Aphid_Man

;origami

Avatar makes an origami crane. Laughs with glee and stares at it until emote stance broken.

Variations on fist shaking emotes. From the classic one handed, "I'll get you!" to the more modern two fisted "Curse you!!"

I suppose a variation on the point emote, so it somehow looks more like ordering the dogs wot bark bees to attack (Simpsons reference, but we've all seen villains do that point, at least)... if nothing else, a turned head and THEN the point. Bent knees and foward lean a bonus.

A Segway. This would be better as a power vehicle or something, but at the very least. If you don't understand, watch the MTV's award show - VMAs? - where Justin Timberlake is riding around on one. Just pull it out, stand on it, and tilt forward and backward a little.

Palms together, tap like fingers together in sequence.

Extra points if the fist shaking or a varient can be done while defeated.

It's an alliance! The Fifth Column, Nemesis, and Devouring Earth are forming into one villain group, henceforth known as the Devouring Nemesis Column!

If one member of your team charges in ignoring the who-goes-first-for-the-team decision (*normally* a tanker, your mileage *will* vary) or ignoring the readiness state of the team (ie, someone said "afk" and hasn't come "back" yet) take your pick of just standing back and watching them die, or kicking them from the team.

An unready group is just chain debt collection waiting to happen. Better just him than him and everyone else, too.


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Related to above... if you have a player who chases a runner into the next spawn group, especially on a larger team... kick them. Another case of debt waiting to happen. I have yet to witness a case where this did *not* result within at least one player's death within 10 minutes.

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Recognize situations that are debt waiting to happen for what they are.

Surely you mean that the Sky Raiders are about to finish training a wave of talented leaders who will soon be making their presense felt in Terra Volta...?

Do the 100 killtask badges work? Do they only credit XP giving kills? Are they only for special types (ie, DE eminators) or are there "normal" killtask badges?

"Banisher Defeat 100 Banished Pantheons None Yet"

As 44, I went to DA and mashed a lot... didn't see anything moving.

You know, you could almost make a game of it. Give the Cryptic staff random names, and then post their projections on when the patches will be done, and revise them weekly. Watch as the Pavlovian responses kick in as the ones the community views as highly accurate guessers start getting into the near future! We can guess at the relative accuracy of our favorite Mystery Dev, tracking it over the months! Woo!

Okay, maybe not.

The good doctor flipped back a few pages of the yellow, ruled notepad, and glanced over some of the scribbles. He nodded a few times before putting the notepad down and setting his pen on top. If he had brows to furrow, they would most assuredly have furrowed. "Vell, I believe I have ze prognosis, Aphid man." He folded his hands together and tensed with concentration.
"Yeah, Ganglion? What is it?"
"It is clear that you are hiding zomething, Aphid. You most definitely are in ze post traumatic stress disorder breakdown. A high function case, yes... but you know, none of zese degrees are necessary to see that something out there has crushed your spirit. The healing can't begin until you let it out of that cage you've got in there."
Aphid Man's eyes fixed on a spot on the rug that was special in its total lack of distinction from any other spot on the rug. He held his breath a moment, and then let out a very controlled sigh. "What's the point?"
"Well, you'll feel better if you...," Doctor Ganglion began.
"No, no," Aphid Man interrupted. "I mean, The Job. Being a hero. Fighting crime. I mean, we'll never stomp out nickel and dime gangs like the Hellions and Skulls. Oh, sure, we'll get rid of the Skulls, but then another gang will just rise up to take their place. We can make it difficult for them to do `business, but they will always exist."
"Yes, but think of the specific lives you touch..."
"Yeah, yeah. I'm not knocking it. It's good, decent work. I mean, my money's practically no good in this city because I'm a major hero, I could throw a rock and hit someone who'll give me a meal free because I saved their cousin from the Clockwork, or something, so it's nice to be able to earn that sort of treatment. It's not like I can bill an hourly rate right after snatching someone away from the jaws of crime."
"Have you considered psychology? I hear they not only get to bill hourly, but the pay is good too..."
"Yeah. Funny, Doc. Anyway... there are major criminal enterprises going on as well. Using the local thugs as training bars to get ready for the major league is all fine and well, too. Dismantling the operations of the Rikti, you know, and all that. There's something there to achieve. A world to make better. It's not like some local hood can decide to become the next Rikti, right?"
"Sure, I get where you're going, but I don't see what's tearing you up inside. All of this so far seems, actually, rather esteem building."
"As you recall, I worked closely with Portal Corporation on some classified operations," Aphid Man began.
"... the Cerebrus files, I believe they were classified as..." Ganglion interjected.
"Yes, exactly. I investigated threats to Paragon City and Earth proper of an interdimensional nature. That is, I went knocking on the doors of alternate Earths to see if they'd be a problem. The following information is still classified to the highest levels, but... there's a blackops within the Cerebrus project named the Janus Incident. "
"Janus? That's a two faced mythological character..."
"Gee, doc, I'm glad your psychology degree had you focus on the important stuff. Anyway, yeah. Well, it stands to reason that if there are multiple Earths, with similar if not the same history, then there are ..."
"Multiple us."
"Yeah, but just like how there are differences in world history, there are..."
"Differences in us."
"I found an alternate me."
Ganglion's exposed muscles twitched nervously. "Oh no," he thought.
"It seems that I've subjecated three dimensions beneath my iron heel. Using the words 'democracy,' or 'dissent' are shoot first and investigate later offenses. His Earth was exactly ours in every regard, with two notable exceptions. Rikti at the end of their invasion unleashed a nerve agent. Every hero who fought in the War could count their remaining days on one hand. They prepared the influx of fledging heroes to Paragon City as best they could, but... one ambitious and decidedly evil upstart quickly saw to any equally powerful heroes having 'accidents'. Once you're top of the food chain, it's actually fairly easy to stay there, especially with death squads enforcing your rule." Aphid Man paused, and slouched back into the leather lounge chair. He idly ran his finger around the rim of his glass. "I thought, you know, with the lack of challenge in his home dimension, or through some difference in our creations... or just something, I could take him down." He stopped, and stared at the ceiling for a few minutes.
"We fought for six hours, neither of us landing a real hit. His goons, of course, were on the spot in a minute or two, but he waved them off. He. Waved. Them. Off. Six hours!" Aphid Man rolled his eyes. "The neutrino corridor supporting the portal to that dimension couldn't be kept open much longer, so that's how it ended. A total and complete stalemate, except he had the upper hand. So. Yeah. I am in a bit of a schlump right now. For every success I have, I know that he's had an equally brutal success. Even in victory, defeat. I can't stand to look into that deep blue abyss linking worlds anymore... Nietzsche said that if you look too deeply, the abyss, it looks back." He crushed the glass in his hand, its shards cutting all along his arm. "Careful ye who hunt monsters, least you become monsters yourselves. Or in my case... find that you yourself are the monster."

I intend to submit this to the fan fiction thing mentioned in a moderator post after some criticism and read overs (I've already spotted a dozen times where I forgot a key word in a sentence, making it look very funny, in the no one is laughing sense).

There was a knock on the apartment door.
"Sure, stop lecturing me, Ra," the sole denizen of the warren shouted.
"I haven't said anything!" protested the voice behind the door.
"You were going to go on about duty, responsibility, and you..."
"How'd you know it was me?"
"Sis gave up months ago. The younger heroes a month or so earlier. The old crew never came by, though. I knew they'd put you up to it though, when push came to shove."
The door opened, and the hero known as Ra's Revenge was surprised by his friend's transformation. Aphid Man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a grin. "Yeah... after I quit the job, I paid the bills working for Portal Corp. They encouraged a loose dress code in my division, and it was time for some changes." The wild, dyed red hair, the biker gloves, and the casual black tee with black slacks were a decided departure from green battle armour. "People just call me A-man now, and everybody gets to be the Fez from Great Hours when they greet me. Anyway... what's the story?"

Aphid Man listened to Ra detail what started out as an ordinary raid against the Fifth Column's jewel heist. He and a magic infused being known as The Possession had gone thinking it was a simple funding expedition. They were astonished to witness the end of an arcane ceremony. The room was enshrouded in an unnatrual darkness, and before Ra could question The Possession's occult insight, their heads filled with a low, dull murmering. The next thing Ra remembered was waking up on the pavement of Steel Canyon, and all attempts to reach The Possession were futile.

Ra stopped a moment, and looked around. "Hey, where'd you go?" The regular rhythm of his companion's jumping made it easy to tune out, so he hadn't noticed it stopping. A moment or two later he swooped down on his friend.
"I got tired of waving my arms, smart guy. Let me introduce you to Professora Olboca."
Ra bowed, sweepingly. "Charmed, my lady."
"Oh, an old fashioned guy, y-"
"You have no idea," interrupted Aphid Man, with a wicked grin. "Our friend has been taken hostage, though, and we've wasted a lot of time as is."
"Oh, yes. I remember The Possession's 'vibe', and she hasn't moved from this warehouse in some time."

Aphid Man lept from rooftop to rooftop, trapising over the skyline of Paragon. "Were you going to mention it?"
Ra looked over at his longtime rival. "Mention what?"
"The scraps in your hands after your ordeal. What were they?"
"How did you know...?"
"Hello, super-senses? Microscopic calibration? People reek. Textiles reek. Your gloves practically scream at me. Considering you emit heat through your palms, they have a very distinctive smell. Char-broiled air. I can smell anything you've handled in the last day. I spent some time cataloguing smells, I figure if I've got the power, I might as well make use of it, right? I've got absolutely no idea what you were holding, but let's just say I'm looking up new words in the 'monsterous' category to describe the rancid, biting odor when I get home."
"Cloth bandages. Really dusty cloth bandages. You know, like the sort you make by ripping apart a shirt for field first aide?"
"That's funny, because I didn't smell textile."

They arrived at the warehouse in short order. Ra reached for his cell phone to call in additional reinforcements, but it was too slow. Aphid Man punched through the door, pushing his arm through and pulling the door out. "You've heard of the element of surprise, right, A-Man?"
"Yeah. The Fifth will be real surprised when they see this door whack em in the face." As proof, the first Fifth to arrive fell to the floor with a sickening crunch.
Ra's jaw fell in horror. "You... you don't think you just crossed a line there?"
"No," A-man said, with all the chill of the grave. "I've already trepassed that threshold. But relax, this one wasn't human." Aphid lifted the door up, and what had seemed like a Fifth Column soldier collapsed in a shower of brittle dust. "A simulacrum. It was all dirt, from top to bottom, start to finish."
"That's weird. The Circle of Thorns don't tap into those kinds of magics, do they?"
"None in the known multiverse. It's also not a Fifth trick. Their magic manipulation is more gathering up ancient artifacts and releasing charges than creating brand new things."
"Then who?" asked Ra. A strange, almost-human figure lurched out of the shadows, murmering. Ra's monocle fell out of his eye as he stared in shock. "It's.. it's..."
"A mummy. Servant of the Murmers, specifically." Aphid Man stretched out into the prowling tiger stance, "Looks like the Fifth finally bit off more than they could chew with their relic fanaticism. Everyone knew they'd eventually do it, you know. But who'd have guessed it would be the grandfather of them all... the scourage of the ancient world."
Ra's shock wore off. "Wrapped in cloth, huh? I bet I'm not going to be on their christmas card list..." Ra swept his hands downwards, gathering the flames to his hands with a grin, "but the fire inside is so delightful, so as long as you hate me so..."