text

[selfequipped]

[After the last few days, there is a single temptation in Kate's mind: to put this off. To let it rest. She's earned it. Then again, she'd end up guilting herself and worrying about it too much, so it's worth getting it out of the way. Besides, all of it is important, and she wants to help.

So, it's back to the daily grind.]

Hey, everyone, a few things of note! First, I've updated the FAQ to reflect a few questions from you guys, as well as the recent bills that passed (or failed to pass). Hopefully, this clears up some things, and as always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

On to the cleverly numbered points!

1. Shepard and I spent the last couple of months looking for information on some of the people from Annie's list. I call it Annie's list only in short hand.

I've compiled that information in this document here. Hopefully, that will add some light to things. Whether these people are Hornets or not is yet to be made clear, but I do want to draw everyone's attention to Eleni Wang and the fact that she might be in Greece. If you're up for going to Greece to ask her some questions, I think you should do it.

2. Unrelated to this, my team is looking for some new members! We call ourselves the Young Avengers, and we're a branch of a much larger team of heroes from back home. While this won't give you officially sanctioned Avengers-status due to the circumstances of being here, we are looking for a few extra hands.

The only conditions we have are that you're at least seventeen (though we can be a little flexible on this point), and that you're willing to work with us as a team to do some good. We all play to our strengths, and we'd love to work with some of the heroes here moving forward. As a team, we're a little less "you must do this" and "you must go here. Also, we're very fun, and you can annoy Loki a lot.

If you're interested, you can either drop me a line here or contact me privately with your credentials.

Oh, and I figure it's implicit in our name, but we're generally looking for younger heroes.

Thanks!

3. My twenty-second birthday is this Saturday, and I've gotten one of my favorite diners to agree to let me throw my party there. It's intended to be a less rambunctious gathering, especially with Christmas right around the corner. If you know me, you're probably invited. Please use your judgment wisely! Also, gifts are not required. Sorry for the short notice.

The location is [insert Maurtia Falls location that's near Loki's apartment.]

That's all!

Comments

[selfequipped]

But then we'd have to be an autonomous group all on the same page. With how things are at the moment, what are the odds of that? We're not exactly lacking in "villainous" types.

And they might not have to worry about us being used as soldiers, but what if it's the reverse? What if we're freely involving ourselves in more affairs? Right now, there is a leash on us that keeps us from doing that freely.

I don't like that we're not given that opportunity, but I can see why they're avoiding it. That makes us too many unknown and uncontrolled elements, especially since they can't just send us back home.

[runningstart]

ok this is like the fourth time ive heard something like this from someone
maybe im not understanding something fundamental but

why is that the first thing people say when anyone brings up the idea of superheroes having a group or banding together or being unaffiliated with any national power or anything like that
because theres some guys who need to be watched???

lets be real here i mean really honest
if the US govt was that terrified about a few bad eggs ruining the dozen theyd have banned guns by now
and alcohol
and cars
hell anything that could possibly hurt another person if mistreated

this isnt about being cautious about imports because a few of us might screw things up with our powers
this is about us being kept on lockdown in the states because we are a decent nuclear deterrent

[selfequipped]

You got it wrong. It's that I, personally, don't want to be associated with a group that has those bad eggs, and in this scenario, I think we'd have no choice. That's how the cards would fall.

Right now, I know that one of the imPorts here tried to take over the world and destroyed an entire civilization in the process. I won't name him, but give him absolute freedom and autonomy? Yeah, I'd be afraid of what he could do. That's not to mention whatever happened with Lucifer months ago.

It's not a deterrent, it's that we could be a viable and dangerous force under other circumstances. There is still a level of "unknown" that plays into things, and we know that Lucifer got depowered once he got caught.

Cut away the red tape, and what do you get? And again, I doubt a whole lot of us are going to work together nicely. Throw in the bad guys, and it's going to be messy. Somehow, they can (mostly) fall under the radar. Those of us who know better can't raise any red flags about them because then it's our word versus theirs, and it gets messy.

It's all a matter of jurisdiction, and again, how would you determine who gets to be autonomous in this arrangement? An exam? Do we get a handy dandy little island off the coast of Maine to live on? We could handle ourselves. I don't have any doubt about that. And we can police our own. Again, I have no doubt. But right now, that's something that can and will ask for trouble, and we might be on the receiving end if that trouble ends up not being against other imPorts but instead entire nations. (Again, guy who tried to take over the world? That was the entire world. So.)

[runningstart]

an island off the coast of maine doesnt sound so bad but look youre kidding yourself if you dont think were ALREADY being lumped in with the bad eggs

when they write up new legislation theyre not writing up 'good imports' and 'bad imports,' its all under 'imports.' were not going to be separated by good and bad while were here because were aliens here, plain and simple. thats not gonna change no matter what we do and it shouldnt.

look that whole thing that happened with sofia??? do you think the bulgarian govt wouldve been so angry about import intervention if we werent considered US property? im not saying that still wasnt rotten of them to do that to the people who went over there and put themselves in danger but the point is that anybody whose registered -and lots of people HAVE to be registered just to get by and make enough to eat and live here- enters into a compulsory contract with the US. its not a compulsory contract to help out the citizens of the world; its just the US. what if the cold war heats up?? we could be ordered to kill russians like military soldiers over political issues and im not down with that.

you can make the argument that i could just be unregistered and not worry about it, but that comes with its own problems. if i saw someone robbing a bank i wouldnt be able to use my powers to stop them, thats illegal. no financial assistance AT ALL. like i couldnt even file for govt assistance despite not having parents here and not being old enough to work full time or find a decent job, and theres kids here who are TWELVE who are looking at that choice. its not right.

i know theres not going to be a perfect system and that the US got landed with kind of a difficult situation but i dont think its being handled right. i also dont think everyone should assume the US needs to take responsibility for the imports, and if theyd just loosen their grip a little they wouldnt have to.

[selfequipped]

I've done New York City winters, but I think I'd rather avoid Maine ones for the time being. Then again, it beats Florida.

I agree with most of what you're saying. I'm just not convinced that moving from one evil to the other is necessarily a good thing at the moment. I don't want to be in a position to deal with [insert bad guy here] who thus far is putting up airs of behaving just because he knows that he might be depowered otherwise. That said, in an ideal situation, those guys wouldn't be a problem, and I'd be on board with you. But I know some of them. It's a tricky situation.

In terms of helping other nations, it is tricky. Sofia is tricky. Because it's not like we're going to keep out of St. Petersburg if it's being bombed. I can get there because I've been granted the power of teleportation, but doing that might create an international incident or make things worse. On that particular front, I agree that it might be better to police Mr. Trying to Take Over the World on an individual basis rather than keeping us to where we are. I hate that we're seen as weapons, and we are. They've clearly wanted to see what we can do as weapons in the past (see: paintball, if you were here for that). It's the worst, and I want it to stop.

Part of why I've not registered is because I want to make sure that when those orders go out, that I'm able to resist them. Is there a way of knowing that's a done deal? Am I putting my entire stability at risk? Yeah, and my boss is an imPort so if he disappears I'm in trouble. But it's something I stand by. I don't think heroes should have to register with any government, and actually, that's half the idea! Boo, registering, yay autonomy. But here we are.

So, basically I agree! I just know some of the worst case scenarios of both sides. The US is really mucking this up and isn't hiding that they see us as weapons (those dog tags were like a huge red flag blowing in the air). Do you think loosening their grip would help? How do you suppose they handle the other side, which is Bulgaria thinking that we could come in and disrupt things BECAUSE the government isn't controlling us?

Truthfully, I'm kind of shocked none of us have proposed we go steal an island off Maine. Or seriously, anyway. There was an annoying idiot the other day. Right now, we're really playing along with it, and that's the only reason why I even halfway am hesitant to buy in to your autonomy thing. Because on paper, it's great, but I know that this system is keeping some guys in line. But at the same time, as we speak, the government can read whatever we're saying. We get these communicators from them, and (this is just me being paranoid, but bear with me) we're all using our own encryption made the genius techies and fooling ourselves into believing the government can't break into that. I think the odds are that that's true is slim if they can filter by registered and unsettled.

As THAT goes, I wish we could just take over the communicators ourselves and lock them out, but I'm no technology gal. I'd have to float it and leave it to the experts. And some imPorts won't like that, anyway, and then we might be a divided population (which I also see many, many problems with).

[runningstart]

yeah i see where youre coming from

and i see where youre coming from IE: wanting 2 make sure some of us behave but im not sure theres gonna be an ideal situation here with that. theres just too big of a variety of people here to find a solution thats gonna fit everyone.

honestly im just worried itll be like this for years and itll just be another city like the one before. some kids will get sent off and blown up and everyone will get sent home and itll happen again. if this thing inside the porter whatever it is actually has a goal for bringing everybody here i dont think were gonna find out what it is just by going on exactly like how the ones before us did

anyway didnt i promise to hand out flyers for u at some point

do u still need me 2 do that

[selfequipped]

That you did. We might want to go back to the drawing board, and we've gotten some good things going here. Do you think that maybe we should get some kind of movement to get people to ask us our opinions? Or maybe figure out some way to get our voices heard? The elections have come and gone, and that worked out, so we need to redirect that energy somewhere.

If we could get some kind of movement going where we actually talk to the media (instead of letting it talk for us), I think it could go far. As long as the right people are talking (again, tricky). But I get the feeling we could definitely invest some time and energy into something like that. Maybe less grass roots, but it might end up with more long-term results.

Besides, I'm starting to think we should really be making sure we leave an imprint here. The lack of records on the previous imPorts makes us seem almost ... too malleable. Changing that, making us memorable, that's a good idea. Flyers are just one way to get the ball rolling.

[runningstart]

theres got to be some newspapers who want to run import articles right

maybe we can send out inquiry letters to news stations. they might not run anything on us unless its a slow news day but we should at least try.

[selfequipped]

I know Kara wanted to do a late night show, but I'm thinking something a little more regular might help. If we can somehow work out a way to be as ... neutral as possible, we might be able to play the system.

[runningstart]

ok well no offense but staying neutral isnt exactly conducive to getting ratings
which is what these shows are gonna care about

i suggest we go on jerry springer

[selfequipped]

I was thinking nightly news. You know, local news? And move from there.

I'm going to explicitly veto Springer.

[runningstart]

what im getting here is that you are explicitly vetoing fun

[selfequipped]

I love fun.

I hate bad press. Besides, have we been around enough for "are you the father of my daughter" plots? I think not!

[runningstart]

yeah but different dimensions

YOU MARRIED ME IN MY DIMENSION AND NOW YOURE CHEATING ON ME WITH MY OTHER DIMENSION BROTHER!!! like stuff like that how rad would that be

even just time stuff like WERE MARRIED IN THE FUTURE BUT YOU ARENT THERE YET AND YOURE DATING A STRANGER! oh man i could come up with these all day long

[selfequipped]

And you think this is the key to leaving a lasting impression so that the government can't go wiperoo on all of us?

[runningstart]

you cant deny that the impression it would leave would definitely last

[selfequipped]

A lasting impression of KEEP OUR CHILDREN AWAY FROM THOSE MANIACS? It's possible.

Then again, even Lucifer didn't pull that off. We might just be blights upon society. Nothing would change!

[runningstart]

ALL RIGHT fine you MAY have a point
this time

night news it is boring as that can be
can we at least get daytime on one of those quirky morning shows

[selfequipped]

And drink all the free coffee we want?

I'm in.

[runningstart]

BALLIN

ill watch 4 u on all the national channels

[selfequipped]

My true calling has been realized.

Good talk, good talk.