(canon: thank you for smoking) - looking at capeandcowl

[merchantofdeath]

Let's go over a few things before you sit down and start gushing about me for ten pages straight in the hopes that anyone but you actually cares.

I'm never wrong. Where I'm from, at least. But where I'm going, I have to be wrong. But, see, even thinking like that? That's not the issue. The issue isn't that I'm from 1998 and no one had any conclusive results that cigarette smoking linked in any way to lung cancer—the issue is that, in regards to debate, I'm never wrong. Abe Lincoln never told a lie, and I'm never wrong. Can you do that? Can you be wrong without being wrong? Sure sounds like a paradox to me, don't know if you can handle that level.

Also, my Kryptonite—since we're talking about superheroes—is nicotine. One of the easiest things you can find, I can't handle it. That seems like a pretty big damn weakness to me. Oh, if you want to make Superman feel ill, you have to travel across five galaxies, grab a chunk of rock, zoom back, and get close. Me? You'll have to keep me two hundred feet away from bars. I don't know about you, but when a doctor tells you that smoking saved your life but, hey, one more cigarette and you're back to a coma you can never wake up from? Kind of want to listen to the doctor about that. Can't really imagine anyone who wants to be a turnip instead of watch their son grow up. Well, I can, but I'd really rather not think about anything that keeps me away from Joey, thanks.

Last thing for now: I used to (or still do, depending on where you "pull" me from) speak on behalf of an organization that killed nearly half a million American men and women of all ages a year. I can think of at least one state senator and a handful of radicals who'd call that being a big damn villain. I haven't forgot the whole being found in the crotch of Abe Lincoln, covered in nicotine patches and—oh, look. Circular argument, we're back to Abe Lincoln.

In summary: you can't handle me. I know you like me, which is fine, but you really are not up to my level.

Why don't you go play someone easy, like Sherlock Holmes.

[rude]

Comments

[undeadsidekick]

Kryptonite really isn't that hard to find.

[merchantofdeath]

If that's completely true, how is Superman still around? And isn't there a Supergirl at this point, too?

[Nick Naylor doesn't keep up with comic books, obviously, or he'd know that nobody ever dies. It's like a soap opera!]

[undeadsidekick]

He's an alien and super powerful. Kryptonite can take him out for a while, sure, but you'd have to go pretty hard to take out Superman.

[aggressiveapathy]

I'm sorry. All I heard was 'hello, I'm gay for Lincoln's crotch.'

[merchantofdeath]

I suppose H. G. Wells would have been a huge fan, considering his aliens were defeated by water.

[merchantofdeath]

[Someone's cute.]

I think that would translate more towards, "hello, I'm really turned on by extremely large statues of dead presidents made out of marble," more than Lincoln's crotch, in particular. It just so happened to be where I was recovered. I'm sure I would have made it to the reflection pool if I woke up.

[aggressiveapathy]

Giant states is so the most boring porno ever. Like, worse than couch on couch action.

[merchantofdeath]

It's probably because Florida can't sustain itself for very long and Alaska, the largest, is so, so far away. It's a sexless marriage for the states.

[undeadsidekick]

Maybe. I can't say I've read much Wells, but you at least have to go to the black market for Kryptonite.

[merchantofdeath]

[Give him a moment, Mister Todd. It's 1998, Panasonic house phones are still the norm, cell phones are the size of bricks, beepers are the thing, and the modern desktop is outrageously expensive. He's having trouble connecting things like superpowers to anything related to, well, reality.]

Yeah? You have to get a dealer? Call him a Krypt Keeper or something?

[herr_niemand]

Takes me back to the time we almost made Superman an ashtray.

[Context, what is that.]

[undeadsidekick]

Some moron's probably using that name, sure.

I stole mine. It's a good way to get somebody's attention.

[merchantofdeath]

I'm sure Buffalo Bill would wet his pants in joy if you managed to do that.

[merchantofdeath]

Ohhhh, you stole it.

So does that make you a villain by default or something? Stealing a man's—alien's—only weakness off the black market? Is that how these things work?

[herr_niemand]

I'll do him better: I'll get the whole Justice League to become a living Ikea set!

Just think of the fans ogling all that furniture.

[undeadsidekick]

Sure. If that's how you want to look at it. Stealing is bad and everyone who does it is a very bad person with absolutely no exceptions or qualifiers.

[merchantofdeath]

Ikea? Is that after 1998 or during? There's all this research to do, you know, it's kind of harrowing for her.

Which probably says a lot about her life in general. Researching Ikea, wow, it's so stressful.

[merchantofdeath]

Hey, I'm still trying to figure out superheroes and heroes and the differences between them. I really could use some slack, this is, in fact, my first rodeo.

Which probably means I should be less hostile, I'm sorry. Nick Naylor, by the way.

[undeadsidekick]

Jason Todd.

Heroes and villains are relatives where I'm from. Sometimes the only difference between them is a willingness to do whatever it takes. And, technically speaking, vigilantism is still a crime.

How'd you end up in Honest Abe's pants?

[undeadsidekick]

Go on and call him a hooker now. Get it out of your system.

[herr_niemand]

The Ikea of the soul is eternal, a vast-reaching conspiracy of mediocrity and blah blah blah.

[merchantofdeath]

Good to meet—

[Oh dear. Well, if there's one part of his life that certainly sounds comical (oh, ha-ha), it's this.]

I do, did, depending—I'm a lobbyist for Big Tobacco. You know, the companies who make money off a product that kills people who use it. I think it's pretty unique, something so profitable having a userbase that dies so often. But anyway, some people really dislike that idea and I ended up dragged into a van, all my clothes cut up, slathered in nicotine patches, and draped over Honest Abe...I should have died. I didn't. Because I smoked.

The medical community was less than thrilled.

[undeadsidekick]

I can see how that wouldn't make you popular.

Did they ever stop to think that if you had died, you'd just be a martyr and make a case that all anti-smoking groups are dangerous extremists? Smoking probably did them a favor there, too. Or at least made their PR department's lives a hell of a lot easier.

[merchantofdeath]

If I died, it would have been a bunch of crazies being crazy. I would have if I hadn't smoked as long as I had, since the amount of nicotine they splashed on me was about...it was a ridiculous amount of packs a day. But coming out of it, I think it made me more sympathetic than anything else.

So instead of people thinking oh good, that guy who talks on behalf of cigarettes is dead, they're thinking that poor man! I'm okay he's alive!

[merchantofdeath]

[Jesus fuck, you are psychology on acid, aren't you.]

So Ikea is a bunch of C+ furniture, in essence.