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There's a lot of writing going on here on these boards of late, and I admit, it's been tempting.
 
Too tempting.
 
So terribly tempting that I lost the battle, and have given in.
 
But that brings up another problem:  Time.  I don't have time to write like I had years ago, before the kids-- and _certainly_ not like the time I had before the wife.  Honestly, if any single guys out here find themselves routinely bored or wondering what to do with the copious amounts of free time on your hands, get married.  Boredom may still be problem, but it will be far less frequent.  Free time, however, will disappear completely; you have my word.
 
There are a thousand other things that weigh in on my "creative time," just like anyone else-- and especially if you happen to GM for a couple of games thrown into the middle of the "normal" things like work, family, etc.  I have of late begun to wonder about the methods of Shrike and Bolo:  Just put up a little at a time, as you find time.  Tempting, but I honestly don't know if I can write that way.  All my life I've had the problem of the story appearing in my head _almost_ finished.  As I wrote it, I _had_ to completely write it, because once it was completed in my head the impetus to keep writing was gone.  Not that I didn't want to get it down, mind you; the problem was that the next story had started, and was far more interesting than the one for which I already knew the ending.
 
So I thought: put up something you've done-- something short.  Test the waters.
 
Alas, there isn't much that survives.  Well, let me give you a short run-down:
 
The bulk of my non-gaming writing was lost in a small house fire twenty-two years ago (lightning strike).  I'd done other stuff since, and even some after I got married, but when we moved to Vidalia fifteen years ago, our computer and relevant accessories (which my wife had insisted on labeling "COMPUTER ROOM" as opposed to my own suggested "FETAL CATS."  You can never be too cautious, you know?) didn't make it.  I really haven't had much time since then (we moved here to have babies; frankly, given the choice between practicing my writing or practicing making babies--- well, _that's_ a no-brainer). 
 
But every once in a while--every once in a rare season, I find a precious moment to stroke the keys.  Unfortunately, inspiration does not--for me, at least-- work quite in that way.  So what do I find myself doing?  Expanding character bios for players who really want one; expanding character bios for villains I was particularly taken with.  Honestly, today, even "my" creative time serves the double-duty of both letting me have a bit of fun _and_ going into the game, because I don't have time to do both.  Honestly, I don't even have enough time to call it "practice."  When I get these rare opportunities, I am always ultimately disappointed in the results, and I realize that the jumps and omissions and bad cut-aways are all the result of getting rusty.  Way, way rusty.  Frankly, I should stop calling myself a writer and start calling myself a "hobbyist" or "dabbler."
 
At any rate, I have perhaps half-a-dozen expanded bios done for various characters-- and one really, _really_ long "special circumstance" type thing done for a very dear friend some years ago that I was fortunate enough to still have in my "sent mail" box from way back when.  I thought I'd post one here -- not the really long one.  (You're welcome)-- to gauge feedback.
 
This particular character was the first character I had made after finally getting to "retire" my ungodly, became-unfun-years-ago-why-won't-you-let-me-make-a-new-character-like-everyone-else-has-you-bastard first character.  This was my "martial artist" who wasn't a martial artist (not fond of the genre, but twenty years of the same damned brick got _so_ old, I wanted something different).
 
 
At any rate, presented for your consideration:  The extended background of Maximum (yeah; it's a crappy name, but it's chosen on purpose as a nod to the character's social ineptitude)

Clearly Pogo's uncle who pretends to not understand English is a giant Stooges fan, 'cuz that's the only way a girl Pogo's age would have heard of them. Not that I disapprove of her hanging around her Uncle Whatsisname. (I'm imagining Ernie, a good Chinese uncle name.)

I still need to go back and make adjustments to this and earlier stuff, such as replacing Mandarin with Cantonese (Thanks again, Lawnmower Boy!) but all the above is the rough draft of the story. I'm 5000 short of my overall goal. Thanksgiving in America is coming up so I will be out of pocket for a bit

Cakewalk- A Pogo Adventure
(continued)
 
Getting into the cannery wasn’t hard. A few bounces and I was on the roof. There was an outside stairway that lead in and down to the rest. There was a lock on it, but it wasn’t anything too strong or high tech to foil me. Oh, even if there was I would have broken in, I just thought maybe stealth would be the best way to go.
Of course, as a rule, I’m not stealthy. Also? I can’t see in the dark. So I had hit something of a snag here as I snapped the lock and went down into the dark. If I was lucky, the villainess, whoever she was, couldn’t see in the dark either, and had a light source out of necessity. The light from above faded so fast I was soon plunged in total blackness.
    And I nearly slipped on the step more than once. Now, this sucked but it would suck for me to fall less than a lot of other people. My power is rebounding. Hit me with kinetic force, and I bounce around like nuts with little to no harm to myself. We may have a lot of bullet proof heroes in this city right now, but yours truly is the queen of taking blunt attacks and staying pretty.
 
 Sharp objects are a bit more of a problem, but I’ve been practicing on using my powers on those too, and I’ve got a knife resistant weave in my costume so there’s that. But a fall? I could handle that. I could bounce down the whole way superfast.
  But that would also surely give away my location or at least my arrival and put Aspirant in danger. What if there was a weapon to his throat, or he was strapped to a bomb? Not for the first time my mind raced with possible hostage scenarios, each one worse than before.

    I have an active imagination, and it is not always a blessing. I found a rail, and I took it slow, agonizingly, nerve-wrackingly slow. It was all I could do not to grit my teeth in frustration. I’d never had someone I loved before used against me this way. I mean, if you believe the comic books, every superhero eventually does, but I really prefer reading about it to experiencing it.

    My head was making noise anyway so I kept it busy by having a conversation with myself.

    Easy, Pogo. Aspirant is a hero too. Even hurt, he’ll try to get free on his own. And if he can’t, we at least know he knows the drill. You’ve practiced for this, Pogo. Lady Obsidian has put everyone through a dozen simulations for moments like this.
    Of course, the simulations usually pushed for backup and teamwork, both very much in doubt now. No, positive thoughts, assertive, but not cocky. Cool, but not cold. Hopeful, not harried.
    I heard a voice, just a single one.

    “No, mother… I haven’t issued my challenge yet. I have to find some way to do it without getting the whole team on me,” The voice was a woman. It was hard to be sure but she sounded roughly my age. I couldn’t place the accent beyond American.
    There was a pause, as if someone else were speaking and the first voice had to wait.
    Then she continued, “He DID take on more than one, mother, and he lost because of it. I… no mother. I didn’t mean it that way. I won’t fail you. I’ll avenge him. You’ll see!”
    And somewhere in the dark, I hit the bucket someone had left on the steps! They clattered down down down with a clank clank thunk!
    Damn it, if I wanted noises like that, I would have made them myself!
    “Who’s that?” the voice called up, “Mom, I got to go. I think she’s here…”

    To hell with it, it was too late. I was made. I had to move! So I dropped and followed the bucket and began to bounce down the steps. I put full force on my feet, with my hands upraised to catch contact with the ceiling before hammering down again.  Each bounce feeding me more and more energy to redirect and use for my own. I don’t get sick. I don’t get dizzy. I do get kind of pumped up! And when I get pumped up, I can’t help but start rambling.
    I get a lot of grief for this, but you know I’m not the only one. I mean, I like Eel, but he talks way a lot during his fights too! Besides, I was made, might as well give whoever this woman was the old razzle-dazzle and hope to distract her.
    “Hello,” I declared as I shot into the floor level of the cannery where my costumed beau lay blindfolded, and shackled with a nasty swelling on his head, “You have kidnapped my team mate” And Boyfriend, I thought angry before yelling, “Prepare to get bounced, trounced, and thoroughly denounced!”
    “Finally!” the villainess whirled, and then, almost an after thought, “Mom, I gotta go. She found me. Yes, vengeance will be...”     
    I crashed into the gray and black clad woman causing her to drop her phone as I slammed her into a large stack of old cans which scattered like bowling pins with a lot of force, but not to lethal levels. Angry as I was, I did remember the first rule of superheroes. We don’t kill! We’re not executioners, we’re the good guys. And darn it, the world needs that. There’s an old Chinese saying, darn if I can remember who the source is, I presume an old Chinese guy (Who by now is really, really dead): Without standards, no boundaries are set.

    My boundaries were simple, solid walls, objects much heavier than myself, and no fricking killing!

    I wasn’t above giving into curiosity though, and even as I was flying back from contact with her, I snatched the dropped phone up and asked, “I’m sorry, Pogo here. What’s her name can’t come to the phone right now as I’m about to kick her ass for hurting Aspirant and bothering me during a really bad day. Can I take a message?”
    There was a stream of cursing in my ear that was as passionate as it was unoriginal. She compared me to a female dog, she declared my birth illegitimate, and I think she even threw in something vaguely antisemitic, which made NO sense. Then she finished up with a part that stood out.
    “You’ll pay for what you did to my son! For the way you made him a laughing stock in the villain set!”

    I was about to ask just who the hell was her son even as I reached for Aspirant to get him the hell out of here, when something glowing and green lashed about me, and yanking me back even as pain from a strange discharge arched through me.
    “YOU!” Said the villainess who I had knocked into the cans. She’d gotten to her feet faster than I thought she would. Projecting from her were strange emerald energy coils, that reminded me a little of Bramble’s vines even if they were not made of any form of plant life. It was a constricting maneuver, and that, that was a problem!
    Eel had long ago pointed out that grapplers had ways of taking me out more effectively than punchers. So energy coils wrapping about me, and starting to tighten? That was more than a little alarming. And it was a darn good thing that I’m a lot more serious a hero than folks give me credit for. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and when I was told that grappling was a weakpoint for me? You know what I did?
 
I started practicing my escapology and hold escapes, that’s what I did!

 Before the noose of energy could completely tighten, I redirected my motion and lunged through the eye of it, inhaling, and thinking thin thin thoughts! There was an almost digitized snap sound behind me and the pain ended as I slipped loose from it.
 Despite her mask, the girl in front of me couldn’t stop her expression of shock and surprise and I came at her and delivered a good right cross right along her kisser and a lecture to boot!
 “Your mom is very rude, and you’re not much better! Are you crazy, coming into THIS city and kidnapping a member of the New Samaritans? On your own? I don’t know who your brother is, but he can’t be worth embracing a plan sure to get your ass handed to you eventually no matter what! “
  “My mother made me.. I mean, my family….” The villain was tough, but not super tough. I’d bloodied her lip. She rubbed, and then snapped, “Wait, you don’t even know who my brother is? After you helped disgrace him? You didn’t even take him seriously? He was a walking BOMB, you smug sugary twit! My brother could wreck whole streets, my brother is DEVASTATION! And you WILL remember him!”
    Another emerald energy coil shot out of her, striking out like a glowing whip! It was not purely kinetic, and while my powers protect me from everything a little; it wasn’t enough. This hurt like hell, and I  could feel it threatening to cut through not just my costume, but the flesh of my back!
 
 I think a cry of pain escaped me despite my best effort. Moving, keep moving. She was right about one thing. I remembered Devastation! It was back when the rookies had really just arrived, and I was, comparatively, the old pro for once. And still I needed help from Valerosa and Eel then to beat him. I have to admit, using his own power against him was rather satisfying despite the dangers. He really couldn’t hurt me, just knock me around and once I got under him? I took control of the fight and got him into the water which made him easy pickings for Eel.
    This woman, her powers were different. This woman could hurt me.
    And you know something?
    So what? I’ve been brain fried, electrified, strangled, and bespelled! I’ m not going to say pain didn’t scare me. I’m saying no hero worth her salt can let the fear of pain keep her cowed!  I kept tumbling, and kept rolling,  building up momentum again then kicked the wall. She could hurt me if she hit me, but first? She’d have to hit me and a lot more than once!

  I was angry more than scared, but neither was good in this fight. Aspirant was injured and nearby. I needed to keep my focus to keep the fight away from him.  If she threatened to hurt him if I didn’t surrender.
  Yeah, I’d surrender to save him.

  He’s my guy.

 So I better make sure she doesn’t think of that. Fortunately, not only did she seem to have an easy button to press when it came to smack talk, she had labeled it for me.
    “Oh, yeah, Devastation, I remember him! He was a real jerk, so confident how bad he was just because he had zero finesse and a big boom. But his best blasts? All they did was fuel me, make me more powerful, and then, when I got under him, he was my personal play toy. You’re the sister of THAT loser?”

    “SHUT UP!” She send out twin energy coils, one from each hand at me. One high, one low.
    Which is why I went middle, and answered, “Never have, never will. I’m a talker. What you want me to do? Lie? One minute your bully of a brother was willing to put the lives of innocents at risk, the next he was crying out because the tables had turned. You want me to say I’m SORRY I saved lives?”
    I looked for an avenue to close on her again, but her fast paced whipping certainly made it it hard to find one. The good news? We’d moved well away from Aspirant, further into the halls of the cannery. There were long slumbering assembly lines and devices here, and of course, more and more stacked boxes of cans.

    “You didn’t have to humiliate him!” My foe declared, “You didn’t have to ruin his reputation. Do you know much that pissed my mother off? He was the success of the family! He was the big threat! And you made him a joke!”
    For a moment I thought her shots went extra wide, but then I realized I wasn’t the target. Each jade coil had latched onto a chunk of factory machine and then they closed them on me, seeking to entrap me! I bounced between the two now closing objects, building up speed but unsure I’d break free!
    Crap crap crap! She was mad, but not brainlessly so. I slammed my fists down on the objects as they came close to sealing me in, and popped out, hit the ceiling and came down again, breaking the almost constraints through raw force with a crunching sound. And I leaped to tackle her before she could do that again!
    We tumbled end over end, and that was my advantage, because every time she hit the ground, she groaned. When I hit it? I picked up oomph and force to hammer her down anew. She was tough, but she wasn’t Valerosa or Eel tough.
    “Your mother pushes you towards this?” I said stunned, figuratively speaking, “She wants you to be villains? Holy crap, I thought my family was stressful! Look, I get it. You want to make them happy, and superpowers don’t make that easier, they make it harder, but you shouldn’t destroy your future just to appease your mom’s twisted dreams of being some criminal matriarch!”

    My anger over this girl kidnapping my boyfriend and hurting him wasn’t gone, not by any stretch of the imagination, but now it had been joined by a strong confused streak of pity and, yeah, a weird deja vu. I mean, obviously my grandmother didn’t want me to be a supervillain. She really did want what she thought was best for me, but still, I knew what it was like to feel the weight of expectation. I wanted to make everyone happy. Everyone. But even when I knew what made me happy, I felt bad about pursuing it!
    “And go where? Huh? And go where?” My new surprise nemesis snapped, “When Devastation gets out of jail, if he finds out I crossed mom, he’ll come for me to teach me a lesson. If she doesn’t’ do it herself or my sister. We’ve all got powers, all five of us, but I’m the only one who hasn’t made her bones. I’m the only one who is weak! I have to fix that! I need to stand out as RAVAGE!”

    As if they had minds of their own, which, maybe they did, the energy coils of hers managed to snag me again. The strange emissions burned and zapped in turn, neither quite heat nor quite electricity. And they squeezed. I wasn’t sure I’d get free this time so instead I kept slamming her against this wall, that floor, and yeah, even the ceiling.
    I had hoped her only power was the weird energy lashes she emitted. But Ravage was also plenty tough. An ordinary person would be at risk of broken bones with the bumps and slams I was delivering but while she was hurting, she was in no danger of that.

    “Ravage? Really?” I said, “Sure, let’s go with that. Look, Ravage I don’t know your family story and I would feel sorry for you if you hadn’t hurt Aspirant! But if you haven’t committed other crimes, maybe we can keep charges low, get you a safe place and therapy, SO much therapy. Right now, until you surrender, we’re going to keep at it until one of us is out and Urk!”

I didn’t mean to say Urk. That was the consequence of my foe bringing in her coils to crush wrap up tight together in a kind of cocoon. Ravage had gotten time to recover and her coils and I was trapped by the tendrils that had elongated and extended over and over again until the only light I could see was the verdant glow of her own coils about us both. We were nose to nose.

 “Now I’ve got YOU trapped,” She said, even as the coils shot waves of pain along me wherever they touched. They didn’t seem to harm their maker, which makes sense, “I’ve won.”
 Slowly, inch by inch, I slipped my right arm up between us. I didn’t have enough room to draw back for a solid punch, but I said, “I’m a trained hero, with lessons from veteran superheroes who have,” I gasped as more energy burned me,  “taught me tried and tested hand to hand techniques. Don’t make me do the Fu.”
 “What? Kung Fu?” She sneered, looking a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West in her own emerald light.
 
“Nope,” I jabbed my fingers in her eyes, “Stooge Fu, Nyuk Nyuk!” Yeah, this was diving into the old lore. My Great Uncle thinks they’re the funniest thing and got me to sit down to watch them when I was a kid. Let this be a lesson to any future super-heroines, you can pick up tools for your war on crime from the weirdest places.

  Valerosa once told me that people had reflexive reactions to certain intrusions. That while a true pro would not be mislead by those hard wired reactions, an amateur might!
  Looks like Ravage’s mom had neglected her training! Ravage did what most of us would do if ours were in danger. She flinched! Her Focus disrupted, her coils sprayed open, and I shoved myself out of their grasp and knocked her down again.
  She staggered about cursing at me.

    “Oh, stop your whining,” my own supply of good humor was dwindling, “I know how much force to apply and I keep my nails short. Your eyes weren’t damaged for good.”
    I didn’t give her time to recover her focus or for her watering eyes to clear, bouncing back, and now that I had her measure, holding back less. I hit her, rebounded, built up power, and hit her again and again!

    Ravage, sister of Devastation, went down. This time, she stayed down. I rebounded from her, to Aspirant, let my kinetic energy die down and cradled his head gently, “Oh, baby. I got your message. It was weird, but I got it.”
    “You did?” He looked blearily at me, “couldn’t focus. Comms were down.”
    “I know, and yes,” I bent down to kiss him on the lips gently, “Nobody’s going to hurt you now.”
    He was too weak to return the kiss much, but he tried, and he smiled when it was over “Pogo saves the day. Hey,” A hand went up to my mask, “Don’t cry.”

    “Can’t help it,” I told him. He didn’t need to be a telepath to know how scared I was I might lose him, or happy I was that he was alive, “I’m a bad-ass who is not afraid of her emotions.”
    He gave a weak chuckle and I slowly helped him get to his feet. He had to lean against me. We had both had less smelly days, but that too was okay.
    “Wait, Comms are down, how am I going to call to get Ravage in the tank?” I wondered aloud, “Can’t use my personal phone in the car, that’ll be a risk to my secret ID,” Then I spotted the phone I’d spoke on earlier. It was ringing.
    “Your mom is calling again,” I told the unconscious Ravage, sighed and with a nod towards Aspirant so he’d understand, I picked up the phone and answered.

    “Ravage? Ravage, is it done?” The woman’s voice sounded like she was positively salivating at the idea of her daughter avenging her baby boy.

    A dozen flippant comments came to mind, or even a few flat out jokes, or maybe pranking her, but no, I had something serious to say and I was going to say it, “Your daughter is not too badly hurt. Which is the first thing you should have asked about, but I’m not surprised you didn’t. You. Are. A. Terrible. Mother.”
    She began to cuss.

    “SHUT UP,” I snapped, “Hero talking, coward who sends others doesn’t get to until I say so.”
    There was a sputtering sound, and I continued on, “Ravage is your daughter, but she is also her own person. She’s not just an extension of you or even her family, and if you were a mother of any sort of worth you’d know that, but instead you tied up her worth in her brother’s revenge. You made her SCARED of you? You treat her like an appendage that you’re willing to cut off if it’s not useful but in a real family, every person is valued, not just your golden boy son, and certainly not just your personal clan vanity! Your daughter is going to jail because YOU pushed her to this, because you SHAMED her. She is not the weak link in your family, YOU are! You had one job as a mom, and you screwed it up. And I’m coming after you.  Not because you’re some cool arch-enemy, not because you’re my nemesis. I’m coming for you because you’re a toxic influence on your own children, and I just find you offensive! Better change your phone number, genius… better hope it’s not traceable with super tech!”
    The phone abruptly disconnected. I smiled, Eel might be proud of me for that speech. We both had righteous outrage and little shame about it.

    “We’ll get her,” My boyfriend promised, “Better call the Tank next.”

    I looked at Ravage, still out. A part of me almost wished I could let her go. What a waste of power and talent, all for fear of a family member. I wasn’t so oblivious as to realize there was a dark reflection thing going on here. I thought of my grandmother and realized I’d been afraid of her. Unlike Ravage’s mother, grandma did it out of love, just like mom said, and besides, Grandmother’s mind was slipping. I could admit that now. It was going to get harder, not easier, but nothing we couldn’t handle, if we faced it as a family.

  “Yes, yes you will, and I’ll help,” My boyfriend said by my side.
    “Hey, I thought your telepathy was on the fritz thanks to the headbump?” I looked at him.
    “This close? I got you,” he said gently, “And while I can’t cure things, if you want? I’ll help her as much as I can.”
    I hugged him! He hugged me!
    We both went “Ow ow ow!” We’d forgotten we were very, very, sore from his ambush and my fight.
    “Let’s not tell the other Samaritans we did that,” Aspirant advised, “We would never hear the end of it.”
    “Deal,” I said, “I’ll call authorities to pick up Ravage. Then I’ll get you to medbay, and then? Then I have to deliver a cake.”
    “A cake?” he said surprised.
    “Yup,” I said as we supported each other, “For others, this escapade would be a challenge, but for the mighty Pogo? A cakewalk.”  Maybe it was the exhaustion and pain from the fight, but I thought that was very funny of me and was vindicated when Aspirant gave a soft laugh as if he found it very funny too.
    Of course, he was possibly concussed, so maybe wasn’t judging so well but I took it as a win anyway.
(The End)
    
 

Cakewalk- A Pogo Adventure
(continued)
 
Getting into the cannery wasn’t hard. A few bounces and I was on the roof. There was an outside stairway that lead in and down to the rest. There was a lock on it, but it wasn’t anything too strong or high tech to foil me. Oh, even if there was I would have broken in, I just thought maybe stealth would be the best way to go.
Of course, as a rule, I’m not stealthy. Also? I can’t see in the dark. So I had hit something of a snag here as I snapped the lock and went down into the dark. If I was lucky, the villainess, whoever she was, couldn’t see in the dark either, and had a light source out of necessity. The light from above faded so fast I was soon plunged in total blackness.
    And I nearly slipped on the step more than once. Now, this sucked but it would suck for me to fall less than a lot of other people. My power is rebounding. Hit me with kinetic force, and I bounce around like nuts with little to no harm to myself. We may have a lot of bullet proof heroes in this city right now, but yours truly is the queen of taking blunt attacks and staying pretty.
 
 Sharp objects are a bit more of a problem, but I’ve been practicing on using my powers on those too, and I’ve got a knife resistant weave in my costume so there’s that. But a fall? I could handle that. I could bounce down the whole way superfast.
  But that would also surely give away my location or at least my arrival and put Aspirant in danger. What if there was a weapon to his throat, or he was strapped to a bomb? Not for the first time my mind raced with possible hostage scenarios, each one worse than before.

    I have an active imagination, and it is not always a blessing. I found a rail, and I took it slow, agonizingly, nerve-wrackingly slow. It was all I could do not to grit my teeth in frustration. I’d never had someone I loved before used against me this way. I mean, if you believe the comic books, every superhero eventually does, but I really prefer reading about it to experiencing it.

    My head was making noise anyway so I kept it busy by having a conversation with myself.

    Easy, Pogo. Aspirant is a hero too. Even hurt, he’ll try to get free on his own. And if he can’t, we at least know he knows the drill. You’ve practiced for this, Pogo. Lady Obsidian has put everyone through a dozen simulations for moments like this.
    Of course, the simulations usually pushed for backup and teamwork, both very much in doubt now. No, positive thoughts, assertive, but not cocky. Cool, but not cold. Hopeful, not harried.
    I heard a voice, just a single one.

    “No, mother… I haven’t issued my challenge yet. I have to find some way to do it without getting the whole team on me,” The voice was a woman. It was hard to be sure but she sounded roughly my age. I couldn’t place the accent beyond American.
    There was a pause, as if someone else were speaking and the first voice had to wait.
    Then she continued, “He DID take on more than one, mother, and he lost because of it. I… no mother. I didn’t mean it that way. I won’t fail you. I’ll avenge him. You’ll see!”
    And somewhere in the dark, I hit the bucket someone had left on the steps! They clattered down down down with a clank clank thunk!
    Damn it, if I wanted noises like that, I would have made them myself!
    “Who’s that?” the voice called up, “Mom, I got to go. I think she’s here…”

    To hell with it, it was too late. I was made. I had to move! So I dropped and followed the bucket and began to bounce down the steps. I put full force on my feet, with my hands upraised to catch contact with the ceiling before hammering down again.  Each bounce feeding me more and more energy to redirect and use for my own. I don’t get sick. I don’t get dizzy. I do get kind of pumped up! And when I get pumped up, I can’t help but start rambling.
    I get a lot of grief for this, but you know I’m not the only one. I mean, I like Eel, but he talks way a lot during his fights too! Besides, I was made, might as well give whoever this woman was the old razzle-dazzle and hope to distract her.
    “Hello,” I declared as I shot into the floor level of the cannery where my costumed beau lay blindfolded, and shackled with a nasty swelling on his head, “You have kidnapped my team mate” And Boyfriend, I thought angry before yelling, “Prepare to get bounced, trounced, and thoroughly denounced!”
    “Finally!” the villainess whirled, and then, almost an after thought, “Mom, I gotta go. She found me. Yes, vengeance will be...”     
    I crashed into the gray and black clad woman causing her to drop her phone as I slammed her into a large stack of old cans which scattered like bowling pins with a lot of force, but not to lethal levels. Angry as I was, I did remember the first rule of superheroes. We don’t kill! We’re not executioners, we’re the good guys. And darn it, the world needs that. There’s an old Chinese saying, darn if I can remember who the source is, I presume an old Chinese guy (Who by now is really, really dead): Without standards, no boundaries are set.

    My boundaries were simple, solid walls, objects much heavier than myself, and no fricking killing!

    I wasn’t above giving into curiosity though, and even as I was flying back from contact with her, I snatched the dropped phone up and asked, “I’m sorry, Pogo here. What’s her name can’t come to the phone right now as I’m about to kick her ass for hurting Aspirant and bothering me during a really bad day. Can I take a message?”
    There was a stream of cursing in my ear that was as passionate as it was unoriginal. She compared me to a female dog, she declared my birth illegitimate, and I think she even threw in something vaguely antisemitic, which made NO sense. Then she finished up with a part that stood out.
    “You’ll pay for what you did to my son! For the way you made him a laughing stock in the villain set!”

    I was about to ask just who the hell was her son even as I reached for Aspirant to get him the hell out of here, when something glowing and green lashed about me, and yanking me back even as pain from a strange discharge arched through me.
    “YOU!” Said the villainess who I had knocked into the cans. She’d gotten to her feet faster than I thought she would. Projecting from her were strange emerald energy coils, that reminded me a little of Bramble’s vines even if they were not made of any form of plant life. It was a constricting maneuver, and that, that was a problem!
    Eel had long ago pointed out that grapplers had ways of taking me out more effectively than punchers. So energy coils wrapping about me, and starting to tighten? That was more than a little alarming. And it was a darn good thing that I’m a lot more serious a hero than folks give me credit for. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and when I was told that grappling was a weakpoint for me? You know what I did?
 
I started practicing my escapology and hold escapes, that’s what I did!

 Before the noose of energy could completely tighten, I redirected my motion and lunged through the eye of it, inhaling, and thinking thin thin thoughts! There was an almost digitized snap sound behind me and the pain ended as I slipped loose from it.
 Despite her mask, the girl in front of me couldn’t stop her expression of shock and surprise and I came at her and delivered a good right cross right along her kisser and a lecture to boot!
 “Your mom is very rude, and you’re not much better! Are you crazy, coming into THIS city and kidnapping a member of the New Samaritans? On your own? I don’t know who your brother is, but he can’t be worth embracing a plan sure to get your ass handed to you eventually no matter what! “
  “My mother made me.. I mean, my family….” The villain was tough, but not super tough. I’d bloodied her lip. She rubbed, and then snapped, “Wait, you don’t even know who my brother is? After you helped disgrace him? You didn’t even take him seriously? He was a walking BOMB, you smug sugary twit! My brother could wreck whole streets, my brother is DEVASTATION! And you WILL remember him!”
    Another emerald energy coil shot out of her, striking out like a glowing whip! It was not purely kinetic, and while my powers protect me from everything a little; it wasn’t enough. This hurt like hell, and I  could feel it threatening to cut through not just my costume, but the flesh of my back!
 
 I think a cry of pain escaped me despite my best effort. Moving, keep moving. She was right about one thing. I remembered Devastation! It was back when the rookies had really just arrived, and I was, comparatively, the old pro for once. And still I needed help from Valerosa and Eel then to beat him. I have to admit, using his own power against him was rather satisfying despite the dangers. He really couldn’t hurt me, just knock me around and once I got under him? I took control of the fight and got him into the water which made him easy pickings for Eel.
    This woman, her powers were different. This woman could hurt me.
    And you know something?
    So what? I’ve been brain fried, electrified, strangled, and bespelled! I’ m not going to say pain didn’t scare me. I’m saying no hero worth her salt can let the fear of pain keep her cowed!  I kept tumbling, and kept rolling,  building up momentum again then kicked the wall. She could hurt me if she hit me, but first? She’d have to hit me and a lot more than once!

  I was angry more than scared, but neither was good in this fight. Aspirant was injured and nearby. I needed to keep my focus to keep the fight away from him.  If she threatened to hurt him if I didn’t surrender.
  Yeah, I’d surrender to save him.

  He’s my guy.

 So I better make sure she doesn’t think of that. Fortunately, not only did she seem to have an easy button to press when it came to smack talk, she had labeled it for me.
    “Oh, yeah, Devastation, I remember him! He was a real jerk, so confident how bad he was just because he had zero finesse and a big boom. But his best blasts? All they did was fuel me, make me more powerful, and then, when I got under him, he was my personal play toy. You’re the sister of THAT loser?”

    “SHUT UP!” She send out twin energy coils, one from each hand at me. One high, one low.
    Which is why I went middle, and answered, “Never have, never will. I’m a talker. What you want me to do? Lie? One minute your bully of a brother was willing to put the lives of innocents at risk, the next he was crying out because the tables had turned. You want me to say I’m SORRY I saved lives?”
    I looked for an avenue to close on her again, but her fast paced whipping certainly made it it hard to find one. The good news? We’d moved well away from Aspirant, further into the halls of the cannery. There were long slumbering assembly lines and devices here, and of course, more and more stacked boxes of cans.

    “You didn’t have to humiliate him!” My foe declared, “You didn’t have to ruin his reputation. Do you know much that pissed my mother off? He was the success of the family! He was the big threat! And you made him a joke!”
    For a moment I thought her shots went extra wide, but then I realized I wasn’t the target. Each jade coil had latched onto a chunk of factory machine and then they closed them on me, seeking to entrap me! I bounced between the two now closing objects, building up speed but unsure I’d break free!
    Crap crap crap! She was mad, but not brainlessly so. I slammed my fists down on the objects as they came close to sealing me in, and popped out, hit the ceiling and came down again, breaking the almost constraints through raw force with a crunching sound. And I leaped to tackle her before she could do that again!
    We tumbled end over end, and that was my advantage, because every time she hit the ground, she groaned. When I hit it? I picked up oomph and force to hammer her down anew. She was tough, but she wasn’t Valerosa or Eel tough.
    “Your mother pushes you towards this?” I said stunned, figuratively speaking, “She wants you to be villains? Holy crap, I thought my family was stressful! Look, I get it. You want to make them happy, and superpowers don’t make that easier, they make it harder, but you shouldn’t destroy your future just to appease your mom’s twisted dreams of being some criminal matriarch!”

    My anger over this girl kidnapping my boyfriend and hurting him wasn’t gone, not by any stretch of the imagination, but now it had been joined by a strong confused streak of pity and, yeah, a weird deja vu. I mean, obviously my grandmother didn’t want me to be a supervillain. She really did want what she thought was best for me, but still, I knew what it was like to feel the weight of expectation. I wanted to make everyone happy. Everyone. But even when I knew what made me happy, I felt bad about pursuing it!
    “And go where? Huh? And go where?” My new surprise nemesis snapped, “When Devastation gets out of jail, if he finds out I crossed mom, he’ll come for me to teach me a lesson. If she doesn’t’ do it herself or my sister. We’ve all got powers, all five of us, but I’m the only one who hasn’t made her bones. I’m the only one who is weak! I have to fix that! I need to stand out as RAVAGE!”

    As if they had minds of their own, which, maybe they did, the energy coils of hers managed to snag me again. The strange emissions burned and zapped in turn, neither quite heat nor quite electricity. And they squeezed. I wasn’t sure I’d get free this time so instead I kept slamming her against this wall, that floor, and yeah, even the ceiling.
    I had hoped her only power was the weird energy lashes she emitted. But Ravage was also plenty tough. An ordinary person would be at risk of broken bones with the bumps and slams I was delivering but while she was hurting, she was in no danger of that.

    “Ravage? Really?” I said, “Sure, let’s go with that. Look, Ravage I don’t know your family story and I would feel sorry for you if you hadn’t hurt Aspirant! But if you haven’t committed other crimes, maybe we can keep charges low, get you a safe place and therapy, SO much therapy. Right now, until you surrender, we’re going to keep at it until one of us is out and Urk!”

I didn’t mean to say Urk. That was the consequence of my foe bringing in her coils to crush wrap up tight together in a kind of cocoon. Ravage had gotten time to recover and her coils and I was trapped by the tendrils that had elongated and extended over and over again until the only light I could see was the verdant glow of her own coils about us both. We were nose to nose.

 “Now I’ve got YOU trapped,” She said, even as the coils shot waves of pain along me wherever they touched. They didn’t seem to harm their maker, which makes sense, “I’ve won.”
 Slowly, inch by inch, I slipped my right arm up between us. I didn’t have enough room to draw back for a solid punch, but I said, “I’m a trained hero, with lessons from veteran superheroes who have,” I gasped as more energy burned me,  “taught me tried and tested hand to hand techniques. Don’t make me do the Fu.”
 “What? Kung Fu?” She sneered, looking a bit like the Wicked Witch of the West in her own emerald light.
 
“Nope,” I jabbed my fingers in her eyes, “Stooge Fu, Nyuk Nyuk!” Yeah, this was diving into the old lore. My Great Uncle thinks they’re the funniest thing and got me to sit down to watch them when I was a kid. Let this be a lesson to any future super-heroines, you can pick up tools for your war on crime from the weirdest places.

  Valerosa once told me that people had reflexive reactions to certain intrusions. That while a true pro would not be mislead by those hard wired reactions, an amateur might!
  Looks like Ravage’s mom had neglected her training! Ravage did what most of us would do if ours were in danger. She flinched! Her Focus disrupted, her coils sprayed open, and I shoved myself out of their grasp and knocked her down again.
  She staggered about cursing at me.

    “Oh, stop your whining,” my own supply of good humor was dwindling, “I know how much force to apply and I keep my nails short. Your eyes weren’t damaged for good.”
    I didn’t give her time to recover her focus or for her watering eyes to clear, bouncing back, and now that I had her measure, holding back less. I hit her, rebounded, built up power, and hit her again and again!

    Ravage, sister of Devastation, went down. This time, she stayed down. I rebounded from her, to Aspirant, let my kinetic energy die down and cradled his head gently, “Oh, baby. I got your message. It was weird, but I got it.”
    “You did?” He looked blearily at me, “couldn’t focus. Comms were down.”
    “I know, and yes,” I bent down to kiss him on the lips gently, “Nobody’s going to hurt you now.”
    He was too weak to return the kiss much, but he tried, and he smiled when it was over “Pogo saves the day. Hey,” A hand went up to my mask, “Don’t cry.”

    “Can’t help it,” I told him. He didn’t need to be a telepath to know how scared I was I might lose him, or happy I was that he was alive, “I’m a bad-ass who is not afraid of her emotions.”
    He gave a weak chuckle and I slowly helped him get to his feet. He had to lean against me. We had both had less smelly days, but that too was okay.
    “Wait, Comms are down, how am I going to call to get Ravage in the tank?” I wondered aloud, “Can’t use my personal phone in the car, that’ll be a risk to my secret ID,” Then I spotted the phone I’d spoke on earlier. It was ringing.
    “Your mom is calling again,” I told the unconscious Ravage, sighed and with a nod towards Aspirant so he’d understand, I picked up the phone and answered.

    “Ravage? Ravage, is it done?” The woman’s voice sounded like she was positively salivating at the idea of her daughter avenging her baby boy.

    A dozen flippant comments came to mind, or even a few flat out jokes, or maybe pranking her, but no, I had something serious to say and I was going to say it, “Your daughter is not too badly hurt. Which is the first thing you should have asked about, but I’m not surprised you didn’t. You. Are. A. Terrible. Mother.”
    She began to cuss.

    “SHUT UP,” I snapped, “Hero talking, coward who sends others doesn’t get to until I say so.”
    There was a sputtering sound, and I continued on, “Ravage is your daughter, but she is also her own person. She’s not just an extension of you or even her family, and if you were a mother of any sort of worth you’d know that, but instead you tied up her worth in her brother’s revenge. You made her SCARED of you? You treat her like an appendage that you’re willing to cut off if it’s not useful but in a real family, every person is valued, not just your golden boy son, and certainly not just your personal clan vanity! Your daughter is going to jail because YOU pushed her to this, because you SHAMED her. She is not the weak link in your family, YOU are! You had one job as a mom, and you screwed it up. And I’m coming after you.  Not because you’re some cool arch-enemy, not because you’re my nemesis. I’m coming for you because you’re a toxic influence on your own children, and I just find you offensive! Better change your phone number, genius… better hope it’s not traceable with super tech!”
    The phone abruptly disconnected. I smiled, Eel might be proud of me for that speech. We both had righteous outrage and little shame about it.

    “We’ll get her,” My boyfriend promised, “Better call the Tank next.”

    I looked at Ravage, still out. A part of me almost wished I could let her go. What a waste of power and talent, all for fear of a family member. I wasn’t so oblivious as to realize there was a dark reflection thing going on here. I thought of my grandmother and realized I’d been afraid of her. Unlike Ravage’s mother, grandma did it out of love, just like mom said, and besides, Grandmother’s mind was slipping. I could admit that now. It was going to get harder, not easier, but nothing we couldn’t handle, if we faced it as a family.

  “Yes, yes you will, and I’ll help,” My boyfriend said by my side.
    “Hey, I thought your telepathy was on the fritz thanks to the headbump?” I looked at him.
    “This close? I got you,” he said gently, “And while I can’t cure things, if you want? I’ll help her as much as I can.”
    I hugged him! He hugged me!
    We both went “Ow ow ow!” We’d forgotten we were very, very, sore from his ambush and my fight.
    “Let’s not tell the other Samaritans we did that,” Aspirant advised, “We would never hear the end of it.”
    “Deal,” I said, “I’ll call authorities to pick up Ravage. Then I’ll get you to medbay, and then? Then I have to deliver a cake.”
    “A cake?” he said surprised.
    “Yup,” I said as we supported each other, “For others, this escapade would be a challenge, but for the mighty Pogo? A cakewalk.”  Maybe it was the exhaustion and pain from the fight, but I thought that was very funny of me and was vindicated when Aspirant gave a soft laugh as if he found it very funny too.
    Of course, he was possibly concussed, so maybe wasn’t judging so well but I took it as a win anyway.
(The End)
    
 

I'm at 39000 as of this morning. Hope to hit the 40000 today or more. Thanksgiving is coming up and that's usually the momentum killer for me because of expectations.

"What is your quest?"
 
"I must kill a man."
 
"Tell me - does this walking corpse have a name?"
 
"His Grace, the Bishop of Aquila."
 
"The Bishop. I see. Well... Well, then you have much to do. And I've already been enough of a burden to you. I do hope our paths cross again one day."
 
"I need you to guide me into the city."
 
"Not for the life of my mother! Even if I knew who she was."
 
"You are the only one who has ever escaped from there."
 
"It was chance! Pure chance! A miracle! Once in a lifetime! I fell down a hole and followed my nose!"
 
"I have waited almost two years for a sign from God. So when I heard the morning bells of Aquila, I knew the moment of my destiny had come. You will be my guiding angel."
 
"Me? Sir, the truth is I talk to God all the time, and no offense, but He never mentioned you."

The only case where I ported a character directly from other media into my Champions game was in my early "Seattle Sentinels" campaigns, in which the heroes' police xcontact was a captain named Dietrich. He was Lieutenant Dietrich from Barney Miller, promoted and moved to the other side of the country. At least, that's how I played him.
 
While I've read lots of comic books (mostly Bronze Age; the Iron Age '90s eventually bored me into quitting everything but Astro City), I have never ported characters directly from a comic book into my game, or copied a plot from anywhere. Types and tropes, yes, but I have tried to learn from rather than copy.
 
Like, my dimensional conqueror Skarn the Shaper happened because I knew my Dr. Strange-inspired "Keystone Konjurors" campaign needed a Big Bad filling the same role as the Dread Dormammu -- but I gave Skarn quite a different origin and personality. His home, the Congeries, is very much a "Dark Dimension" homage, though.
 
Also, I pulled various demons and other creatures from mythology and occult lore, but translating them into something gameable usually takes a fair bit of, shall we say, creative re-interpretation or extending of source material.
 
My vampires show a fair bit of resemblance to those in Vampire: the Masquerade, but that's fair because VtM draws a wide net through vampire pop culture. No background mythology about Caine (the Bible guy but spelled with a final E to be more pretentious), Antediluvians, the Great Jyhad, blah blah blah. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and found it didn't fit.
 
Dean Shomshak

Also, we use 'E' from 'The Incredibles' movie nowadays.  She really takes care of the problem of 'where did you get your durable suit/weapons from?'
 

Some time back, I ran a campaign for ten years before finally resting on my laurels.
 
While moral ambiguity has its charms, most of the time I wanted the heroes to face evil that clearly needs to be stopped.  For that, history was my best source.  I have a long historical memory,  and the pages of history provide an almost limitless rogue's gallery of people who *should have been* punched. 
 
So my gallant team of meddling do-gooders faced Nazis, evil cultists, the KKK, an attempted second US Civil War, terrorism (not all of it foreign, some of it from homegrown Cold War intellectuals), conquistadors, corrupt politicians,  quasi-legal government agencies spiraling out of control , computer hacker hangs, Stalinists, and so on.
 
Another trope I played with was the reluctant/unintentional bad guy.  Standout creations in that trope:
 
* a powerful being who got swayed into villainy by peer pressure from his more nasty associates
 
* a mild-mannered congressional aide who turned into an out-of-control monster when sufficiently threatened, and apologized profusely afterwards
 
* and my personal favorite,  a young special-needs boy with game-breaking time-travel powers who was good-natured but gullible, and was repeatedly targeted by villains wanting to trick him into using his powers to aid their nefarious schemes
 
 

Ah, I just read Hermit's latest installment on the Fish Guy thread.  It involved Pogo.  So that explains Hermit going around the bend.
 
And yes, HERMIT KEEP MAKE WORD THINGS GO!

Hermit: Your giant lyrics-royalty cheque has been accidentally delivered to your friend in Canada.
 
...Along with a reminder that your Guild dues are late

Cakewalk- A Pogo Adventure
(continued)
 
 
Traffic had really picked up for the short time I was in the store and was as thick as stew by the time I got on the road again. I didn’t know if there was a convention, or some big game going on in the city I had forgotten, but I could bounce faster than the traffic was moving.
And the team communication network was still down. What the heck was up with that? I took a peek for a text response on my phone while I waited behind a red-light, only briefly. No response there either. Frustrated, I put on the radio. Maybe there would be one of those oddly common clues by media we superheroes get now and then? I know it sounds crazy but it is amazing how often some DJ interrupts their regular play list to mention something weird going on at this or that street, before taking requests. Doubly weird when you consider that a lot of radio today is preprogrammed days in advance.
 
I hit random scan for laughs and to take my mind off my worries and anxiety. The first station it hit was the local golden oldies station that played 80s music. Walking on Sunshine started, that’s one I actually know! I normally like perky songs, but this time? I wasn’t feeling it so I didn’t sing the lyrics.
 
The problem? Neither did the radio!
 
I swore I heard the chorus as ‘I’ve been stalked by a villain, wooah
stalked by a villain, whooah
and I’ve been concussed good!’
 
I double blinked, and took my eyes off the road for a second to stare, but I had set it on scan mode so it had already moved onto a different station.
A song from a superhero movie, one of the fictional superheroes not a real one like me, was playing..
And the lyrics were wrong again.
 
You’re not crazy, don’t ignore this tone
I’m trapped by a psycho all alone
I’m in Danger (Danger)
I’m in Danger! (Danger)
Hope I can forge a link you’re in range of
Pogo, I’m in danger…
 
I had to swerve out of the way of incoming traffic, as to say I was a little surprised! Did that just say what I thought it said? I left the scanner on as I reoriented myself wondering if I was going crazy. But then, the last song said I wasn’t? And if you can’t trust a lyric mutilating radio performance, who can you trust?
Did I need a therapist? The team had free access to a trusted therapist. Eel had been attending one for awhile. He had taken a lot of sessions after his last big adventure. What with his dad having cancer and Caleb blaming himself for that; the guy had been through a lot. So while some in my family might think psychology wasn’t for normal people, I was not sticking my nose up at it. Eel is either remarkably strong willed, or maybe just pig headed. Either way, it is a sign there is no shame in going a little nuts if you’re responsible in reaching out for help when you get there.
The scan went on in my old car, and the lyrics went normal again. I must have imagined it.
 
The traffic was letting up. Finally I could deliver this cake.
 
Wait, range? The song said range!
 
I pulled a U turn and risked scaring some folks. Some bastard yelled something about Asian drivers, which is rude and racist. I yelled something back “My bad driving is my own and I own it, you creep!”
I’m not a bad driver by the way. I maybe mediocre, but I’m not bad.
 
I switched the radio off, and had an idea. I clicked my phone on search for a particular song. It was from a Canadian Band Aspirant had introduced me to. I guess he would claim it was THE Canadian Band.
“Play something by the Tragically Hip!” I ordered my phone.
 
And just like that, Locked in the Trunk of a Car began to play, and the more clearly I heard the twisted and completely wrong lyrics, the more I tried to use it to guide me towards wherever it was trying to lead me.
 
 
I don’t know where the hell I am
And my focus feels like jelly
This lady says you are her arch-enemy
I don’t know what for, can’t think!
I don’t know where the hell I am
And my focus feels like jelly
Pogo, I’m hoping this gets your attention
You know I think with you she has some contention
Her logo looks familiar, but trouble with memory retention
 
Warning, she spoke about kicking your backside non-stop
The end of you, she seeks and she says she won’t stop
Where you could say I became her hostage, this is messed up
Get the other Sammies before to my rescue you pop off
 
“Comms are down,” I said aloud in the car and tried to think real hard. If somehow he was affecting my mind so I was getting a message hidden in music, maybe he could pick up on my thoughts?
 
But if it was working on that end, it wasn’t showing because the ‘song’ kept going with it’s snippets warning me what I was facing.
 
She dragged me round some place, it is dark and a bit fishy
It’s a cold, stinking place
Where I hear the click of tins in case
Maybe I’m in cannery with food so squishy?
However, I can’t see; I’m in a blindfold shoddy
 
Cannery? I’ve been a resident of this city all my life. I didn’t have it all memorized, but I could make an educated guess. I headed near the warehouses and docks area. Damn it, Caleb would be great help on this.
“There’s never an aquatic hero when you need one!” I snapped unfairly.
 
Then the distorted music got less distorted, but gloomier still, and if you’ve heard the real song you’d know how bad that is.
 
If you can’t hear this, I wish you could understand
Mourn and Move on, I’ll understand
Yeah
 
And I’ve seen your face, and was immediately besotted
Your mind’s a warm and kindly place
And you liked me? Who’d have thought it?
You took my heart away, and I’m so glad you caught it
However, I’m asking, please cremate my body
 
It was romantic, it was sweet, it was tearful and heartfelt.
It was making me irrationally angry!
 
“Damn it,” I snapped at my boyfriend who apparently couldn’t hear my thoughts back while he worked on the music, “You are not dying. I’m going to rescue you, but I need you to not give up! Come on, remember, you’re a CAN-Nadian, not a Can’t-Nadian!”
 
As a refrain was going on before the final part of the ‘song’ I saw it, the Rhamnousia Cannery!
 
My phone played the last words ‘Let me out’ but I couldn’t tell if that was just how it ended normally, or my guy still fighting to transmit.
 
I don’t know who the hell was claiming to be my nemesis. A part of me always wanted a nemesis, but not if it meant my boyfriend was hurt and a hostage! My ire was rising. If someone wanted to make an enemy of me, hurting him was a good way to ensure it.
With my telepathic boyfriend so dazed he could only transmit on whatever part of my brain that listened to music, and the rest of the New Samaritans beyond my ability to contact? I was on my own.
This wanna be arch-enemy is pushing for a fight with me? Fine. I’m Pogo. Push me, and I push back harder!
***
(TBC)

Cakewalk- A Pogo Adventure
(continued)
 
 
Traffic had really picked up for the short time I was in the store and was as thick as stew by the time I got on the road again. I didn’t know if there was a convention, or some big game going on in the city I had forgotten, but I could bounce faster than the traffic was moving.
And the team communication network was still down. What the heck was up with that? I took a peek for a text response on my phone while I waited behind a red-light, only briefly. No response there either. Frustrated, I put on the radio. Maybe there would be one of those oddly common clues by media we superheroes get now and then? I know it sounds crazy but it is amazing how often some DJ interrupts their regular play list to mention something weird going on at this or that street, before taking requests. Doubly weird when you consider that a lot of radio today is preprogrammed days in advance.
 
I hit random scan for laughs and to take my mind off my worries and anxiety. The first station it hit was the local golden oldies station that played 80s music. Walking on Sunshine started, that’s one I actually know! I normally like perky songs, but this time? I wasn’t feeling it so I didn’t sing the lyrics.
 
The problem? Neither did the radio!
 
I swore I heard the chorus as ‘I’ve been stalked by a villain, wooah
stalked by a villain, whooah
and I’ve been concussed good!’
 
I double blinked, and took my eyes off the road for a second to stare, but I had set it on scan mode so it had already moved onto a different station.
A song from a superhero movie, one of the fictional superheroes not a real one like me, was playing..
And the lyrics were wrong again.
 
You’re not crazy, don’t ignore this tone
I’m trapped by a psycho all alone
I’m in Danger (Danger)
I’m in Danger! (Danger)
Hope I can forge a link you’re in range of
Pogo, I’m in danger…
 
I had to swerve out of the way of incoming traffic, as to say I was a little surprised! Did that just say what I thought it said? I left the scanner on as I reoriented myself wondering if I was going crazy. But then, the last song said I wasn’t? And if you can’t trust a lyric mutilating radio performance, who can you trust?
Did I need a therapist? The team had free access to a trusted therapist. Eel had been attending one for awhile. He had taken a lot of sessions after his last big adventure. What with his dad having cancer and Caleb blaming himself for that; the guy had been through a lot. So while some in my family might think psychology wasn’t for normal people, I was not sticking my nose up at it. Eel is either remarkably strong willed, or maybe just pig headed. Either way, it is a sign there is no shame in going a little nuts if you’re responsible in reaching out for help when you get there.
The scan went on in my old car, and the lyrics went normal again. I must have imagined it.
 
The traffic was letting up. Finally I could deliver this cake.
 
Wait, range? The song said range!
 
I pulled a U turn and risked scaring some folks. Some bastard yelled something about Asian drivers, which is rude and racist. I yelled something back “My bad driving is my own and I own it, you creep!”
I’m not a bad driver by the way. I maybe mediocre, but I’m not bad.
 
I switched the radio off, and had an idea. I clicked my phone on search for a particular song. It was from a Canadian Band Aspirant had introduced me to. I guess he would claim it was THE Canadian Band.
“Play something by the Tragically Hip!” I ordered my phone.
 
And just like that, Locked in the Trunk of a Car began to play, and the more clearly I heard the twisted and completely wrong lyrics, the more I tried to use it to guide me towards wherever it was trying to lead me.
 
 
I don’t know where the hell I am
And my focus feels like jelly
This lady says you are her arch-enemy
I don’t know what for, can’t think!
I don’t know where the hell I am
And my focus feels like jelly
Pogo, I’m hoping this gets your attention
You know I think with you she has some contention
Her logo looks familiar, but trouble with memory retention
 
Warning, she spoke about kicking your backside non-stop
The end of you, she seeks and she says she won’t stop
Where you could say I became her hostage, this is messed up
Get the other Sammies before to my rescue you pop off
 
“Comms are down,” I said aloud in the car and tried to think real hard. If somehow he was affecting my mind so I was getting a message hidden in music, maybe he could pick up on my thoughts?
 
But if it was working on that end, it wasn’t showing because the ‘song’ kept going with it’s snippets warning me what I was facing.
 
She dragged me round some place, it is dark and a bit fishy
It’s a cold, stinking place
Where I hear the click of tins in case
Maybe I’m in cannery with food so squishy?
However, I can’t see; I’m in a blindfold shoddy
 
Cannery? I’ve been a resident of this city all my life. I didn’t have it all memorized, but I could make an educated guess. I headed near the warehouses and docks area. Damn it, Caleb would be great help on this.
“There’s never an aquatic hero when you need one!” I snapped unfairly.
 
Then the distorted music got less distorted, but gloomier still, and if you’ve heard the real song you’d know how bad that is.
 
If you can’t hear this, I wish you could understand
Mourn and Move on, I’ll understand
Yeah
 
And I’ve seen your face, and was immediately besotted
Your mind’s a warm and kindly place
And you liked me? Who’d have thought it?
You took my heart away, and I’m so glad you caught it
However, I’m asking, please cremate my body
 
It was romantic, it was sweet, it was tearful and heartfelt.
It was making me irrationally angry!
 
“Damn it,” I snapped at my boyfriend who apparently couldn’t hear my thoughts back while he worked on the music, “You are not dying. I’m going to rescue you, but I need you to not give up! Come on, remember, you’re a CAN-Nadian, not a Can’t-Nadian!”
 
As a refrain was going on before the final part of the ‘song’ I saw it, the Rhamnousia Cannery!
 
My phone played the last words ‘Let me out’ but I couldn’t tell if that was just how it ended normally, or my guy still fighting to transmit.
 
I don’t know who the hell was claiming to be my nemesis. A part of me always wanted a nemesis, but not if it meant my boyfriend was hurt and a hostage! My ire was rising. If someone wanted to make an enemy of me, hurting him was a good way to ensure it.
With my telepathic boyfriend so dazed he could only transmit on whatever part of my brain that listened to music, and the rest of the New Samaritans beyond my ability to contact? I was on my own.
This wanna be arch-enemy is pushing for a fight with me? Fine. I’m Pogo. Push me, and I push back harder!
***
(TBC)

The Marvels (no spoilers).  Verdict: Flawed but worth seeing in the theater, unless female leads bother you.  Better than Quantumania, actually a bit better than the first Captain Marvel.  Relatively short at 1:45.  One mid-credits scene.
 
Once again I watched a movie so you don't have to!  I went into this with probably the lowest expectations of any MCU film, just based on its disastrous financial performance and the knowledge that it needed at least one rewrite.  And it is by no means among the best of the MCU, but it wasn't bad.  It had some character development, even some vulnerability out of Carol Danvers.  It did veer hard into the silly a couple of times, but that was a welcome change from the grimness of the first CM.  And like so many MCU films the villain is forgettable--even in the comics this particular villain had like a six issue run. 
 
Still the biggest flaw of the film is that while the personal challenges are there, we don't get to see them until halfway through the movie.  And the marketing campaigns completely failed to pick up on them at all, which in my opinion is why the movie isn't doing so hot.  But the relationships developing between the Marvels, though imperfectly executed, are the main reason to see this movie.

Yes, Mandarin is much more common among recent migrants, to the point that Cantonese is almost as endangered in California (probably BC, too, these days) as it is in Guangdong and Hong Kong. 

Ahem. I've been keyboardless on vacation for the last week, or I would have responded earlier, because my thoughts were having little baby thoughts. Apart from it being unlikely that a family descended from railway workers would speak Mandarin at home as opposed to Cantonese, I liked it! And I was acutely reminded of it when my brother walked in on my niece, K., discussing the graduate school application process at me and held up his hands in the timeout position and said "Pause," just to get a word in. 

Emperor Norton lives!
 
Oh, and hope Lawnmower Boy enjoys too. I confess, LB, as you are perhaps the biggest Pogo fan, I am hoping I'm doing this right, or close to it in your eyes.

Cakewalk- A Pogo Adventure
(continued)
 
I have a car. It was old when I got it. I got a pretty good deal though as the seller was a friend of the family. It’s Cherry red and it has a ‘Honk if you Love Heroes’ bumpersticker on it. One nice thing about knowing a super scientist who makes her own power armor is that every now and then she sends in a little repair robot to keep it alive for another year. It’s got a few dents, but it’s mine.

And it has just enough space in the back for a truly huge wedding cake. Which is one of the reasons I was sure I could help. I set up a nice clean spot and everything.

Unfortunately while I’m now a legally recognized adult, I’m still a young woman, so I’m kind of stressing out that my boyfriend still hasn’t responded to my text! Fortunately, I had an alternative means of catching up with folks. My car has a glove box, not a surprise, but what some folks don’t know is I have a hidden box UNDER the box, and unless you have my thumb print, you’re not getting in even if you find it. I keep a spare costume there, and a spare communicator for the team.

It’s all very James Bond, and I love it! Oh where was I? Anyway I opened up the hidden compartment, got the communicator, and slid it into my ear. There was a brief slurp sound as it nestled into my ear and I listened for any chatter even as I began to drive towards the bakery with the cake.
“Check check check,” I announced as I drove, “Radio Free Pogo of the New Samaritans on the comm. Thanks for joining my podcast, where we’ll be talking cake walks and open talks. I’m on my incog-neato to grab a cake for the lucky bride and groom to be as agreed. If you’re enjoying the show, give me a call. Our number is 1-800- where the heck is everyone?”

I expected Mabel to respond, even though she’s no longer wired into everything so intimately as before, she was still in the city and that meant she was never really without her connection to us in this close a proximity especially. But there was no response from her. Weird, even if she were with someone, Mabel can multitask like nobody’s business and have several conversations going on at once, at least on this device.

In fact, I wasn't getting much of a response from anyone. The brain-weasels of anxiety were rising up to attack my spiritual butterflies of justice. I hit the gas pedal without even thinking about it. The faster I got the cake, the sooner I could get it delivered to the base for cold storage until it was needed.
The lack of response was ridiculous, there were two and a half teams of superheroes in the city right now, and a lot of them had access to our com line. I was tempted to turn the car towards the base and go there in case it was under attack. Some paranoid part of my mind tried to think of what I’d done to earn some kind of shunning from the others. I hate being shunned. The silent treatment drove me crazy when I was a kid. If you asked me what my nightmare power would be? It would be to be invisible and inaudible. I don’t think I’m a vainglorious attention seeker, others can have the limelight, but I sure do hate being left in the proverbial dark.

But I made a promise, and I try to keep those. So, I decided to stick to the cake retrieval plan. After finally achieving victory over my old enemy, the Fellowship of Evil Red Lights, I pulled into the parking lot of the small plaza that included the cake shop. Founded in 2007, ‘Honest Cakes’ (With subtitle ‘Our Cakes really ARE a Triumph’) had a solid reputation for quality, and more importantly in the superhero business, asking no questions beyond what type of cake you wanted. The New Samaritans had used them on and off before. Mind you, almost always in their secret identities, but the point is, these guys didn’t raise an eyebrow if you asked them for a cake with the words ‘Rot in Jail forever’ for some villain you finally put away.

Consequently, their discretion and creativity had also won them a steady customer base among the LGBTQ+ community, so there’s that!

Earpiece still inserted, I walked into Honest Cakes armed with my confirmation number and a smile. The only one at the counter was a laid back looking man wearing an apron that said ‘Honest Cakes’ over another shirt with some kind of old My Little Pony novelty shirt. He had a kindly smile and facial hair that had gone past five O clock shadow but I wouldn’t call it a beard. It was hard to place his age, he could have been anywhere from twenty six to thirty three.
His name tag said ‘Ted’ so I went with that.

“Hi, Ted? I’m here to pick up a cake?” Then I realized how little that narrowed it down given his line of work, “I mean, of course I’m here for a cake, that’s what you guys make. Oh wait,” I realized, “Of course, you also make cupcakes and pies, so sorry, didn’t mean to make it sound like you guys aren’t diverse, it’s just your cakes are really good and in your store name and I realize that just telling you I’m here for a cake pick up isn’t going to help you very much and I’m sorry about that.”

Aaaand I realized I still hadn’t said anything helpful.
“I’m having a very worrisome day,” I muttered as an equally less than helpful addendum.

“Hey,” Ted shrugged, gently, sounding incredibly relaxed, “I feel that. I had to pill Emperor Norton this morning, and not the fun kind. Y’know? Vet says its good for him, but now? He’s not talking to me. Very stressful to have a bro mad at you, right?”
Despite his concerns for his own shunning, I was a bit in awe at how at ease he sounded when he explained it. I’d met Buddhist monks that would have envied this level of casual zen Ted was exuding. He seemed truly aware of the ebbs and flows of life around him and willing to coast along serenely with a wisdom few possessed.
 
Or he was stoned. Possibly stoned.
 
“I take it, Emperor Norton is your cat?” I inquired, curious despite my aforementioned concerns and the cake mission in hand.
“Well,” Ted chuckled lazily, “Only in that I’m also his human. Yeah, you wanna see pictures of him?”
 
Did I want to see pictures of his cat? Despite the fact I was in my mind mannered (but also feisty and self assured) secret identity of a young Chinese-American Gal on the go, I was Pogo! I was a super-heroine, one on a mission no less, who needed to make a crucial pick up and delivery that others were relying on me on, even as, for all I knew, one or more of my team mates could be secretly in danger. And one of those at risk? My hot Canadian boyfriend! Did I have time to waste looking over some guy’s cat pictures?
 
“You bet I would!” I said, grateful for the distraction from my stress and worry. Also, come on, CAT PICTURES!!!
 
Emperor Norton, it turned out, was a Silver Tabby with ‘tude and very photogenic by feline standards. I oohed and awed for a bit, as Ted went on about his little furry buddy’s mannerisms and more.
“…and that's why I suspect he and I get along despite our political differences,” Ted finished up.
“He’s wonderful,” I assured him, then I realized it was time to get back to the tasks at hand, “Would a confirmation number help?”
“Oh sure,” Ted said, “Lay it on me.”
I gave him the number, he gave me the cake, and Ted was such a sweetie he even helped me load it up for maximum safety in the car.
 
“Thanks, Ted. My regards to the Emperor, don’t you worry, he still is your brah, and you’re looking after him. Sometimes we have to be firm with our loved ones about what is needed to keep them from greater harm. That’s not a failing on your part that it’s so, it’s just .. part of life.”
Ted nodded, “You’re right, you’re right. Just, I worry, you know?” He said though his expression was one who wouldn’t be worried if a gang war broke out near his ovens.
“I know,” I said gently, and backed the car up and started to head out. Sometimes folks know the answers already but they need to hear it from someone else. Other times they’re blind and deaf to the facts of things, not from malice, but because they take too much on their own shoulders.
 
My, but those folks can be frustrating to deal with.
 
(TBC)

Cakewalk- A Pogo Adventure
(continued)
Tentatively, I approached Grandmother’s room and then, managing to settle things on one arm long enough to knock with a freehand “Grandma? I have your tea.”
 
Her response was in Cantonese, which she spoke beautifully, <”Caihong? Ah yes, my tea. Is it in my favorite cups?”>
“Yes,”I said in English, though I know she would prefer if I used Mandarin more, if only to stay in practice. Its just, my Cantonese is terrible and I really wasn’t in the mood to get a lecture about how I neglected my heritage or whatever. I love my grandma, but some days it seems I just can’t do anything right in her eyes.
Or maybe that’s just a child’s insecurity and now that I was an adult it was time to just hand the tea over and not worry about her finding everything wrong in me.
 
She took a sip from the cup, now in her frail looking hands, then made a face, “A bit cold.”
 
I eyed the steam still coming out of it, sure not a lot, but what did she want me to do? Arrange for third degree burns?
“Should I take it back?” I offered. I didn’t mean it in a snarky way.
That got me a sharp look, “I’m not done with it yet.”
 
I shrank back. Which is stupid because I’m a superhero and I’ve fought aliens and supervillains and terrorists and more but here I am shrinking back because my grandmother isn’t approving of me.
 
“Don’t flinch,” My grandmother tutted and took another drink before saying, “How is my garden?”
 
That perked me up, grandmother’s garden was small but very pretty, with so many flowers of so many types. While father had his doubts about it’s use, grandmother had used her considerable authority to make sure we had one to be proud of. It took time, effort, and work, but it was one of the things that cheered her up.
“Well, it’s not the full blooming season, but what we have looks great, and …”
“What do you mean it is not the full blooming season?” She looked towards the window, eyes straining, “It’s spring.”
 
I bit my lip, “No, grandma, it’s winter still. But as this is California, it’s still very nice and we …” As I tried to ease her confusion, I saw the tea cup start to drop from her hands. She had forgotten it was there.
My powers may seem erratic to some, and they are I guess, but I’ve practiced a lot and gotten a lot more athletic than I look. I shot my hand out just in time to keep the tea from spilling out and clasped the cup.
That was close!
 
Grandmother got up to her feet, not even noticing the near spill, and with that lurching gait that had plagued her more and more lately, she made her way to the window to move the curtains aside. Costa Sagrado has one of those slices of California that is the envy of other states when it comes to enjoying gentle winters. Still, she could see enough of her garden from the window to see for herself that the full bloom of spring was not here yet.
It really is a lovely garden in any season, the family works hard to make sure of that. It almost always makes grandma smile.
 
Now was not one of those times. She gazed at it with a small pensive frown, and in the light, she looked even older. Making sure the tray was okay and not likely to be knocked over, I moved to her side.
“It’s winter,” She observed, “How can it be winter? Wasn’t it winter last…” She shook her head, then turned to find me there, “I suppose it doesn’t matter. The garden looks good… for Winter.”
“It does,” I nodded so rapidly my head probably looked like it was going to pop off, “And it will be even more glorious in Spring. It’s going to be a good year,” I realized I was doing it again. I was babbling. I get like that. I know, I know it’s irritating. I get on others folks nerves, most folks anyway but I mean well, “I can tell, lots of good things are happening already. Why I’ve even get to go to a wedding.”
 
At that grandma turned to me, and gave a look of concern, “You’re too young to get married. Who put this idea in your head? Where’s my cane? I want to talk to them.”
 
The way she stressed the word talk when she asked for her cane made me realize I might not be the only family member comfortable with brute force if there was a lesson to be learned.
 
I held out my hands in a classic placating gesture, or maybe it was the sign for ‘don’t shoot?’ either way, “Not me, Grandmother, not me. I’m not getting married. I’ll just be attending. I do have a nice dress though. And I even offered to pick up the cake.”
 
As soon as my mouth said it, my brain set out an alarm reminding me that the mouth actually knew what it was talking about. Since the brain kept more detailed files than my mouth, I also realized today was the day I was supposed to get the cake.
It was a big responsibility! You see, there was more than one wedding, in a sense, because Caleb and Ariana had the secret identity one, and the superhero one. And I was supposed to fetch the cake for one of them. Today!
 
I needed to tell grandma that I had to go. Wait, mom wanted me to talk to her for a bit and stay with her. I needed to get one of my sibs to handle this. Wait, sis would have her nose so deep in her tablet kidnappers could STEAL grandma and she’d not notice, and I haven’t been too impressed with my brother of late. Besides they had other projects now that mama had used their full names.
 
An idea occurred to me, and I pulled out my phone and texted my boyfriend.
TXT: Hey babe, can you help me out with a Cake retrieval? I am kind of stuck.
Then the response… didn’t come.
 
That wasn’t a good sign. Aspirant, his hero name, is pretty prompt because he knows that while I am a grown woman now, I still read way too much wrong into a slow text response. Of course, logically I knew that everything was probably just fine. He was just busy with one thing or another. Maybe he was in the shower. Maybe he was helping set up some bachelor party with the guys of the team, though like me he wasn’t old enough to drink.
Or maybe my Canadian Cutie was in a desperate battle for his life against some crazed super-villain, alone, stranded, without back up? What if he left his blaster behind and was facing a giant telepathy proof killer robot? What if he was strapped to a train track with five other people, while an evil philosopher practiced cruel ethical experiments on some hapless bystander forcing them to choose who would live, and who would die?
 
“The fiend,” and only then did I realize I had muttered that aloud. Darn my eternally flapping mouth!
 
And why don’t people in those tests ever just call for a superhero to save EVERYONE? It’s the 21st Century, 911 will get you through to the nearest recognized superhero team if they don’t have their own contact info made public in the first place. Geez!
My grandmother was looking at me. She had her focus back. That was good. The bad? She was using that focus to give me that ‘what is wrong with you, girl?” look again.
“Caihong, why is someone a fiend for making you wear a dress and having you get cake?”
I suppose, given her own lack of telepathy, that was a legitimate logical leap on her part. I squirmed a bit, and fought the urge to look at my shoes, “Well, actually Grandmother I… I have to pick up the cake today for a friend. I practically begged them to make me a part of it, to let me help, and they said I could pick up the cake and I…”
 
 
“Do you need to go now?” My Grandmother arched a brow. She cut me off, but to be fair, a lot of people do that. Something about getting a word in edgewise or needing a pause between sentences so it could be a two way conversation.
“Actually?” I took a breath then answered, “Yes. But I don’t want to leave you alone or anything.”
My grandmother looked at me, “We have a decently sized family, Caihong,” her voice gentled, “I am sure that someone will check on me again shortly. Go. A promise should be kept.”
“Thank you, Grandmother,” I said. Honestly, there is nothing in my culture that says I have to bob my head like a bobblehead toy, it’s just my own habit when dealing with my elder family members.
“Though you do vanish at the oddest times. It can be rude, you know?” She arched a brow.
“Sorry, Grandma,” I winced.
“Mmm, take the tea with you, I’m done with it for now,” She dismissed me and looked out at her garden.
 
I gathered the saucer and cup up, and started to head out. As I closed the door to her bedroom, I swore I could hear her say.
“Winter? Again?”
 
I got some dirty looks from my sister as I put the cup and saucer on the kitchen counter to deal with while she washed the dishes. It looked like mom had the pork all cooking now though I didn’t see her here at this moment.
“Tell mama I had to go out and Grandmother was okay with it,” I said then added, “Please?”
 
“Not sure why I should. How come you get to go out and see your boyfriend willy-nilly while I get treated like the house slave and can’t even see mine?” She said in a waspish tone.
 
I put a hand on my hip, in the universal sign of big sisterhood about to unload some truths, “Gee, I don’t know, because I’m two years older than you and just because I’m an adult doesn’t mean you get the same bennies as soon as I prove myself trustworthy? Maybe because mom and dad know about how MUCH you’re sharing on the phone of yours in those texts between you?”
 
“You’re spying on me?” She gasped.
 
“No, you just suck that much at keeping secrets. Also, I have A boyfriend, maybe it will fall apart, I bet it won’t, but you don’t have a boyfriend. You have boyfriends, plural, one this week, then another that week, so let’s not pretend your romances are just as solid or serious. And as for ‘house slave’? Seriously? Mama does about 70% of the work in this house. I do another twenty, and you and bro? You’re in a contest to see who can do the least for the remaining 10% percent. THAT’s why you can actually bear the burden of passing on a lousy message that I’m out.”
 
I shouldn’t have raised my voice to her. I shouldn’t have snapped back. I don’t do it, not often, at least I don’t think I do? This worked to my advantage as her mouth fell open in shock.
 
I wanted to apologize. I wanted to assure her that I was just concerned about her being taken advantage of, not that I thought she was a sleezeball. I wanted to explain grandmother, who had always intimidated me a bit, though I love her, was now scaring me, because I could feel she was slipping away. And I wanted to explain mama could feel it too, and wasn’t sure what to do about it. How she felt overwhelmed.
 
And I wanted to tell her that yes, I knew that while I did a lot of chores around here, I had also been vanishing unreliably for the last few years since I became an active superhero. I save lives! I don’t expect a reward for that, but it sure would be nice to just tell her to shut up about my irregular schedule and pick up some freaking slack on her own! And right now, my boyfriend, who, unlike her and her boyfriends, I actually knew the birthday of, and favorite color, and favorite book, and and and…. He could be in a fight that was lethal!
 
But as big a motormouth I was, I knew my sister. She wasn’t all bad, but she also would try to turn any knowledge of superheroes into tiktok hits or the like for five minutes of fame even if it brought all sorts of trouble to our family.
So while she was stunned, I whirled on my heels, grabbed the keys to the car, and headed out!
And still no response on the text!
*** (TBC)

Pretty much this.  I think in some was that's one reason I loved Ant-Man. Yes, the stakes did include unleashing a terrifying weapon on the espionage world etc.. but it would not be a world ender. Instead we get to see a heist movie with a good man trying to be the hero he thought his daughter deserved, and another father and daughter mending their own torn relationship.

Pretty much this.  I think in some was that's one reason I loved Ant-Man. Yes, the stakes did include unleashing a terrifying weapon on the espionage world etc.. but it would not be a world ender. Instead we get to see a heist movie with a good man trying to be the hero he thought his daughter deserved, and another father and daughter mending their own torn relationship.

And when they tried, it did not always  go well aka "Martha!"