#cillpiines

Yayy I was right!! :D And that's clever thinking for the choice of costume, you're right that it does fit their characters. My first thought was devil and angel costumes cause that's the easy choice, but the realtor wasn't wearing a halo so that couldn't be it. Maybe for the first Halloween they did go as devil/angel for convenience (and to test the waters to see if people would buy Damien's "costume") but then next Halloween they didn't want to recycle the same cheap idea so they decided to put some real thought into it and came up with Persephone and Hades!

Ooh if Freeze Frame's bracelets are armoured he can use em as shields like Wonder Woman! I'm also curious about the discs as a weapon- are they cutting weapons like shurikens, blunt objects like boomerangs, or, well, they also remind me of the disc grenade weapon in Battleblock Theater :P

Idk for Jump Cut, I assume he's more of a closehand fighter? Cause teleportation allows you to attack up close and then bail as a defense. So maybe fist weapons? Or maybe something to allow him to grab things easier so he can teleport with them. (Idk if he needs physical contact with things to teleport them, like the tea mugs)

hi thank you for completely breaking my brain open with this concept, I have been furiously rotating it since you sent this ask. please enjoy this superhero au that manifested through me.

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Jimmy is a canary, or at least that's what his mother called him (it's kinder than what other people have called him later in his life). He can sense misfortune and redirect it. Not ever away from himself, but most certainly towards others. Concentrated bad luck, strumming at the strings of fate to nudge a tragedy into the path of another. Maybe he doesn't have control over it always, and anyway it's not exactly like, a good guy's power, so he maybe falls into a bad crowd. He's always gotten Looks, even from his former teammates. He's hurt people before. He's hurt himself before (frequently).

So he's a villain. He has to be, right? With the way he hurts? He's not exactly enthusiastic though, not like the Dungeon Master. He's heard his cackle before, seen the way his eyes light up like fireworks when a contraption of his works (or blows up, but either way what glorious destruction-) and it's almost infectious. Almost makes Jimmy enjoy himself on the jobs they cross paths. Jimmy remembers when he was fighting this guy, and pulling at the potential lurking in bugged code and faulty wiring to make his redstone machinery break down. Now he can't help but nudge a bit of good luck in his direction, almost instinctively pulling the bad outcomes out of the crazy guy's path.

They're working on a job together when Jimmy senses something Off, and there's a problem with a machine that he can't divert, an inevitability that may just kill the Dungeon Master. He pulls him out of the way just in time, and the man looks at him bewildered, flat on his back, with Jimmy hovering over him. Jimmy never forgets the grin that split the man's (very handsome) face in that moment, as he declared Jimmy a good luck charm, and decided that he would keep him.

Jimmy had never been called good luck before.

It's not long before they exchange names (The Coalbird and The Dungeon Master. Tango squints at him as they sit down one night, just Jimmy and Tango in that moment, and asks him what the name means. When Jimmy tells him about the birds the miners took down into the coalmines, Tango interjects that he thought those birds were called canaries. Something hurt in Jimmy settles into place in that moment, an old hurt he didn't know he carried. He hears his mother's laugh as Tango says that's what he's going to call him now, his canary. Jimmy has to hide his smile behind his cup. He doesn't tell Tango no).

There's been some dates too. A lot of dates. Jimmy hangs around his workshop, learning that Tango wasn't really in the villain business to actually hurt people, but after a certain point his department didn't exactly appreciate the mad scientist thing so much any more, and funding was a little thin for experiments that had a 50/50 chance of explodificating. So robbing banks was really just the next logical step after that, if you thought about it.

Maybe at some point down the line there is a breaking point. Maybe there is a moment where they question what it is they're doing exactly, when they have something to lose now. This isn't a safe thing they're doing. Neither of them are the megalomaniac supervillain type, but heroes fight back hard nonetheless. Jimmy's brother doesn't though, even though he sees Grain skirt the edges of battles looking as torn and indecisive as Jimmy's ever seen him (he misses him he misses him he misses him he misses him-). Maybe there's a day when Tango and Jimmy decide enough is enough and run away from it all, buy a ranch in the foothills of the mountains and leave the city behind. Maybe they get that chance. Maybe Grian visits them, and Scar will get over the fact that he used to face them as HotGuy, and Jimmy will have a family again. Maybe.

WORM MAN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT BY ZEDAPH IN THE YEAR 2023???? It may be the smallest possible thing but I do not care

IM GOING TO SHED TEARS. GUYS LOOK. CRUMBS

Thank you for being a part of Zedweek! I loved seeing your stuff and we hope you had a great time!

THEYRE. YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SO GLAD YOU DIDN'T HOLD BACK AND SENT THIS ALSO BECAUSE....

sometimes. (not aLL the time) but sometimes people make Jimmy too...passive. but my god he is the most defensive person literally ever in the entire world...Jimmy would so much rather go directly for escalating a situation and making it worse than roll over. He's the perpetual target right? His first instinct is kinda of like when an animal tries to appear bigger and threatening so you won't mess with it,, he immediately goes for doubling down and trying to appear untouchable,,,, of course. he is jimmy. this does not work. AND WHEN IT DOESNT, HES STILL TOO STUBBORN TO STOP,, he. his self-fulfilling prophecy the situations he gets in always worsen for him more than anyone else,,

but that kind of stuff is what Tango's good at...like Tango bringing the warden to the surface in dl is nowhere near an isolated event for him he does things like that all the time. and so you're right they are so similar in some ways (and I could draft an entire post about this itself, they are so so so similar sometimes) with this propensity for revenge but more than that its like...tango is able to arm that feeling in jimmy, that need for chaos where he's the perpetrator and not the victim. Cause it never quite works out when he tries on his own...not that it necessarily works out always for Tango as well, or even works out that specific time with the warden, but he gives jimmy something to DO about it rather than just. try and act threatening and then backtrack and give in when it doesn't work.

and. while we're here. I'm so sorry I get carried away very easily talking about them. but about the STUBBORNNESS. when I said they were similar in many ways...one of those things (though it presents maybe differently on the surface) is the insecurity and idea they each hold about themselves that they are...less capable than the other players...their insistent need to always take the blame. and so. this being something they share...AND the stubbornness...AND the fact that they both have a quick draw temper...this can easily both be good for them and bad for them.

good for them in the sense...they're both SO insistent on blaming things on themselves that they end up taking blame OFF OF the other. like. it's always an assumed "I'm in the wrong" and then the other makes the same comment and they work so hard trying to debunk why it can't POSSIBLY be the others fault they come to the conclusion NEITHER of them deserve the blame after all. GOOD!

bad for them in the sense....remember what I said about Jimmy's instinct being to double down? I do think this similarity and stubbornness and temper would make it so easy to. delve into a fight. only in just the perfectly WRONG combination of circumstances. And I spent like 3 months analyzing how this dynamic would come up in a uhh fight between them and wrote a uhhh 6K word fic I've dubbed "the fight fic" that I never published because I was like man. would the entire rancher community hate me if I suddenly posted 6K words of the ranchers fighting with no warning? LMAO