okay so suddenly super ruined mirage. great job, gang. PART ONE.
for reference, mirage is my favourite incredibles character. i love her so much. like, girl... my precious little morally grey femme fatale right-hand-woman... my precious little loose end, you... i have a type in women and it's vaguely evil secretaries. mirage is my everything.
suddenly super completely ruins her and i'm only halfway through the book. and i can't even be mad. because the bar was on the floor to begin with. the twisted tales series sucks. but oh my god i wasn't anticipating this.
like, you wrote a book where mirage serves as something of a secondary protagonist and then completely ruined her. whwhwhuh?? whuh?? mkay. you do you.
did we forget that mirage is totally composed 90% of the time? aside from when she ditched syndrome and post-enduring the choke/punch wombo combo, she doesn't lose her cool. why is she getting so visibly flustered so often in this book? i mean, her acting frightened and flustered in the early chapters was kinda great, but that was her acting. as in, faking it. nevermind the fact that she was complaining to her acting teacher that the parr kids didn't buy her "babysitter" role because she chose "frightened" and "vague" as staple traits of a babysitter (why is she venting to her random acting teacher about the work she does for syndrome when a) she canonically signed an NDA and b) now her acting teacher wants to see her re-enact the scene, like???) but i digress.
and it's not all acting. her whole thing in this book is that she's an aspiring actress (why?? i mean, it's cool and i'll take it but why??) and her job in this book is to play whatever role syndrome asks her to (which is cool in theory, but...), but ever since violet threatened to leave the devor-clone house she just completely dropped her "friendly babysitter" persona and turned into... not even her canon personality. she became a "relatable" don't-talk-to-me-before-i've-had-my-coffee baby hater out of nowhere and it's really jarring. that's not my mirage.
is this supposed to be some elaborate role of "oh she's grieving the deaths of helen and bob so now she's a wreck" (oh yeah spoilers, hope you didn't care about those)??? it would be interesting if it felt like it was going in that direction (with the fake crying she did and everything) but where does her disgust with jack-jack and open disdain towards dash acting like a ten year old play into this?? it was cute when violet and mirage mutually cringed over one thing that dash did but the whole devor-clone house arc really seems to be making her out to be slightly incompetent, re: handling children and also everything else. which, i mean, apparently syndrome hired this woman from a public job listing on a bulletin board in this canon, so, i guess??
and, why does she hate children, now? like, wasn't one of the core points of her character that she has a soft spot for children and is literally the one person on that island who WILL exercise restraint toward them? who's voice broke when she confirmed the presumed deaths of at least two of them? and now she's expressing a mild hatred of them, both in her inner monologue and also openly in front of them. that's not... that's not her personality, bro.
my favourite element out of all of this is the fact that, after all these years of speculation regarding the film's implications, she and syndrome are finally confirmed to be having a "casual" fling and that she openly (and loudly) fights with him within earshot of kids. just full on yelling at her employer. "don't call me sweetheart" is a line that leaves her mouth canonically (and like, based mirage, but fuuuuck...). bear in mind at this point he hasn't even placed her life in jeopardy yet a la "show me" (as far as i know). all she's experienced thus far (that i know) is that she was hired by him a few months ago (MONTHS AGO) and she's witnessed him kill a few supers (bearing in mind she has no idea what his grand plan is in this canon and i don't think the author does either because what the fuck is a nullifier), he paid her off when she got upset, and now she's having screaming matches with him outside of his house.
like what else is that except fucking comical??? this book is on crack. don't get me started on how strangely syndrome was characterised or how dash is just Like That i guess. those two were flanderized to fuck and back but mirage is just a totally different person here. i'm gonna make an update to this when i finish the book because i'm sitting here losing my mind and i need to inform you guys.
one final note: mirage spends most of her time in this book thus far wearing baggy sweaters, cheap jeans and a shitty brown wig. it's seriously screwing with my imagination. especially given that violet is kind of suspecting that mirage isn't a True Brunette anyway. like, mirage bbg, you hate this clothing, vi is onto you, and you have an opening where you can completely shed the shit and nobody would bat an eye. TAKE IT OFF.
also mirage's real hair is not a "short bob" have you seen it from the back? shit long as hell.












