Remove ads

Pound the Table | An X-Men Self-Insert

Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Reader mode
Noa's such a drama queen isn't she? All she needs is the excuse or the go ahead, and she'll go overboard so she can either say she did it, or just to prove a point (like a napoleon complex with a gender flavor).

Noa has already perfectly internalized the hoitytoity high class way of thinking, where she didn't even bother to look and give more thought to whoever's toes it was she stepped on. Also her bitchy thoughts to Betty is likely on full display, since I doubt Betty did that open door slight on accident. Though I guess that could be flavored with the "typical" female competition, so eh.
 
Last edited:
Always Late said:
… Ok, I gotta go off on a bit of self-indulgent tangent because I don't know how much of the comic Noa knows, or even is canon for this story, but it's all very similar and I have a shallow need to be praised for successfully googling stuff.

So for those who don't keep up with comics, there was this little plot arc for Spectacular Spider-Man back in 2017. In the issue "My dinner with Jonah", Spider-Man agrees to give Jonah an exclusive interview over dinner in his apartment. There's stuff about Peter having a secret half-sister, Jonah's long since lost the Bugle, but that's not important right now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Eh, I prefer the version where Jonah is the survivor of domestic violence (also his mother) at the hands of his father, who was beloved as a war hero. It never came out, it never stopped and they never got justice. And Jonah sees Spiderman just being completely unaccountable, and he's being triggered by past trauma to desperately try to change people's minds about him.
 
Blinktwice13 said:
So after reading some of the reactions, I gotta say...

References aside, October didn't do an awful job? Like I'm weak for a Legally Blonde reference, but the most important thing here is context.

Bears (beefy hairy gays) weren't well-established as a subculture in the male-male queer community until the 80s - in fact, it mostly got off the ground during that time period to divorce itself from the well-kept, clean-shaven mainline subculture. It took off during the AIDS crisis, in fact.

So, a gay man being well put-together in this time period - the 80s, which I am sure is going to have at least one reference to said crisis - just marks him as part of the former subculture.

Further, the man is gay and European - and from the description, white. As a white gay athlete, he falls into a specific mold, the sort of twunk/hunk ideal that a lot of the male-male community held/holds on a pedestal. Setting aside body image and those issues in the community, the sterotype exists because it was considered desirable in those circles.

On another note, this image was ubiquitous enough that in '94 the term 'metrosexual' was coined because the trend of straight/heterosexual men adopting that level of self-maintenance. Like, it was shorthand for 'wow, you're looking pretty clean - you sure you're just into chicks?'

So yes, while today in the year 2022 such a portrayal is stereotypical and can be interpreted as a poor jab for a reference, if one considers the time period and culture being written in it's actually decently true-to-life.

/rant

Sources: A bit of quick googling and a couple queer history classes back in college.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Another thing to consider is the difference between 'matching a stereotype' and 'coding'. If you're an oppressed minority, you might not want to advertise your existence to all and sundry, but you do still want to have ways to indicate to others what and who you are, preferably in ways that can be plausibly denied if the person you thought was a potential friend turns out to be a foe.
Thus, this gives rise to 'coding', which includes behaviours, clothing with hidden meaning, and so on. Given that two of the people he was interacting with were themselves gay (and whilst we've assumed the client hired Schaefer because she was an expert on mutant law, it is perfectly plausible that she was hired because she was known to be gay friendly), he may have been deliberately living up to the stereotype as a form of indirect honesty.
 
Shane_357 said:
Eh, I prefer the version where Jonah is the survivor of domestic violence (also his mother) at the hands of his father, who was beloved as a war hero. It never came out, it never stopped and they never got justice. And Jonah sees Spiderman just being completely unaccountable, and he's being triggered by past trauma to desperately try to change people's minds about him.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I did mention the child abuse.
Always Late said:
As far as I know, the earlier jealousy over not being a successful superhero to the people himself hasn't been retconned, but the fact he's lost the person closest to him twice by a masked killer left an impact compounded by the childhood abuse.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nobody's taking something out of the timeline here.
 
My guess for the character flaw on display is some variant of thinking very poorly of people she doesn't have a good connection to, first with her thoughts on Betty and then her repeated surprise that a bunch of college students wouldn't immediately rush a pile of money, which she attributed to mutant phobia, rather than an aversion to stealing from lawyers in front of many witnesses.

October Daye said:
Oh they absolutely would. Let's be real, they're college students. Noa is massively overpaying.

But she also wants them as motivated as humanly possible... and if you dangle a particularly large prize in front of someone, with the only thing between it and them being a physical feat, what's more likely: they stop at one and say "alright, I did my best, good enough"?

Or they become filled with [DETERMINATION] to keep going, emboldened by dollar signs, the dream of telling their student loan payments to go fuck off, and being able to have the best and snazziest stuff compared to everyone else on campus?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I suspect it also makes for better headlines. After all, which sounds more exciting "We gave a bunch of college kids some pizza and got them to replicate these shots." Or "Pro-tennis player claimed these five shots were impossible, so we set up a $5,000 bounty if anyone could replicate just 1! This college team collected $1,000,000."

The big numbers don't actually change anything, but they help it stick in peoples minds.
 
October Daye said:
"So if we file on the eighth, that means the ATP and Becker both need to have their legal teams work on their responses during the Open, and means any hiccups either of them experience during the tournament will probably draw more attention to the suit.

"Now Sophie," I turned to her, still smiling. "If you saw somebody make constant mistakes when they normally didn't, and you'd just heard through the grapevine that they were being accused of something nasty, what would your first thought be?"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You know, it occurs to me that Noa is the perfect embodiment of 'one man's hero is another man's villain'. Because let's face it, she embodies every trope of the 'sneaky ruthless lawyer' archetype, and in any movie would be standing smugly at the right hand of the rich evil corporate bad guy.

In fact, she would be standing at the right hand of the rich evil corporation if they ever managed to hire her. And let's face it, no matter how much she wants it, some of Noa's clients will be assholes. But she will be just as sneaky and ruthless defending their interests as she is with her more sympathetic clients.
 
You'll have more luck convincing a rabies infectee to drink water than trying to use evidence in the court of public opinion.
 
Gremlin Jack said:
You know, it occurs to me that Noa is the perfect embodiment of 'one man's hero is another man's villain'. Because let's face it, she embodies every trope of the 'sneaky ruthless lawyer' archetype, and in any movie would be standing smugly at the right hand of the rich evil corporate bad guy.

In fact, she would be standing at the right hand of the rich evil corporation if they ever managed to hire her. And let's face it, no matter how much she wants it, some of Noa's clients will be assholes. But she will be just as sneaky and ruthless defending their interests as she is with her more sympathetic clients.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean there's a reason why Beast is basically 'oh fuck It's you' in the opening chapter.
 
Carcer said:
It is possible that this has already been asked but I could not find the mention of it in the chronology, does noa know enough about marvel comics to be aware of the existence of Ernst (alias Yitz Perlman)?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Nope, she does not. And if she ever encounters Marc Spector, the absolute most she'd know is simply that he's another rabbi's kid.

Now that said? Given that Noa is from St. Louis and Marc Spector from Chicago?… well, I'll simply say there exists a chance they've met.
 
ic3shard13 said:
Uhm...



Mh! How much does Noa actually know about this sport?
Would she recognize if one of the college students made a shot by actually cheating? And what if said student said in court he cheated to make that shot?
Though this might be my brain on Ace Attorney.

In short, Noa is overconfident.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, unless they cheat by using mutant powers...
 
Sterr said:
I mean, unless they cheat by using mutant powers...
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Try using that argument though, and now you're arguing that half a dozen random people on some random collegiate team (none of whom are probably the best in the field) are also superhuman mutants. And saying that each of them is a mutant would inevitably trigger backlash from them, their families, friends, and colleagues, as that's tantamount to smothering their tennis careers in the cradle. Heck the college might start throwing its own weight around to protect its tennis team.

Plus, given that Schaefer intends to make this case as public as possible, that's just begging to be ridiculed in every sports publication willing to take a low blow. "Oh, so first the guy who kicked his ass is a superhuman mutant, and now these random college kids are also superhuman mutants, just cus they could have scored on him too. Talk about a bruised ego!"
 
Sengachi said:
Try using that argument though, and now you're arguing that half a dozen random people on some random collegiate team (none of whom are probably the best in the field) are also superhuman mutants. And saying that each of them is a mutant would inevitably trigger backlash from them, their families, friends, and colleagues, as that's tantamount to smothering their tennis careers in the cradle. Heck the college might start throwing its own weight around to protect its tennis team.

Plus, given that Schaefer intends to make this case as public as possible, that's just begging to be ridiculed in every sports publication willing to take a low blow. "Oh, so first the guy who kicked his ass is a superhuman mutant, and now these random college kids are also superhuman mutants, just cus they could have scored on him too. Talk about a bruised ego!"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm confused by your reply, I was saying that even if they cheat it doesn't matter unless they're mutants.
 
It does matter, since if all shots could be done by regular humans cheating or not, her client's case is going to be a sure thing outside of last minute shanenigans like previously.
 
I gotta say, whenever I've had clips of Johnny Depp's recent trial shoved at me to look at, I keep noticing things that reading from Noa's perspective taught me, and I think that's genuinely neat. You don't get that realism from law dramas very often, so it feels like I'm always genuinely learning court procedures and lawer tricks whenever this fic is currently mid-trial.
^-^
 
KillingYouNicely said:
I gotta say, whenever I've had clips of Johnny Depp's recent trial shoved at me to look at, I keep noticing things that reading from Noa's perspective taught me, and I think that's genuinely neat. You don't get that realism from law dramas very often, so it feels like I'm always genuinely learning court procedures and lawer tricks whenever this fic is currently mid-trial.
^-^
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh, that trial has been an absolute treat. So many lessons to be learned there. So, so, SO many.
 
October Daye said:
Oh, that trial has been an absolute treat. So many lessons to be learned there. So, so, SO many.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think most of the internet is watching that trial by now, mostly for how badly Ms. Heards lawyers flubbed their cross examinations, but if you don't mind giving your opinion on something that has interested me since I started watching the trials myself.

Is there anything about how both lawyer teams handled their clients that you would've done differently?

Johnny's team was supportive and personable, sharing candy with him during the witness testimonials and telling him he was doing great whenever he comes off the stand. You could tell they had his best interests in mind from watching them go over their notes with him or when Johnny and Mr. Chew would laugh together at Amber's lawyers when they start grasping at straws.

Amber's team meanwhile came off as upset with her and distant, three guesses on why that is, but still tried to work as many angles as they could get away with. Any checking of facts was done among the lawyers present while Amber was sat in the corner like a bad dog looking sorry for herself. I had watched a behavioral analyst mention how one of the lawyers left their luggage handle out next to Amber Heard during the trial, and how it made her look like she wanted to just get out of there, made me think the lawyers wanted the same thing.

Edit: mad respect to Mrs. Curry for never letting Ms. Bredehoft twist her words.

Edit2: maybe upset with Amber was the wrong choice of words, but it felt like they wanted to keep contact to a minimum on who handled her among the lawyers present, with Mr. Rottenborn and Ms. Bredehoft talking to Ms. Heard rarely in court.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Remove ads
Back
Top