Chester Castaneda/Abdiel wrote:

Well, DB, your fic is using smart quotes again, which
doesn't translate well in ASCII. My suggestion is to
uncheck all the Autocorrect Defaults (found in the
Tools menu) before writing just one word. Oh, and I'm
almost sure you've read the whole debacle concerning
formatting problems and MS Word, so any other
suggestions to fix the funky smart quotes thing you
can look up from _those_ messages.

Will look it up. Didn't think there were problems with it.

DB Sommer wrote:

Avenging
Side Story 3
Armored Schems (and Stranger Things)

What's a Schem? Is it a word?

A word I misspelled.

large degree that they couldn't comprehend his

superiority, and

miscategorized

That's not a word. Suggest: mis-categorized or (the
lamer sounding) incorrectly categorized

Wil rewrite it in some way

his attempts at just rule as 'domination'. Too many
had

resisted his efforts at solving all of the world's

problems by seizing

control of it. These were the true enemies of

mankind, and they had to

be dealt with.

Heh. That's one way of looking at it. The opposite can
be said by others who actually oppose Victor Von
Doom's rule. Though, this is strangely reminiscent of
Herb/Mandarin's shtick, if I remember correctly. Hmmm.
That take is certainly sounder than that of the anime
villain cliche of, "Destroy the world, rule over the
post-apocalyptic ruins."

True. at least these guys justify their reasons for entering he world 
domination profession. Actually, Dr. Doom has pretty much been always 
portrayed this way. Egotistical to the extreme, he actually does rule his 
own country and it prospers in all aspects but freedom. Doom has the right 
tools to rule, but his ego is too all consuming for him to be truly 
effective.

At the forefront of the resistance were two groups.

One was the accursed

Reed Richards, Dr. Doom's intellectually inferior

rival

Hehehehe. I'm getting the Dr. Doom slant on things,
apparently.

Yep. Reed's still his arch-nemesis. The kind he has to prove his superiority 
to, rather than kill. Otherwise his 'I am the best' mentality wouldn't 
apply.

the right hand of Dr, Doom, he saw fit to impede the

Latverian's various

schemes. Through Richard's manipulation of his

cohorts --his fianc�e,

the stalwart Susan Storm,

'stalwart', is she? Why the sudden change of tone when
it comes to Sue? Does Doomie have a little crush on
Susie in the comics?

Doom does fancy himself a gentleman, and he probably respects her beyond 
either Johnny or especially Ben.

her impetuous brother, Jonathan Storm, and the
abrasive mental gorilla,

Er, what do you exactly mean by 'mental gorilla'?
Sounds weird.

Meaning he has the intellect of a gorilla. Doom met him in college, when Ben 
was the typical jock, and formed his opinion of Ben from there.

Benjamin J. Grimm-- he had formed an

organization known as the Adventurers of the

Fantastic.

Hmmm. Makes sense. It figures that, even without their
super-duper powers that they got via exposure to outer
space 'cosmic rays', they'd still be a major
impediment to Dr. Doom's rule. They're like those
fifties Space Explorer/Flash Gordon thing going on for
them, I gather. The plus side is that, even though
this is alt-verse, there's no Herbie the robot to
replace the now-powerless Johnny Storm. :P

It's a variation of the issue of What If? where the FF didn't have powers 
and still defeated the likes of the Mole Man. They make up for lack of 
powers with teamwork and using their heads

superheroes hailing from Japan: the

technology-controlling, genius Mr.

Fantastic, the hideous (in both strength and

appearance) Thing, the

self-proclaimed priestess of fire, the Human Torch,

and the translucent

mistress of force-fields, the Invisible Girl.

Wow. You now have two sets of superheroes/heroes, one
the original, now-normal versions, the other the new,
Japanese versions. And much, much more, from seeing
the Avenging Handbook... @_@ (as a by the way, I think
you forgot to include the Blob in the Avenging
Handbook, correct me if I'm wrong

He was mentioned in the Marvel end of the listing under his real name, Fred 
J. Dukes (he isn't the supervillain Blob here)

... if I'm not wrong,

then I'll just collect my No Prize at either the 13th
month of this year or when I find a canon fanfic
interpretation of Slam Dunk, whichever time is most
convenient to me)

Only saw 13 eps of that, so don't plan on seeing anything of it from me.

Sooo... are you really planning to make "Avenging" as
detailed, comprehensive and lengthy as Shampoo 1/2 or
aren't you? :)

Not really. This story meanders a bit more, though the cast is large.

one or each other.

He even went so far as to install them with his own

brainwave patterns,

though all Doombots were rigged with sensors to

differentiate their true

master from their fellow automatons.

Wouldn't it be a funny, almost Hollywood-movie-type
accident if (like the 'inhibitor' chip of Doc Ock in
the Spiderman sequel) the Doombots' sensors-to
differentiate-their-true-master-from-their-fellow-automatons
malfunctioned and (more to the point) they couldn't
tell whether they're Doombots or the real Dr. Doom?
(shrugs) I know the paragraph above may just be
intended Dr. Doom meandering thoughts, but he really
should be careful with that. It's like he's setting
himself up for trouble, that. Good thing he got rid of
the Doombots later... or is it really a good thing?

Chii: Chi. (smiles impishly)

He's had problems with Doombots before, but they are useful, especially when 
Marvel writers have him in two different books at the same time. :)

While his scheme had worked well in the beginning,

problems began to

appear of late. The number of Doombots failures far

exceeded his

original .055% estimate. It had gone up as high as

95% in regards to any

complicated goal. Most of the failures could be

attributed to the sudden

surge in superpowered

Suggest: super-powered

I'm going with the one word version of it now. I was bouncing back and forth 
before.

The absolute worst failure was the televised defeat

of Doombot X23F at

the hands of Squirrel Girl, a mutant whose sole power

was the ability to

control squirrels. Dr. Doom still hadn't figured out

exactly *how* a

bunch of squirrels had managed to disable the

Doombot, only that it had

made him a laughingstock before the world.

I have to ask if you know... _How_? How did a mutant
who's just a little below Aquaman in powers defeat a
Doombot?

Steve Ditko did the story. While I loved his and Stan's work on Spider Man, 
and his art deco backgrounds in Dr. Strange are still the best version of 
surreal other dimensions, the man is a terrible writer.

Dr. Doom: I also have to ask the same question. It
doesn't quite make sense to me either.

He couldn't even exact

vengeance on Squirrel Girl at the moment, since she

had become a poster

child of the U.S. Government as its 'Ecologically

Friendly Superhero.'

Dr. Doom: If she had accepted PETA's offer instead,
then I could crush her. Nobody really likes those
overreacting, tree-hugging PETA hippies anyway!

Heh. Wait and see.

He wasn't prepared to deal with all of the resources

the United States

had at its disposal --at least, not yet-- but the

time would come. He

simply needed to prove his superiority to Richards,

and then destroy

him. Once that was accomplished, Dr. Doom could move

on to bigger and

better things.

In other words, he's stuck in a rut. :P

Yeah

Therefore this new

robot would be created in the image of something most

people would be

reluctant to destroy: a cute teenage girl.

Ben Oliver: (approves)

It does make sense though.

Only the most deplorable of

people would try to melt, blow up, or tear apart a

seemingly

defenseless, attractive girl. That hesitation would

cost them, given the

obscene amount of power the robot concealed. He had

decided on the name

of the design of the robot: Chobits.

This was an idea that was spawned out of the blue...
and spawned from feedback even. Heh. Your muse is
quite the complicated character, DB.

(whistles innocently)

months to create. However, there was a problem with

the Chii-FF7

prototype: the damn thing could only say one word.

Yeah, well the fact that it can only say one word has
always been a point of interest for Chobits. Granted,
using the plot point in the context of Chii the
replacement Doombot is quite different from, say,
using it in the context of the usual anime tradition
of boy meets girl-android.

Heh

"It's inconceivable," Dr. Doom mumbled to himself.

(remembers The Princess Bride for some reason)

Everyone does. That line will live in infamy from now on.

Dr. Doom snarled under his breath and pointed at a

chair. "What is that

thing there?"

Chii pointed at it as well. "Chi."

Heh. That had always been one of my favorite scenes in
Chobits.

And here it is recreated. Chii will deviate from this pattern in short 
order, though.

Chi rose to her feet and flipped up her skirt. She

pointed at her

underwear. "Panties."

XD Though (as one fangirl pointed out) it's sad that,
in general, cute little Chii is just another
misogynistic symbol of a fanboy's ideal girl...
innocent to the point of having the IQ of a lamp post
and completely devoted to the spastic lead character.

It is quite the standard for the genre. Characters are the only thing that 
can salavge those things for me.

"Chi," Chii scoffed, as though Doom was an idiot for

such a suggestion.

Heh. OTOH, despite misogyny, Chii is undeniably cute
and cheeky there.

Yeah, wait until she tries ruling the world. She's actually quite well 
mannered, and would be a nice gal, except for her meglomania streak

Dr. Doom's personal transport, an inter-continental

intercontinental

"That's Trapster, not Paste-Pot-Pete,

(sigh) Is this some inside comic joke that I'm not
getting, DB? :)

It's two-fold. This is from David Dee's sister series to Avenging, which is 
called 'Defending'. Jinnai is a template of the supervillain Trapster, who 
is one of the earliest Marvel villains to still be around. However, he 
started out with the ultra-lame name of 'Paste Pot Pete' and his outfit made 
him looked like a refugee from a hippie bistro. The man was even wearing a 
beret. By this third appearance, he went with more standard villain gear, 
changed his name to Trapster, and started using other weapons in addition to 
his paste.

falling for me, since he's stealing my genius. And-"

The Wizard cleared his throat, gaining Jinnai's

attention. "I believe

you have a proposition to make."

Nitpick: While most of the El Hazard fans will pick up
on the "Mizuahara's arch-nemesis" as referring to the
pasty-skinned Jinnai, methinks the narrative should
not state 'Jinnai' so out of the blue.

His character was already established in Defending, so it's only being 
touched upon here.

Deciding paste wasn't particular effective against

energy blasting

robots, Trapster ordered a retreat, mostly as an

afterthought since he

had already covered a dozen meters when he gave the

command. Obedient to

the last, his trio of comrades also fled in the face

of far superior

firepower.

Paste? O_o

It's real sticky.

Xxxxxxxxxx

, it would

have determined the degraded condition of the

insulation and ordered it

replaced. Instead, the electricity fried the fifth

set, and surged into

Dr. Doom's main computer, traveling through the

nearest set of lines.

Anime loves one-in-a-million chances.

No one writes about the other 999,999 other incidents, since nothing 
happened in any of them, so it does make sense.

Of course, since

this is Excel we're talking about, consistent dumb
luck comes to play here. Reminds me of the time
Mihoshi was able to guess the password of a 10-digit
lock by randomly typing numbers in Vacation Days... It
seems quite the recurring theme in your fics, eh?

Well, Mihoshi is unblieveably lucky, it's part of her charm, since she 
doesn't operate on pure talent. :)

features shifted
>from that of a wide-eyed innocent, to one of
calculation that would have

done Doom himself proud.

So from Elda, Chii became Freya, apparently. So
where's the gothic black dresses that would have done
Kanako proud?

Sort of inspired by that, but there's only one chii

Japan, and a laptop designed by Sidney S. Goldfarb of

Toledo, Ohio, who

was actually five time smarter than Dr. Doom, but had

no desire to rule

the world.

Heh.

See? We won't hear about Sidney behyond here, since he doesn't do anything 
interesting.

remarks about Dr. Doom being a 'Tin-Plated Napoleon'

and dressing like a

'color blind Frenchmen.'

color blind Frenchman

It's a direct quote, though, I think it needs the quotes.

Walking down the ramp and to the roof's surface, Dr.

Doom was surprised

to discover a group waiting for his arrival. It was a

squad of Doombots,

headed by Chii, who was dressed in an alluring black

leather outfit that

accentuated her lean, feminine figure.

Ah. So no Freya-Elda thing. I guess that's okay too,
considering the fact that it's such an obvious angle.
But still... Leather Lolita? ?_?

It's Freya inspired.

Chii tried laughing in sinister fashion at her

handiwork, but the best

she could manage was a high-pitched snicker and a

glance that made her

look insufferably cuter.

At this point, the narrative agrees with Dr. Doom that
'insufferable' can be an adjective of 'cute'.

Yep, pretty much.

"Actually, every living being in the country despises

you. When Mistress

Chii announced she was the new ruler, everyone threw

a really big party.

There was lots of ice cream and pie, and then we had

a vote about which

one of your loses was the most pathetic. The one with

Squirrel Girl won

in a landslide."

Figures.

She would, though.

"That was a malfunctioning Doombot that lost, you

worthless little

pencil sharpener!" Dr. Doom raged.

So says Retroactive Continuity.

Heh. Doom tried this once when Walt Simonson tried to revitlaized the FF 
book. He had Doom acting like there had been nothing but Doombots running 
things after his second appearance or so. Luckily more sane writers undid 
the rewrite by showing some of Doom's Doombots rewriting events for 
propganda purposes.

At the master control of the operation was a persocon

that was Sumomo's

No, not a correction, just a soapbox. (shrug) I've
always found it funny how 'persocon' became specific
to Chi, Sumomo, Kotoko and all the other girlbots like
her when the term was originally just a Japanese way
of saying 'Personal Computer' (as opposed to 'P.C.')
I've seen enough Japanese shows referring to their
desktop computer as 'persocon' to notice the
difference. OTOH, I could be wrong, so meh.

an example of a word being changed from its original meaning. Evolving 
language and whatnot.

"Cool," Sumomo said. "We'll insinuate

Is 'insinuate' the right word for this sentence?
Sumomo is 'implying' the persocons into every home?

Yeah, changed that.

"Chi," Chii said in chastisement.

"Aw, that's no fun." Sumomo pouted.

The real Sumomo is scarier than that, and she doesn't
have a psychotic slant to her. :)

Heh

Kotoko said. "That's impossible. With his force field

disabled, that

should have been five times the power necessary to

destroy him."

Typical. You have to give Doomie at least that. Old
school "The bad guy always gets away to ruin another
day" a la Murdoch from MacGuyver.

Yeah. Doom is the master par excellence at it.

Still, it was a time to rejoice. She'd start to issue

her Persocons to

the general populace, reinforce the castle and set up

some defenses of

her own making, and begin her search for Dr. Doom

while keeping an eye

open for robots like her she could be friends with.

Herbie the Robot: Chi?

Dr. Sun will not be doing the HERBIE the robot thing. I promise you.

It was good to be the Queen.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[End fic.] Just a little something I whipped up. A

was amused at the

idea of evil Queen Chi, especially at Doom's expense,

and this seemed

the most likely way to do it. Hope you enjoyed.

I was a cute and short piece of fic. It's not the best
(I personally thought the antics of Ranma and co. in
Sextacular was far more funnier than this piece, same
as with the already classic 'Yardwork'), but gave me a
chuckle or two. Needless to say, but keep on writing.
Abdiel out.

This was a brief one shot, and I am not capable of one upping myself every 
time. Yardwork also was one of those rare things that turned out way better 
than I thought it would when I came up with the idea. Even I am kind of 
stunned how it flows together,and it does remain one of my proudest one 
shots. I'm just thankful I wrote it long before FMP Fumoffu, came out, since 
the humor is along much the same lines. That way I know I didn't copy it.

Thanks for all the help. It's mucho appreciated

DB Sommer

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