Fanfic / Life Ore Death

Renka is a 19-year-old Original Character who spent her teen life surviving the events of Mistborn: The Original Trilogy and has spent her life since the Catascendre helping everyone rebuild, as the last living Feruchemist. But death comes eventually to everyone, and Harmony catches her on the way to the afterlife, offering her a chance to go through an inexplicable weak point in the world and explore what is there. Renka accepts, and ends up homeless, jobless, paperless, and penniless in the Young Justice (2010) universe. That’s the prologue.

Our story begins in late June, when Renka – reasoning in her situation that she can either help commit crimes or help stop them – walks into the Daily Planet and asks Lois Lane for an introduction to Superman.

Life Ore Death is a story that subverts a lot of common occurrences in Young Justice stories; Renka (who chooses the hero-name Ferris) already knows how to use her powers in a fight, but being from another world she knows next-to-nothing about codes of conduct, cultural norms, technology, the English language… and she has no meta-knowledge about DC characters at all. In her homeland, for much of her life, most human life wasn’t worth spit, and her personal experiences left her with a predilection toward lethal force that she has to learn to resist in this new world.

The story starts off slow, and nothing special, but it really hits its stride around her trip to Atlantis in “Inspire, Respire, Expire,” and from there it keeps going. The author has some things stay the same, but her presence alters a lot of The Stations of the Canon and because she’s too old for public education, there are other adventures she has while the rest of the Team are in class.

The author has consistently updated at least once a week since the first post in January, 2017, and as of writing the story is into its second season with over 200 installments spread through almost 30 “episodes”. It’s written so that people who don’t know about Mistborn: The Original Trilogy can still understand it, with informational side-posts about more complicated things, and is cross-posted on both Sufficient Velocity and Space Battles.

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This story contains examples of:

Tropes A to D

• A Birthday, Not a Break: As in canon, Wally has to run across the country to deliver a heart for Queen Perdita on his birthday. It’s suggested that Batman may have set this up as a birthday present to Wally, but it’s ambiguous.
  • Averted with M’gann’s extended birthday celebrations, which occur uninterrupted in October after Zatanna asks J’onn about it.
  • Averted first when Ferris turns 20, on August 16. Kaldur takes her to Atlantis while the others prepare her party, and nothing goes wrong. The title even identifies it as a Breather Episode, since it’s called "Inspire, Respire, Expire".
• Adaptation Personality Change: Played with in regards to Nabu. The Author has stated that Nabu is still the same as he was in the show, but because this story had elements such as Renka more actively seeking out potential helmet bearers, bringing Nabu to interview Queen Mera, and even visiting the Helmet to read aloud to Nabu to keep him company, we see him in a more positive mood, and he responds more positively to Renka and her actions, which affects how he interacts with the other characters. Of course, when Renka burns herself out acting as a host to Nabu in an emergency, things happen without her there to mediate...
• The Ace: Robin is portrayed as this, and Artemis is hamstrung mostly by how much of her training is too lethal to use around the Team. Ferris is a Jack of All Stats who has powers that can give her this impression in combat and strategy matters.
• Achilles' Heel: Ferris will fold like wet paper when hit with the wrong sort of mental attack, due to past experiences, and compounded by her Hemalurgic spike earring.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Because the Team didn’t stop the x-ionization weapons ring at the canon time (they were busy preparing for Renka’s birthday), Count Vertigo shows up in in the Injustice League with an x-ionized sword and takes Renka’s arm off. Artemis steals it to use on Black Adam, but when the Team later fights Rako they are forewarned and avoid getting cut.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Artemis’s father definitely counts, though he also had some good moments. It’s hinted that her villain mother may also have counted in a different way, before she reformed and tried to do better.
  • Wally’s father was briefly abusive when Wally was young, until he turned himself around, went to counseling, and quit drinking,
• Accidental Public Confession: Ferris arranges this for General Wade Eiling, having him talk amicably with an escaped criminal accomplice while she’s hacked his security systems and has witnesses, including his kids and an army general, on standby outside to hear.
• Action Girl: The Original Character protagonist, Renka (aka Ferris), definitely counts as a fit and muscular melee-fighting heroine. The other female members of the Team also count, as well as numerous other examples.
• Actually, I Am Him: In an interesting twist, in episode 26 Wonder Woman is called back to Themyscira to talk to her mother and led to a nymph-filled clearing to wait instead of the palace. It turns out the one wanting to talk to her is Gaia herself.
• Adaptational Heroism: Jinx is Klarion’s apprentice, but when she finds out what he’s doing in splitting the world she tries to rebel. Red Volcano is convinced to quit his attempted genocide by logic and persuasion, as there are other ways to make a Red Robot planet.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: Not necessarily his powers, but the source of them. Jericho gets his powers the same way Beast Boy gets them, which is a transplant from Miss Martian during emergency medical care.
• Adaptational Villainy: Talia may be nastier and more involved in League of Shadow activities than she was in canon; more than she was in some other series, certainly.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: Pay attention, and some of Renka’s thoughts or dialogue will noticeably have this, as she’s very well read and enjoys playing around with English words while she’s learning.
• Affably Evil: Sportsmaster treats Renka this way in China, including inviting her on a Villain Team-Up to take down an Eldritch Abomination that eats children. He may genuinely respect her, but it’s also a trap because he figured out Connection will make her trust him.
• Aliens Speaking English: Ferris is a Human Alien, and she needs to use a Translator Microbes trick, but does her best to learn the long way over time. Otherwise, it’s averted.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Possibly because of her powers, and possibly because Morrow had less time to program him, but Red Volcano is talked down from genocide by Ferris, when she outlines why his plan won’t work and what a better option is.
• Alternate History: There were superheroes with powers around in World War 2 and earlier. It’s mentioned that one reason Vertigo gets away (almost) with his activities on the Injustice League is because there are several decades of history where politicians have been mind-controlled before, and the politicians have passed laws & treaties to protect themselves in case it occurs.
• Always a Bigger Fish: In a case of Serial Escalation, Ferris went from being one of the 5 most personally dangerous individuals on her home planet to being a relatively low-rank threat on Earth-16, as she keeps encountering people like Superman, Klarion, Doctor Fate, and Death.
• Amazon Brigade: Themyscira, though it’s mentions that men are allowed on the island, under certain circumstances. Sons brought by women seeking shelter, for instance, or naturally born sons. Once they emigrate they usually can’t return, though.
• Ambiguously Brown: Because she’s Terris ethnicity, and not from Earth, people have a hard time nailing down Renka’s ace beyond “black”. She’s been said to resemble people from India, Egypt, central Africa, and a few other places, with something about her face just being off.
• Amnesiac Hero: All of the Team suffers this in Bialya, but Ferris loses at least three times as many memories because mental attacks are her Achilles' Heel and can’t eve remember arriving on Earth or anything about the Justice League.
• Angst: Despite still having issues, Renka has mostly worked through her angst, and provides a solid stable point and counterbalance to help other members of the Team with their issues (as it’s really hard for Artemis to angst about her history when her teammate did worse).
• And Then What?: One of Renka’s rhetoric tactics for talking down villains and other misguided people, as she spells out the actual consequences of their actions, which aren’t what they want.
• Anti-Hero: Ferris did horrible things in her Dark and Troubled Past, and while she recognizes the flaws of Murder Is the Best Solution, it’s still one on the table, even as she tries to be a more conventional heroine.
• An Ice Person: While M’gann and Conner are in Belle Reve, instead of sitting around playing games, the Team goes off on a practice mission to identify, track down, and interview a bunch of other ice-users who may have been approached for a part in the plot. They meet more than a dozen, and find that several have been threatened, targeted, or abducted and trafficked as part of a larger scheme.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Renka has gotten used to the idea that this new planet has all sorts of crazy stuff she can’t comprehend (yet), and helps avert this in Wally by running tests to nail down detail of magic powers.
• Armor Is Useless: Averted. Low-armor members of the Team increase how much they wear (such as Artemis getting a knife-proof under layer to cover her stomach), and despite her Healing Factor, Ferris wears a hero uniform with knife proof cloth, and buckled on armor pieces over it for better protection.
  • It’s useless against an x-ionized sword, though, and she needs to quickly reattach her arm before things go from bad to worse in that fight.
• Artificial Intelligence: Ferris treats the few we see (such as the Red Robot family and the Metal Men) as she would any human.
• Asshole Victim: It’s been noted in and out of universe that Ferris chose to deal with her violent urges and desire to do good by taking up a profession where beating up acceptable targets was acceptable.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Defied in the Team, as none of the best fighters (Ferris, Robin, Superboy) are suited for leadership, so Aqualad ends up in command. Also, in the Light, only Klarion the Witch Boy is a truly dangerous fighter.
• The Atoner: One element of Renka’s character, as she did horrible things in her past which she can never fully fix, but she can try to learn and make the world a better place.
• Axe-Crazy: It’s suggested that the trace contamination of Kobra Venom may also have driven Sportsmaster to this. In China, it seems like he’s regained some control with a drug regimen, but he still almost beats Ferris to death in a mental haze.
• Bag of Holding: Sportsmaster has some form of enchantment to make his pockets work like this, keeping large weapons inside.
• Battle Aura: Ferris is reported to have some powerful aura around her that magic-sensitive characters are aware of, especially after the start of the second season. It may be the explanation for how she beat two of the Forever People while in her hospital bed.
• The Beard: Wally had his first kiss like this; a closeted lesbian locked lips in the hope that he was gay, so they could “date” each other.
• Beneath the Mask: Robin gets continually more stressed about having to conceal his identity from his friends. Ferris appears pretty blasé and adjusted to her history, but occasionally she gets triggered into a terrifying breakdown.
• Berserk Button: Ferris has feelings about sex crimes and harm down to mothers or children.
• Betrayal Insurance: Ferris goes out of her way to ensure the others have insurance against her; the Team is all informed that mental attacks fold her like paper, and she starts teaching Zatanna spells to be used against her if need be.
  • Unlike some other versions, at least some other League members know Batman has this on his fellows, and Batman mentions it to Ferris as a reason she has to have a Secret-Keeper they can contact if she goes rogue or gets controlled.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Ferris is kind, can be gentle, and overall is a friendly person. She also crosses the line into a three-digit kill count during the story, is protective of innocents and her friends, and while she doesn’t do many bad things any more, she still remembers how. Some of her psychological breakings are nastier than mere violence, too.
• Big Eater: Wally is of necessity due to his powers, but Ferris can do this at will by using her bendalloy-minds.
• The Big Guy: Sportsmaster wasn’t a small man, but after getting dosed with trace amounts of Kobra Venom he’s grown 6” in all directions.
• Bloodless Carnage: While most of the fights are low-bloodshed, some of them are very bloody, and Ferris is caked in the gore of her own dried blood at one point, after her Healing Factor closes her wounds but doesn’t clean her up.
• Black-and-White Morality: Averted, and even the Justice League is shown to understand that real life is messy. Ferris laughs at this, and brings up some examples of how it won’t work very well.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The way Ferris treats the Superman & Superboy issue, once she understands it. Superboy hasn’t done anything to deserve Superman avoiding him, but Superman is essentially a date-rape victim, and never did anything to be held responsible for.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted, as Artemis has to bring extra arrows and judge which to carry carefully, or risk running out.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Ferris superficially resembles this, but actually averts it; her powers require her to remain inactive as she’s storing for several hours each day, but she works hard otherwise.
• Breather Episode: Several episodes are lighter and less active; the first of these even references the trope, being named Inspire, Respire, Expire, and taking place when Ferris first visits Atlantis.
• Came Back Wrong: Much like in the Justice League Unlimited episode “Wake The Dead,” Ferris and Captain Marvel have to deal with Solomon Grundy coming back as a mindless force of destruction around Halloween. It’s suggested this is a herald of Klarion’s bigger spell.
• Came Back Strong: Downplayed, as while Ferris is physically weak after her coma and will require physical therapy, her aura is powerful.
• Cardboard Prison: Renka is grately annoyed by this tropes, as she’s gone to great trouble to put her enemies away. In particular, before learning about Jade’s relationship with Artemis, she immediately jumps to lethal force against Cheshire when they meet again.
• Cast from Hit Points: When Ferris puts on the Helmet of Fate, she learns that she is a powerful host because of this.
• Caught on Tape: Ferris takes advantage of this in a few interrogations and stings, though she prefers Just Between You and Me methods.
• Celibate Hero: Ferris originally identifies as this; if she had a sex life before the Team then she hasn’t brought it up, and because she was almost impressed into a breeding program most of the Team isn’t willing to needle her on it. Word of God as of the Second Season says she may now be more open to dating and relationships again, in due time.
  • Kaldur is this because he’s still hung up on Tula. He’d enter a relationship with her, but otherwise he’d rather not. This is also a main reason why, despite similar personalities and shared interests, he and Ferris have averted Pair the Spares.
• Character Development:
  • Ferris slowly opens up to members of the Team about her history, coming to trust that the Justice League is genuinely benevolent instead of hiding a Dark Secret. She then goes from treating her time on earth as a temporary stay to planning more for the long term, in season 2.
  • Artemis goes from self-conscious and scared to being comfortable in her own skin, lets the Team in on her Dark Secret early, and becomes more comfortable with potentially lethal measures, such as carrying knives to back up her bow.
  • Wally works out his Arbitrary Skepticism about magic with Ferris, and along with Zatanna they begin running actual tests to qualify mystic abilities. He also becomes more of Science Hero, coming up with chemical compounds for restraining foam, knockout gas, etc.
  • The team as a whole becomes more stable, more experienced, and more at ease with both the good and the grim aspects of being involved in heroics, such as risk of death and state secrets.
• Charm Person: Part of Renka’s Heart Is an Awesome Power abilities is encouraging the formation of emotional bonds with others. She’s used it to calm down a berserk, amnesiac Superboy, to translate into any local language, to earn the Team and League’s trust, to aid interrogations, and to pass under suspicion while infiltrating.
• Chekhov's Gun: Ferris has an earring that turns out to be a Hemalurgic spike, and a supply of atium to burn or alloy.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Several people appear and then turn out to be important again later on.
  • Jakita Wagner: It seemed like she was a one-off encounter in a side arc of the story, and then she comes back in Season 2 with information about Batman’s Secret Identity and a lead that totally puts a League mission in new light.
  • Joseph Wilson gets abducted and has his throat cut on a mission where the Team is tracking Jackal. M’gann saves him in a similar way as saving Garfield Logan in canon, and he ends up joining the Team in Season 2.
• Child Soldier: Technically, all members of the Team could count as this. Aqualad is enrolled in the Atlantean military specifically, Artemis has been trained since she could walk, and Renka survived a civil war, even if she wasn’t on anyone’s side at the time.
• Children Forced to Kill: Renka made her first kill by accident around age 12/13, and then had to kill several others to survive while in shock. The influence of Ruin nudged her over the edge and she has a lot of blood on her hands now.
  • Also, Artemis was made to kill in self-defense by her father as a test. It messed her up so badly, he actually regretted doing it.
• Clark Kenting: One reason it’s doable is the suggestion that Earth-16 humans have decreased facial recognition abilities, as Ferris and M’gann both recognize faces in ways that other members of the Team do not.
  • For Clark Kent in particular, there the explanation that Kryptonians have a different arrangement of facial muscles, meaning that a different facial expression can really make him look different. Superman also demonstrated the ability to do regular disguises, posing as “Carl Keanes,” a legally blind man with a Seeing Eye dog (Krypto), when he and Ferris traveled to Dakota City.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Played with regarding Ferris. She needs her metal-mind jewelry to use her Feruchemy, but even with no powers she still knows many mystic secrets, and is a fit fighter with a brutal, ruthless style who survived a civil war in her early teen years.
• Combat Pragmatist: Ferris is this, having grown up in a brutal world with far higher stakes often on the line than in Earth-16. She aims to incapacitate or maim when she can, she sucker punches people, she uses enemy weapons, and she kills if she can justify it.
• Composite Character: Jinx is a mix of the two versions of a character with her name. She’s ethnically Indian with demonic heritage, which as she grows means her skin turns gray and her hair turns pink when she isn’t in contact with the ground to suppress it.
  • William Magnus, creator of the Metal Men, is in this universe a cover identity used by Magnificus Sivana to hide from his family.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Ferris is very hard to disgust or upset, though people with Time Abyss ages tend to freak her out, and sex crimes are a Berserk Button.
• Contrived Coincidence: Averted several times, with “coincidences” shown planned out ahead of time – such as Sportsmaster, Cheshire, and Ferris all appearing in China – but it was a total coincidence that they ran into Cassandra Cain when they got there.
• Cool Big Sis: Being several years older than anyone else on the Team, (Aqualad is the next oldest at 16,) Ferris falls easily into this position on the Team, as she’s the least judgmental, happy to press boundaries in some ways, and interested in anything they want to talk about.
• Clones Are People, Too: Ferris certainly thinks so, and has mused over having children cloned from her in the future, instead of going through the trials of pregnancy. She doesn’t think Superman needs to “take responsibility” for Conner though, but agrees it would be nice if he did.
• Crazy-Prepared: Batman and Robin, as per normal. Renka would be, if she had enough information about the crazy world to prepare for it.
  • Sportsmaster is this when he knows what he’s up against, and he has enough experience with magic to have preparations against it.
• Crossover: Ferris is an Original Character from the background of Mistborn: The Original Trilogy who gets sent by Harmony to Earth-16 of the DC universe after her original death on Scadrial. Also, this story brings in elements of the Wildstorm Universe, such as Elijah Snow and the Century Children.
• Cuteness Proximity: When Renka taps her atium-minds to decrease her age, she has caused this in people, such as Beautia Sivana.
• Curbstomp Battle: Her first fight with Sportsmaster has Ferris fold him up and toss him on the burnt husk of a bombed helicopter. She later goes out of her way to humiliate Rako one-on-one, and she dominated against her evil version in the Tower of Fate.
• Damsel in Distress: Hawkwoman considers herself humiliated by the fact that she got ambushed in Tangiers and the Team had to save her.
  • Ferris also suffered this in the fight to protect Serling Roquette. Black Spider was a bad match-up for her, and the doctor would be dead if Kid Flash hadn't shown up in time.
• Darker and Edgier: Some issues and events are treated far more grimly and bloodily; at one point Ferris is involved in culling through the crew of a human sex trafficker ship while working with the Chinese government. Plenty of other things are less horrific, though.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Several people, some more than in canon, but Renka’s is very bad, as she spent much of her early adolescence arguably insane and under Ruin’s influence, murdering several dozen people, and that’s after she was born into the slave caste of a medieval era society and sentenced to become a breeder like her mother before she fled.
• Death by Adaptation: Klarion the Witch Boy, in the Season 1 Finale fighting Dr. Fate. Also, Wizard of Klarion’s coven.
• Death of a Child: Renka admits to this in her backstory; not only did she bury a few of her siblings’ kids from various causes, but she killed a baby in its cradle when she was in her unstable phase under Ruin.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Renka was homeless, penniless, paperless, and didn’t speak the local language, as well as having no chance of seeing her friends and family again until her afterlife. She had powers, and her options were “petty theft spiraling into super-villain activity,” or joining the other side as a hero. So she walked into the daily Planet and asked Lois Lane for an introduction to Superman.
• Determinator: After her Dark and Troubled Past Ferris has picked up shades of this, having incredible pain tolerance and continuing under exhausting circumstances. In the end of “Visiting” and into “Matriarchy,” she’s running on fumes after being far more badly beaten than the others, but still whips the Team into shape.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: There are several appearances of a telepathy variant, where someone doesn’t realize they broadcast what was supposed to be a private thought until the others have responded to it, such as Jericho’s self-deprecation during his training.
• Distressed Dude: Joseph Wilson is kidnapped to get to his father and held hostage.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: While doing a séance to contact the spirit of Secret, Renka also sees a woman hanging around in the background, and Greta introduces the two of them. She then discovers that this is Death of the Endless when Death says something that is implied to almost drive Renka, or such, insane by accident.
• Does Not Like Men: She doesn’t really like being hit on by men, as a currently Celibate Hero, but Renka has no issue with most men despite her past.
• Dramatic Irony: Renka’s views on magic and her habit of needling mean that Wally doesn’t introduce the Team as “true believers in search of Dr. Fate,” and instead Kaldur announces that Red Tornado sent them to check the safety of the Helmet. The Tower then puts them through the tests it has to check for potential new bearers, so they end up more beaten and exhausted than in canon.
  • The Forever People gather up reinforcements for the attempt to assassinate Ferris, whom they’ve mistaken as an Apokolips agent. They completely miss that Knockout may not be a real turncoat, given that her romantic partner is Scandal (Savage).
• The Dreaded: The Batman is almost the only hero referred to as The Batman by most people, instead of treating Batman as a name, and he can scare even people who wouldn’t otherwise be worried about him.
  • Ferris hasn’t quite got this yet, but she’s developing a reputation in this direction, with becoming known for force & her accomplishments.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Ferris has shades of this during her brief stint as Team leader in “Matriarchy”. Justified, because they’re all under stress and she didn’t want the job, but she has to do it.
• Dual Wielding: The closest thing Ferris has to weapons is a pair of weighted batons not unlike Robin’s escrima sticks. It’s noted that there should be spearhead and axe head attachments for the ends, but she hasn’t used them yet.
• Dude, Not Funny!: When Robin reveals the circumstances around his Sacred First Kiss - he was undercover as drag and kicked the guy out of the pier for taking him by surprise - the Team starts to laugh. Until a fuming Renka points that the guy was older, pawed and kissed Robin without his consent and believed he was doing this to a mundane teenage girl. The laughs immediately stop.
• Dynamic Entry: In Bialya, Ferris does this with help of her Healing Factor, her Super-Speed, and her ability to change her weight, with the result of crashing into and annihilating a jeep of soldiers.
• Dysfunctional Family: Despite growing up in a slave caste, Renka had a mostly happy childhood until overhearing that she was destined to join her culture’s Super Breeding Program. She ran away, accidentally killed her eldest brother when he tried to stop her, and after a civil war and several years of catastrophe she’s an orphan who’s been disowned several (but not all) her surviving siblings.

Tropes E to L

• Easily Forgiven: Considering that they tried to assassinate Ferris in her sleep after she helped end the Disappearance Disaster, the Forever People and their allies appear to get off easily, having only to answer a few questions for the Justice League. It’s invoked because Ferris vouches for them, saying that they were misguided, and fighting without talking was their mistake, so the League shouldn’t repeat it.
• Early-Bird Cameo: As Ferris is a lot more proactive about find a host for Dr. Fate, she meets Zatanna when talking to Zatara about the subject; it sticks, and due to butterflies Zatanna ends up joining the Team early.
• Eldritch Abomination: Klarion the Witch Boy is this beneath his human veneer, and when he gets desperate in a fight he summons a few more obviously abominable demons as backup.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Joseph Wilson had no powers for most of his life, but was trained by his veteran soldier parents almost all his life (avoiding Abusive Parents) and is almost as good in a fight as Artemis or Robin before he gets one-hit-win possession powers.
• Enemy Civil War: It’s mentioned that various collapses in the plans mean Kobra and Bane are not currently allied with the Light.
• Engineered Public Confession: Twofold on the same sting, as the Team arranges Yarrow, Rako, and Alec Rois to incriminate themselves in front of Wade Eiling, Captain Atom, and the two adult kids of Nate Adams. The next night, after Eiling thinks he got off scot free, they run a second sting on him via Miss Martian’s impersonation of Alec Rois, with the same witnesses plus Lois Lane and her father.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even at her most murderous, Renka never broke her word, if only because she never gave it. She holds to that rule now, and won’t break an oath.
  • In China, Sportsmaster pretends to have this, but Ferris calls him out even as she agrees to his Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, saying if he did he wouldn’t have left the child-eating Eldritch Abomination alone for the past several years.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Henry Yarrow appears to genuinely regret Nate Adams’s “death,” and Wade Eiling appears to have genuinely fallen for Nate’s widow and been a good father to the man’s children. Sportsmaster thinks he loves his kids, but he still abuses them.
• Evil Me Scares Me: Ferris is concerned about what she could do if she ever falls all the way off the slippery slope, leading to Kryptonite Ring.
  • It’s averted when she actual fights an evil double in the Tower of Fate, though. She cows the evil copy after a brutal sucker punch.
  Ferris: “You have none of my willingness to endure pain, but I have all of your willingness to inflict and enjoy it. Consider what you would do in my place to a helpless foe, and think very carefully before you try and last second, last ditch efforts.”
• Evil Twin: The Team has to fight dark, twisted copies of each member in the Tower of Fate. It’s worth noting that the exact form of the evil twist is different between each, from a berserk full kryptonian to Aqualad being too at peace for his twin to put up much fight.
• Exact Words: Renka is not a Bad Liar, but she dislikes lying because it kills people’s trust in her, so she usually prefers this trick.
• Experienced Protagonist: Renka was the Hero of Another Story during Mistborn: The Original Trilogy as has been fighting for about 7 years. However, she doesn’t know much about Earth culture or the Justice League’s rules of engagement, so she is a Naïve Newcomer in that sense.
• Eye Scream: Kaldur runs through the flaming bars of Red Inferno’s prison at one point, and gets a burn scorched across one eye.
• Face Death with Dignity: The extent to which Ferris is at peace with her own mortality confuses many people, and she would happily do this.
• Famed In-Story: Robin is extremely popular as the Boy Wonder, and he and Donna Troy were the Wonder Twins before she quit heroism. As of the second season, Ferris is globally famous for her part in ending the Disappearance Disaster with so few casualties.
• Fantastic Racism: Brought up in regards to Mars and skin color, the Skaa in the Final Empire, etc. Kid Flash informs Artemis that Batman’s well-known and public hatred of meta-humans – to the point that Gotham slang labels them “deader than,” – is not a thing in real life, as he gets along fine with his meta-human teammates and others; he just hates meta-human criminals, same as regular criminals.
• Fire-Forged Friends: The Team gradually comes together to be this, surviving their tough missions and winning against all odds.
• Fights Like a Normal: As long as Ferris keeps her metal-mind tap minimal (assuming she needs to use any at all), she passes easily as this. She can increase strength and speed just to peak human, and most of her alterations don’t cause noticeable changes (like her acuity or breath).
• Fighting from the Inside: Ferris is influenced to send Klarion information, but she subconsciously resists by writing it in her native language, which he can’t read.
• Finger Poke of Doom: Not to any people, but Conner pokes a hole clean through a brick with one finger as a demonstration of his powers.
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Renka comes from a medieval society with some industrialization, but modern tech astonishes her.
• For Want Of A Nail: Renka’s involvement doesn’t immediately butterfly everything, but ripples do steadily spread out.
  • Her campaign to find Dr. Fate a host leads to Klarion burning Zatanna’s house down, so she joins the Team early.
  • Brutalizing Atomic Skull means the villain isn’t available for the Injustice League, so they replace him with Jackal, which results in Jericho’s eventual abduction and transformation into Jericho after M’gann gives him a skin graft.
  • Her first defeat of Sportsmaster not only maims him (and maybe drives him crazy), but denies the Light access to Kobra Venom. As a result, they begin examining meta-human organ grafts more, and developing telekinetic technology with the successfully stolen Starro.
  • Her presence means the Forever People freak out after mistaking her for an Apokolips agent, go to ground, and later try to assassinate her after the fight where she killed Klarion. Oh yes, and she killed Klarion at Roanoke.
  • Zatanna’s presence on the Team puts a hitch in the Failsafe plan when Zatara refuses to give his consent for her to go through it. Black Canary brings in Ferris to mediate, since she’s coincidentally arrived for other reasons, and Ferris outlines why it’s a very bad idea.
• Foreshadowing: Obloquy loves doing this, and while many plot threads are used in surprising ways, there’s often some element of Fair Play Who Dunnit to upcoming plot arcs and twists.
• Fountain of Youth: Ferris can use atium compounding as this, but doesn’t need to because she’s still in her youth. However, once she learns to make unidentified metal-minds, she is once seen temporarily de-aging T. O. Morrow for Red Tornado to talk to him.
• Freudian Excuse: Ferris was born into a slave caste, almost subject to a Super Breeding Program, and spent time under the influence of an Omnicidal Maniac God of Evil in her adolescence.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The events in China are arranged by the Light because Ferris is this to them. She walked in off the street one day with no known history, signed up under Superman, and has since trounced several important members and Ruined multiple plans.
• Godzilla Threshold: There is theoretically a catastrophe extreme enough for Ferris to use Hemalurgy and make more spikes, but we haven’t seen it yet. She does resolve to hunt down and murder a man in cold blood (Psimon) when she thinks he took the secret from her head, but is talked down when she realizes it’s not what it seems.
• God Guise: Unintentionally, Renka’s status as the Sliver of Entropy not only makes her spiritually similar to a New God – enough that she can understand Sphere – but her association with Ruin makes her feel like a powerful agent of Apokolips. When the Forever People first show up to track down Sphere, they get on the same side of the horizon as her and their Mother Box suffers a Freak Out, directly overriding their control to make them flee, because it mistakes her for a favored servitor of Darkseid in possession of anti-life.
• Good Parents: Artemis’s mom is now, while her dad is abusive. Wally’s dad was briefly abusive in his early years, but Rudy pulled his act together, stopped drinking, and got counseling, so now they’re all happy. Dick had these until they died, and by all appearances Bruce is a good replacement. Renka has made clear that she grew up in a very loving household, even if their situation in life was shitty.
• Good Is Not Soft: Several good people are capable of threatening or performing very nasty actions. Ferris probably counts, if you consider her to be “good,” and it’s established that Batman can be very violent towards gangsters and crooks.
• Growing the Beard: The story starts off interesting, but choppy for the first few chapters, and Obloquy clearly has some trouble getting a grip on the early plot. Around the time Ferris first goes to Atlantis, it hits its stride, and takes off running.
• Guile Heroine: Despite her melee ability and magic powers, Ferris often comes off as this, being capable of sting plot scripts and quick-thinking manipulation of people and emotions on quite short notice. Her fists often hurt a lot less than well-informed words from her.
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: Ferris is the main female of the Team to subvert this, as they all have at least basic melee competence, but she is the only one to specialize in close-range combat and fist fighting among the girls.
• Hates Being Touched: Ferris averts this, despite being a character usually expected to feel this. She’s very touchy-feely, and admits to using physical contact as a trust-building tool among her friends.
  • Ghost Fox Killer comes off as this to Ferris, because she doesn’t realize that Gui can’t turn off her Touch of Death, and thus risks killing anyone she touches skin-to-skin. When Ferris proves to No-Sell her ability, Gui gets much touchier with her, too.
• Harmful to Minors: A lot of the details of Renka’s early life, as well as the aftermath of her occasional rampage. She traumatized a young Cassandra Cain when the latter witnessed her and Ghost Fox Killer dismantle a ship of sex traffickers.
• Heel–Face Turn: Several surprising characters, from Klarion’s apprentice Jinx to Red Volcano.
• Heroic RRoD: Sending the Team into unsupervised areas with real enemies means some mistakes happen, and the Team all get a little traumatized as things progress, especially after Bialya. After one member nearly dies on Roanoke, everyone is messed up.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Ghost Fox Killer is considered a glorified government killer by most people. Ferris gives her the benefit of the doubt, and the two get along quite well.
  • Averted with Ferris. In the beginning she’s a mystery, because she’s promised Lois Lane her first formal interview and holds back from press releases until then, so most people don’t know her Dark and Troubled Past. In season 2, she’s become immediately internationally famous for helping to stop the Disappearance Disaster, and appears quite popular, though the results still need to be explored in-story.
• Holy Burns Evil: Her Hemalurgic earring prevents Ferris from being host to Doctor Fate whether she wants to or not. When she takes it off and puts the Helmet on, she’s informed that the clash of powers will eventually kill her.
  • In the season 1 finale, when Klarion conjures up demons, Dr Fate draws on the power of the Silver City to annihilate them.
• I Choose to Stay: Ferris could stay in the Cosmere Cognitive Realm, and see her family, etc., again, or she could return to Earth and continue to help out. She opts to go to Earth again.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Several people show versions of this, most notably Ferris, who goes out of her way to make friends and care for their wellbeing.
• I'm a Humanitarian: It is mentioned that Renka may have crossed this line in the past, under extreme circumstances. Like much of her early adolescent life, she isn’t proud of it, and doesn’t volunteer the information as easily as she would her kill count.
• Inferred Holocaust: Averted, because Irony is practically a fundamental force in magic on Earth-16. The kids who die in the children’s world won’t immediately and truly die, but when the split reverts they will return to where they were, as they were. However, the inanimate objects stay the same, so kids in burning cars and buildings, or in airplanes that went down in the ocean, will be in trouble. The Team goes to fight Klarion while the Justice League is busy organizing the rescue efforts, and the total death toll is estimated at just below 9,000 in the end.
• Insistent Terminology: Ferris insists on using non-binary pronouns for beings who don’t fit the male-female dichotomy until they indicate otherwise, and she repeatedly uses Cosmere terms like investiture, perpendicularity, and cognitive shadow, for the Earth-16 equivalents.
• In Spite of a Nail: While Renka’s existence and actions can change some things, many events still occur, albeit with differences.
  • In spite of everything, Klarion still splits the world, and Zatara still ends up trading his freedom to Dr. Fate.
  • The Injustice League still attacks, but with different methods and a different member.
• Intoxication Ensues: Downplayed, but Wally takes Artemis to Vietnam (no minimum drinking age) for Brain Bleach and they each have a bottle and talk about stuff. He’s responsible in letting responsible people know, and they don’t get more than tipsy, but things are said.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Renka’s native language has non-gendered pronouns, and she’s rather upset that the closest English translation is “it,” so she looks up special pronouns to use for addressing robots and other people who don't fit a binary gender.
• Kryptonite Ring: Rather than an item, Ferris teaches the Team tactics and strategies to be used against her if need be, which neatly segues into planning against each other.
• Legacy Character: It’s mentioned that there have been three “Killer Frost” characters, of whom the first is dead, the second retired & out of villainy, while the third is active. Amusingly, they are presented as appearing in the opposite order as the comics (where Crystal Frost was the first person with the name, and here she’s the third).
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Mental attacks are Renka’s Achilles' Heel, and when the Team is subject to this in Bialya she loses a lot more than the rest. It’s mentioned that if she’d lost more she might have reverted to her murderous days, & without a Healing Factor it may have killed her.
• Last of His Kind: Ferris is the Last Feruchemist, the only surviving one after the Catascendre. Also the only person from Scadrial on Earth.
• Lethal Chef: Averted with Ferris, as while she doesn’t know many Earth recipes, or how to use the ingredients & appliances, she had to feed herself on the run and has since picked up some cooking skills, though she isn’t exceptional.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Usually, Ferris does this by downing a bead or two or atium and blitzing her opponents. In the Season 1 finale, however, she puts on the Helmet of Fate and kills Klarion in their fight.
• Lightning Bruiser: Ferris can do this with an Hour of Power limit by tapping large amounts of speed and strength.
• Locked into Strangeness: After receiving a graft from Miss Martian – much the same way Garfield Logan became Beast Boy – Jericho has his eyes turned green and gets the power to possess people. Averted with Ferris; her most noticeable unusual trait, her “tawny-gold” eye color, is totally natural, as a result of differing genotypes and phenotypes on Scadrial.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Superboy’s mention that even Lois Lane doesn’t know about Superman being Clark Kent suggests they still have this in effect. Similarly, Beautia Sivana has a thing for Captain Marvel, but thinks of Billy Batson as a cute kid.

Tropes M to R

• Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: The aptly named Beautia Sivana, who did her best to oppose her rather twisted father and will attempt to ride herd on her siblings.
• Meaningful Name: Subverted with Renka Tindwisra, and double subverted with her hero name Ferris. We have no idea what “Renka” means, if anything, and “Tindwysra” is mentioned to be a pun off of her mother’s name (Tindwyl) and her position as her mother’s eighth child, but since it’s not in English we never find out what the pun is. Ferris is originally mistaken for “Ferrous” due to her metal-minds, until Renka corrects people, but it’s meaningful as the first Earth thing she saw (a Ferris Wheel) and its resemblance to the Allomantic Wheel.
• The Mentor: Superman is this to Ferris, though several people note she’s more thematically fitted with Wonder Woman (melee skills, magic jewelry, and pseudo-divine backgrounds). Even after he starts treating Conner as family, Superman isn’t quite treated as Conner’s mentor, nor is Black Canary, who instead becomes a mentor to Jericho. Superboy once notes his closest mentor figure is Ferris.
• Mind Rape: Ferris is especially weak to this, as demonstrated in Bialya. It can even happen to her consensually over long periods of time, and seen in “Sapience” and when she can’t use the telepathic communication without migraines early in season 2.
• Mission Control: While benched for physical therapy, in the start of Season 2, Ferris, acts as this for Wally’s heart delivery.
• The Mole: Same as in canon, for the most part, but also Ferris accidentally gives Klarion influence over her via an autograph, and he uses it to make her send him information.
• Ms. Fanservice: Ferris is not mentioned as being especially attractive, other than appearing exotic, but she has no real nudity taboo and will walk the halls shirtless or change clothes with her door open without any issue.
• Mundane Luxury: Renka comes from a world with medieval-to-early-industrial level technology and luxuries. Fruit is a total luxury that never existed for most of her life, as is warm running water, automotive transportation, and so many other things others take for granted.
• Mood Whiplash: Ferris can enjoy invoking this in-universe as an off-putting conversational tactic, such as moving from light-hearted jokes to comments about genuine atrocities in her personal and cultural history.
• Mr. Exposition: Ferris does this about her Cosmere history to the Team, since no one else (and not many readers) could know anything about it.
• My Beloved Smother: In the aftermath of her coma from fighting Klarion, Ferris feels slightly like the entire Team together is doing this, but tries to put up with it to put them at ease.
• My Significance Sense Is Tingling: Ferris has shades of this at some point, but her odd history and soul-structure means she can’t yet interpret what any sensation may or may not mean reliably.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Renka’s hero name “Ferris” isn’t all that intimidating, but among more mystic circles she’s known as “the Sliver of Entropy” with heavy death associations.
  • Ghost Fox Killer.
• Neck Snap: One of the few premeditated and unnecessary kills we see Ferris commit on-screen is when she does this to a human trafficker.
• The Needless: Ferris can temporarily fake this by using her metal-mind stores for health, warmth, breath, nutrition, etc.
• Nervous Wreck: Ferris reveals she's slowly become this after her research and and various encounters with others have shown theat the Shard of Ruin is cross compatible with the Anti-Life Equation.
• Not Quite Dead: In the beginning of season 2, Ferris is this, as she’s comatose while people work to keep her from flat-lining, and her soul is off on a Vision Quest back to the Cosmere with hints that she will Came Back Strong once she returns.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Renka’s beating of Sportsmaster ends with him getting a trace dose of Kobra Venom, becoming more dangerous than ever, and lack of a proper briefing means she mistakes Professor Ivo for a civilian and helps him escape the fight/flee the scene.
• No Periods, Period: Averted. Miss Martian mentions she doesn’t get them in human form, though she could if she chose to shift that way. For the first half of the fic no character are explicitly mentioned having them, but it’s revealed Ferris that was on hers during “Chilling Interrogations,” and again in China due to her nostalgically wearing a red capillary scarf, a cultural tradition among the Terris.
  • Discussed when preparing for the Erebus trip Donna points out that Ferris not being on her period after her stressful collaboration with Fate. Proximity to a certain Godly couple in said Underweld seems to have cleared things up.
• No-Sell: Scott Free can ignore and escape any attempt to restrain him; Ferris can shut this ability down and hold him hostage.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: …or at least permanently maimed. Ferris is not above abusing her Healing Factor to take hits she otherwise shouldn’t, though her limited reserves means she prefers to avoid and evade. She’s had to reattach an arm at least once on-screen.
• Oh, Crap!: A few beautiful ones, especially whenever Ferris is allowed a free hand with a situational script to run someone through.
• Older Than They Look: Ferris can invoke and invert this with her age manipulation ability via atium-minds. She’s actually 20, using Earth’s calendar, but she’s passed for as young as 8 or so, and has freaked people out by pretending this and shifting up into her twilight years.
• Open Secret: Ferris doesn’t have a Secret Identity, and will just as easily answer to Renka, but Ferris is her work name. Also, while she doesn’t keep her history a secret, she doesn’t spill too many details early on because she promised Lois Lane her first formal interview.
• Open Heart Dentistry: M’gann uses her shape-shifting to graft a piece of her flesh onto Joseph Wilson’s cut throat. She probably saved his life, but when her flesh starts to revert shortly after they have to rush him back to the hospital for proper treatment.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Ferris is triggered by a sparring accident with Black Canary, she indulges in some self-harm and functions on a mission by suppressing her Identity to the point that she no longer cares about keeping her own secrets. Similarly, when she gets a free hand for lethal force in China, she knocks herself emotionally off-balance by overcompensating, get worse when Mother of Champions unknowingly triggers her again, and it culminates in very uncharacteristic behavior where she walks right into Sportsmaster’s trap.
• Passed-Over Promotion: Despite being the most experience fighter and (arguably) strategist, Ferris denies formal authority on the Team due to her emotional issues, though she and Robin end up juggling second-in-command on occasion. In “Matriarchy” this is averted, as Aqualad responds to the doubts about his leadership by moving to elect Ferris as team leader until he regains the Team’s trust.
• Painting the Medium: Early on, the author tries using different colors to explore certain supernatural effects. Later in the story, due to being difficult to read, the text changes to various fonts, indentation, and {stylized parentheses} to show supernatural influence.
• The Pollyanna: Downplayed, as while Renka can be solemn, serious, and bitter, she usually appreciates how horrible her life could be and loves enjoying all the wonderful things around her. She is exactly aware of how much it could be worse, and appropriately grateful.
• Playing with Fire: In Chilling Interrogations, Ferris and Artemis fight a League of Shadows recruit who has had this power grafted onto him via his hands. Members of the Team often carry non-flammable plastic capture foam to deal with these enemies.
• Polyamory: Scandal and Knockout are in a committed relationship, but Knockout doesn’t exactly understand monogamy, and Scandal is willing to fold in a third every now and then, provide Knockout gets her permission & approval. Wally loses his virginity this way.
• Politeness Judo: Ferris has zinc-minds to increase her thinking speed, and duralumin-minds to both
• Poor Communication Kills: Happens repeatedly with Renka, due in small part to her language difficulties and her occasional habit of running with incorrect assumptions. She spent a while thinking Kaldur was a clone, not Superboy; she took a while to learn Artemis was her real name and not just a code name; and she didn’t realize that Ghost Fox Killer’s lethal touch was a passive ability until after they’d touched.
• Power of Love: What inspired Barda and Knockout to abandon Apokolips for their respective lovers, Scott and Scandal.
• Power of Friendship: Zatanna invokes this after the Halloween events, when everyone on the team with a Dark Secret reveals the truth, saying how awesome it will be to use this against the villains in the future.
• Proud Scholar Race Girl: Ferris's native culture values education, diplomacy, philosophy, and similar traits above physical force. Doesn’t stop her from being a brutal fighter who uses her powers excellently in combat, but she occasionally has flashes of embarrassment about her predilections, especially due to her Dark and Troubled Past.
  • This also comes out in her love of discussing aspects of her native magic systems versus DCs.
• Pseudo-Canonical Fic: The fanfic deals with the Genomorphs by having them faried to Mars. The chapter dealing with this came out well before the Young Justice episode explained what had happened.
• Pulling the Thread: When an overheard conversation leaves Artemis in need of Brain Bleach, Wally takes her to Vietnam via the Zeta, where they can legally buy booze and drink. When they do so, he then plays a guessing game with her, and scares the crap out of Artemis by nailing down that he knows her cover story is a lie, and has deduced a lot about her actual history, but backs off before she gets too anxious.
• Rape as Backstory: Renka is the offspring of a breeding slave, meaning she and all her siblings are this; unusually, she makes clear at one point that many of the men also had no choice in the matter, and women were only mated for offspring, not for fun.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Ferris and Ghost Fox Killer cull their way through a sex trafficker ship at one point, showing little mercy; Ferris might have let the one man she’s shown killing on-screen live, but he answered her 3 questions wrong by faking remorse.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Artemis is the tomboy on the team, and is noted to almost always wear pants, but the others wear skirts on occasion. Ferris prefers them for casual wear, and is often noted as wearing a skirt in combination with a blouse or t-shirt when not active.
• Really Gets Around: Bruce Wayne is held up as an example of this, but how true it is may be debatable by people who know his secret. Green Arrow, however really is, or at least he was, and Dinah broke up with him at least once because he cheated on her.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Instead of portraying them with Black-and-White Morality, the author shows the League as this, understanding the difficulties of Renka’s rehabilitation and letting her explain her reasoning if and when she crosses a line, even when that line is bloody.
• Recursive Fanfiction: Zig Zagged creativly, while as original as any fanfic can be, other Young Justice fanfics get referenced as dreams or their events are discussed as hypotheticals. One recent post had the plot of fanfic where Robin surprises Zatanna at school via cross dressing and they kiss in a abandoned classroom only to be walked in on and Zatanna to be thought a lesbian in a all girls school, a catholic school at that. The exact opposite of what happened in the fic where they get away with it.
• Refuge in Audacity: Renka walks into the Daily Planet and asks Lois Lane for an introduction to Superman. Given that he’s generally The Paragon there’s no reason why it wouldn’t work, but no one else ever thought of it.

Tropes S to Z

• Sassy Black Woman: Karen and Rocket both behave like this, but Ferris herself is an aversion, being almost entirely soft-spoken and placid when she isn’t grim or remorseful.
• Scars Are Forever: Ferris ignores most of her wounds, and her Healing Factor means she rarely scars. One exception is the all-around bite mark on her upper left arm, from where she shoved her hand down Teekl’s throat, because she wanted to keep it. Also, her soul and psyche have spiritual scars, after the trauma she’s been through, even if her body appears fine.
• Secret-Keeper: Wendy and Karen become aware that M’gann (and Conner by extension) are involved with Justice League stuff after a revealing incident during the Disappearance Disaster. They don’t know about the alien detail, but they do know some generalities of their powers, and that M’gann is the niece of a League member.
  • Ferris knew from the start that Red Tornado hadn’t actually turned to the Red Robots’ side, and kept it quiet from the Team at his request.
  • Jakita Wagner is accidentally made aware of Batman’s identity, when Robin mentions a passcode he knew because Batman studied with her mentor, the late Elijah Snow. Robin wasn’t aware that Bruce Wayne had done the studying, not Batman.
• Sex Sells: Discussed; One of the few elements that peeves Renka about the modern world is the mass objectification of women and the commodification of sex. Once she gets her feet under her she gripes about it on occasion.
• Shapeshifter Baggage: It’s mentioned after experimentation that M’gann has some size limits due to this, but can do larger shapes by spreading out her density, and smaller shapes by phasing her mass inside itself.
  • Ferris ducks this with iron-atium alloy Feruchemy, storing her mass-as-size and then tapping it to shrink then grow.
• Shout-Out: During her first interview with Ferris Lois Lane mentions that the heroine and Superman fought villains like Atlas, Riot, and Glowman. These three, some more well known then others, are silver-age characters.
• Shipper on Deck: Renka ships whatever couples appear to be happy with each other. She supports M’gann and Conner, and she supported Artemis and Robin back when she found out Artemis went to Gotham a lot and concluded they were dating on the sly, but after hearing of Black Canary’s issues with Green Arrow she isn’t above subtle manipulation that may sabotage them.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: M’gann and Conner get around it because of paperwork filed ahead of time, suggesting they have to help with moving house between locations a lot in an unstable part of their lives. Ferris is 19 in the story, and too old for public education.
• Significant Birth Date: The subplot involving the Century Children mentions they are always born on New Year's Eve, right in time for the new century. Batman managed to identify two of the current generation because of this: Queen Perdita of Vlatava and Billy Batson/Captain Marvel.
• Sixth Ranger: Ferris is numerically the sixth member of the Team, though she joins at the same time as Miss Martian. She’s also the only one (possibly barring Aqualad) who doesn’t attend school, so she has more time for activities on her own while the others are busy.
• Smart People Know Latin: Defied, as when people originally believe Renka’s hero name to be “Ferrous,” after the Latin word for iron, she counters that she’s still learning English and wouldn’t know Latin. The name is after the Ferris Wheel, just because she likes it.
• Spanner in the Works: Ferris personally, and the Team as a whole, do this to several villainous plans, such as the weapons smuggling ring.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Red Torpedo and Red Inferno didn’t give their lives fighting Red Volcano, because Ferris talked the robot down and all three survived. They’re currently planning to go to Venus and inhabit it with robots.
  • Also, Shirley Mason survives because Ferris and Zatanna are already interviewing her when Rako shows up.
• Squishy Wizard: Zatanna is usually kept back on crowd control out of melee range, because she has this quality.
• Staring Down Cthulhu: Renka has been on both sides of this trope, as an alien-ish being and as staring them down.
• Story-Breaker Power: The author has said that Ferris as a Full Compounder would be this, though in the DC universe she still wouldn’t be the most dangerous threat around. Also, if Ferris were to wear the Helmet of Fate for any length of time, she’d fold up most of the opposition, so after the season 1 finale, it’s mentioned she can’t anymore, or she’ll die.
• Superpower Lottery: Any Feruchemical ability could be an interesting power for a hero, (though some of them are less combat-worthy than others,) but all of them together make Ferris a potent force of versatile function. On top of that, her time in Ruin’s Shardpool left her with some unusual aura presence that hasn’t been well explored yet, but includes minor technomancy.
• Spot the Thread: Green Arrow did not really think through his “niece” story for Artemis, especially in not briefing Roy ahead of time on it. Wally, for instance, knows Roy (and thus Oliver) out of costume, and so knows that Oliver doesn’t have a niece, only raising his suspicion.
• The Stations of the Canon: Especially early on, the stages mostly occur, but the outcomes are butterflied from very early on, the changes keep spreading as the story keeps going, and because the focus is on Ferris, several arcs are seen differently or ignored.
  • In the “Welcome to Happy Harbor” equivalent, Safe Harbor, Ferris has no illusions about her field experience, so she and Miss Martian willingly jump through the “hoops” of “Red Tornado’s” supposed “test”. As a result, Mr. Twister gets taken down in their first fight instead of needing to pull it together in a rematch. Because his robot got taken down by two no-names with almost no effort, Morrow and Brom Stikk go back to the drawing board with more robots and making new elemental weapons.
  • In the “Drop Zone” equivalent on Santa Prisca, Ferris beats down Sportsmaster and tosses him on a burned husk of a helicopter. The Light is denied access to Kobra Venom, and Sportsmaster is altered by trace contamination, becoming massively muscled but potentially crazy.
  • Because Aqualad already took Ferris to Atlantis for her birthday, he’s sorted out his Tula trouble, so the Team flattens Clayface. However, since he doesn’t go back to Atlantis, he misses the events of “Downtime” completely, and Black Manta gets away victorious.
  • Similarly, because the Team is busy planning Renka’s birthday surprise during the time it would have happened, they never get an assignment from Captain Atom to investigate until two months later. With an extra member (Zatanna) and 2 months extra experience, the Team’s investigation into the weapons ring framing Adams also nails Eiling in front of witnesses via a second sting after the first.
  • Atomic Skull got too injured fighting Ferris to join the Injustice League, so they recruited Jackal instead. Jackal escapes the League cleanup after their fight with the Team, then tries to buy his life back by kidnapping Joseph Wilson, meaning Jericho later joins up.
  • Roy winds up recruiting Ferris for assistance in China, rather than Kaldur. Because Ferris decides to enter the country legally they wind up working with the Great Ten formally, rather than sneaking behind their backs like Roy had originally wanted. This leads to them dealing a bigger blow against the Shadows, forging better relations between the Great Ten and Justice League, and Ferris manages to relay to Roy that the Team formed because they were inspired by his actions, rather than as a response to "Keep the kids in line", and so Roy is comfortable enough to spend more time around Mount Justice and assist as Mission Control during the Ice Fortress crisis.
  • The members of the Team with dark secrets to hide all still come clean one episode before the Season 1 Finale, same as in canon, except in this case, the finale is Klarion splitting the world, and the Team comes clean about everything just after Halloween. Oh, and immediately after that Fate and Ferris KILL KLARION in the Season 1 Finale, Childhood’s Hour, after a tremendous fight.
  • The Justice League still gets hit by Starro-tech come New Year's Eve, and the Team still needs to rescue them. However, Ferris got mind-controlled as well, and brought to the Watchtower.
  • Averted after New Year's Eve. There is no time-skip, and it's clearly an entirely new set of events now.
• Super Breeding Program: Renka’s admitted nightmare, and what she ran away from home to avoid. Her running across Mother of Champions in China triggers her hard, once she understands that it isn’t just a nickname or metaphor.
• Symbiotic Possession: In the Season 1 Finale, Ferris puts on the Helmet of Fate, and her unique soul-structure makes it this instead of a one-way possession, as she’s able to keep some control and cooperate with Fate.
• The Talk: After an embarrassing mention of wet dreams and shape-shifting role-play, Renka gives the human-version talk to both Conner and M’gann for the sake of safety. Neither of them is terribly embarrassed, but Artemis overhears Conner’s talk and requires Brain Bleach.
• Tap on the Head: Renka gets lessons in how to choke someone out safely, and the Team prefers drug patches or gas for unconsciousness.
• Technicolor Fire: Klarion is shown to have an affinity for violet and dark crimson fire.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Ferris cooperates with Sportsmaster in China to kill an Eldritch Abomination, but she makes clear that she will come after him again a later day.
• This Cannot Be!: Renka encounters this emotion a few times in trying to wrap her head around the craziness of Earth-16 after coming from a world where Magic A Is Magic A. In particular, the number of people older than the Lord Ruler was makes her sick.
• There Are No Therapists: Averted like in the show. Black Canary acts as a therapist for the Team, and she has about weekly conversations (if sometimes off-screen) with Ferris once they start realizing how many issues she has.
• These Hands Have Killed: Renka went through this in her backstory, and is now mostly at peace with it. Artemis is still traumatized from her first kill, as well as an accidental kill she didn’t realize at the time. M’gann never realized until Renka told her that she’d killed anyone, and when the news gets out she just gets very quiet and leans against Conner for support.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Ferris respects the Justice League for this, and generally tries to follow it while under their authority. Notable that when she does avert this, she is always very upfront and apologetic about doing so, offering the fact up on her own, explaining her motivation, and making no attempt to avoid any disciplinary actions given to her as a result.
  • The Justice League holds this opinion in League work, but not all of them hold it absolutely; some are military veterans who killed before.
• Time Stands Still: When Ferris taps large amounts of physical or mental speed, she notices this type of effect.
• Training from Hell: Near the end of his first Team-run training session (instead of under Black Canary), new member Jericho muses that those fellow sidekicks will cheerfully put people through wringers that would make the adults pause.
• Trauma Button: Ferris in particular has human breeding programs, as well as inflicting too violent a blow to the head which is how she murdered her own brother on accident, and certain forms of mental interference.
• Trauma Conga Line: The Adams family gets put through these at the Team’s hands, as it is first revealed that Nate Adams was framed and wrongfully blamed for years by his supposed best friend, and then a second sting reveals General Eiling as the real culprit.
• Token Minority: Prior to Artemis joining, Ferris is the only human woman on the Team, and she’s the only woman of color up through the first season (though she has met Rocket, who may join soon).
• Token Evil Teammate: Ferris somewhat defines herself as such, being more brutal and jaded than the other Team members. It’s also worth noting that she behaves very kindly and gently with people who aren’t on her bad side, though, so “evil” may be relative.
• True Companions: Once they learn to trust each other and reveal the dark secrets they were keeping, the Team becomes tightly bound together and can pull off complicated plans or provide emotional support as needed easily.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Superboy is this early on, but picks up more flexibility and finesse over time.
• Unwinnable Training Simulation: Despite her telepathy weakness, Ferris loves the idea of training simulations, but she shoots down the viability of an unwinnable one as the first use of the practice, spelling out why it wouldn’t work as intended, so “Failsafe” never occurs.
• Virgin Power: Discussed by Ferris on the trip to Doctor Fate's Tower, she cuts off her detailed explanation when M’gann expresses how it makes her uncomfortable.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Due to her history, Ferris tends to fold when attacked with telepathy. Also, her jewelry means that she’s vulnerable to electrical currents and powerful magnetic fields.
• We Need a Distraction: When the Wilson couple and her three teammates raid Jackal’s hideout in tangiers, Ferris goes in the front, pretending to be a herald of the other Justice League agents, and draws attention by “negotiating” for the hostages’ release.
• A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Invoked. Ferris has done some horrible things, and if she started using her knowledge of Hemalurgy she would be a horrendous villain, but she wants to change and now goes out of her way (usually) to present herself as safe, nice, and morally sanitary.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Renka has given a few (quiet) versions of these, as the Breaking Speech is her specialty, but she receives more of them. She usually listens, too, and does her best to learn what was wrong with what she did, even if she doesn’t necessarily agree.
  • When the Justice League try and confront Nabu about keeping Zatanna as a host in Season 2, Nabu explodes at them for their own treatment of Nabu; keeping them on a shelf, referring to them as a "last resort", and doing nothing to find an alternative host after Zatara turned it down. Nabu no longer trusts the Justice League to find them a host, or treat them fairly, and so discards all their pleas.
• Wham Episode: Several occur, of varying severity, and it depends on whether you define them as installment episodes or arc episodes.
  • In Episode 4: Learning Experience, Ferris is psychologically triggered after an accident with Black Canary, and in her altered state informs Kaldur that she killed her eldest brother in the past.
  • Episode 11: Misdirection, has Zatara hurriedly drop Zatanna off at the Cave for the weekend for mysterious reasons. Zatanna gets mind-controlled by Klarion and given a Jumanji-style game as a distraction. While the Team is trapped in the game world, Klarion ransacks and razes her house in search of the Helmet of Fate, and Zatanna moves into the Mountain early.
  • Episode 15: Concession’s Confessions, deals entirely with Ferris finally telling her true and unedited backstory to Queen Mera.
  • Episode 17: The Walls, not only has Ferris pull off a beautiful legal loophole gambit to make the Ultra Humanite admit the existence of the Light under a Truth Lasso interrogation, but also has the Team deal with the kidnapping of Joseph Wilson, son of Slade, aka Deathstroke the Terminator, and when his throat gets cut M’gann emergency grafts on some of his skin, giving him powers.
  • Episode 21: Attachments, reveals that Sportsmaster is still surprisingly sane, due to his use of an unknown drug, and lives up to his rep as a world-class warrior by logically deducing that Renka’s Translator Microbes also help her form emotional bonds of trust with people, and using that to lure her into a duel where he comes within inches of brutally beating her to death.
  • Episode 25: Childhood’s Hour, is the season one finale of the story and it is worthy of the build-up. When Klarion splits the world, Ferris dons the Helmet of Fate to take command of the situation and lead the Team in the fight on Roanoke. The fight ends with Klarion and Wizard dead, but Renka took some form of death curse before he fell, and the Cliffhanger has Zatanna lunge for the Helmet.
  • In Season 2 - Progression it hits the fan in Episode 36 - Make New Friends and Keep the Auld. Ferris is immediately hit with Starro-tech by Superman, and brought to the Watchtower to tell Savage about Hemlurgy. Then, it turns out that the Light also used Starro-tech on a half-dozen other heroes, including the JSA veterans.
  • Episode 37 is mostly quiet aftermath as everyone recovers, until part 8, when Ferris gets a surprise visit from Highfather of New Genesis to personally apologize about the Forever People, answer her questions about the Anti-Life Equation, and offer her a Motherbox.
• Wham Line: Ferris opens up her confession of backstory to Queen Mera with, “I once killed a baby in its cradle with an axe.”
  • "I may require the Queen Mera to help answer, but I will happily help you in the ways that I can, Lord Savage."
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Ferris has in the past, but would need a really good reason now harm a child. The Witch Boy is fair game, though. She also draws a line between “hurt” versus “harm,” where the former is painful, but the latter is damaging.
• Wrong Assumption: Ferris has had a few of these in her time, to the point of being a character trait. She thought Kaldur was a clone instead of Conner; she thought Artemis and Robin were dating on the sly; she thought Ghost Fox Killer used her touch on purpose, instead of as a passive ability she can’t turn off; and she mistakenly believes that Nabu’s possession of Giovanni Zatara is far more cordial than is true.
• Your Days Are Numbered: After her brief stint as Dr. Fate, where she let herself be near burned out to defeat Klarion, Nabu tells Ferris that that she won't make it to forty years old. She considers it a fair trade for saving so many children.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: Ghost Fox Killer has this ability, and uses it to create a small army of phantoms.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Averted, as Ferris is confident that she will return to her afterlife in the Cosmere upon her death on Earth. While comatose, her spirit meanders around the cognitive realm for a while, so she appears to be correct.

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