Ultimate Writing Adventure Chapter 7 Spies and Suits

"So the scene with the eyes was good."

"A little drawn out, I thought," Kat commented. "If it was real, I'm pretty sure there's have been more pop and less…ooze."

"That is disgusting. And you are putting me off my dinner."

Kat smirked at Liz. The two girls, plus Wade, had been to see the new James Bond film, Spectre, followed by dinner. Of course, everyone had slightly different opinions on what was significant.

"Bond clearly messed up in Mexico," Kat expounded. "He had an impractical suit that served as a good disguise, and exchanged it for an equally impractical suit that had no camouflage advantage at all. Now, if he'd exchanged it for something more like his outfit at the end, then he'd have got a manoeuvrability advantage that would have explained the outfit change. Only reason for him to go into that suit was because that's your typical suave superspy look."

"You think way too much about outfits for someone as fashion un-conscious as you claim to be," Liz accused.

"Hey, I write this stuff; I have to think about it," Kat objected. "And I'm not fashion un-conscious. I'm fashion don't-care."

"Yeah, yeah." Liz flapped a hand dismissively. She stabbed her fork into her salad slightly more aggressively than necessary. "Tell Wade your grand theory of super suits."

"You have a grand theory of super suits?" Wade asked, impressed. He took a bite out of a chicken wing. "Urgh, lemon and herb. Boring. Why did I get a chicken wing roulette?"

"To live life on the edge," Kat answered dryly. "It's not- I call it a grand theory, but it's more of a couple of logical deductions meshed together." She set down her knife and fork and took a deep breath before launching in. "Okay, so the design of a suit has to be a balance between four factors: psychological impact, technological advantage, protection, and flexibility. The individual wearing the suit affects which factor gets given the most weight. Take Superman. He's invulnerable, so he doesn't need protection. He's got enough powers that he doesn't need a technological advantage. He needs to be able to move freely, but doesn't need to kick people in the face, so the manoeuvrability factor is so-so. That means the psychological impact is the overriding factor. Bright colours, flowing cape, massive emblem on his chest; very striking. Now, Supergirl, she's got an extra factor thrown in."

"You'll like this," Liz smirked.

Wade grinned. He finished his last wing and tossed the bones on the empty plate. "Oh yeah?" he said, a challenge in his voice. He flipped the whole chicken he'd ordered as a second course into the air, and in one smooth movement drew his katana from a holster hidden beneath his hoodie, and swung it. The chicken never had a chance.

"Her mini-skirt."

Wade never had a chance to avoid the splatter of sauce as his attention was completely drawn away from his meal. "What?"

"Supergirl is a fit girl who flies around in a mini-skirt. Most hot-blooded males can't resist their eyes being drawn to her, thus distracting them." Kat shrugged. "Supergirl, Wonder Woman, Troia, Starfire, Wonder Girl, Star Girl, Zatanna, Black Canary…They all have a power back-up, so they can afford to cut the protection factor to up the psychological impact and show off a little. Whereas Batgirl, Huntress and so on don't, so they have to have the greater protection of a complete suit."

"And it's got nothing to do with the boys who buy comics liking a bit of skin," Liz countered sarcastically.

"Oh, come on, if you want something to happen for an out-of-universe reason, you need to justify it in-universe," Kat scoffed.

"Uh…" Wade asked, brandishing a chicken drumstick to get their attention. "Are we still talking about boobs?"

Kat sighed. "Alright. In terms even you can understand. If I, as the author, want something to happen in a story, I have to manoeuvre the characters into the situation where they will act in the way I want them to." Wade still looked blank. "Say I wanted to write a story about, I don't know, Black Widow dealing with naked pictures of herself on the internet." Wade perked up; Kat had chosen the right topic. "I could have her do a strip-tease in Times Square, but she'd have to be under mind-control. It would be easier to have her splashed in some corrosive substance during a battle. Then, how do we want her to react? Normal reaction would be anger and humiliation, even if she doesn't show it, but she could just brush it off, if she'd been desensitized to casual nudity during her Red Room days. In which case, we'd need to justify her comment in Winter Soldier about getting a scar, and then no more bikinis. See how it works?"

"I thought you just do what you want?" Wade asked, confused.

Kat shrugged. "Sure, but I find that approach lazy and sloppy."

"She's a fanfic snob," Liz fake-whispered.

"Hey, I once had a story where I had to have one of the main characters kidnapped and tortured to stop it from being over in less than a dozen chapters," Kat protested. "Ended up as sixty-two chapters. Plus epilogue. Just takes a bit of effort."

"But short stories-" Wade objected.

"Different rules," Kat interrupted. "Short stories can be the response to a change, but you have to make it clear what the change is."

"Like what?" Wade asked.

Kat shrugged. "Most of my crossover stories are based on the idea of 'what if these two fandoms interacted?' and do a scene from that rather than explaining how it happened. Now eat. I want dessert."

"But there was that steak roll I wanted," Wade protested.

"Get it to go after dessert," Liz suggested. "Hurry up; I love the cheesecake here."

AN: Yes, the bit about the story where I tortured a main character to keep it going is true. But I had an awful lot of fun doing it. It was literally 54 chapters of filibuster. Cracks me up whenever I think about it in terms of what it started as. You may have read that story. It's called Family Ties.

Also updating, Jason and the Argonauts, Black and Red and Ultimate Avenging Alliance. LBV still pending, but I promise I am working on it. Coming up next, this one, other three, maybe LBV?

Please review. It gives me warm fuzzies.

Katara