*Formerly known as It's a Trap! Now with a new name and story!*

Scent Notes: A freshly baked marzipan cake topped with buttercream, sprinkled with caramelized sugar and a small drizzle of honey, left on the countertop with a lovely note telling you to eat it, and you have no reason at all to suspect that it’s poisoned except for that slightly faint hint of wormwood coming through the sweetness.

“Cheers!” everyone yelled as they clinked their glasses together over the longest table they’d ever seen. “To another successful convention in the books!” Feminista added, which garnered several extra cheers. The superheroes and villains were in the final official night of their truce, which lasted the entirety of the convention, but which would officially end tomorrow morning when they all woke up, likely hungover, and therefore the truce usually lasted an extra day or two unofficially while they all recovered back in their hideouts/evil lairs. For now, though, they were having a fun time at the bar down the street from the convention center where they’d all been for the last four days, first setting up, then actually attending the panels, events, screenings, merch booths, signings, etc. that happen over the course of three very long days under fluorescent lighting. They’d spent this afternoon/evening taking everything down and packing up, and now they just needed to let loose a little. Feminista and Ann Adote were in the center of the table, holding court, while various other heroes and villains surrounded them. Ann and Feminista were currently regaling the story of how Captain Mansplain had attempted to hijack their booth before the convention had even begun, but they’d gotten him kicked out. 

“No wonder we hadn’t seen him this weekend!” Dad Dynamo cackled, taking a beer out of the baby carrier strapped to his chest. Outside of the convention, he was a crime-fighting dad, taking care of criminals and making sure he was home to put his kids to bed; at the convention, the kids stayed home and Dad got to cut loose. Feminista had lost count of how many cheap beers he’d had so far. Soon enough he was going to ask if anyone wanted to go to the park for a late-night grill out and a game of catch. 

“I swear I saw him!” Professor Punch interrupted, swinging his fist over the head of Dad Dynamo. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to almost deck you, Dad. But no, no, I swear he was in the lobby wearing like twenty t-shirts with his face on them and a stack of hats on his head, like he was going to sell merch straight off his body or something? It was so weird. Security wouldn’t let him in, though, and everyone in the lobby was taking a wide berth around him.” The Professor picked up a stray shot of whiskey on the table and took it quickly, coughing and sputtering. “It was almost a little sad, y’all. I almost felt bad.” He spied a second shot and snagged it. “Almost.” 

Ann smacked him on the back when he started coughing from the second shot. “Don’t take the shot if you don’t want it, buddy. You’ll regret it nearly as much as Mansplain probably regrets all of that merch.” She went on to describe in vivid detail the horrible merch Captain Mansplain had designed for himself. The whole group was laughing uproariously when a booming voice broke over them. “Good compatriots! For what are we laughing about with abandon today? Something awful a woman did, I assume? That always gets me going. They’re just terrible.” Captain Mansplain had arrived, to the chagrin of everyone else. Ann was emboldened by the booze and answered before anyone could even turn in his direction. “Unless you consider yourself a woman, absolutely not. We were talking about … WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?!” Ann’s thought had cut off midway once she looked up and saw what Captain Mansplain was wearing. The Captain lifted his chin. “I’m wearing my new supersuit. You told me explicitly that my old outfit wasn’t good enough and that’s why my merch wasn’t selling. So I’ve changed it up; I think I look quite handsome. I put it all together myself!” By this time, the whole table had turned to give him a once-over, and they were all laughing in a mix of shock and horror. Professor Punch did the most dramatic spit take any of them had ever seen in real life. “My god man, what are you WEARING?! Is that … your underwear?” the Professor asked as he took off his glasses, cleaned them, then began scrutinizing what he saw. Captain Mansplain let out a loud guffaw. “Of course it is! I am complying with Super Code Regulation 2.a.b., section 5, subsection 6, part 43, just like the rest of you are: My underwear is on the outside!” “It sure is, buddy,” Dad Dynamo chimed in with a laugh. “But, uh, I don’t think it’s giving the effect you want.” 

It’s true, his underwear was on the outside, but the Super Code called for underpants, not underwear, and in the superhero/villain world, there was a big difference. Underwear is, well, underwear; it goes underneath your supersuit. Underpants go, naturally, on the outside of the supersuit and usually are color-coded to either blend in or really stand out, and they were certainly NOT run-of-the-mill underwear. Captain Mansplain seemed to completely misunderstand … every word of that, as he was just wearing what looked like an old dirty pair of boxer shorts emblazoned with small pictures of his own face on top of his supersuit. Feminista stood up. “Yes, as you can see, we are all wearing our underpants on the outside, per regulation.” She gestured at her own outfit which, indeed, included underpants as a layer on the outside of her suit. This was the same for everyone else at the table. “You seem to be wearing your underwear on the outside, which is not the same thing. And … wait … are they upside-down? HOW ARE THEY UPSIDE-DOWN?” Indeed, not only was he wearing the wrong sort of garment, he was, against all possible laws of clothing and also maybe physics, wearing them upside-down. Everyone started laughing, and Captain Mansplain went red in the face. “I was trying something! I guess I shouldn’t expect a woman to understand fashion,” he said, but hardly anyone heard him as the entire group was laughing so hard they were crying. “Don’t come crying to me in five years when everyone is doing this!” Captain Mansplain yelled as he started to storm out of the bar awkwardly, as wearing his underpants upside-down on top of his supersuit naturally made walking a challenge. “Just like his merch, that will never catch on,” Ann said, which led to a further cheers-ing of drinks, and a continuation of the celebration before they all had to begin fighting each other in just a few days. At least they knew Captain Mansplain would be easier to catch now.

Scent Notes: A freshly baked marzipan cake topped with buttercream, sprinkled with caramelized sugar and a small drizzle of honey, left on the countertop with a lovely note telling you to eat it, and you have no reason at all to suspect that it’s poisoned except for that slightly faint hint of wormwood coming through the sweetness.