Tales of the Parodyverse

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CrazySugarFreakBoy!
Tue Dec 20, 2005 at 01:21:50 am EST
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The Big Reveal: Introducing the Nick and Nora Charles of the Nerd Set
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The Big Reveal: Introducing the Nick and Nora Charles of the Nerd Set

April Alice Apple, a.k.a. the Groovy Gecko-Gal: So … that’s it?

Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove, a.k.a. CrazySugarFreakBoy!: Um, yeah? I mean, what, did you think that, like, once you finally broke down and told me about your secret identity as the Groovy Gecko-Gal, I was going to wig the fuck out and launch into some huge-ass Shakespearean speech about feeling cosmically betrayed by your concealment, and then turn psycho and adopt an arch-villainous alter-ego as your sworn enemy?

April: Well, when you put it like that, I guess it does sort of sound like I need to start reading less Claremont stories. It’s just that … are you sure you don’t mind? At all?

Dream: “Mind?” Are you fucking kidding me? This is awesome! Not only has my belief in the reality of a supposed work of fiction once again been validated as fact, but I also just found out that my fine-ass girlfriend, with whom I’ve been having non-stop hot sex, was and still is one of the cutest super-chicks that I ever jerked off over when I was growing up! I only wish we could have had this conversation sooner.

April: Hey, you can’t blame me for being at least a little bit worried about how you might react to this news. Aside from my great-aunt on my mother’s side, who looked after me after I went to court and had myself declared a legally emancipated adult at the age of 14, and one of your ex-girlfriends, who wheedled the truth out of me while the rest of you were acting out your own Agatha Christie murder mystery last Christmas, the only other person I ever trusted enough to share this secret with was my then-boyfriend, who pulled a full-on Harry Osborn freak-out in response, since I was too stupid to deduce that his dad was the dedicated nemesis of my costumed crimefighting self.

Dream: Ouch. Okay, so I get why you opted to hold off on broadcasting those signals before, but now that you know you own the true love and total loyalty of a boyfriend who belongs to the most legally well-defended and politically well-connected circle of super-buddies on the planet, why not stage an all-outlets mass-media disclosure?

April: Maybe because I like being liked for me, rather than for my alias? If nothing else, I can’t help but appreciate the novelty of it. After close to a decade of limiting my most meaningful self-expression to a dress-up persona that I’d deliberately divorced from my own day-to-day life as much as possible, it’s been surprisingly liberating to discover that I can actually speak my mind, and be myself, without wearing a mask. It’s different with you, I can tell; even before you got tagged with the nickname, or the corresponding super-powers, you were always “CrazySugarFreakBoy!” It’s a weird admission for any would-be artist to make, but I suppose I’m still finding and figuring out what my own creative voice sounds like, independent of playing the part of a super-person.

Dream: Huh. It’s funny; I never picked up on any of those threads, but on one of the nights we’d gone to the Bean & Donut, after a late matinee at the Parodiso Cult Classics Cinema, just as you went to the bathroom, Sarah the waitress came up to our table with our drinks, and asked me why you seemed to alternate between being so shy and coming on so strong. Heh. She’s told me since then that she thinks you’re “sweet,” but I think she might have been worried before, about what sort of girl I was getting involved with.

April: That would mean she’s a conscientious friend, not to mention uncomfortably perceptive. It’s kind of embarrassing to hear secondhand that my swings in behavior have been that transparent. Anyway, “changing the subject,” she said … there’s an even better reason for me to be discreet about changing my clothes in phone booths. After all, if you’re serious about going down this Robin Hood road of yours, you’ll need some sort of secure but open channel to keep in contact with your more law-abiding friends and family, while you do your hit-and-runs against the unjust authorities. April Apple, civilian girlfriend of Dreamcatcher Foxglove, shouldn’t arouse any significant suspicions, simply by maintaining her preexisting relationships with his parents or any of his other former associates. At the same time, the Groovy Gecko-Gal has already been dismissed as an urban legend, or condemned as an anarchist saboteur and even a guerilla terrorist, by several members of the police and the press, so it shouldn’t throw up too many red flags when they receive reports of her hooking up with CrazySugarFreakBoy! and his rebellious band of fellow outlaws, whomever they happen to be.

Dream: That’s … a really good reason. Wow. That never would have occurred to me. This is going to be even more fun than I thought; our first official team-up as superheroes.

April: I can’t decide whether to hug you or hit you. I spent almost my entire adolescence operating on my lonesome in the capes-and-cowls crowd, engaging in what all-too-often amounted to an existentially quixotic quest, and it made me miserable. By contrast, all you’ve got is five minutes to midnight on the countdown clock, before the whole world literally declares war on you, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you happier.

Dream: You’ve met Ethan Warren, yeah? From the Amazing Super-Friends, the older-looking guy in his late 20s, who always sits in as Dungeon Master on our campaigns? Well, prior to his coming back to college, courtesy of the G.I. Bill, he was a Combat Correspondent in the Marines. In the wake of Sept. 11, he was among the troops that got deployed to pound the ground in Afghanistan. He tries not to talk about it much, until he gets himself good and drunk near the end of a role-playing session, but when he does, the way he describes it, it’s like … I mean, him and all the other soldiers he served with, they hated what happened, and how many lives were lost, but honestly? They loved the lack of ambiguity in the conflict that followed. It wasn’t like Vietnam before, or Iraq after; everybody was behind them, everyone was cheering them on, and for the first time in a long time, they could honestly say, “Hey, that’s the bad guy, right over there,” without any hesitation or doubts that they were justified in hauling off and knocking his block off.

April: Fair warning, from someone who’s been on the wrong side of this type of fight? You can’t count on anything close to that sort of public support for what you’re planning.

Dream: But I know who the bad guys are, and thanks to their own actions, there’s absolutely nothing left to hold me back from launching an all-out offensive against them any longer. All that any of this bullshit static does is vindicate what I’ve believed all along. The world is wrong, and it’s been wrong ever since I can remember, and all I want to do is what a superhero is supposed to do. I want to make it right.

April: You will. You’ll need help to do it, though. Between the two of them, your mom and Sydney St. Sylvain are pitching in whatever hours they can spare on their schedules to accompany you on your adventures, whenever they’re not running their respective businesses or raising your baby brother together, but they could both use a bit of a break, and Meg has already shared with me that she’d prefer for you to have a single full-time sidekick. Hmph. Never dreamed I’d be doing the Robin role for anybody’s Batman …

Dream: No. Not a sidekick. A partner, like Green Arrow and Black Canary.

April: “The Groovy Gecko-Gal & CrazySugarFreakBoy!” Ha! I love you, Foxy Boy.

Dream: I love you too, Aphrodite.


K-Box: Box in the Box



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