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Pound the Table | An X-Men Self-Insert

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ptbptb said:
They dragged themselves into it, by saying "We're dropping sponsorship for this guy because he's a dirty cheating mutant" (paraphrase). That was a very stupid thing to do, and an unusual thing to do for a big company. They could have just said something like "Nike has chosen not to continue its sponsorship of this guy". However, this is X-Men and (for whatever reason) a lot of people have healthy helpings of irrational hate for mutants and it's plausible that Nike was handed the idiot ball by whatever prompts that hate.
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Exactly this.

Remember this is marvel. If there is a genus of human called homo-suicidal-lemming, it would be Marvel Humans.

Mutants who randomly receive their powersets? Okay whatever.

Mutants with the power to destroy planets? Let's genocide them.

How marvel earth remained intact for 99% of the timelines without some random mutant waking up with the ability to turn matter into anti-matter or something... and then just going all the way... well, author fiat is the only answer. Or the very real Omega mutants doing something more than starting their own island nation and just destroying countries as retaliation... well, author fiat again.

If there was a cliff with a sign that said 'certain death, you will die, there is no resurrection', most of marvel humanity would sprint right off.
 
October Daye said:
The problem isn't the case.

The problem is that Norman Osborn has finances of "Yes" to throw at this problem.

Noa is good. But she is not "defeats thirty lawyers, ten PI's, covert bribes to bureaucrats, knowing the favorite vice of every judge, and owning half the politicians in the city" good.
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Um... Would those really help that much in this case?

So much Norman's team could normally do would run into "relevance" and or "mootness" given Ben doesn't seem to be denying that he hit Norman.

And of course there's the question of why Norman's even going this route if he cares enough to dump "yes" level's of money into this? *Confused face*

Because if Norman wants revenge enough to spend millions of dollars and a bunch of political favor on the issue. Wouldn't it be both easier and more satisfying to do something like propose a realistate/infrastructure project and push some politicians to "eminent domain" Ben's home in Forest Hill's so he can watch in glee as Ben spends the next few years running himself into the ground and depleting all his life savings in the futile fight to stop it?
 
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The eminent domain is less personal than this approach., Norman does like to take revenge on personal levels if it all possible. And then escalates if he can't get that.
 
Okay, I did not see Ben Parker coming. This is going to be interesting. And I can absolutely see him throwing hands to protect the best friend of his son-in-all-the-ways-that-matter. But yeah, this is going to be interesting, because Norman can throw so much money as this problem to start smearing.

Also if this gets into a courtroom and goes full-circus, I'm putting $5 on Norman getting so frustrated he Goblins out.
 
Vaermina said:
Because if Norman wants revenge enough to spend millions of dollars and a bunch of political favor on the issue. Wouldn't it be both easier and more satisfying to do something like propose a realistate/infrastructure project and push some politicians to "eminent domain" Ben's home in Forest Hill's so he can watch in glee as Ben spends the next few years running himself into the ground and depleting all his life savings in the futile fight to stop it?
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If the government exercises eminent domain over Ben's house, it has to give Ben just compensation. That means fair market value, and also can mean a lawsuit if the determined "fair market value" is too low according to Ben. I can't imagine that Ben would run himself into the ground trying to stop it when he could take the money and get a new home
 
rytan451 said:
If the government exercises eminent domain over Ben's house, it has to give Ben just compensation. That means fair market value, and also can mean a lawsuit if the determined "fair market value" is too low according to Ben. I can't imagine that Ben would run himself into the ground trying to stop it when he could take the money and get a new home
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Just because you can't imagine the pain when the roots around the hearth are pulled out doesn't mean it doesn't exist for other people.
 
Dmol8 said:
Just because you can't imagine the pain when the roots around the hearth are pulled out doesn't mean it doesn't exist for other people.
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Ben probably wouldn't be too happy about it, but he's generally portrayed as being fairly wise and practical, which means not doing things like valuing the people he cares about over the place where he lived and not doing things like driving himself into financial ruin over the latter.
 
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Epsilon Rose said:
Ben probably wouldn't be too happy about it, but he's generally portrayed as being fairly wise and practical, which means not doing things like valuing the people he cares about over the place where he lived and not doing things like driving himself into financial ruin over the latter.
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Ben wouldn't value the people he cares about over the place where he lived?
 
A_Somebody said:
I'm just gonna full body wince and say unfortunately I don't think it's ever quite that straightforward when it comes to abusive parental figures. Or abusive relationships in general.

Could easily be Harry's resentful that Ben thinks he's "weak" enough to need protection (yay machismo combined with abuse rationalization!!!), combined with Osborn love bombing with material goods afterwards (he rich afterall, so this would be trivial compared to actual parenting or emotional work of any kind), Harry still desperately clinging to the hope that he can someday earn approval (always want what you can't have), also fear/embarrassment at this becoming public that gets funneled into anger at the person 'at fault' (this is normal and I don't appreciate you making a spectacle out of it!!!) and finally legit fear about what the future holds. Afterall, he's probably gonna have to continue living with Norman afterwards and even in the absurdly optimistic scenario where Osborn somehow looses custody, it's still a massive massive upheaval in his life he'd have no frame of reference for. Like sure, dad is shitty, but it's stuff hes familiar with.
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Yeah, that's... yeah. I have personal experience with some of that, so you'd think I'd know better than to suggest it could all be so easy... :(
 
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So. This is all done pro bono, but Noa doesn't have the infrastructure to deal with the likely flood of paper shit Norman Osborne can throw Ben Parker's way. And the main way to really make Osborn give up faster is to publicize this case, which is both an issue of 'way too soon', and 'explicitly not what she was asked to do' along with 'not effective against the insane'. This is not even mentioning the issue regarding Harry Osborne here, when we don't know if he could manage to stand up against his father.

The stated goal is to slow and calm things down to reach a settlement, but Norman might have already become crazy Green Goblin, and might hold an unreasonable grudge against this whole event. This becomes even more likely if Harry really is defying Norman, meaning the chance of things proceeding in a civil manner is microscopic.

And even in the case of a phyrric victory or defeat, Green Goblin might still hold a grudge, meaning Noa is still up shit creek regardless.
 
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Additur, punitive damages and being paid based on success is such an American thing.

In my jurisdiction, lawyers are explicitly banned from taking a percentage of damages awarded as their fees. Doing so will get the bar association to seriously warn it immediately disbar you. You're paid by the hour in advance, and if you win, you get your fees back from the other side.
 
RecklessPrudence said:
Yeah, that's... yeah. I have personaly experience with some of that, so you'd think I'd know better than to suggest it could all be so easy... :(
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Well, I do think having a outside third party to let you know "no this isn't normal and you deserve better" is absolutely vital. But yeah that list did come from stuff I've seen and experienced too. And ultimately the hope that intervention from a good outsider is the catalyst that will help someone self actualize and make their life better is a strong hope for a reason.
 
That was quick. Well, thanks to some AMAZINGLY sloppy defamation. Even if they hate mutants, I'd expect at least ONE of the suits to say "are we SURE you can't duplicate that?" (I have no idea how difficult any of those shots would be to duplicate, but I'm certain the college students brute-forced the problem.) Would a lawsuit like this really suspend professional sports in play, though? Most athletes, if challenged, could point to plenty of feats similar to their most spectacular ones. And an entire NHL team isn't going to shut down cause one guy might be a mutant.

Curious how this crazy-size reward is gonna change things. That's past "fuck off" money and into "start a foundation" money. Although Noa was already a millionaire, at least in stock portfolio, I think. Not that she strikes me as the type to step back from the day-to-day.
 
If I was a sports player and saw that suit, I would at least contact a lawyer/union rep to ask if that could happen to me.

Enough players start doing that and they start musing on if their play might get called 'enhanced' and I could see player unions then saying 'we'll take the pay hit to see what impact this will have on all professional sports'
 
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