#he was the target of a very personal revenge not a big baddie to be destroyed a la wrh

[mostlikelytofangirl]

I've read fic where JGY was abusive and found it in character. I don't think 'abusive' and 'not abusive' are two separate categories of people. Under the right circumstances, any person or character can exhibit abusive behaviors and, with a long enough time frame and no interventions, their relationship could certainly become abusive.

If the word 'abuse' seems so incompatible with our beloved villains, can we really say we love them as villains if we can't love and acknowledge their capacity for harm?

-Regular Anon

Oh hi there, anon! Nice to see you again :D. Sorry this took so long in getting answered, I've been having a case of Real Life(tm) recently orz.

Anyways, I'm guessing this is maybe apropos of this other ask? In any case, let me just go part by part starting with the last statement bc I actually agree there with you.

If we claim to like a character, there's really no point in ignoring key elements of their personality, right? If we like villains, we like them bc of the fucked up shit they do and how very sexy of them it was, not in spite of. That's why even when I can indulge myself in the occasional fic with a softer canon WRH (bc food be scarce and every treat is appreciated :'))), I don't fully subscribe to that bc that's just not how he is. Even in AUs there just has to be some of his og assholery or at least make the changes make sense.

But here's where my first caveat comes, and it's something I mentioned in my other reply too. The characters' circumstances.

Now, idk what kind of fic you read, and at the end of the day, if it works for you, that's totally cool! I just would have to assume that JGY's life still had some level of shittery to it, or he was going through someting bc really, this is the character that saved a perfect stranger in the middle of the war without any ulterior motive, nothing to offer, and risking his own safety just bc it was the right thing to do.

The entire point of MY/JGY is that he was "corrupted" by a society that left him with only two options: accept your fate as a bottom feeder, or cheat the system in whatever way you can bc you are always going to be inherently disadvantaged. And here's my second caveat:

JGY doesn't read like a villain to me. An antagonist, maybe, but an actual force of evil in complete oposition to the core values of the heroes and actively trying to hurt/stop them? Not really.

So it's not only that, but also the fact that he's a nurturing person at his core that lead me to disagree with the notion that he would be purposedly abusive towards another person unless there's very pressing circumstances that would make it so that his own well-being actually depends on somehow damaging this other individual.

Sorry, but I just don't see it working in any other way.

That being said, yes, you are right, interpersonal relationships are much more complicated than just abusers and victims (despite what some corners of tiktok and twt might say lol). As I also said in that other ask, at some point in our lives, we are all going to be the assholes and even the villains in someone else's story; we are going to hurt those close to use and we are going to make mistakes bc we are humans. But there's a difference between toxic behavior and being a toxic person. So while being a dick bc you had a bad day or bc there's no good communication going on can totally happen to everyone, that's not the same as intentionally hurting and manipulating someone in a systemic fashion fully designed to keep them trapped with you.

THAT is something ingrained in the person at hand, and while there's an entire conversation to be had about nature vs nurture, in JGY's particular case there has been no examples whatsoever in canon to even suggest that that's the direction his character skews towards. On the contrary, he has sacrificed his own desires and needs for those he cares about: being a model husband to QS and never taking a concubine, helping rebuilt Cloud Recesses and creating the watchtowers even if it was unpopular, going to NHS' aid whenever he called despite it being more work for him, never hurting Madam Jin in spite of how she did hurt him, etc. By the end even, pushing LXC away when the man had clearly accepted death with him.

Again, idk the details of the fic you are refering to, for all I know, it's an entire exploration of JGY spiralling down an even darker and more desperate place than in canon, and him becoming abusive towards someone bc, idk, that's the only way in which he can feel in power when his entire life depends on others is the whole point of the thing. And that's perfectly valid too!! What's fiction for if not to explore and go beyond??

I just felt like I should clarify that, while I agree on principle with the villain statement, I don't think it applies to JGY unless there are specific factors playing along, and if those are not met, I personally wouldn't find an abusive!JGY portrayal accurate or in-character.

But once again, that's just my position and I have my preferences and my biases like any other person.

[kasaron]

This is a (drunk) synopsis of a game I’m running. I’mma queueueue this for the morning, ask me for more info and I’ll provide. 

In this episode of “the Masque Society” the party finished up dealing with a raid that mistook them for missionaries or something. The first half of the fight was a curbstomp battle where Fanged and Laughing basically mopped the floor with everyone and anyone who ran was shredded by Silver’s crazy pet kill drones/manhacks.

The party so far, each Player Character is named for the mysterious Mask they wear as a member of the Society.

Fanged: A shapeshifter blessed (or cursed?) by a secret, powerful entity. He seeks freedom above all. 

Hibiscus: A king whose crown is made of poisons. 

Blind: An oracle of a forgotten god, Struck blind but given the dual and competing gifts of life and death. 

Laughing: A practitioner of an ancient sword style, the Laughing Breath. Jovial, but deadly. 

Candle: A mysterious and standoffish individual who mutters to his shadow and feels most comfortable in a moonless, black night. 

Silver: A strange and eccentric craftsman, whose (entirely and wholly genuine) good nature hides a vicious cunning. 

Shawn: An elf who was blessed by a goddess of nature with strange powers. She despises her powers and hides them in disgust, unless she is acting to protect her master (and unrequited love interest), Silver.

Daniel Devilto: A somewhat disgusting egg-shaped humanoid. It’s unusually durable, immune to almost everything, but also useless sin combat. It is Silver’s valet, servant, and familiar. 

Unit 1-4; self-contained manhacks, flying pinwheels of death made by Silver as combat tools. Hard to hit, tough, and deadly against lesser foes. 

this episode;

The party found a 15 year old kid who was protecting his (very heavily injured) sister from Orcs, Laughing got a twinkle in his eye seeing this kid who has NO skill just going absolutely nuts trying to kill the orcs and actually taking initiative the moment the orcs got distracted to try to drive his (too big for his got dam arms) spear into the baddie’s throat. (It failed, badly, but hey).

Cue Shawn (Silver’s pet elf) yeeting herself into the first dude, followed by Silver manhacking and everyone else sighing and just finishing the mop up. 

Party has acquired Elias and Elma!

Elias is a young man who has been heavily traumatized by the fact he saw his parents killed and sister scalped and (literally) disarmed. The party respects this, and also respect his wish to get revenge on the orc they captured. The party literaly pulled out every stop they had to buff him (Weapon of Awe, Bulls Str, Enlarge Person, lent him a VERY powerful magic weapon, etc, etc.) Kid stabbed the (heavily weakened by shades courtesy of Candle) orc, through the heart. Something inside him died that day, the party knew and they felt echoes of their own pasts in this poor soul. Laughing offered to pass on some “tricks” to him, after he (very politely) begged them to teach him to fight, so he could protect his sister.

Elma is, well scalped and disarmed. She doesn’t like to talk to anyone but Elias, and only speaks in a whisper. Silver made her a prosthetic arm, with the help of his Familiar, Daniel Devilto (DD for short). 

If you don’t think these two idiot kids are not gonna show up later in the main campaign you’re either silly or don’t know me well. (Probably as a Barbarian (best combat class fite me) and some kind of spellcaster, maybe I’ll have ‘em follow the party or something. I don’t wanna have them get kidnapped, that’s dumb).

Since none of the party can restore the child’s arm or scalp they decided to poke about to see if anyone in the larger of two cities nearby could. 

Cue city under siege motifs. Also Cue an old group the Players haven’t seen in ages, the White Dragon order; a sect kinda akin to the SCP foundation (but less powerful and less malicious). 

Also cue them seeing one of their soon to be biggest problems, in the flesh (dead flesh). Silver CLEVERLY worked out how to find it’s liar using magic, which saved me a lot of bother and meant I could skip to introducing the living version quickly. Cue what are essentially very scary burly tough starfish. 

Yes, starfish, look if you’ve gotten this far you see that this is incoherent and weird. They attack by scrambling towards someone at a gallop, doing a somersault and then encircling/engulfing their target. they then try to roll away with the target still inside. They have hooked barbs they extend to pin the victim and they roll back to their lair. Why? Mysterious reasons. 

The party has discovered that I am very good at making things...challenging to kill without turning them into HP sponges or murdertanks. The contrast between fighting “normal” enemies and these ones is stark, and was planned from stage one, so seeing the effect realized was a really big reward on my end. Each party member has things they can contribute to the fight, but they have to be clever and think creatively to make it happen. 

Next episode, the party will likely finish the strange enemies they’re fighting currently, prepare for the ensuing fight, pat both Elias and Elma on the head and say “stay here, hide if anything happens” and go to kill the everloving shit out of the monsters in question, spurred by the idea that two children will very much die if they fail. 

I predict someone is going to reveal their secret soon. That’ll be fun. 

[posthumanwanderings]

while I was on the train to Nakano Broadway to collect more Heisei era Godzilla toys, I thought I’d make a personal list of the best to worst Godzilla films (up until Godzilla 2000 cause that’s around the time I stopped caring, I’ll try again tho) since the new Godzilla film is around the corner and maybe some of you are interested in giving the Big G’s archive a shot (you can delete this caption too if you just like the pic! and yes Morrigan counts as a kaiju, a beautiful one at that)

1. Terror of Mechagodzilla - last of the Showa era, ending with one of Godzilla’s most deadly foes. and I love how fucking big Titanosaurus is, god damn. the cyborg girl was cool too, loved her arc and how she controls both monsters.

2. Godzilla Vs. Mothra (90′s) - Mothra’s Heisei debut, and looking more dazzling than ever and also alongside her evil twin Battra. the fight in Yokohama (after its real life modern expansion when Japan’s economy was at its best) was a nice fresh setting for the climax. this one perfectly balances campyness and just a good kaiju film altogether. 3. Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster - Ghidorah, besides Mothra and Mechagodzilla is probably the next most recognizable kaiju even to nonfans. One of the best moments in Godzilla history is when Mothra desparately tries to convince Godzilla and Rodan to team up against an even bigger menace, then they can get back to their typical kaiju businesses. 4. Godzilla Vs. Destroyah - like how T.O.M. ended the Showa era with a bang, this is the one that ended the 85-95 era with a monster that really beats the shit out of zilla who is already on the cusp of exploding like a nuclear reactor... it ties together the very first Godzilla movie too for plus points. for those looking for a more serious, borderline horror movie kaiju experience.  5. Godzilla Vs. Mothra (60′s) - yup two Mothra movies in the top 5. Mothra fights with Godzilla are always so tense, since Mothra being a giant graceful butterfly appears so delicate against big boi Godzilla, plus her kids are under his threat as well. and on top of that Godzilla moves and fights like a drunkard the whole time. 6. Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (70′s) - Godzilla faces his robot clone for the first time who has one of the largest movesets of any other kaiju, a true force to be reckoned with. instead of Mothra being summoned by an ancient race, we have King Caesar, a stone guardian puppy dog lion to team up with zilla against the bigger baddie. fun fact: this was filmed right after Japan gained back Okinawa from America since WWII, and makes once again another fresh setting.

7. Godzilla 1985 - I’ll be honest, the lone Godzilla movies with no other kaiju weren’t the top of my interest especially being an ADHD kid, but from a film perspective this is shot really well, the miniature city set had a nice upgrade since T.O.M. from a decade before, and I love the laser beam special effects from the upgraded Japanese Defense Force in this.

8. Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (90′s) - Not to be confused with the other 5ish Ghidorah encounters, this was the Heisei debut of the 3 headed monster mixed into a time travel plot since movies like Terminator were all the rage in the early 90′s. The tie in plot about WWII had more to be desired and felt very nationalist, but as a kaiju film the special effects were top notch especially with Mecha Ghidorah.

9. Destroy All Monsters - the ULTIMATE Showa era kaiju crossover fest has just about every giant monster Toho made up until the point because why not? It’s another typical story about mysterious aliens mind controlling kaiju to destroy Earth, but this time when they say Earth (and not just Tokyo) they mean it. Plenty of things get destroyed, nice big battle at the end, only thing lacking is they gave Baragon and Varan 3 seconds of screen time and they both are some of the coolest looking kaiju there are out there. big shame

10. Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (90′s) - in this Heisei take on MechaG, his role goes from super deadly alien robot menace to kinda still deadly robot guardian built by the EDF. he looks cool but just seems more weak compared to the more sinister alien engineered one. Rodan makes a long awaited return and basically has a custody battle with Godzilla over a mysterious kaiju egg. no spoilers

11. Godzilla Vs. Hedorah - probably the scariest Godzilla movie with Destroyah placed next. he fights an alien pollution monster who has been taking big rips from factory smoke stacks only making him bigger every time. Japan’s take on an environmental awareness film and I see nothing wrong with it one bit.

12. Godzilla Vs. Biolante - zilla sees another type of counterpart to himself, this time essentially a ‘PlantZilla’ after a scientist thought it might be a good idea to merge Godzilla cells with a plant for some reason. the story is a bit odd, but this remains in middle ground territory because it debuts Miki Saegusa, the super adorable psychic girl who appears in every 90′s film afterwards and the special effects of Biolante in final form are sick.it also has a disco version of the zilla theme for some reason.

13. Godzilla: King of The Monsters - someone would bash me big time for having this any lower on the list, but this is the one that started it all, grimly filmed in black & white a decade after the end of WWII. fans know this already but it’s the atomic bombs themselves which devastated Japan that influenced the idea for Godzilla, a force of mutated nature that lashes back on humanity for making really bad decisions. I like this and all but it lacks zero charm or kaiju style ‘fun’ but for good reason, since it was meant to be more of a horror flick. 

14. Godzilla Vs. Gigan - for those that do want the campiness, this is one of the best the series has to offer along with a couple more below. Godzilla’s ol pal Anguirus returns for his last Showa effort as they team up against space monsters Gigan (who is edgy af) and once again Ghidorah (who sadly has been fighting on his own the whole time while other monsters always team up to bash him). being in the 70′s, it’s got shades of James Bond / spy films in it and the fashion is on point. we get to hear Godzilla talk for the only time ever too.

15. Godzilla Vs. Megalon - probably out camps #14 for several reasons: this entire time there have been an ancient race of humans living below the Earth who feel enough is enough between pollution and expansion of society and finally unleash their protector, a giant cockroach monster with drills for arms to destroy just Japan all modern civilization (where was he during Hedorah’s visit tho?). 2nd reason is there’s copycat Ultraman who also looks like Jack Nicholson, then there’s the edgy middle-school bully like relationship between Megalon and Gigan and then lastly the infamous Godzilla dropkick you might’ve seen in GIF form, if not well here you go:

16. Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero - probably the 1st 90% campy zilla flick because of the Godzilla victory dance alone, but this was also because as time went by more kids cared about the movies and not the original target audience of war torn adults. the aliens (at least in the dub version) speak super monotone even when they are being huge bad asses, and we get to see G and his on-and-off lover buddy team up again but this time IN #&$%#% SPACE. the setting on Planet X was real cool to see as a kid, but sadly we haven’t seen any kaiju fighting back in space ever since. the NES Godzilla game fixes that itch.

17. Son of Godzilla - well I’ve only ever seen this movie twice, which means it maybe just isn’t that good, even for G fans. it debuts, of course, the son of Godzilla who looks like a cross between the Cookie Monster and Michelin Man. I’ll give this movie credit for distancing zilla away from the city setting in replace with his tropical home territory in Monster Island which only gets glimpses in the other films. the ending shot is real sweet too.

18. Godzilla Vs. SpaceGodzilla - back to spaciness, we do see one last alien monster come to Japan in the 2nd to last 90′s Godzilla movie, appropriately called SpaceGodzilla. while he lacks agility (when not flying on his giant meth crystal) he makes up for it with telekinesis and other long range attacks. the story / acting / mostly everything is pretty so-so and we all know deep inside the only reasons to watch it still are the scenes with baby Godzilla stepping on land mines and more Miki Saegusa wardrobe changes, but the final battle in a crystal filled Fukuoka is really awesome. 

19. Godzilla’s Revenge - wow well I just noticed I put 3 baby zilla focused movies all in a row near the very bottom of the list, my bad. this one takes the cake tho for pure cringe. but it’s better than the last 3 so it can’t be super terrible, right? once again no spoilers but the only thing that bumps this stock footage filled movie more up then from being the worst of all time are the super silly fight scenes against baby Godzilla’s bully Gabara. you know Godzilla has to do it to em.

20. Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster - even tho the former movie just reviewed uses stock footage of almost all the fight scenes of this one, it is somehow worst than #19 because it focuses way too much on a 60′s party cruise, and Godzilla gets a lil King Kong-ish during a scene with the love interest of the movie, and the giant lobster monster with no lasers / projectile claws just doesn’t seem as threatening as all the previous monsters zilla has fought since.

21. Godzilla Vs. King Kong - I’ll admit, I never liked King Kong and probably never will, and because he moves faster than Godzilla they had to use non-slowed down footage to make the monsters fight like kids on a playground slapping each other, and just looks weird. real talk, Godzilla would beat the shit out of Kong with a single radioactive blast and the movie would end right there. but that’s not the ending we got.. let’s start a patreon to rewrite the movie we all wanted.

22. Godzilla Raids Again - alright we finally made it, thee very worst Godzilla movie of all time according to the loser typing this. why? because it went against everything the first Godzilla movie represented, but like... suddenly, since it’s the sequel to the movie and the big G was never meant to return after, which luckily wasn’t the case. it’s superrrr campy but on the acting side, and the fights with newcomer Anguirus are super sped up even more than the Kong fights, and just seems tacky overall in a non-funny way. the suit for Anguirus is honestly one of the coolest kaijus ever tho, and they made little changes to him every time he came back cause it was just that good. 

anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. if I were to recommend just 3 Godzilla movies to someone who has never seen them before to represent each side of the series, I’d pick Terror of MechaGodzilla for the serious pick, Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster for the balance / kaiju fest pick, and Godzilla Vs. Megalon for the most campy and fun one overall. hope this big list can help those who are curious! next up: Godzilla game reviews :)

[thisiswhatwereupagainst]

616 Donald Pierce Part Four: The Shadow King, the New Mutants, the Young X-Men, and whether he can pee

Pierce's first appearance in the 2000s is in the X-treme X-Men 2001 annual. It's a very minor role though. The main bad guy of this issue is the Shadow King, who, if you didn't know, is a disembodied psychic consciousness who needs to take posession of others in order to interact with the physical world. He picks Pierce for this, in order to use his Reavers to attack the X-Men, and because his primary target is Rogue, who he wants to corrupt into his Shadow Queen and gain access to all the stored powers she has, and being in the body of Pierce will make him immune to her touch since he's largely robotic. Pierce doesn't even get a speaking part, he's just a flesh suit for the Big Bad, but he does get to look hella creepy with the Shadow King starts warping his features while creeping on Rogue. After the Shadow King's defeat, Rogue dumps him at the cops. Not one of Pierce's greater moments. I mean, he's regularly a loser, but this is fucking exceptional even for him. I have a really perverse curiosity about how things would have been for Pierce if the Shadow King had retained posession of him. See, the Shadow King is addicted to eating. Any time he has prolonged posession of a host, they usually become hugely obese because of this. And...we see Pierce is able to eat, but like...would that work with him? Can a cyborg get fat? I guess it depends on what parts of him are still fleshy, and like I said, that tends vary WIDELY at different points and is pretty ambiguous. But, yeah, I wanna know. While his debut in the new millennium is minor, Pierce features pretty largely as the bad guy in the 2003-2004 New Mutants series. Guess what, he still REALLY HATE MUTANTS! Which...okay, not surprising. He's now out of jail and looking for new Reavers, and is holding a meeting of regular humans who just hate mutants and are interested in signing up with a gross hate group. He encourages them, of course, to become cyborgs too, claiming this is their best best to combat the super-powers of mutants. While I do think he wants these people to kill as many mutants as possible, I also think it's a “misery loves company” thing, but more on that in my upcoming section on his psyche. Anyway, he's kidnapped the father of Sofia Mantega, one of the new students at Xavier, in order to lure the X-Men into a trap. Karma and Danielle Moonstar (two of the original New Mutants, now grown to adulthood and teachers at the Xavier's School) arrive along with some of the kids to rescue him. During this, one of the recently recruited would-be Reavers, Josh Foley, discovered, ironically, that he himself was a mutant, a healer. He got to put his talents to good use when Pierce stabbed one of the mutant kids, Laurie Collins aka Wallflower. In retaliation for her apparent death, her classmate Wither, who had a death-touch ability, touched Pierce to kill him. And since Pierce started to deteriorate, I guess he does have organics left in him after all! Pierce reached out to Josh, begging him for help, because I guess mutants are okay if they can save your life when you need it, but Josh instead chose to heal Laurie. Moonstar, meanwhile, had to force Wither to let Pierce go by using her own abilities. Josh left the scene, not ready to join a “mutie” school, though he would join by the end of the issue and would become the student known as Elixir. As for Pierce, they left him in his pretty fucked-up state, with all his remaining flesh decayed right off his metal bones...but if there's one thing this guy is good at, it's recovering from a fucked up state!

Pierce was imprisoned in The Cage, a facility used to contain supervillains, where an energy field kept his cybernetics turned off except for life support, leaving him barely alive. And soon, it wouldn't be even “barely” anymore, as he was scheduled for the death penalty in a month. This is the first time we get to meet any family of Pierce, his nephew Justin, who visits him. So Pierce must have a brother or sister! Justin is an FBI agent with the Metahuman Crimes Division who tells him that if he testifies against Wither (who was being accused of other murders) then his sentence would be changed to life without parole. Pierce agreed, but with the additional condition that he be transferred to an American prison (The Cage is an international facility built on an island in the Pacific Ocean) While Pierce was being transferred to the JFK airport, he killed his FBI guards, but left Justin alive because “Unlike you, I value family” (he had earlier said that Justin wasn't a “real nephew” because if he was, he would have helped him escape The Cage) This is a really interesting thing coming from Pierce, because it's the only time he ever shows mercy or anything resembling any traits that AREN'T terrible. I wish we learned more about his family, since clearly they matter a lot to him. Pierce got back in contact with the Reavers, telling them they could now attack the “mutant enclave” aka the school, which was currently in a very vulnerable state (read: total shambles yet AGAIN) and that if they succeeded, they would prove themselves worthy of receving cyberneticenhancements like himself. They also brought Pierce some skin to get grafted back on his face. I really don't wanna know how they did that or where they got it. Since Pierce thanks them “for bringing me my skin back” maybe they just cloned it from some old tissue of his or something. That's the least awful option so I choose to go with it for my guess. Because seriously, the number of times this guy gets blown up or ripped apart or skinned or so on, I think he just must have a fucking stash of cloned flesh and organs somewhere to keep having anything human left to him at all, there's no other explanation. Long story short, he gets his ass handed to him. Moonstar bodyslams him. Cannonball blasts through his big knife arm thing. And Magma blasted his nice new skin off with some fireballs and we see that a cyborg can lose consciousness! ...I know even the biggest and baddest villains still lose nigh-every time, but Pierce just always seems to fail particularly hard. I think that's why he's endearing to me. Lots of people love trash villains, but I have a thing for trash LOSER villains in particular. Justin Pierce says the FBI will make sure that Pierce stays locked up for good this time but LOL OF COURSE THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN They don't even bother to explain how or when Pierce escaped this time, because at this point it really doesn't matter. All we know is that Pierce shows up in 2005 wanting to take over the Hellfire Club again and get revenge on Shaw, and he's built himself some new cybernetic mooks he calls The Cleansing Crew. And proving he hasn't learned shit, he's fucking dumb enough to attack Shaw, Tessa, Sunspot, Bishop, Storm, and Wolverine all at once. Admittedly, he does have some defenses against them---bullets designed to counteract Logan's healing factor, modifications that make him immune to Storm's lightning strikes, and blue laser claws to cut Shaw with in a way so he can't absorb the energy—but none of this saves him from SEBASTIAN SHAW PUNCHING HIS GODDAMN HEAD OFF THAT'S RIGHT, NOT ONLY DOES PIERCE LOSE HIS HEAD LITERALLY ONCE AGAIN, IT GOES BOUNCING ACROSS THE FREAKING PAVEMENT LIKE A BASKETBALL! Have I mentioned I love Sebastian Shaw? Because I love Sebastian Shaw. He is always 200% done with Pierce's bullshit and ready to do something awful to him, it's great. Seriously, if Pierce can't learn not to fuck with the X-Men, you think he'd at least learn not to fuck with Sebastian Shaw. In 2008 he shows up in the third series of X-Force. As with the X-treme X-men annual, this time he does not go after the X-Men by choice, but is a forced pawn for another baddy. Dude is just minding his own business getting his cybernetics updated in Prague because someone (he does not know who) has been chasing him across two continents and HE'S PRETTY SCARED. But they catch up with him and, at the point of several very large guns, tell him that “your presence has been requested.” I would like to add that Pierce is wearing a rather fetching brocade vest; yet more longing for his Hellfire Club days perhaps? Anyway, these people are The Purifiers, led by Bastion, and they are gathering up all the most famous and accomplished of mutant-haters.  What for? The hurt and kill mutants, of course! Now, I'm sure Pierce and the rest would very happily do this willingly, but Bastion nonetheless infected them all with the Technarch transmode virus...I guess I can see why. It puts them under his control just in case they get ideas about who's in charge, it grants them the very valuable power to nigh-instantly repair damage to themselves, and it also brought those among them who were dead, such as Stryker and Graydon Creed, back to life. Pierce, of course, wasn't happy about it, screaming  “You don't know who you're dealing with! I have friends in powerful places do you hear me?!” I'm sure you do, precious. And his apprehension proved to be correct, as apparently the process was rather painful. After this...reprogramming, if you will...Pierce is DEFINITELY wearing frilly Hellfire garb. I can only guess this is his choice since I don't think Bastion would give a shit about dressing him in it. We also learn the kill count for each of these bigots, and for Pierce it's 348. I'm not sure if that's by his own hands directly or includes those who died at the hands of his minions and hate groups as well. I think it might be an indirect count thing, because one of them, Bolivar Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, is credited with 16 thousand something kills, and I don't think he ever hurt a single mutant PERSONALLY himself. By the way, only Trask and Stryker have a higher count than Pierce in the group. X-Force storms the place, and many of the nameless human Purifiers are killed, but Pierce and the other Technarch-infected bigots don't get into the fighting, Wolverine just glimpses them while battling Bastion. I guess Bastion didn't want to risk damaging his new toys too soon, since when that happens he whisks them away in a bigass jet. They proceeded to begin to plan their plots about mutants. Plan their plots? Is that redundant? I guess I just should say “plan” or “plot” not both. Anyway! Pierce was tasked with going after young mutants, which seem to be his specialty—TV Tropes points out he's probably afraid of what adults will do to him. Which, between Shaw and Cable and the X-Men, he has good reason for. Cut to the first issue of Young X-Men, in which Cyclops assembles a team of Xavier's students to personally train:  Dust, Ink, Rockslide, and Wolf Cub, plus Blindfold because Rockslide wouldn't join without her. He takes them to subterranean ruins beneath the wreckage of the school, which he calls the Danger Cave, where he trains them to take down the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants...which, bizarrely, he claims are the adult New Mutants (Moonstar, Magma, etc) Surprise, it turns out that this “Cyclops” is actually Donald Pierce using an image inducer, trying to once again use child mutants to kill adults just like he did in the original New Mutants story! I kinda like that, haha. Both because it's win-win for Pierce no matter which side dies (since either way, mutants are killed) and because...like, he tried to use the New Mutants like this, now he's using the next generation against them the same way, it's a good low-key callback to their first confrontation. Naturally, Pierce is foiled, but one of the kids, Wolf Cub, dies at his hands. With his dying breath, he begs his enraged teammate Rockslide not to kill Pierce, because X-Men don't kill. During the fight, Pierce says he going to “use your skull as a latrine” to Rockslide and like...how? Does Pierce still pee? I guess if he still eats, he still excretes. These are the serious questions. And these are the IMAGES for this post! ETA: Two additional images from his fight with the Young X-Men!

[howtohero]

Seasonal Big Bads

Tired of having to fight so many different individual supervillains week to week? Not yet ready for a longterm nemesis? Want to fight someone at a snail’s pace over a period of many months? Then it sounds like you need a seasonal big bad! 

In order to qualify for a seasonal big bad you and your friends need to begin having strictly episodic adventures. If a villain can’t be defeated in the course of a day, leave them to somebody else to fight. Fight just one, unique, villain a week. You should try to make sure that each of these adventures follow the same formula. Begin your day by stopping a regular crime. A crime that you normally wouldn’t even bother with. One that the police could have easily dealt with. I’m thinking like a pick pocket or maybe a mail fraudster. Once you’ve done that your main baddie for the day will reveal themselves. Even though you’ve fought villains stronger than them or perhaps even with the exact same powers many times before, this new bad guy will somehow catch you off guard and elude you, having successfully committed some nefarious crime like vending machine larceny or bird kidnapping. Then instead of chasing after them, which would be laughably easy to do thanks to the faster than light engine you -for some reason- installed on your super dune buggy, you need to go back to your base. Once there you can chat amicably with your support-squad, find out what interpersonal dramas they’re dealing with that particular week. Maybe your engineer is going on a blind date. Perhaps your doctor is having an icy reconciliation with their estranged mother. It is imperative that you give these stories and issues your full undivided attention. You can deal with that bad guy later, it literally will not take you longer than five minutes to deal with them when you get around to it. So there’s no rush. After you help your friends resolve their issues you can then go out and stop this new villain from committing the exact same crime a second time in one day. There will be zero significant differences between this time and the last time you encountered them. But this time you need to beat them, using your powers, which for some reason you didn’t do before. Happy endings all around. If you have enough adventures like this eventually you’ll get your very own seasonal big bad.

Seasonal big bads are the most dangerous villain you’ll ever face... until next season when you have to fight an even bigger big bad that takes you the exact same amount of time to successfully defeat! A seasonal big bad will lurk in the shadows for a while, sending out goons and decoys to keep you distracted as they slowly slowly move the pieces in place for their grand evil scheme. So, since they’re keeping to themselves for the earlier parts of the year you have to work especially hard to recognize that you’re not facing a series of unrelated lower-level villains but that you are instead facing someone with an actual agenda that goes beyond “turning into a sand monster and scaring movie fans at the annual movie-at-the-park night.” 

One surefire way to know if you’re being targeted by a seasonal big bad is if you’re suddenly facing a whole bunch of new superpowered supervillains that you weren’t even aware of before. It’s not every day that a whole bunch of new superhumans come out of the woodwork at once. Unless you live in Super-Arkansas, an invisible state in between Arkansas and Oklahoma in which the birth-rate is pretty high and everybody is born with a random superpower. But for the rest of the world any influx of brand new superhumans should raise some eyebrows. Only seasonal big bads can create superhumans en masse, or at least they’re the only people who regularly have reason to do so. If you’re too busy stopping and investigating a whole new slew of super-crimes you’re much less likely to notice that random pieces of lab equipment keep going missing from labs across the city. 

About halfway through your year though, (to be clear this is not the January-December year. Seasonal big bad cycles tend to run on a September-May year so just go ahead and circle January 27th on your calendar and say that’s the date we’re talking about) you’ll finally uncover the conspiracy and come face to face with your seasonal big bad. While on the surface they may seem like just another madman bent on world domination, like the ones you deal with every Tuesday, this one is special. This one drank like extra evil juice. Maybe they’ll have the same powers as you, but stronger. Maybe they’ll be smarter than you. Maybe they’ll actually have a long standing one-sided grudge against you because their father was a supervillain and you stopped his evil schemes by tossing him into a fish truck that was leaving the city and he was directionally challenged and was never able to find his way back to town and also he smells like fish now so nobody wants him to come back anyway. Whatever their deal is, prepare to get absolutely thrashed by them. You’re going to get the actual snot out of you. They’re going to beat you up so bad that your immune system just collapses and you catch a really bad cold and start sneezing all the time. You’re going to get completely dismantled and it’s going to be very embarrassing. But do not despair. It’s all part of the process. If you were able to win the first fight you ever had with your seasonal big bad then they wouldn’t be very good seasonal big bads now would they? 

Don’t worry though, your seasonal big bad won’t kill you. They won’t even really try. For some reason they’ll assume that if they beat you up really badly, but then leave you alive, that you’ll just give up and retire or something. I guess they don’t get just how personally superheroes take things. When a super powerful person is so used to winning, one defeat isn’t going to make them pack up and go home, the only thing that defeat will do will cause them to vow to do whatever it takes to take the person who beat them off of the board. So good job seasonal big bad, you’ve just sealed your own fate. 

The rest of your year will be spent trying every hair brained scheme you can think of to regain dominance over your seasonal big bad. You’ll clone yourself, travel through time, trigger an alien invasion even going so far as to team up with your actual long-term nemesis who is actually very jealous of this seasonal big bad for taking up all your time. You’ll train harder, recruit new allies to your cause, blast them on social media. You’ll try to steal their powers, their followers, you’ll even try to turn their own wife against them. No tactic is too dirty or unhanded in pursuit of this noble goal of yours. To get revenge on the person made you look like a real goober on national television. You know who watches national television? Attractive people. Now what are they going to think of you. Good luck getting a date now guy who got wedgied on live television by a death cultist. 

Of course though, nothing you attempt will even come close to working until May, maaaaaybe mid-April if you’re lucky. It’s almost not even worth the effort. At times you’ll think about giving up and just letting your city fall to this heinous villain. Anybody who spends an entire school year meticulously carrying out a plot to take over your city kind of deserves to win no? Only your spite and anger will fuel you through those long middle months. Thankfully, the seasonal big bad will continue to make a fool of you every time you meet so there will be no shortage of spite coursing through your veins. 

And then, finally, the final conflict will arrive. One big final scuff up between you and your allies and the big bad and their little bad minions. (Not little in the sense that they are less evil, little in the sense that they are physically shorter than the main bad guy. He’s very tall that guy.) It will take everything you’ve got to finally beat this villain. May as well even bust out some fancy new duds for the occasion. Not to mention the latest in bad guy fighting technology that just happened to take your lead engineer nine months to develop. Convenient! Well, not for all the people who died in the bad guy’s rampage. But convenient for you that the weapon was finished just in time for the grand finale! Then you’ll come face to face with the villain who has been tormenting you for almost but not quite an entire year. Finally the hour of their reckoning has arrived. You can take revenge for your past humiliation. Avenge all of those that have fallen to their villainous schemes. You’ve been training non-stop for this moment. You’ve broken several fundamental laws of both physics and also your township in pursuit of this goal. Everything from the past just about a year has been leading up this moment. 

You might die.

But don’t worry it’s fine you’ll come back. And when you come back you’ll be more powerful than ever before and you’ll be able to finally end the threat of this terrible turnip that’s been terrorizing your neighborhood. Get pumped (and get amped!) for them to say something like “No! How it can be! They’re even more powerful than I ever could have imagined!” It’s gonna be so vindicating. So awesome. You’re gonna be great you got this! Make sure you’ve got a cool one-liner planned for when you finally take care of this big bad. Something like “Ha! You have been defeated and it is I who is the one who has been the one to defeat you!” Something cool and smooth like that. Try to make a pun if you can. Then, you can just relax. Your city will be completely safe. For like three or four whole months. Then, the cycle will begin anew. Have fun! This is your life now!

(Be wary though, of the big bad switcheroo. Where you think one of the bad guys you’re fighting is your big bad for the year only for them to be unceremoniously defeated at some point. When this happens, don’t start patting yourself on the back just yet. It’s not that you’re so great at fighting crime that you were able to beat your big bad in record time. It’s very likely that some even more powerful and evil villain is going to take their place and serve as the big bad for the rest of the year. So stay alert for any like evil nieces or henchmen that seem to actively be taking notes whenever your big bad is doing things. They might turn out to be the true villain of this saga in your life!)