Genuinely surprised by the lack of Unique(ish)! Readers in SuperHero Setting fics.
(Keep in mind that just because Y/N / [Reader] is a variant of the heroes that doesn't mean they act/behave or even look like their counterpart.)
Like most spiderverse fics have a Spidersona! Reader / Spider! Reader, but what if reader were a variant of a Spiderman Villain and/or Ally? Maybe a: Doc Ock! Reader, Prowler! Reader, Symbiote Host! Reader, Black Cat! Reader.Or Maybe a: Silk! Reader, Iron Suit! Reader (Maybe in a way that relates to Riri Williams more than Tony Stark)
Try copying a DC Hero/Villain-esque! Reader into that and vice versa, as in a Marvel Hero/Villain-esque! Reader in a DC fic. Like a (Black) Bumblebee! Reader or Blue Beetle! Reader, they could be related to Antman in a way, but possibly in a different team(Perfect opportunity to pair with Joaquin since Sam seems to have a mini-beef with bug heroes).
A Tamaranean! Reader in the Invincible universe(that's not Starfire coded) A (Green) Lantern! Reader teaching Captain America/Steve Rogers. A Doctor Strange! Reader(or other magic user) arguing with Doctor Fate(idk...) A Deadpool! Reader, Wolverine! Reader, Black Widow! Reader
Unique powers? What about a Reader that can manipulate gravity, shapeshifting, convert energy? ... Instead of Wanda's Powers but in a different color... Unique archetypes? A impulsive speedster faster than light? A sensitive empath that can control and sense emotions? A (mute) mime that can use imaginary/invisible powers and constructs?
“You still alive in there?” - “No.” — from this post by @/writersisland
This but it's Spider! Black widow! Reader who got too injured and is now on mandatory bed rest and not happy about it & sidekick! Spencer keeps checking on his asshole of a roommate to make sure he actually stays put, eats, and stays hydrated while recovering with the main concern being if BW!reader will stay put, but then he ends up getting worried when BW!Reader is too still and BW!Reader just disks sass back at him like an ungreatful hissy fit stray cat.
The BAU having some odd and violent depictions of BW! Reader based on the cases they've received about him and his victims, only for Spencer to destroy them and simply tell them vaguely what Reader is actually like during interrogation or alike moment. And it doesn't fit their image of how they perceive the infamous Black Widow, so they deny it instead. Telling Spencer he's in danger when the guy is living his best life with his roommate and is completely safe with him unlike in the BAU. :) literally.
"i have already chosen. them, above me. i do not need to think about it. " — @/memesomething
This works so well for black widow! Spider! Reader & sidekick! Spencer dynamic.
Reader referred to with he/him & he is an adult. This is spider au for criminal minds.
Spencer chooses to help Reader, who is committing crimes of murder for the better good & violent street vigilantism, over his team and is basically his sidekick. Working in BAU and with the team to deliver info that BW!Reader might need and refusing to give up R's identity when he's caught by his own team as being an accomplish to R.
The team initially thinks it's a forced accomplish moment between them, where Spencer might be in danger and being black mailed or something alike. And not simply a friendship, shared sense of justice, and more violent force and methods than necessary and lives being taken — criminals — for necessary reasons, because the police doesn't do shit about the same people Reader kills or the police and government let's them walk free after being trialed and there not being enough evidence to imprisonment.
Spencer sitting in the interrogation room for who knows what hour, even after being caught stealing from the BAU or forwarding very sensitive info to Reader, is asked about his loyalties between the Team and Reader and he still swears loyalty to Reader instead. It doesn't matter what kind of relationship he has with his work, he knew the risks, he took them for the better and exploited the team for his own reasons. He would always choose Reader, because he knows Reader also has his back no matter what happened. It's a mutualistic relationship between them and Reader wouldn't speak about Spencer either if he was captured — and if both of them would speak about each other, it would be about spreading lies and confusing the BAU.
/// the way I keep writing about this as if it's not one of the most integral part of the BW!Reader & Spencer dynamic. I don't care, get more loyalty swearing sidekick! Spencer in here with vague team betrayals and shit. I absolutely thrive on this specific part with this specific ship and character dynamic:)
Journals... A little something with journals and the spiders. Again, thoughts more so than anything. Mentions to older fics and even to ask ramblings with 🕷️anon.
Criminal Minds. Btw I don't proof read much + this is again, ramblings so no clear string of thoughts. I'm not sorry.
Mentions of killing, non canon death & injury, brief nothing graphic really. Past canon death mentioned for Jumpy's parts.
He/him used for reader regardless of the alt continuities. The hotchner version is inherently written as platonic and the Reid & bw! Reader is unambiguous about their actual relationship so it can be seen as a ship itself.
Jumpy refers to (Jumping spider!) teen! Reader who is the oldest of the hotchner children. (+ Mentions of the hotchners themselves.)
Black widow/BW! reader refers to adult! Reader who lives with Reid + subtle Sidekick! Reid. (Mentions of BAU.)
Spider!reader is unambiguous and can refer to both BW!reader & Jumpy. Uhm, also mentions of unnamed and unambiguous vigilantes, self proclaimed heroes and villains — and the ATSV franchise crew mentioned without names.
Spider!reader who journals, because he can't really talk about what he does as a vigilante out in the open. And it's all so much for him to work through alone.
It details his attempts to cool tricks, to thoughts he's had during patrol, to patrol routes itself. Maybe he even has more than one journal, one for thoughts and random rambling and a second one for the important stuff like progress of how his powers work, working hours, routes, emergency lines, any possible location that could be of use to him if he ever comes out of a patrol night really injured, etc!
BW! Reader has a whole community behind him on the streets of Las Vegas. He especially, might just have locations marked down for safe places and what to avoid. He knows The Community won't rat him out to the cops, because the people believe he's doing a better job than the cops themselves.
I do also believe that BW!reader would keep a few pages of his journal reserved for the likes of anatomy. I mean, he does take the worst of the criminals out through by fucking biting their jugulars. But I also think he might track places you can safely survive from if you were to be bitten by him — just so if his senses go haywire and he bites the closest hand without being able to distinguish in mere seconds if it's a civilian or otherwise friendly or not.
Also police and news reports get recorded in the journals sometimes. BW! Reader also uses the journals to sort through any shame, guilt, remorse, and shit he's feeling about killing people because that's a moral problem. He's doing it for good reasons, but it doesn't matter, because he's still killing. Who wouldn't want to talk about that with someone who wouldn't judge them for it? Because while he does confine in Reid, he doesn't tell the other everything just because some of the actual details are more horrifying than the downplayed words he gives Reid.
Jumpy on the hand. He's more juvenile and related to the hotchners so the journals may just be an off hand diary for all he cares. I mean, talk about the trauma you went through being abducted and left for dead — somehow finding yourself in a train cart with another experiment. What about the death of your parent and having seen/heard more than your little brother had? Yeah, those journals are going to be a really heavy venting zone probably.
But I do believe, Jumpy also has multiple journals. Just because he seems to recognize that hey, I can't find anything from these when they're so randomly filled. High Priority and low priority journals with notes, patrol routes, gear engineering stuff and so on.
I believe spider! Reader would also record the times he's used his full strength in the journals.
I believe it's Jumpy who would be freaking out about it and detailing the first death he actually caused by punching a guy without any restraint when his actual strength finally came out — reminding that Jumpy's powers manifest in a slow way, because he was injected with a serum that wasn't fast working. It took weeks for it to even show up in any tests. While in the hospital after being found, nobody realized that there were any traces of anything odd in him past like, some drugs that kept him calm.
And from that day Jumpy had come to the realization that he needed to figure out how his actual powers worked if he was going to continue to be a vigilante in a safe way.
BW! Reader on the other hand who is already used to death, doesn't seem too shocked. He is in fact more intrigued. Yeah he probably writes about the kill(s) in the journal, he has done that for the others in a less detail. His descriptions are by proxy more low-key and more vague of what has happened just because he understands how legal systems work and if he gets caught he isn't going to incriminate himself for having a journal entry detailing a fucking kill.
When I say this man is intrigued, I mean this man realized that hey. There's other ways to kill than biting that won't leave DNA traces behind. He takes up to testing how much actual strength boost he got from the spider and it's not a pretty sight for the cops to find mangled criminals who were deemed for a justified death by either Reid or BW! Reader.
BW! Reader allowing Reid to read some of the journals, keeping the heavier stuff to himself. Just so Reid knows what's been going on and what developments have been discovered.
Jumpy ends up outing himself a few weeks after killing someone on accident to his father instead. He's so freaked out and guilty about the kill that he couldn't even bear to write about it properly. At some point he gives some of his journals to Aaron so he can read through them and figure out what's up. The finished journals are more likely to be full on confiscated after that and maybe his team is informed about them just so they know that hey, there was that one suspicious murder that happened and it has technically now been solved.
BAU and the team as a whole are aware of both the spider! Readers in their continuities, so the scenario of them witnessing the cases for the kills could be kinda funny. So watch them sort out Jumpy's accident and console him when Aaron and Jessica fail at it. And then watch them technically berate Reid about BW!reader for letting BW!reader kill in a different way/letting him continue killing, while it's the fact that Reid doesn't have any power over BW!reader so he can't actually do anything about it (not that he would looking that he know BW!reader is doing more than the cops are and Reid gets to help him. It's kind of the deal of doing something before a case file actually comes onto their desk at the BAU.). BW! Reader & Reid chronically getting on the Team's nerves.
Also also. Spider! Readers who also mentioned meeting with the across the spider verse crew and some unrelated their world vigilantes and self proclaimed heroes and villains! That could be a possible shock to the BAU, bc wdym there more? Either spiders or just people with powers?