I'm going to become the joker. If your dumb reptilian ass is going to get between me and dyke board game night you could at least have the decency to kill me. Where the fuck is the SCP Foundation when you need them?

She sends a DM.

hi. I know you don't know me, but my name is Raven. I have a job offer, and some stuff to tell you that might be hard to believe. Is there a place and time you can meet? I'm convenient to anywhere in the USA.

huh

is there actually an SCP foundation type deal?

you guys sure suck at your jobs then

in any case like

despite what I said my conscience forbids me from becoming any kind of cop so if that's what you're after I'm gonna have to turn you down

We're quite like the Foundation, actually. We don't suck at our jobs, we're just horrifically understaffed due to a chronic absence of qualified applicants. What if...don't think "cop", think "soldier". Warrior. Knight, even. Does that sound any better?

Nice try. My dad was in the navy, I know that it's not as exciting as they make it out to be, and even if there is magic involved that's probably still true. Plus I'm too clumsy to drive a car or ride a bike, so idk how the fuck you expect me to be worth the cost of training and equipping.

You're worth it by your very nature! I realize how bullshit young adult novel it sounds, but you most likely have a special ability found very rarely in the population that is worthy of further investigation. If you indeed possess it as predicted, you would prove an invaluable resource to any army regardless of how incurably clumsy you are. Could you give me a time and place to meet up so I can demonstrate the veracity of my claims? Even if you're not interested in enlisting, surely you're curious to learn more about this other side of the world that's been hidden from you all your life.

Yeah, young adult novel is right. From what I'm aware, I'm basically living in Larry Mason, except I'm a Mundy who's somehow immune to whatever bullshit hexes wizards are using to cover all the magic up, so I've just gotta go through my life with the knowledge that there's probably a cure for cancer and shit that you assholes are holding out on because you're too busy playing sports that make even less sense than regular ones.

"immune to whatever bullshit hexes cover all the magic up" is about right, except it's not hexes cast by someone, it's a natural phenomenon. We don't have a singular "cure for cancer"; we do have medical technology that we're keeping to ourselves on account of the whole "horde of monsters threatening to overrun the globe without our overstretched intervention" thing, and that most mortals can't even perceive half of it.

So there aren't enough people who can see through the Masquerade. Still doesn't mean I'm gonna survive more than 10 seconds going toe to toe with a troll or whatever the fuck. Granted, I did escape a jianghshi dentist once, but seemingly they get really sloppy on account of most people can't perceive magic bullshit.

Most mortal women wouldn't survive a fight with a monster before our training methods! We're the Amazons, we can make warriors out of almost anyone. And in any case, with your abilities you'd be the most protected person in the party.

A jianghshi? I don't think I've fought one before, but maybe we know them by a different name, like Ares and Mars. What was it like?

there wasn't really a fight. I just noticed she moved weird and smelled bad and seemed oddly eager to anaesthetize me so I just got up and bailed and then I later looked up 'chinese monsters' on the internet and the symptoms matched. It was kind of traumatic and I don't like to talk about it, I shouldn't have brought it up, can we please talk about something else.

awwwwwwww, I'm sorry, sweetie :(

We could talk more about your abilities, and how you'd be a particularly valuable asset to the Amazon nation? Or perhaps you'd like to hear about what the Amazons could do for you. Joining up comes with a lot of perks, including magic and technology you can't find anywhere else.

Amazon? Like, Wonder Woman Amazon?

Hmmm, I'm not very familiar with comics. They're...superpowered female warriors, live on an island, no men?

We're indeed superpowered female warriors, but we have front organizations throughout

Raven starts to type the word "barbarian", backspaces, and types

mortal society, and men are present in our bases, though not allowed to wield weapons or burdened with the responsibility of political decision-making. Some wanna find an alternate solution to the childcare problem and do without them, but I think that'd be a damn shame, they're a lot of fun.

As for our abilities...I don't really know what powers Wonder Woman has, except I think there's a lasso of truth in there? We do get magic items like that. My teammate Lauren has a hoodie that turns her invisible when she pulls the strings—it's a gift from her father, Hermes—and a cigarette lighter that turns into a flamethrower with a magic word; my buddy Gwen's got a Swiss Army knife with blades made of Imperial gold—that's a magic metal made by one of our allies, harms monsters while passing right through regular mortals like you—that turn into full size weapons when she pulls out the toothpick. Like, the big knife into a broadsword, the can opener into a scythe, the screwdriver into a spear—that one's her favorite, it's badass.

We also have some innate abilities, but that varies with our species. The most common are those of us with divine ancestry, like me—I'm a demigod, a daughter of Hecate. The best source you mortals have on what that's like, if you read Greek or Latin or can find translations you like, is probably the ancient epic poets—Homer, Virgil, and so on. Superhuman strength, constitution, and perception. We can hit harder and lift more than mortals, take harder hits ourselves and survive longer falls, our pregnancies are practically painless compared to what mortal women have to go through, and of course we can see through the Mist, the veil that obscures the supernatural. A few lucky ones get special blessings from their divine ancestors; my team's medic, Hope, is a descendant of Apollo and she can cure or inflict illness with a touch.

Some of us are monsters who choose to hunt their own kind and protect mortals. Gwen's husband is a Cyclops. He's skilled at working with magic metal, makes and maintains her weapons and armor. Some warrior women wouldn't be cool with that as an occupation for their husbands or boyfriends, but Gwen loves it. I think there's nothing wrong with it—it's just seeing the blood and guts up close that the male mind isn't evolved to deal with. Men are better than we give them credit for at technical work, their scores on mortal intelligence tests aren't a huge overestimate. Lauren is host to an eidolon, a possessing spirit—they're formed from the ghosts of mortals, often ones who have forgotten their original names and past lives. I myself have received a promise from my mother that, if I fall in battle, she'll make me an empousa—basically a vampire—to continue the fight.

There's the nature spirits, mostly dryads and naiads. I don't hang out with them much, because my team goes on missions all over the country while they're more suited to guarding particular areas, by their trees and rivers.

Rarest are the clear-sighted mortals like you. In addition to seeing through the Mist, you can serve as a guide to safely navigate the Labyrinth. It's how my team travels, gets us across the country faster than a car and safer than a plane. My team's current guide is a male, and even though he wears a bulletproof vest and hides behind us if any fighting breaks out, HR is raising a huge stink about the ethics of exposing him to combat at all, so we need a replacement.

...whoof, my bad, that infodump kinda got away from me a little. There's just so much to catch you new people up on!

The Labyrinth? Is my superpower being too gay to be mesmerized by David Bowie's pelvic thrusting?

haha, not that kind of labyrinth! Gods, Lauren loves that movie. I think maybe you have to be raised among mortals to get it :Þ

But no, think more like a procedurally generated video game dungeon. Network of ever-shifting tunnels in a mishmash of architectural styles, running under the whole country.

And... you're a lesbian? 👀

Not to be crass about it, but lots of mortal women find it a major perk that, on squads that spend lots of time away from base, hookups and even battlefield romances between team members are normal.

Don't play dumb with me. Somehow, I don't think it's a coincidence that the specific woman from this femdom Sparta warrior culture who contacted me happens to be my type.

Your type? 👀

I'm always the recruiter for my team, cause I'm the one who most enjoys talking to people on the Internet.

Oh, I don't doubt that, why would they bother specifically hiring bespoke hotties to honeytrap people when they could just AI generate thirst traps to put on the profile? You've probably had that technology for decades.

I'm offended! No bland computer generated mask could take the place of my face. Or should I be flattered that you think I'm so beautiful just talking to you counts as a honeytrap? =^-^=

...we're ahead of mortal society in raw computing power, but not that far, and traditionally we've been cautious about AI, though that's changing now that mortals are letting it rip anyway and we gotta catch up.

Wait a minute, I'm stupid. You have magic. You don't even need AI, you can probably just shapeshift! If I were straight you'd probably be pulling some shit like they did on that senator guy in season 1 of The Boys

Gods, I wish shapeshifting yourself into another human was that easy. I might be able to pull it off, if I picked a form not too different from my existing body type, but few other demigods could. If real life were like D&D where Alter Self is a lower level spell than Baleful Polymorph, we'd have a way easier time with 

She types

taking over the world

then backspaces, types

unifying and coordinating mortal society

and finally types

diplomatic relations.

And dare I ask what happened on s1 of The Boys?

they got a guy who had shapeshifting powers to shapeshift into a hot girl, seduce some senator, and make him put on a blindfold during sex so he could then shapeshift back into a guy and film the sex as blackmail

Mortals are always so weird about homosexuality, honestly. No offense.

And we don't want to blackmail our recruits! We want to offer them a good enough deal that they see it's in their interest to join us.

Because, of course, blackmailed soldiers aren't very effective. If Raven does have to recruit by force, she has a way better way of aligning the incentives.

that's what they all say. Anyways like, so my job wouldn't be to fight, just like, stand in the back and point the way and hide behind you when we get attacked?