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My Next Life As A Supervillain: All Routes Lead To Doctor Doom!

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My Next Life As A Supervillain: All Routes Lead To Doctor Doom! (Fanfic)

One day at State University, a familiar scene plays out where a young, arrogant scientist from the country of Latveria has a freak accident in a lab that blows up and leaves tremendous scarring. A colleague by the name of Reed Richards takes the victim of the explosion into his room to help out, but while normally this would fester into a decades-long rivalry that would result in one of the most infamous villains in Marvel Comics, there are two differences with this particular incident. One, instead of being a young man named Victor von Doom, the victim is actually a young woman named Katarina von Doom. And two, the incident woke up some latent memories hiding within the young scientist.

Specifically, memories of her past life as a young, hyperactive Japanese schoolgirl who had an obsession with western comics before she tragically died in a truck accident.

Now realizing she's living the life of Doctor Doom, Katarina immediately takes countermeasures to ensure that she will survive in this new, dangerous world of super science and magic, but unbeknownst to her this will have drastic consequences to how the story plays out.

My Next Life as a Supervillain: All Routes Lead to Doctor Doom! is a Crossover/Fusion Fic of Marvel Comics and My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! by LoriLoud, asking what would happen if instead of being reincarnated into an Otome Game, the monkey girl who would become Katarina was instead reincarnated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as one of Marvel's most famous villains. The result is one of the most heroic takes on Doctor Doom as well as a whole lot of comedy and hijinks revolving around this Katarina's meta-knowledge about the Marvel universe as well as her typical uncanny ability to cause everyone in the room to fall for her while being too dense to notice their advances.

The fic started serialization on May 19, 2024 and is ongoing. It can be read on Spacebattles or on AO3.


Examples:

  • Action Politician: After HYDRA's bombing leaves Dr. Cronos and Lucia severely injured, Katarina gives them both superhuman prosthetics. Later on, they and all the ZRM cabinet members help fight off the Chitauri Invasion.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
    • In Hamefura canon, Katarina grew up in a loving home as the daughter of a powerful Duke. In this story, her mother was executed in front of her for fighting back against the current Latverian regime conducting an ethnic cleansing on her people, her father was sentenced to death for failing to cure cancer, and fled with her into the Alps where he froze to death with his daughter in his arms. She was found near-death by a patrol and lived on the streets before going to America as a student. And she has an eidetic memory, so it's all as fresh today as the day it happened.
      • Just like in the original Hamefura series, Katarina has a case of Heroic Self-Deprecation, but while it's used mostly for comedy, with her downplaying what she has done for others and only seeing herself as a villain, here it gets Played for Drama, especially after she learns that she has been voted in as the new leader of Latveria.
    • This applies to the rest of the Hamefura cast as well. While the Fortune Lover universe is a Dysfunction Junction, they're now all members of a persecuted minority, and were eyewitnesses of genocide against their own. It's also noted that Prinz is leading them despite his young age because there aren't many older Zefiros left.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance: The Winter Soldier appears to take part of a Hydra-backed attempt on Katarina's new government. This leads to Katarina having him secretly captured, due to knowing that he is Bucky Barnes.
  • Adaptational Friendship: Unlike Victor von Doom, Katarina von Doom is friends with Reed Richards even after the explosion. And through that friendship, she also becomes closer to Ben, Sue and Johnny.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Katarina is much more noble person than Victor ever was, with her only motivation to create her signature suit to become a superhero rather than a supervillain. She specifically seeks out tickets to the Stark Expo from Iron Man 2 in order to save everyone from the attacks from the Hammer drones.
  • Adaptational Intelligence: While Katarina in her source material is justifiably known as "Bakarina" by the fanbase for both her lack of book smarts and denseness regarding her romantic prospects, here she at least retains Doctor Doom's impressive intelligence, being able to speak many languages and retaining Doom's scientific acumen and aptitude for sorcery. She's still dense when it comes to her romantic prospects, though.
  • Adaptational Mundanity: Unlike her Marvel Universe counterpart, Cynthia von Doom is no longer a witch in My Next Life as a Supervillain's backstory; she was executed due to her Zefiro rights activity.
  • Adaptational Name Change:
    • Aside from the obvious (Katarina Claes now being named Katarina von Doom), since Latveria is supposed to be located in modern Eastern Europe, the My Next Life as a Villainess cast had their names altered to ones based languages common in the area rather than their originally Western European names—Romanian (Maria Campbell becomes Maria Clopoțel, Mary Hunt is instead Mary Vâna, "Vâna" being Romanian for "hunt"), Polish (Sophia and Nicol Ascart are instead Zofia and Nikolai Aksenov(a)), and German (Alan and Geordo Stuart are instead Alan and Prinznote  Stuhr). The only Hamefura character that hasn't been renamed as of Chapter 13 is Raphael Walt.
    • In the Marvel Universe, Latveria's capital was called Hessenstadt, but renamed to Doomstadt after Doctor Doom's takeover. This is reversed here, where the city has always been called Doomstadt, but the remnants of the Fortunov regime renames it to Hessenstadt, after a general killed by Katarina when the latter conquers the capital.
  • Adaptational Nationality: Besides Katarina herself, all the main characters from her original source material appear as members of the Zefiro (a fictional subgroup of the Romani) Rights Movement in Latveria rather than as royals from the fantasy kingdom of Sorcier.
  • Adaptational Personality Change: Due to being a Composite Character of the original Victor/Katarina von Doom and the "Monkey Girl," Katarina has a few, especially compared to Katarina Claes:
    • After regaining her Past-Life Memories, Katarina Claes considers herself more a Japanese than a Sorcian. On the other hand, Katarina von Doom continues to have a strong Zefiro identity and was greatly disturbed when she learned from Maria about the latest situation in Latveria.
    • While the "Monkey Girl" has been a tomboy in all continuities, she hasn't shown any obvious feminist traits in My Next Life as a Villainess. In My Next Life as a Supervillain, she finds the prospect of her being reincarnated as a damsel in the MCU "demeaning," before she realizes she's been reincarnated into Doctor Doom.
    • Katarina Claes is a virtual pacifist who manages to talk her way out of problems and make friends with virtually everyone she meets. Katarina von Doom enjoys making friends as much as her canon counterpart, but has little trouble inflicting a very lethal Curb-Stomp Battle on the Latverian troops who come looking to kill her and the people she meets when she returns to Latveria. She even spells out exactly what she's going to do to Reed, Tony Stark, and a disguised Natasha Romanov beforehand:
      Katarina: I'm going to raze the government to the ground and watch the life slowly bleed from Fortunov's eyes. Then, I'm going to make sure the old regime stays dead.
    • On the other hand, in stark contrast to Victor, Katarina von Doom does not let her ego make decisions for her and after the accident at the start of the story is willing to accept constructive criticism on projects, accepts charity when it's needed, treats virtually everyone as a peer and is unwilling to cross certain lines purely for power.
    • Minor case regarding the other Zefiros:
      • In My Next Life as a Villainess, Geordo Stuart's sadism comes from him being a Broken Ace and unable to attain joy in his life. In My Next Life as a Supervillain, Prinz Stuhr's sadism comes from the trope of Blood Knight, the latter of which originated from a sense of revenge towards the genocide against the Zefiros.
      • In My Next Life as a Villainess, Sophia Ascart is a fan of romance fiction. In My Next Life as a Supervillain, Zofia Aksenova is a historian.
  • Adaptation Species Change: In the original series, Anne Shelley was a human woman. In this story, she was the AI for Awesome Android before becoming an AI for Katarina's armor, subsequently being given the name "Anne".
  • Age Lift: Because Victor von Doom is a college student when the explosion happens, when Katarina regained the Past-Life Memories of the "Monkey Girl," she's already older than her past life. Likewise, the rest of the Hamefura cast (which are 15-16 years old) have their age increased significantly to 20-30 years.
  • Anger Born of Worry: After Hydra's does a raid that has them attempt to assassinate Katarina and manage to steal the cosmic samples from Reed's space mission, Katarina is in full blown Tranquil Fury mode when she has a sit down with Reed, Ben, Sue, and Johnny for putting themselves in danger after deciding to chase down the thieves in a high speed car chase.
    Katarina: I need all of you to understand that I am in 'damage control mode' right now. You are not dealing with your best friend, Kat, who gallivants across states to look for a limited-supply box of Reese's Puffs. You are not dealing with Mad Scientist Katarina either, who sees a problem and happily sciences it away. You are dealing with the domnitoare republicii, Her Majesty Katarina von Doom, who acts as the executive ruler of Latveria, has a kill count of over 6,000 people, had to defuse five bombs in her own home, which is also the government seat of the nation, and had to do a rush job because her best friends wanted to tussle with terrorists. So tell me, how am I supposed to take this?
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Katarina von Doom is both more attractive and much more nobly intentioned than Victor von Doom. Justified, as unlike Victor, Katarina didn't impatiently put a just-forged iron mask on her face to hide her existing scarring, and said existing scarring is just as bad as it was for Doctor Doom as it was in canon: not all awful.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Katarina von Doom is a bubbly Nice Gal who is the Science Hero Latveria needs after a long and bloody regime of tyranny. It is also repeated that she toppled said regime nearly single-handedly by having a kill count of over 6000 enemy combatants.
  • Beware the Superman: Maria thought about this when Katarina started fighting Latverian soldiers, as below:
    Is this what it means, to fight alongside a god? And what will happen when the gods are no longer with them, but against them?
  • Big Eater: It's easier to not count the instances of where Katarina isn't wolfing down some kind of sugary treat, with her even naming several of her inventions after food terms.
  • Bi-Wildered: Whereas Katarina is Oblivious to Love in My Next Life As A Villainess, while initially unsure of her sexuality, since she was sharing Dr. Doom's backstory up to the accident, here, she discovers that she's likely bisexual after individual makeout sessions with both The Black Widow, Natasha as well as Raphael Walt, strictly for "platonic" purposes.
  • Bilingual Backfire: How Katarina and Maria meet at Stark Expo. Ben stops Katarina from gorging herself silly, prompting the latter to curse under her breath in her native Romanian. Maria overhears her and expresses her surprise at encountering a fellow Latverian (Katarina had used a region-specific profanity and grammatical construct), then cautions her on her harsh language. The two strike up a conversation and exchange contact details.
  • Brick Joke: When gaining Natasha's trust, Katarina name drops the Red Room. Shortly after the Winter Soldier incident, Natasha arrives in Latveria with her entire family and a vial of Red Dust, having got to her family long before she originally did.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: From the outside, Katarina von Doom is a college dropout who has been crashing at a friend's house for over a year, who hangs around in her pajamas, is clumsy and forgetful, and eats whatever she feels like whenever she feels like it. Doesn't stop her from being Reed Richards' intellectual equal, building a suit of power armor, researching mystical arts (after waltzing into the Sorcerer Supreme's New York Sanctum Sanctorum to "borrow" some reading material) and predicting global arms races (helped in large part by her past memories, but true to form she doesn't tell anyone that part).
  • Closet Key:
    • Katarina for Sue Storm. It doesn't hurt that it started when Katarina swooped in wearing her Doom armor and took out a couple of Hammer bots, then made a Declaration of Protection to Sue, seeming very much like a white knight.
    • Katarina for Maria Clopoțel, as per My Next Life as a Villainess. Maria is an extremely devoted ally to Katarina, to the point she actually asks if she's considered having a relationship with another girl, not helped by the fact Katarina finds Maria's healing magic much better than any other form of healing.
  • Composite Character:
    • Unlike in My Next Life as a Villainess where the "Monkey Girl" essentially replaced the original Katarina Claes, here post-explosion Katarina von Doom has influences from both the "Monkey Girl" and the original Katarina von Doom: post-explosion Katarina von Doom has the "Monkey Girl"'s Kindhearted Simpleton temperament, which make her much more heroic than the original Doctor Doom, but von Doom's Dark and Troubled Past still have some bearings on her judgment and intentions.
    • Hamefura's Anne Shelley is combined with Marvel's Awesome Android. To clarify, this Katarina somehow manages to give Awesome Android proper sentience, convinces it to switch sides, and renames it Anne. Anne took up the mindset of a maid as a result of how it interpreted Katarina's directives.
  • Covert Group with Mundane Front: Zefiro Rights Movement masquerades themselves as the company Fortuna LLC. They apparently have legitimate businesses on top of being a front so that they can Hold The Floor should something happens.
  • Creator's Culture Carryover: LLC is a type of company usually formed in the US; in Latveria's major inspirations, this type of company is known by different names: kft in Hungary, SRL in Romania, and DOO in Serbia.
  • Crossover: Aside from it being Fusion Fic of My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Vergil from Devil May Cry was summoned via Katarina’s Demonic Ritual to act as the executioner for the remains of the Fortunov regime.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Kat vs. the Latverian Army. She literally decimated them with her first assault. Doom Armor will do that for you.
    • Latveria vs. the Chitauri. Katarina's protective measures obliterate the attacking forces before they can even hit the ground. The few units that make it to the ground get a Zerg Rush from Katarina's Robot Dog army.
  • Declaration of Protection: As the Hammer Drones attack the Stark Expo, Katarina declares she will always save Sue. Sue falls in love with her after hearing it.
  • Did You Just Have Tea With Cthulhu: Katarina stops for lunch in the middle of working her way through the Latverian army. A lone soldier ends up sitting with her after emptying his guns into her armor fails to do anything and she chats him down from trying with a knife. For almost the entire time, he's scared near-witless sitting there "eating lunch with the most lethal woman in Europe". A short time later, he's joined the resistance.
  • Disabled in the Adaptation:
    • While many readers of My Next Life as a Villainess speculate the "Monkey Girl" has ADHD, that was never confirmed in the canon. In here, while Katarina does not see herself as having the condition and her friends mostly treat it as a personality trait, both Natasha and Tony said in their separate profilings of Katarina von Doom that the latter has an "extreme case of" it.
    • Due to the setting of My Next Life as a Villainess, Sophia's albinism is never named in that work but nearly universally recognized by the readers. In My Next Life as a Supervillain, which is set in the late 2000s, albinism is immediately named-checked when Katarina sees Zofia, Sophia's transplant in this fic.
  • Do Not Adjust Your Set: As part of the Latverian rebellion, Katarina uses the "Doomcast" to take control of every TV, phone, and computer in the country. It mostly repeats canned dialogue but sometimes she speaks through it in order to unsettle those who try to break through her jamming.
  • Don't Make Me Destroy You: Katarina repeatedly tells the Latverian troops confronting her to leave and stop shooting at her. Only some take her up on it; the rest receive a brutal Curb-Stomp Battle that includes her throwing helicopters at infantry squads as the most efficient means of clearing the board.
  • Double Meaning: Katarina manages to publicly give a triple meaning in her address to the UN over her condemnation of the Latverian Accords. When she says that with issues like this, "if you cut off one head, two will take its place" and that she intends to "rip its heart out" instead, not only is she defending her intent to use whatever methods, no matter how extreme, to fight the Accords, but by referencing Hydra's slogan she's both publicly comparing every politician who supports them to an infamous Nazi organization and obliquely informing the modern Hydra organization that she knows they're still out there and is coming for them.
  • Edible Theme Naming: Katarina tells Johnny about some of the inventions she made to help Latveria, all of which have a food-related German name: Kuchen (cake), Teller (plates), Kürbis (pumpkin), Waffeln (waffles), and Besteck (silverware).
    Katarina: I'm a very hungry woman, Johnny.
  • Even the Girls Want Her: It wouldn't be Katarina if this weren't the case. Sue Storm, Zofia, Maria,note  and Lucia von Bardas are all into her, and she's had at least one makeout session with Natasha Romanova.
  • Evil Chancellor: Katarina chooses Lucia von Bardas as her Prime Minister with the explicit intention of engineering this trope. It leaves the person most likely to undermine her under her direct supervision, and gives her an easy starting point to investigate in the event of treason. She even keeps Lucia around after said treason partially because her antics are amusing.
  • Evil Doppelgänger: Inverted. The Ancient One is thankful "on a multiversal level" that they got a good version of Doom. It was another version of Victor somehow noticing her spying across the multiverse and becoming displeased, that prompted her to ally with Latveria in the first place.
  • Exact Words: The Awesome Android is programmed to eliminate the threat of Katarina von Doom. She uses Insane Troll Logic to point out that, if it allies with her, she will no longer be a threat to it. After a few minutes of chewing over the Logical Fallacy, it agrees and becomes her 'maid'.
  • Foreign Culture Fetish: Katarina in her past life was a Japanese schoolgirl who regularly reads western comic books, and refers to her past life as a "Westaboo," a snowclone of "Weaboo," a slang word for Japanophiles.
  • "Friends" Rent Control: Reed allows Katarina to crash at his father's New York estate with him after her accident.note  A year and change later she's still there, but seeing as she gets along with Reed and his friends like a house on fire (thankfully not theirs, given who we're talking about), no one really minds.
  • Fun with Acronyms:
    • Besides the already existing Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, Nick Fury gives Natasha a special order titled the Clandestine Logistical Arrangement for Extranational Supportnote , and Katarina names the operation for interrupting Fortunov's broadcast "Operation: Strategic Ordered Regional Communication Interruption to Encourage Resignment."note 
    • Katarina invents robot police dog called Police Canine Helper Mk. I, or PoCH-I.note 
    • The Latverian Army's Surface-To-Air Repulsor Systems.
  • Gender Flip: Probably to avoid the troublesome and distracting issue of Reincarnated as the Opposite Sex, the "Monkey Girl" was reincarnated into a gender-flipped version of Victor von Doom.
  • Genius Sweet Tooth: Alongside a retinal scanner, Katarina's security system requires a breathalyser to measure the sucrose levels on her breath. While Katarina Claes is already a sweet tooth in My Next Life as a Villainess, this Katarina inherits Victor's intelligence, making her this. For a quantitative measure, there's an implication of her drinking coffee with at least five tablespoons of sugar.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Katarina retains Doom's scar from when she had her accident. Unlike the original Doom, she doesn't make it worse by welding a metal mask to her face, and several characters (including one Tony Stark) comment how her scar actually adds to her attractiveness rather than detracts from it.
  • How Did You Know? I Didn't: After dealing with the Ancient One, Katarina has had a very draining day and decides to end it early, screaming at the vents that she's done for the day, specifically naming Black Widow and T'Challa as people who she doesn't want to deal with at the moment. She then leaves without even bothering with a cursory scrying, leaving behing a very shaken T'Challa in that vent, who's wondering how the hell she knew he was there.
  • Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Maria Clopoțel slips into this role for Katarina, being her personal assistant for her role as the Queen of Latveria, being one of the few people who is aware of Katarina's multiple contigency plans.
  • I Know Mortal Kombat: Katarina on multiple occasions uses moves her original counterpart performs in the Marvel vs. Capcom series, with the Foot Dive being a particular favorite of hers. She even mentally performs an input of a quarter-circle back with two attack buttons when she's preparing to use her Photon Array attack.
  • Innocent Innuendo: While hospitalized, Katarina convinces Maria to use the former's gauntlets as an amplifier for the latter's healing magic. When Prinz is outside Katarina's hospital room, he overhears the resulting conversation and assumes that Maria was seducing her. A flustered Maria vehemently denies this.
  • Intimate Healing: Maria's Healing Hands aren't necessarily this trope, but Katarina tends to make very... appreciative noises when being healed, much to Maria's embarrassment.
  • In Spite of a Nail:
    • Within moments of arriving at the Stark Expo and entering the public eye, she catches the eye of Maria Clopoțel, and even muses that whoever ends up dating her is winning in the relationship lottery. If only you knew the truth...
    • Despite all her attempts to avoid it, she becomes first the Latverian UN Ambassador... then the ruler of the country outright.
    • Despite quadruple-checking the equipment and cutting the crew needs down to one human and HERBIE, Reed Richards still ends up Mr. Fantastic.
  • Learned from the News: This is how Katarina learned she was voted in as Latveria's new regent as a write-in candidate. She would have learned from her friends first had she not set up a "Do Not Disturb" setting on incoming e-mails.
  • Let's Get Dangerous!: When something really bad is happening like the Hammer drone attack at the Stark Expo or the Zefiro genocide in Latveria, Katarina adopts a more arrogant persona closer to the original Doctor Doom and is noticeably scarier. Reed Richards, her closest friend, is shocked whenever this happens since he's used to Katarina's more happy-go-lucky persona following her accident.
  • Like a God to Me:
    • In Chapter 16, Katarina returns to Maria's house after she finishes her initial strike. When Maria's mother sees her, she immediately calls Katarina a saint. While Katarina Claes has been called a saint in her show due to her Positive Friend Influence, here Katarina von Doom has staved off a second Zefiro genocide, and seemingly come back to life after dying in a massive explosion.
    • By Chapter 48, Tony Stark notices that the renovations on Castle Doom are making it significantly more... cathedral-like, and (correctly) muses that Katarina probably hasn't made that connection yet.
  • Love Confession: The Otome Game Arc sees Reed and Sue makings such confessions to Katarina, and unlike her Hamafura counterpart, Katarina is not Oblivious to Love. Well, with them...
  • Magical Romani: Since they were mages in their home story, Katarina and most of the transplanted characters are fictional Zefiro Romani, a group with innate magical abilities.
  • Magitek: Katarina's suit is powered by a magical battery, and most of her weapons are modified spells. This leads to an exasperated Reeds dubbing in "thaumic energy".
  • The Masquerade: Downplayed. The Ancient One claims that there really isn't an actual rule against revealing magic to the world. Still, she's happy that thaumic energy gives a pseudo-scientific explanation for real mages to hide behind.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Tony Stark gets caught in one of these dilemmas when he tries to figure out how Katarina's suit works, since half of it doesn't make sense... unlike Reed Richards who has half a clue what 'thaumic energy' actually is, and that's only since he read Katarina's notes.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • Unlike the rest of the My Next Life as a Villainess cast, Geordo (as he is known in this wiki) did not retain his name and is instead named Prinz, German for "prince." This is a reference to him being subject to severe Inconsistent Spelling in the canon.
    • Uncle Ben's Armor-Piercing Question to Katarina about how she was the only person looking out for her people in Latveria is a reference to Doctor Doom asking the same question under very different context in the Emperor Doom one shot. note 
      'Uncle Ben:. Now tell me, Katarina von Doom, who deserves to rule? note 
    • In My Next Life as a Villainess, Katarina Claes eventually gains a familiar in the form of a dog-shaped mass of dark magic, which she calls Pochi. In My Next Life as a Supervillain, Katarina von Doom creates Robot Dogs, which she calls PoChi.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero!: Katarina has a moment of this when she learns that the Latverian government is going to round up minorities in their territory due to her making the news intervening at the Stark Expo in her new Doom Suit.
  • Next Life as a Fictional Character: Instead of Fortune Lover's Katarina Claes, the "Monkey Girl" gets reincarnated into a Gender Flip of Doctor Doom in a Setting Update of the Marvel Universe instead.
  • One-Man Army: Katarina, literally, as expected for a Superhero/Supervillain. On her first strike alone she has confirmed to "have neutralized 8.6% of the Latverian military force and 10% of the Doomstadt Police Force", with possibly double that in unconfirmed deaths. After that arc, "The One-Woman War" actually becomes both the popular term for the conflict and her personal moniker.
  • The Paralyzer: Katarina develops a laser-gun that causes rigid paralysis in order to have a better non-lethal option.
  • Please Select New City Name: The Fortunov regime renames the capital of Latveria from Doomstadt to Hassenstadt after Katarina von Doom drives the Fortunov government out of the capital. They also make it a crime for anyone to refer to the city as Doomstadt.
  • Point of Divergence: Due to the existence of Katarina and Latveria, the Chitauri invasion doesn't strike New York, but Latveria instead.
  • Post-Victory Collapse: After wiping the last Chitauri in Latveria from existence, Katarina ejects her Infinity Stones and faints after a few steps.
  • Power-Strain Blackout: Due to mana exhaustion and channelling the powers of two Infinity Stones, Katarina ends up in a deep sleep that at least lasts a week following the Chitauri invasion of Latveria.
  • Rebel Leader: Katarina's mother Cynthia was the founder of the Zefiro Rights Movement. At the time the story starts, the leadership falls to the relatively young Prinz, due to the ethnic cleansing against the Zefiro. In the civil war arc Katarina effectively becomes one, despite her initial reluctance in this matter.
  • Refuge in Audacity: Katarina gets caught by a disciple breaking into the NY Sanctum Sanctorum. She claims to be a member who went out bar-hopping and left her Sling Ring in her room. The disciple fails to notice she wasn't really a member of the Order and tells her to go to her room without escorting her or anything else. As soon as he's out of sight, she beelines for the library. Notably, for this trope, the Ancient One actually knew she was coming, and just berates the disciple for not spotting the obvious lie.
  • Reluctant Ruler: Katarina initially isn't interested in ruling Latveria, lest that would turn her into a villain like Victor. She's still elected by write-in.
  • Rescue Romance: Originally, Sue was very much a Clingy Jealous Girl who very much saw Reed and Katarina's dynamic as more than Platonic Life-Partners. This changes when Katarina saves her life at the Stark Expo and is now down bad for her, to the point that Sue is very much now angling for a three-way relationship between them all.
  • Resigned to Inevitable Misfortune: Katarina is furious with her friends, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Jonny Storm, and Ben Grimm after they had run off to fight terrorists without any real training or proper equipment. She asks them if, given the chance to do it over, they would do it again. They answer that they would. Katarina resigns herself to the fact that her friends are, at their core, heroes who will act first. She decides to at least lay down some ground rules.
    Katarina: [groaning] Oh, you four are... fantastic.
  • Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Bardas attempts to have the new Latverian government assassinated, working with Wolfgang von Strucker to do so. Except she doesn't know that Strucker and HYDRA plan to have her killed as well.
  • Rich Language, Poor Language: A Latverian soldier notes that Katarina speaks with a "painfully rural" accent when they converse in their native Romanian. He muses it fits the stereotype most have of Zefiro accoirding to the regime. On the other hand, when speaking with older Zefiros such as Maria's mother, Katarina also realizes her Romani language sounds "posh."
  • Robot Dog: Rather than making an army of Doom Bots, Katarina develops a supplemental police force composed of robot dogs she calls PoChi. She also gifts one to the Parker Family as home defense as a thanks for the advice that Uncle Ben gave her.
  • Rounded Character: While Kararina Claes was never a Flat Character, Katarina von Doom has more aspects of her character that are explored and developed due to the turbulent circumstances of her life, ranging from: overly excited Womanchild and Ditzy Genius to Mad Science Wizard to Good Is Not Soft High Queen Action Politician.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: The Fortunov regime suffered several waves of this during the Civil War Arc.
    • 30% of the Latverian police force resigned as soon as Fortunov announced the Executive Census.
    • After Katarina's first strike, the soldiers at the remote Draken desert or defect to such an extent that they effectively hand over the local government to the local ZRM cell.
    • Major desertions of the Fortunov's forces occur after Katarina hacks into Fortunov speech to make her manifesto plus a less-than-subtle threat.
  • Setting Update: Since the MCU is a setting update of the original comics, which means despite there being no Fantastic Four entries in the MCU at the time this fic was begun,note  they exist in this story to allow Doctor Doom to exist. The fic's story also is set in approximately 2010 owing to Iron Man 2 being set at that time. This necessitates some changes to Katarina von Doom's backstories; especially Cynthia von Doom's story gets an Adaptational Mundanity makeover—she was no longer a witch in here, but the founder of the ZRM, and was executed by the firing squad over her Zefiro rights activities.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Keith's golems are the Legendary Titans from Pokémon, down to their heavily-memed cries.
    • The finishing moves of Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker are directly namedropped during Katarina's fight with the Awesome Android.
    • The Prime Minister of Transylvania is one Soma Cruz.
    • The German Customs agent who checks Katarina into the country is Tanya Degurechaff, with the smoking man in the same chapter being one of her subordinates. Later on, Prinz unintentionally echoes her "should have brought your visa" line to the invading Chitauri.
  • Story Arc: The fanfic currently has four arcs done and a fifth in progress.
    • The Stark Expo Arc: Katarina learns about being reincarnated into the MCU and decides to take the role of Doctor Doom on her own terms.
    • Latverian Civil War Arc: Katarina learns that the Latverian government is targeting her fellow Zefiro, leading her to openly strike against the dictatorship.
    • Recovery Arc: Katarina finds herself elected the new Queen of Latveria in a write-in vote, and must get a handle on becoming a leader of a nation.
    • Mr. Fantastic Arc: Despite many precautions, Reed Richards becomes the Rubber Man Mr. Fantastic. Katarina must also deal with a HYDRA strike that seeks to topple her young government and steal the Cosmic Energy samples Reed managed to collect.
    • Otome Game Arc: A breather arc, with Katarina dealing with the events of the previous arc, and trying to deal with her first love confessions.
    • Avengers Arc: The events of The Avengers (2012) movie, the major climactic battle now taking place in Latveria instead of New York.
    • Latveria Accords Arc: The current arc, dealing with the aftermath of the Chitauri invasion and the public reveal of superheroes.
  • Tap on the Head: After the accident, Reed originally offered Katarina a place to stay out of guilt that his role in the accident caused her to be somewhat warped from her original imperious, demanding personality into a somewhat childish, bubbly and optimistic, lamenting the loss of the person she once was.
  • Ten Minutes in the Closet: Black Widow Natasha Romanova offers to do this with Katarina to help her determine if she's interested in women, men, both, or neither. Strictly for "platonic" purposes, of course. Katarina takes her up on it and decides she's definitely into girls. (And later events with Raphael Walt help her realize she's also interested in men)
  • There Are No Therapists: Averted.
    • Rhodey immediately sees that Katarina isn't doing well after the Latverian Civil War, and offers an ear if she needs it.
    • Sue and Reed actually went to couples counseling to discuss their shared romantic interest in Katarina that'd been mostly Played for Laughs up until that point. Because of this, they're able to confess to her in a way that they're both happy with, doesn't put her under any pressure to give an immediate response, and, most impressively: is actually completely understood by Katarina.
  • Token Evil Teammate: Long-term exposure to Katarina has developed Lucia von Bardas into a Tsundere who (mostly) goes along with the forces of good.
  • Universally Beloved Leader: Similar to her home universe, due to Katarina's overwhelming charisma, she ends up ruling Latveria without even being on the ballot, and is able to befriend everything including a Killer Robot specifically sent out to eliminate her.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation: Keith Claes is Katarina Claes' adopted brother. Keith Dorn is not related to Katarina von Doom whatsoever. Initially. Chapter 51 reveals that Katarina had been referring Keith as her brother as a joke, due to their similar last times, before deciding she really does see him as a brother, and so adopts him officially as such.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Julius Denker has several as Katarina proves herself far more dangerous than he anticipated:
    • First he is feverishly scrambling to find her to finish the job after she survived what he believed to be a fatal bomb strike.
    • The second time he smashes a keyboard until it literally breaks in half after she destroys Awesome Android, then is left screaming in rage after she sends him a taunting message through his android.
    • By the end, he's desperately trying to escape, crawling away from Black Widow and Katarina while left bloodied and terrified. Black Widow claims SHIELD needs his secrets, while Katarina is aware HYDRA are trying to reclaim their own. Katarina wins out.
  • Wham Line: There's an epic one during Vladimir Fortunov's celebration of the toppling of Katarina von Doom, as he shows off her stolen mask, declaring her dead, then the lights die, and they hear one single line that completely upends everything...
    Katarina: "You have my mask, sir."
  • What Is This Feeling?: Lucia isn't sure what to make of her newfound romantic interest in Katarina, since she's a dastardly schemer. She uses a comatose Bucky as a sounding board, which he remembers later.
  • What Measure Is a Mook?: Katarina devotes some thought to this as she fights her way through Latveria's capital city. It helps that she meets at least one who is willing to speak with her, and be honest. It doesn't help that all of the soldiers she's fighting are sworn to a regime that is gearing up for yet another round of ethnic cleansing not just of her Zefiro people, but Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, and any other "undesirables".
  • Womanchild: Katarina Claes is already one when she was a teen, so it's more pronounced as Katarina von Doom, who is older than 20. When Tony Stark reads out Katarina's data from J.A.R.V.I.S, he thought her spending patterns after the explosion "looks like the impulse buys of a pre-teen," which gets a callback when she meets Doreen Green while buying My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic dolls.
  • The Wonka: Katarina gets voted as Regent Lady by the people of Latveria after overthrowing the previous regime, before going on to "invent" her way out of Latveria's problems.
  • Wrestler in All of Us: Invoked by Katarina during her second fight against Awesome Android. Since she knows the Android will imitate her fighting style and she hasn't given him any indication of how she fights up close, she purposely uses the flashy and impractical style of pro wrestling moves to get the Android to copy them and forgo any sense of lethality during their fight.
  • Xanatos Speed Chess: Katarina uses Doom's intellect and her foreknowledge of the MCU to not just plan for when something happens, but to plan multiple contigencies for if something goes wrong with the original plan.

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