization that doesn’t have prejudice probably, this is very baffling to him.

He hasn’t been on Earth long enough to learn that “ANTI-MUTANT FEAR GRIPS U.S.” is Tuesday.

I wonder if it corresponds to anything going on in the X-books. I tried to look it up but the same month as this issue, X-Men was doing a Kulan Gath thing.

Anyway, Vision and Doc Sampson agree that anti-mutant fear gripping things is bad and could tear society apart.

So in case anyone was ever wondering: the Avengers officially think anti-mutant fear is whack.

Anyway, on the mansion’s back patio, Captain America and Scarlet Witch are just having some old friend hangout time.

It’s a nice moment, really.

Wanda is drinking tea and Cap is just sketching her because they’re comfortable enough friends to hang out in a tea sketch party.

Anyway, Cap is also familiar enough with Wanda to know that she’s well vexed.

And she admits that she’s well vexed by two things. Of course, by the new wave of anti-mutant phobia because it really seems like a cruel cycle where every time people seem like they’re chilling out or there’s a swell of tolerance, it just gets yanked back. A cruel yo-yo of intolerance.

Also, its happening when she’s having personal trouble with Vision. He’s keeping secrets and he has some really extreme moods.

Scarlet Witch: “One moment he’ll be friendly and open, and the next he’ll get so remote!”

I wonder if its possible for Hank Pym’s bipolar disorder to have skipped a generation and somehow been inherited by Vision. That’s entirely not how anything works but I dunno. That sounds like Hank.

Since Cap has been wondering about Vision’s behavior (he and Monica Marvel had a discussion about it in the previous issue, remember?), he agrees to go talk to Vision.

Vision is having solemn thoughts in the mansion’s library, having been upset by the Daily Bugle that Starfox was waving around.

Vision: The world is beset by so much strife. Humanity cries out for peace... Yearns for life and prosperity... but in the end it denies itself that which it most desires! Mankind might never put aside its prejudices. Too many have refused responsibility for their own actions. How can they be expected to save the world? And, yet, who am I -- a synthezoid, an artificial being -- to rail against men of flesh? My encephalatron command chair would give me the power to bring peace to the world... and yet I hesitate to use it! Can I find the courage... make the sacrifice necessary to use that power?

That’s when Cap wanders in to give Vision a talking to. A supportive, helpful talking to.

Since he assumes that what Vision has on his mind is the burdens of leadership, he confides that he knows how tough it can be to have to always make the right decision at a moment’s notice and that he’s here if Vision needs a sympathetic ear.

Vision admits that chairmanship isn’t what he expected. He’s not unaware of the strain that its putting on his marriage. Especially since he insisted that they rejoin the team when Wanda would have preferred to return to their civilian life in New Jersey.

Cap tells him just talk to her more, ya goof.

So this is a very nice conversation between friends and peers that Vision drops a bomb of a totally-a-hypothetical into.

Vision: “Cap, what would you do if you discovered that you could bring peace and prosperity to the entire world... but only at the cost of your personal well being, perhaps of your own existence?”

Cap: “What?!”

Vision: “We have all put our lives on the line many times to stop world-threatening menaces, but it occurs to me that we’ve seldom tried to do anything to cure the world of its ills.”

Cap: “We do what we can, Vision. There are no fast and simple ways to eliminate want or fear.”

Vision: “But what if there were a way to insure a lasting peace to the world, to bring about a new golden age? What if you could only bring it about by sacrificing yourself? What if you could make the world a paradise, but you could never enjoy it yourself? Could you do it?”

Cap: “It pains me to say this, Vision, but I honestly don’t know. I don’t believe I could know unless the situation actually presented itself. Life should never be given up lightly, but... if there were a way to truly save the world... I’d like to think that I’d make the sacrifice. But I’d have to be certain that it would work!”

Vision: “Yes... Yes, there could be no room for doubt.”

I do really like the slow unfolding of whatever Vision’s Supervillain Actually Its Well-Intentioned plan is. His doubts and how he poses a very specific hypothetical to Cap to see what The Iconic Avengers Leader thinks.

At this point my guess is that Vision is going to turn himself into a supercomputer like ISAAC to take over the world, for its own good. Since it was apparently inspired when he was plugged into a supercomputer and was running the mansion.

Anyway, Wanda runs in and interrupts the totally-a-hypothetical discussion with big, alarming news that their house from the Vision and Scarlet Witch series is on fire.

That’s rough.

By the time Wanda, Vision, and emotional support Captain America show up, the ire is unstoppable and the firefighters just let it burn down.

That’s rougher.

Later, Vision and Wanda pick through the smouldering rubble.

And worse of all, this wasn’t a random electrical or grease or magic fire. It was arson. And the arsonist even called the cops to make sure everyone knew it.

Scarlet Witch: “So! I should have known! The blind, unreasoning fools! Do I have to fight them for the rest of my life?!?” This is so maddening! Losing my temper won’t bring our house back... all I’ve done is frighten the neighbors. That’s always been the biggest problem in being a mutant... No one will let you act human.

Some random bystanders basically gloat that the “weirdies are finally leaving” causing Captain America to go off.

Captain America: “For your information, mister, those ‘weirdies’ have saved your hide a dozen times over! They’ve fought and bled so you could have a home!”

Bystander: “N-now hold on, Cap! Me, I don’t have anything against ‘em... but why’d they have to move into my neighborhood? I mean, all our houses coulda caught fire from that blaze! This never woulda happened, if they hadn’t moved here!”

Captain America: “Mister, today somebody decided that he didn’t like mutants. Tomorrow, maybe someone will decide he doesn’t like blacks... or jews... or you! We’re all in this together. The American dream has to be there for everyone, or it can never truly work for anyone! It’s our duty to do everything we can to make sure it works!”

I doubt Bystander is very convinced. Maybe momentarily shamed. But in an hour he’ll be like “am I wrong about mutants? No, its the tolerant people who are wrong.”

But Vision... Vision has made up his mind.

Vision: ‘Do I have the right to take over the world for its own good?’

Vision: ‘Moral quandary resolved.’

The next morning, Vision has exciting new terrible news for the team. The US Army Corp of Engineers have dug up Thanos’ secret base in Arizona from his first appearance in Iron Man #55. And despite Vision protesting how dumb it is to poke unknown alien technology in hopes of finding a cool new weapon for America’s strategic arsenal, the Department of Defense is having the army poking unknown alien technology in hopes of finding a cool new weapon for America’s strategic arsenal.

Captain America: “Blazes! I believe in a strong defense as much as anyone, but the hardware Thanos used is way out of the army’s league!”

Starfox: “Perhaps more than even you can imagine, Cap! My brother Thanos was a ravager of worlds... he coveted power and worshiped death! His hidden base could well hold the means to rip this planet asunder!”

Cool, cool.

Man, I hate it when the US Army blew up the world in 1985 by poking alien gewgaws.

Anyway, Vision did manage to talk the government into allowing a small group of Avengers to act as advisers.

Instead of rounding up scientific geniuses slash superheroes like they did for Bruce Banner’s lab, Vision just selects everyone he has handy.

He says he’d like to assign the West Coast Avengers (who in fairness do have two scientific experets - Mockingbird and Wonder Man, kinda) but they’re busy with an off-panel mission in the Pacific. Just because they don’t have a book doesn’t mean they stop doing stuff.

So instead Vision selects Captain America, Hercules, Scarlet Witch, and Starfox (who in fairness is a great choice since he knows space science and Thanos) and sends them off.

Yeah. Vision is totally going to get up to stuff while they’re gone.

This foreboding is enhanced when Captain Marvel shows up and Vision tells her he has a special assignment for her.

Vision: “Our deep space monitor has picked up some disturbing signals -- that seems to be emanating from Sanctuary II, the starship which once belonged to the mad Thanos! After the arch-fiend’s final defeat, we left his ship to drift beyond the orbit of Pluto!”

Since she’s the fastest Avenger he asks her to leave at once, fly out to the ship to check it out, and then report back.

So. Light is the fastest thing, the speed limit of the universe. Give or take tachyons which are FTL and also hypothetical. And I don’t know if Captain Marvel can turn into tachyons. Point being, the speed of light is really friggin fast but the universe is really friggin big. Even something as ‘close’ as our solar backyard where Pluto is located is 4.9 billion miles away and takes light 4.6 hours to get there from Earth.

He is definitely getting Captain Marvel out of the way where even her nyoom will take a while to get back.

The Vision slowly stalks through the corridors of Avengers Mansion. On the second floor, he pauses before the door of the quarters he for so long shared with his wife... recalling past joys and sorrows. And then, he moves on -- solemnly descending the grand staircase, as if for the final time.

O_O

Uh...... plus side is that he gives Jarvis the day off to take his mother to Montauk Point!

I just like seeing Jarvis in Avengers.

He’s always around but only occasionally seen.

My god. His vacation clothes though.

Of course, Vision being nice to Jarvis who deserves good things is only partially because Jarvis is a cool guy who deserves nice things.

Vision has managed at this point to clear everyone out of the mansion and he locks the doors behind Jarvis so that NO ONE CAN INTERRUPT WHAT HE MUST DO.

Meanwhile, team ‘prevent the military from doing anything stupid’ arrives in Arizona and at the site of Thanos’ former base.

Huh. I was half and half on whether Vision was just making shit up to get the Avengers out of the house but I guess something really is going on.

Makes sense. If they went there and found nothing, they’d return too soon.

I wonder if there’s something really going on with Thanos’ ship Sanctuary II too.

If so, was it just a great coincidence that Vision had two different emergencies he could divert the team with the day after he decided to go through with his plan or is it just the Avengers’ lot that there’s constantly emergencies going on and he had his pick of them?

Anyway. Colonel Farnam of the US Army is convinced that they have everything under control at Operation: Prize Package and don’t need any Avengers supervision.

Colonel Farnam: “If we can figure out how just a fraction of this gear works, the United States will never again need fear an enemy power!”

Captain America: “I’m told that similar sentiment was expressed following the development of the crossbow, Colonel.”

Nice sass, Cap.

But, like, the instant that the Avengers are escorted inside the base, Starfox spots some technicians messing with a machine to see what it does and they tell him to screw off when he tells them not to mess with things they don’t understand.

Starfox: “GET AWAY FROM THERE!”

Scientist: “What are you, crazy?! We’ve spent twelve hours trying to goose this transmitter to life... we’re not going to stop now!”

He has to drag them away from a sudden energy surge as the machine activates by itself with a programmed homing signal that will bring Something to the base.

Colonel Farnam: “Now hold it right there, Avenger! Only my men are authorized to monkey with these machines!”

Starfox: “Colonel, I was raised among machiens such as these! If I can’t fix these settings, your men don’t stand a chance!”

Colonel Farnam: “I don’t care if you were raised in... GOOD LORD!”

Geez. It may have been partially a ruse to get the Avengers out of the house but its a good thing Vision sent the Avengers here. The US Army was clearly going to doom the world unsupervised.

GOOD JOB RANDOM SCIENTISTS

NOW HERCULES IS GETTING HIS ASS KICKED

IS THAT WHAT YOU WANTED, YOU MONSTERS??

Anyway, the Blood Brothers are some Thanos minions from early days. Weird that they never showed up for the MCU. Like, look, they didn’t need to be part of the Black Order. They don’t have the theme naming.

But these two dinguses would have made great antagonists in one of the earlier movies.

Though Starfox and Hercules get wrecked for being the nearest to the Blood Brothers when they appear, Cap and Scarlet Witch do better for being slightly forewarned.

Captain America can do the backflips to keep from getting punched and Wanda’s do anything powers are as helpful as always.

Meanwhile, back at Avengers Mansion, Dane Whitman (sometimes the Black Knight, sometimes just exhausted), arrives and tries to use his old Avengers ID card to enter.

The security system does not like that.

Anyway, back in Arizona, Starfox rejoins the fight. That’s good.

Wanda tries to do her patented ‘all oxygen play keep away from this guy’ move on one of the Blood Brothers but his super strength lets him slam the ground to break Wanda’s concentration.

The other Blood Brother tries to strangle Captain America who got knocked into a pile of rubble but Hercules emerges from underneath the rubble to do that greatest of comic book tropes.

Ah, grievous harm with a body. How I love you.

But though the Blood Brothers heads are hard enough to knock each other out, the fight did do some lasting damage.

TO MY PERCEPTION OF HERCULES!

When the Blood Brothers beat the shit out of Hercules at the beginning of the fight, they apparently tore his Hercules skirt.

And Hercules isn’t wearing anything under his Hercules skirt.

So the other three Avengers get to see Hercules’ mighty adamantine mace, so to speak.

That’s all well and good.

Except its not!

Hercules? Being ashamed of public nudity??

That doesn’t sound like the Hercules I know!

Tsk tsk, how retroactively out of character! Annnnd possibly not retroactively? Didn’t he compete in the original Olympics which were no pants allowed?

You’ve corrupted him, modern society!

Anyway.

Captain America starts yelling at the colonel because if the Avengers hadn’t been here, it would have been a major disaster.

Captain America: “You were warned -- Washington was warned -- that something like this could happen! But those warnings were almost totally ignored!”

But back at Avengers Mansion, Dane Whitman wakes up and sees this argument being broadcast on a jumbo screen.

Vision: “People never listen to those who know better! I shall have to change all that!”

Vision: “Hello, Dane. I’m sorry you had to be incapacitated. But your arrival was most unexpected... and I really can’t afford any interruptions now! You see, I have to save humanity from itself!”

Something about you seems different, Vision.

Did you become one with the universe? It’s a pretty popular move.

Follow @essential-avengers because whoa what huh? Vision what? Also, like and reblog. Its necessary to save humanity from itself.

#avengers #Blood Brothers #the Vision #Scarlet Witch #Starfox #Hercules #Captain Marvel #Monica Rambeau #Black Knight #essential avengers #essential marvel liveblogging

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solalunar-eclipse · 4 years ago

Text

Scars You Can’t See - Chapter 8

Chapter title: Countdown

Word count: about 3500 words

Author’s Note: I tried to make this one slightly more light-hearted, but we’ll see if that worked out! Also writing fight scenes is difficult.

First | Previous | Next

...

At this rate, it was honestly a miracle that Tails hadn’t had to buy a new carpet yet.

Thankfully for Sonic’s sanity, his little brother’s determination to preserve their house meant that he’d been given lots of free rein to run around outside whenever he felt like leaving. He’d also been given fewer chores lately, as Tails knew from experience that Sonic did not thrive on order and routine like he did.

It had been three days since their visit from G.U.N. and their last contact from Omega- and Team Dark in general. Though he never said as much, Sonic was really having an issue with the fact that Tails had gotten to contact his friend twice by now, while he hadn’t heard from Shadow in ages. He tried his best not to worry, but it had just been such a long time since he’d spoken with the other hedgehog.

And Omega had said that Shadow was struggling...had practically had to relive one of his most traumatic memories….

Sonic decided that he didn’t care about any of the hybrid’s usual thoughts about expressing emotions or vulnerability- the second he got to see Shadow for real, that guy wouldn’t be able to escape the hug he had coming. The hero was practically determined to drag his friend (because they were friends, no matter what Shadow might say) to a therapist, too, since Chaos knew the guy needed it.

The blue hedgehog slowed down considerably and began to stalk through the forest instead, trying to get the majority of his anger out through his legs and movement. It wouldn’t do for Tails to see him like this…

Sonic’s thoughts circled back to how his hands were tied by what he’d promised Shadow- the hybrid had been so insistent, but now Sonic regretted agreeing not to go after G.U.N. Truthfully, the only reason he hadn’t broken his promise already was because while Tails was an incredibly clever and talented person, he could never forgive himself if the young fox got hurt. Otherwise, he would absolutely have long since blasted into G.U.N.’s headquarters, grabbed the commander by the front of his military uniform and told him in no uncertain terms that he had better stop hunting Team Dark and he’d better do it immediately. The hero had had enough of his friends suffering while he was forced to sit safe at home and wait.

His phone buzzed then, pulling him out of his tangled web of thoughts. Tugging it out of his windswept mess of quills, he saw that it was Tails calling and of course picked up immediately.

“Yeah, lil’ bro, what’s up?” he asked, hoping that most of the frustration had left his voice by now.

“Uh, Sonic?” the fox said, sounding pretty tense himself. “Since those agents came to our house a couple of days ago, I managed to hack into G.U.N.’s main server and now I can see some of what they’re doing- mostly where the organisation's sending people and all that.”

“Epic!” Sonic cheered. He began to wonder- could they use this to help their fugitive friends?

“Well, yeah, it would be...except that they’re sending an entire squad to our house. Like, right now.”

His grin froze in place. A squad of soldiers? The hero almost felt a grim sort of delight in that- finally, he’d be able to vent some of his frustration on the organization that had caused this whole mess. He hoped the house would remain standing, though. Tails had built it around a tree from scratch and was really proud of it.

Sonic decided he’d work that out once he got home, and just a moment later, a sonic boom exploded across the landscape as he took off.

…

Once the hero arrived at home, the duo began to set up the house’s various defense mechanisms- since they were a) very famous, b) hated by one of the most powerful supervillains in the world and c) one of them was an engineer, it was only natural that the house would be at least as well defended as a high-security bank vault. Sonic practically bounced around the house as he helped activate certain parts of their machinery, nervous tension running high. G.U.N. wasn’t going to be pulling any punches this time, he was sure of it.

Tails, by contrast, was absolutely calm. The fox was ridiculously mature for his age, and Sonic suspected that he instinctively knew by now when he needed to counteract his elder brother’s wild energy. Once everything was set up, the two built a makeshift barricade as a last resort at the front door, and waited.

Thankfully for Tails’s sanity, it didn’t take long for the trucks to arrive.

As the three trailer trucks parked outside his house, ten soldiers poured out of each one, while several technicians began to set up some sort of weird-looking prototype laser device. The fox laughed for a second at the sight of it in a way that sent a few chills down Sonic’s spine. His brother could be downright terrifying at times.

Tails scoffed. “Please. That laser doesn’t have the power output to break my shields….wait.

“What the heck?”

The four technicians had begun to hook up the laser to- of all things- one of Eggman’s old power cores that he usually used in his bases.

The young engineer tugged at his tails in frustration. “That’s so dumb! Sure, it might boost the laser’s strength, but there’s at least a twenty percent chance it’ll blow up in their faces! A small machine like that wasn’t made to withstand the amount of power it takes to charge an entire Eggman base!”

Sonic blinked and looked at his brother. “Those aren’t bad odds….”

“They aren’t good ones, either! I’d never let someone use a creation of mine with a one in five chance of failure. It’s just embarrassing! And it shows how far behind their engineers are!” Tails’s fur was fluffed up in outrage and irritation.

The hero almost laughed. “That’s what you complain about first? Not the fact that they’re gonna try and blow up our house?” he asked, his tone light. He snatched up the fox and rushed them both away from the front door as a precaution- that was definitely going to be their first target.

Sonic pushed Tails into the highest room in the house, before launching himself out the window and curling up into a deadly sphere of razor-sharp spikes. He vaguely heard one soldier yell something in a panicked voice, but didn’t pay much attention to it. He slammed into the ground, still in a ball, and tore off towards the laser cannon at top speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind him as he went.

Irritatingly, the soldiers’ gunfire spattered all around the cannon, making it impossible to tear the thing apart. Sparks flew across the ground as Sonic careened around it before jumping up into a running stance and taking off in their direction. The air snapped around him as he broke the sound barrier and landed a furious kick on one of the trucks, denting the heavy steel and flipping it onto its side.

Sonic stumbled as a loud explosion rocked the ground, but kept sprinting after a glance assured him that Tails’s shields had held against the blast. The hedgehog smacked one man’s rifle out of his hand, the sheer speed of the blow bending it in half (and was almost certain he heard a distinct ‘why do we keep fighting this guy with guns?’) before he moved on.

A dozen soldiers were on the ground either unconscious or groaning in pain by the time someone thought to radio for reinforcements- which they’d apparently had on standby ready to be helicoptered in. The blue blur wasn’t sure whether this high estimation of his fighting skills was something he should be proud of...or not.

The fur prickled on the back of Sonic’s neck as a humming noise filled the air.

A moment later, he threw himself to the ground as a red-hot laser carved a wide arc above him, slicing through the area where his midriff was a few seconds ago. He heard a faint yell of outrage from inside the house above all the noise, and stuck out his arm for a quick thumbs-up to Tails.

A couple of seconds later, one very familiar and well-used earpiece landed in the dirt next to him as the laser swung back across the battlefield to refocus on their shields. Sonic shoved it into one blue ear before running up the side of the second truck and backflipping to land behind several soldiers. “Miss me, guys?” he asked smugly, before smirking and delivering several well-placed blows to said soldiers’ kneecaps that left all three doubled over on the ground. None of them had even seen him as he moved, which was really a testament to Sonic’s skill.

Tails’s voice crackled to life in his ear as he sent another person flying. “Awesome job! By the way, they’ve already fired the cannon three times, so either their luck is going to be great with this next one, or else…”

The cannon’s shot breached the shields, but Sonic noticed as he ran that its casing was burning red-hot, and-

A shockwave blasted out from the cannon, making all four of its attendants fly into the air, yet in the seconds before they hit the ground, Sonic had time to:

Heave a lengthy sigh at their overestimation of the cannon.

Decide that even if they were working for G.U.N., a life was still a life.

Run around and safely place all four of them inside of a truck...

And avoid the explosion as it tore up the ground within a ten-foot radius of the machine.

(The hero had known for quite some time that being the fastest thing alive meant that he could do some really cool tricks.)

Dirt exploded in all directions, leaving a crater and a smoking lump of metal on the ground. Unfortunately, though, the house’s main defenses were down, and any second now, the helicopter would be there with enough soldiers to take out the rest. And his little brother was still inside...

As though he’d heard the hedgehog’s thoughts, Tails’s voice crackled to life through the speaker. “Sonic! The reinforcements are almost here- we can’t take them all, even if I come out there!”

“Not happening, pal, not unless you’ve got your mech.” Sonic insisted, putting on his ‘big brother’ voice. “Hey, wait- where’re they going?” he asked suddenly, watching as the remaining soldiers retreated to take cover behind one of their trucks. That wouldn’t really help them, but Sonic knew that they knew he couldn’t take the whole organization on by himself.

“They’re waiting it out until the rest arrive...but we won’t be here by then.” Tails said, sounding confident.

“And why’s that, pal?” He folded his arms, keeping one eye on the soldiers.

“Because-” and here Sonic suddenly heard a loud roaring noise coming from the back of the house, “-we’re going to get out of here!”

That was when the Tornado soared directly over their heads.

The G.U.N. soldiers certainly tried to shoot the plane down, but of course, they couldn’t keep up with Tails’s expert flying. Bullets embedded themselves into nothing but trees as it flew away into the forest, a blue streak taking off after it at top speed. Sonic kept up with the red biplane easily, just waiting for the right moment to...there!

He launched himself off a particularly well-placed branch, flinging himself high into the air before landing perfectly on the wing of the plane. “Alright, Tails,” he yelled, trying to make himself heard over the roar of the engine, “where to now?”

The kitsune winced and tapped his ear. “Earpiece, remember?” he asked, and Sonic cringed, realizing that he had forgotten what it was like to wear the little speaker while on the Tornado.

“Ahah, gotcha.” he said sheepishly. “So?”

Tails sighed, but not in an irritated manner. “Angel Island- nobody can find it if Knuckles wants to stay hidden. I called him up while you were out front and he said we could crash there.”

“Oh, sweet!” Sonic said happily. “It’ll be like a sleep...over…”

He trailed off weakly, suddenly remembering their home. “Sorry about the house, pal...I know ya worked hard on it.” The hero ran a hand through his quills, unwilling to meet the other’s eyes.

“It’s okay.” Tails said bravely. “I brought a few things-” he gestured to the backseat- “including all my blueprints, so I can always build us another. And besides…” here he leaned forward, catching Sonic’s eye, “home is wherever we are, so long as we’re together.”

The blue blur quickly nodded before looking down pointedly at the biplane’s wing, hoping strongly that Tails didn’t notice that his eyes had begun to glisten just a little more than usual.

(He did, though.)

…

Knuckles was happy to see them, of course, if a little less obviously so than usual due to the circumstances that had forced the two into this situation. The guardian immediately began to move the island to a new area where it would be hidden from view, while Sonic and Tails just relaxed and looked through the various items that the latter had thought to bring: a spare pair of shoes for Sonic, a toolbox and the aforementioned blueprints for Tails, plenty of food for the three of them, and of course lots of important technology.

As Tails left to go check on Knuckles, the blue hedgehog stretched out on the grass and heaved a deep sigh. What he’d give to know how Team Dark was doing right now…

…

Two days later, he found out.

The very moment that the team released the video, all three inhabitants of Angel Island sat down to watch it on Tails’s screen. The fox had been constantly monitoring the Internet for anything about the other team, especially their social media, so of course he was alerted the second anything came up.

Before they started the video, the hero had been vibrating with energy.

By the end of the section about the ARK, he was completely still, his eyes as wide as they could go.

Tails paused the video there, as the massive wave of responses was already starting to flow. Sonic blinked back to reality to discover that his nails had nearly torn holes through his gloves- that was how tightly he was clenching his fists. He rolled his shoulders, trying to get the tension to leave his body, but he couldn’t stop thinking.

How in the name of Chaos did Shadow watch that?

They agreed that Tails would watch the rest while the other two stepped up to support their friends, and support they certainly did. Both of their tempers were running hot, and more than once the fox, glancing over their shoulders, had to remind them that caps lock was not going to be helpful right now.

Not long after Team Dark had stopped responding to questions, Sonic and Knuckles sat back down to view the other part of the video. They watched in shock as the peace and power of that meeting was violated, people arrested just like that, and yet neither of them had heard anything about this event.

Immediately afterwards, the latter got right back onto his phone and started typing out absolutely vicious responses to some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theorists. His violet eyes were narrowed in anger as he tore into their ideas- while he might not be able to convince the people themselves, he could hopefully stop more from being sucked in.

Sonic, meanwhile, just lay half on his side in the grass for a minute, trying to restrain the urge to scream. Why hadn’t he done more damage to G.U.N. when he’d had the chance? Why hadn’t he been able to see that this ran so deep?

Sonic turned his head to the side to look at his brother. “Tails?” he asked, trying to keep his voice under control. “Where’s Team Dark gonna go next, d’ya think?”

The kitsune frowned. “I don’t know...but if I had to guess, they’re probably trying to figure out how deep this whole problem goes. That’s what I think we’d do if we were in that situation, at any rate. To find that kind of stuff, though, they’d have to head straight to Central City and hack directly into G.U.N.’s mainframe...which would be incredibly risky on a good day.”

Sonic shot upright. “What if they are gonna do that next?”

Tails shook his head vehemently. “After running away from the entire organization for so long? That’d practically be a suicide mission! Even if they somehow managed to escape with the information, G.U.N. would be able to hunt them down in no time!”

The two brothers stared at each other. “But that sounds like them….doesn’t it.” Tails sighed, looking down at the grass.

“Knux!” Sonic yelled, rushing over to where the guardian sat. “We have to hang around Central City, man. If the team’s gonna head anywhere, it’ll be there. And if they’ll be in that much trouble by the time they get out of there, we have to be there to pick them up.”

Knuckles leveled him with a stare so flat it put sheets of paper to shame. “Sonic. Literally three days ago, I helped you guys escape G.U.N. and we have been hiding ever since. And now you want me to move my island, with the last ruins of my tribe’s temple and my Master Emerald, within reach of an organization that would give anything to be able to take it all for their scientists to look at.

“No. Way.”

The hedgehog widened his stance. “Knuckles.” he began, stabbing a finger at the ground for emphasis. “Literally ten days ago, Team Dark escaped G.U.N. all by themselves and have been on their own ever since. And now you want us to leave our friends, and remember, your girlfriend at the mercy of that organization, for the sake of a giant rock.

“Yes way. Absolutely.”

Knuckles scowled and blushed, avoiding Sonic’s stare after that mention of Rouge. “I guess….if we stayed away from the city itself and out of sight….”

Tails decided that this was a slightly safer moment to chime in. “I’ll try and monitor the airwaves in the area- we can move away if we think they’ve noticed us!”

“All of this is assuming that they’re even actually there.” the echidna replied, seeming slightly irritated at being outnumbered.

“It isn’t the most logical place for them to go.” Tails agreed. “It’s ridiculously dangerous, and G.U.N. probably knows that. But, it’s also their most powerful building, which means that it’s going to have all of the more recent files there.

“While this video is some damaging evidence, it’s not nearly enough to permanently damage their standing overall...they definitely have the cash to sneak out of this level of bad press. A bigger release- now that we know this isn’t a one-time event- is definitely the best way to deal with them. And what better way to do it than to find all their super-secret files at the source?”

Sonic sighed. “Plus, I’ve got a feeling G.U.N.’s gonna underestimate that team’s habit of suffering to save others.” His shoulders sagged slightly at the thought, but he felt a little bit of the weight lift off of them when Tails leaned against him slightly with an understanding look.

The echidna watched them sympathetically for a moment before remembering that he was supposed to be arguing against them. “Well, why don’t they just go back to whatever place they busted first? That sure wasn’t in Central City.”

Sonic rolled his eyes. “It’s ‘cause they’d be expecting them there, knucklehead. Never return to the scene of the crime. That’s what they say in all the TV shows, right, Tails?”

“Well, while this is not a TV show, Sonic, you’re right.” the kitsune said, sighing. “That’s another reason for them to go to Central City.

Knuckles gave a mixture of a sigh and a growl, stalking back to the altar where the Master Emerald floated. “Fine. But if this goes south, I am blaming your-” he pointed a vicious finger at Sonic- “spiky butt for all of it.”

The hero grinned at his friend in a way he knew got under his spines, and was rewarded with a huff and another grumble. Yet the island still began to move, shifting eastward from the center of the country towards Central City.

Hold on, guys. Sonic thought, feeling properly hopeful for the first time in over a week. We’re on our way.

#shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #team dark #scars you can't see #sycs #i tend to imagine certain scenes from fanfics as movie scenes #and i think that shows in the fight in this chapter #by the way #i'll try and release a new chapter every two weeks #but that schedule is very #very #VERY tentative #there should probably be about 13 chapters in all #give or take #hope you're having a nice day! thanks for reading!#(and i hope this chapter turned out alright too)#sol’s fanfiction

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quicksilversquared · 5 years ago

Text

Mishaps and Misunderstandings

In which Hawkmoth is an ass, Adrien is sarcastic, and Nathalie wildly misunderstands the situation.

links in the reblog

Hawkmoth was really becoming a pain in the butt now. For the past month and a half, he had been sending out akumas every other night, disrupting Ladybug and Chat Noir's sleep.

Maybe it wasn't the strongest akuma every time- in fact, most of the time, they seemed like bottom-of-the-barrel akumas, low on both powers and creativity- but that didn't change the fact that it dragged the superheroes out of bed and woke them up enough that they lost at least an hour every time. The akumas during the day didn't drop off, either, and between that and all of his civilian responsibilities and activities, Adrien was starting to feel more than a little bit spread thin.

It was exhausting, and he had to wonder how long he would be able to keep it up before he simply collapsed from exhaustion in the middle of- well, anywhere. At school, at a photoshoot, during fencing, in the middle of an akuma attack.

If he could make it to summer, Adrien was pretty certain that he could get caught back up again. But the problem was going to be getting to summer, which was still several months away. His friends were already starting to notice that something was wrong, and if they were noticing, then Adrien was willing to bet that it wouldn't be long before-

"Adrien, your last several photoshoots have been completely subpar. Your father is quite displeased with your work."

-his father's staff noticed, too.

Nathalie looked completely disapproving as she set a folder down on the table next to Adrien. A couple photos peeked out from the top. Peeking out from under the folder was the edge of another piece of paper, probably an updated schedule of what Adrien was expected to accomplish for the week.

"I understand that most of the photoshoots have been early, Adrien, but that's because we're trying to schedule around your other activities," Nathalie chided him, tugging out the piece of paper, and- yep, it looked like Adrien was right. Another photoshoot had been added, it looked like, and an additional fitting. Not that the fitting was really necessary, since the photoshoot was going to be with stuff he had worn before, but that hardly made a difference to the Gabriel staff. "Either we continue doing photoshoots before school, or we'll have to start pulling you out in the middle of the day to get them done while there's still decent light."

"No, then I'll fall behind!" Adrien protested, his mind already spinning with dread at the thought of how much more difficult keeping up with everything would be if he got pulled during school. He would have to stay up even later than he already was to catch up on the class that he was missing on top of what he missed during akuma attacks, and then- well, he could say good-bye to sleep, probably. "I can't miss class!"

He was only just making things work now. The mere idea of missing more class- and several hours for each photoshoot, probably, and in the middle of the day when he had his toughest classes- had panic welling up in Adrien's throat. The walls might as well be closing in on him, and his heartrate was already picking up.

Nathalie set the schedule down, fixing Adrien with a stern look. "Then we expect that you actually look awake and engaged during photoshoots. I don't see why that's a difficult thing to accomplish, it shouldn't be that hard-"

It shouldn't be that hard. Oh, really? Frustration welled up, sudden and overwhelming and shoving his growing panic to the side. Just like that, something inside of Adrien snapped, and he slapped his fork down on the table hard enough to make the entire setting rattle.

"Why is it a difficult thing to not look like I'm falling asleep? Maybe it's because I am falling asleep! And why would I not be?"

"Really-" Nathalie started, eyes rolling heavenward in clear exasperation, but Adrien didn't let her finish. His frustration had properly taken over now, words spilling out completely without his permission.

"I have a million and one activities that I need to be giving 100% in, all the time. I have to get up crazy early for photoshoots so that we can get them done before school, and we've been doing way more of those than usual because of all of the shoots that we have to redo because Father thought that it would be a good idea to humor Lila and let her participate even though she couldn't model at all. For some reason, you've decided that waking me up early or pulling me out of school makes more sense than pulling me out of fencing or skipping Mandarin or piano lessons for a week, or even just using some other model instead." It was all quite infuriating, really. It was hardly as though there weren't other teen models that had practically the same measurements as Adrien, and it wasn't as if his father couldn't make the executive decision to swap out models for a couple shoots. "And pulling me out of school is even more of a bad idea right now than it's ever been before! Do you want to know why?"

"Adrien-" Nathalie tried to cut in again, sighing, but- well, Adrien was tired and fed up and frustrated and just really, really tired and he wasn't going to let her get a word in edgewise.

"We've fallen even more behind schedule in classes than we did last year because of the akuma attacks," Adrien told her, jutting his chin out stubbornly. "And the teachers don't want the school year to extend into summer vacation again like it did last year, so they're trying to catch us up by cramming more and more into lessons during the day and giving us more homework and having us take online courses to help catch up even more. And that means hours more homework every evening and then I can't get to bed on time, even if I don't have extra lessons that day. And then when akumas show up at night- well, it's not like I can just sleep through a supervillain rampaging through the streets, can I? It wakes me up! Every! Single! Time!"

Nathalie paused, leaning back in her seat. "Oh. I see-"

"So if father is displeased by my work, well- tell him to make the nighttime akuma attacks stop, and maybe I'll actually be able to get enough sleep to do a decent job during photoshoots!"

With that, Adrien pushed himself up from the table- he didn't have an appetite anymore, and he had eaten most of his dinner anyway- and headed up to his room before Nathalie could respond. Once he was on his own, Adrien let out a long breath and slumped into the chair at his desk, massaging his temples as though that could make the headache that was starting up go away. Plagg floated out of his jacket, eyeing Adrien cautiously.

"Are you okay, kid?"

"Yeah, yeah, just- just tired," Adrien admitted, turning to his computer. He might as well at least pretend to get some schoolwork done before Nathalie came up to chide him for being disrespectful. "And then Nathalie deciding that now is a great time to add more to my plate- well, I'm a bit tired of it. So I blew up. Not that it'll do me any good."

"You don't think so?"

Adrien snorted. "What, do you think that Nathalie and Father will suddenly grow a heart and back off on my schedule? That's unlikely. They're going to get mad at me for being 'emotional' and blowing things out of proportion, I just know it. Emotional and also being unreasonable at the end there. Like, out of everything in the city that my father can actually control, making the night attacks stop isn't exactly one of them. And bringing that up as though he can actually make that happen as some sort of solution... well, he's going to see that as being emotional and ridiculous and immature. It's not like he can treat Hawkmoth and his akumas just like he does any other problem and just throw money at it to make nighttime akumatizations stop."

"Huh." Plagg considered that, then shrugged. "Well, at least Nathalie has a better idea of what you have on your plate now, with all of the school stuff. Maybe that'll make a difference in her planning, even if she does scold you for getting emotional about it."

"Yeah, maybe." Adrien glanced towards the door, honestly surprised that Nathalie hadn't followed him up yet, then turned back to his computer. "If only I could get so lucky."

Downstairs, Nathalie slowly pushed herself to her feet, each movement slow and deliberate as her brain muddled through the shock.

She had thought that they had been careful. They had figured that having Adrien out of the house would lessen his chances of stumbling on their secret. Making Mr. Agreste largely unreachable and his schedule unpredictable- and pretending that he had gone out of the country when he really hadn't- was supposed to ensure that no one found out about their secret identities unless they told someone. And yet, despite how careful they had been, despite all of their precautions...

There was no other way to interpret Adrien's words, of that she was sure.

Nathalie knocked on Mr. Agreste's office door, then let herself in. Across the room, Mr. Agreste glanced up.

"Nathalie- what's wrong?"

"Sir, there's a problem," Nathalie told him, now starting to tremble. If Adrien knew- well, they hadn't explained everything to him. Adrien didn't know what was at stake, or how important it was for Hawkmoth to win. There was no way for them to know who else he had told, or if he had figured out what Hawkmoth's goal was. If he got mad at them and decided that revenge was more important than saving his mom... well, the police could be on them in under an hour. He hadn't yet, probably because he didn't want to lose his father, but- well, Adrien sounded close to cracking from the stress he was under. That put them in a much more dangerous position. "Your son- he- he's figured out your secret identity."

"He- what?"

Adrien was officially baffled.

Overnight, Hawkmoth had practically done an about-face. There were no more akuma attacks after 8pm or before 9 in the morning, and they seemed to have dropped back to normal, pre-Heroes Day levels of akumatizations. The concentrated efforts to simply run the superheroes into the ground and defeat them that way just... stopped.

Not that Adrien didn't appreciate it! Because he totally, totally did. He had managed to get caught up on pretty much everything and do his first better-than-decent photoshoot in weeks. The timing was perfect, too, because he and Ladybug had both been pretty close to collapse. If they had continued at the same rate for even a week longer, Hawkmoth probably would have been able to get their Miraculous with no problem at all.

He and Mayura had no way of knowing that, of course. Ladybug and Chat Noir had always done their best to hide their exhaustion during akuma battles so that he wouldn't know when to press his advantage. So maybe Hawkmoth had expected them to cave sooner and had decided that their campaign of exhaustion wasn't going to work. Maybe the supervillain himself was getting really tired of staying up at night to try to find anyone who could possibly be akumatized. Maybe Hawkmoth was getting in just as much trouble at work as Adrien was getting in at school because of his absences and exhaustion.

Whatever it was, Adrien wasn't going to complain. He appreciated the break, and he was finally feeling properly human again. Ladybug clearly felt the same, if her more relaxed attitude during attacks was any indication.

Would it be better to have no akuma attacks and to have Hawkmoth (and Mayura) behind bars, or at least have a lead ? Of course- that was the ideal, after all, as long as he and Ladybug still hung out on a regular (and frequent) basis. But at least this was so much better than what it had been before.

He wasn't going to complain, but he was going to be a bit suspicious. Was Hawkmoth planning something? Ladybug certainly seemed to think so, and Chat Noir was inclined to agree. Both of them agreed to take the reprieve to relax a bit, but also not let themselves relax so much that they weren't catching up and getting ahead a bit with their civilian responsibilities. They didn't know when the other boot would drop, after all.

So when Nathalie approached Adrien after dinner with her tablet and a schedule balanced on top after several weeks of slow akuma attacks and also a relaxed civilian schedule, he was reading ahead for his Literature class, able to properly enjoy the story for the first time in a while. He glanced up as she approached, tucking a bookmark in to mark his spot before setting the book aside.

"Catching up on classes still?" Nathalie inquired, setting her tablet down. Adrien shook his head.

"Working ahead, actually," he told her, glancing at the schedule- or rather, schedules- that were balanced on top of her tablet. There seemed to be two versions, and Adrien had to wonder if she wanted to gauge how much he would be able to do- and do to a good quality- before settling on one or another. Or maybe she wanted his input, which- well, that would be new, and much appreciated. "So I can feel a little less stressed if things get busy again."

"Very good." Nathalie nodded in approval, then picked up the schedules. "So I wanted to talk to you about your schedule for the upcoming week. As requested, your father has stopped akumatizing people at night-"

Adrien's mind screeched to a dead halt, even as Nathalie kept talking, explaining the two versions of the schedule. He- he couldn't have heard that right, except- well, there was nothing else that she could have said, but why on earth would she just-just throw that out like it was the most normal thing in the world? "I- I'm sorry, what?"

Nathalie paused, her brow furrowing briefly, and then something that looked rather like worry spread across her face. "Uh..."

Adrien shot to his feet, even as he started feeling woozy from- from what, exactly, he couldn't put his finger on and there were more important things to think about anyway. "Did- you said that Father stopped akumatizing people at night! Father- he's Hawkmoth! Oh my god, I can't- I can't believe this-" The walls were closing in on him. He'd been fighting his father this whole time. His father had been the one behind the mask when Hawkmoth came out and tried to hurt them. Which meant- oh god. Which meant that Nathalie was Mayura.

He wasn't safe in this house.

"Ah, I mean, uh..." Nathalie stammered all of a sudden, clearly about to backpedal, but her expression- well, it gave away that yes, he had totally heard correctly the first time. "That is..."

Adrien turned and bolted.

Nathalie felt like she was about to faint as she approached Gabriel's office on unsteady legs. Out of all the mistakes that she had ever made during her career- during her entire life, really- none were anywhere near as serious as the one that she had just made. Part of her wondered if it might be smarter to simply turn around and flee the city- or maybe even the country- instead of facing up to her mistakes.

But she had to warn Gabriel. It- it was the responsible thing to do. They had held off on sharing more information with Adrien before just because they had figured that he wasn't going to run off and tell anyone- if he hadn't before, then surely he had figured out why his father was Hawkmoth and had at least partially approved- and because he was busy and Gabriel hadn't wanted to distract Adrien while he was catching up on schoolwork and redoing much-needed modelling shoots last-minute. Now, though?

Adrien hadn't reacted to the news well, though maybe that was to be expected considering the way that Nathalie had shared it, and she hadn't been able to pull herself together in time to convince Adrien that what his father was doing was actually good. That meant that their entire plan was in danger, and it would take both her and Gabriel to get any decent damage control done.

If it wasn't already too late, that was. She- well, she had been so in shock over the realization that Adrien hadn't known that several minutes at least had passed by before she had been able to move.

Gabriel glanced up as she entered, and immediately straightened with a frown. "Nathalie? Are you feeling unwell? You look like you're about to collapse."

Nathalie nodded, then shook her head, forcing herself over to Gabriel. He was going to be furious, she just knew it, but there was no getting around it. "Sir, it appears that, ah." She paused, struggling with what she should say. "It appears that there has been a, ah, misunderstanding."

Gabriel frowned at once. "A misunderstanding about what? I thought you were just going to talk to Adrien about his schedule, surely whatever misunderstanding you had can't have been... that..." He trailed off, following her gaze towards his painting of Emilie, and then his face turned white. "No. Not that. There can't- no. Nathalie, tell me that there wasn't a misunderstanding about the Hawkmoth situation! That- it's impossible!"

"I'm sorry, sir," Nathalie managed, her voice dropping to a whisper. An angry Gabriel was like a thundercloud, ready to lash out at anyone and anything at any moment. "I didn't think that there was any other way to interpret what Adrien said before, but he- he must have been being sarcastic or something, I don't know-"

"We have to fix this," Gabriel announced, pushing himself to his feet and reaching for his brooch, rubbing it almost absentmindedly as he headed across the room. "We've come so far, there's no way that we can let our whole plan fail over a misunderstanding!"

Nathalie nodded at once, pushing herself to her feet. She followed Gabriel towards the door, eager to help rectify her mistake. Before they could get far, though, the ground shook violently under their feet, hard enough to fling them off of their feet. Gabriel and Nathalie both flailed, trying to grab for anything and everything that might help them get their balance back.

And then a bright light flashed across the room, and then- well, then there was nothing.

It didn't take Ladybug and Chat Noir long to recover the Butterfly and Peacock from the rubble of the Agreste Mansion, along with the rest of the Miraculous-related things that Mr. Agreste had accumulated. Nooroo was quite a bit of help in finding things, though- well, the fact that the mansion was a tiny bit destroyed from a combination of Cataclysm and the Dragon's lightning made navigating their way around a tiny bit difficult, at least until Ladybug cast her Cure and put everything back together again.

"The lightning probably would have been sufficient," Nooroo commented dryly as Ladybug tucked yet another scroll away in the pocket dimension of her yo-yo, followed by the tablet that she recognized as Master Fu's. "It would have knocked them out, and you would have been able to accomplish everything just the same."

"And deny Chat Noir the opportunity to be dramatic?" Ladybug asked in amusement. "Never."

"And they might have dodged the lightning if they hadn't already been knocked off-balance by Cataclysm!" Longg chirped from their spot on Ladybug's shoulder, where they were chomping down on a biscuit to recharge. "It was quite the nice combination. And it got the police's attention, didn't it?"

They all glanced out the window, where red and blue lights still flashed outside of the gates. The two superheroes had carried the knocked-out former supervillains out to the waiting ambulances and police cars earlier, just to get them out of the way, and Mr. Agreste and Nathalie had been hauled away at once. The superheroes had given enough of a statement that the duo would be able to be held overnight, but they would probably have to go in to the station in the morning and talk to the police a bit more in order for them to file charges. Now, only a lone car remained, keeping the gawkers away while the superheroes finished up.

"It felt pretty satisfying," Chat Noir admitted. He had recharged once the mansion's walls went back up and he could run to his room to grab some cheese out of his mini-fridge. He shifted closer to Ladybug. "Though I didn't exactly intend to get my room, too. It just got a little out of control."

"Which is understandable. And it got fixed anyway." Ladybug did one last glance around the room, then snapped her yo-yo shut. "I think that's everything. And it's not like we're not going to be able to come back."

Chat Noir let out a shaky breath. "Right. Well, uh..." He floundered for a moment, glancing away and then back. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow, then?"

Ladybug blinked at him, openly puzzled. "What are you talking about, Chat Noir? You're coming home with me, obviously. I'm not letting my kitty go home to an empty house."

"Really?"

Ten minutes later, Marinette found herself trying to calm down an incredibly excited Adrien so that he wouldn't wake up her parents with his bouncing around her room. He was over the moon about learning Ladybug's identity, and even more so because she was Marinette instead of- well, literally anyone else.

Marinette was pretty sure that she was permanently red now thanks to all of Adrien's gushing after they landed in her room and she detransformed. It- well, it was a lot. And yes, it was really flattering that he had such a high opinion of her, but- but he was just so incredibly passionate about it and it was Adrien's sweetness and Chat Noir's enthusiasm and heart-on-his-sleeve-ness and it was just- it was a little overwhelming. Add in the fact that he had clearly picked up on her crush at some point, and- well, despite his father's and Nathalie's arrests, Adrien was clearly walking on air.

Eventually, though, Marinette managed to steer Adrien into bed. He passed out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow- too much excitement and ping-ponging emotions had clearly exhausted him- and Marinette was left lying next to him, petting Adrien's hair as he burrowed into her side and trying to process everything that had happened in the last couple of hours.

Maybe most of the time, misunderstandings- well, big misunderstandings, at least- weren't exactly a positive thing. But this time?

Well, this time, it probably couldn't have gone any better.

#Miraculous Ladybug #my writing #adrien agreste #100% not meant to be serious

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hypexion · 4 years ago

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It’s time for some season three Miraculous Ladybug thoughts. Now there’s more emotional trauma, extra convoluted secrets, new shocking twists and the same old Hawk Moth failures. Also there’s a worrying uptick of “stand around doing nothing while someone is akumatized“. In one case, Hawk Moth is literally right there! But I digress.

Marinette: After two seasons of the Adrien crush being a barely concerning issue, Marinette has finally slid into full-blown obsession. Which I suppose is a direction a character can go in, even if it’s a lot dumb. This dire shift in behavior is mostly targeted at Kagami, who has done literally nothing wrong. Indeed, Kagami even joins the crowd of people telling Marinette to get it together, blissfully unware that she’s in a superhero show, meaning Marinette simply cannot. The whole Adrien thing even bleeds into her Ladybug side, leading her to accidentally pour more problems onto him when she gives him the Snake Miraculous. Then after three seasons of Adrien pining, Marinette ends up with Luka. Which is perhaps for the better, since she can actually have a conversation with him.

Adrien: Someone get this boy some therapy. And away from his wretched excuse for a father. Now, I’m not saying it’s certain that Adrien’s need for approval caused him to spend months reliving the same five minutes in an attempt to impress Ladybug, just that it’s probably a contributing factor. Either way, the whole Aspik thing seems like it wouldn’t be good for anyone. However, Adrien’s only route for therapy is Plagg, who in spite of his occationally noble intentions, isn’t really enough. Consider the deeply worrying implications of Gabriel being suprised that there’s only joy in his home before continuing.

Also there is now an evil british version of Adrien which is hilarious. Somehow Felix being introduced in the episode after Chat Blanc makes it even more absurb, given the constrast between “abused child destroys France“ and “Adrien’s evil coustwin“.

Kagami: A new hero appears! Then she immediately leaks her identity to Hawk Moth. Kagami somehow appears to lead a sadder and lonelier life than Adrien, which means for a moment, Tomoe Tsurugi manages to come off as a worst parent that Literal Supervillain Gabriel Agreste. Eventually, however, Marinette gets over herself long enought to share the wonderful Friendship with Kagami. But is it just Friendship? Since that icecream scene reads less like “will Marinette choose Friendship or Love“ and more like “does Marinette love Adrien... or Kagami!?“. (It’s just Friendship since Kagami was clearly going to be paired with Adrien from her introductory episode.)

Luka: A new hero appears! You can tell Luka will be a better user of the Snake Miraculous than Adrien because Viperion’s costume doesn’t suck. I’m sorry, but it’s true. As secondary love interests go, he’s very much there, being a creative type to go with the creative type Marinette. Also is it just me or is his skin weirdly flat and smooth? There’s just something about him that just doesn’t look quite right.

Chloé: Who could have guessed that letting Chloé get away with her behavior with no negative consequences would itself have negative consequences? Truly her descent into villainy could not be forseen, not because it’s a sudden turn in her character, but rather the whole plotline needed an extra episode or two of setup somewhere. Now, don’t get me wrong here - Chloé is clearly a bad person, it’s just that there are some steps missing between “tears up a picture“ and “joins the baddies“. Honestly, Hawk Moth’s entire plan with the Bee Miraculous was really stupid and risky, since Chloé could have decided to prove she didn’t need Ladybug by immediately hitting Mr. Moth with her venom ability and taking his Miraculous. He should have pre-loaded it will an Akuma at the very least.

Lila: The other thing I knew about Miraculous Ladybug going in was that Lila exists and a lot of people hated her. Which is something I now understand, although she honestly comes off more as a malevolent narrative force than an actual character. Plus she’s only a threat because everyone seems to think “[She’s] not dangerous, she just craves attention“, ignoring that Lila’s need for attention is what makes her dangerous. She basically coasts on people’s underestimation of her, until she exploits Marinette’s seemingly irrational vendetta against her to “win“ the “war“ that only exists in Lila’s head. Although maybe Marinette should have put some effort into doing anything about the person who nearly got her skewered by Oni-chan instead of harassing Kagami. Can’t really complain about people with only in-universe knowledge thinking Marinette is reacting to Lila and Kagami for the same reasons, especially as to most people, it’s Lila who is nice and personable while Kagami is prickly and mean.

From a more meta perspective, Lila seems somewhat redundant if Chloé is still around and now an antagonist to both Marinette and Ladybug. If Chloé was actually trying to be a better person, Lila could slot into the role of “mean to Marinette“, but in a more subtle way. Alternatively, Lila could be a “reverse Chloé“ who hates Ladybug but who actually wants to be friends with Marinette for whatever reason. As it is now, Lila could probably be excised from every episode that isn’t Volpina, since the whole “frame Marinette“ thing could be done be Chloé, and the whole “Gabriel gets someone to spy on his son“ thing could also be done by Chloé.

Master Fu: Local boy accidentally destroys Ancient Order. Or rather, Ancient Order destroys itself by giving local boy access to powerful magic items. Yes, it turns out Master Fu’s dubious infosec is because he wasn’t a true Guardian, and also that the Guardians are idiots. I really can’t think of another reason why they’d use a real Miracle Box containing the most powerful Miraculous as part of a training exercise. Did they really think that no acolyte would ever be tempted by the powers of the Miraculous? Having ruined Fu’s life, the Guardians manage to flip him off one more time by erasing his memories when he gives up the Miracle Box. Seems like that would cause more problems than it solves.

Gabriel: But what if the worst parent in Paris could sink to even lower depths? With strong competition from both Audrey and Tomoe, Gabriel needs to step up to keep his trophy, by destroying his son’s relationship just so he can akumatize a heartbroken Marinette. Then when it doesn’t work, he akumatizes his own son. He also sends Akumas after teenagers he doesn’t like, flips out when Adrien suggests he might be moving on from his dead* wife, and is now performing his post-defeat rants to his comatose wife. At this point, he’d probably be more successful if he got Nathalie to akumatize him immediately after Ladybug and Chat Noir win.

Hawk Moth: Starting to feel creeped out by just how many of this guy’s plans revolve around teenaged girls. Sure, the genre of “teenage superheroes“ means he’ll be akumatizing a lot of them, but still. He launches a harassment campaign against Chloé, is a little too exicited to akumatize Marinette, and hires Lila to basically be his minion, then apparently starts calling her his muse. Perhaps if he spent less time using teenagers as chess pieces and more time review which Amukas were good and which weren’t, he’d actually succeed at things.

Speaking of success, Hawk Moth finally finds Master Fu and seizes the Miracle Box. Then instead of taking it home and finding a non-deadly Miraculous for Nathalie, he proceeds to give it to Miracle Queen then lose it. As a pity prize, he at least gets the translated grimoire, which allows him to fix the Peacock Miraculous. Now he can accompany every useless Akuma with a Sentimonster, instead of just Reflekta.

Mayura: If I had a Miraculous that slowly killed me when I used it, I would simply not use it unless I literally had no other option. Nathalie thinks differently, and uses the Peacock Miraculous for great plans such as “bring back Reflecta and give her a robot“ and “fail to convince Chloé to join you“. Not only does Mayura fail to achieve anything, the damage to her body means that the actually good plan of “let’s just do Scarlet Moth again“ fails. It would probably be tragic if it weren’t so stupid.

#miraculous: tales of ladybug and chat noir #miraculous ladybug

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zoufantastical · 5 years ago

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Hawkmoth's powers doesn't make any sense?

Read my If Hawkmoth's Miraculous is corrupted theory here

Apparently, the moth miraculous purpose is to grant a person a superpower and make them your "devoted follower". Why?

When we look at it's main ability, it is very overpowered. We are talking about the ability to make ANY superhero (or supervillain) of any kind with any power. Even just one is a lot. Add to the fact that it can mind (or is it emotionally?) control the akumatized person and take away their power if they are not being "devoted" enough.

Also what does Nooroo even mean by devoted? And why is the moth miraculous so easily prone to be used maliciously? Why does it even have the ability to control someone based on their emotions?

The same with the peacock; it can create any sentimonster for any person on any object and it could also be aware of its existence. Those are extremely powerful abilities. You can literally act as a GOD with the peacock miraculous!

The power of the moth miraculous represents transmission and it suppose to give hope if there is a risk of danger when creating a superhero. What's the point if there are many other miraculouses? Having the ability to create any type of superpower on any person or having the ability to create any creature is a recipe for disaster.

Looking at these two miraculous, I honestly can't find ANY correlation or sense for its abilities for that matter. At least the earrings of creation and the ring of destruction have some sort of balance for each other.

Which gets me thinking....why does Ladybug even HAVE the ability to purify akumas and amoks? Aren't the magic jewels' purpose used for protection? Unless... there are miraculous MEANT to be used for evil or CAN be used for evil purposes. Think about it.

The whole purpose of what we have been shown so far is that Ladybug can't work without Chat Noir and vice versa. There can't be creation without some sort of destruction. For example, paper. Something as simple as paper needs the destruction of a whole tree and other materials to create paper.

When Nooroo said that the Miraculous weren't meant to be used for evil purposes... I noticed, he wasn't really specific. Sure it could logically be implied that he meant as the moth miraculous as it seems that Gabriel mentions how he plans to use it to create supervillains. However, in that same moment, they were also talking about fusing the earrings and ring of Ladybug and Chat Noir. This could also be seen as Nooroo thought Gabriel wanted to fuse both jewels for evil purposes. 🤷🏽‍♀️

I believe that in the Miraculous universe, there needs to be balance. And that's why in so many depictions, you see other holders fighting (senti?)monsters and many other beings. I believe that the moth and peacock miraculous (and who knows future revealed miraculouses as well) can be used both maliciously and for good to create a sense of purpose and balance for Ladybug and Chat Noir. As well as maybe for the entire universe.

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severalspoons · 5 years ago

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Liveblog: Rewatching Trigun, Episode 17 part 2

Ugh, I just want to talk about Episode 18 already.

We pick up with Rem and the Captain talking.

-- Rem has a very breathy voice.

-- Rem: “Because they’re angels...maybe we should pay attention to them...they may even guide us through our dream.” If only it turned out that way. I wonder how literally she believes that?

-- This scene with Vash and Knives in the zero-gravity room is so touching.

Knives sounds genuinely concerned about Vash.

“Are you crying again?” Apparently Vash cries a lot. Color me not surprised. Knives cares anyway.

Steve has been telling Vash he’s not human, and probably that he’s a monster who shouldn’t even be here. What if everyone else feels that way about him and Knives, too? he worries. Worst of all, what if Rem feels that way?

I don’t know if Steve deliberately mistreated them differently, but they certainly reacted differently. He hit Vash where it hurt by telling him he didn’t belong. He beat up on Knives, which Knives could tolerate better. I think putting up with Steve’s abuse is the sort of “small sacrifice” Knives is talking about. :(

-- It fascinates me that Vash is the one who’s afraid and suspicious of humans, even though he desperately wants to belong. Knives is the one encouraging him that it will be possible to get along with people. He even empathizes with their perspective: “to these people we’re just uninvited guests. We only need to be patient a while.”

-- Vash asks whether Rem feels the same way as Steve. Baby, nothing could be further from the truth. You’re Rem’s favorite. Can’t you feel how much she loves you?

-- Knives starts a conversation about the tree they’re lying under, but not really. He’s speaking in metaphors. I do this myself when I want to get across a complicated set of ideas and emotions quickly. It’s a great way to compact your message and add sensory examples so the listener can feel what you’re saying. And it’s perfect for bridging the gap between his train of thought and Vash’s feelings. Knives does the same thing in the more famous conversation about spiders and butterflies.

“Rem said it’s because they’re strong...they concentrate all their energy on growing.”

This is dreamy, mythological, fairy tale thinking. Rem, instead of giving them information about the world, is describing it poetically and helping them see it with wonder. I think Vash will return to this perspective on days when he wonders why he’s bothering trying to save people. (The way I go to Pinterest and look at photos of nature and the sky and people doing kind things until I feel like it’s worth living again).

-- “Rem said...according to Rem...” I bet this conversation is frustrating for Knives. Knives is asking Vash what he thinks, and all he gets is secondhand Rem.

-- “Plants are strong, but we eat their fruit.” “We need to in order to live.” Does Vash know what sort of plant Knives is really talking about?

-- “Do you think I’ll be eaten some day?” ::heart breaks:

Will they be drained for power the way the bulb plants are? Or experimented on? It’s a reasonable question.

It’s interesting. Although Vash is the one being told he’s not human, Knives is the one aligning his identity with plants. Or at least, trying it out during this conversation.

-- “So then, why am I here?”

Knives is having a huge (and perfectly understandable) existential crisis. And no one seems to have good answers for him. Even Vash doesn’t seem to get it.

I don’t think telling him he’s an angel sent to Earth to help the crew would help him much. Either it’ll sound like more fluffy poetic nonsense to him, or it will feel like a huge burden. I mean, just listen to former “Indigo children,” whose parents may have legitimately believed their kids were sent to save the world. Instead, they became a hot mess.

-- They had umbilical cords? Don’t plants reproduce by budding? Weren’t Vash and Knives found after they dropped off and fell to the ground? IDK, plant biology is confusing to begin with and the anime certainly doesn’t help.

-- Cut to a bunch of scary looking men with laser guns. Rem throws herself between them and the babies and you see the lasers all over her torso. They could have shot her. She could have died trying to save the plant babies. Holy ****. (And she wasn’t even feeling guilty about Tessla in the anime. She was just a good person).

-- That fucking apple. I’m sorry, but I hate this kind of symbolism. It never says much, it feels like an exercise or a treasure hunt, and it reminds me of high school English class.

Smooth transition to the other side of the tree where Rem is giving Vash a haircut. Of course Vash goes first. Rem gives Vash his iconic sticking-up haircut for the first time.

-- Um, it’s kind of weird to give your kid the same haircut as a man you loved. (What sort of relationship did they have in the anime, anyway?)

Also, you never noticed he was handsome before because he’s a kid. He looks like the equivalent of an 8 or 9 year old here.

-- “He was my emotional support. Thanks to him, I was able to face my mistakes without judgment. I learned to make them right again. Then I lost him and realized I would have to do it alone. But I wasn’t afraid to make mistakes any more. I believed I could point myself in the right direction without looking back.”

I just got run over by a truck of feels. Because Vash takes the same journey.

And I’m pretty sure Wolfwood does for Vash what Alex did for Rem.

It all begins next episode.

-- Knives’ haircut looks curved like butterfly wings. (And he’s way better at cutting hair than a kid with no experience should be).

-- Knives’ voice sounds villainous. “Just a little change of heart, that’s all.”

-- There already was individuality, even without the haircut. I guess Knives has just accepted it. “A philosopher and a mama’s boy.” That about sums it up, unfortunately.

-- Love how Knives tells Steve off, even though he makes a supervillain face immediately after.

-- Static. There’s that sound you hear every time Legato appears. The static of evil.

-- The famous spider & butterfly scene. Vash has both hands up, probably considering removing both of spider and butterfly from the web and moving them to separate places. Not sure what he’s waiting for.

They first have the argument they keep playing out for the next 150 years.

“Unless the spider caught the butterfly, it would die of starvation anyway.” Knives is right -- about butterflies and spiders. About the natural order. (That’s one reason I, personally, have an existential crisis every time I watch a nature documentary. For some reason, there’s always organisms eating other organisms alive on those channels. ::shudders::) The best argument I can give is that the metaphor doesn’t apply to people and plants, or doesn’t have to. The only reason a situation even resembling that happens on Gunsmoke is because Knives crashes all the ships onto a planet without resources.

Rem: “it’s not right to make that choice so easily.” Honestly? I think that’s a less convincing argument. Especially to someone who’s agnostic or atheist. Because who should choose? Or are you just leaving it up to random chance?

-- “What would you rather have us do, just stand there and think about it?”

Vash attacks Knives for the first time.

Rem finally realizes there’s something wrong. She looks troubled.

-- WTF happened to Rowan’s mind? What’s broken? Is Knives controlling his mind or body somehow?

-- Rem models self-sacrifice. I still don’t understand why, but she seemed to truly believe that Rowan, who was willing to kill a crew member he actually loved, wouldn’t do the same to her. The Captain models the sensible choice given the information he had, and throws Rowan out the airlock. Well, maybe not so sensible, because Rem could have been flung out into space to die, too.

Wonder how Rem would feel if she knew that Vash spent his life doing the same thing, getting increasingly scarred in the process?

-- “Vash, take care of Knives.”

This breaks my heart because so far ... he hasn’t. First he follows Knives around. Then abandons him. Then attacks him.

Doesn’t that bother him, given how faithfully he follows Rem in everything else?

I think Rem says nothing to Knives, because she has nothing good to say to him then.

-- It still bothers me that Knives got so flat out cruel down to the maniacal laugh so quickly and offscreen. It’s still a big jump from the last time we saw him talk. Seriously, look at this:

Everything he does in the anime would have made sense if they had just added a little bit more from the manga.

-- So Knives, is Rem’s self sacrifice still stupid if she corrected the course of all the ships and saved so many lives? After all, she took action quickly, and did the greatest good for the greatest number--the rational thing. You should have understood what she was doing.

-- No, Vash, Rem didn’t mean “take care of him” as in “Kill him.” You know that.

...You know I’m getting way too invested in a series when I start talking to the characters as if they can hear me. It’s about as sensible as yelling at the horror movie character not to go into that dark room alone.

#liveblog #liveblogging #trigun #trigun anime #knives millions #millions knives #vash the stampede #rem saverem #character analysis #philosophy #symbolism #anime vs. manga #nicholas d. wolfwood #feels #i'm not crying you're crying

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dragonindigo245 · 5 years ago

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So I know there’s a superhero AU for the sides but consider... supervillain?

Bare with me. This is going to seem really funky but I figured why not? In this AU Thomas is a superhero and the sides are supervillains. Here’s a semi-breif- Oh nvm this is way to long. Woop dee doo. Feel free to scroll away if you don’t want a long AU. If you’re into that... here’s some character descriptions!

Thomas

•Thomas is a YouTuber who vlogs and is known for his small skits and vines. His most popular series after vine died though is his Awkward Adventures.

•He collabs with his friend Remy to do some “sleep” skits.

•He used to collab with Patton, Logan, Roman, and Virgil back when vine was around too but they hardly knew each other.

•Thomas hardly remembers them besides a few off set jokes.

•Thomas was born with the powers of flight, super speed, and to feel emotions.

•He can’t alter them but he does try to help others like the good person he is.

•Actually was convinced by Emile to take up superhero work. Emile didn’t mean it in the “go beat up bad guys” way but here they are.

•Everyone knows Thomas identity. He doesn’t hide it.

•Joan and Taylon designed him a superhero outfit. It is basically a white jumpsuit with rainbow cuffs and a giant, glowing rainbow star symbol in the middle. There’s also an epic rainbow cape to go with it.

•He doesn’t view the supervillains as bad guys, but rather broken people. He only uses physical force if they attack him. Otherwise he try’s to convince them to turn themselves in. Course it doesn’t work all that well but he tries.

•He doesn’t go by anything besides Thomas. He doesn’t need a superhero name to be super.

Patton

•Patton has two kids who go by Fiona and Liam (The kids from vine) and is a single parent.

•Their dirt poor and often have trouble scraping by. His kids don’t even go to school due to school fees.

•He declines any money from his friends and his family has given him all they can. They aren’t as poor as Patton but also aren’t comfortable.

•Logan actually comes by Patton’s house weekly to try and tutor them to his best abilities. In certain subjects they know more than kids there age but in some their lacking.

•Patton was born with the powers to alter emotions and to fly.

•He actually alters his own emotions so he can remain happy around other people.

•Problem is that only represses them for later. When he’s alone he’s a total mess.

•He started going into crime around 5 years after he adopted his kids, when poverty was at its max.

•He doesn’t have a job unfortunately because he was to low on money to send the kids to school, hence not having time for a job.

•Pat only does crime for the money so his kids can eat and he can keep his apartment. He really hates it though.

•He doesn’t have a supervillain costume but he wears the typical black mask superhero mask along with his cat hoodie.

•Despite hating crime, he’s the best at it compared to the others. He can actually be really intimidating when he needs to be.

•The only crimes he has committed are robbery, attempted murder (course he would never actually kill someone), and trespassing.

•His kids don’t know he’s a supervillain and he intends to keep it that way. They have gotten dangerously close though.

•He hasn’t been captured yet.

•He still calls Virgil his “dark, strange son”.

•Virgil accepts this and the kids treat him like an older brother.

•Patton was the one who got Virgil into eyeshadow surprisingly.

•Patton actually hasn’t gotten hurt by Thomas. He munipulates his emotions to make him not hurt him. Thomas has stopped him from doing whatever crime every single time though.

•His supervillain name is Curse, due to him wearing a cat hoodie and the whole black cats have bad luck thing. Also based on him often using fear to keep enemies away.

Logan

•He lives in a two room apartment, one room always remains locked and with a few modifications, made the door booby trapped.

•Only he knows how to get past them without destroying them.

•There’s actually a booby trap designed to go off if you destroy the door trap.

•He often tutors kids other than Patton’s. However they know what they should be learning so their significantly easier to tutor than Fiona and Liam.

•He received his powers in illegal experimentation though he was a test subject so he wasn’t in much trouble.

•Really he just had a migraine for a few days and suddenly he could lift an entire couch with one arm.

•His powers are unique. He is quite literal when he says “Knowledge is power.” His strength is based on how much intellect he possesses.

•Currently he can lift 2,000 pounds comfortably. This does mean he can lift some cars.

•Ironically because he looks so skinny, people tell him he should go to the gym so he’s able to hold his own in a fight.

•If you mention a new topic to him he doesn’t know much about, he will get a splitting headache and he is almost incapable of resisting researching it. He will become hyper fixated on it for like a month.

•His supervillain costume is a black jumpsuit along with a black bandana. Patton stitched in a black hood to the jumpsuit because Logan was worried that he could leave a hair at the scene of the crime, and get caught. He also extanges his glasses for contacts.

•He commits crimes the least often compared to everyone else, only doing so to unleash bottled up anger. When he gets angry enough for that though, all hell breaks lose.

•His first crime was commited in his softmore year of High School.

•His crimes include homoside, arson (don’t ask where the fire came from), assault, kidnapping, property destruction, and finally trespassing.

•He has been captured twice but has gotten away before they could unmask him.

•His supervillain name is Mind Bender because he wasn’t exactly discrete how his powers work. Really Thomas just came up with it on the fly and the media loved it.

Roman

•Roman lives in a two bedroom apartment with his roommate Remy who knows of Romans identity.

•Thankfully Remy doesn’t give a shit unless Roman intrupts his life with it. He had to take an oath not to tell anyone as long as Roman doesn’t bother the Starbucks industry.

•Remy may not care Romans’ a supervillain, but he will keep his identity a secret because he doesn’t go back on his word.

•Roman was considered to be a magnificent actor but was disgraced once Remus became a supervillain.

•He now works for a modeling company... as a photographer.

•He loathes he can’t be a model himself but doesn’t make a fuss about it.

•Honestly being the photographer is just rubbing salt in the wound for him.

•His powers include the ability to make anyone enamored with him and he counts his reflexes as a power even though it isn’t. He’s just crazy talented.

•His powers actually were a hex from Virgil, as a way to able him to be a supervillain. He also has been begging Virgil to give him the power to communicate with animals but Virgil has told him to wait for awhile.

•Problem is, his powers actually make him more prone to falling in love. Magic always takes its toll.

•He’s actually once had 3 relationships in one week before. It was just sad.

•After losing the acting carrier, he became extremely greedy and obsessed with riches. You can imagine why he is a supervillain.

•He started becoming a supervillain around the 2 month mark for his photography job.

•His list of crimes are theft, robbery, shoplifting, arson (again nobody knows where they get the fire), manslaughter, and kidnapping.

•Though with the kidnapping he literally did it to spite the ladies boyfriend. Really nothing happened to her. She sat in a dark room, tied to a chair, having a debate with Roman which Kardashian was the best. Then the police showed up and Roman jumped out a window.

•Romans outfit is the same princely getup as in the series and a white and gold masquerade mask. Also a gold crown that he bought himself. He carries a sword as well to aid in battle but he uses it as an accessory all the same.

•Patton once swapped Romans’ crown for a Burger King crown in the middle of a heist. He didn’t even realize until Patton handed him his original crown like half an hour later.

•There is viral camera footage of this event. Roman is still a bit bitter towards him but secretly finds it funny.

•He has been caught five times (every time he went on a heist with Remus) and has had his secret identity revealed in private by a few cops. They were all killed by Remus before they could tell anyone.

•Technically Roman owes Remus.

•His supervillain name is Prince for obvious reasons. Remus claimed him as his sidekick immediately so that helped the name decision.

•Everyone thinks Remus is Romans sidekick though. Nobody believes Roman is the lesser one here.

Virgil

•Virgil lives in a 3 bedroom, house with Dee and Remus.

•He’s actually been alive since the dark ages.

•Currently he works at a Hot Topic.

•He’s a supervillain because he is actually a serial killer. Virgil loathes this fact though and tries to repress it as much as he can.

•His powers come from a spell book he has. He can do electrical magic and some illusion magic without help from the book but otherwise he has to read it from the pages in combat. Easy to do with cops, hard to do with superhero’s.

•The spellbook however gives the user intense fear for as long as it’s left open. He tries not to use it to much.

•One time however he literally collapsed and had a panic attack while fighting Thomas. Thomas actually stopped fighting and helped Virgil through it though.

•The athoreties showed up with Virgil proped up ageist the wall beside Thomas. He willingly came but wouldn’t allow for his identity to be seen. He was rescued by Logan later on before he had to go to court.

•Virgil has been detained twice, the first time being him beaten down, the second time him willingly going.

•His outfit is a black cloak along with the rest of his body wearing black. He has fingerless gloves too. His face is hidden by a simple black bandana.

•His supervillain name is Shock, in both the electrical way and emotion way. Another one Thomas came up with.

Dee

Well for starters I just found out how to do this easier. Okay anyways resuming.

Deceit goes by Dee or Dec. He refuses to tell anyone his name. If they ask he says something like “Karen” or “Linda”.

He doesn’t have a job for this reason.

Oh and the fact he can’t cover his identity very well so he’s on the run from the law.

He was involved in the same experimentation Logan went through, but was tested for something different.

Long story short: His body ended up going through the extremely painful process of growing scales on his right half of his body, his canines (teeth not dog) grew into poison filled fangs, and his tounge became thin and forked. An unfortunate side effect was him going blind in his right eye.

He was the one who actually got the experiments shut down.

He was treated as a freak of nature and feared. Eventually he developed the mindset that society was a lie and it needed to be torn apart.

So I guess now he wants an anarchy.

He’s also a narcissistic liar so he fits the role of a snake.

His powers are being immune to physical damage on his right side, and having a venomous bite.

He wears the same bowler hat and everything he originally wears. There is no need to change when you can’t conceal your identity.

He’s actually terrified of snakes despite being part one. Unfortunately snakes are attracted to him.

Remus constantly reminds him that snakes can have two d-

He started a few years ago with his whole anarchy thing from Orlando but Thomas quickly put a stop to it.

His list of crimes just... keep going... it’s to extensive but let’s just say genoside is on there.

His supervillain name is Deceit. He made it himself.

Remus

Ho boy the real train wreck.

He’s currently hiding at Virgil’s place along with Dee.

He is not mentally stable enough to have a job. He’s also the most wanted person in America. This guy can’t get a job.

He’s literally chewed his way out of a straight jacket. This mans unhinged.

His powers? Nobody knows where he got them. Probably used Virgil’s spell book.

His powers are teleportation and shapeshifting.

Leads to some interesting interactions.

He has the achievement of being the only person Thomas has genuinely lost his cool with.

Remus doesn’t conceal his identity. His outfit is just his normal duke outfit he wears everywhere.

I mean when the police first showed up on his first heist he was eating a dollar bill and introduced himself as, “Remus, but you can call me Duke.”

He’s frankly terrifying.

He’s committed every crime in the book. Tax evasion to mass homocide.

His villain name is Duke and it is a household name across America.

Somebody get this man under control oh my god.

So there’s the character bios. Here’s some little tad bits of information!

Emile Picani is both Thomas and Virgil’s therapist.

Virgil hasn’t told him about being a supervillain but oh he knows.

Emile very discreetly is trying to get him to be better one step at a time.

All the supervillains logos were designed by the media.

“Curse” And “Mind Bender” are apparently I dinamic duo on the internet?

Patton, Logan, Roman, and Virgil often team up. Their not official team members or anything but just good friends.

The four often try to pull each other out of crime. For example someone will anonymously give Patton some money, keeping Logan calm, ect.

Virgil used to team up with Deceit and Remus all the time but slowly started to pull away due to them being absolutely unhinged.

Fiona and Liam actually are friends with Thomas.

Remus can actually be quite calm around Deceit and Roman. There can’t be anyone else in the room though.

Thomas is very insistent on finding everyone’s identities and helping them out.

Remy actually knows everyone’s identities besides Virgil’s but because the unhinged ones are already known, he doesn’t care.

Virgil and Roman will sometimes come over to Patton’s house to give him a much needed break from being a single parent.

Logan and Dee are actually extremely good friends and have been since the experimentation. Everyone is pretty good friends with everyone but those two are a whole new level of friends. The others are convinced they might have telepathic powers between each other.

Emile and Remy often hang out together and chat about whatever.

Welp there’s that! I’ll probably be writing some stuff for this so stay tuned! Enjoy the rest of your day!

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howtohero · 6 years ago

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#212 Sixth Senses

We’ve already spoken about how many superheroes have heightened senses, but what we neglected to mention is that some superheroes have extra senses. Because sight, taste, touch, smell, and hearing wasn’t enough. These folks have senses mere mortals like you could only dream of! You think you’re so great because you can see ha! Pitiful! You are a pitiful human. You can’t even see ghosts. Get out of here with that sad sad nonsense.

Probably the best thing about having any sort of sixth sense (or seventh, or eighth, of, if you’re like our good friend Sensory Overload, thousandth sense) is that unless you’re fighting someone who knows you pretty well, your enemies won’t be able to negate them. Villains can easily blind fold you or gag you or deafen you or otherwise deprive you of your senses. And many villains will, sensory deprivation is a great way to best a hero in combat. But if you’ve got a secret extra sense that they don’t know about and haven’t prepared for, well, that’s it for them. You’ve pretty much won that fight. How are they gonna be able to fight you if they didn’t know you could sense nearby birds. They’re not. They’re just not.

Sixth senses can be weird though. Especially for the person who, you know, has the heightened sensory capabilities. Sure, it’s weird for everyone else too. It’s going to make everyone else around you feel inadequate. Not to mention everybody who doesn’t have full use of the standard five senses already, how do you think they’ll feel when they find out that not only are they blind but they also don’t have an extra “vampire dust sense”. (That’s a sense that let’s you recognize whether or not a vampire has been standing in a given spot within the last 48 hours. It’s a very good power if you know how to use it, which nobody who has it does.) But for the person who actually has the powers, things are going to be quite interesting for them. The extra senses that a person can manifest throughout their life are incredibly varied and remarkably inconsistent. Many superhumans develop a completely unique and original sixth sense. The OPG had to open up an entirely separate, fully staffed satellite office just to study and catalogue different extraneous senses. All of this means that, should you develop a sixth sense, odds are you’re going to be largely on your own when it comes to understanding, honing, and harnessing it.

Whenever you develop a new sense you’re likely to feel very disoriented and confused. You likely won’t understand the new stimuli you’re feeling. You’ll be all like “Why is the base of my skull tingling??? What’s causing that??? Am I hungry? Is the sun in my eyes? Do I need to pee? What’s going on????” And nobody in the world will be able to answer you. You don’t have enough data for anyone to figure out what you’re sensing. You’ve only got the one instance. You honestly might never understand what that was about. It could be that you have the ability to sense once in a lifetime occurrences and you’ll never know. You’ll go your whole life thinking that you’re a non-powered loser, when in reality you’ve got the power to sense when somebody pays Professor Paleontologist a compliment (burn). But just because there’s nobody out there who is familiar with the exact type of superhuman sense you’ve manifested, doesn’t mean you’re on your own. Sensory overload is an issue many superheroes have faced throughout the years. (Not to mention that one time our very good friend Sensory Overload fell under the control of an evil Mind-Leech from the Forbidden Nebula and a bunch of superheroes had to fight him.) Regardless of what’s overloading their senses (smelly smells, tasty tastes, emotional emotions) the tactics used to soothe the mind and body are generally the same.

It’s all about focus. If you can focus on one thing, you can drown everything else out. With super-senses that just means zeroing in on just one sight/sound/whathaveyou. But with sixth senses, you first need to understand your senses and then focus on one stimulant, while shutting everything else out. Once you’re able to master this level of focus you can use your powers to great effect. While a super sense might not have as many obvious combat benefits as say, the power to shoot disembodied fists from your eyes or the power explode things with your touch, they’re far from useless.

Sixth senses have a lot of practical applications in the field of intelligence gathering. Hey superheroes, unsure if anybody in a given room is secretly an android sleeper agent sent to rend your team asunder from the inside? How about employing someone who can sense electromagnetic waves. Trying to get across town before that donut shop that sells those donuts with the warm brownie bits inside the donut before it closes? Wouldn’t it be great if you had flight sense, the power to sense whether or not living beings are flight capable? (The OPG lists the only practical use of “Flight Sense” as being “the ability to determine whether or not you and your team have successfully achieved air superiority in fights against your enemies” but also the file on that power just contains a napkin with a few bullet points hastily scrawled onto it because the sixth sense department is apparently very overwhelmed!)

Additionally, some sixth senses, such as a danger sense (or tingle) or a weakness or fear sense can be used by a crimefighter to protect themselves or to determine the best way to defeat an enemy. Other sixth senses can have battlefield applications if they are in the hands of a sufficiently creative superhero. For example, Bloodhound uses his ability to detect and sniff out other dogs to seek out good doggos in need of some good belly rubs and then invites the bad guys he’s fighting to come give that dog some nice rubs, and let me tell you, he has successfully reformed more supervillains than any other superhero on the planet.

Having extra senses can be overwhelming, disorienting, and even a bit scary. But if you master them you’ll see that they’re really more gift than curse. Extra senses allow you to perceive and interact with the world in a unique way. They can make you a more effective member of society, a better, more well-rounded hero, and a very popular guy if you’ve got like “weight a person wants to hear” sense and are comfortable with telling people you’ve got “accurate weight” sense.

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