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Humans are attention seeking by nature. Attention is sought after because there is historically safety in numbers, so humans are naturally inclined to mimic the behaviours of others in order to subconsciously identify ‘hey, look! I do as you do just like the rest of your group so you can trust that I am not dangerous. Can I be a part of this group??’ and the other human sees this and says ‘Ah yes, another one who does as we do so they must be safe, come sit with us’.

Aliens see humans copying each other’s behaviour so fluidly that it almost comes off as creepy. It’s even creepier when humans mimic THEIR actions, too. Like, no, do not rope me into your mind melding species cult, please and thank you.

Even to the modern day, this intensely social instinct is still alive and well, as humans will unconsciously mimic positive actions of others even when they don’t understand the context. For example, clapping.

An alien and a human are sitting having a conversation when suddenly hoots and hollers and the clapping of hands erupt from across the room. Immediately, much to the alien’s surprise, the human starts clapping too as they look around trying to see what is happening.

The reaction was so immediate that the alien is taken aback by it before remembering that humans were known to be strangely in tune with each other compared to other species so they just wait it out.

Once it dies down, the alien asks

“So, what was that about?”

“No idea.”

“But you…joined in. You didn’t know what you were celebrating??”

“Well, no, but I don’t explicitly have to know what’s going on to guess that it’s something good and join in. It would feel a bit rude if I didn’t clap.”

So this is a mixed-species setting, humans and at least one kind of alien. The aliens are small, perhaps knee-high, and mammalian, though not humanoid. They could be quadrupedal, or hexapedal; the specifics are not important.

Add whatever reason for Uppies. The aliens like to feel tall, they appreciate the higher vantage point, humans just like holding small furry beings, whatever. Uppies are an established thing between the groups, or perhaps just between a particular human and the aliens.

And the aliens have started to note something. Humans are frequently in motion, and not all motions have readily understandable purposes. Dancing, fidgeting, stimming, pacing— humans move, a lot, and when asked, their explanations do not always make sense to the aliens. Yet, the aliens continue to ask, trying to understand their odd friends

And the aliens have noted another form of movement for which they do not yet have a name: Sometimes, a human will shift their weight back and forth from one foot to the other, rhythmically. It is too regular a pattern to be fidgeting, and too calm. Although there are a few forms of dancing which are a similar sway, this is slower than dancing, and appears in the wrong contexts— it is not prompted by music, for one thing. The humans do not seem to acknowledge the movement in any way, neither the mover nor any other humans in the room reacting to it.

There is a correlation to the instances where a human displays this type of movement; it frequently occurs concurrently with Uppies, in particular Uppies which occur while the human is simply standing, not walking around. One alien posits that the shifting is a method to prevent human muscles from tiring during lengthy periods holding a weight, but this is countered by the observation of humans holding other objects, even objects heavier than the aliens, and how any shifting of weight during that time is usually brief, changing from one holding position to another, rather than a constant shifting back and forth.

Eventually, the aliens ask their human for an explanation.

The human does not know immediately what it is they are talking about, which aligns with the observation that no human had reacted to the movement being done. When the human does recall the motions, however, they show signs of embarrassment.

On desktop (I don't know about mobile), on the left hand side of your screen, is your personal boop-o-meter.

On mobile you can tap the boop hands that appear to boop the cat (giving yourself 1 recieve and give)

Also, for anyone who doesn't know yet:

Hovering over the boop option until it spins will grant you a Super Boop, wherein a single paw type will attack from three directions at once!

a). I needed to watch that car and

b). That I needed to be careful, because the driver of the car was a massive bitch.

It kind of took me by surprise, because I really had no reason to be beefing with that car, and I also hadn't really had an impression like that since I was religious, which was in my teen years. Right? It'd been a decade since I had a little voice whisper in my ear, and I'd basically written it off as nonsense.

Anyway, I watched the car, because The Spirits or whatever were very insistent that I did. Car drove fine, went into the parking spot, inched forward, and right when it should've just stopped, the driver gunned it for some reason and it ran into the curb and cracked its bumper.

So, the driver got out, and she went to the front of the car to check that yes, she had cracked her bumper, and then she turned to look at me. The parking lot wasn't empty, but we were the only two people standing in that row, and I'd probably been staring at her for tenish seconds now.

She demanded very angrily to know why I hadn't warned her of the curb. And I could have said I didn't know you were about to gun it or is it my job to help every stranger park, or even could you have even heard me, inside your car?

And all of those would have been fine, but I was really, really busy digesting that I had somehow communed with Mormon Jesus again for the first time in fifteen years, and that the communion had mostly been there to let me watch someone park badly (?), so what I responded with was:

"Because it was foretold."

And I can't tell which would be funnier, if she went silent because there's not much to be said to that, or if she went silent because in Utah, she might actually believe me, but we parted ways without more words.

One night, I was working my last hour of my shift covering the Customer Service desk, which meant when I wasn't busy, I was supposed to help clean up around the cash registers, including taking back items people changed their minds about at the checkout. Earlier, I had witnessed a kid carrying thos cute plushy toy. It was a brown and white hedgehog. The kid, at the checkout, saw a remote control car and he told his dad he qanted it. The dad told him, "The plushy or the car- you can't have both" (by the way, I respect boundaries with kids and parents sticking to their guns about it), and the kid picked the car.

So, I'm cleaning up, have less than an hour left of my shift, and I see the little plushy hedgehog. Somehow, he never got put back nor had anyone else seen him and decided to buy him. He was just sitting there, slumped to the side, unattended.

It's Christmas and I'm a sentimental old sap at heart. My brain starts replaying the scene from RUDOLPH where he's on the Island of Misfot Toys, and is told a toy is never truly happy until it is loved. I picked him up and quickly took him back to the bin with the plushies but... It was empty. He was literally the last plushy toy and my boss was about to wheel the bin out. We weren't getting any more toys till November, so that meant any toys left at this point needed to sell or they'd be sent to the dump.

I brought the little hedgehog to the front, figuring someone would see him with the candy, candles, & Christmas brick-a-brack, and fall in love with him. When I finished my shift, I went to ask my manager a question and as I passed the Christmas candle display - there he sat, the sad little slumped over hedgehog plushy. No one had bought him, or even moved him.

My manager, Phillip, saw me and the hedgehog. He asked how the hedgehog got there. I told him how I'd put him there when the bin got sent back, and he was the only plushy left. Philip had kids, I figured he'd probably get sentimental and buy it for his kids. Nope. He shrugged and said he'd send it back to be disposed of.

That night, I came home with a plushy hedgehog in my passenger seat. My mom saw him and just thought he was the cutest little hedgehog and asked what I wanted to do with him. I told her the story, then added I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do with him.

My mom is a child psychiatrist, specializing in children with PTSD and brain damage that results in learning problems/issues with processing their emotions. She asked if she could have the plushy hedgehog (even offered to pay me for him, she didn't expect me to just give him over), so kids could hug him when they were upset in session.

Murphy, the plushy hedgehog that still slumps a little to the left when seated, has been hugged by hundreds of kids. Little girls have held him tight while explaining about bullies, little boys have held him tight while crying over their panic attacks, younger siblings have held him to whisper secrets while elder siblings and parents talk about self-soothing techniques, teenagers have hugged Murphy while talking about the worst day of their lives. Murphy has also been hugged by kids excitedly chatting about a new friend at school, a teen girl excited to be called by her name instead of her dead-name, little kids proudly saying they've mastered their ABCs, and even staff members who just need to come chat over a case they are having trouble with.

Every now and then, my mom brings Murphy home for a weekend. He gets washed (she calls it a Spa Weekend, to her coworkers, all of them laughing), dried, and sits outside with my mom in the sunshine to get aired out, then on Monday, they are back to work. Some kids even just ask to hold Murphy while they talk, no matter their mood or what they want to talk about. They just want to hug Murphy.

I mean, the heroes do, of course they do, kids who want to meet Spiderman or Superman or get to be carried by the Flash as he runs through Central City for just thirty seconds.

Like, the first time it happens, no one actually thinks it’s possible, but one of the newbies volunteers to at least try. They get lucky, the kid wants to meet one of the villains who is well known to have a personal code of ethics (eg one of the rogues), and it takes them weeks to track the villain down to this one bar they’ve been seen at a few times, plus a week of staking out said bar, but they finally find them.

So they approach the villain, very politely introduce themselves and explain the situation, finishing with an assurance that, should the villain agree, no law enforcement or heroes will be informed of the meeting.

The villain, assuming it’s a joke, laughs in their face.

At this point, the poor volunteer, who has giving up weeks of their time and no small amount of effort to track down this villain, all so a sweet little girl can meet the person who somehow inspired them, well, at this point the employee sees red.

They explode, yelling at this villain about the little girl who, for some unknown reason, absolutely loved them, had a hand-made stuffed toy of them and was inspired by their struggle to keeping fighting her own and wasn’t the villain supposed to have ethics? The entire bar is witness to this big bad villain getting scolded by some bookish nobody a foot shorter than them.

When the volunteer is done, the villain calmly knocks back their drink, grips the volunteers shoulder and drags them outside. The bar’s patrons assume that person will never be seen again, the volunteer included. But once they’re outside, the villain apologises for their assumption, asks for the kid’s details so they can drop by in the near future, not saying when for obvious reasons. They also give the very relieved volunteer a phone number to call if someone asks for them again.

A week later, the little girl’s room is covered in villain merchandise, several expensive and clearly stolen gifts and she is happily clutching a stack of signed polaroids of her and the villain.

The next time a kid asks to meet a villain, guess who gets that assignment?

Turns out, the first villain was quite touched by the experience of meeting their little fan, and word has gotten around. The second villain happily agrees when they realise it’s the same volunteer who asked the other guy. Unfortunately, one of the heroes sees the villain entering the kid’s hospital and obviously assumes the worst. They rush in, ready to drag the villain out, but the volunteer stands in their way. The hero spends five minutes getting scolded for trying to stop the villain from actually doing a good thing and almost ruining the kid’s wish. The volunteer gets a reputation among villains as someone who can not only be trusted with personal contact numbers but who will do everything they can to keep law enforcement away during their visits.

The volunteer has a phonebook written in cypher of all the villain’s phone numbers, with asterixes next to the ones to call if any other villains give them trouble.

Heroes: “Can’t you, just, give us their contact details? They’ll never even have to know it was you.”

The Villain Wrangler: “Yeah sure, <rollseyes> because all these evil geniuses could never possibly figure out that it’s me who happens to be the common thread in the sudden mass arrests. Look man, even if it wouldn’t get me killed, it would disappoint the kids. You wouldn’t want to disappoint the kids would you?”

Heroes: “… no~ but…”

The Villain Wrangler: “Exactly.”

Eventually, one of the anti-hero types gets frustrated, and decides to take a stand. They kidnap the Villain Wrangler and demand that they give up the contents of the little black book of Villains, or suffer the consequences. It’s For the Greater Good, the anti-hero insists as they tie the Villain Wrangler to a pillar.

The Villain Wrangler: “You complete idiot, put me back before someone figures out that I’m missing.”

Anti-hero: “…excuse me?”

The Villain Wrangler: “Ugh, do I have to spell this out for you? Do you actually want your secret base to be wiped off the map? With us in it? Sugarsticks, how long has it been? If they get suspicious, they check in, and then if I miss a check-in, they tend to come barging into wherever I am just to prove that they can, even if they figure out that they’re not being threatened by proxy. Suffice to say, Auntie Muriel really regretted throwing my phone into the pool when she strenuously objected to me answering it during family time. If they think for even one moment that I’ve given them up, they won’t hesitate to obliterate both of us from their potential misery. You do know some of the people in my book have like missiles and djinni and elemental forces at their disposal, right?”

Anti-hero: “Wait, what? I thought they trusted you?!”

The Villain Wrangler: “Trust is such a strong word!”

Villain: “Indeed.”

Anti-hero: “Wait, wha-” <slumps over, dart sticking out of neck>

The Villain Wrangler: “Thanks. I thought they were going to hurt me.”

Villain: “You did well. You kept them distracted, and gave us time to follow your signal.” <cuts Villain Wrangler free>

The Villain Wrangler: <rubbing circulation back into limbs> “Yeah well, you know me, I do whatever I have to. So I’ll see you Wednesday at four at St Martha’s? I’ve got an 8yo burns unit patient recovering from her latest batch of skin grafts who could really use a pep talk.”

Villain: “… of course. Yes… I… yes.”

The Villain Wrangler: “I just think you could really reach her, you know?”

Villain: <unconsciously runs fingers over mask> “I… yes, but, what should I say?”

The Villain Wrangler: “Whatever advice you think you could have used the most just after.”

Villain: <hoists Anti-hero over shoulder almost absently> “….yes.”

The Villain Wrangler wasn’t lying to the Anti-hero. They know that the more ruthless villains would not hesitate if they thought for one second that the Anti-hero would betray them.

But this is not the first time the Villain Wrangler has gone to extreme lengths to protect their identities.

Also, imagine one of the kids gets better, and a few years down the line becomes a villain themself, except their crimes are things like smuggling chemo drugs across the border for families that can’t afford treatment, or stealing from corrupt businessmen to make donations to underfunded hospitals (idk this turned into a Leverage AU or something) and every time the heroes encounter her, they’re like “oh no. she’s getting away. curses. welp, nothing we can do.” Though it isn’t that she can’t take them on; bc of course once the villain from way back when found out what she was up to, he started helping/training her. 

“I thought they just hired someone to dress up and pretend to be you,” she says, amazed, when he reveals himself. “I didn’t think they actually got the real you!”

they are fierce with grieving families assuring them that their child will not be forgotten, and they don’t balk at negative emotions, they don’t tell people to be strong or “celebrate their child’s life,” because these parents have every right to their grief and anger

Another, who created their own exosuit, talks to a young fan and suddenly understands how much the technology that they have built for themselves could revolutionise quality of life for people with muscular dystrophy, or paraplegia, or other disorders that confine people to wheelchairs with little mobility.

A third thinks of a way that their nanobots could be used to detect and remove cancer cells when their fan, who had been in remission, writes to say that the doctors have found a new metastasizing tumour.

Then shortly after, an evil genius specialising in cloning is contacted by an old colleague asking if a suitable heart couldn’t be grown for their young fan with a congenital heart condition who needs a donor.

Suddenly, a pattern of villains offering (and marketing) their insights and resources to improve medical science starts to arise. Many who had previously been operating on society’s fringes are shocked to receive public accolades, research grants and job offers from major companies because of their work.

A grassroots movement arises advocating for imprisoned villains with appropriate qualifications and/or experience to have access to resources to conduct research for the public good. The Second Chance Rehabilitation Project launches.

(It is an open secret that only people who have been vetted by the Villain Wrangler are allowed to join, because the Villain Wrangler has by now a meticulously set up method and intelligence network to run background checks and character references through ensure that none of the children wishing to meet their role models get hurt.)

Being able to say that one is involved with the Project begins to look really good in parole hearings. The Villains involved perform their own quality checks on one another, because if one of their kids got hurt, then all of their kids could potentially lose out, and the ones that are serious about the Project are not having that. (Also, the ability to collaborate with other geniuses is the most interesting thing to happen to most of them since losing to various heroes, and most consider the intellectual stimulation to be worth putting up with the ridiculous egoes and inevitable personality clashes that arise.)

Reformed Villains come out of the woodwork to advocate about better mental healthcare, and support systems. Savvy universities and private labs quietly take their advice, setting up better mental health supports and laboratory safety standards to prevent the Brain Drain caused by losing their less stable scientists to the Costumes.

The Villain Wrangler watches all of this develop with a smile.