One Hell of an Afternoon
is a Worm/Young Justice (2010) crossover written by lordmcdeath, where a post-Golden Morning Taylor is dumped on the Young Justice Earth in a giant chemical vat, which gives her a Healing Factor that regenerates her and gives her Brute abilities. She is then dumped through another portal into an alley in Gotham, where she is found by Two-Face.
This series provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: Taylor is surprised to learn that the Condiment King only had ketchup and mustard in his blasters. Pressurized ketchup and mustard, but just ketchup and mustard nonetheless. Taylor only learns this after her brutal takedown of him.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Two-Face admits that Weaver wearing a Batman T-shirt while she's running around Gotham as a cape (so that the Bat doesn't start things by punching her if they meet randomly) is amusing and it might even work.
- Acquired Poison Immunity:
- The Joker has a resistance to his own toxins that also prevented Poison Ivy's attempts at poisoning his meds from working.
- Taylor, having grown up in a world without magic, lacks even a basic resistance to magic at first.
- Accidental Innuendo: In-Universe example M'gann makes one when she asks Taylor if Queen Administrator will eat her. It's this trope and not Innocent Innuendo or That Came Out Wrong because...Taylor : Apparently the Martian word for “eat” lacked a few important secondary meanings.
- Affably Evil: Two-Face, when the coin toss is favorable, can be very genial, offering to help Taylor and even sending her to a legitimate authority.
- Alien Blood: Taylor's blood is green and glowing now, like the vat she got dumped into, which concerns her a bit.
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: Green Lantern rings are limited in what technology they are able to build with it to prevent crippling the development of less advanced races through technological contamination. It's the main reason John Stewart's never done much on his concerns that the Hall and Watchtower aren't fully secure, despite being a former military engineer.
- And I Must Scream: By the time Superman found Supergirl's pod, she had fallen into a coma after her ship had cannibalized itself to keep its passenger alive.
- And There Was Much Rejoicing: Nobody is upset when Taylor kills the Joker. Even Batman, who staunchly adheres to Thou Shalt Not Kill, doesn't have anything against Taylor, but is merely concerned about the dark path she could go down.
- Atrocious Alias: Taylor actually plows into an air vent when she hears the Condiment King's name while roof hopping.
- She also has this reaction to Sportsmaster's name, prompting her to rag on him as "Gym Coach".
- Beneath the Mask: Taylor, after being exposed to Wonder Woman's lasso, realized that she had started using her mask as a way to keep the world out, to not be Taylor when it hurt so much to be Taylor, feeling more comfortable when she slides it on.
- Big Eater: Kid Flash, to the point that he burns close to 10,000 calories a day when still. It escaped notice since the other Flashes eat like marathon runners, but Taylor notes that it's traceable and could cause him to starve in the field. He's also a bit bitter about having to eat all the time. Apparently, it's a result of the Garrick process he went through to become the Flash not having enough material to finish changing his body after he got his powers due to his age and competing with puberty, and trying to finish altering his body regardless. Luckily, it should be fixable now that they know it's a problem.
- Brain Uploading: The Queen Administrator apparently managed to save part of the mind of one of the teens that Taylor couldn't save from the pit of toxic waste that she was dumped in when arriving on her current Earth.
- Break Them by Talking: Taylor destroys Riddler by explaining that she found him not by solving his riddles, but by noticing that there was activity at a puzzle-themed business well after business hours. Effortlessly taking his cronies down and avoiding his traps didn’t help.
- Brown Note: There's some effect going on that causes this when one tries to talk about the events that caused the JSA's breakup to someone who wasn't there, called the Ban, apparently as a result of Fate's magic, and apparently helped lead to the JSA's relative obscurity and the large gap in large-scale heroics until the Justice League formed. Taylor asking Batman (who found out regardless) about the JSA, combined with her recent head trauma from Deadshot trying to kill her and the bullets from Contessa still her head, ends up causing a seizure.
- Bubble Boy: Taylor is from a world where there isn't any magic, so she lacks resistance in regards to mystical powers. Wonder Woman's lasso temporarily eliminates her filter entirely and allows her to honestly realize that she was a bit suicidal when she faced Lung, among other things.
- Cover-Blowing Superpower: Not power exactly, but Taylor notes that Kid Flash's metabolism makes him such a Big Eater that it could be used to identify him.
- Taylor's green, glowing blood can be this as well though that hasn't been brought up yet.
- Crapsack Only by Comparison: It speaks volumes about how much of a Death World Earth Bet is that Taylor finds Gotham to be a calm, orderly, and civilized place.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Light hid Match's lab with just enough lead to make it look like Superman was reaching the limits of his X-Ray Vision, preventing him from noticing it like he would have if it had been fully lead-lined, which lessens Taylor's anger over it being missed.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: While the Joker goes down hard, he does manage to burn Taylor horribly with one of his acid-squirting flowers. Had Taylor not been given healing abilities, she would've been killed.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Batman notes at one point that tech-based villains tend not to sell their tech, even if they could make a lot of money off of it. For example, Taylor notes that Morrow never sold his tech because he was too much of an artist and a Narcissist. Taylor plans on getting some of the more stable villains to go down this route.
- Deconstruction: The story deconstructs Kid Flash's Big Eater tendencies as both a Cover-Blowing Superpower and a potential weakness that renders him at risk of starving in the field, Mount Justice's layout as having major security flaws, and the shields as being the key to temporarily unlocking a deliberate Power Limiter the Light installed in Superboy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Taylor has her moments, though its mostly in the narration.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Taylor spars with Superboy and takes a hit that would have killed her without her Healing Factor, and uses it to drive in the idea of him controlling his anger.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: Taylor, briefly, as a result of waking up after Wonder Woman's lasso of truth was used as restraints for her during a surgical operation.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Megan’s reaction to encountering the Queen Administrator shard in Taylor’s mind.
- Discard and Draw: Taylor's new abilities came at the cost of some of her ability to tank pain but can no longer suffer shock, which makes sense since it was a result of Bakuda's pain bomb. This is also part of why she took out the Joker the way that she did.
- Disproportionate Retribution: In exchange for him trying to hold up a convenience store, Taylor hands the Condiment King an absolutely devastating beatdown that probably broke some bones. She admits later that she wouldn't have gone so hard against him if she had known that he was only armed with squirt guns that shot ketchup and mustard.
- The Dreaded: The Joker in Gotham. One character even notes that if someone claimed that they weren't afraid, they were lying. Taylor killing him transfers some of that fear to her. Even Bane is a bit wary of her.
- Eaten Alive: The Joker is eaten by Taylor's bugs right down to the bone.
- In 6.3 M'gann asks if Queen Administator will do this after their talk in the previous chapter. This ends up being an
Accidental Innuendo.
- In 6.3 M'gann asks if Queen Administator will do this after their talk in the previous chapter. This ends up being an
- Eldritch Abomination: Queen Adminstrator comes of as one to M'gann due to be vastly beyond her.
- End of an Age: Taylor realizes that her new Earth is likely at the tail end of a heroic golden age, about to start the catastrophe curve Bet went down. Part of her motivation for staying with the League is to prevent History Repeats from hitting.
- Evil Is Petty: Batman once surprised Luthor at his penthouse, so he apparently funded an extremely campy Batman TV show as a way to get back at him.
- Evil Knockoff: Taylor lampshades Mister Twister as this, believing that since Morrow built Red Tornado in the twenties (and thus is unlikely to still be alive) and has no known heirs, that he was created by someone who salvaged some Morrow-Tech or the designs for said technology. She even starts mocking him with knockoff names (calling him an "off-brand Red Tornado") before he introduces himself.
- Face Death with Dignity: The Joker goes out laughing.
- Facial Horror: Taylor has part of her face melted off by the Joker, though it thankfully grows back.
- Failsafe Failure: Artemis's plan for boosting Mount Justice's security is rejected for being too dangerous for a place where they have to live. Taylor even compares them to something out of Saw.
- A Father to His Men: Taylor starts developing this attitude towards the Team.
- Footnote Fever: Lot of footnotes in this fic, especially the later chapters.
- Forced to Watch: Harley is forced to watch the Joker’s death.
- For the Greater Good: In 6.3 where Taylor learns that Queen Administrator is fully sentient (and smarter than a calculator) notes that she would rather disintegrate herself to prevent a new Scion from rising if need be rather than someone else do it for this trope for a multiple reasons.
- For Want Of A Nail: Taylor's arrival and actions on the Young Justice Earth end up changing the course of events, several of the changes being listed here.
- Weaver's so effective at catching criminals that Huntress, Artemis's mother, is given parole early to trim down the Gotham prison population.
- As a result of the above, Artemis starts her hero work early, prompting her joining the Team earlier than in canon (she joined in canon several episodes in; here, she's part of the initial lineup in the Cave) due to worries of her going down a more extreme path due to her association with Weaver after the latter kills the Joker.
- They also avoid going with the "Green Arrow's Niece" backstory for her, apparently in part because Taylor found it stupid, which comes in handy when the Team learns that Sportsmaster is her father.
- The Joker's death, besides keeping the Light from using him later, causes Ivy to flee Gotham with Harley. This, combined with her capture of the Mad Hatter and Firefly (and the more mundane criminals), ends up reducing Batman's workload by a not-insignificant amount.
- Taylor starts working on better armor for Artemis and the Team.
- Because of Taylor insisting on medical scans, Superboy's Half-Human Hybrid status is discovered fairly early on, as well as his aging issues and the Light’s Power Limiter. They also become aware of Wally's metabolic issues and take steps to fix it.
- On a more humorous note, when thinking about Kobra Taylor notes that G.I. Joe never got made in her new reality.
- On the mission to Santa Prisca, because Taylor has unofficially taken over the role as leader of the team, the drama of the team trying to figure out who's in charge doesn't happen.
- Taylor taking down Sportsmaster during the Kobra mission prevents the Light from immediately getting the Venom Blockbuster formula, and causes Kobra and Sportsmaster to end up in Waller's care far earlier.
- Taylor investigating Cadmus leads to the discovery of Match, and she manages to get Superman to legally adopt him and Superboy and take them to the Fortress to get treatment for their various medical issues, and the treatment works.
- Friendly Enemy: Two Face and Montoya have this dynamic. While they are on opposite sides of the law, Two Face approaches her for help in treating Taylor.
- Friend to All Children: Taylor puts up with a lot of lunacy, but mess with a child, and she will hurt you very badly.
- Generation Xerox: Taylor starts focusing on her work to avoid emotional issues, and lampshades how she's turning into her dad there.
- Good Thing You Can Heal: Taylor gains a Healing Factor from her chemical bath. After Mister Twister puts her through a concrete pillar for taunting his look, she wonders if her newfound regenerative abilities have made her a bit cocky.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: The QA shard, if what it says to M’gann is true.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Taylor has a brief flash of jealousy when she realizes that the Justice League was used to winning, even if the costs were high, with hero deaths being tragedies instead of statistics like on Bet. It quickly dies down though, especially when she realizes that in many ways, they're at the start of the same downslide that hit Bet, and hopes that she can stop a History Repeats scenario.
- Had to Be Sharp: Taylor, having come from a borderline Death World, is far more effective as a crime fighter than the people who come from the Lighter and Softer Young Justice world.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Superboy's status as this is discovered earlier than in canon. The fact that this is even possible is noted as likely being a result of Jor'El helping things along so his son could have a family in his new home, and compatibility may have proven a factor in choosing to send him specifically to Earth in the first place.
- Inside Taylor's mental world, Queen Administrator, taking the face of Taylor's mother, claims that the being called "Rose" (who looks and acts like a little kid version of Taylor) is actually the child of her/itself and Taylor, implying that it's either a new Shard, a new Entity, or a new bud. Taylor isn't sure (and the text itself is somewhat ambiguous) of what Rose actually is.
- Hated by All: Besides Harley, no one really liked the Joker, even his fellow crooks. Poison Ivy actually claps at the Penguin's screening of his death footage, and Harvey considers joining in. Earlier, Harvey notes that all the members of the Bat's Rogues Gallery have probably tried and failed to kill him at least once, and Ivy's noted to have tried poisoning his meds at least three times. People actually toast to Taylor/Weaver after she takes him out for good. Even Batman is grateful that someone killed the Joker before he went far enough to cause him to actually break his Thou Shall Not Kill policy, and that Robin didn't have to do it, and is more concerned about Weaver and what path she might go down than the fact that the Joker is dead.
- Healing Factor: Taylor gains a grossly accelerated healing ability as part of her increased powerset.
- Heroism Won't Pay the Bills: Taylor's other reason for comparing the Justice League to a volunteer fire department, the first being their overall reactive policy (with Batman and to a lesser extent Green Arrow being the exception), is that they aren't paid, and have to use their secret identities to get by.
- Hypocritical Humor: Taylor notes that the "crazies" use properties that are related to their theme. It counts as this trope because Taylor is going by her Weaver alias and is using an old clothing store as her base of operations. note
- History Repeats: Taylor is helping the League and Team, at least in part, to try and prevent the downslide that affected Earth Bet from happening to the new Earth she's on.
- Human Aliens / Rubber-Forehead Aliens:
- Taylor wonders why people would think that Martians, known to be shapeshifters, would naturally look like this at one point.
- Later, Taylor notes that human-like body plans seem to be disproportionately common in the greater universe, with even the Energy Beings that attacked Earth and drew the League together taking fairly humanoid forms in their husks. Apparently, it's a cosmic mystery with some people arguing that it points to intelligent design of some kind, though the Guardians just blame Krona.
- Immune to Fate: A mysterious person (Lucifer) tells Destiny of the Endless that Taylor is this, being outside his book, her fate untouched by Fate, a rare occurrence. Destiny argues that no one is completely outside his book, even if they're missing some of the pages that a person would normally have, but otherwise doesn't argue the point.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: The Penguin needs a few when watching the video of Taylor killing the Joker.
- Insurance Fraud: A common form of fraud in Gotham is to rename a toxic property so it matches the theme of some supercriminal and waiting for them to move in. Then the owner claims that all damage done is due to the supervillain after he/she gets arrested and files a claim. After one incident in a Joker hideout, no insurance investigators will dare set foot in a former hideout, so the companies just pay.
- Irony: When Harvey takes Taylor to get a fake identity, the two options she is given are Emma Staton and Sophia Madison, both of which have the same first name as the girls who made her life hell in high school, the second of which has the first name of the third bully as its last name. The man who makes the false identities turns out to be Lucifer, who chose the names just to mess with her.
- It Can Think: The Queen Administrator. Taylor is surprised to hear this, since it's only supposed to be as sentient as a calculator.
- Jack of All Stats: Taylor notes that while her Brute/Brick package is impressive compared to her previous physical abilities, about ten times the human maximum across the board, she knows that she's not the strongest around. For example, when sparring with Superboy she notes that she doesn't have the strength to actually do any real damage to him, and she's nowhere near Kid Flash's speed.
- Joker Immunity: Averted, the Joker is permanently dead thanks to Taylor. With video evidence to prove it.
- Taylor lampshades several times that back home, the Joker would have ended up dead pretty quickly, being the kind of person kill orders were made for, and wonders why no one's managed to kill him yet despite nearly everyone in Gotham having a motive. She even wonders why no one had tried just poisoning his meds.note . For the most part, it came down to the Joker being lucky, as Harvey notes that almost every villain in Gotham had tried to kill him at least once.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: M'gaan accidentally journeys into Taylor's mind in 6.1.
- Karma Houdini: To some, Taylor is this after she kills the Joker. Even if it went to trial, there's no way she'd be convicted in Gotham (and the crime is not enough to warrant a federal trial), and people there actually toast to her and celebrate what she did.
- She actually offered to stand trial, but the Gotham D.A. just hung up the phone when informed that she wasn't joking, and the State D.A. declined more politely, mainly to avoid setting a dangerous political precedent. The Gotham Tales sidestory reveals that Godfrey is trying to drive people against her, but no one wants anything to do with the case due the implications to their careers.
- Killed Off for Real: The Joker thanks to Taylor getting mad after he poisoned the Mayor's son.
- Lampshade Hanging: Taylor does this a lot, usually with some snark thrown in.
- Lighter and Softer: Earth Bet to the Young Justice Earth. Even Gotham is nice compared to Brockton.
- Make an Example of Them: What Taylor does to the Joker.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Cheshire doesn't try to convince Artemis to let her go because she's afraid that Weaver will kill her and claim that she tried to escape if she does.
- The Man Behind the Man: Taylor notes that Luthor seems to directly sponsor a number of LexTube channels regarding do-it-yourself tech projects, possibly to help tech-based villains make their gear.
- Man of the City: Bruce Wayne/Batman, of course, using the justification that it provides them with State-side contacts as a reason to keep production local and help build Gotham up.
- Mental World: Taylor has a mental recreation of Brockton Bay inside of her head. Apparently similar constructs are common on Mars, due to a lack of space, but Taylor's is fairly impressive even by their standards, and it even has a few inhabitants, Rose, seemingly a younger Taylor, Ann, who seems to be somewhere between Annette and the QA shard with starry eyes, and a young man with glowing green eyes.
- Mundane Utility: Wonder Woman's lasso is used to restrain a now Brute Taylor when she's having a seizure.
- My Greatest Failure: Taylor believes that part of why Superman has so much trouble dealing with Superboy, he doesn't deal failure and powerlessness very often, and thinks that he failed him by not knowing about what Cadmus did to him, as well as not being there to raise him.
- Never Be Hurt Again: Another reason why Superman had such trouble dealing with Superboy is that he got burned by deceptions and illusions of other Kryptonian survivors in the early years until he eventually started to recoil reflexively to avoid the pain.
- N.G.O. Superpower: Apparently the UN is afraid the League will become this, given how they try to keep the League from turning the Hall or the Watchtower into armed installations.
- No Biochemical Barriers: Discussed. When making breakfast Taylor asks M'gaan if she can eat human food without harming her. M'gaan tells Taylor that Martians can actually process more varieties of food compared to humans and Martian Manhunter taught how to shape her tongue in a way that allows her to enjoy human foods. She also notes that she would have asked Superboy about this but since he hadn't died from eating an apple it isn't a problem for him either. The look of concern that Superboy, eating an apple right then, gives at that shows that he hadn't even considered this trope. See Half-Human Hybrid above for why this is most likely not a problem for Superboy.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Lampshaded by Taylor about Cadmus.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: What Taylor on Earth-16 amounts to. On Earth Bet, every villain had powers, and capes were hardened by things by the Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine. On Earth-16, not only is Taylor stronger due to her mutation, but her skill and experience allow her to kill the Joker, who has no real powers despite being the closest thing to Jack Slash on Earth-16, with relative ease.
- No-Sell: Having read up on Kryptonian biology, Taylor is fairly certain that the method she used to take down Alexandria wouldn't work on Superman.
- No Social Skills: Taylor is getting better, but is still a bit socially awkward, and often tends to base her reactions on stuff her friends from the Undersiders would do.
- Old Soldier: While she doesn't fit the age requirement, in virtually every other way Taylor is this to the Team. She's got more experience than anyone else there, even counting that Aqualad, Robin, Kid Flash, and Artemis have prior heroic careers, has been doing this for years, and has fought against odds and monsters that even the League finds horrifying, yet she's still leading from the front.
- Older and Wiser: Taylor is looking for the JSA members to ask them to talk to the Team in order to take advantage of this trope.
- Out of the Frying Pan: Deadshot, after seeing where Lucifer took him, wonders if he wasn't safer in Hell.
- Power Levels: Taylor decides to make her own rating system for heroes and villains in her current Earth.
- There's also the canonical Worm examples of power ratings- Brute, Master, Tinker, etc.
- Power Limiter: Superboy turns out to have been surgically altered to have these regarding his vision powers and flight, the canon Shields being the trigger to unlock his full power, the Light having wanted a chemical leash on their weapon.
- Psychic Static: Taylor's powers create the equivalent of telepathic white noise, which causes M'gann to zone out a bit when she innocently makes mental contact and leads to her later using Taylor to help sleep despite being away from mental contact with other Martians. When Taylor visits Cadmus, a bunch of G-Gnomes climb onto her and latch on for a presumably similar reason.
- Real Name as an Alias: Artemis, which Taylor lampshades when she learns of her civilian identity.
- Revealing Cover-Up: Kobra jams League communications, not knowing that the Team is on the island.
- Sanity Has Advantages: Taylor is able to track down the Arkham escapees relatively easily because she realizes that they tend to be slaves to their themes, so she made a list ahead of time of spots that fit said themes, and checks those places first, only having to check three places when the Joker kidnapped the mayor's son to find him. The Mad Hatter being less flamboyant than most of the Arkham gang and using a store that was still active actually delayed her capture of him by a couple hours.
- Shipper on Deck: Taylor teases Miss Martian about her crush on Superboy once or twice.
- Shout-Out:
- Spell My Name With An S: The organization Kobra, which, as is visible, is spelled with a K instead of a C. This is mocked by Kid Flash when, when marking Kobra Cultists who they've checked already, writes "It's spelled with a C" on their foreheads. Taylor notes that this pisses off their leader so much he's practically vibrating.
- Spit Take: Taylor makes Kid Flash do one.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: When Taylor wakes up from getting the bullets removed from her head and sees Wonder Woman, who had used her lasso to restrain her due to her Super-Strength, the second thing she says after a comment about how Wonder Woman's figure is killing her self-esteem is "I could have sworn I wasn’t gay this morning."
- Super-Speed: Taylor isn't Flash level fast, but her upgraded body is strong enough to sprint 100 meters in one second, about 10 times the world record for a normal human.
- Super-Strength: Taylor's new Brute package gives her the strength to move several tons.
- Super-Toughness: Healing Factor aside, Taylor seems at least a little less squishy now.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Taylor fixing up Mount Justice's security is a plot point. The main reason that it isn't more secure is primarily that Batman simply doesn't have the time to secure the Justice League bases to the level of the Batcave, with the UN being distinctly uncomfortable with the Hall of Justice and/or the Watchtower being turned into armed installations as an additional factor. She's also uncomfortable with the way the Zeta tubes open up into the meeting area.
- Threesome Subtext: There's some between Taylor, Miss Martian, and Superboy. Taylor is definitely a Shipper on Deck for MM/Superboy. Miss Martian sleeps in Taylor's bed because her Psychic Static acts as a sort of white noise for her, helping her since she's used to hearing Martian minds everywhere, and Superboy ends up cuddling with them at one point. There's also Superboy's reaction to Mister Twister putting Taylor through a pillar... Miss Martian is implied to be attracted to Taylor at the end of 6.2.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Taylor has been noted to have this. Considering what she has been through it's hardly surprising.
- To Hell and Back: Lucifer takes Deadshot to the Worm reality via Hell, commenting they haven't changed the locks since he quit.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: Taylor calls the Justice League a glorified fire department because of this, noting that besides Batman and Green Arrow to a lesser extent, they focus on dealing with threats as they come, not preemptively seeking them out.
- Water Source Tampering: Artemis suggests that all the crazies in Gotham are the result of some kind of contaminant in the water supply. Taylor isn't taking any chances in that regard, and when based in Gotham, ordered bottled water by the pallet.
- What Would X Do?: Taylor tends to run through the list of how the Undersiders would react when faced with a social scenario she's having trouble with.
- Weirdness Censor: Taylor's choice of base, as mentioned in Hypocritical Humor, is partially an experiment about this.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Taylor tells the Gotham criminals that if they don't follow this, she's going to go after them.
- Worf Had the Flu: Taylor herself admits that her fight with Sportsmaster would have been harder if he hadn't been unaware of her Brute abilities, and expects any rematches in the future to be closer.
- Wretched Hive: Brockton Bay is even worse than Gotham, its dimensional counterpart, to the point that Taylor practically considers being in the latter a vacation, as much as it hurts Robin's home-town pride to think about. Knocking gang members off the streets is basically hero training wheels in Gotham, and Kid Flash notes that a lot of Gothamites actually take pride in it.
- You Meddling Kids: Robin lampshades Mister Twister doing this when they beat him.
