Visual Novel / Villainous Nights

Villainous Nights is a Romance Game Visual Novel by Voltage Entertainment USA, released through their Lovestruck app for iOS and Android devices. It debuted as a pilot in February 2018 with two available routes, and was picked up as a full serial game beginning in April 2018.

The story takes place in an alternate San Francisco where the heroine and Player Character is thrilled to have landed an internship with Optimus, a prestigious corporation that is the leading sponsor of super-powered humans in the world. On her very first day on the job, however, she catches a masked intruder in the middle of an attack on the company, and soon her perspective on who's right and who's wrong begins to shift as she becomes more and more entangled with the team that call themselves "the Syndicate."

Even evil is just shades of grey, and love can bloom in the darkest of nights.

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Villainous Nights contains examples of:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: The setting is in the near future, as seen from the character of Robin, who is a child in Astoria: Fate's Kiss but an adult in Villainous Nights. Everyday technology is pretty much the same, though mega-corp Optimus has access to jetpacks and more experimental technology.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: When she first meets them before she learns their names on their respective routes, the heroine's narration tags Renzei as "Hot & Helpful" and Lorelei as "Breathtaking Butch." In Duke's fourth season, Juliette is initially tagged as "Striking Stranger".
• Affectionate Nickname: Lorelei and Scarlet had these for each other. Scarlet uses Lorelei's nickname to get under her skin. During their tense reunion, Scarlet suddenly says softly, "Hey, Stomper." Lorelei reflexively replies in her head with "Hey, Puncher" before catching herself, shaken.
• After Action Patch Up: Twice in Duke's first season. The first time, he treats the heroine's injured wrist after her first run-in with the Optimus mooks. The second time is a mutual patch-up after the team's raid on the Optimus building goes awry.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In Juliette’s route it’s revealed that her parents Jack and Eleanor Optima, the owners and founders of Optimus, have long been replaced by androids. While they only intended to be gone for a year, something went wrong with the A.I.s of the androids, they were the ones responsible for all the evil that Optimus caused and why Juliette’s loving parents suddenly became cold and distant.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us:
  • At the end of Renzei's second season, Optimus stages an assault on the Syndicate's lair spearheaded by Renzei, Monarch, and Optimus security chief Ajax.
  • Kirk Steele leads a large team of Optimus security goons to invade the Lair at the end of Duke's fourth season, and succeeds in critically injuring and capturing Duke.
• Almost Kiss: At the end of Lorelei season 2 episode 6, she and Monarch lean toward each other for what would have been their first kiss; the next episode, they're interrupted by Juliette walking in on them.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing:
  • The members of the Syndicate each have an animal alias and wear a mask with the corresponding motif: Wolf, Cat, Badger, Falcon, and Bat. Their elemental powers also correspond to their animal to some extent, aside from Cat. Once the heroine joins them, she acquires the alias "Monarch," as in butterfly.
  • Later seasons add Cobra, whose power gives him the ability to Flash Step.
  • Dahlia joins the Syndicate in Andi's fifth season, and, although she joins so close to the fall of Optimus that she never gets a proper suit and codename, hers would have been otter-themed, because of her control over water.
• Anti-Climactic Unmasking: In Renzei's first season, the heroine is floored when Cat and Wolf unmask and turn out to be people whose faces she knows from the media: SnapShot celebrity Andi Kim and ChatSphere CEO Duke Vale. She then turns to Badger, who takes off her mask... and is a total stranger.
• Anti-Climax: After having Optimus built up as a powerful menace for several seasons, it's taken down with surprising ease and speed in the last season of each route, in most cases by little more than an internet smear campaign and the Syndicate beating up a series of security patrols.
• Aroused by Their Voice: Monarch loves it when Lorelei's voice goes "rumbly."
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Duke has white hair, blue eyes, and a Sugar-and-Ice Personality to go with his ice powers.
• Awful Truth:
  • In Duke's fourth season, he discovers that his parents - who he'd believed were murdered when he was a child and who he had only recently learned were still alive - have been the subjects of Optimus memory-alteration experiments. They don't remember having a son, and will probably never remember him. Learning this sends him into a Heroic BSoD that lasts most of the first three episodes, and he's Not Himself for much of the season.
  • At the end of Renzei's second season and the beginning of his third, Bat drops the bombshell that Optimus had Renzei's entire family murdered years ago, while continuing to tell Renzei they were being held hostage and would be killed if he didn't carry out their orders. The revelation shatters Renzei emotionally to the point that he briefly considers suicide, before deciding against it because he can't take the thought of facing his family in the afterlife.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Duke and Monarch come to prefer fighting back-to-back when they can, especially since it allows Monarch to telepathically relay Duke's orders to the rest of the team and catch enemies off-guard.
• Battle Couple: As Monarch becomes more action-capable, she and her love interest develop into an effective combat team.
• Blow You Away: Renzei "Falcon" Feng's power is wind. Among other things, he can use it to fly and create blades of air.
• Bond One-Liner: Andi gets one in in her fifth season after Karma gets killed by a train.
  Andi: You know what they always say. Karma's a bitch.
• Brand X: ChatSphere, the social media company of which Duke is CEO, is a fictional amalgamation of several popular real-life social media platforms, most obviously Snapchat. Andi is a local ChatSphere celebrity.
• Brought Down to Normal: Renzei and Monarch are depowered at the end of his third season while in combat with Optimus, and the effect persists into season 4 well after they manage to escape.
• Butch Lesbian: Lorelei is tall, muscular, and stern, and she wears her hair short, in contrast to petite and trendy Andi.
• Cast Full of Gay: Monarch is bisexual, Renzei and Bat are pansexual, and Andi and Lorelei are lesbians, making Duke the only heterosexual character in the core cast. In addition, several of the antagonists are not straight, Monarch's roommate Robin is nonbinary, and Zeke — the original founder of the Syndicate who is introduced later — is also pansexual.
• The Cavalry: In Duke's and Lorelei's routes, Bat's in-person debut is on the battlefield when the Syndicate is in a tight spot, which turns the situation in their favor.
• Celeb Crush:
  • Monarch is a bit starstuck when first meeting Andi on her route, having been a fan of hers for quite some time. On another occasion, she notes that some of Andi's pictures had been a bit of a Closet Key for her.
  • In Duke's first episode, the heroine blushes at the thought of Optimus superhero Scarlet Brighid. On Lorelei's route, she notes that she'd crushed on Scarlet in the past. Scarlet herself remarks on being the subject of many fan-crushes.
• Character Overlap:
  • Monarch's roommate Robin Sanders originated in Chimera's route of Astoria: Fate's Kiss, as the child of Chimera and that game's heroine. Word of God states that Robin's appearance in Villainous Nights is not meant to dictate Astoria canon; the producers simply borrowed the character because they like them.
  • Renzei's second season introduces tattoo artist Rahim, who according to Renzei is the subject of a number of urban legends. Rahim is the younger brother of Razi Nassar in Havenfall Is for Lovers.
  • In Andi's fourth season, she and Monarch visit Los Angeles and stay at the Valentine gang's mansion from Gangsters in Love, courtesy of family connections of Robin's. The Gangsters cast don't appear, but Word of God confirms that Robin's sister CJ (from Astoria: Fate's Kiss) is married to Yoshimitsu's son.
  • In Duke's fifth season, his personal physician turns out to be Diego Escalona from Havenfall Is for Lovers. Diego shows up again in Renzei's fourth season, this time as a friend of Rahim Nassar, who asks Diego to convey his regards to Razi and the Havenfall heroine.
  • Aphrodite from Astoria: Fate's Kiss shows up at an Optimus event in Andi's fifth season.
• Clark Kenting: The masks worn by the members of the Syndicate are a bit more substantial than the classic superhero domino mask, but they do absolutely nothing to disguise Duke, Andi, and Monarch's distinctive hair colors. The heroine does manage to recognize Duke, Andi, and Lorelei behind the masks on their respective routes, but only on their routes - on any other route, she completely fails to connect Wolf and Cat to Duke Vale and Andi Kim despite often seeing their faces in the media, and on Renzei's route she doesn't recognize Falcon as the hot guy she'd been flirting with until he deliberately unmasks himself. On Lorelei's route, Scarlet Brighid recognizes the heroine and Monarch as the same person. When she confronts her with this, she mockingly suggests that the heroine should have worn fake glasses, "really made me work to figure it out."
• Crash-Into Hello: In Duke's route, he and the heroine first meet when she literally runs into him on her way into the Optimus building for the first day of her internship. The bump is hard enough that she nearly falls, prompting Duke to catch her.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: In Lorelei's first season, after the heroine makes her a drink:
  Monarch: When's the last time a pretty girl brought you a coffee?
  Lorelei: [looks uncomfortable]
  Monarch: I mean, not that I'm a pretty girl. I mean, yeah, I totally am, like this is not a self-esteem cry for help. But I just mean YOU don't have to think I'm pretty or think about me at all, really, and I—bon appetit. I mean, enjoy.
• Dishing Out Dirt: Lorelei "Badger" Linden has power over earth and rock. In addition to making barriers and disrupting enemies' footing, she frequently shapes stone gauntlets around her hands to add weight to her punches.
• Distant Finale: After the fall of Optimus in the third quarter of Duke and Andi's fifth seasons and Renzei and Lorelei's fourth seasons, there is a one year time-skip (a few months for Renzei), and the story seemingly wraps up.
• Do Not Adjust Your Set: In Duke season 5, the Syndicate take over a news broadcast to expose Optimus's misdeeds.
• Double Entendre: In Lorelei season 3, she and Monarch get teased by some of their team members about their relationship, in the guise of asking about their plans; one option is to fire back with some double entendres.
  Monarch: You know it. My schedule is already well-handled.
  Lorelei: We're gonna fit a lot in.
  Monarch: [blushing] (Oh my god.)
• Due to the Dead: In the finale of Renzei's third season, the unidentified Optimus board member behind the murder of Renzei's family convinces Renzei to meet him at Optimus Tower by offering him the location of the grave site, playing hard on the fact that Renzei, as the son of first-generation Chinese immigrants, puts a lot of importance on showing proper respect for the dead and on being a dutiful son. A couple of scenes later, the same board member reveals that he'd intended for the bodies to be disposed of "less... ceremoniously," but Ajax personally arranged and paid for proper burial.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In-universe in a heart scene in Renzei's third season, when Duke wise-cracks over text that Juliette is too paranoid, Juliette replies asking if Renzei has killed Duke and had him replaced with an impostor. Neither Renzei nor Lorelei finds this at all funny. Duke thinks it was a little funny, though.
• Dysfunction Junction: It becomes pretty obvious to Monarch that all five members of the syndicate are screwed up in various ways. Duke puts up a cold front at first, but it's shown that it's mostly because he's socially awkward. Andi has a hard time opening up and struggles with commitment issues. Renzei is the most likely to suggest violent solutions because of being conditioned into being an assassin by Optimus. Lorelei keeps most people at arm's length and is probably the most tight lipped about her past due to having been a teenage superhero for Optimus and been in a badly ended engagement with Scarlet Brighid. Bat has never really had anyone she could share every side of herself with, keeping different parts of herself carefully compartmentalized depending on who she's with.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The pilot seasons for Duke and Andi included timed decision points as a new feature, adding a sense of immediacy to action scenes by putting a choice of actions on a timer to give the player a limited window to act. Fan response to this feature does not seem to have been positive, as it was quietly dropped from subsequent seasons.
• Elemental Personalities: The main cast mostly have elemental powers and personalities to match them:
  • Wolf has powers of ice and cold and a standoffish, Sugar-and-Ice Personality. He also had an interest in ice skating even before his powers manifested, which prompts Bat to call him a stereotype.
  • Cat has electricity powers and is an agile, playful trickster.
  • Badger has rock and earth powers and is blunt, straightforward, and no-nonsense.
  • Falcon is mysterious and unpredictable - what could be harder to get a grip on than air?
  • Bat is secretive and never shows his face until later seasons, and has the power to manipulate light and darkness.
• Elopement: Andi and Monarch opt to quietly elope in the Distant Finale at the end of Andi's fifth season, though they do plan to eventually have a proper wedding ceremony with their friends and family.
• Everybody Knew Already: When Andi and Monarch reveal their relationship to the rest of the Syndicate, it turns out everyone but Duke knew already — even newcomer Zeke, thanks to his powers.
• Evil, Inc.: Optimus. The sparkling public image they maintain through their assortment of humanitarian projects and an excellent PR machine is a cover for - among many other things - corporate espionage and sabotage, human experimentation and trafficking, and assassinations. They have an extensive security team of armored Mooks who wield electric stun batons and act as the company's private army of enforcers, as well as training elite agents for their dirtier work; across routes they are demonstrated to use everything from threats towards family and loved ones to outright Mind Control to secure the cooperation of their targets and their own employees alike.
• Face Framed in Shadow: In Lorelei season 1, after the heroine overhears Sunny laying into Charles and asks her about it:
  A shadow passes over me as Sunny leans in. She bends to make eye contact, but the harsh light from all the windows behind her casts her face in darkness.
• Fake-Out Make-Out: In Duke's first season, he and Monarch attempt to shake off someone following them by pretending to be a couple innocently out on a date. They stop just shy of actually kissing - just enough to make it look like they're making out - but it's still enough to leave Duke very flustered.
• Family of Choice: After Renzei learns about the deaths of his family, the Syndicate ends up becoming this for him. In Andi's fifth season, he declares them the only family he has left, vowing to defend them to his last breath, and a hug he shares with Andi reminds him of one of his sisters. In Renzei's fourth season, Monarch describes a teasing interaction between him and Duke as brotherly, and when he steps in to force Juliette to eat and sleep after she'd spent a sleepless night working, for Monarch it brings to mind a stern older brother.
• Fastball Special: In one of the fights in Duke's first season, Renzei uses his wind to help launch Lorelei at a group of mooks, to great effect.
• Faux Paw: In one of Andi's season 2 CGs, she's holding up a curled hand in a cat's paw gesture.
• Feed the Mole: In Duke's route, Monarch's stint spying on Optimus for the Syndicate doesn't last very long before the bad guys catch on and feed her false information to lure her and/or the team into a trap.
• Fire/Ice Duo: In Duke's route, Monarch eventually develops fire powers, making her and Duke this.
• First-Name Basis: In Renzei's third season, Monarch notes that Renzei has never called Bat by name even after learning it, only by codename. He starts using it the next season, reflecting how they have gotten closer and how Renzei has grown emotionally.
• Flowers of Romance: After The Reveal at the start of his second season, Renzei's attempt to mend his relationship with Monarch begins with him bringing her flowers. It's not just any bouquet, either, but one carefully selected based on the significance of the flowers used: purple hyacinths for sorrow and sincere apology, white tulips representing his determination to prove himself worthy of her, and daffodils representing new beginnings, uncertainty, a wish for her happiness, and good fortune.
• Former Friends Photo: At the end of Lorelei's second season, Monarch comes across an old photo of Lorelei and Scarlet Brighid together, smiling and wearing matching rings.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Optimus security goons wear full-face masks which are either gas masks or were designed to evoke them, the better to render them appropriately anonymous and threatening.
• Gay Option: Andi was one of the two pilot routes, and Lorelei was added after the game was picked up for continuation, making two of the four core love interest characters women.
• The Ghost: The pizza delivery girl who Robin has a crush on is referred to a number of times across all routes, and she and Robin eventually get together in most, but she never actually appears in person.
• Girls Stare at Scenery, Boys Stare at Girls: In the first heart scene of "Across Time", when Zeke uses his powers to take the heroine to the top of the Eiffel Tower.
  Zeke: How're you feeling?
  Heroine: A little dizzy, but I'll be okay. […] [looking out over Paris] And the view is absolutely worth it.
  I study the exhilaration in her eyes, the way the wind stirs her hair.
  Zeke: Yes. It is.
• Give Me Back My Wallet: By proxy in Renzei's first season. The heroine first meets Renzei when he helpfully informs her that her wallet was just stolen by a passing pickpocket, and chases the thief down to retrieve it for her. His second season reveals that the whole thing was staged as an excuse to give Renzei and the heroine a meet-cute.
• The Glomp: In Andi's second season, when she meets Bat in person for the first time, she runs and leaps on him in a hug and he staggers back as he catches her. She prepares to do it again the following season when seeing Bat out of costume for the first time, even stepping back for a running start, but Bat begs her not to, citing bruises from the last time, so she skids to a stop at the last second and settles for a gentle hug.
• Handshake Refusal: When the heroine is introduced to Hayden at work in Renzei's first season, she extends her hand for a handshake. After the two of them are left alone, Hayden ignores her still-extended hand and walks off, leaving her to follow.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • In Duke's fourth season, the discovery that his parents' memories have been altered to the point that they don't remember him at all sends him into an emotional meltdown that renders him almost nonverbal for a while. It takes him several days to come out of it, and then he's unusually hostile and aggressive for most of the rest of the season.
  • At the start of Renzei's third season, Renzei has a violent breakdown after learning that his entire family was killed by Optimus years ago. By the time Monarch finally persuades him to come home with her, he's gone several days without food or sleep.
  • At the start of Andi’s fourth season, having her identity exposed and her fans turn against her trapping her in her apartment, causes Andi to fall into a depression.
• I Have Your Wife: One of the many ways Optimus is known to compel compliance from their own agents and others is by threatening family and loved ones. In Renzei's second season, Monarch learns that one of the benefits Optimus offered Renzei when they first recruited him was providing fancy company housing for his family and promising that they would never want for money as long as Renzei worked for Optimus. After his family was relocated, Renzei was not allowed any contact with them, and Optimus has threatened to kill his entire family if he disobeys or fails in a mission. In his third season, it's confirmed that Optimus actually murdered the entire Feng family years ago, while continuing to hold the threat over Renzei to compel his obedience.
• An Ice Person: Duke "Wolf" Vale's power is to create ice and cold, from ice walls and slides to an instant cold-compress touch.
• Ineffectual Death Threats: During his first season, Renzei makes "You know too much. I'll have to kill you," into a tongue-in-cheek Running Gag. The joke stops in his second season when it becomes much more important that Monarch know he's being completely transparent with her and will not hurt her.
• I Never: A heart scene at the end of Duke's fifth season has the Syndicate playing this game with each other.
• Internal Reveal:
  • In various routes, Andi and Renzei are shown learning of Bat's identity after it has already been revealed to Monarch/the reader. This is the case for Andi in Lorelei and Juliette's routes, and for Renzei in every route but Duke's.
  • In Juliette's route, Juliette/Bat being the same person is presented up front to the reader before starting the route, but the heroine doesn't find out until the second half of the first season.
• Jet Pack: Some Optimus mooks use jetpacks.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • In Renzei season 3:
    Renzei: I don’t need your platitudes, Bat.
    Bat: You mean my...batitudes?
    [Renzei hurls a snack bag at Bat]
  • In Renzei's fourth season, he suggests to Juliette that when they write to each other, they are "pan pals".
    Juliette: I’m so upset right now. Devastated.
• Lampshade Hanging: In Juliette's first season, after fighting the robot until it's down on the ground.
  Monarch: I think we did it-! [robot gets back up]
  Monarch: (Dammit, I should know better than to jinx it like that! It's like I don't even watch movies!)
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Bat's identity as Juliette was initially presented as a surprise to readers; in terms of release order, it was first revealed in Andi's third season. As of Juliette getting her own route, she is openly listed among the series' love interests as "Juliette ???: Bat".
  • Daily Rewards image #62 in the app shows Juliette's last name, which was originally a cliffhanger reveal at the end of her first season.
• Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Monarch and Lorelei have this dynamic on Lorelei's route, with Lorelei as the masculine and Monarch as the feminine.
• Mating Dance: In Renzei's first season, he takes Monarch to a club and demonstrates his skills as a dancer. When he invites her to join him, their dancing crosses over into making out in fairly short order. Their first love scene at the end of the season also draws comparisons to dancing.
• Meaningful Echo: In Andi's first season, when the Syndicate is telling Monarch their real names, Bat says: "My full name is Batty McBatterson. My friends call me Bat." In the third season, when Bat reveals her identity to Monarch and Andi, she says the same thing, but replacing the last word with her real name, Juliette.
• Memetic Mutation: In-universe. In Lorelei's fourth season, the phrase "We're in it for the long haul" becomes a running joke within the Syndicate after Lorelei's alleged frequent use of it when discussing their plans for the future. She protests that she had only repeated it once.
• Mile-High Club: A heart scene in Duke's fifth season has him and the heroine joining the mile high club, as Duke puts it, on his private jet.
• Mindlink Mates: When Monarch develops telepathy, emphasis is put on her psychic bond with her love interest and how they're able to get closer.
• Mind over Matter:
  • The player character discovers that she has the power of telekinesis, and learns how to control it over the course of the story.
  • A front desk secretary at Optimus telekinetically moves a pen to take notes.
• The Mole:
  • In several routes, the Syndicate attempts to make use of Monarch's internship at Optimus to collect information. It's mostly not very effective, since interns don't get access to anything sensitive and in most cases Optimus is already aware of what Monarch is up to.
  • In Duke's third season, the team realizes that someone is leaking information about Duke to Optimus, most significantly that he is Wolf. It's Miguel, Duke's personal assistant at ChatSphere.
  • In Renzei's route, Renzei himself is a double agent working for Optimus, revealed at the end of the first season. It's eventually revealed that this is true across all routes, but in routes other than Renzei's his loyalty has already shifted to the Syndicate by the time the rest of the team finds out.
• Moment Killer:
  • Near the end of Andi's first season, she and Monarch are making out in Monarch's bedroom and things are starting to get heated when Robin bursts in, angry about someone having eaten their chips.
  • One of the biggest obstacles to developing a more intimate relationship with Duke, as Monarch discovers in his second season, is how often tender moments are likely to be interrupted by the demands of either his day job or Syndicate business. Several near-Relationship Upgrades are derailed by inopportune phone calls or team chat notifications.
  • Midway through Lorelei's second season, she and Monarch come close to kissing for the first time when they are interrupted by Juliette walking in on them. She's even tagged as "Moment Stealer" before she introduces herself.
• Name McAdjective: In Andi's route, when the Syndicate is revealing their real identities to Monarch, Bat only says: "My full name is Batty McBatterson." Two seasons later, when Bat walks up to Monarch and Andi out of costume in broad daylight, she introduces herself with the same phrase.
• No Name Given: The pizza delivery girl who Robin has a crush on is never named. In Lorelei's fourth season, Monarch says she'd asked Robin, but they'd insisted her name was Pizza Girl.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: In Renzei’s second season, Monarch encounters Duke while surveilling the ChatSphere offices for an assassination attempt against him. He’s friendly and asks about her well-being, despite her betrayal of the Syndicate. She has to stop herself from apologizing to him.
• Office Romance: In Duke's second season, Monarch ends up working at ChatSphere while she's also deepening her romance with Duke.
• Only Sane Man: Duke and Lorelei pass the role of beleaguered straight-man to the rest of the team's shenanigans back and forth between them, but Lorelei is somewhat more likely to end up being Not So Above It All so it's most often Duke who's left struggling in vain to conduct himself seriously while Andi, Renzei, and Bat are cutting up.
• Parlor Games: A heart scene in Andi's fifth season has the female cast playing Truth or Dare together.
• Playful Cat Smile:
  • Mentioned in Lorelei season 3, when Juliette makes a wink-wink-nudge-type comment about Monarch and Lorelei's relationship.
    Monarch: (Even without her helmet on, Juliette is disturbingly good at making the cat emoji expression.)
  • Also inevitably mentioned in Andi's route - after Andi decides to play her cat motif to the hilt by locking eyes with Monarch while knocking some marshmallows off the kitchen counter, Monarch says she expects her to make a :3 face.
• Power Perversion Potential: Monarch and her love interest of choice do not fail to explore the bedroom applications of their super-powers, particularly the heightened intimacy that comes from being able to share thoughts and feelings using Monarch's telepathy. Duke uses his cold-generating powers for some mild temperature play in his route, a heart scene in Renzei's second season involves Renzei and Monarch taking advantage of the combination of their powers to engage in Erotic Asphyxiation, Monarch uses her telekinesis for bondage and hands-off stimulation in Andi's fourth season, and Andi uses her electric powers to stimulate Monarch in her fifth season while indicating that she's used them on herself in that manner before.
• Pretend to Be Brainwashed: In Lorelei's third season, Monarch pretends to go along with it when Scarlet tries to psychically brainwash her.
• Psychic Static: In Lorelei's route, Monarch starts broadcasting her thoughts uncontrollably when she gains the power of telepathy. After one particularly embarrassing thought about the warmth of Lorelei's hands, she's advised to try singing a song in her head… so she starts singing "Girls Like Girls".
• Remote Body: In Juliette episode 6, Monarch removes an unresponsive Bat's helmet out of concern, only to reveal an empty suit that's being remote-controlled.
• La Résistance: The Syndicate are working from the shadows to bring down Optimus and expose their evil deeds.
• Roofhopping: In Andi's season 4, Monarch gets herself and Andi away from some Optimus guards by telekinetically boosting them up to a roof, then running across the rooftops carrying Andi and boosting her jumps to cross between buildings.
• Running Gag: In Renzei's first season, every time Monarch speculates about his personal life (such as guessing at his day job or asking if he likes spicy foods), Renzei quips that she knows too much and he'll have to kill her. It gets a lot less funny at the first season finale cliffhanger, and he stops making the joke afterwards.
• Sarcastic Confession: In Renzei's second season, when he takes Monarch to meet Rahim, he remarks that the first tattoo Rahim did for him almost ten years ago has never faded and wonders what Rahim's secret is. Rahim dryly replies, "Magic." Since Rahim is the brother of Razi Nassar from Havenfall is for Lovers - and thus a djinn - it probably really is magic.
• Secret Handshake: At the start of Lorelei's third season, the Syndicate meets to go over recent developments, and Andi and Juliette are jubilant over the team's plan having worked out.
  She and Juliette high five, which ends up taking almost a solid minute because they've worked out a secret celebratory handshake.
• Sexophone: In Lorelei's third season, Bat teases her and Monarch by playing saxophone music from an '80s romance movie.
• Shock and Awe: Andi has the power to generate and control electricity, which she can use to disrupt electronics and as an insta-taser. It also allows her to resist the electrified shock batons used by Optimus Mooks.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Duke is chilly and aloof by default, but spending a bit of time working with him proves that behind his reserve he's more awkward than anything else.
• Superhero Team Uniform: The Syndicate all wear black jumpsuits, each with a secondary color unique to the character. Each member also wears their own animal mask. Other details, such as the exact pattern of their suit, presence of armor, and any additional accessories, differ from character to character.
• Taser Tag Weakness: Optimus mooks use electrified stun batons, both against regular individuals and superpowered ones.
• Telepathy: The protagonist also develops the power of telepathy along with her telekinesis. At first it mostly only allows her to project her thoughts to her teammates (not always on purpose, especially when the power first emerges). As it develops, she becomes able to use it for two-way communication and with people outside the team.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The feminine Andi and the extremely butch Lorelei.
• Touch Telepathy:
  • Duke is unable to hear Monarch's telepathic broadcasts unless they're in physical contact, though it doesn't need to be skin to skin. As the two grow closer, he starts being able to hear her without the two of them touching, but contact still makes it much more reliable (and more romantic), and allows him to project his thoughts to her as well.
  • When Monarch's telepathy emerges in Renzei's second season, he similarly finds he can only project his thoughts to her when they are touching, though he can hear her broadcasts without contact.
• True Companions: For all that they're a group of self-proclaimed villains who have spent little if any time together outside of their work, and who in many cases have difficulty dealing with or expressing their feelings, the members of the Syndicate respect and care about one another very much. It's made especially clear in Renzei's second season: even after he and Monarch betray the rest of the Syndicate to Optimus, the others worry about the two of them and continue to try to reach out to them.
• Two Aliases, One Character: In Juliette's route, the heroine believes Juliette and Bat to be two different people for most of the first season. Also in this route, Ruby and the Optimus robot are later revealed to be the same character.
• The Unmasking: At the end of Andi's third season, her mask is forcibly removed on livestream.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Optimus is much loved by people around the world, but hides a much darker underside.
• Wall Pin of Love: During Lorelei's first season, she has a small freak-out during which she backs up Monarch against a wall, boxing her in with an arm.
• We Do Not Know Each Other: In Andi's third season, she and Monarch have to attend a SnapShot event while pretending not to know each other. Andi is a contestant in the event, and Monarch is part of the team representing Optimus.
• Wham Episode: Renzei's second season, episode 3. Monarch and Renzei reveal their betrayal to the Syndicate and leave the team for Optimus, abandoning Duke, Andi, and Lorelei to Ajax and his army of mooks.
• Wham Line:
  • From Renzei's season one finale:
    Renzei: This is a shame. Now you really do know too much. And now I really will have to kill you.
  • From Andi's third season:
    Woman: My full name is Batty McBatterson. My friends call me Juliette.
  • Renzei's second season, episode six:
    Renzei: We have our next mission. ... The assassination of Duke Vale.
  • Renzei season two, episode twelve:
    Bat: Renzei, your family is already dead!
  • From Juliette's season one finale:
    Juliette: My full name is Juliette Optima. And my parents are the founders and owners of Optimus.

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