This more or less started when thinking a bit more on Mirage.
Let’s be blunt, Mirage has been doing work for Syndrome for at least some time. She’s been 'helping him kill people for a while. Yet her conscience is only really slammed when kids enter the fire. That’s when she gets REALLY shocked, when her eyes widen the most, and she seems genuinely upset that the target was hit.
Unlike Syndrome she is also not someone with extreme mental problems.
Mirage is not a completely good person, nor is she completely evil. In short she’s a person. This one shot is sort of a character study of her and maybe a slight look into what ordinary people are capable of doing in general and how looking to past misgivings as they really are, while sometimes important, can be painful. It’s pretty short though.
Rated T for angst.
fanfiction.net/s/6342005/1/Technicality
Wow. That’s way deeper than I ever thought of her being. I like it!! Nice to see more Incredibles fanfiction. Good job! 
Thanks! Yeah it more or less came from realising Mirage’s turn around was kind of… odd when you thought about it. She’s been doing this a WHILE probably, being an accessory to mass murder (seriously, let’s not beat around the bush here, much as I love her, that was what she was doing quite literally, she was luring heroes into somewhere they would die, that’s pretty messed up). Yet it can be seen when kids are involved her conscience is still there, she still has her limits and that was (part of) her wake up call. But when she thinks a bit more on her deeds later in the aftermath with Syndrome gone it could be a pretty hard hit when the realisation of what she’s been doing really properly sinks in.
So I wondered a bit more on someone ordinary who could do these things and this was the result.
Thanks for reading it as well as your comment! Glad you liked it!
Wow, this is a beautiful character study, mentalguru. Mirage is unique in the sense she’s one of the few Pixar villains (the only ones I can think of at the moment are Anton Ego and [spoil]Big Baby[/spoil]) that redeems oneself at the end. But unfortunately, that doesn’t totally absolve or exonerate them of their previous sins, which is what you explored here.
I also like how you hinted that Syndrome was part of a grander scheme, maybe even government-related. There’s a very SPECTRE feel to it, like an omnipotent global criminal organisation, and that Syndrome was just the tip of the iceberg. Very intriguing.
Great work, all round!
Thanks!
I have the overwhelming urge to be mean to my favourites before being nice to them, so I kind of feel it could work out eventually, but it would be a long and difficult path ahead at least. It just doesn’t seem all that realisitc that she could just immediately jump into a new life without a care in the world. No. Mirage is smart and she has a conscience. But for a while she helped kill people. When that sinks in properly, it’s going to be difficult. It wouldn’t make sense to me if it wasn’t difficult.
(Perhaps she could use her public relation skills for the supers. They desperately need it in my opinion. Help prevent another Buddy situation or a Super ban in her own small way. I kind of like that idea.)
I also get the impression that Syndrome at the very least must have sold weapons to the US government myself. He’s probably the best at what he does given his vast scienctific skills and resources (and he’s a genius, come on.). And I kind of get the impression then some turned a blind eye to certain things. It’s possible they wouldn’t know exactly what was going on but knew something was up. A fair few governments really, not just the US.
Thing is they wouldn’t want to annoy someone who was selling them weapons too much. Getting too far up his nose could mean getting cut off from his technology or him selling it cheaper to enemies. And they wouldn’t want him to do that at all. And yet he’d be well within his rights to do so probably. He can choose who he sells too and he’s probably so rich he can pick and choose his customers. People will WANT his stuff. There would always be some other buyer elsewhere.
Perhaps Mirage wasn’t the only one who lied to herself- but being further removed, it would have been easier for them to do so. Sounds kind of creepy, but I could see it happening. They might not know exactly what it was he was doing… but they probably knew he was up to something which wasn’t good.
I like your ideas. Especially the guilt part. i don’t know why, but I always want people to feel awful for the things they do and say, because I always do, and it’s very hard to live that way.
While there are certain things people do and should feel guilty over there are certain levels in my opinion. Sometimes you shouldn’t beat up yourself over things as much as we do, other times it can go in the other direction and we have to consider others more.
-Shrugs- It’s a balance, and sometimes the most difficult person to forgive is yourself. And I feel this would be in Mirage’s case. Let’s face it, what she did is no small thing.
But yeah, I also just really have a habit of doing this. I do it to both characters I like in fandom as well as in my original stories- I tend to have one or two characters which are completely crushed by guilt or various other things before building them up again.
People making the turn around from very dark places is difficult, but it’s pretty fascinating to me. Probably because it happens in real life too. Doing something you regret or fooling yourself in some way is something I think everyone has done in some capacity. Not on Mirages level maybe but still I think most people have in some capacity felt a little like she may have done after the movie events at some point, once they reach a certain age at least.
I never really thought about what happened to her after the movie, though I can see why it’s so interesting.