So, 5 Kick Points to Vadan, for guessing that “the traitor just took the place of the real mantis-”
and also, 5 Kick Points to Archives for guessing “Shapeshifter!”
Hey, looks like we’re about to have a super-battle or something…
Merry Christmas to all Kick-fans, Java-fans, and Miss Fury Onlyfans…
So did we all figure it out, or just most of us?
Did everyone figure it out? I’m still not sure!
Is it Blush? She’s attacking that poor Kickboy!
I still think she’s compromised somehow. Alexander only needed to slip one agent onto the supermodel bus in order to get at her.
I am impressed at how well Blush and Greyhawk have learn to utilize her seemingly-insignificant power to achieve notable wins. How many times has embarrassment saved their butts so far? I can think of 3 without trying!
it’s an empathy read, and those are worth more than diamonds, particularly in terms of security and sense motive checks.
Anyone here ever see the “SPLORP!! Ewwww!” shtick from Narbonic?
No, but now I’m reading Narbonic. Thanks old guy!
Ooh, amorphous
And here we observe a psychology which is of interest. Our mole was embarrassed, instead of afraid, which would be more expected. There must have *been* embarrassment, or Blush would have had no embarrassment to sense, but her superpower is clearly attuned to embarrassment and sensitive enough or filtered enough to filter out other emotions.
It would be interesting to know how this perception affects Blush’s sensory perception. Is she *only* able to sense embarrassment even in herself? Has her emotional norm skewed towards embarrassment-based perception even in herself?
One possible angle is that she can sense her own emotional spectrum in full all the time, through her baseline embarrassment. Could she be able to sense a wider emotional spectrum through someone’s embarrassment? If someone is embarrassed would she also be able to sense fear? Or curiosity? Or impatience at fanon? Theoretically she might be able to sense, or even interact, with the fourth wall and beyond – for example, if I were embarrassed for geeking out she might sense that. (I’m not. I’m embarrassed she’s had so little power development.)
The trouble with superpowers is they seldom come with an instruction manual. This can be positive as the weakness has to be discovered. This protected the most powerful and popular hero of the world, Superior Man, until his weakness was discovered by the sidekick who has rebranded himself ‘Greyhawk’ in a pitched battle against the Supervillains of Superior City in their prison. The irresponsible restoration of their superpowers led them to run amok and rebrand Superior City ‘Villian City’. In spite of an opportunity to join the Justice Rangers the self styled ‘Team Kick’ are opting for the vigilante approach, going so far as to recruit a vigilante army who apparently unironically call themselves the ‘Kick Boys’ in an effort to overthrow the UN-protected Villain City in the name of restoring the now defunct Hero City. Just when will they have done enough damage and cost enough lives? Even the lives of the brainwashed and crazy loyalty-programmed ‘Kick Boys’ are apparently secondary to their ‘heroic resolve’.
What we can take from this is that Matt has every reason to be embarrassed for being a terrible writer, Blush has every reason for being embarrassed for not being more imaginative with her powerset and I have every reason to be embarrassed for not pursuing a journalism career for the highest bidder.
Meanwhile we all have reason to be embarrassed that I don’t have even more Kick Points for this unusually entertaining comment, in spite of the fact that I should also be embarrassed for having already earned so many Kick Points.
It is at this point that Blush absorbs so much embarrassment that she gains embarrasment-based dupilaction powers (like the Green Lantern she can summon embarrasment-based energy constructs, each more embarrassing the last) and evolves into Hyper Blush, before ascending into a higher plane of embarrassment.
How embarassing.