Btw, I have a feeling the creators of Invincible have some chauvinistic/classist streak (maybe some racist). Otherwise, I can't explain why Amber and Paul were written off so stupidly. Why does the show play up the trope of "I'm too normal and therefore I don't deserve to be with someone who isn't normal" twice??? I'm not imagine it right
Invincible Season 4 Finale Spoilers: Uggh, I Hate How Much I Actually Like Paul
See Spider-Man Fans? The name isn't cursed after all! But no seriously this version of Paul I actually care about, in the comics dude is basically just an ass and breaks up with Debbie over the phone in a way I now realize was just an excuse to get the ball rolling as Debbie and Nolan fully get back together in the same/the literal next issue.
Here though? Here this feels natural. Oh, we all like him. He wasn't bad but there was always a feeling of...outsideness when it came to the 'Super' part of of this family. I like that they're still close friends in the aftermath regardless.
relationship chart for Mercy. used with permission, OG belongs to anghelikko on twitter!
quick explanations of each relationship under the cut (:
Cecil is the closest adult in her life at this point I think, so he gets a mix of trust and friendship from her. There's no friendship on his end not because he doesn't care about her on a personal level, but because he sees her more as a troubled child that he needs to look after than an equal to build a friendship on. There's trust on both ends because, despite the fact that Cecil is probably wary of both the twins + Oliver due to their father's actions, I think Mercy's willingness to understand Cecil's point of view with working with criminals and using whatever he has available has gone a looong way to making him respect her a lot more. He sees that she's open-minded and reasonable and it gives him a big sense of safety around her that he didn't have around the acting-on-moral-impulse Invincible.
Donald/Mercy is equally neutral and trust on both ends. I think Cecil would want to always be the one interacting with Mercy in order to build as much personal rapport as possible with this Viltrumite, so I doubt she interacts with Donald a ton outside of him occasionally giving her orders if Cecil is too busy.
William and Amber both get friendship with a bit of trust towards her. I think William has always been more of Mark's friend than Mercy's friend, so although they're somewhat close, they've drifted apart over the recent years and don't consider each other best friends or anything. She was decently close with Amber after the truth about Mark's identity came out (because as soon as Amber knew who Invincible was, she could put two and two together about the twin heroes...), but after the breakup and the split between the twins, I think Mercy would pull away from her because she just feels awkward about it all. They both trust her though because they know she's a hero and that she's doing her best to protect the world.
She's pretty neutral about Paul. Probably sees him very rarely, much rarer than Mark sees him because she's moved out and doesn't come back to the house very often. So I think he'd have to catch her by asking her to have lunch with him or something so they could get to know each other a bit lol. He wants to have a closer relationship to her because of course he wants to befriend his girlfriend's kids, but I don't think Mercy is that interested in it. I think in general she pulls away from a lot of friendships with non-heroes because she's always worried about getting them into trouble. She'd prefer to just be close with other heroes so she knows they can handle themselves if her and Mark's enemies come knocking.
Powerplex is a more obvious answer, I think. I think he hates Mark more than her because he would have personally seen Mark and Nolan fighting on that day, but Mercy probably wasn't there at the exact same time for him to see her and associate her with the trauma, even though it was well known that both of the twin heroes were there on that day. So he still hates her, thinks of her as a hero who gets a lot of people killed, but most of his anger is focused towards her brother. Mercy hates him because he's an unstable villain and he has a personal vendetta against her and her brother.
She's sort of neutral but leaning towards being friends with Allen. Allen would know about her hero and personal identity thanks to Mark being a little snitch, which she was mad about, but she figured that she could let it go because he's an alien so it's not like he's going to be telling reporters about her name or anything. I think they have few interactions together, but the few times they do talk with each other, it's generally a positive interaction. Allen understands Mercy's hatred of Nolan, even if he himself sees a chance of redemption for the man. Their relationship miiight be subject to change after Mercy learns about Allen's befriending and saving her father's life.. we'll have to see.
Now, Nolan himself... I've talked a looot about her relationship and thoughts about her father both before and after the betrayal. She loved him, was a total daddy's girl, and that was all wiped away the day he killed and abandoned her. Now she hates him and wants him dead, there's NO room in her heart for forgiveness towards him. Nolan probably hears from Mark (while they were on Thraxa together) that Mercy has NO intention of ever forgiving him for what he did, that she still hates him with a passion as if his betrayal was just yesterday, AND that she's been on a serious training regimen with the GDA for like 2 years since he left, and he goes "ummm haha i sure hope my daughter doesnt try to kill me like i tried to kill her. oh. hrmm. uh oh". I don't think he's scared in the sense that he thinks she could kill him - I think he's scared mostly because he doesn't want to fight again. Because there's so much hatred in her that a potential second fight can't end on a peaceful note. Someone is going to get seriously hurt or killed. He doesn't want that to be him (he needs to protect those he loves from his own people, after all) but he cant bring himself to do that to her again.. so there's fear at the idea of ever meeting her again.
Oliver and Debbie's relationships to Mercy have also been talked about a lot so I'll just give a very quick summary. Mercy loves them both, but her relationship with her mom is strained because of all the trauma of Nolan's actions, and Mercy moving out of the house or always being busy with GDA work means they don't talk that much anymore. She hated Oliver in the beginning bc he's a reminder of her father's abandonment and she saw him as a 'replacement' for Nolan's 'failed children', but then she put that aside and grew to love him as her brother. Recently, with his admiration of their father and going by kid-omni man, she has grown to fear that he would become just like Nolan.
Now the second chart... this is already getting pretty long lol, even though I'm trying to keep it to just one paragraph per relationship.. Sorry I got so much yapper DNA in me
Mark - their relationship has also been talked about a lot. They were very close twins, they remained close even after Nolan's betrayal and abandonment. But Mark began to forgive their father, to believe that he's a changed man who deserves redemption, and Mercy hates their father too much to ever believe that. The worst strain on their relationship was Mark leaving the GDA after the fight, but Mercy chose to stay. I think Mark would have considered that something like a personal betrayal. They're both very hurt right now.
Eve and Rex were Mercy's friends before all the trauma and splitting, and although their relationships with each other have been through some ups and downs, I think they still care about her and trust her as a hero. Even though both Eve and Rex agreed that she shouldn't have stayed with the GDA after the splitting, they still retain their strained friendship with her I think.
Amanda used to be someone Mercy admired as a hero, and they were sort of like close coworkers before, but after the GDA split I think Amanda would be angry at Mercy for staying. Amanda probably would have said something hurtful - something about how she can't believe Mercy would work for someone who 'tried to kill her brother' - and it would upset Mercy a lot and make her pull away. Very little interactions after the split, so they're both sore at each other still, but there's just enough of that old respect there to not be outright hatred.
Mercy hates Immortal. She put up with his distrust for a while, but one day came where he compared her to her father, or implied that she would betray them just like Omni-Man did, and that was the last straw for her. I think they would have gotten into a physical fight over something like that, so now she just avoids him altogether to not get into another fight. She would pummel him for what he said, it's just that she doesn't want to get in trouble with Cecil for it lol
Black Samson has her respect both because of his status as an original member of the Guardians, and because he chose to stay with the GDA after the split. She looks up to him for guidance sometimes, and he tries to give good advice to this young hero. There's not a personal relationship there, just a good working relationship.
Robot still has a trusting, friendly relationship with Mercy even after leaving the GDA. Amanda was very angry at Cecil and chose to leave bc she hated/distrusted him, but Rudy seemed neutral about it and it looked like he only left because he wanted to go with Amanda.. so I think Robot wouldn't blame her for staying and they could keep a friendly relationship. I think Mercy could still go to him for help if she needed something from him, and he still trusts her instincts and judgment as a hero.
Shapesmith really likes Mercy because she's very nice to him, I stated before that she probably shares her food with him whenever they're having lunch. She'd be patient enough to explain Earth things to him that he's confused about, and I think she'd be curious and want to know more about Mars from him too. She thinks he's pretty naive so there isn't a lot of trust in his instincts as a hero, but she still recognizes that he's pretty tough and can hold his own in a fight.
Dupli-Kate mostly has a neutral relationship with Mercy because they don't interact much in general, but when they do, it doesn't tend to be positive. Kate has the habit of saying mean things sometimes, and Mercy is just high-strung enough by season 3 that she'll shoot back with something just as mean. So the two of them often insult each other and just generally have a negative relationship.
Bulletproof's relationship is mostly neutral, but with him being one of the only flying heroes meant that they probably interacted while on missions more than she did with other heroes. Others had to drive or be flown, but the two of them could fly through the air and chat while on the move. Not a personal relationship, just... marginally closer than most of the others. They both trust each other's instincts and strength.
Look man, I'm so tired of the stereotypes and the lack of good character development for us Asians (and especially SEAs), the least people could do is actually write them well. I'll polish this up when I feel like it, you can tell what was the direct inspiration from
I won't go into the tangent on how underutilized they are, I already did multiple times (h a) and no one here came for that
Apologies that everything is written in Chinese, it felt appropriate to weigh in my culture for them and that includes just brainstorming and letting them converse in Chinese (maybe I'll add some Canto, Hakka or Hokkien sprinkled in over time). I also apologized that not everything could be properly translated, some words aren't a proper direct translation and or there's just no word for it in EN or I'm just uninformed please feel free to correct me
KEYNOTES - Paul is blind, they choose not to speak English and rarely converses in, Kate is the younger twin in this case, Kate does all the negotiations as she wants to relief Paul of traditional duties as the eldest family member left, safety charm is a talisman, prayer beads (or meditative beads), Kate carries long-range weapons while Paul carries short-range weapons
