#if you get easily offended by strong opinions don't click the read more

[aelaer]

Alright, let’s take that follow up ask 😂

18. What are some tropes that others love, but you just tend to avoid?

Or something along those lines. Things you like/dislike. What marks the difference between a “good” and a “great” fic for you?

Whelp I lost my draft as I started this. I figured that's as good a sign as any to save this as a draft and review it a few times to make sure I'm critical of the *genre and trope* and not the individual writing it. And yes I think they're two *very* distinct things. And I'd like to piss off as few people (who aren't blocked) as possible while still remaining true to myself. We'll see how successful it is.

Cut cuz it got long and if folks click it thinking they might get mad, and then get mad, well, you can't say I didn't warn you. I don't like quite a few popular tropes in a lot of stories you see Stephen in. And I'll not hide my own opinions on my own blog. 😜 What's the terminology? Don't like, don't read? Yeah, if (general) you don't like strong opinions that might go against yours, don't read on. You've been warned!

Let's start with some of the most popular AO3 tropes, taken from the 2016 Fanfic Survey from Fansplaining. Here's the top 20 tropes across the survey and if I dislike it, I have bolded it and have a comment beside it. Otherwise I'm indifferent to it or I like the trope.

Friends to Lovers

Canon-divergent Alternate Universes

Slow Burn

Rescue Missions/Saving Each Other

Bed Sharing (aka One Hotel Room Left) Honestly I find this trope really stupid in most circumstances. It just makes me roll my eyes. This isn't to say that fics with this trope are badly written, I just... think the situation's really contrived. There's better ways to explore pining.

Teamwork

Fluff

Hurt/Comfort

Huddling for Warmth I only dislike it if it's adding unnecessary sexual tension. Like if you're in a perilous situation you don't need to talk about how omg touching him makes you feel things. It's like - dude you're gonna lose fingers otherwise. Characters, you need to shut the fuck up, this is not the right time. You guys can be romantic later. Hell this even counts for established relationships; characters getting aroused when they're in actual perilous situations is one of my biggest pet peeves in romance. It's dumb. (Note- this doesn't count if they're joking about it, joking is a great coping mechanism. I mean legit horniness as they're half-dead or something. What the fuck. Exception if the author explicitly lists being in legit perilous situations as a fetish in which case, good for author for that creativity.)

Mutual Pining

Established Relationship

Fix-it Fic

Isolated or Trapped (e.g. in a cave, a Canadian shack, etc.)

Missing scenes or fill-in fic

Everyone Knows They're In Love

Unresolved Sexual Tension

Fake Relationship (incl. Married for a Case and Marriage of Convenience)

Pining

Worldbuilding

Only 2 out of the top 20, not bad! Most are "take it or leave it" but some I like so yay.

Okay now for the next part.

On my Doctor Strange AO3 filtered page that I have up in perpetuity on my phone, I have the following filters applied to exclude (which takes off about 20% of all fics in the category from sight). Ordered from least likely to offend to most likely to offend others:

Non-English fics

Peter Parker/Stephen Strange

Stephen Strange/Reader

Not Civil War Team Captain America Friendly & Not Steve Rogers Friendly

An honorable spicy mention that isn't easily filtered so I don't filter it but I get into it below. It involves Peter.

Not English fics: With as picky a reader as I am, auto Google Translate simply doesn't work well for me. Trust me, I've tried and I was very sad when translate proved to be less than great. I wish I could speak/read all languages.

Peter/Stephen: I had to block this one because it was just coming up too much after NWH, but America/Stephen falls here as well (it's just significantly rarer and I can easily skip those fics). No hard feelings to those who write/ship it because they're, you know, fictional, but I'm definitely not a fan of the trope. Underage with two minors already skeeves me out, underage with a middle aged man and a minor is a big no-go unless the adult is framed as a villain in the narrative (and with luck gets justice served to him). But in the shipping sense this isn't usually the case in the story, and while some authors do a great job in showing it's not right/good, this isn't my flavor of Stephen at all. Even villain Stephen.

In the case the minors are aged up to be legal, I still dislike it. I find it incredibly creepy IRL when a person goes for someone who is young enough to be their child, and I can't separate that feeling in the fiction I read for the most part. The exception to this rule is when the person is like over 35 - by that age you know if you want to be with a 55 year old, and you have all that life experience. But there's so much growing done in the 20s and a lot of life experience that nothing but time can provide.

Finally, I find men in their 40s who are looking for someone (especially a girl) 24 or younger incredibly immature and, frankly put, the absolute opposite of dignified and sexy. There are exceptions of course, but my good guy!Stephen doesn't fall into that category. He's interested in brains, personality, and life experience, with looks being like, the 4th factor, haha, so no need for such a large age gap. Again, just skeeves me out.

Stephen Strange/Reader: I wouldn't have blocked it if it wasn't so prevalent, but it's literally Stephen's second-most popular ship. All respect to anyone who enjoys reader-insert fics, but I just... don't. The handful of times I've tried it I couldn't see myself as the supposed character because they were so different from who I am as a person. "Choose your own adventure" books that I read in my youth worked for me because I had choices in steering the story; that's not the case in reader fics so I'm left seeing "myself" doing things that I'd never do in a million years. That contradiction just makes me unable to appreciate them myself.

Big reason I don't have that problem with OCs is because they're not me, and so I don't have that weird contradictory feeling while reading the fic. They're another person so I can appreciate them as another character, especially if Stephen manages to stay in character within the story. But as romance isn't a genre I actively look for, I don't tend to look out for OC fics either as they're usually super romance-heavy as opposed to the romance being a side plot (which is how I get through canon char romances - if it's a side plot in the very long story I'll get through it for juicy plot).

Not Civil War Team Captain America Friendly & Not Steve Rogers Friendly: Blocking these two covers the majority of the stories that are not other-character friendly, and it blocks almost all Civil War Team Iron Man fics, so these two tags cover basically the entire gauntlet of that type of MCU fic. Ever since AO3 canonicalized those tags my blood pressure has lowered significantly and it's made browsing AO3 so much less stressful.

I'll say it up front: I don't think a fic can be good writing if it's written to be Not Team Cap Friendly. That's not to say that the writer themselves is incapable of writing quality works because that's usually not the case. But for works with that specific trope, I do not think that work can be good. A significant factor of what I consider good fanfic writing/bad fanfic writing is characterization, and the characterization is usually butchered in this genre of fic.

If an author chooses only to write this trope POV, all the more power to them. However, I think they are limiting their capabilities in choosing to ignore the grey storytelling the MCU brought to the story and are definitely limiting their visions by choosing to view these grey characters and their grey choices as black and white/good and bad with all the nuances erased. And because those choices are made, I don't think that the fic that comes out with those limitations can be considered good writing. And here are the reasons why, largely centering around characterization:

The only way these fics work is by making Steve completely OOC. I've seen writers erase all his leadership capabilities established in the first 3 films he was in, his ability to think fast on his feet, any sign of intelligence that is firmly established in the first three films he was in, and make him callous in a way that he hasn't ever shown in canon. I've seen writers make Steve unaware of email, I've seen them say that he never led men in WW2 (and isn't an actual captain), and most ridiculously, I've seen them say he was trying to kill Tony in Siberia and left him for dead there and completely ignore all his training in that if he wanted to kill Tony, he very well could have. (And ignore that T'Challa was there as well ffs - that's another rant.) But yes - this is all OOC to Steve's character. If someone wants to know why saying Steve trying to kill Tony in Siberia is OOC and thus not Steve friendly, send me a separate ask as I have a write up on Discord that I can bring here if folks want clarification on that front.

If you have to make other characters OOC to make your best boy shine better, I don't trust you to write best boy well. And usually he isn't. Tony is a terribly flawed character which is why he's so so so interesting, but Not Team Cap friendly fics are determined to erase all of Tony's flaws and everything that makes him interesting. For instance, I've seen Tony suddenly become an expert negotiator and politician, ignoring both IM2 and his lack of finesse with Ross in CW (this isn't him delegating the work to lawyers/PR people - this is in fics where he's the figurehead behind this because he's suddenly an expert political negotiator). Then in some fics Tony's suddenly a socialist, ignoring the fact that he's made his fortune and still makes money from his corporation and there's nothing in canon that suggests that he ain't still benefiting from the capitalist institution. He's *generous*, absolutely, and I headcanon he put in hundreds of millions into rebuilding Sokovia - but he's not suddenly a socialist. He's a rich white man with rich white man privileges and while he's doing his best to make good in the world, he has benefits that the rest of the world just doesn't. And Tony's still arrogant and it can still be hard to work with him and erasing all those flaws makes him just... not Tony. He's just this bland vanilla OOC caricature.

In a lot of "not team cap friendly" fics I see a tag along the lines of "actions have consequences". If that's the case, why the hell wasn't Tony prosecuted for making Ultron? Wanda didn't force him to make anything - she amplified his fears, absolutely, but he made the robot. In secret. And that robot killed a city. Tony in CW is rightfully really regretful about it - but if actions actually had consequences and Tony tried to get Team Cap like, jailed or forcefully retired (like he or his friends do in some fics), Nat should strike back and tell everyone that he was behind Ultron. IT'S LIKE EVERY CHARACTER MAKES MISTAKES OR SOMETHING AND THAT NONE OF THEM ARE PERFECT. WHAT A THOUGHT. And that's why that tag is not very well thought out. The tag ignores the stark (hah) fact that all Avengers have made mistakes, some of them major - and Tony's absolutely not exempt from that. And his mistake-making didn't stop after he became Iron Man.

All of Tony's friends ignore that Tony recruited a 15 year old to Germany and guess what? Pepper and Rhodey aren't Tony boot-lickers. They'd give him the appropriate "What the fuck were you thinking" language because yeah, that was fucked up! Ignoring that happened is another big item in these type of fics.

Stephen's personality is typically bland and he often has no life beyond Tony's in these type of fics. He definitely has no opinions on the Avengers that *differ* from Tony because him having his own opinions, or taking the time to form his own opinions from his own interactions, would be showing more nuance and depth than these fics want to get into.

Stephen's often petty and violent, especially towards Steve - and again completely ignores all of Tony's mistakes because Tony doesn't make horrific mistakes, oh no! I'd argue the petty violence is OOC, but fucking DS2 and fucking Waldron Jossed that. So if you want that petty violence, it's technically seen on screen, but that's a *Waldron* idea so... yeah. I don't know any big Stephen fan who is particularly fond of Waldron and what he brought to Stephen's character. But this whole essay is about OOC characterization so I can't argue that this is OOC anymore. Fucking Waldron.

Like Stephen, Rhodey and Pepper also lose their personalities and ability to argue with Tony because Tony is always right. Rhodey forgets that Tony is a billionaire and can easily go use a lab in Stark Industries buildings across the country, or go to one of his many homes that all billionaires have because they're *billionaires*, if he *has* to avoid Steve for some reason. Rhodey also forgets that Tony could handle this with the best therapist money can by if he can't physically handle being in a room with someone he dislikes. If Steve actually tried to kill him in a fic, please go back to the first bullet point on this list. An IC Steve wouldn't so there wouldn't be that fear of more physical retaliation because Steve wouldn't be trying to stop Tony from killing Bucky, so again, unless Tony tries to kill Bucky once more, the situation won't escalate to violence. But yes, in these fics, Rhodey would prefer that the civil rights breaking Accords that allow indefinite imprisonment with no promise of trial stand. He'd rather the rest of the Avengers remain fugitives with no home because he forgets his friend is a billionaire with virtually unlimited resources to go wherever he wants and to get the help he needs. The growth we see in his stance that came with IW after he saw the Accords' rollout just poofs away.

Pepper tends to be turned into a secretary again just there to help with Tony's emotional needs instead of a powerful CEO whose really fucking busy running a company.

So with an OOC Steve, it usually leads to an OOC Tony, OOC Rhodey, OOC Pepper, and OOC Stephen. And that is why I consider these fics bad.

There may be exceptions to this, but when I was still attempting the tag in 2019, I never found a fic under the tag that was an exception. I stopped trying the last 3 or so years. And unless you're an author who's written in that tag and you want me to read your story and want to try to change my mind (because you're a masochist? why would you want to do this to yourself?), don't send me those fics. 99% I'm going to find them bad.

I'm not gonna subject those authors to the above opinion because they enjoy the black/white world and they have a huge readership who loves that crack. And good for them! That doesn't change my opinion that I think it's lousy writing because characterization is 70% of my opinion of a fic. If you have all this OOC characterization in a non-crack/parody fic, I just won't have a high opinion. And I'll say it in my own space under a cut, but I'm not going to search you out anymore - I haven't since 2019 (early 2020 was the cut off). Writers have the right to write what's popular - and I can dislike that popular content. But it's a lucrative readership and if that black and white world brings you joy, then all the more power to you.

Important: Not character-friendly fics are different from Dark!character fics. Dark character fics acknowledge that in canon, the characters are written as protagonists and heroes, and the author is purposefully changing this. In not character friendly fics, the author is usually inventing something stupid or terrible (and often enough ooc) for the character to have done/not done to strengthen the position of their chosen protagonist, or is ignoring canon traits of the character to, again, strengthen the position of their chosen protagonist. This is especially seen with Steve.

Honorable mention: I dislike the majority of fics (no idea of percentage but very likely over 50%) labeled Supreme Family, *strictly* due to how Peter is treated. Let me explain.

Peter is an incredibly independent teenager living in NYC with his own friends and his own brains and solo superheroing the majority of the time. These fics have a tendency to erase all of this, making him overly reliant on Tony, making him act as if he's aged between 8 to 12 rather than 15 to 18, and erasing his connection to May, Ned, and MJ. His whole life is made secondary to be part of the Tony Stark fanclub and it's *weird*. Peter is so much more than his connection to Tony and fans of this trope sometimes forget this.

I'll give a real world example. There's a large age gap between my sister and myself, so I got to see her in her teenage years while I was an adult. She's smart, fiercely independent, and had good friends and extra curricular activities throughout high school just like Peter did. We had family dinner together on occasion but she wanted to be doing her own thing as much as possible. She'd text my parents for the "Hey I'm alive" check ins but otherwise? She was AWOL as much as she could get away with.

Peter may be less so, especially if May insists on dinner together at least a couple times a week with his form of extracurricular activities, but I cannot emphasize enough how Peter having his own life is so important to his character and him being around Tony most of his free time outside of school and Spider-Man is *weird*. Even if he likes him!

This is just one teenager in my example, but a staple of teenagers is finding their independence as they grow into adulthood. Clinging to other adult figures does not tend to be the trend with those who have a big independence streak.

Peter in canon is all about establishing his independence - and you could see this especially throughout all of Homecoming. His independence is integral to his character. And if Tony was his adopted dad in the fic, I'd say him always hanging out with him is doubly weird because, again, independence. It's a major part of most teenagers and it's very well established in Peter's personality.

So yeah. Fic writers please stop writing him like a 10 year old unless he's actually 10 in the fic. Let him live his own life in the Supreme Family trope. Let him go out with friends and do after school clubs and not go to Tony's lab after school every day of the week because it's just not him and his movies established that very well. Let him get annoyed at the tracking and let him yell at his parental figures because conflict is normal. Let him be a teenager.

(And as someone who loves Found Family, I can't emphasize enough how much that theme falls short if the characters within the family forget their independence and lives outside of the family. It's just no fun.)

So yeah. Have all these spicy hot takes!

#meta #so many spicy takes #if you get easily offended by strong opinions don't click the read more #the rest of the tagging is for my own internal sorting rather than tumblr algorithm #so apologies if some mcu fans who don't know me come across this #this post may not be for you because i do have some minority opinions in the space #ask #answered #mckiwi #fanfic #tropes #tony stark #anti fics #steve rogers #stephen strange #peter parker #strong opinions

[pinktom]

Hi, what do you think about the recent rise of tomarry haters who ship bellamort?

I have a feeling this one won’t go over as well as my anti-Tomione post.

However, what the server wants, the server gets. 🐍

If you like Bellamort, if you will be offended by opinions that are anti-Bellamort, do not expand this post.

I am not putting this in the tags; I am not shoving this in anyone’s face. Don't click it. Don't send me pissy anons about it. Unfollow me and move on.

Background context

First of all: a concession. I know every Voldemort-related passage in Harry Potter like the back of my hand. If you don’t think Bellamort can be found in the subtext, you’re either biased or due for another close reading. Unlike Tomione (which almost always depends on a complete fabrication of their personalities) and Tomarry (which requires a significant tone shift from the books), you can easily write Bellamort as an extension of canon. 

I don’t hate Bellamort because it’s nonsense. I hate it because it is not nonsense; it feels very real. Voldemort’s and Bellatrix’s relationship, in the canon text, is that of Master and Servant—and for me personally, any such dynamic between a man and a woman is disgusting and I have absolutely no desire to read it.

Here's some specific icks it gives me.

Fanon Bellatrix is bullshit; her real form is repulsive, whiny, and pitiful

There’s this common fanon misconstruction of Bellatrix that portrays her as a thoughtful femme fatale who enjoys a close, intimate relationship to Voldemort on nearly equal terms. I find this tacky at best.

Really, Bellatrix is a pathetic, sniveling wimp who would crawl around on her hands and knees and bark like a dog if Voldemort asked her to do so. She’s not strong; she’s weak-willed and pathetic. She's the kind of pathetic woman who accompanies a man on his killing spree and kills her own kids for said man’s affection.

This passage from Order of the Phoenix pretty concisely captures their dynamic.

Also, Tomarrymort writers love to make her past love of Voldemort and (*pukes*) it makes my tummy ache

Ever find yourself reading a fascinating Tomarry fic only for—midway in—Voldemort to reveal his true love is Bellatrix?* Or wax poetic about how beautiful she is, how special to him she is?

It's 2024. I immediately close the fic when this happens. If I’m reading a Tomarrymort fic, I don’t give a fuck about Voldemort’s past domestic abuse trysts with the most spineless woman in the entire HP series.

And the kicker is . . . for what? Because Bellatrix proved herself to Voldemort by licking his boot and wiping his asshole? Please do not try and convince me she is a sinister spooky gal, she plainly isn’t. She’s an embarrassing blithering pissant who does not foil any of Voldemort’s traits.  

And PLEASE do not try and convince me she offers Voldemort something Harry doesn't in terms of being an equal partner or someone he respects, because I cannot fathom how the woman who squeals "MASTER MASTER PLEASE I'M SORRY DON'T HURT ME - I'll wash your anus with my tongue, PLEASE master!" is somehow more respectable than brave, upright, dignified Harry.

*I’m NOT referring to a specific fic. I have been in this fandom since 2011, and I have read it dozens of times, on FF and AO3 alike.

Lastly - they're not a pretty picture

I'm just going to say it... you know those people you kinda knew in high school who now post about their kinky sex life on Facebook? The girl who posts "Daddy 🥺 ?" and the dude responds "Yes, kitten?" in the comments? The chick who has no shame in posting her wolf-tail butt plug or joining a bunch of kinkster groups?

The girl who later ends up getting the shit beaten out of her by said repulsive scrote (no shock) and posting about it on Facebook only to repeat the cycle again and again?

That's literally what Bellamort makes me think about. It's not even like it's deeply upsetting so much as it's disappointing: A reminder of the lowest very promising, very beautiful women can get for men who ought to be curb-stomped and thrown in a ditch.

Tbh the best ending for Bellatrix in canon would've been if she disemboweled and slaughtered Voldemort for ruining her fucking life with his ridiculous tacky cult. He's my baby, but he's a vile scrote first, and I wish Bellatrix had realized what a toxic, life-draining narcissistic psychopathic moron he was. But alas, she too was a pathetic worm.

#anti bellamort #shipping wars #server #asks #i have covid and i'm really mean rn #tw domestic abuse #tw brutally mean #tw anti men hate speech

[thevindicativevordan]

On Livewire

You know Leslie is probably the most popular and well known female Superman Rogue mainly because they use her so heavily in outside media.

Which makes sense given her debut in Superman: The Animated Series, but it still kind of fascinates me. They didn't bring her into comics continuity until 2006 apparently, with Gail Simone and John Byrne (Byrne of all the creators!) being the ones to finally fold her in. Even after they brought her in, they still have never given her that much attention or focus which is a disappointment for me frankly, because Livewire is honestly fantastic in Scott McCloud and later Mark Millar's Superman Adventures runs, and I would say with complete sincerity that those two are probably her best writers. "Millar writing a female character well?" you scoff at in disbelief. I know, I was shocked too! But she's funny, clever, and a huge pain in the ass for Supes. Reading how she was used there, and rewatching her STAS incarnation recently, really made a big realization for the character hit me like a lightning bolt (couldn't resist):

She's basically an evil superpowered Lois Lane! I know I can't have been the first one to realize that, although I haven't seen anyone else actually outright state it anywhere, but c'mon it's so obvious! She's a reporter of a sorts as well thanks to being a disc jockey, her debut in STAS even has her interviewing Lois and Clark! She's got strong opinions on Superman that conflict with the general opinion about him (Lois being pro-Superman when everyone else is more hostile towards him at first, Livewire being anti-Superman when everyone else has embraced him as their hero). She's rude and abrasive, and doesn't care if her opinions offend people, which sure does remind me of Lois at her meanest.

Livewire to me is an examination of what Lois would be like if she abandoned her morals or never really had them in the first place. Leslie doesn't care about the "truth" which is the big difference between her and Lois. Lois can be headstrong, willful, and outright rude, but it's all in service of her pursuit of higher ideals. Livewire doesn't care about that, she carries about getting people to pay attention to her, and getting the recognition and wealth she believes she's owed.

What I'd Do With Livewire

It wasn't until I had that big realization about Leslie that I figured out what role she should play with regards to Clark: She should be Clark's old college ex who was the one who got him into journalism in the first place.

Clark's college years are unexplored territory narratively, typically we jump from his childhood in Smallville right into his debut in Metropolis. Now I know Clark dated Lori that mermaid back in Pre-Crisis during his college years, and while that's a fun bit of trivia, it doesn't really add anything meaningful in the same way that I think Leslie and Clark dating could. So I'd rather go with Leslie because I think she makes for a better foil for Clark and because the two of them would benefit from having a deeper connection established, plus Leslie could get fleshed out as a character more.

I like the explanation that Clark chose journalism in part because it challenges him in ways his powers can't, but in the comics they've rarely bothered to explain how he chose that field in the first place. I would have meeting Leslie at college be that big moment where he starts to figure himself out. She's assertive and confident, and Clark is attracted to that for similar reasons he's attracted to Lois. Leslie would start out as an optimist and idealist in the same way Clark is, and the two would bond and go into journalism together, with Leslie being the one who really believes in the field initially. They'd both be big believers in the duty of the press to inform and the presses ability to shape public opinion, with Clark attracted to investigative journalism and Leslie attracted more to broadcast and digital journalism. They start to date and for a moment, Clark seriously wonders if this is the one.

The big break between them comes when Clark and Leslie go on a trip around the world during their senior year of college. That trip would be where both of them learn how crappy the world is. Clark always had some idea of how bad things were because of his powers, but the trip is where he really starts to realize that there is a real need for someone of his powers to step up, and that there are hard limits to just how much he can accomplish as a member of the press. That same realization is what shatters Leslie's idealism and optimism. She loses faith in the ability to make a difference, to punch through the wall of public indifference, and as a result she gives up that dream. Instead she decides that if you can't beat them, join them: she switches instead to telling the masses what the powers that be want them to hear in exchange for money, to saying whatever the masses will give her attention and prestige for, embracing tabloid journalism that prioritizes clicks and engagement over information. Ultimately it destroys the relationship between Leslie and Clark with her viewing him as a sap and him viewing her as a sellout.

I think that origin really would help flesh out her worldview and motivation a lot more. She's a former idealist who has been broken by the world in a similar way to Poison Ivy. Leslie thus acts as a foil to Clark and Lois in that she's someone who let the world rob her of her idealism and sold out on the truth in exchange for material success. She's what Clark or Lois could've been if they took Lex's offer to work for him, and they should recognize that to some degree. Clark should have conflicting feelings for her, not romantically that relationship is dead, but in terms of sometimes he wonders if he's just wasting his life trying to fight for truth and justice. So few people seem to care about those principles, why hold on so tight to them? Why not just look out for his own self-interest the way everyone else seems to? It's the refusal to give up even when it looks pointless that makes the two of them different, and makes Clark a hero and Livewire a villain.

How I'd Like Livewire To Operate

There's a lack of imagination in how Livewire is used on the comic side as I see it.

Like most Superman Rogues the typical Superman writer doesn't seem to have a clue what to do with her beyond generic "villain" stuff, but that does a disservice to what Livewire brings to the table. Livewire does want to fry Superman to a crisp, but that's not what her daily goal is to accomplish. More importantly, she wants respect and she wants money, and the way she gets both is not by trying to rob banks, it's by leaning into her background as a media personality combined with her new powers. Unleashing electric bolts is honestly the least impressive part of her powerset in terms of her ability to manipulate anything and everything technology.

The Internet? Livewire can crash the entire thing with ease, or restrict access to portions of it. She can do the reverse and smash through firewalls and encryption like it's made of paper. Imagine Livewire shutting off the power grid or causing it to explode, secretly using your "smart" tech to record your every move, uploading ransomware to every piece of technology in Metropolis, emptying the bank accounts of anyone who annoys her, or bringing Metropolis to it's knees thanks to the "City of Tomorrow" being a test ground for the Internet of Things, so everything is connected and thus easily manipulated. Smart cars crash into each other, elevators randomly drop, trains are unable to stop and simply accelerate onward unceasingly, plans attempting to land find their instruments on the fritz, anything and everything is Livewire's to control. But terrorism, while entertaining and occasionally profitable, isn't Livewire's main focus either.

One of my favorite Superman Adventures stories with her had Livewire manipulating TV broadcast signals so that any time there was a male news reporter on screen, the signal wouldn't come through. Stuff like that, where Livewire is making life hell for people in a way that isn't immediately life-threatening is what I envision as her day to day operations, but her bread and butter is fake news. What Livewire is REALLY good at doing is manipulating the public due to her journalism background plus her powers. She can make fake videos that look totally authentic, fake articles that seem to come from credible sources, fake voice recordings, she can make anyone appear to do or say anything through the Internet, and then she can upload that to the devices of every single person in Metropolis.

You can get stories about the mayor being framed for taking bribes, local activists cast as grifters, and supposed upstanding citizens such as Lois Lane and Clark Kent appearing to take orders from criminals like Intergang on what stories to run. Basically you lean into the journalism aspect for Livewire stories where Clark and Lois have to investigate to see whether what Livewire is putting out there is fake or legit, with peoples lives and reputations at stake (including frequently their own).

And when Superman and Livewire actually do clash physically? I don't care how it gets justified, Livewire simply being that powerful, her lightning being "special", she has the ability to manipulate Superman's bioelectric field, whatever: she can hurt him. When she hits Supes with lightning, it burns. It's painful as all hell. Livewire needs to be a threat and I'd like her to be treated as a powerhouse since I don't see a reason why that shouldn't be the case. Livewire is a really cool Rogue, there's a reason she's managed to keep getting used long after the DCAU ended. I hope the comics creators start utilizing her to her full potential.

#superman #livewire #lois lane #dc comics