Honestly, I'm really liking your deeper look into a lotta tropes in fanfics. So many people do the Clock freeze or the "another girl" thing like mentioned above, but you're going deeper into them, and I like it.
It's also pretty rare to see Clock being the disliked one, but him still fitting his canon personality.
So! I was writing the next update and had Missy and Willow doing some bonding over ice cream. It got me thinking.
I was doing some reading the other day, about the prevalence of vanilla in our cuisine. We rely on it for so much of our sweets, and we have a hard time cultivating vanilla beans in enough quantities. So. What happens when Levi crushes international trade?
There are artificial substitutes, but I bet that the popularity of the fake flavours would decrease. The same goes for any flavour that isn't really available in the US. Chocolate? Vanilla? Coffee?
Lets look at the most popular ice cream flavours. I have two lists. From Life Magazine in 1948, here are a list of the flavours from the popular ice cream parlour Howard Johnson's. They were famous for having a (for the time) astounding 28 flavours. (I found this list here: The Food Timeline: history notes--ice cream)
[1948: Howard Johnson's 28 flavors, in order of popularity]
1. Vanilla
2. Chocolate
3. Chocolate Chip
4. Strawberry
5. Coffee
6. Maple Walnut
7. Pistachio
8. Butterscotch
9. Banana
10. Peach
11. Peppermint
12. Burgundy Cherry
13. Butter Pecan
14. Caramel Fudge
15. Frozen Pudding
16. Macaroon
17. Orange Pineapple
18. Pecan Brittle
19. Butterscotch
20. Black Raspberry
21. Pineapple
22. Cocoanut
23. Fruit Salad
24. Lemon
25. Grape Nut
26. Peanut Brittle
27. Ginger
28. Apple"
---"28 Flavors Head West," Life (magazine), September 6, 1948 (p. 74)
For a more modern look, lets take a look at a survey from 2020 asking about the most popular flavours in America.
Ice cream is, without question, one of the world's most delicious desserts. Newsweek delivers the scoop on the current most popular flavours in the U.S.
www.newsweek.com
1) Chocolate
2) Vanilla
=3) Strawberry
=3) Butter Pecan
=3) Mint Chocolate Chip
=3) Other?
=7) Cookies and Creme
=7) Cookie Dough
=9) Rocky Road
=9) Coffee
=9) Rocky Road
=11) Pistachio
=11) Chocolate Chip
=13) Neapolitan
=13) Birthday Cake
So! Levi made his debut in 1996. We can probably take the list from 2020 and work from there.
There could theoretically truck it up from South America, but trucking Cocoa up from there would be a nightmare in our world. Worm does not happen in our world. South America is ridiculously corrupt. Any shipment would have to cross so many borders.
Real chocolate would be an expensive luxury. Like, 'the mayor, one of the richest guys in town, brings a few pieces out on special occasions.' expensive.
It gets worse.
The process of making chocolate almost always requires vanilla. Vanilla, grown here:
Yes, Mexican Vanilla means that they only have to cross one border. Plus, Mexico managed to hold together well enough to potentially join the Protectorate.
This seems like a perfect solution, until you look up the statistics.
In 2016, Mexico exported 30.82 metric tons of vanilla. (Note: Mexico is one of the world's leading producers of Vanilla, but it is not one of the world's leading exporters of vanilla)
So. Even in Mexico exported only to the US, it could only supply 1.9% of the US demand for Vanilla.
Yikes.
Lets grab that list again.
1) Chocolate – Luxury for the elite.
2) Vanilla – Ditto.
=3) Strawberry – Viable!
=3) Butter Pecan – Needs Vanilla extract.
=3) Mint Chocolate Chip – Needs chocolate.
=3) Other? – no comment.
=7) Cookies and Crème – Vanilla AND chocolate. Sadly, this means no oreos on Bet either. At least not in North America.
=7) Cookie Dough – Ditto. Man, Bet is even worse to live on than I thought. They can't even have chocolate chip cookies.
=9) Rocky Road – Same deal.
=9) Coffee – Hey! New thing.
America does not run on Dunkin'. At least not on Earth Bet.
No coffee. We'll get to substitutes later.
=11) Pistachio
Pistachios are grown in Iran, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. 98% of the pistachios in the US are grown in California. Pistachio ice cream is safe.
=11) Chocolate Chip – No vanilla, no chocolate.
=13) Neapolitan – No vanilla, no chocolate.
=13) Birthday Cake – Vanilla.
Extra yikes.
Our list currently looks like:
Strawberry
Pistachio
Yay! Ice cream!
We can pull from the 1948 list, but people ware likely to still want chocolate and vanilla and coffee.
Chicory roots can be roasted and ground to make a drink pretty similar to coffee, though with a flavour described as woody and nutty.
Unfortunately, Chicory has no caffeine.
So chicory ice cream might replace coffee ice cream.
But how will hardworking Bet citizens get their caffeine fix?
During the American Civil War, coffee and tea were scarce due to blockades. They grew and drank Cassina instead. It's a caffeine-bearing tea tree that grows here:
I could see, then, Bet Americans drinking a Cassina-Chicory blend to get their daily coffee fix. That could translate into an ice cream, but it would likely take a hit in popularity as compared to Coffee.
Let's look at Butter Pecan.
The only problem with Butter Pecan is its inclusion of vanilla extract.
One possible solution is to use a different flavour. Personally, I would use almond.
Both almonds and pecans are grown in the US, so it's possible.
Finally, Cookie Dough and Birthday Cake.
If we use a sugar cookie recipe, these two become one.
Mint chocolate chip could work without the chocolate, but mint ice cream isn't popular. My guess is that it would take a hit in popularity, but it showed up as #11 on the Howard Johnson's list.
Lets take a look at the list, then
Strawberry
Pistachio
Butter Nut (Note, not using butternut squash)
Cassina-Chicory (Chicassina?)
Sugar Cookie
Mint
Weird, but fine. That gets us five. Lets throw in the fakes.
Strawberry
Pistachio
Butter Nut (Note, not using butternut squash)
Cassina-Chicory (Chicassina?)
Sugar Cookie
Fauxnilla
Nocolate
Mint
All right! Lets get us up to a full clickbait article. We need two more. We can pull the next two from the Howard Johnson's list.
6. Maple Walnut
8. Butterscotch
9. Banana
Oops, nope. Not banana, or butterscotch either.
The banana that was around during Howard Johnson's time are all dead. We now use a different banana. Earth Bet doesn't have a monopoly on suck, apparently.
Butterscotch gets screwed over by the Vanilla problem.
10. Peach
New list!
Strawberry
Pistachio
Butter Nut
Cassina-Chicory
Sugar Cookie
Fauxnilla
Nocolate
Maple Walnut
Mint
Peach
I don't think I'm going to hazard a guess at the ranking, but I'm going to put those forward as Earth Bet's Top Ten Ice Creams. Which do you think would be the favourite of each of the canon cast?
For vanilla flavoured products less than 1% actually use real vanilla. Artificial vanilla is actually orders of magnitude cheaper and can be argued to be the same thing (it has less complexity, but the main flavour is the same exact chemical). It is made generally in chemical plants or with wood pulp. North America (Bet) should have no issues making it.
Edit: Vanillin is actually used in creating many other chemicals, without it many industries would have issues
I've always felt that the changes to shipping are overblown. It's mostly referenced as a reason BB lost work on the Docks, but that could easily have been market forces - especially after the sinking and Graveyard formed.
Is transcontinental shipping down? Almost certainly. But there's little reason ships can't follow close to coastlines; if Levi shows up, head to the nearest city.
Traditionally, sailing and shipping have been amongst the most dangerous professions. Hell, even today some segments are incredibly harrowing - Deadliest Catch, for example.
The point is, most shipping by sea still happens. It may be more expensive (to cover increases in insurance), and has probably become less common for smaller, more expensive items that can be shipped by air, but it's still going.
This isn't to say that there haven't been impacts due to strife. I think that's actually the greater issue. China isn't the manufacturing powerhouse it became here. India might be. Japan is effectively destroyed as an economic power, and there are probably many damaged coastal areas across East Asia. Africa isn't stable, so things hard to get elsewhere like diamonds are probably even more expensive.
Has a lot of potential I wonder how long it takes until the PRT finds out about Will O Wisps true power/How Long it will take wisp to realize that no other peoples powers don't come from amulet and that she's some sort of tinker and would get materials. Do the fictions switch like in TOF?
Is transcontinental shipping down? Almost certainly. But there's little reason ships can't follow close to coastlines; if Levi shows up, head to the nearest city.
Traditionally, sailing and shipping have been amongst the most dangerous professions. Hell, even today some segments are incredibly harrowing - Deadliest Catch, for example.
The point is, most shipping by sea still happens. It may be more expensive (to cover increases in insurance), and has probably be
On that matter is Levi even attacking ships like at all? It was never mentioned that the Levi actually attacks ships as far as I know Endbringers only attack during endbringer attacks and are dorment the rest of the time.
(A/N) Hey all! Life stress eased off so I could get this to you! I'll probably go back over it when I'm not half asleep but hey! Keep reading and by the time you can complain the smoke bomb will have gone off and I'll be legging it down an alley.
I gave Clockblocker a small nod and smile, and he seemed very relieved. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by the figure in the iron mask – Shadow Stalker, I guessed.
"Christ. Move on. You'd think you killed her mother or something. Shadow Stalker. Go."
It felt like the air had been punched from my lungs. I gasped, trying to recover it and wipe the woman's eyes from my memory. I wanted to make a good impression here. I didn't want to be the weak little girl that cried anytime someone said anything. There was no way for Shadow Stalker to have known.
I blinked away the burn in my eyes and realized that Kid Win was talking. Gallant was looking between Shadow Stalker and me. I could not tell anything from his expression.
"-but right now, I don't know. Laser guns, maybe? Anyway, it's nice to meet you, Willow."
Crap. He probably started that with his name. I didn't want him to think I wasn't paying attention. I smiled at him, as brightly as I could manage.
"You too!"
"I'm Dennis" The redhead smiled at me. He had a nice smile, but something made me think he was more used to smirking. "Or Clockblocker in costume." He reached into a pouch on his costume and pulled out a coin of some kind. He flicked it up with his thumb once and caught it. He flicked it up a second time, and it froze just as it left his hand.
"I freeze things in time."
I stared at the coin, my eyes wide. The power testers had told me about the different wards, and I knew that something had happened to me, but seeing it still gave me the chills. Clockblocker could stop time. One of the fundamentals of the universe, and he casually stopped it as a joke. Vista was glaring at him and Dennis' smile slowly faded.
"Sorry again." He covered the coin with his hand, as if to hide the evidence. I jolted, and nodded.
"Nice to meet you, Dennis." Dennis. That was weird. Yes, it was a real name but I had somehow gotten used to everyone using cape names. Not that I had had much time to get used to anything in my… three? Days of life.
"Dean. I see emotions, and can shoot concussive blasts of emotion." Gallant was Dean. Okay. Emotion powers would explain how he knew I was scared. Well, not like I was trying to hide it. I blushed. It felt weirdly exposing to be in a room with someone you couldn't hide your feelings from. I noticed Vista smiling at Dean with an odd expression that I couldn't quite identify. What was that about?
I realized everyone was looking at me expectantly, so I jolted upright.
"Hi! I'm Will-o'-the-Wisp, but you can call me Willow." I hesitated. My barriers weren't worth including. "I've still got some power testing to go through, but I can make light and heal!"
Shadow Stalker snorted. I frowned slightly. I didn't understand what I had done to them. The others were giving me encouraging looks, though.
Vista was the only one that was left. She straightened and spoke in a voice that was clipped and professional. It was oddly disconcerting hearing it from Vista.
"As you know, I am Vista. I have been with the Wards the longest, so if you have any questions, you can come to me."
She gave me a faint smile. It was reassuring smile, if only because it was a hint of the Vista I recognized. The voice had reminded me a little of Armsmaster. His calm friendliness when we first met, compared to the disregard he showed me today.
"I can warp space. It gives me a Mover rating and lets me turn Strikers into Blasters."
I understood the first sentence, so I just nodded. Vista's voice turned friendly again, and she gave me another small smile.
"My civilian identity is Missy. I go to Stansfield Middle. Maybe you'll go there too?"
I blinked. Right. School was a thing. Was there more than one choice? Could I even go to school? I assumed that I had gone to school before the collapsed room – don't think about the eyes – but my memories were gone. Maybe I could ask Missy to help me figure it out. I smiled at her.
"Um, I don't know. Maybe?"
There was a moment of silence as everyone seemed to remember her history, or lack thereof. Carlos broke the silence.
"Right. Armsmaster is going to be redoing the schedule after you finish power testing, but it still works for the next few days. Gallant and I need to go on patrol. Clock, you're on Console."
Dennis winced and threw me a guilty glance.
"Yeah I know, for the next month."
Console must be a punishment. I wasn't sure how to feel about that. I had a more pressing question.
"So, um. I have my guesses, but. Why does everyone have two names?"
Everyone froze. Shadow Stalker actually started laughing.
The world, I decided, would be a lot better if people ate more ice cream. The rich, slightly bitter flavour of Chicory-Cassina ice cream seems to expand beyond my mouth. The sweetness buzzed between my teeth and shivered in my hands and feet and tail.
As Missy explained superheroes, supervillains, and the unwritten rules to me, I couldn't help but reflect on my memories. Not because of what I lacked, but because of what I remembered.
I knew what superpowers were. My powers were clearly not actual magic, but imitations of that magic in superpower form. I even thought of them as superpowers.
But Missy had to explain superheroes and supervillains to me. The division between civilian identity and cape identity (which I would not have).
The fact that I knew about one but not the other was very suspicious to me. I wanted to brood on why my memories were so shredded, but Vista was there. She was bright and cheerful, and exactly what I needed just then.
She seemed excited, too. I don't think she'd ever admit to wanting a friend her age – she kept referring to herself as the older, more experienced teammate – but I think she felt alone here.
"Don't worry," She said, gesturing with her spoon and flinging a drop of caffeinated frozen sweetness. "A lot of the sucky stuff about being young only applies to combat capes. Your powers don't really have an application for combat so they should keep you to PR stuff."
She stopped, and focused on me.
"Wait, do you want to fight? Sorry, I think I was doing what they did to me for a minute there."
I flashed back the collapsed room. They'd told me that that was the fallout from a cape fight. My memories ripped away, my… forget about the eyes… a woman dead, and we were just an afterthought. If I hadn't gained powers, I might have died down there because the cape fight had been the important thing and we had been just background scenery.
I shuddered and shook my head. My ears flopped a little at the violence of the motion.
"No."
She squinted at me, then put down her spoon and scooted closer on the couch so she could hug me. At first I thought her shirt was wet, then I realized that I was crying. I hugged her tight. She pulled away but didn't say anything at first.
"So! Did you like the Chicaina ice cream?"
I giggled, and we talked about lighter things. Eventually, the sugar and caffiene high kicked in and Missy dragged out the pad for Dance Dance Revolution. I tried to challenge her on the hardest mode and was beaten gloriously. Afterwards, when the sugar crash came we fell asleep on the couch, the remnants of ice cream going sticky on the coffee table.
Has a lot of potential I wonder how long it takes until the PRT finds out about Will O Wisps true power/How Long it will take wisp to realize that no other peoples powers don't come from amulet and that she's some sort of tinker and would get materials. Do the fictions switch like in TOF?
It'll be a while before the PRT finds out. Not that long, but. It'll come out in a fun way. Fun for me, anyway.
The fictions do switch! Part of what's delaying the fic (alongside stress) is me agonizing over whether I'll be doing Hope Comes to Brockton Bay or another fic. Shaper would go absolutely nuts with a Ryn of Avonside amulet, but I think I want to wait for a bit on that lol. Too much power creep there.
To be honest, I think I'm getting ahead of myself lol. We've got a ways to go before she switches fictions, and I have an absolutely delightful time for her to switch in. Whether she gets HCTBB or not? we'll see.
(A/N: I have a feeling I'm going to want to come back through and edit the story as a whole later.)
Glory Girl gave the best hugs.
She was so warm and friendly, and the awareness of her strawberry perfume made me blush for a reason I could not have named. She seemed reluctant to let me go; her soft arms wrapped around me like iron bars. I did not want to squirm too much and seem like I didn't want to hug her. I did, but it was desperately embarrassing for some reason. When the girl finally let me out to arm's length, the expression on her face made dread congeal in my chest and throat.
The cold warred with the superheroine's warmth, and I found myself hugging my tail to try to fill it.
She took a deep breath. This didn't seem like the Glory Girl I met. I had only known her for a few minutes, three days ago, but she had seemed unstoppable. Confident, invincible, perfect.
Now, she was still radiant, but I could tell that Glory Girl had no idea how to handle this situation.
We were sitting in a conference room in the PRT building, where I had spent the majority of my existence. Vista had explained to me (with a slightly sour look on her face) that Glory Girl was not a Ward, and so couldn't come into our living areas. I had been escorted to this room by a faceless PRT trooper and left to wait the five minutes it took to get Glory Girl up from the front desk.
Five minutes had stretched to twenty, and I had been idly spinning in the chair (facing backwards, because I couldn't sit properly on the chair with my tail) when she had finally come in. I caught a glimpse of Aegis and Gallant in the hallway, and then Glory Girl had taken all of my attention. She got my attention now, still uncertain.
"Willow." She winced. Why would my name make her wince? She stopped and tried again.
"Honey, do you remember when I found you, you, uh… weren't alone?"
Eyes.
I could not help but flinch back from the intrusive thought, and my emotions slipped out of my control, into a wild indecipherable tangle. I wanted her to stop talking. I wanted her to go on. I just wanted her to hug me and not have opened her mouth in the first place. She gave me another brief squeeze, then let me go.
Glory Girl reached into a fold of her dress and withdrew a card. It was warped and bent a little, with indentations from fingers with superstrength. She held it out to me.
After a moment, I took it. Before reading it, I glanced back up at the blonde. She nodded encouragement.
The first thing that leapt out at me was the woman from the collapsed room. The image of her dead eyes flickered up in my mind but was burned away by the image on the card.
'Andrea Campbell' was grinning broadly. Her smile was open and honest and foretold mischief. The tiny picture was so full of life that it took me a moment to remember that she was dead. There was something about that smile… Something familiar.
I looked back up at Glory Girl.
"Who was she?" There was a catch in my throat.
Glory Girl took another deep breath.
"We took the card to the DMV and found information about her." She seemed to relax, as if reciting the information was safer than actually talking to me about her. "She was a bartender in Portland, and a local singer and… And she had a daughter named Claire."
It took me a long moment to figure out why she said this with such trepidation. I had idly considered my mother being this woman, but never truly believed it. Case 53s never found where they came from, or so Carlos told me.
"Me?"
She nodded, and gave me the faintest hint of her normal, radiant smile.
"You look a lot like her."
I stared at the picture on the card, trying to match up her features with the ones I remembered in the mirror. The hair was right, black and wavy. Where mine was shoulder-length, hers was in a pixie cut, but it was the same hair. Her eyes? Mine were amber, compared to her green. I supposed that was probably a result of my transformation, though. Was there something about her nose, her mouth, that I would see in the mirror? I had not spent enough time there to have a fixed image of myself. I felt them with my fingertips but it did not help.
I looked up to Glory Girl.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"You match the school photo we have for you, too. Well, except for your extras." She ruffled my ears with false cheer and I flattened them in faux-annoyance.
Claire. My name was Claire. I whispered the name to myself, trying it out. Trying to see if I felt more like a 'Claire' than a 'Willow'.
Nothing.
Willow was more familiar, but there was no intense 'click' of 'Yes! That's me!' to either name.
They were words, like any other, labels stuck onto me to make sense of the shattered morass of 'I can't remember.'
"What's your name?"
I knew it wasn't a question that one asked of parahumans, but Glory Girl went around with her face uncovered. I suddenly wanted to talk about someone else, anyone other than me or 'Andrea'. I looked up to Glory Girl, who looked nonplussed.
"It's Victoria."
I nodded, feeling something shifting under my feet, in the depths of my soul.
"It's nice to meet you Victoria."
She smiled, a little of that radiance back. It made my heart ache to see. I wanted her to be happy, confident, a shining star.
"It's nice to meet you too, Claire."
No, that was the wrong thing. No, I didn't want to think about that. I felt it coming, in a wave of pressure and dread like a suddenly dry beach. I desperately tried to keep it away.
"Why don't you wear a mask, Victoria?"
The teenager shrugged and smoothed her dress.
"My family part of an independent hero team called New Wave. We're all about cape accountability, and that means no masks. I'm a second-generation cape, so everyone knew I'd trigger. My cousins both triggered before me and we were just waiting for it. It was so worth the wait though! Superpowers are the best thing ever! I…"
As she kept talking, she seemed to light back up. She was back to being herself and it made me happy just to be near her. I let myself listen to her talk, not really paying attention to the content so much as the rhythm and the life of it. She was so vibrant, so alive.
Like the Andrea on the driver's license.
Like my mother.
I had a mother, and she was dead.
The next thing I knew, I was sobbing into Victoria's shoulder, hugging her tight as she hugged me. The tsunami had come, and I was washed away in it.
Well I'm guessing we'll be seeing the Heberts soon then, I'm really looking forward to seeing how Danny reacts to Willow/Claire's contract, should be interesting.
