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chartedrights · 4 years

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Golden Age AU Masterpost

For everyone lacking context, the Golden Age AU is just me riffing on every piece of comic book media I’ve ever consumed. Here are some single-paragraph rundowns I’ve made to keep track of things as I start to write!

The Board of Directors is analogous to the Justice League- they’re pretty much entirely people with superpowers (with the exception of Carol, at first), they’re very prestigious, and they come together to ward off larger threats like the impressive super powered task force they are. Or they used to. Membership’s sort of dropped, and people with powers are getting harder to find and recruit, and the big headliner who ran it left it in the hands of some nurse, which is like. So not sexy.

PEIP is PEIP- they fit right in where they were. In the shadows, in the dark, fighting the threats that the “special people” won’t, protecting people on a lower level than “oh god, the apocalypse,” because apparently the superheroes aren’t concerned with espionage or alien meteors anymore. The pricks. Mostly run by people without superpowers- as far as they know- and deeply concerned with keeping heroes responsible for their own actions. They would be oversight, if they were allowed to be.

CCRP Technical is an interesting place. Charlotte and Ted work there, for Sam, though neither of them is quite sure what it actually does. Paul was recruited in hopes he’d grow into upper management, but he didn’t have the ambition for it. Bill has been there for a decade or two now, ever since he started attending those meetings with Becky and Mrs. Davidson. Melissa... Melissa is their rising star. Mr. Davidson isn’t sure what they found in her, but he’s glad to see her succeed! Good for her! Four for you Melissa, you go Melissa!

Hatchetfield.... is Hatchetfield. It’s small, it’s insular, it’s full of gossip and weirdness and people with eccentric ideas of morality. It might be easier to admit that superheroes and supervillains exist, but let nobody say that the citizens of Hatchetfield ever took the easy road. They will walk uphill, in the snow, denying the supernatural both ways.

Paul is a real sweetheart. He’s autistic, he’s quiet, he likes his routine and the simple pleasures in life... and he just happens to be unkillable and he maybe possibly sort of has the ability to fly. He could be an excellent addition to either team, but he refuses to be a proper superhero, making him Hatchetfield’s most obvious target. Which in turn means that he often ends up acting like a proper superhero against his own will. He thinks Emma is perfectly lovely and still hasn’t noticed her committing crimes.

Emma is Hidgens’ Lab Assistant, which is code for “committing crimes for college credit,” and she does a lot of the footwork for him. Being a henchman definitely tops food service, lets put it that way. She also gets to follow in the family business- a long line of Perkins supervillains ended when Jane broke free and became a real hero for Tom’s sake. She always wanted to be a good person, but Emma is not as opposed to violence. She also cannot wait for Hidgens to level Hatchetfield, which is made complicated by the fact that she likes Paul rather a lot, and he likes Hatchetfield.

Hidgens is a supervillain. He never leaves his house, orchestrates incidents of immense damage to the civic infrastructure, and refuses to acknowledge that just maybe putting children into the path of radioactive chemicals is not a valid scientific experiment. He’s not necessarily a bad person, it’s just that his morals refute even the idea of black and white. More like blue and red. Orange and green. He is of the opinion that world peace can only be achieved by world domination, and therefore has begun a track to world domination. He and Sam have a blood feud of indeterminate origin.

Becky Barnes, low-level healer and walking anesthetic, somehow ended up in charge of the Board of Directors. The last leader disappeared three days after handing off control, and Becky is still looking for them. Becky is very conspicuously not looking for her ex-husband, however. It makes some people suspicious, and nobody more than Sam, who is Stanley’s most obnoxious cousin. Apparently, ruining Becky’s life runs in the family. Despite these troubling events, Becky does her best to keep the city standing and the world turning- she and Bill manage what they can, Carol and PEIP manage what they can’t. She’s still in a precarious place, however, and she’s looking for help.

Frank Pricely supplies everyone with gadgets. Hero and villain alike, everyone pays. Not always the same price, but everyone pays. He’s a neutral party, and he acts the part, but everybody likes to debate his loyalties. There’s no such thing as truly neutral, right? Everyone has their price- even him. It’s just a matter of what that price is.

Lex is his cashier, which means that she learned early on in her career in retail that the panic button is not half as good a first resort as the paralysis darts Frank keeps in the cash drawer. She has the ability to manifest objects, as long as she knows where they are. She needs a concrete location to pull them away from, which means that she snoops in every house she visits, checks the staff rooms of every store she enters. She can, on command, find you just about anything you need. For a price. She’s learning a lot lately, though, and what she learns about her powers might put her at risk.

Bill is one of the few members of the Board of Directors still standing. He and Becky get coffee all the time, and commiserate about the lack of help in Hatchetfield. He has telepathy, and certain illusionary abilities, which come in especially handy when he’s talking people down or trying to sneak hostages out of hostage situations. A gentle, well-intentioned man, Bill is not outwardly very intimidating, but he’s strong. Much stronger than most people would like to think. Becky keeps trying to hand off leadership to him, and he gently hands it back every time- he’s got other problems to deal with right now.

Formerly married to the infamous Perkins family heiress, Tom tries to live a nice, quiet life. He used to be a hero- and a damn good one- but Jane defected for him, and then died for it, and he carries more guilt than he probably should. Tom never thought of himself as special, really, and he still doesn’t. He can warp matter- twist it into shape, turn it from one thing to another, and he’s a fine craftsman when he wants to be. But it’s a dangerous thing to have on hand when you’re angry or frightened, and Tom still has an awful case of PTSD hanging around his neck. He’s doing his best to wrangle with it, but he’s going to need some help.

Ethan is just a teenager. Really, he promises. He absolutely swears. Nothing special about him! He’s just real intuitive! He and Lex have been looking into that whole “experimentation” thing they did at CCRP back when they were babies and it wasn’t even interesting! He’s just a mechanic, honestly. He’s a straight C student! He hasn’t even joined the cult off the coast on that houseboat!! He’s a good kid. No reason to be concerned at all.

Ted is also Hidgens’ henchman, but definitely the lower-ranked of the two. He applied hoping he’d make some friends, but thus far all he’s managed to do is fall in love with Charlotte, who is Sam’s henchman. It’s not going badly for him, but it’s not going well, either. He and Paul still work together. Every time Hidgens asks, Ted is like “Paul? Nah. He’s totally normal.”

Gary is a mob lawyer. He used to work for Emma’s family, but now he works for Sherman and Linda. They’re technically competition, and if they ever find out that he’s playing both sides he’ll absolutely die, but in the meantime he is racking up that cash. He is so rich. He is capable of great evil, and occasionally does terrible things, but overall he’s an affable guy. He and Charlotte had an unfortunate tryst once that ended with her tying him to the Welcome to Hatchetfield sign with his own scarf, but he still pines for her. She’s the one that got away. And continues to get away. cops hate her: local woman refuses to go to jail.

MacNamara still works for PEIP, which is only slightly a different job, on account of there being very public superheroes in this world. He and Xander have been married for ten years, but they are both under the (mistaken) impression that it wasn’t a real marriage because it was done undercover. He thinks about that and is very sad about it sometimes. But they’re partners, and that’s good enough that he can be content with it. For now. He has the ability to intensify or nullify other people’s superpowers, and he does his best to keep it quiet. He thinks there’s something noble about living without superpowers, and vaguely wishes that he and Chad’s roles were swapped- until he remembers that Chad has one (1) brain cell to his name.

Xander has the ability to speak to computers. It’s not flashy, at first glance. It doesn’t have the pizzazz of Paul’s gifts or the subtle mind fuckery of John and Bill’s. But he can know whatever he wants, can hear anything, tap any phone call, look through any webcam. He doesn’t, because he’s not a fucking creep, but he can. PEIP was lucky to find him before CCRP- and so was everyone else in the world. Xander’s not flashy in general- he keeps a lot to himself. He and John have been partners for a long time, and they still haven’t said they love each other. He still hasn’t told John that he’s a member of the Board. He still hasn’t told John that he and Paul are in the same book club.

Schaffer doesn’t need powers. You think she needs powers? Her power is that she breathes and death turns away. PEIP was built by good people like Schaffer, people with principles and strong hearts and ice cold spines of steel. Normal, human people, unremarkable except that they chose to be better. She’s fourth-generation PEIP, born and raised to believe in the service they do, the protection they provide. Some of the more bitter agents will say that Schaffer benefitted from nepotism. They will never say this in front of her, because deep down they know she did not and they know that she will prove it by kicking their asses. She and Carol used to date, but the strain of crossing enemy lines in what was, essentially, a Cold War between PEIP and the Board got to them both. Schaffer is the person Hidgens called after he got struck by lightning.

Charlotte is Sam’s henchman and quietly in the running for longest con ever pulled. One day she is going to off him and take his place as the leading supervillain in Hatchetfield, but that day is not today. She likes Ted, but Sam keeps telling her to kill him, so their relationship amounts to “the inherent eroticism of trying to murder each other”. Nobody is entirely certain how she does what she does, but she’s very, very good at her job. Emma looks up to her just a little. She had a therapist once. He tried to sleep with her. She no longer has a therapist. She does have a very lovely goldfish, however.

Mr. Davidson is MacNamara’s twin brother and Hidgens’ ex. His wife is a genuine bona fide Batman-level hero in a bigger city, so he occasionally gets kidnapped or tortured. Hidgens still writes him bitter and mildly threatening love ballads that he genuinely treasures and sends very heartfelt thank you notes for. His life is so messy. There’s so much drama. He’s also completely powerless and cheerful about it. (Re: the Working Boys.... he’s Chad. Chad MacNamara Davidson.)

Alice is developing absolutely no superpowers and she’s really really annoyed about it. She used to take this out on Lex, as teenagers will, but after Lex dropped out she began to regret that. Too little and much too late, but regret is regret. She keeps trying to mend that bridge, but it’s not working. Unfortunately for her, she’s still been seen with Lex and Ethan, and that’s enough. Imminent danger perceives no difference between friend and foe. Alice is full of a very different kind of potential, however, and sooner or later all that bottled-up anger and stress will lash out.

Deb, on the other hand, is an intern at the Board of Directors’ headquarters, which is now St. Damien’s given that Becky is in charge. Interns for heroes are much less common than henchmen working for villains, but Deb has a keen interest in coordination and overseeing operations. Bill hates having her on comms for missions, but she’s just... so good at her job. She can brew a pot of Red Bull twice-steeped coffee, arrange a date with Alice, avoid an international incident, redirect PEIP and talk Bill through defusing a bomb in the same ten-minute stretch. Lesbians can do anything. This is a fact. They are the backbone of our society.

Hot Chocolate Boy is full of secrets. And hot chocolate.

And speaking of St. Damien’s, do you recall poor Bridgette, who lost her eyesight in a horrible accident? I’m not saying Hatchetfield is going to have it’s very own Matt Murdock expy, but I am saying that. She’s blind, she’s Catholic, and she’s coming for your kneecaps.

Linda is a very low-level villain who operates out of her husband’s office and sics her Boating Club on people. Gerald should technically be a threat, given that it’s the Monroe family prerogative to slaughter rising heroes with an alacrity that distinguished them from all the other families in Hatchetfield. He is not. He’s barely even a henchman. Linda got all the bloodlust between the two of them, and she is out for blood from the start. Though initially quickly defeated, she grows in seriousness over the course of time and ends up a formidable threat with a weighty grudge against Becky and Lex. She’s not much in a physical fight, Linda, but she is deeply, deeply vindictive, and she’s willing to make any deals she has to to bring Becky down. Any deals. With anyone. Anything.

Sherman Young is a mob boss, and you know it. He’s a real creep and he’s got some sick hobbies, even for a man in his line of work, but somehow the 80s jacket and the comb-over mullet make it all worse. He’s the richest man in town, and that’s saying something, but if Linda has a say in things he won’t be for long. The Youngs, the Monroes, and the Perkins have been at war since the founding of the town, and Sherman is cutting down his competition. He might have even arranged for Jane’s accident to happen, but nobody is sure. Nobody living, anyway.

Sam is a villain. He’s not super or anything. He’s just a villain. He’s top-tier Joker-level normie, but he still goes toe-to-toe with all kinds of heroes. Notable for being pretty much exactly the same as his show counterpart in regards to his proclivity for threats and violence. He once told Paul to “talk to his fucking gun” only to find that Paul is, despite all outward appearances, fucking immortal. He is still very embarrassed about it. He’s up and coming in the Hatchetfield Villain circuit, but he’s definitely a threat. To who? Who can say. Somebody, somewhere.

Papa Ed is a PEIP informant, and he has the ability to speak to animals. He’s raising Peanuts to be a very small, very enthusiastic little squirrel spy.

Man in a Hurry is a former speedster who lost his powers and compensates for it by Being In A Hurry at all times.

Homeless Man is a CCRP agent. He specializes in camouflage and compassion. He doesn’t remember what came before, but he knows something did, and finding out what it was is all he has left to hope for.

Howard Goodman does not have superpowers, but he’s got gumption. Okay, I lied. He doesn’t have gumption. But he’s a very nice man.

#black friday #starkid #tgwdlm #Golden Age AU #masterpost #long post #[finger guns] love these idiots #this is SO LONG #and i tried not to spoil everything #there’s some stuff i’m keeping in store bc :)) i can

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