OURPOWERS | VIDEO | PUBLIC

[an_extra_hour]

Display Name: bouncytrouncy
Profile Photo: Link

[ The video that starts doesn't show a person. Robbie is currently enjoying the sheer novelty of the internet not having a single picture of his face. He wants to enjoy it for however long it lasts, so he's got the camera flipped to stream from the non-selfie camera. ]

[ Right now, he has it focused on a laptop. It has a youtube video up, including a visualizer. ]

Good evening, fellow heroes. This is DJ Robbie B, bringing you the sweet sounds of your smooth jazz favorites. Next up: all you lovers out there have will have your ears gently caressed by the musical stylings of Wham! For the uninitiated that's "Wham!" with an exclamation point at the end. The exclamation point denotes quality because how could artists who have that much enthusiasm about their band name be bad?

[ "Careless Whisper" by Wham! starts to play on his laptop. And...doesn't stop. He plays the entire song. ]

[ Never at any point does he show his face. Instead he keeps the phone's camera flipped and directed at the laptop. ]

[ He wants to talk to people because he needs to make some friends and allies at some point. After he moves out of the hotel, heroing alone and then going home to an empty apartment every single day is the kind of self-punishment he's trying to get away from. Since Thrash and Nita came back, he's been safely wrapped up in the comforting bubble of his team. He's a social animal, an instinct that clashes tremendously with his other general desire to hide in a concrete hole. ]

[ The latter desire is blissfully a little weaker here, in a world where no one will already know his name unless they're from back home. He feels like he can actually breathe a little for once. Like the crushing weight that always rests on his chest is a little lighter. ]

[ It feels better.]

[ (It also feels wrong to enjoy it. Does he even deserve something other than infamy?) ]

[ He's also still self conscious about being perceived as egging for attention, so that's another reason to hide his face, right?. He'll be Sir Not Appearing On This App. After all, how can he get famous if the only people who know what he looks like are ones he meets in person? ]

[ The song finally ends. ]

Mmm, just makes you want to hold your sweetheart close and dance the night away.

Now, let's shift the mood to something a little more lively. For the Belieber in all of us, I'll be streaming the entire discography of Justin Bieber.

[ It should be obvious by now that this guys's a mischievous little so-and-so. ]

Or you can tell me a little about yourselves, starting with your tastes in media. Books, music, movies, TV, go crazy.

I'll even rank them if you want. As a certified style maven, (who isn't currently just wearing a hoodie, I swear), I know what's hot and what's not.

Comments

video | Un: spider-ham

[somepig]

Justin Beaver? You monster!

But seriously, though. Or at least as serious I ever get. I'm a big fan of Terrier Pratchett and Doglas Adams' books. And music-wise I really like Rattler.

Re: video | Un: spider-ham

[an_extra_hour]

[ That's a- ]

[ He's - ]

[ You know what, he's just gonna roll with it. How is this any different from Slapstick? ]

Okay 1) Does Rattler have a light show as part of their act?

[ A hand shows up on screen gesturing outward and there are a few sparks of orange-ey energy that fire out, in demonstration. ]

And 2) I can tell already we're from different worlds, but I think you have some close equivalents to mine. Not a huge Adams fan but for Pratchett, 10 of 10 points for the taking if you like the Witches or the Watch.

[somepig]

She does, and I love the Witches and the Watch. Granny Featherwax and Ham Vimes are great.

Video; un: Mysterio

[makeanentrance]

[Beck's also not showing his face on the network as yet. All that can be seen is a reflective fishbowl-like helmet, although his voice can be clearly heard through it.]

First, tell me which your favorite movies are. Then I may tell you mine.

Re: Video; un: Mysterio

[an_extra_hour]

[ Oh boy he's pretty sure he recognizes that chrome dome. But he can't try to leave him all tied up nice and pretty for the police if he hasn't done a crime yet. He decides to just play along. ]

I'll be honest with you, I'm obsessed with different things every other week.

But right now...

For fun movies: Back to the Future, the first Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark are an even tie.

For funny movies: This is Spinal Tap, Young Frankenstein, The Producers - okay, actually, anything Mel Brooks.

For more serious movies: The Machinist, the Fisher King, Rear Window for the tension, but Vertigo for the cinematography...

Do you want more or is that enough to assess my stylish tastes?

[makeanentrance]

A fine list.

[He sounds approving.]

It's enough of a sampling for now.

It seems in music you are fond of... bubble-gum pop?

[slowmotionbuscrash]

[ Poison’s “Talk Dirty to Me” is blasting en homage and protest.

It’s not that Tommy doesn’t like the occasional Biebs, but he can appreciate being this much of a troll. ]

I don’t think the dude playing Wham! can critique me.

[an_extra_hour]

Are you kidding me? When I know the songs that speak to entire generations?

[ The awful songs of entire generations. ]

[ Next up is MacArthur Park. ]

[ When it gets to the refrain he sings along, badly. ]

I don't think that I can take it / 'Cause it took so long to bake it / And I'll never have that recipe again, agaaaaain!

[slowmotionbuscrash]

Lame. Lame! Is that your go-to breakup jam? Why is it so toothless and passive? Pick up the cake, get it out of the rain, and smash it in his face.

[ ”So What” crashes through the speakers, and Tommy has to raise his voice to be picked up by the microphone. ]

This speaks to generations. Yours speaks to a Florida HOA.

[an_extra_hour]

Wrong. I know what's hip with the youths.

[ He goes with Friday next, the joke being of course that it's over ten years old. ]

I used to be a teacher. As everyone knows, teachers know all about being cool.

[slowmotionbuscrash]

How are you a teacher, you’re like 12?! I would play Van Halen, but I’m actively worried about traumatizing a student teacher.

You might as well play this if you’re going to fake wisdom on me.

[ ”See You in September” by the Happenings doesn’t belong on this playlist. ]

See? It’s old like your jokes.

text | un: spector

[misterknight]

[ Yes, text, because Marc’s kind of a killjoy. But he also isn’t keen on blasting his face all over the net quite yet, too used to living life close to his chest. ]

Is this generally how you try to meet people?

text

[an_extra_hour]

You mean annoying them on purpose until I grow on them like a fungus?

It's either this or we fight over a minor misunderstanding, realize there was a minor misunderstanding, and then go fight the bad guy that created the misunderstanding and/or bro down and play video games or something.

[misterknight]

Judging by your confidence, I have to assume that actually works for you.

[an_extra_hour]

It's less confidence and more trusting in basic pattern recognition.

[ He doesn't know what to say about it working for him. ]

[ He doesn't make friends easily anymore. Friendly acquaintances maybe, especially when he's away from New York, but there's a lot of awkwardness around his history. ]

[ And never mind friendships with non-heroes. People tolerate him now but even in places where they're slightly warmer to him, like when he's volunteering in Stamford, there's a bit of distance. A sense that he's not someone to be friends with, that he's there to quietly repent. They trust his good intentions and occasionally praise him if he's done good work, but they don't want to get close the way they did when they thought he was "Bob." The good he does doesn't reflect on him and make them think he's a good person. ]

[ It's just what's owed. ]

[ Which is right. The world owes him nothing. He owes the world everything. ]

So which option are you a fan of because I can keep annoying you or we can go pointlessly fight in a convenience store parking lot.

audio | un: squirrel girl

[eatsnutsandkicksbutts]

[ Ohhhh jeez. If it weren't for that familiar cat in the profile picture, Doreen would almost think this was some other guy named Robbie, because the last time she spoke to him, he, uh... he did not sound this upbeat.

God, how should she handle this? What do you even say to your former teenage crush, who was going through the world's darkest and spikiest mental health episode the last time you saw him? ]

Ok, first off, playing the entirety of Careless Whisper is one heck of a power move, so props to that.

[ The answer: break the ice with a goof! ]

Second, can't go wrong with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for books, and Amelie is a pretty great movie?

audio

[an_extra_hour]

[ What do you even say to the girl who used to have a crush on you (who you maybe crushed back on a little back in the day) when she's talking to you for the first time since the lowest point of your entire life? When the last time she saw you were doing the opposite of coping by being a walking refrain to a Linkin' Park song? ]

[ Well, first of all, you startle at the familiar voice and fumble your phone right out of your hands. ]

[ During the fumble, there is the briefest flash of familiar blonde hair and icy blue eyes to confirm Doreen's suspicions - and to show that timeline-wise Robbie is pre or post-shaved head. Most likely post, given the quick flash of a slightly stronger jawline than he had when she broke into Thunderbolts mountain. ]

[ The camera ultimately lands facing pointing up at the ceiling. A hand reaches out and hesitates over the phone, then draws away again. It's a lot more tan than the sickly paleness he had while living in a concrete bunker. He gets out a lot more these days, while with the team, and he still volunteers in Stamford, after Miriam Sharpe gave her blessing. ]

[ A lot of the area where the explosion happened is still being renovated. Miriam Sharpe's charity, Damian's Gift, has an arrangement with Habitat for Humanity to have volunteers help build free housing. The hand that eventually reaches for the phone again, picks it up, and turns it over, is callused from a lot of carpentry. ]

[ He ultimately switches it to audio. ]

SG?

[ He doesn't know if she's rolling with her real name or her codename on here. ]

[ Even though a part of him would like to see her again, he kind of hopes it isn't her. ]

video

[eatsnutsandkicksbutts]

[ Okay, okay! This is... this is sort of encouraging! From the few brief glimpses that she managed to catch, Robbie looks pretty good! That is to say, Doreen didn't notice any visible spikes, and he is noticeably healthier. She sort of lost track of Robbie after she went back to Milwaukee to deal with Deadpool, but it looks like the last few years have been... if not kinder to him, then at least not actively worse. ]

... Yeah, it's me. Hi?

[ After a moment's hesitation, she turns her own video feed on and gives him a little wave. Doreen looks a few years older and more put-together than Robbie would probably remember her being; at the very least, she's ditched the weird triangular eye makeup situation that she had going on as a teenager, and switched up the bob hairdo for a short pixie cut. Those buck teeth are pretty unmistakable, though. ]

cw: mention of self-harm

[an_extra_hour]

Uh. Hi.

[ Oh nooo. Oooh no. Oh no. ]

[ Where she can't see him, his face flushes with embarrassment. The full body cringe going on here is strong because the mortification is potent. ]

[ It's not that she saw him as Penance. It's...whatever. Everyone knows he was Penance now. He revealed himself to his friends when everything with Osborn's regime went sideways and he joined in with the good guys again. The world spread the news that Robbie Baldwin, the artist formerly known as Speedball, most hated man in America, helped save Washington DC from the Skrulls and helped stop Osborn's villainous regime. ]

[ But the internal spikes had been removed by the time the Initiative started manipulating him. Only his closest friends knew about them because of the scars, because that was a candid conversation they'd had to have the first time they saw them, because he'd still had to fight against certain impulses after he'd stopped wearing the suit. He'd needed help. ]

[ Vance had especially been a steady presence in the transition, helping him move away from a deeply unstable state. ]

[ He'd had to try to find a place for himself in the world again that he could fit into, that didn't have sharp edges. The Avengers Academy had partly saved his life that way, because being useful there taught him there was space for him out in the world again. ]

[ Being Penance, on the other hand, was just self-punishment. And it was him being a weird little creep. As much as he despised Moonstone, she was right about that. The mental wires had gotten crossed, just like Doc Samson had said, and just as much as he was trying to make himself suffer, he was trying to survive on a rush of endorphins. ]

[ Doreen knows everything. She'd seen the sores and the scars because back then they'd also been all over his face and scalp. She'd heard all his insane jabber. ]

[ He feels like a total weirdo and the feeling of immense awkwardness is so hard to work through that even just opening his mouth to answer her fills him with an overwhelming rush of anxiety. ]

[ She probably feels sorry for you and thinks you're a total freak. She'll just be too nice to say it because she's Doreen. ]

[ So he bolts. It spares her anything embarrassing too, right? ]

Nice to see you again, but uh, I have a - there's a thing? I need to do. Errands. You know how it is.

Talk to you later maybe bye.

[ He hangs up and winces because he knows she deserves better. She was one of three people in that whole mess that tried to comfort him and tell him Stamford wasn't his fault. It was just her, Rich, and the Doc. It's patently untrue, because Stamford was his fault, but saying otherwise took a huge heart. ]

[ But that's all the more reason he doesn't want to talk to her. He respects her too much to survive a conversation knowing he's probably a giant freak in her eyes. ]

text | un: songbird

[misattributed]

I would've let the press talk to you at the bank if I'd known you were going to torture me down the road.

[an_extra_hour]

This isn't torture. It's not even a light jab with a witchfinding stick.

I haven't even played the Thong Song, My Humps, Who Let the Dogs Out, or any Vanilla Ice yet.

[ Apparently, his sense of humor's grown back after being dismembered off of him. ]

video; display name: Peter Parker

[tinglesense]

Wow, you…just played a whole entire song. That's dedication, I guess.

But in order to avoid the Biebening, I guess I'll play!

Uh…I'm Peter. Parker. I like normal stuff, you know, Star Wars, comic books. Oh, I really like old sci-fi and horror films! Like the Alien ones or Blade Runner and that kinda thing.

Music, I don't know. I like a lot of things so it's hard to decide what to mention? Uh…no Bieber though.

Re: video; display name: Peter Parker

[an_extra_hour]

Peter Parker?

[ He squints. ]

[ It could just be another brown-haired dude with the same name. He's young, right? So different Peter Parker? But he really looks like a younger version of the Peter Parker Robbie's met. ]

Like the photographer?

[ Is this a weird dimensional thing? ]

I know a guy named Peter Parker. My mom's an actress, she starred on a show with Mary Jane Watson and she brought her husband to a thing once. [ Pretty unmemorable guy except for one thing... ] He's the Spider-Man guy.

[ He doesn't mean that he's Spider-Man. He's the Spider-Man guy as in the photographer known for all the Spider-Man photos the Bugle uses when putting Spidey on blast. ]

[tinglesense]

[ Oh, that squint can't be a good thing. And…oh boy. There it is. He's only heard Mary Jane's name in passing; his own MJ is a Watson, but not a Mary Jane. ]

Photographer? Oh, um, no. I do YouTube stuff sometimes, but I'm not very popular.

[ Spider-Man is but that is absolutely not the point— oh. Right. Of course, there's a connection, though he follows that "Spider-Man guy" here doesn't mean the secret identity connection, but…actually, he's not sure what it means? Though people at his school once heard that he knew Spider-Man but he hadn't been able to prove it because a bunch of shenanigans happened. Crazy. ]

I don't know anyone named Mary Jane Watson, actually. This sounds like a crazy multiverse mix up, huh?

[ He laughs. It's so awkward. ]

Actually, there's like three other Peter Parkers here. Maybe one of them is the one you know.

[an_extra_hour]

Three of them?

[ Why the hell would the universe grab four versions of a superstar/supermodel's husband? ]

The one I know is a photographer. He's one of the only guys that can get clear pictures of Spider-Man.

[ He doesn't pursue that line of thinking. Oh sure, he'll suspect but you don't pry into secret IDs. ]

[ Robbie knows how hard it is to live exposed, his entire life flayed open for everyone else to just walk in and do what they want with it. ]

Crazy multiverse. I wonder if whatever's dragging us here is tapping so hard into certain people it also yanks in a few duplicates.

[ There's your plausible deniability, Petey. ]

I'm Robbie. Robbie Baldwin. I also go by Speedball.

[ There's no point in a secret ID if people from home can show up here and absolutely everyone in his entire world knows it. He plans on asking the Alliance if they can set him up with a third ID absolutely no one knows for his daily life in this world. So even people from home can't hunt him down. ]