#abb gag

[krixwell-liveblogs]

“Sorry to interrupt your business meeting,” Sierra said, looking from me to Grue.

“It’s fine.  What’s going on here?”  I controlled the tone of my voice.  They didn’t seem too fazed by this encounter with two supervillains.  Were they veterans of Lung’s rule?  Or Bakuda’s?

Maybe both?

A Japanese guy with a mop of hair covering his eyes and a bad slouch looked from Sierra to me and spoke in a very American accent, “You still looking for muscle?”

Ohh!

Hey, look! They found a new leader for the Arduous Bug Bites!

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Two groups arrived within a minute of one another, each at different points of my territory.  Thirty-two people in all, with eight in the first group and twenty-four in the other.

Hrm. That’s big enough that it seems clearly planned. Maybe the Merchants will be the ones taking initiative here?

Also, the distribution reminds me a lot of the Atrocious Basejumping Benefactors back in Gestation.

Both groups reacted, jumping and backing away as my swarm swept over them.

To be expected, really.

I could feel the vibration in the air as one in the second group laughed.  The others joined him.

Guessing the first laughing one is the leader of the group. Possibly Skidmark himself?

I’d held off on attacking, just using the bugs to get a headcount and a sense of who was there.  There were men and women, young and old.  Each of them had weapons of some sort, and fifteen in total had guns.

Yeah, that really tears any doubt that they’re here for a fight to pieces.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker.

That she is.

I tried to pull all the individual pieces and clues together, fill in the blanks.  Did this mean Emma was a cape, too?  No – I’d seen Emma in the presence of other capes.  At those times, I knew, she’d have reason to be in costume if she had powers.

Yeah, and the two times this happened, Shadow Stalker was involved, which you may recall was the reason I dismissed the idea of it being Emma Taylor had just found here very quickly.

Madison is more questionable, though.

I’m Batman. Dude, didn’t I tell you to get out of here? Scram.

But those times I was thinking of, when my cape and civilian lives had crossed?  Emma had been at the mall, where Shadow Stalker had been on duty.  She’d been at the fundraiser, too.  As Shadow Stalker’s plus one?  Emma’s dad had been there as well.  Was that a clue?

It... is possible that Emma knows Shadow Sophia’s secret, I suppose.

A sick feeling in my gut told me that Emma knew about Sophia and Shadow Stalker.

I could even guess that Emma had found out sometime before high school started, while I was at nature camp.

...

Holy shit, is this the cause of everything?

Is this why Emma betrayed Taylor? Because she discovered that her new friend was a superhero, so much cooler than Taylor?

It would have been an exciting revelation, a juicy secret, being a part of the cape community.  Seduced by that drama, Emma would have turned her back on me, became Sophia’s best friend.  The civilian sidekick and confidante to the young heroine; it was cliche, but cliches had their basis in something.

This secret is potentially a reason for most of what’s happened so far in the story, indirectly. This secret may have led to Taylor’s bullying, which led to her trigger event, which led to her becoming a cape, fighting Lung, joining the Undersiders, helping bring down Bakuda and the Arbitrary Bitrate Benefits, starting the War of the Docks, etcetera etcetera.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Happy birthday to you / Happy birthday to you / You insulted the ABB / Now they're gonna kill you

Thank you so much for this Thank you so much for this The Alternative Birthday Boys Can just come my ass kiss!

[krixwell-liveblogs]

The uneasy solution had been to avoid saying anything about the local villains, beyond the fact that they had participated, but problems had stemmed from that, too.

Naturally. You either rile up those who don’t like the villains, or you rile up those who do (a.k.a. the villains themselves).

This kind of reminds me of the situation at the start of Tangle, with Taylor being annoyed that the Protectorate glossed over the villains’ involvement in taking down the Aching Beam Blasters.

(This time it’s an ABB gag. We don’t have any terrorists named Aching Beam Blasters over here.)

Subordinates or teammates of the fallen villains had made a scene over these omissions, sometimes during the funerals, and villain participation in Endbringer situations started to decline.

Which is definitely not something anyone wants, unless their goal is the destruction of the city.

More issues came up, rooted in the reality that people who went out in costume were more theatrical or dramatic as a rule.  Too many vying to take the spotlight, hero and villain alike, even some of the fallen, with measures or requests placed in advance.

Oh my cod she’s right they’re totally a bunch of drama royals

It didn’t happen every time, but enough events became sideshows and media circuses that the whole purpose of the events was defeated.  The media was banned from recording the event, but the capes who’d sought to stand out only tried harder.  Fights had erupted.

Naturally.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Search your blog for Angry Banana Bunch, you'll find an untagged ABB gag.

Another untagged ABB gag: Awesome Beach Bodies.

More unmarked ABB gags: Ablatives But Better, Amplified Banana Blasters, Absolute Beetle Buffoons.

Two untagged ABB gags when Bakuda makes her entrance: Achoo Blessya Babes and Asplody Beach Balls.

More untagged ABB gags: Antithetical Bottle Breaker, Actual Bad Boys, Archer Biting Babies, and Anti-Bitch Brigade (one of your better ones). I was also wondering if you intended to make a "Fuck you, Max" tag.

Another untagged ABB gag. Allflavor Bean Bags. Also, I'm seriously considering starting Homestuck and Steven Universe just so I can get all your references.

Another untagged ABB gag: Amorphous Basket Balls.

Thank you! Due to blog search being kind of unreliable, I was unable to find some of these, but I really appreciate this nonetheless. Those I could find have been fixed.

I think I decided against making a “Fuck you, Max” tag at some point, but I’m not sure. At least that gag wasn’t constantly changing, so it’d be way easier to apply retroactively if I were to change my mind.

And as for Steven Universe and Homestuck, I think you should do it. They are both great. Though fair warning, they both have a sort of slow start (SU does it better than Homestuck though), so I recommend you avoid judging them too early. With Homestuck in particular it’s worth noting that up until a point in Act 4, the story was being based on people’s suggested commands, which explains a lot of the floundering early on.

By the way, when you finish watching/reading, I recommend you check out the liveblogs of my friends @loreweaver-universe (SU) and @mindareadsoots (Homestuck). ;)

[krixwell-liveblogs]

Softer with the heat, the thin metal strip pulled free of the mask itself.  The metal that ran along the strap cut Paige’s lip as it came off.

Oww. As if her poor mouth hasn’t suffered enough in this chapter.

She almost -almost- dropped the mask, but managed to snap her teeth to catch the buckle in her teeth before it could fall to the floor.

Sweet catch!

As the strip came free, Bakuda pulled back and jerked her head to one side, hard, impaling herself in the shoulder with one end of it.  She screamed, and blood ran from one of the burns on her mouth.

Ouch.

Paige looked at Lung.  The huge man did nothing, remaining silent.  He only watched dispassionately as Bakuda’s chest heaved with the exertion and pain, her head hanging down.

It kinda feels like Lung has given up. Which is fair, really, considering the demise of his Abruptly Broken Band and his subsequent arrest.

[krixwell-liveblogs]

He didn’t press the issue, instead, he turned to the next member of our group.  “Regent.  A hard young man to please, because you grew up wanting for nothing, and you expect largesse, luxury and idle entertainment as a matter of course.”

Juicy backstory!

Spoiled kid, not particularly surprising. Everything about Regent has been screaming that for a while.

The question, then: why is he a villain?

“What do you know about how I grew up?” Regent challenged him.

“I know what the Protectorate knows.  Not long after Lung was brought into custody, Armsmaster began pushing for details on your group.  

Interesting... this isn’t the first thing that’s indicated Coil has people on the inside, either.

And I mean, if the Arguably Bodacious Blasters managed to sneak someone in, then it’s no big feat for Coil.

Staff at the PRT offices were tasked with looking through old criminal records and reports of lesser known parahumans, trying to find parallels.  Find if perhaps a supervillain in another area perhaps moved to Brockton Bay, changing their names, costumes and methods.  They found you.”

Hm, so Regent used to go under another cape name?

“Ah,” Regent leaned back in his seat.  “Shit.”

And he doesn’t want people, probably least of all the Protectorate, to know that.

“So I know who you are.  I know that you went out of your way to get out from your father’s thumb, and that it’s quite likely that a part of you is driven to prove yourself to him, to pursue success, power and status in our circles.”

Spoiled kid wants to stand on his own.

Now, does this mean his father is also a villain, and the act of moving to Brockton Bay and ditching the previous cape identity was part of getting out of his father’s coddling?

Anyway, this is a nice, though not exactly subtle, way to exposit about Regent’s backstory, which I’ve been waiting for since at least 2.2.