maskormenace | VIDEO | ID says Blue Beetle

[Hello, everyone, and welcome to what may well be the Blue Beetle's first - and possibly last - ever video post! He's clearly in uniform, and frankly looks a little inhuman; his red-yellow lenses glow faintly, even though he's posting from a rooftop out in the sunshine, he's conspicuously noseless, and he's covered from head to toe in a blue and black carapace armour. When he speaks, his voice is calm and measured; he's clearly been thinking about this for a long time, and it's something he wants to get out right, even if his speech is a little marred by the fact that he's speaking through a faintly robotic filter.]

Hi, everyone. Um, some of you might know me, even if I don't talk here a whole lot, but just in case -- I'm the Blue Beetle. Not my real name, for the record, but plenty of us superheroes still do the codename thing, even here. But that's not what I'm here to talk about! I wanna talk about powers.

See, as far as I can tell, we all get powers when we get here, unless we already had some back home, and now? Even the people who were born here have them. It's especially hard for people who got dangerous powers. Some people try and use them for good, and other people just try to ignore them, and others try to master them by themselves, but this kind of thing isn't something you should have to tackle by yourself.

Where I'm from, there are a lot of people with powers. We call them metahumans. And sometimes when they try to tackle these things by themselves, it works out just fine! A lot of the time, though? It doesn't. Especially when they go out and use them to try and do a lot of good, and I know that's what people here are doing too. Maybe it seems like it's not a big deal from the outside, but it is. That's how a lot of people wind up dead. [He pauses, just for a moment, and inhales quickly before continuing.] It's how a lot of people I know wound up dead. It's not something to take lightly. I know I didn't have a lot of help - I didn't ask for a lot of help - when I started out, and if I did? Things would have gone a lot smoother.

But I'm not trying to lecture anyone! I know a lot of people here have been doing this for a lot longer than me, [he admits, flashing a quick smile at the screen, teeth white and human behind his mask.] This is just me making an offer. If you're trying to break into what people like me do, or if you're trying to figure out your powers, don't do it alone. If you're not worried about yourself, at least think of other people -- if you've got some strong powers going on, without training, it's really, really easy to hurt other people accidentally. If you guys want help, I'll do that, the best I can. And if I can't, I have a feeling there's a lot of others who'd be willing to help too.

So, um... yeah. I guess that's it! Didn't... really think about how I was going to end this.

[He blinks at the communicator, suddenly awkward before clearing his throat and saying:] Bye!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's armour! I know it makes me look kind of freaky, but this isn't actually what I really look like. Not that I'm going to tell you what I really look like, 'cause that would kiiiinda defeat the purpose of the whole secret ID thing.

First you claim that's armor, then you're not going to show your actual face. You really don't want people to trust you, do you?

If I didn't want people to trust me, I wouldn't have made this whole post in the first place! But not showing our faces is kind of the deal with the whole superhero thing.

Do they not have them where you're from? Or even stories about them?

What, like sentai nonsense? They at least look human.

Yeah! Those sentai guys!

Where I come from, they're not just on TV -- we're all out there, doing what we can. And not all of us are human, either. I'm probably not going to change your mind, but if you decide you don't like anyone who's not human, you're missing out. And, [he adds on, somehow looking as though he's arching a brow without brows in the least,] you might find yourself liking an alien by accident. Some of them look human too, you know.

I know some look human, [ Mint responded, with a little grumpy frown. ] And it's not that I don't like you, I simply don't trust you.

Would you trust me if I did look human, then? 'Cause between you and me, I've met just as many mean humans as I've met mean aliens. More, actually, but that's just a statistical probability.

Humans didn't try to destroy the world where I'm from.

Well, sure. They tried that where I'm from too, but other aliens are the ones who helped us fend 'em off. And, I mean, not to get all Godwin's law on you right away, but does that mean there's not Hitler where you're from?

Who's Godwin?

[ your allegory has been defeated by thirteen year old confusion. ]

...I have no idea. Who is Godwin?

[He stares blankly at the screen.]

You know what? Doesn't matter. The law itself is that people always bring up Hitler to win arguments over the internet. Not that we're arguing now -- I'm really curious! There's lots of different worlds out there, after all.

[Someone must have succeeded in killing Hitler out there.]

Well my world had Hitler. But when I say destroy the world, I don't really mean metaphorical destruction through war and violence. I mean literal destruction.

[ sorry Jaime, hers is a reality where the time travelers didn't snuff out baby Hitler. ]

Also, how on Earth are there so many Hitler arguments that someone's made a law about it? It all seems rather silly, if you ask me.

[ Mint's from the early 2000s. Her internet exposure is PRETTY LIMITED. ]

I mean, he's pretty evil. Like, if you wanna boil it down to hey, who's the worst human around? Bingo, that's your guy. Doesn't make us humans look too good.

I can't really fight that point. [ said with a shrug. the Hitler card wins again. ]

[YEAH HITLER!!!

...wait.]

See? That's why it's used so often that it got a law named after it. When your argument's Hitler was bad, it's kind of hard to argue against it.

There's different shades of bad, however. For instance, yes, Hitler was terrible. But there's also thousands of other humans who help balance out his terribleness. Literally every alien that I met back home was trying to destroy the world.

[ Mint's sample size is four. ]

Well, yeah, that does suck.

...how many did you meet?

[ and here is where her argument TOTALLY FALLS APART. ]

...four.

You know the problem with that already, don't you.

[ YOU SILLY CHILD ]

Shut up!

[ SHE KNOWS THE PROBLEM ]

If you know the problem, why are you still getting all worked up about aliens and people who look like aliens?

[ because they're weird and she doesn't want to be the person who defends the Earth by herself. :( ]

I've got my reasons! I don't see why you need to know.

Well... you did kind of start this conversation by asking why you should trust me since I look all alien-y. So it's kind of my business.

That was a perfectly valid question!

Maaaaybe, but is it a question you would've asked a human-shaped person? If not, it's just kind of space racism. Alien racism? Xenophobia?

Well, it's something not-good.

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