My New Supervillain Career Path

Hello, everyone! I’ve decided life’s too short not to run around in capes and spandex and big-ass helmets that will probably make me topple forward face-first. Join me in my decision process as I decide to make a career switch to… supervillain!

Supervillain? But, Sarah, why not superhero?

Frankly, because I shouldn’t be trusted with actual power. Villains don’t actually have to worry about having power over others because they never win, and even if they do, they don’t care about things like “ethics” and “human rights.”

Heroes, on the other hand, constantly have to second-guess themselves. I’m pretty sure someone once said that lots of power means you have to be really responsible or something like that. They probably didn’t mean it about superheroes, or even one superhero in particular, but I find the idea is fitting.

Besides, I’m good at initial plans. I love coming up with wacky/great ideas for things to do. Villains are totally allowed to do that without figuring out what happens after the really cool thing that was step one. I’m too lazy to follow clues and solve mysteries and punch things, anyway. This way, my nemesis comes to me.

ALSO, I want the best actor in the movie version to be playing me.

Are you okay with being evil?

Evil? Who said anything about evil?

It’s entirely possible to be a good-ish antihero-type villain, and it is WAY easier than being a good-ish antihero-type hero.

Think about it: Tony Stark wants to keep Scarlet Witch under house arrest, once, for plausible but not necessarily justified reasons, and suddenly he’s a terrible person. Loki blinks in a not-evil way, and everyone loves him.

So what’s your villain shtick then?

Now there’s a question I can dig my teeth into. I’ve got to rule out innate superpowers–I wasn’t born with any, and I don’t anticipate being in a tragic industrial accident anytime soon. Hmmm.

All I’ve got going for me is theme, really. I just gotta get really into something. Let’s go with writing. I’m pretty into that.

That… doesn’t sound very menacing.

tbh, when I said “supervillain,” I’m mostly picturing 60s Batman-type villains.

Like, with a battery of themed henchmen who I make wear silly costumes that match my own, who all seem to be following me in a cult-of-personality-like fashion.

Um…

Exactly! Already got my leaving-the-heroes-to-die phrase: “looks like the pen is mightier than the sword *evil laugh*”

And how would that work, exactly?

Obviously, my signature weapon needs to be a literal giant pen that is also a sword. Like, the calligraphy-style tip could be sharpened into a blade or something. And, of course, there’s a secret button that squirts ink so I can make my getaway when things go south.

Maybe a headband that’s a necklace made of typewriter/computer keys?

Or a robe made entirely of index cards with random shorthand phrases (“G goes to meet O???”) scrawled on them in felt-tip.

I feel like this is coming together!

Gosh, I can’t imagine how any hero would possibly be able to defeat you.

No, you see, because I’ll have a devastating weakness. Every time I see a cool-looking blank notebook, I have to stop what I’m doing and lust over it until I finally buy it and add it to my collection of notebooks that I haven’t used because I collect notebooks faster than I can write in them.

Okay, that just describes me now, but still.

You know that supervillains have to commit dastardly deeds, right?

Yeah. I guess poison-pen letters would be most appropriate, but that somehow seems lacking. Literal poisoned ink’s been done. Maybe I could drop unfinished manuscripts on enemies’ heads? Ooh, I know!

I await your epiphany with bated breath.

Plagiarism.

Uh huh.

Y’know, because good writers borrow, but great supervillain writers steal.

I made that up.

You did not. That’s based on a quote commonly attributed to T. S. Eliot.

Boom! Plagiarism!

*sigh*

Think of all the things I could plagiarise, though. Bestsellers, old classics, valuable historic manuscripts, the Crown Jewels…

Wait, I guess I’d just be stealing except saying “plagiarising” instead of “stealing.” Enh, I can live with that. Especially because it means I’d have to be… “plotting.” Eh? Eh?

What about making bad puns? Is that villainous enough?

Nah, that’s mandatory for any would-be villain. (… BATMAN-datory? No? You’re probably right. That was terrible.)

That’s the trouble with being a villain, really. It’s fun to imagine how cool and badass you might be (or not, in my case), but to be a villain, you have to do things that hurt people. Even property crimes hurt someone, whether or not you believe that the current system of ownership is just or that the idea of property is morally justifiable — it’s the world we live in right now, and losing property is a bummer for most people.

Maybe it would be most villainous of all to have superpowers and do nothing to try to change the world, for good or evil.

Dude, that’s deep. I just wanted to talk about how I love notebooks and whenever I see a blank one, I want to own it and write something exactly right on the first page. Except it’s never exactly right first try, and then you have to fill up the rest of the notebook with something, because you can’t write only first pages. And maybe parlay that into being the character who really makes the movie.

Your evil monologues are going to be so boring.

That’s why you tie them up first, so they can’t escape.

Don’t quit your day job.