| �The Blame Fame Game� Journal Entry #4 |
| Every time I pick up the latest issue of the Paragon Times, it�s the same thing: �Scandal Rocks the Hero Community.� It seems every few weeks there�s another downfall and another great din over the fallen honor of one of Paragon�s renown crime fighters. I�m not just talking about the mentally unbalanced vigilantes who snap and start lobbing web grenades everywhere, or the occasional experimental robot who explodes when some wise-ass thug asks it to express pi in decimal form. I speak of the more mundane scandals that we find in the coarser sections of the newspaper, or perhaps the tabloids we thumb through at the grocery store check out counters. Flying heroes caught peeping in highrise windows, do-gooders selling photocopied autographs of themselves to unsuspecting children, or invisible champions who moonlight as a cat burglars. |
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| Being a superhero does not grant license for any misdeed, nor can it be accepted as an excuse for one�s faults. Perhaps an average citizen might be allowed such minor foibles in their lives, but as heroes of the city, we must set an example, far beyond what is expected of others, or perhaps even capable, because as super heroes, we are expected to do the impossible every day. The temptations of celebrity affect us all, and most especially we super-powered heroes who save people by the bus load. The allure of simple, harmless little evils will stalk us where ever we go, seducing us with the quick and easy path and immunity from responsibility. This is the life we have chosen, the life that has chosen us, and we can never hide from our duty to the people, behind a silk cape, or bulletproof battle armor. Our first duty is to be heroes to ourselves. So, the next time you find yourself carelessly tossing a candy bar wrapper off a roof, or parking your battle van next to a hydrant, remember, as a hero of Paragon City we must first be heroic from within. |
| Those Freedom Squad members who were around late last year will remember the shameful scandal of one of our former Partners, �The Falconer.� We were all impressed with his stately Welsh accent, and thick handlebar mustache, not to mention his beautiful trained hawk, �Issac.� But it turned out, we were all fooled by his impeccable fa�ade, when it came out in the paper that he tormented his bird with brainwashing electroshock treatments, in order to make poor Issac do his bidding. My point is, this fall from grace can happen to anybody. But we must guard against it happening to each of us. All of us, not just we heroes of the Freedom Squad, but heroes everywhere, must hold ourselves to a higher standard than we dare hold any normal citizen of Paragon. Each of these heroes who succumbed to the temptaitons of their own shortcomings, did so, ultimately, with the same excuse: �the pressures of being a famous hero.� |
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