#theres either very few or no villain couples.. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kwonhoshi0 · 4 years

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| 𝐢𝐭 𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐭𝐬 |

navigation | k.b masterlist

pairing : bakugou x f reader

genre : angst, fluff

word count : 3.1k

warnings : lord here we go, trauma, ptsd, torture, blood,spoilers in case you haven’t watched all of mha, sexual jokes, talk of vomit, stabbing, knives.

- set when bakugou got taken by the villains but instead of bakugou getting taken its you-

> quirk like elevens power in stranger things < > telekinesis <

“we don’t know too much but we have the names of two targets right now, bakugou and y/n, if you’re either of those people don’t fight come back to the camp.” after hearing the announcement from one of the pussy cats, mandalay you look at bakugou and todoroki, bakugou looked happy since it meant he had villains to fight but he heard your name and worry took over his face, you weren’t dating but god did you want to, you looked over at moonfish disgusted by him, his mouth was held open with small metal bars a straitjacket over the rest of his body.

you couldn’t unleash all your power on moonfish since you get extremely tired and you probably have a lot more fighting to do so you simply gathered 10% of your power to your finger tips, bakugou and todoroki were about to attack but stopped when they looked at you, they know how powerful you can be after seeing you fight and train, it’s what bakugou loves about you, you are badass and didn’t hesitate to put yourself in danger for others, he would never tell you this though.

with a simple flick of your wrist you attempted to break his neck, a little bit of blood coming out of your nose you wiped it away before looking back at the villain, he screamed out in pain before dropping to the ground. ‘it didn’t even look like you tried’ todoroki complimented making bakugou stare at him, ‘yeah yeah icyhot we get it’, you giggle at their antics before you feel a sharp pain in your shoulder, crying out you fall over looking up to see moonfishes knives coming at you, todoroki made a wall of ice blocking moonfish from you all, which irritated bakugou ‘I COULDVE ATTACKED HIM HALF AND HALF BASTARD’, ‘you tried before besides we need to stop the bleeding and quickly’ todoroki replied calmly making bakugou scoff, ‘i can do it move over’ his sudden calm behaviour startling you. he takes some cloth that ripped from the bottom of his t shirt earlier and wrapped it around your shoulder and armpit making you wince, ‘shit sorry’ his eyes oddly softening at your pain your eyes widen as you hear the ice wall todoroki created being scratched and broken down, but you can also hear something else.

‘Y/N, BAKUGOU, TODOROKI!!’ you look over to where moonfish was and running past him was midoriya and shoji behind them was dark shadow at his strongest form, he’s strongest in the dark which is probably why they came to where todoroki is, before todoroki unleashed his fire bakugou told him not to for a second so dark shadow could entrap moonfish. after dark shadow was contained everyone took a second to catch their breaths before they all looked at you and bakugou.

‘WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EXTRAS LOOKING AT’ bakugou yelled. ‘we have to protect y/n and bakugou since they’re the ones the league want’, everyone was agreeing while you and bakugou stood there like meerkats. ‘tokoyami stand behind y/n and bakugou we’ll stay in front’ after midoriya told everyone the plan you just followed along unable to say anything.

you winced out a sudden pain in your shoulder from the attack earlier ‘shit do you need me to look at that’ bakugou said his usual angry expression now a soft worried one. ‘no no i’m okay’ you smile. you all jumped up at a sound, it sounded like uraraka, without thinking you ran through the trees everyone screaming after you, after getting through the clearing you see toga draining uraraka of her blood before you could attack her she ran into the forest disappearing saying how theres too many people, everyone caught a glimpse of her as they caught up to you. ‘Y/N YOU FUCKING IDIOT DONT DO THAT AGAIN FUCKS SAKE’ bakugou yelled making you hug him in return ‘i’m fine shut up’ he leaned into your hug making you smile at his warmth towards you, you quickly jumped realising the situation you’re in ‘hey uraraka are you okay’, midoriya already talked to her asking what happened but you wanted to check since you’re friends, ‘i’m okay thank you for asking, are you, does that hurt’ she asks taking a look at your gash, you really admire this girl she’s so caring which is why she’s one of your closest friends along with the rest of the girls in class 1a, ‘i’m okay i’m okay don’t worry about me’ you smile convincing her.

after midoriya told tsu and uraraka the plan you all attempted to head back to the camp again, before walking further you look behind you to see tokoyami isn’t there bakugou isnt either, before you can even say anything to the others you felt a hand over your mouth you do the only thing you can in that moment, you bite the persons hand and scream as loud as you can, before you can move again you feel yourself getting trapped.

you’re stuck in a ball or whatever this is, you can’t move very well but you can see, not very well but you can, you feel trapped, and helpless, you don’t cry in front of others but you can’t help it, since no one can see you, you let out a couple tears ‘bakugou’ was all you could say fearing what happened to him, ‘Y/N?? Y/N FUCK’ you look up to see him in another ball next to you, but tokoyami isn’t next to you has he been saved?, you go up to the screen of the ball your hands aligned before you looked around you, are you in a mouth..

before you could think further you saw the mouth open, falling out of it you heard the compress yell out in frustration before bakugou could grab you dabi had his hands on your shoulder making you wince out in pain his grip on you too strong for you to do anything, compress also holding onto you so you couldn’t move, you looked at bakugou and midoriya they ran at you unable to reach you in time, as the portal closed you say

‘bakugou don’t come’.

you didn’t see this part, but bakugou was distraught, he was made to go the hospital with the others but he didn’t talk or scream he sat there throughout the night of your absence in pain, not the usual screaming angry bakugou. he could only think about how he couldn’t save you, that’s when midoriya came to him along with kirishima about rescuing you, he was all for it of course, kirishima could see his pain even though you’re both friends he can see he wants you as more and he loves you as more.

- 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐭 -

‘do you know why you’re here’ shigaraki smiles which you could barely see with his hand covering his face, you couldn’t move, you were strapped to a stone chair melded into the wall, you felt helpless, ‘let me guess, you want me to join your little league’ you sneer, ‘we can give you everything you want and more, you power could be useful to us’ at this you just laughed. ‘you can give me everything huh? i don’t think you can help me become a pro hero which is all i want’ what are they thinking? did they really think they could convince me with this,, unless there’s something to threaten me with. before you could think further dabi grabbed your face ‘look here princess, becoming a pro hero is easy but we can protect you, they can’t when you realise how much we can give you you’ll be begging for more’ he smirks looked down. ‘you’re fucking disgusting get off me’ you spit.

he does as you wish stepping away from you smirking, you felt sick not only were you trapped but there was no way you were getting out of this by yourself.

-𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥-

‘we heard what you’re going to do’ aizawa’s voice coming from around the corner, everyone jumped ‘you’re not going to go get y/n and that is final, from today you’re on house arrest all of you, until we get y/n home’.

after a lot of screaming from bakugou and kirishima they went to the dorms, bakugou went in this room slamming the door as soon as they got back. thoughts running through his head so fast it hurt, for what was the first time in a while, he cried, thinking about the first time he saw you, how you were nervous but tried not to show it, he saw right through it, you understood eachother well and not only did you put up with his anger but you screamed back when you needed to. from the first time he saw you he stared at you, in class and when you all moved into the dorms he couldn’t help but feel happy when he realised you were on the same floor.

still with tears running down his face he picked himself up and walked to the room across the hall, your room, the last time he was here you were gaming together, he remembered how you leaned into his shoulder and groaned when you failed a level, or how you pout when concentrating, or how your face turned red when anyone asked if you were dating. that night he slept in your bed fearing the worst.

-𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨𝐮𝐭-

‘you know y/n we aren’t just going to let you go back to your little hero friends because you said no’ shigaraki laughed taking the hand off of his face, with clear view of his dry lips and neck and his dull eyes you retort ‘what are you going to do? torture me’ you had a smile on your face, they wouldn’t do that to someone they wanted to recruit,, right?

‘correction, we’re going to torture you to death’

it felt like it had been hours of the pain, again you didn’t cry around people you tried so hard not to but it hurt, toga didn’t go easy on you, you were nothing but that of a ragdoll a dummy to play with, they went one by one interrogating you for information about ua and your classmates quirks, since you wouldn’t join the league and there was no sign of you changing your decision, toga was still interrogating you, after denying the first few questions she cut your cheek, and then your shoulder, getting angry and losing patience she stabbed your thigh making you cry out in pain, your once tear stained cheeks was now blood stained.

it had been hours, you were barely breathing, it was late probably 4 or 5am, you were covered in blood, your whole body covered in cuts and bruises, some of your fingers broken, they were going to release moonfish on you but they needed you alive for whatever reason, togas blood machine was in your body sucking the blood out, you felt weak, you were in pain and the salty tears dropping from your eyes made it worse stinging you as they dropped, you were on deaths door.

‘shigaraki i think we should give her back now, she’s going to die they should watch her die, if we give her back dead they can’t watch her die’ you couldn’t distinguish who said it, you were in too much pain to even lift your head ‘hmm i guess you’re right, toga just to be sure stab her near her stomach’ you couldn’t bare more pain, the cuts on your body the stabbed thigh was enough you were losing so much blood you felt like you were about to faint, you screamed, your scream pierced everyone in the room, the power you haven’t been able to use went into your scream making everyone’s ears literally bleed, with their hands over their ears shigaraki gave kurogiri the signal to open his warp gate, you felt a piercing pain in your waist, you screamed yet again but louder, you looked to your waist to see togas knife still in your flesh, she had stepped back because of your scream, shigaraki told everyone to undo your restraints, even though you’re powerful you were so weak, the villains in the room could kill you in an instant, you were going to die if you didn’t get help. they finished taking off the restraints, you couldn’t stand, you fell as soon as they lifted you off of the chair,

‘it’s been a pleasure working with you y/n, hope to see you again soon!’ you hear shigaraki giggle before the floor beneath you turned to a warp gate, you fell through and hit a wooden floor, crying out in pain you try moving your head around to see where you were only to realise you’re in the dorms, you turn over so you’re on your back where you experienced the least amount of pain since your back was against the chair, thinking this is some sick joke, you scream again but not to hurt anyone, only to make your presence known, you can’t move your losing so much blood you’re basically bathing in your blood. togas knife is still in your waist, you scream again, all the pain you’re feeling going into your scream. a few seconds later you heard footsteps loud ones, you felt yourself going numb, you looked towards the stairs to hear bakugou, midoriya and todoroki, everyone else were behind them not knowing what was happening, ‘what the fuck, what the fuck i know that’s y/n, i swear i heard her’ you heard bakugou say, he got down the stairs and looked around to see you, he ran so fast to you, to be by your side,

‘Y/N no fuck fuck i’m sorry’ his eyes were watery you smiled seeing the boy, ‘it’s not your fault’ you use the rest of your strength to lift your arm to hold his cheek, which made you cry out from the stab in your arm. mina yelled out ‘someone come with me now to get someone!’. todoroki sat besides you and gently put his fingers to your wrist making sure not to touch your broken fingers he checked your heartbeat, your breathing becoming irregular and forced. ‘y/n fuck what did they do to you’ kirishima whispered. you only smiled trying to comfort them, and then bakugou started crying his tears dropping next to you, making your eyes tear up as well ‘suki please dont cry, i’m here’ you tried comforting him, ‘theres something i should’ve told you before but i was too fucking weak’ he said trying to stop the tears, ‘you’re so strong’ you whisper the breath in your lungs running out, ‘y/n l/n i fucking love you, so much i wish i told you earlier but god i’m sorry i’m saying it so late i wish i wasn’t so fucking stupid’ you looked at him tears flowing making you wince ‘katsuki bakugou i love you too’ you breath, feeling yourself slipping away, ‘y/n keep breathing, shit’ midoriya said your holding your hand. ‘you’re so strong y/n stay with us’ todoroki smiled sadly.

then it all went black

when you woke up, you were on the sofa in the dorms, it had only been 30 minutes, recovery girl was next to you she healed your stab wounds and cuts first, but the wound next to your waist was hard to heal, bakugou was next to you, everyone else around you as well including all might, aizawa and the chief of police, ‘you’re awake’ bakugou smiled sadly, you smiled back, you looked down to see your broken fingers back to normal and bandages around your arms, thighs and stomach. ‘y/n i’ll ask you these questions here since these are trusted people’ the chief of police smiled, you nodded, ‘okay so first of all where were you and who were there’, you explained the dusty attic looking room and everyone who was there, after a couple minutes he asked ‘okay final question what did they say to you ask you, what did you say to them and why did they give you these wounds’, ‘they asked me to join their league they told me there’s benefits i told them something about how they can’t help me become a pro hero and after realising i wouldn’t join they tried interrogating me about ua and the quirks of everyone in this class, i refused so they hurt me and they took my blood, since the girl uses blood to change into people she’s probably going to use it, she has a lot of it now so check if it’s me before talking to me’ you felt a tear slip from your eye, quickly wiping it away you sit up wincing, ‘hey not so fast take it easy’ bakugou said comforting you by holding your hand. ‘y/n i’m so sorry we couldn’t protect you, you did amazing, ua did well accepting you’ the officer smiled.

after recovery girl told you about cleaning and looking after your wounds and aizawa and all might talked to about the encounter, they left, it was morning now around 8am and everytime you closed your eyes you see the blood and them. you sat up on the sofa the painkillers you took were working so you weren’t in much pain at all.

‘lay on me’ bakugous sudden words making you jump a little you smile, you layed on the chest of the boy you’re in love with, he stroked your head, for the next months and years to come he comforted you and through all the nightmares and all the crying he was with you, he was with you for all the fights and the injuries, he loved you through the times you didn’t feel loved, he cried with you when you needed it. katsuki bakugou loves you no matter what

a/n : alexa play drivers licence

... WHAT DID I JUST CREATE, the idea came to my mind and... IM SO SORRY BRUH??

anyway aha tag list open rn ask me in my inbox to be added ily !

also pls don’t copy my work in any way

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mlm-mod-taka · 3 years

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Could I request shuichi dating a gn s/o who's very stoic but coul easily get him flustered? Like they bluntly compliment him and give random gifts?

FLIRTY & STOIC S/O • shuichi x gn reader

of course! and i didn't really know what to title this, so i just went with "flirty". also, if any of you like the cartoon villainous then please talk to me about it. im desperate to speak to others about this show please oh my god- /gen anyways, i hope you like this as much as i liked writing it!

tws/cws: none that i can think of.

|| -> mod taka <3

when he first started dating you, he expected him to be the one who's more affectionate and nice in the relationship since... he thought you were the type to avoid the lovey-dovey parts of being a couple.

the first time you gave him a wrapped gift, he just had this look of questioning and surprise on his face. of course, he was grateful and happy that you gave him a present, he just really didn't expect it to be from you of all people, despite the two of you dating.

the next few times you give him a present, he'll be less questioning and more thankful with the things you give him, whether or not he actually would use the things you give to him.

despite your plain and empty face that you have whenever you give him things, he learns to read between the lines and what you actually feel, and differentiate it from your facial expression.

it is a little hard to tell what you're thinking of at times though, so please forgive him whenever he reads it wrong. he's trying his best to be the most compatible with your personality, he really is.

when you compliment him, on the other hand, he will not get used to it no matter how often and long you do it for. the man is definitely the type to get flustered way too easily, so goodluck dealing with a blushing shuichi atleast once everyday.

one time you told him that he was pretty, and he didn't talk for atleast a few hours. you could practically just look at him in a bit more of an affectionate way than normal, and he'd be melting at your hands in almost no time.

sometimes, he really can't tell if you're being sarcastic or genuine at times with your compliments because of your blank expression. he's just very confused at times, so please try to make some kind of different face to help him out.

even though he can pass out with how much blood rushes to his face when you say nice things about him, he'll also compliment you back! he never runs out of material since you're so wonderful to him.

it may not be clear if you appreciate it or not to him when you thank him, but he just trusts in his judgement and assume that you do like his affections. which you do.

there are some strange aspects of the relationship, but thats fine! it spices it up a little, and it also makes him love you even more since theres something that make you so special. he loves you either way.

#📍 dismissal ∆#shuichi saihara #shuichi #shuichi saihara x reader #shuichi x reader #danganronpa x reader #danganronpa headcanons

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constellaj · 3 years

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Please talk more about your reboot!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

okay so how i would re-do CANON is completely different from how i would talk abt a reboot so im gonna touch on a couple things in both contexts! the reason for the difference is canon rewrites imply i can go back in time and introduce dp fresh and new, before anyone knows what it is; but for a reboot, id be working with an audience that has a better understanding of the source material, so i dont need to spend as much time explaining, but i also need to keep everything recognizable

Valerie

REWRITE: i would def make it more danny's fault that her dad lost his job, like danny was intentionally being reckless and shattered some security stuff, and he has a whole mini lesson about learning to not just run in guns blazing. i would probably remove the dating stuff with her and danny (and tuckers crush) too, I think them wanting to be good friends is good enough for freshman year

REBOOT: the fandom already knows valerie exists, so i would actually skip the whole shades-of-gray introductory episode and have her be present as the huntress from day 1-- probably even before danny got his powers. cujo is also HER dog, and her backstory-- we'd find out in like, season 1, that a natural ghost portal (maybe one wulf opened) ripped open on her dog and killed him, and since then shes had a vendetta against ghosts cause of how reckless they are and their disregard for life-- of course, cujo isnt actually dead. cujo is a halfa. a puby halfa. anyway instead of a hoverboard she actually rides cujo around cause he can fly and its big and epic. valerie has BEEN amity parks ghost-eradicating superhero for at least a year (tho shes been in the shadows abt it) and her hatred towards danny actually just becomes really petty, like them flying next to each other chasing skulker just going "I got this. no I got this. no I got this" and they just get in each others' way and its a mutual grudge.

BOTH: i am NOT keeping in vlad giving her the suit to watch danny under any circumstances. it was only utilized half assedly in canon (when vlad couldve just had an invisible duplicate watching him instead) anyway, and I dont have any reason to keep it in a reboot either. instead i want her tech to be a combination of half-stolen and half-gerryrigged stuff and she slowly slowly learns how to build her own.

I also dont want anyone knowing her secret identity, except maybe her dad, and sam or tucker. i think it works better if danny isnt privy to this magic info

Freakshow

REWRITE: i would honestly just remove him. the episodes hes in arent particularly interesting, theyre just generic "we need a plot about x" filler and he's not compelling enough a character (at least in writing) to carry a better plot that another antagonist couldnt. i'm serious

REBOOT: unfortunately in a reboot he's gonna have to pop up somewhere or else ppl will be like "where IS HE" so I'm going to stick with running some kind of ghost circus, maybe a few occult things, but cut out a lot of the spooky magical knowledge and mcguffin stuff. maybe i could make him like, someone from vlad/jack/maddies college who always felt pushed around by them and so he has a vendetta? and theyd be the only reason he even learned abt ghosts in the first place. idk in either way I want to force him into being irredeemable but also include LYDIA (the tattoo girl ghost) way more-- I want to give her an arc that ends in her tossing freakshow aside and running off to be a ghost vigilante.

BOTH: dear god the infinity gauntlet is stupid that needs to GO AWAY. especially for the reboot cause it would exist in a post-mcu world and way too many people would complain about it

Vlad

REWRITE: amp him up to a far more sinister and villainous character. the crushing on maddie isnt enough, I want to show him on-screen performing experiments on ghosts and himself, dismissing everyone else cause he thinks hes smarter than them. i want him to be actively sabotaging the fentons at every turn. i would also clarify that he doesnt actually want danny as a son, but as a trophy-- a line where danny says something along the lines of "you don't want a son. you want a slave". i want to make him a character who wants to destroy the entire planet and put it in the ghost zone so he can be the true ghost king and i want to make this all evident from day one. if i'm writing a series villain you can bet i'm going to write a GOOD one. less petty drama here and more actual stakes.

REBOOT: it seems silly but sense with reboot we have the benefit of hindsight and recognizing that vlad wasn't a big series villain, theres no way i'd actually go back and write him to be such. for starters, of course, theres the fact that anything he does would really be an exaggerated part of the original, and it would bore an audience to see the same story again-- theres also the fact that it doesnt seem right to take a character who was treated as a joke half the time and suddenly make them big and important. no, instead for my reboot i want to lean into the petty gay uncle vibe. he had a crush on jack and now just casually insults him. he moves mansions every now and again by just haunting the family who lives in the one he wants, and taking over-- i mean, who is gonna believe that an actual ghost haunted you. he dislikes danny not because he has some concept of 'evil' and 'good' but bc danny is just too damn active. of course he actually does care about danny and his safety deep down, it's just on the surface they have very conflicting motivations-- not to mention that danny has been raised on legends from his parents of the villainous Wisconsin Ghost, who has to be stopped at all costs.

BOTH: i want jack and maddie to KNOW he's a half ghost and to actively be hunting him down for it, maybe bc they think hes possessed, or been a ghost tricking them this whole time, or the victim of a tragic lab accident who needs to be put to rest, etc. whatever the case it will give vlad actual tangible reason to despise them and genuinely suspect they dont have dannys best interests at heart. i think it would be neat if vlad was cynical and every time danny hit him with the "I'll expose us both. at least theyll still love ME" vlad could be like in the back of his head "oh god theyre going to kill this child"

Dani

REWRITE: cut her out. we don't need her character at all. maybe replace her with a more ominous shadow duplicate / clone that actually looks like danny himself and doesnt really have a name? you could probably combine her and dark dans characters for their arcs

REBOOT: instead of a clone from vlad, she's a guys in white creation using some of dannys dna after he was captured (and vlad broke him out bc he was like "ugh i guess i have to save this child")

BOTH: vlad actually cares abt her (duh), shes nonbinary (double duh), she gets the funny dissolve into goo powers

i had more i thought i was gonna write but this post is already very long and also im running out of coherency for this LUL

#ask #danny phantom #long post #adpRewrite

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southfarthing · 2 years

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can I ask some stuff about the rop adaption (and disclaimer im non white/mixed) but the casting is very much giving tokenism to me and it doesn't seem to mesh with the origin mythology of these races. if we only have a few throwaway of side characters who are poc it makes no sense with the origin story for those races.

it feels, like is done in a lot of properties that a couple of side characters will be poc and the majority of the cast is white. if there are seven main houses of dwarves there should by all purposes be a homogeny there and just having the occasional character be non white makes no sense because those physical traits would have disappeared after a couple generations.

it actually makes the most sense for dwarves for be very diverse in every respect (not just skin color) since theyre an assumption of the children, so having a lot of diversity in all their appearances makes sense both in height, weight, stature and all physical appearances. theyre also separated into the seven main houses and these seven houses being very different from each other would be really interesting.

its similar with the elves. they were created according to a divine plan, which means eru must have had specific intensions for all the elves he created, which included appearances or races presumably. elves are said to be very similar looking and rather homogenous both in sex and appearance.

its been speculated that there were only about 200 in the beginning. if racially diverse there should have been a pretty big subsection of non white elves in order for those genotypes to be sustained for so many generations but I believe we've only seen one black elf so far and its a non canon character created for the show. there should be some homogeny among elves so it only makes sense if theres a significant portion of the population thats non white but I doubt they'll do that?

it seems like some side and minor characters will be non white and thrown into the mix and the rest will be mostly homogenous white, which is what these shows almost always do. its also weird that they dont seem to have any intention of dissecting the actual racism in the story both with the antisemetic criticism and the villainous Easterlings whom are coded as being mena or south asian. idk. it seems like something shows do a lot which is add some poor diversity and use that as a shield to delegitimise actual criticism, while not actually doing that much for representation.

hey, sorry for such a late reply! my brain's been feeling really wrung out lately so I thought i'd wait until I had more of a response, but I'm still feeling exhausted so i don't have much to say, really

I do agree about the tokenism aspect - I remember feeling pretty disappointed that the few non-white characters we got were new characters written for the show and not from canon. it just felt like a copout because they're already going to get hate for being invented characters, and then on top of that the racists are gonna have a field day :( kinda similar to the way tauriel got hate for being a female character and made up

honestly I haven't personally given much thought to many of these points before, so I don't know! and I don't know much about the canonical descriptions of the appearances of different houses of elves and dwarves etc, and my brain really isn't working today, so I really don't know what to say or what i think. but yeah it seems that even though the racists are pissed, people who want genuine representation aren't entirely pleased either

and yeah lmao I always thought the easterlings felt very turkic-coded, especially in the lotr film portrayals....... jokes on jirt and the filmmakers because i'm turkish and i found all the soldiers from rhun extremely .. ahh . 🥵🥵🥵😛

ehh it's probably best to just wait for the show to actually come out, or at least some more information, and then we can make more informed ideas about it all

#rop crit #anonymous #replies #literally my mental fatigue be off the charts i have no idea what im typing

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w-i-s-e · 4 years

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Despicable Me Theory - Scarlet and Herb Overkill are Lucy Wilde’s Parents

I mean come on, there is so much evidence, .

First is the easiest to talk about, their physical similarities. If we take a look at these two shots of Scarlet and Lucy, the similarities begin to pop out at us.

The both have a wide mouths, same shaped/coloured eyes (Green) and they practically share the same noises, with Lucy’s being a little wider but we can say that she shares that with her father. Her also have long similar bodies to the two of them, with thin legs and arms, an incredibly similar easy section around their breasts like Scarlet and her the length of her abdomen coming from Herb.

There are problems that arise with this, as but has a much taller body, a rounder face and her hair colour isn’t shared between either of the Overkills. Well, there are solutions to that to it has been shown in genetics that a child can be born with the hair colour and similar feature of their grandparents, and since we never get to see either of the Overkill couples parents, they quite could possibly have reddish orange hair and a rounder face. Lucy also shares the same care free and crazy personality as Herb, and got her confidence and go get them mentality from her mother.

It also makes sense timeline wise, as though we so see Gru at the end Minions, he is only around 8 years old at that time and though we don’t know her canonical age it is obvious that Gru is a least a few years older then Lucy, being around 51 at the time of Despicable Me 2. She is even said to be the new girl Anti-Villain League in the movie and so most be around her early 30s to 40s.

With all this in mind, what would the story be behind this, well this does contain a lot of speculation, but its cool to think about anyway. So, my ideas is that since we know that the Overkills survived at the end of Minions, only being freeze rayed by young Gru, they were eventually escape. After that they decided to take Herb’s original last name, as its pretty much confirmed that he took her last name when they got married. We also don’t know what it could have ben before, so its a safe bet. They would eventually have a child, this being Lucy and stop being Villains since they had noting left and to be better role models for their daughter. It was also oblivious during that last scene that the Overkills knew the writing was on the wall for them, with Scarlet even saying that she was “...done”. Maybe they told her about the destruction to ones lives villainy can be, explaining why she might decide to join the Anti-Villain League. They do seem like a couple that would be very supportive of their kids and with the lack of support that Scarlet clearly never got, shown through describing her life grown up as a “street rat“ and that people “laughed“ at he, Lucy would be pushed to strive the best she could.

What do you think, I hope you liked it and you agree with me that theres just two many similarities for it to be a coincidence.

#lucy wilde #scarlet overkill #herb overkill #the overkills #despicable me #minions #minions movie #despicable me theory

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pansunset · 4 years

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okay time for a theatre hot take about historical musicals. im gonna split this into two posts, one about hamilton and one about six. because while the easiest way to put it is “hamilton bad six good”, there’s a bit more nuance to my opinion on them both than that.

First off, all the cast members are insanely talented, especially Leslie Odom Jr, Daveed Diggs, Christopher Jackson, Phillipa Soo, and Reneé Elise Goldberry. Even though the people they played were varying degrees of assholes, they managed to make them feel compelling. Credit where its due.

anyway, lmm is a good songwriter, the issues with hamilton come from the glorification of the historical figures portrayed. if hamilton was more critical of these individuals, it might not have been such a... yeah.

the hardest hitting songs are the songs that delve into the personal lives of the individuals rather than politics. Satisfied, Wait for It, Helpless, Burn, Dear Theodosia, It’s Quiet Uptown... these are all incredibly emotional and raw. Aaron Burr was a fascinating individual and all of his songs reflect this, honestly. IRL, Burr was actually one of the least scummy of the cast, though because he wasn’t very fond of Hamilton, he is villanized. unsexy. Leslie Odom Jr. has such a powerful voice and does an incredible job as Burr.

some of the songs about the war are also decent works. Stay Alive talks about the actual conditions the American militia put themselves through, and The World Turned Upside Down, while it’s a very patriotic (ew) pov, is still a well written victory anthem. the most interesting one is History Has It’s Eyes on You, and having Washington sing it was a great choice. it’s one of the few songs where a founding father is looked at critically for their failings, and said founding father point blank says that those who come next will judge whatever you do. Christopher Jackson is an amazing vocalist and he actually has talked about his struggle to play Washington despite Washington being a dick.

the songs about politics tend to fall flat because they oversimplify the actual views of the main character and paint everyone around him as either a villain or ally based on whether they liked Hamilton. the cabinet battles especially are pretty cringe. there are a couple exceptions that I’ll discuss in a moment, but first, a character analysis tangent.

Thomas Jefferson is... an interesting case. Irl, the man was a disaster of a person. He came down with migraines from talking to women, was generally considered a weirdo, and was the original “rich person who buys expensive versions of the ugliest clothes and acts like he’s presentable”. Yet aside from one line in It Must Be Nice, he’s portrayed as a extravagant, dramatic, yet mildly charming asshole. His costume is bright purple, he carries a fancy cane. Like, ignoring the fact that its inappropriate to ever make Thomas Jefferson seem charming, this isn’t even accurate to who he was as a person. He was less sociable than Isaac Newton for fucks sake. The only accurate thing is being a france weeb and being a worse debater than Hamilton.

Anyway, speaking of It Must Be Nice, its one of the few good political songs. It’s critical of Hamilton and it explains why the Madison and Jefferson hate his guts (though for stupid reasons). Furthermore, it also explains the political climate of the day better than other political songs in the musical. The other two good ones are, of course, The Room Where it Happens and Your Obedient Servant.

The Room Where It Happens is not only an amazing breaking point for Burr to stop waiting around, it’s the one time in the musical where the real Alexander Hamilton is best represented. (Hamilton in yellow, Burr in blue)

“Or did you know even then it doesn't matter where you put the U.S. capital?

Cause we'll have the banks, we're in the same spot

You got more than you gave

And I wanted what I got

When you got skin in the game, you stay in the game

But you don't get a win unless you play in the game

Oh, you get love for it, you get hate for it

But you get nothing if you wait for it

God help and forgive me

I wanna build something that's gonna outlive me.”

This is the real Hamilton. The facade of caring about ideals is gone, and the truth is bared; Alexander Hamilton was a smooth talker who only did things when he saw it could benefit him in some way. The man was obsessed with his legacy, and anything that got in the way of him building one was just collateral. Yes he was crass and loud, but guess what? That usually meant he was heard over everyone else. Burr only just realized that the whole “scrappy underdog” act was just that; an act

Your Obedient Servant is Burr calling out Hamilton for going back on everything he claimed to believe just to keep Burr from the nomination. Fun fact: the 1800 election was not a landslide victory. It was incredibly close. Hamilton’s endorsement was probably what kept it from being a tie.

Hamilton tries to defend himself by projecting his flaws onto Burr. “I am not the reason no one trusts you, no one knows what you believe” isn’t an accurate depiction of Burr in the slightest. Burr actually quite enjoyed politics and debates, and none of his setbacks ever kept him down for long. He cared very little for what his contemporaries thought of him though: He relied on the merits of his points. A lot of his correspondence was left to his daughter, Theodosia, and was lost on the shipwreck that killed her, so theres a lot we don’t know about him. But the musical depiction of him is not really accurate.

The problem with Hamilton isnt that it’s a musical about the founding fathers. Its that it grossly misrepresents those founding fathers. It never considers the thoughts of the slaves of any of the main characters. It never considers the Native American perspective on the Revolutionary War. It mocks John Adams, despite him being one of the few founding fathers who not only didn’t own slaves, but publicly berated his contemporaries for relying on slavery. It does a great deal of injustice to Burr. It woobifies the Schylers. For fucks sake, it forgot Benedict Arnold. Ya know, one of the most famous spies? Who almost cost America the War?

Its impact on modern political discussion and internet culture is also kind of a net negative, save for the production “The Haunting of LMM”. Its status as a fucking joke these days is earned. Though it has some good songs, and the fact that it got an official recording means good things for the future of Broadway accessibility, it’s a hot mess and is an example of how not to do a historical musical.

#musicals #hamilton #broadway #lin manuel miranda #theatre #twi speaks #long post

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amoosewritesfanfic · 5 years

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Prompt 15: Embarrassed

[Its fluff]

[Shouto Todoroki x female reader]

[Warnings: this is kinda actually just straight up fluff theres no like sex, cause I feel like this prompt is super soft and stuff. So. Soft fluff like kissing and cuddling and stuff.]

[I don't own any of the characters or art, all credit goes to the original creators]

You were being pinned up against the wall by Pro Hero Shouto, he had a hood over his head, but you knew it was him, that beautifully sculpted face, brandished by a scar probably a childhood trauma, that familiar red and white hair, it reminded you of a candy cane.

His arms on either side of you, blocking off any chance of escaping, your cheeks were on fire.

It was... embarrassing?

You didn't know actually you felt flustered.

"Shh, I'm running, please stay like this for a few moments miss." His face was so close, his breath, minty, mingled with yours.

It felt cool on your hot face.

You gave a slow nod, your hands were on your chest, you didn't know what to do with them.

"Are you alright? Your face is really red..." he said using his left side to help cool you down and as nice as it was, you just felt your face heating up some more.

"I-I'm fine... I'm just..." you signed, you happened to be unable to talk, some dumb accident with a villain that ended up destroying your vocal cords.

He heard some men running and shouting in their direction and he had to act fast.

"I'm sorry for this." He said and as you were about to ask for what, his lips came crashing down on yours, at first it took a moment for your brain to process the fact that your lips were touching his.

The number two pro hero, Shouto... had his mouth on yours. His one hand tenderly cupping your cheek as though you two were a couple.

Honestly it was a blur what was happening around you, but you.. well you ended up passing out the moment he pulled back.

"Hey! Ah shit..." he grumbled catching you, he picked you up bridal style and carried you off to God knows where.

By the time you woke up, you were in a very unfamiliar room, panicking, but suddenly flustered having remembered that Shouto kissed you.

"You're awake." A smooth voice said, it was Shouto.

He was out of his cloak and hero uniform but he had on a pair of sweats and a random black tshirt which seemed to make his muscles stand out more.

'What the hell... why is he so hot...'

Was your only thought.

"Heres some water." He said as he set a cold bottle of water next to your bedside which you immediately grabbed and chugged down almost half of it.

"Again, I'm sorry for what happened earlier today, I was running... they were exactly villains, but it was very important-..."

You cut him off by signing.

"It's okay, it was just really embarrassing to have you kiss me." Your face felt like it was heating up again just at the thought of it.

"I'm sorry, can I make it up to you... uhm?"

You signed your name and he gave a slow nod.

"Y/N, that's actually a pretty name." He said.

He made you blush again.

You covered your face with your hands and you heard him laugh, you felt his hand rest on the top of your head, stroking your head soothingly.

"I'm gonna have to keep you here for a day or two just to make sure you're not in danger, it's for your safety is that okay?" He asked and you slowly nodded.

"Good." He responded.

"Are you scared?" He asked as he sat down on the edge of the bed, making it dip, you had pulled your hands away from your face and you shook your head.

"No, if you're here I think... I think I'll be okay. Honestly I'm more flustered from meeting the number two hero..." you signed.

"Hmm, well you should meet our number one, he's more flustered than you when meeting other heroes." He replied.

You laughed quietly, a smile gracing your lips which made Shouto smile.

"There you go. You have a pretty smile you know that?" His hand lifted to stroke your cheek softly.

"Are you gonna kiss me again?" You signed, your face felt hot again, but it felt nice to have his hand on your cheek.

"Do you want me to?" He asked.

"Yes..."

He slowly leaned forward and gave your lips a soft kiss before he pulled away.

"Your lips are super soft." He mumbled, he shifted in such a way that he pulled you close, having your head rest on his chest.

"We're both a bit tired... let's take a nap... yeah?" He said almost lazily and you agreed with him.

You nuzzled up into him, breathing in his scent.

He smelt like old spice.

Odd.

Not what you expected, but you liked it.

You could feel his hand trailing along your back, soothing you into falling asleep, or maybe it was for himself?

It became sloppier as his eyes closed.

He was so gentle...

His hand rested on your lower back as he fell asleep, of course not moments later you fell asleep too.

Honestly you were shocked at how easily he had you in his arms, it was almost embarrassing...

But gods if it wasn't an amazing feeling literally anyone would die for.

[Das some soft content right there]

#boku no hero x reader #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bnha #reader x my hero academia #bnha shouto #shouto todoroki #shouto x reader #reader x shouto #todoroki x reader #bnha todoroki #todoroki shoto #shoto todoroki #some soft stuff my dudes

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raven-nacht · 4 years

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The Owl House: Mrs. and Mr. Blight Theory

So I’m pretty sure that the mystery girl in this photo is Mrs. Blight and that this has big ramifications and foreshadowing for the whole series.

I saw this picture posted in a thread talking about how it looked like Eda had a “gal pal” herself back in school and how it was similarly interesting how Lilith actually is looking pretty jealous of that relationship. I totally agreed that is interesting, but it got me thinking about how lots of things kind of mirror each other in the series or foreshadow other things with how Luz acts like Eda or vice versa and has allowed me to think I’ve got a decent theory on how a lot of the show could be resolved.

To start, I will note that my assumption that the mystery girl is Mrs. Blight started almost entirely from trying to observe hair color.

This might seem a bit simplistic, but as mentioned in the post already put out by my roommate when we were bouncing theories off each other earlier;

www.reddit.com/r/TheOwlHouse/comments/ickxz9/i_think_we_just_got_dropped_a_huge_lead_on_who/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

hair color is very important in this series. Of the seven most prominent characters in the show, three of them have been shown to very dramatically changed their hair since they were younger in moves aligning with very prominent character development for them (Eda with the curse; Amity once she started having to no longer associate with Willow and start following the “Blight way”; and Lilith due to currently unknown reasons). It thus makes a lot of sense to me that hair color being the earliest clue to this person’s identity is totally on-brand for the show.

With the assumption that she’s Mrs. Blight there and noting she already had green hair; my first observation was that Mrs. Blight is thus the “Blight by birth”, whereas Mr. Blight married into it (and is thus a bit of a “social climber”). My next guess was then that Mrs. Blight might’ve been a bit cocky in school initially, but eventually softened and developed a crush on Eda, much like Amitu doing the same thing to Luz (since like teacher, like student). This slow-burn relationship between Mrs. Blight and Eda and the ensuing love triangle Lilith is thus my guess for how a large part of why Lilith and Eda are “two witches torn apart, now alone”. I think lingering resentments over this and the Blight’s likely-intimate connection to the Emperor’s Coven is no small part in why Eda also didn’t want to join, even though it had actually “been Eda’s dream when she was younger”, according to Lilith.

The Blight’s (presumed) intimate connection to the Emperor’s Coven, what we’ve seen about “witch status” so far, and Mr. Blight’s identity as a “social climber” are the main basis for the second part of my theories on the show though, which is that I think Mr. Blight is being setup to either be the true Big Bad of the series (or at the very least be largely responsible for a majority of the show’s conflicts). To start, I’m pretty sure that, like Lilith, he was jealous of Eda’s connection to Mrs. Blight and thus he is ultimately the one who cursed Eda (or who caused Mrs. Blight or something else to curse Eda). And, I know, your going to say that all the way back in episode 4 we saw this figure:

and that Eda said “Wait, you’re the one who cursed me, aren’t you?!” and while I do agree that that is almost certainly Mrs. Blight, I’m thinking this is a red herring or simply close to the truth. After all, we’ve already had confirmation that destroying memories isn’t that hard and it makes more sense to me that the culprit would delete all memories of themself but be less careful with getting all traces of those only secondarily related to the deed (like Mrs. Blight).

As a brief sidenote, I do wanna point out that in that thread by my roommate, a great person named npapeye pointed out a really interesting observation in that the emblem on the door by the shadow figure does seem to be the Blight family symbol and that actually made me a lot more confident in all these predictions.

Like, just look at these pictures:

It feels fair to say that between that emblem and the fact that the shadow figure wears the fully-circular glasses just like in the first picture, we can pretty safely conclude that the mystery girl is the shadow figure seen in this dream (and before you point out that Lilith also used to wear those same circular glasses; I would just note I don’t think this shadow was Lilith just because Lilith’s behavior makes very little sense to me if she was the one to curse Eda and also that Lilith doesn’t have much connection to that emblem from what I noticed).

Now then, on the subject of shadows, it felt worth pointing out that we have seen three shadows in the show so far from what I could tell. First, of course, is Eda’s dream as above where she says “I hate this memory”. The next was a very traumatic memory for Amity of her parents and how made her stay away from Willow. The third and most recent shadow we’ve seen was finally, of course, Amity’s literal greatest fear and was the shadow of Luz rejecting her.

By applying the note that both of Amity’s shadows are rooted in her greatest fears or most painful memories, it also made sense to me that Eda’s shadow and thus her connection to Mrs. Blight might also be her most painful memory or her biggest fear at the time. With that, even if Mr. Blight didn’t mess with her memory, between the ravages of the curse on her mind and her trauma that gave her this shadow, it’d still make sense how she’s forgotten the details of what happened.

Theres still a few details I had thought worth pitching in this theory. Mystery girl (who I’m still guessing is Mrs. Blight) is undeniably in the Bard Track. The Bard Track is at the top-and-center of the picture of all the covens and is the only coven that hasn’t been mentioned at all yet in the show:

First, that lack of acknowledgement of a whole track feels very suspicious. especially as we saw when Luz started classes; between Luz being initially assigned Potions and then seeing the Detention Track students’ interests, the narrative has gone out of its way to highlight seven of the nine Tracks. Secondly though, I wanted to note that Bard Track is right next to Abominations Track, which was described by Willow as being “the best track for getting ahead in the magic world and thriving”, thus causing her Dad’s to put her in said-track initially. If Bards are right next to the currently “best-known” track, it makes sense for a Blight to be in it.

Let’s finally talk a bit more on Mr. Blight though. As a social climber, he was almost certainly in the Abominations Track. His presumed-cursing of Eda likely relied on his innate magic to some degree, which felt like it could explain the “mud” mentioned in “the curse of feathers and mud” that afflicts Eda. Elsewhere, he’s likely the one with naturally brown hair and who passed it onto Amity, and I think her having said-brown hair is why he is so hard on her and pushes Amity so far, because he sees “weakness” in his origin and family hair color. (It’s still likely that when we first see him, his hair will be green though, but I bet he dyes it and pressured Amity too as well). I think this pressure to follow him is also why Amity was likely pushed to decide on Abominations Track herself on that note. My final guesses on him are that he likely works directly for Emperor Belos, he is likely the largest push behind all of Belos’ upcoming “plans” mentioned by Lilith (and possibly the motivator behind wanting to catch Eda), and that he likely has aspirations of taking the title of Emperor for himself (which would suck just because it makes Amity have to “pick sides” and that sweet cupcake deserves better... but yeah 😅).

Anyways, I’m not saying that Mrs. Blight is clear of blame with any of the above either by the way, I’m guessing she’s at least fairly complicit in his actions nowadays, I just think all this fits pretty well from the perspective of narrative mirroring and foreshadowing. The main thing I’ve since been unable to at all crack or fit in is who seems to sending letters home to Luz’s mom since none of this really explains that, but we’ll see...

(Also, there’s nowhere else to put this, but it just bears pointing out here that the shadow figures of Mrs. and Mr. Blight here are literally the most imposing hinted “villains” shown in the show so far, beating Belos and one-off villains by a landslide to me so far, and thus I think by that virtue of foreshadowing alone, if they don’t turn to be some of the biggest “challenges” for the protagonists in the show, it’ll fully flabbergast me.)

Thanks for reading though, I’ve been trying to post this for the past couple days but kept getting distracted, I hope this is a fairly new theory at least since I’ve not read most all of this anywhere else yet, instead mainly just been overthinking the show for days now.

#toh #owlhouse #owl house theory #owl house theories #amity blight

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transgirl-catra · 4 years

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She-Ra and the power of inherently queer stories

uploading my essay here for the anon who wanted it, theres definitely a lot more that I wouldve liked to cover if i wasnt page limited and rushing lol

On paper, queer representation in media is vastly improved from where it was just 5-10 years ago. In that time plenty of high-profile shows and movies have introduced at least one openly gay character. Although this is, relatively speaking, a massive step from where we were before, many of these feel like incredibly superficial depictions made by and for straight people to feel good about themselves (and to blow way out of proportion in marketing so that the gays will give you money, of course). Sure the character shows up, talks about his husband, and they might even kiss on screen if you’re really lucky. But all of this is done in such a way that it can be edited out for international markets without disrupting the flow of the film, because these characters being queer isn’t ultimately that important, and whoever’s in charge considers queer and straight characters to be interchangable. As a result, these depictions often fail to resonate with the queer people who need to see them most, lacking the nuance that comes with queer life.

One show that absolutely smashes this, however, is Noelle Stevenson’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018). A reboot of the classic (but incredibly dated) 1980s cartoon, She-ra at its core is the story of Adora and Catra, two childhood best friends who find themselves on opposite sides of a war and journey from love to hate and all the way back again before they realize their true feelings for eachother, saving their world (and themselves) in the process. To be clear, the show includes multiple unambiguously, canonically queer characters in its recurring cast from the beginning from a married lesbian couple to a genderfluid shapeshifter. But as Stevenson said in an interview reflecting on representation in the show, she wanted to focus on “Not just the very clear straight-forward, incidental representation but the more complex, subtle, nuanced stories that play out over time and reflect more aspects of ourselves other than just the right to get married. There's so much more wrapped into our experiences." This definitely shines through in the show. When Catra and Adora are growing up as child soldiers for the Horde, they form a deep emotional bond to protect eachother from Shadow Weaver, their emotionally abusive commander who serves as the only real parental figure that either of them have.

One thing that quickly became apparent in discussion surrounding the show was the different ways that people interpreted this situation depending on their own identities. Many cishet people read Catra and Adora as more like adoptive sisters at first (a fairly common misread of lesbian relationships in general), but for others it resonated as it was meant to: an allegory for the way that queer people find shelter in eachother even in situations where it’s dangerous to express themselves openly. Even though neither of them fully understand the depth of their feelings, over the course of the first episode alone we see both Catra and Adora put themself in harm’s way to protect the other multiple times, both willing to endure the abuse in order to see their goal of taking over together come to fruition. However, things change when Adora finds out that she’s the heir to a legendary power and deserts the Horde to join the rebellion, unable to convince Catra to leave with her. The tension between Adora’s guilt over leaving the only person she’s ever cared about and the resentment Catra feels for Adora’s perceived abandonment of her and everything they’ve worked for is the driving emotional conflict for basically the entire show.

While Adora is living in the capital city and growing into her new power, Shadow Weaver and others manipulate Catra’s feelings, convincing her that Adora abandoned her because it was convenient and never truly cared. She becomes convinced of this, slipping into resentment and self-hatred that was very familiar for me as a trans person (Catra is heavily trans-coded, but that would be a whole paper itself), and begins lashing out at both herself and anyone who tries to get close to her. However, she can never truly bring herself to hate Adora, and realizes that no amount of power will make her happy, but doesn’t believe that Adora could ever possibly share her feelings. By the time Horde Prime, the final villain of the show, arrives, Catra willingly submits herself to mind control in the hopes that it will take the pain away. Horde Prime is a fairly blatant stand in for homophobic religious leaders, and as such literally baptizes Catra into his hive mind, declaring that “all beings must suffer to become pure”, providing a very clear link to real life ‘conversion therapy’. Adora, however, refuses to give up, her feelings strong enough to literally revive a dead Catra after Prime kills her.

The thing that really cements She-Ra as both an explicitly and implicitly queer story, however, is its ending. These themes of emotional abuse and trauma, both familiar to many queer people, have been built expertly throughout the show, and in the end Catra finally confessing her feelings is what gives Adora the strength to save the planet (mirroring her love saving Catra a few episodes earlier). Ultimately, Adora and Catra both needed to overcome their own self destructive tendencies before they were able to be together rather than one of them waiting on the other to fix them (although the support certainly helps), subverting many of the harmful tropes typical to straight romances. As Stevenson says later in the same interview, “we didn’t know if we were going to be able to make it explicit, so In the meantime [we were] trying to build a framework into the very DNA of the show”. As paradoxical as it seems that the way to get around censorship is to make the show more queer, it makes a lot of sense. Even if Catra and Adora hadn’t kissed at the end and gotten their fairytale ending, it still would have been an undeniably queer story if you knew what to look for. Ultimately, my hope is that the success of She-Ra and other shows like it will allow for a wider range of queer stories to reach screens. It’s been really hard for me to avoid turning this into a personal essay, because the show really hit me very hard during a very formative time in my life as I navigated my identity and struggled with a lot of similar feelings to the main characters, which is why its so important to me to analyze how it manages to resonate with that and explore what being queer means and how it affects all of your life.

Sources Cited:

https://www.papermag.com/rebecca-sugar-noelle-stevenson-2646446747.html

#my writing #for anon #spop

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fanforthefics · 5 years

Note

For cliches. 33 and 37 any avs pairing (i literally cant choose theres too many good options)

t33. Everyone thinks I should stay away from you because you’re dangerous

37. We’re dating and I didn’t know you were a mobster/biker

(Look I’ve decided Tyson is included in Avs pairings it’s still a thing sorry not sorry)

(Also not exactly mobster/biker but I think it keeps the spirit of the cliche)

---

“Okay, this is just ridiculous,” Tyson says. He doesn’t bother trying the ropes again, because for better or worse (probably worse) this is not the first time he’s been in this position and he knows it doesn’t work. “First off, aren’t the heroes supposed to be doing the rescuing, not villains?”

“Villainy is in the eye of the beholder,” the Captain says, sounding sort of prissy behind his maroon mask. He’s also just finishing punching out the last of the goons who’s kidnapped Tyson, though, so he’s not going to say anything about the tone. Take that, everyone who says he can’t be a bigger person. Then the Captain pauses in front of the chair, looking down at Tyson--he’s floating, too, a few inches above the ground, so he’s even taller. “Also, beggars can’t be choosers. Would you like me to leave and wait for one of your heroes to come get you?”

“You wouldn’t,” Tyson tells him, with a fair degree of confidence, because, “I think after the fifth capture, we have a bond.”

“The bond of your recklessness,” the Captain tells him, but he lands and yanks on the ropes. Under his inhumanly strong hands, they snap. Tyson thinks nothing about that at all, because the Captain is a villain and Tyson isn’t into that. “You really need to stop.”

“Okay, but, counterpoint--this means that I’m right and there is a story here.” Tyson tries to stand up, but he’s been sitting for long enough that his legs are sort of asleep; he stumbles. Before he can fall, though, the Captain’s big hands are on his forearms, keeping him standing. He’s wearing gloves and everything, but Tyson still thinks he can feel the warmth of him through gloves and Tyson’s shirt. No one really knows how the Captain gets his powers; maybe he is giving off more heat. That could be a story too.

The Captain’s looking down at him now, and he’s not even floating, he’s just taller than Tyson. Or, Tyson thinks he’s looking at Tyson; he can’t see anything behind that full face mask. But he imagines the Captain looking down at him.

Tyson swallows. Villain. “Care to comment?” he asks, smiling, and the Captain snorts.

“Yes. Nosy reporters should stay away from stories that will get them kidnapped,” he says, and Tyson rolls his eyes.

“If a story might not get you kidnapped, what’s even the point?” he asks, and the Captain snorts.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I prefer dogged.” Tyson looks at the Captain again. It’s so hard to see anything; he’s got a full body suit on and a cape, and it all disguises anything about him other than that general shape of his body and the fact that he’s ripped. Rumor is that if you see the Captain’s true face, then he carries you away to his fortress forever. Tyson’s kind of skeptical about that, because he’s run into the Captain a bunch and he’s not the type of villain going in for wholesale destruction. Just like, a spot of reorganization and destruction of property. “Why were you here?”

The Captain pauses, which makes Tyson perk up, because that means there’s definitely something here. “I’ve been looking in on the School,” he admits, and then his hand closes harder on Tyson’s hand when he goes for his notebook. Like Tyson’s not going to remember this. “Off the record.”

“Uh-huh. So off the record, you’ll be around for an assist on this story, if I need it?”

The Captain shakes his head, but Tyson knows that sort of head shake. It usually comes before he’s annoyed a quote out of someone. “I’m a villain, remember? You should call up one of your hero pals.”

“I’m not pals with them,” Tyson retorts, even though like, fine, Pride’s in his phone as P-Dawg and he’s got a bunch of the rest of that team in his contacts too. “I’m a supers reporter, I have a lot of contacts.”

The Captain’s face does a thing. “I’m telling Pride that, the next time we’re up against each other,” he warns, and Tyson probably makes a face, because Pride lives up to his name sometimes, and that would take a while to iron out. “Yeah, thought so.”

“Whatever, I’m friends with him. Doesn’t mean I can’t use you too.” The Captain doesn’t say anything, but somehow his body just expresses the judgment. “As a source, I mean!” Tyson goes on. “Not like, as anything else, because obviously I don’t want to be carried away to your secret fortress for the rest of my life. I’d be really bad at being incarcerated, I got thrown into jail once for civil disobedience and it was a time, let me tell you, I was there for like three hours before dad bailed me out and I almost got shivved because I wouldn’t shut up. You’d probably end up releasing me out of sheer annoyance, actually, and--”

“Tyson,” the Captain interrupts, but it sounds almost like he’s laughing. Tyson shuts up. “I’m not--carrying you away, or anything.”

“I see, I’m not good enough to carry away?” Tyson demands.

The Captain’s hand is somehow gentle on his arm. “That’s not the problem at all,” he says, then shakes his head again, this time like he’s clearing it. “Go home, Tyson. Unless getting kidnapped was on your schedule for today.”

“Oh, shit.” Tyson digs for his phone, but the School wasn’t that bad; they did take his phone. The Captain sighs, then pulls it out of...somewhere in his suit and hands it over. Not even broken, natch. But when he sees the time, he does swear. He’s not late, he just-- “Yeah, I should go, I’ve got, um. A date.” It feels sort of like he shouldn’t say it to the Captain, but also, villain.

“You should,” the Captain agrees, and lets go of Tyson, then steps back.

“But seriously, will you be--” Tyson doesn’t get to finish the sentence, before the Captain’s in the air, up up and away. “That doesn’t get you out of conversations!” Tyson yells after him, but he has no way of knowing if the Captain’s heard him.

Tyson is still like fifteen minutes late to Gabe’s, but in his defense, the Captain just left him alone in a School hideout when Tyson knows they’re up to something with the new developments on the West Side, so what was he supposed to do, not investigate? At least he texted Gabe, so he doesn’t look very annoyed when he opens the door.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Tyson tells him, pushing past him and dropping his bag and then down to one knee to greet Zoey, who comes over wagging her tail and nosing at him. “I got caught up in a story.”

“What a surprise,” Gabe retorts, and there’s a weird edge to his voice, so Tyson looks up at him. They’ve been going out for a couple months now and it’s getting to the point where Tyson can usually read him, but he can’t quite get this face. It’s all a bit hard; Gabe’s so hot that Tyson gets distracted by that, then by the fact that he actually got someone who looks like that to go out with Tyson, so like, it’s sometimes hard to learn his microexpressions. Tyson wants to, though. “Caught up by internet research?” His voice makes it clear he’s not hopeful.

“It was only a little bit of capturing,” Tyson tells him, trying for his best innocent look, and gives Zoey one final pat on the head before standing up and stepping closer to Gabe. Gabe’s so warm, Tyson always just wants to sink into him. Both in the sex way and in the cuddling way. “Nothing major, and I’m fine!”

“Tyson,” Gabe sighs, and Tyson shrugs.

“I am fine, the Captain was there, and--”

“That’s not better!” Gabe interrupts. He’d be more convincing if he wasn’t running his hands down Tyson’s arms, like he’s checking for any injuries or maybe angling for a pre-dinner appetizer of sorts. Tyson would take him up on that. “He’s a villain, Tyson.”

“Okay, yes, but he’s not that bad.”

“He blew up that warehouse on Eighth yesterday.”

“And no one was hurt by that, was it?” Tyson argues. He’s not sure why he’s defending the Captain, really--he is a villain, there’s no arguing, he’d said it himself--but like, “He’s not the worst of them. He gave me the info I needed for that expose on the crooked alderman, and he’s rescued me like, half a dozen times.”

“There was that big blow up with Pride and his guys last week.”

“Eh, Pride’s kind of a dick sometimes, he probably deserved it,” Tyson counters. Which is not his best argument, to be fair, but like, it’s not untrue. He likes Pride and the rest of those guys, but they get too big for their britches sometimes. Anyway-- “Are we going to argue about this, or are you going to feed me?” He asks, and Gabe snorts and shakes his head, then pulls Tyson in to kiss him hello. That is a much more satisfactory sort of greeting, Tyson thinks.

They have a nice dinner--Tyson tells Gabe as much as he can about the story he’s working on, Gabe tells Tyson about his day working as an on call IT help, which Tyson still maintains is probably the most boring job in existence but Gabe seems happy in it so who’s he to say anything? He does get that most people don’t want to break into buildings for work.

Then they clean up from dinner together, and that’s nice too--settling into the routine. Tyson likes Gabe, way more than he’s pretty sure either of them thought after their first disastrous meeting in a bar where Tyson spilled a drink on him, insulted his head, then told him his superpower was his hair all in the space of five minutes. He’s still not entirely sure what led from that to Gabe asking him out, but gift horses and mouths, and all that.

“Hey,” Tyson asks, when they’re settling in front of the TV for the movie that Tyson anticipates them watching very little of, given how Gabe’s arranged them so Tyson’s tucked under his arm and how Gabe’s been watching Tyson all night. “You still okay to come to my office party next week?”

“I already told you yes, as long as I’m not called in,” Gabe tells him, rolling his eyes. “You don’t have to ask every time.”

“Your schedule might change!” Tyson protests. “I have to be sure before I tell anyone, they still think I made you up.” Gabe’s eyebrows raise. “They don’t believe I could land a hot tech guy. I told them that you’re not Mark Zuckerberg or anything and that my drink spilling skills are irresistible, but they think--”

“Well i’m happy to prove them wrong,” Gabe tells him, then he’s kissing Tyson, and, well. He was right about how little of the movie they actually watch.

Gabe’s always kind of an intense guy, but he’s even more intense that night, taking his time with all of Tyson like he is checking him for injuries, even though the School went with knock out gas and not force this time. But Tyson’s not going to say anything when it gets him some really great sex, although after, he manages to lift his head up from the pillow.

“I really am okay, you know,” he tells Gabe.

Gabe makes a face. “I know, I just wish...”

Tyson takes a breath, because he’s run into this before. It’s been a dealbreaker before. “I’m not going to stop,” he says. “I--part of my job is being in places that might put me in danger, because stories are in dangerous places, and I’m not going change that. If you can’t live with that, I’ll--”

“No,” Gabe cuts him off, fast enough that Tyson’s kind of pleased, to be honest. “No, I just--wish you’d be more careful, sometimes.”

“I’m as careful as I can be.”

“Not if you’re hanging around with the Captain,” Gabe says, and then when Tyson opens his mouth and he goes on, “I know you don’t think he’s as bad as other villains, but he’s still dangerous, Tys. People around him get hurt. And I don’t want you getting hurt.”

It’s hard to say no to that, to Gabe’s face in the dark, so Tyson leans in and kisses him instead. “I don’t either,” Tyson tells him, because that at least is true. “I’ll try my best.”

Gabe clearly notices that it’s no sort of promise, but he also doesn’t ask for anything more, which is--well, it makes Tyson actually hopeful about where this is going.

“You’re in early,” Tyson tells Auston, when he gets into the bullpen and Auston’s already at his desk, typing. “Big fashion news hitting the wires?”

Auston snorts, but he accepts the coffee Tyson hands him. “I’ve got a story,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate because Auston doesn’t. “Why are you in early?”

“I’ve got a story,” Tyson replies, trying to close out his vowels to mock Auston’s accent. “Yes, we’re reporters, I’ve heard that’s what happens.”

“I heard you had another close shave,” Mo says, leaning over the edge of Auston’s cubicle. Tyson hands him his coffee too--Mo being there early isn’t unusual, so that’s not worth comment. Or at least, that’s been Tyson’s impression from the few months he’s been at this paper, instead of his old one. “The Captain, was it?”

“Again, Tyson?” Auston asks, with a lot more world-weariness than some kid only in his first few years at the paper should have. Tyson is older than him, Auston should not be allowed to sigh at him like that.

“No, it was the School, the Captain got me out of it,” Tyson retorts. “And how’d you hear about that, anyway?”

“I don’t reveal my sources,” Mo says, because he’s a jerk. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah it was fine.” Mo, because he gets what reporters are like and specifically someone with Tyson’s job is like, doesn’t press on it, which Tyson’s glad for. Auston’s still watching him with narrowed eyes.

“Why the Captain?” he asks. It’s got the edge to it that means he cares deeply about the answer despite how casual he sounds. “Don’t you have Pride on speeddial?”

“They took my phone, I wasn’t exactly sending up an SOS,” Tyson retorts. “Also, the Captain was there, what was I supposed to do, call in Pride so they could duke it out instead of dealing with the School, who’s actually the problem here?”

“Do you know that?” Auston asks. He doesn’t look like he’s convinced about Tyson’s logic, but he doesn’t need to be. He’s not Tyson’s keeper. “How do you know the Captain didn’t arrange everything to frame the School?”

“A, because I’m a good reporter and everything on the School checks out, and B, because why would he do that? That’s a lot of work to go through to what, rescue me?”

“Because he’s clearly got some sort of fixation with you!” Auston snaps, and Tyson raises his eyebrows. “It can’t be a coincidence that he’s always around when you’re in danger. He has to be up to something.”

“Maybe he enjoys my company, have you thought of that?”

“It’s not a good thing when a villain enjoys your company,” Auston argues, and Tyson rolls his eyes again.

“Yes, I get it. But don’t worry, I won’t be seduced away. My boyfriend’s already committed for the party and I think he’d be annoyed if someone else stole me away before then.”

Like Tyson had expected, ‘boyfriend’ gets the attention not just of Auston and Mo, but also the rest of the bullpen. He’s a little offended how many of them seemed to seriously believe he’d made Gabe up, but also, if it was anyone else he’d probably think the same. It does feel...improbable, that someone like Gabe would like him, and also put up with his tendency to get into danger if danger is anywhere nearby. But he fields questions about Gabe until Babs comes in to yell at them all to get back to work, then heads to his desk to dig in.

Mo follows him over. “Auston’s not wrong, you know,” he says, quiet and less aggressive than Auston, but no less sure. “The Captain does seem to have some connection to you, and that’s not safe.”

Tyson huffs out a breath. “I’m not an idiot, and I’ve been doing this for a lot longer than either of you, even if it wasn’t at the Leaf. I can take care of myself.” He thinks sometimes they forget that--that yes, Tyson can be kind of all over the place, but he is a good reporter and he’s managed to keep himself alive for almost three decades without them. Or, well. The first two credit probably goes to his parents, but at least one was on his own.

“Just--make sure you keep the speed dial with Pride or the Rocket or someone on hand,” Mo says, and Tyson manages to keep a straight face. “Let heroes do a heroes job, eh?”

“Yeah, sure,” Tyson agrees, which is at least enough to satisfy Mo.

“It’s like they don’t think I can take care of myself,” he complains to Nate, when they go out for coffee a few days later. He has, maybe, noticed everyone in the bullpen watching him more than usual, and it hasn’t escaped his attention even a little that more people seem to want to go on coffee runs with him rather than letting him go alone.

Nate opens his mouth. Tyson cuts him off. “Don’t say anything,” he warns. “I’m not twenty anymore.”

“I was going to talk about last year’s birthday party debacle, actually,” Nate says, and Tyson kicks him in retaliation. “I mean. Personally, I’m okay with them keeping an eye on you.”

“Nate.”

“Not that you need it, but...” Nate makes a face, trailing off. “You are kind of like, a super trouble magnet?”

“Because that’s my job.”

“Sure, but the other super reporters in the city haven’t been rescued by a villain five times.” Tyson pauses, and Nate’s eyes narrow. “Tys--”

“It was barely a rescue!” Tyson protests. “I just got into a little bit of trouble with those bikers on the lower west, and I think I saw him before I got out fo there.”

Nate rolls his eyes. “Okay, half a dozen rescues then. He is a villain, it’s weird, you’ve got to admit.”

“I admit nothing. I am a steel trap. I definitely never say anything but what I mean to.” Nate’s laugh would be insulting if it wasn’t what Tyson was going for.

“Okay, then.” Nate shrugs. “How’s Gabe?” he draws out the name, teasing.

“He’s good. It’s good, I think?” Tyson adds the lsat bit, quieter. “I mean, it’s only been a couple months, maybe it’s too early to tell, but it feels like--like he gets it, or something? He just--I mean, I don’t think he likes that I get into trouble so often, but he hasn’t asked me to stop, and he believes in what I’m doing, the stories are right--he thinks something’s wrong at the top too--and it feels like he, I don’t know. Believes that I can do something about it?” Tyson’s red when he’s done, and not looking at Nate. He couldn’t admit this to anyone but Nate, but his best friend, and even that’s hard. “It all feels a little too good to be true, honestly.”

“Yeah, I don’t know how you tricked him,” Nate agrees, but he kicks at Tyson’s shin until Tyson looks at him. “Look, when I met him, he definitely looked at you like all of that. And you do deserve it.”

Tyson makes a face. It’s all getting very real here, which--there’s a reason he’s a reporter; he likes to see these things from the outside. “Anyway,” he says loudly, “Tell me the gossip I’ve missed. How many times has EJ almost been fired?”

“Only three last week, he’s really falling down on the job,” Nate tells him, and fills him in on all the office gossip from Tyson’s old paper until Tyson gets an alert that some supers are going against each other uptown and he has to go.

When he gets there, the fight’s already on it’s way to being over--He can see Captain in the air, dodging Pride's energy blasts and the Rocket’s speed punches. Tyson grabs his phone to get some pictures.

“What happened?” he asks a police officer who’s corraling everyone away from the fight. “Do we know what the Captain did?”

“Seems like he was after some supply in the COBRA labs,” The officer says, eyes on the fight. “That’s all I know. We’ve got press after.”

Tyson hums. Press releases won’t tell him anything.

He watches the fight as it goes. Super fights, especially with someone who’s pretty indestructible, like the Captain, always feel sort of like stage fights--Tyson knows there are real stakes, that if the Rocket or the Captain fell from the sky they’d really be hurt, that according to Pride his bolts can break someone’s ribs if he’s not careful, and the Captain’s punch has put a super in the hospital before, and obviously if the Captain’s taken out he’ll get sent to the Raft, but it’s somehow hard to take it seriously, at least when the Captain’s there. The Captain’s careful about collateral damage--he’s noticed that, even if no one else has--and it’s not like world destruction is at stake, like it would be with Dr. Destruction or Demolition Man or something. The sort of stuff the Captain does...it always tugs at Tyson’s reporter instincts. His villainy points somewhere, somewhere high that Tyson’s starting to see the shape of.

He makes a note to look at COBRA, see what was at the lab that’s off the record, and it distracts him enough that he almost misses a rock, falling from a missed punch by the Captain that hit a building instead. He sees it too late to dodge, throws himself out of the way anyway--then he’s off his feet, whisked away fast enough that he barely breathe.

“You know not to stand that close to a fight,” Rocket tells him, sounding exasperated.

“And you know to keep a fight contained,” Tyson retorts, as Rocket sets him back on his feet. He eyes the dust on Rocket’s aerodynamic blue suit. “Unless the Captain’s giving you more trouble than normal?”

“No comments until after the fight,” Rocket tells him, with a quick grin from the half of his face Tyson can see, but--to Tyson it looks like the fight’s mostly over. There must have been more noise from the rock falling than he thought, because he catches both Pride and the Captain looking at him--Pride’s got the tilt to his head that means he’s mad and ready to finish it, and the Captain’s as unreadable as usual in his full suit, but when Pride turns back to him, winds up, the Captain shoots straight up, fast and apparently unexpected if the way the Rocket swears means anything.

“Shit,” he mutters, then takes off after him, sending Tyson stumbling backwards until he catches himself.

Everything on the ground seems to be over, though, so he feels less bad going over to where Pride’s standing, a stark flash of desert reds and yellows against the city streets.

“No comment, Tyson,” he snaps, then takes a breath. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Tyson waves a hand. “So you don’t have any idea what the Captain took?”

“You’ll hear about that from the press like everyone else,” Pride tells him. Tyson wonders who pays for supers’ media training, sometimes.

“Come on, P-Dawg. Give me something? Why would the Captain want something from COBRA? He doesn’t usually go in for high tech heists.”

“We’ll find out,” Pride informs him, then shrugs. “That’s all I’ve got.��

“Useless,” Tyson tells him, and Pride’s lips quirk, just a little. Tyson has a feeling, sometimes, that Pride is significantly less chill than he likes to pretend.

Rocket lands with a thump. “Lost him,” he tells Pride, who makes a slight irritated face. “What’d you do to him, anyway?” he asks Tyson. “He was in the fight until he noticed you, then he was out. He usually puts on more of a show than that. This was barely any fun.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the experts in supervillains?” Tyson retorts. He doesn’t get it either, honestly. Maybe Pride and the Rocket were distracted and he saw an opportunity.

“Captain’s fond of Tyson,” Pride says, and Rocket’s face lights up as Tyson glares at Pride.

“It’s not--we’ve talked sometimes, you know I need to get both sides,” he tells Pride, who looks like he might know that but he does not respect it. “I’d chat with the School too, if they were willing to take my calls.”

“Talking to the School probably means you have to be like, incorporated first,” Rocket points out, which is fair. “Really, though? You’ve been hanging out with the Captain? Don’t you like us anymore, Tyson?”

“It’s not hanging out,” Tyson retorts. “Sometimes our paths cross.”

“Well, next time they do, give us a call, eh?” Rocket suggests, with that easy grin again. “We could make sure that stops for you. Keeping the citizens safe, and all that.”

“We will make sure it stops,” Pride corrects, fast enough that Tyson thinks he’s got more going on then he’s staying. “Come on, Rock. We need to tell Brick that we lost him.”

“Yeah, you can tell him that,” Rocket informs Pride, who Tyson can tell is rolling his eyes. “See you later, Tyson.” He waves, then grabs Pride around the waist and takes off. Tyson watches them disappear into the air, then goes to ask around.

“Are you home?” Gabe asks, or maybe demands. Tyson takes a second to finish reading the sentence on the screen, and in that time, “Tyson. Are you home?”

“Yeah,” Tyson says. COBRA’s definitely up to weirder shit than their public profile might say. “Just doing some research, I’ve got a new angle--”

“Let me in,” Gabe demands, and, okay. It’s early for Gabe to be off work, but like, it’s not like Tyson’s research is time sensitive. He gets up from his desk to go let Gabe in.

“Early day--” Tyson starts, but he barely has time before Gabe’s pressing him against a wall and kissing him until his legs are in danger of giving out and the wall is really necessary. “Okay, wow, not that I’m complaining, but like, what brought this on? Horny day at work? Recovered a lot of porn for people?”

“You almost--” Gabe looks up from Tyson. He looks a little--windswept, Tyson thinks; he must have rushed over here. But his expression is dark and intent on Tyson. “That was a close fucking call.”

Tyson makes a face. “Was it on the news? Damn. No one’s going to let me live it down.”

“You almost--and I was too far--fuck,” Gabe mutters, then he’s kissing Tyson again, bruisingly hard, and his hands are under Tyson’s thighs and he’s boosting him up like he doesn’t weigh anything. Tyson holds on and lets Gabe carry him away, until they get to his bedroom and Gabe lets him go to yank his shirt off.

“If getting too close to a super fight makes this happen, maybe I should do it more often,” he jokes, and Gabe looks up from getting Tyson’s jeans off and glares.

“No,” he bites off, fierce. “No, you shouldn’t ever--you’re just human, Tyson, fuck, but if something happened--” He cuts himself off by getting his mouth on Tyson’s dick, which Tyson approves of instead of telling Tyson he takes too many risks.

Tyson runs his hand down Gabe’s back when they’re done, tracing the muscle there, the slash of a scar across his shoulder blade. “Okay?” he asks. “Out of your system?”

Gabe keeps his forehead against Tyson’s chest. “It was a really close call, Tyson,” he says, quiet. “It was--it scared me, a lot, and I--and there was nothing I can do.”

“Well, that’s what heroes are for, right?” Tyson points out. “Rocket got me, no problem.”

“Rocket.” Gabe scoffs. “What if he hadn’t noticed?”

“But he did, because he’s kind of a pretty good hero, if you hadn’t noticed. Or Pride would have blasted it, or I would have gotten out of the way, or something. Anyway, I’m fine, so what ifs are pointless.”

“Yeah.” Gabe lifts his head to kiss Tyson, a little calmer this time. “Moral of your life, isn’t it?”

“I say way too much stupid shit to deal with regrets,” Tyson agrees, and Gabe laughs and kisses him again.

Gabe and Tyson get to the office party separately, because Tyson’s following up with a source about COBRA and Gabe’s coming from work, so Tyson has to deal with a lot of chirps about his imaginary boyfriend. He’s going to make Gabe pay for that, he thinks, plotting as Mitch gives him shit and Auston smiles and pretends like he isn’t brainstorming something to say.

Then there’s a hand on Tyson’s waist. “Hey, babe,” Gabe says, and Tyson turns to grin at him.

“You made it!” He gives Gabe a quick kiss hello, then turns back to Auston and Mitch. “See, I told you I didn’t make him up, this is Gabe, my boyfriend. Gabe, these are some of my co-workers I’ve told you about, Auston and Mitch.”

“Hello,” Gabe says, and puts out his hand. He’s smiling, his other arm around Tyson’s, but there’s something--weird in it. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too!” Mitch’s voice is a little high, but he shakes Gabe’s hand. “Right, Aus? It’s good to meet you. Gabe.”

“Great,” Auston agrees. His handshake lingers in Gabe’s, the sort of long thing that Tyson associates with displays of dominance, which is...weird. Auston is definitely not like, interested in him or jealous of Gabe or anything. But this is. Weird. “We’ve heard plenty about you.”

“You too.”

“Um, right.” Tyson looks between them. “Do you guys know each other?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Gabe says. He’s got a glint in his eyes Tyson associates with him digging his heels in on an argument. “Wouldn’t you say, Auston?”

“What, did you do a bad job fixing Auston’s computer or something?” Tyson asks. It doesn’t take a reporter to see something going on.

“I need to talk to Mo,” Auston says, fast, and grabs Mitch’s hand. “Come on, Mitch.”

They go. Tyson watches them, then turns to Gabe, his eyebrows raised. Gabe shrugs. “I’ve run across them before, and it was a weird situation?” he offers, which is definitely not an explanation, but this is also not the time or the place.

“Right,” Tyson draws out the word too. “Come on, let’s meet more people.”

Gabe’s not weird with anyone else, really; he’s his usual handsome charming self, and Tyson’s pretty sure that basically everyone is in love with him, which like, Tyson can sympathize with. It gives Tyson enough confidence to leave him alone to go to the bathroom.

When he gets back, though, Gabe’s deep in conversation with Auston and Mo, which is not ideal. Tyson’s totally going to intervene, and save Gabe from whatever’s happening--that is definitely what he plans to do--but then hears Auston hiss,

“What are you doing with Tyson?” and like, he’s a reporter. He’s professionally nosy. He stops to eavesdrop.

“Enjoying spending time with him, because he’s my boyfriend,” Gabe retorts.

“If you’re up to something, you should know that Tyson’s become very important to us,” Mo says, which Tyson gets he should be flattered by, and he is--it’s nice to know the guys care even though he hasn’t been at the Leaf for that long--but it’s also, like, definitely said like a threat. And Nate gets to give Tyson’s boyfriend a shovel talk, his co-workers don’t? “We will protect him.”

“Good, so will I.” Gabe’s grin shows all his teeth.

“So that’s what happened last week, with the rock that almost fell on him?” Auston drawls, and Gabe’s fists clench.

“It was Pride’s bolt that threw me there, wasn’t it?” he retorts, and Auston’s eyes narrow. “I think that’s on him.”

Tyson decides that he needs to step in before an actual fight breaks out. “Hey, guys,” he says, inserting himself next to Gabe. Two sets of blue eyes and one of brown turn to him, all wide like they didn’t expect him there. “Let’s not start any brawls in front of the canapes, eh? Newspaper’s not what it used to be, we can’t sacrifice any free food.”

“Good idea, babe,” Gabe says, and leans down to kiss him. It feels like he’s proving a point, but also he’s a good kisser, so Tyson’s kind of conflicted. “You want another drink? Let’s get one.” He drags Tyson away.

Gabe sticks close to Tyson for the rest of the night, and so Tyson steers away from the Auston-Mitch-Mo crowd, because he doesn’t know what’s going on. Instead, he maybes gets a little tipsy, and then lets Gabe drive them home.

“So are we going to talk about what the hell was up with that?” he asks, when they get back to Gabe’s. Gabe makes a face, and walks past Tyson to the kitchen. Tyson follows him, scratching Zoey’s head as he goes.

Gabe pours them both glasses of water. “Do we have to?”

“Well, I’m curious, and I’ve been told that I’m pretty good at getting people to answer my questions, so. Your call, but I can be pretty annoying.”

Gabe scowls at his glass. “I--I’ve run into them before, and it’s pretty clear that we have, um. Deep philosophical disagreements.”

“Okay, now let’s try again, but this time with actual concrete details.” Tyson leans against the counter. “I know we haven’t been going out for that long and I don’t need you to spill everything, Gabe, but I like you. And if this is going somewhere, we should be honest.”

“I--it is going somewhere, Tys, or, I want it to,” Gabe tells him, earnestly, which makes Tyson feel better. “I like you too, I do, but...” He makes another face.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Tyson says, and Gabe looks up, eager. “But if you don’t, I’m going to start digging. It’s just, like, inevitable. Otherwise I’ll obsess. So really, its for the best for you to tell me now. How bad could it be?”

“I can’t tell you everything,” Gabe says, slowly. Like he’s choosing his words. Which is usually what people do, when they’re telling half-truths. Tyson knew this was too good to be true. “Some of it has to do with--secrets that aren’t mine. But I’ve run across Auston when he was on a story before, and I didn’t like his biases in how he was approaching it.”

“On the fashion beat,” Tyson asks, skeptical. Gabe shrugs. Tyson guesses that fashion can actually get pretty contentious, and he knows Gabe has some important clients, so they could have run across each other somewhere. And both of them would start fights over something like that.

It’s definitely not all of it. Tyson’s not even a little fooled. But he’s also tipsy and tired and this night wasn’t what he wanted it to be, and he wants to go to bed. “Fine,” He says, and Gabe’s eyebrows go up in surprise.

“Fine?”

“I mean, it’s not fine because you’re still lying to me, but I”m tired,” Tyson tells him. “Let’s go to bed.”

“It’s not--I’m not lying.” Gabe catches Tyson’s hand, tugs him closer. His expression is entreating. “I just--let me have some things for now, okay? I promise I’ll tell you, I just need a little time.”

Tyson lets out a long breath. He gets it, he does. Past relationships have broken over his tendency to pry, to get to the bottom of everyone. I’m your girlfriend, I’m not a story, one ex had told him, and when he’d told Nate that, Nate had made the face that meant he supported Tyson implicitly but also he didn’t think she was necessarily wrong.

He doesn’t want this thing with Gabe to break. “Fine,” he says again. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Thank you.” Gabe’s thumb rubs against the back of Tyson’s hand, warm and comforting. “Bed?”

“Yeah,” Tyson agrees. “Bed.”

He barely has a second to finish his coffee the next day before Auston and Mo corner him.

“How was your nights?” he asks, trying for flippant. Neither of them look put off. “Have fun at the party?”

“You should stay away from--Gabe,” Auston tells him, without preamble.

“Uh-huh. So you liked my boyfriend, is what I’m getting.” Tyson manages a grin. “Jealous?”

“Tyson,” Mo says, with one of the exasperated sighs that Tyson gets too often, the ‘what are you doing Tyson that’s a stupid idea’. “We’re being serious. He’s not--” he cuts off. Tyson waits, but nothing comes.

“He’s not what?” He demands. “Not in my league? I noticed, but we’re going with it. Not good at cleaning up after himself? I’m trying to train him, but that takes time. Not--”

“He’s dangerous,” Auston cuts in. “He’s going to get you hurt.”

“Okay, how?” Neither of them respond. Tyson snorts. “Look, I’m just saying, it’s not very convincing to say my boyfriend’s dangerous and not give a reason why. I like my verified sources.”

“I--we--” Auston looks at Mo for help.

“Did he say how he's met us before?” Mo asks.

“He said he’d run across Auston on a story before and you disagreed about your biases.”

Auston snorts. “You could say that,” he mutters.

“So you trusted that vague statement , but you won’t trust us?” Mo asks, gaze intent and earnest.

Tyson’s email pings--he glances at it. It’s from one of the old lab techs at COBRA, who had agreed to talk to him. He’s been really cagy, which Tyson doesn’t blame him, because everything Tyson’s been getting to are circling around deep government and School connections, and Tyson gets not wanting to cross either of those. But this is a meet, now, and he needs that.

“Look,” Tyson says, getting up. Neither Mo nor Auston move back to give him room. “I get you’re looking out for me, and that’s cool, I’m glad you like, care about me or whatever. But Gabe’s my boyfriend, and I trust him enough to take his word until you give me a good reason I shouldn’t. Now,” he says, closing his laptop and sticking it in his bag. “I’ve got to go see a source. Unless that’s too dangerous for me, too?”

Mo’s mouth opens, but Auston elbows him, and he doesn’t say anything. They don’t stop Tyson from leaving, either.

The meeting is--eyeopening. He really gets why the source was being so cagy about everything; he would be too, if the connections to the School ran that deep. Except of course, the source doesn’t have documentation. No proof, anywhere but the lab, to show that these ties go anywhere.

Which is why, two days later, Tyson goes on the group press tour of the COBRA labs. It’s why he breaks off from it, when he sees his chance.

It’s also why, some time after that, he wakes up on the top floor of a building with a sort of terrifyingly good view of the whole city from his high up, tied to a chair and with the tall, thin man that he recognizes as the Headmaster standing in front of him, clearly incorporated members of the school around him.

“You,” the Headmaster tells Tyson, in a voice that’s surprisingly reedy, “Are becoming quite an annoyance.”

“It’s a gift,” Tyson replies. He’s sort of expecting it to get a punch, or something, so he’s surprised when the Headmaster laughs.

“I see why they all find you so delightful,” he says, sounding weirdly sincere about it. “I don’t suppose you’d consider becoming--”

“Yeah, no. I like independent thought, thanks. And I wouldn’t want to burden you with all of this, I’d drive all of you insane in like, an instant, it wouldn’t be good--or maybe it would, I don’t--”

“Yes, perhaps not the best idea,” the Headmaster agrees. Tyson thinks later, when he’s not freaking out, he might be offended. “A pity. We’ll have to dispose of you in some other way, then.” He gestures to one of the goons, and they start forward--then there’s a crash, and the glass of the windows behind Tyson splinters.

“We wouldn’t recommend that,” says Rocket, then Pride’s leapt off of him to hit the ground, and it all explodes into chaos as the goons close in on the heroes.

“How did you get in?” the Headmaster screeches, as he retreats from the fight. Tyson wonders, in the hysterical part of his brain that isn’t working on the ropes tying his hands, whether it can be considered monologuing if the heroes aren’t the ones tied up. “The sensors are calibrated for your brainwaves! There was no way for you to enter--”

“You only counted on the heroes,” comes another voice, and Tyson looks over in time to see one of the goons drop under the Captain’s punch. Tyson blinks. The Captain. And Pride and Rocket. All here.

He scrambles at the ropes. He’s been practicing for this, he can--he’ll think about it later, everything else, but right now he needs to get out while no one’s watching him, and he does--the ropes come loose, and he staggers to his feet--just in time for a hand to close around his throat, and he’s pulled towards the window, until he’s teetering on the edge.

“I would stop now,” the Headmaster says, and his voice echoes in everyone’s heads, out of the mouths of all of those incorporated. “If you don’t want your little friend here to have an... accident.”

Everyone freezes. Pride’s hands are still flickering with energy.

“Am I Toto in this situation?” Tyson wheezes out, around the Headmaster’s hand.

“Tyson,” the Captain says, a warning and a plea in a tone Tyson knows, he thinks. Maybe. He’s standing a few feet away from the window, two goons around him frozen like the Headmaster’s command got them too.

“You three will leave,” the Headmaster goes on, out of al of the incorporated’s mouths. “Then I will let Mr. Barrie here go.”

“That’s not really good leverage if you’re going to throw him any--”

“Let him go inside, Rocket,” the Headmaster corrects, with what feels like an eye roll.

He’s lying, obviously. Tyson doesn’t have to be as good as he is at figuring out lies to know that. The supers leave and Tyson’s back to where he was, alone with the Headmaster. But--the Headmaster’s grip is tight around his neck, and Pride’s weighed down with goons and probably can’t get an angle without Tyson falling, and Rocket’s a whole room away.

Tyson looks over, meets what he thinks is the Captain’s eyes. “And you thought I wasn’t good enough to carry away,” he gets out before the Headmaster cuts off his air again. He doesn’t know if the Captain gets it, but he can’t care. He brings his knee up, and the Headmaster is apparently still human male enough that getting him in the balls makes him groan and his grip loosen, and then--drop.

Tyson falls. It feels like he falls forever, long enough to notice the wind rushing past him, the blur of the building next to him, the sky above him. To think about what a stupid plan this was and how he’s probably proving everyone who ever called him reckless right. To think that if he dies now they better find that evidence and finish his story. To think about Gabe, and the way he’d looked at the thought of anything happening to Tyson.

Then--there are arms around him, under his back and knees, and he’s slowing down, not the hard crash that would kill him but a deceleration, and then he’s going up, up and up, and he wraps his arms around the Captain’s neck and lets his head drop against his chest in relief.

They land on the roof of the building next to the COBRA labs, and the Captain’s barely put Tyson down before he’s grabbing him again, a hint of that strength in it. “That was the stupidest fucking thing I have ever seen, don’t you ever do that again,” he snaps, and Tyson would be angrier if the panic wasn’t very clear. If the Captain’s hands weren’t running over Tyson’s arms, his torso, checking for injuries.

“The breaking into COBRA, or getting thrown out a window?” Tyson asks.

“Either. Any. Fuck, Tyson. A few seconds more, and I couldn’t have--” the Captain shakes his head, then his hand’s on his mask and he’s shoving it up halfway, enough that he can pull Tyson in and kiss him, deep and desperate and Tyson can feel his knees going weak. Like they always do, he thinks, that hysterical part coming back, when Gabe kisses him.

It takes a long time for Gabe to let go. When he goes, Tyson can only see his jaw to his nose, but--well.

“I’d say I shouldn’t do that because I have a boyfriend,” Tyson says, slowly. He can see Gabe’s mouth open, close, set. “But that’s not really an issue here, is it?”

“Tyson--”

it makes so much sense, is the thing. Gabe’s weird hours. How he always seemed to know when Tyson had close calls with the supers. The half truths. The way he touched Tyson, even, the controlled strength of it. All of it. That they’d said he was dangerous.

“But how did Auston and Mitch and Mo know?” Tyson thinks out loud. Gabe doesn’t say anything, just stands there and waits, his mask half off, but it’s coming together, like a story when you finally find the piece that makes it all make sense. “Oh, of course. Your philosophical disagreements. Did you set them aside, this time?”

“The School took you,” Gabe growls. “It wasn’t like the other times, when you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They knew who you were. I took any help I’d get. Even your hero friends.” He sways forward, like he wants to touch Tyson again, but then he stops. “I’d do anything, to keep you safe.”

Tyson doesn’t know what sort of noise he makes to that, but there definitely is one. He--fuck, he wants to believe it. He wants to, but Gabe--the Captain--is a villain. He might not always do things Tyson disagrees with, and he might have saved Tyson, but villains have schemes, its what they do, and Tyson always did think this was too good to be true.

“Take me down, Gabe,” he tells him, which is about all he can imagine. “Unless you know how to get inside, and I’ll take an elevator. Or I’ll call--Mitch, I guess. He can get me--”

“No, I’ll get you down,” Gabe says, and pulls down his mask, so all of him is subsumed by the Captain again. “Hold on.” He picks Tyson up again, bridal style--Tyson’s seen Rocket carry Pride--Mitch carry Auston--next to him and piggy back, so he knows that’s not the only way, but whatever--and then they’re in the air again. Tyson lets his head drop onto Gabe’s chest, the spandex cool beneath his cheek. He wishes he had been able to see Gabe’s face, up there. He’d have a better handle on if he was lying.

They’ve barely landed when Mitch alights next to Tyson, and Auston comes jogging out of the building. “Tyson!” Mitch yells, a little too loud for how close he ended up being. “Are you okay? I couldn’t get out, and I saw the Captain was going, but--”

“I’m fine,” Tyson says. He looks over at Gabe, but Gabe’s silent, his arms cross over his chest. “I--there are documents, in the lab, they’re why I was there. They should prove something’s going on.”

“We’ll get them,” Auston says, simple. Tyson can’t help it; he looks at Gabe too. He trusts Auston and Mitch, but Gabe--Gabe believes Tyson, when he says he thinks something weird is going on. Gabe had been going against COBRA before Tyson had. Gabe had lied.

“Okay, then. I’m going home.”

“We’ll come with--” Mitch starts, but Tyson cuts him off.

“No. I’m going alone.” All three supers look unhappy about that, and Tyson laughs, dry. “Come on, what are the chances I get attacked again? I’m going.”

He glances behind him, at the end of the block. It looks like Auston had been ready to follow, but Gabe had gotten in between them. Tyson doesn’t know what that means.

He ends up at Nate’s. “You aren’t a secretly a super, are you?” he asks, when Nate opens the door.

Nate’s brow furrows. “No?” His gaze flicks over Tyson. Tyson doesn’t know what he looks like; he hadn’t gone home first. Gabe might go there. Gabe’s been there too often. “Tyson, what happened?”

“Ice cream first,” he decides, and goes in.

He ends up telling Nate everything--anyone who knows him knows he tells Nate everything, and Tyson trusts Nate more than anyone. Nate’s jaw drops more and more as the story goes on.

“And you’re okay?” he asks, when Tyson’s finished. Tyson gives him a look over a spoonful of ice cream. “I mean, physically.”

“Yeah. A little sore, but not too bad.”

“Good.” Nate runs a hand over his hair. “And--everything else?”

“I don’t know.” Tyson eats more ice cream. He knows that. “I--just--he lied, Nate. A lot.” Nate makes a noise. “What?”

“Just. He didn’t tell you the truth, but he didn’t really lie.”

“Seriously? Whose side are you on?”

Nate hold sup his hands. “Your side, always, you know that, T-Bear. But, I mean.” Nate bites at his lip, then goes on, “You were so happy, with him.”

“I know.” Tyson does. That’s the problem. “But what if it was, like--he asked me out, after I was an idiot in front of him. He asked me out, and then this happened, and he always felt like he was perfect, like it was too good to be true, so--what if it was? What if he knew who I was, and just--maneuvered all of this, for some scheme?”

“No one’s that good an actor,” Nate says, and Tyson scoffs. “No, I’m--like, I get it, ad he’s a villain, but--god, Tys. The way he looks at you. And,” he goes on, more practically, “What even would the scheme be?”

“I don’t know, to get to Auston?”

“It seems like he could do that anyway?” Nate points out.

“Maybe I was doing a story, or--I don’t know! He’s a villain, the whole point is I don’t know his plots!” Tyson stabs his spoon into the ice cream again. “Everyone said he was dangerous, and this is why. Maybe it would be smarter to stay away from him. What’s the mortality rate on villain’s boyfriends? It can’t be good.”

“As someone who likes having you around, your death risk seems a lot higher when he’s not around than when he is,” Nate says, and Tyson sighs. He’s not wrong.

When Tyson gets home, there’s an envelop in his mailbox, with a flash drive on it. These are the originals, the note says, P&R gave copies to the police, but I made sure you got these back. It’s your story.

It’s unsigned, but it’s not like Tyson doesn’t know Gabe’s handwriting.

He calls in sick the next day. His capture and rescue, and the subsequent takedown of the Headmaster has been on plenty of news channels--everyone loves a good hero/villain team up--so no one questions it. He sort of expects someone to come over, whether Auston and Mitch or Gabe, but no one does.

It means that the next day, he drops a stack of papers on Babs’ desk, first thing.

“What’s this?” Babs demands.

“It’s my story,” Tyson says. “The School’s been working with COBRA, and its government funding. All my sources are there.” Tyson still doesn’t know him that well, hasn’t worked for him that long, but he’s a long-time editor. He doesn’t need much explanation when he’s got a story like that. He reaches for the phone.

Tyson goes out of the editor’s office, back to his desk. He barely sits down when Auston and Mo appear, like out of the woodwork.

“Tyson--” Mo starts. Tyson shakes his head.

“No, I--like, I get it, secret identities, and all that. I mean, it’s shitty you lied to me, but there’s no reason why you wouldn’t. We’re cool.” They are, he thinks. It’s easier with them, maybe, because they’re heroes, so the morality is easier, but also...they were friends, in the suit and out of it, but it’s not the same.

Mo pats Tyson’s shoulder, and heads back to his desk. Auston lingers.

“For what it’s worth,” he says, looking like saying the words pains him to his very soul. “He came to us, when he knew you’d been captured, and he was freaking out, a lot. He’s still a villain, and all, but, like. He wouldn’t have done all that if he didn’t care.”

But how much? And why? Or is he just a really good actor?

“Thanks, Auston,” is what Tyson says, though, and gets back to work.

In the end, Tyson’s curiosity gets the better of him. He can’t not know something. So he ends up on Gabe’s doorstep, takes a deep breath, and knocks.

He can hear Zoey’s barking, then the door opens, and Gabe’s there. “Tyson.”

He sounds surprised. He looks surprised. He looks the same as he did a week ago, before Tyson knew his secret.

“Would you ever have told me?” Tyson asks, and steps past him, into the house. He kneels down to greet Zoey. She doesn’t seem to have held a grudge against his long absence.

“Yes,” Gabe answers, too quickly for him not to have thought of it. Tyson looks up at him, over Zoey’s head. He’s looking down at Tyson like he’s drinking in the sight of him. Then his lips twist, wryly. “After Pride made that scene, I didn’t have a choice. You wouldn’t have let that go forever.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know. The answer’s still yes.” Gabe doesn’t hesitate again. “I would have, I wouldn’t have kept something that important a secret forever. I just--I didn’t know how you’d react, and I didn’t want to lose you. Maybe I should have told you already, I don’t know, I didn’t...”

Tyson nods. “Why’d you ask me out?” he asks, checking off questions in his mental notepad.

“What?”

“Why did you ask me out? I made a fool of myself, you still asked for my number. Why?”

“Because you were cute, and funny, and sharp, and laughed at yourself, and I liked you and wanted to get to know you.” Gabe looks confused. “Why else do people ask other people out?”

“Because they’re part of a scheme.”

“No!” Gabe’s fierce in that word, and something in Tyson calms. “No, Tyson, never--I didn’t even know who you were until that first date, I had no idea you knew any other supers, I swear. And by then I was too far in already.”

Tyson stands up. “So you saving me all the time, that was--”

“That was necessary,” Gabe growls a little, and his jaw sets stubbornly. “You’re--you are terrifying, do you know that? The lengths you’ll go to for a story--they scare me, so much, because you’re human and it’d take so little to--” Gabe shakes his head, shudders a little. “What you do is amazing and needed and I’m not going to stop you from taking those risks, but I’m going to keep you safe while you take them.”

Tyson blinks. That’s--he hadn’t known, really, how much he wanted to hear that. How much it meant, to have someone not try to change him. Not ask him to be someone he’s not for their own peace of mind.

He looks at Gabe, and he can’t see a lie in his face.

“You don’t lie to me anymore,” Tyson says, firmly. “That’s non-negotiable. And you don’t interfere in any of my stories.”

“I’m going to keep saving you. As long as you keep jumping out of skyscrapers.”

“I didn’t jump,” Tyson protests, but he takes a step closer to Gabe, wraps his arms around his neck. “And--I reserve the right to turn on you if you go full dark and start doing things that cross the line.”

Gabe looks down at him, and maybe Tyson gets it, a little, how Nate says Gabe looks at him. “I hope you do,” he says, solemnly, which is just--Tyson has to kiss him. Gabe wraps an arm around his waist and kisses him back, and now that Tyson knows what to look for he can feel the thrill of it, that Gabe could crush him so easily and touches him so carefully.

He pulls away from Gabe to catch his breath, glances down--and his breath catches for another reason. They’re floating a few inches off the ground.

"Oh,” Tyson says, and things start to come together. “I didn’t even think of the possibilities here. This is going to be fun.”

Gabe laughs, and kisses him again, their feet never touching the floor.

“Okay, so, this?” Tyson gestures around, mainly to himself, but also to his house. “I’m designating this neutral ground.” The four supers sitting in his living room don’t look happy about it, but none of them say anything. Nate, who’s been brought in to meet them and also because he wanted to watch, looks very amused. “No hero/villain things here.”

“What if the Headmaster escapes and attacks you here?” Mitch asks, and Tyson rolls his eyes.

“Okay, no hero/villain things here unless necessary to protect someone’s safety.”

“What if he attacks someone here, because he’s a villain?” Auston asks, jerking his chin at Gabe. Gabe grins back, more baring his teeth than anything else.

“He’s not going to do that, because he knows the consequences,” Tyson informs Auston. “We agreed? Yes?”

Four muttered yeses. “Great. Now.” Tyson drops a newspaper on the table. His byline is under the front page headline, big letters and a splashy photo cover. He’s already got invitations from three TV news shows to talk about it. The governor called him. He’s kind of freaking out, but also, he can’t stop thinking about it. “We are going to get drunk and celebrate this, right? All agreed?”

That gets five much more enthusiastic yeses, and Tyson heads to the kitchen for alcohol. He’s getting the glasses when arms wrap around him from behind, and Gabe’s chin hooks over his shoulder.

“I’m so proud of you for that,” he says into Tyson’s ear. He’s so warm, Tyson had been right about the cuddling. “Have I said that?”

“Yeah. Plenty. And showed it. But you could do all that again, keep telling me how great I am,” Tyson says, and turns in his arms. He can’t quite look at Gabe’s beam, but it’s--fuck. It’s a lot.

“Villainy’s in the eye of the beholder,” Gabe says, in his earnest ‘I’m not a villain I’m doing Good’ Captain voice, “But so is heroism. And that, there?” He gestures, to where the paper is. “That’s being a hero, Tyson.”

Tyson drops his head into Gabe’s shoulder. “I was wrong, don’t say any more stuff like that, it’s way too corny I can’t take it,” he mutters, and Gabe chuckles into Tyson’s hair.

“Are we going to get this celebration on?” Mo calls from the other room.

“Yeah! If I can’t kick Gabe’s ass, I want to kick it in taboo,” Mitch agrees, and Tyson lifts his head to laugh at Gabe’s face.

“They’re your coworkers,” Gabe says, laughing back at Tyson. “I’d kick them out and skip right to us celebrating if I could.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Tyson kisses him, quickly, then detangles himself from Gabe. “You’re a big scary villain, I know. Now let’s go kick some Taboo ass.”

(They do, in fact, kick some Taboo ass).

#Tyson? Lois Lane? It's more likely than you think!#Me? Write 10k for a prompt fill in one sitting? It's also more likely than you think!#avs fic #leafs fic #my fic #avs tumblr fic #leafs tumblr fic #includes a higher proportion of leafs to avs than i anticipated #but such is life after trades #sorry #weareerratic2 #izzy answers

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sometipsygnostalgic · 5 years

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Assessing writing in homestuck: The difference between appealing characters and well-written character stories.

i was rambling about this to /u/cookiefonster in the discord earlier

theres a big difference between what qualifies as "good narrative" and "good character", even when the narrative youre discussing is focusing entirely on that character.

lets give you a couple of examples:

Terezi:

Terezi's a character who has a kind of fucked up storyline that just constantly loops back in on itself; she spends all of act 5 deciding whether to deal with Vriska or not, then gets in abusive relationships in act 6 after not being able to cope with her death. Terezi ends up with massive self esteem issues. Following from THIS, she dies, and retcons the story to undo her mistake and try to prevent the collapse of her self esteem. Sounds like an epic resolution to an arc, right?

Nope - post retcon, they brought Terezi's self esteem issues back but didn't give her the time of day to properly interact with other characters about it. She was unconfident around Vriska and insecure about her altself. Then she has a bit of a breakdown, unlocking some of the potential of her seer of mind abilities, and having a realisation of who truly is. You'd think, wow, Terezi after Remem8er is going to be interacting so much more with the other kids and FINALLY overcome her battle with depression, RIGHT?!?!

uhhh..... she doesnt say anything again until after the comic is over. then shes seen travelling through space.

When the epilogues drop she's interacting with John, they're building on top of their already amazing chemistry, they seem to understand each other like nobody else does in the entire fucking saga. Then Terezi nearly "dies" but another John finds her and they have a heart to heart before Terezi decides it's time go home.

WOOOOOW, you think, Terezi is FINALLY LEARNING TO LOVE HERSELF?!¬?!?!?! an interaction with a HEALTHY PERSON?!?!?!

Then John dies. Then Terezi hates Earth C so much and is so isolated from everybody she knows that she doesn't hesitate to join the villain in space. And it's implied Vriska texts her but she never reads those messages insofar as the canon material ends.

Overall, a rather anticlimactic story about a character whose arc is constantly recycled, not allowed to be given closure at any stage, falling into the same tragedy pit. It's like an art form of cockblocking.

So, why is Terezi as cherished as she is? How come even in the face of the ending, the epilogue, where it feels like Terezi has just been going round in circles, she is probably one of the most loved characters in homestuck?

There's a few factors:

Humor - Being able to make your audience laugh in a genuine way will put you in their favour. Terezi's dark humor, which works in tandem with her general naivete, has always been delightful.

Relevance - The part where Terezi's popularity might have actually struggled would be during Meteorstuck where she was pushed on the sidelines. Every moment she's been around after GAME OVER, however, she's been one of the most active character pushing the plot and generating excitement for whatever thing she's going to do next, even if it does become a loop. Killing John>Killing Vriska>Killing Gamzee>Retconquest>Remem8er>Finding Vriska>Finding John>Leaving with Dirk to save John>??? - she's always on some sort of mission which means if you're thinking about the plot then you might be thinking about something that ties into her storyline.

But most importantly, Authenticity - Terezi's dialogue is actually very well-written, in that she's one of the least wordy characters, but she gets exactly what she's feeling across whenever she talks about it. If you look at all the conversations she's had with Vriska or John or even Dave then you can tell Terezi feels very strongly about whatever she's feeling, and is either trying to disguise that feeling or is trying to put it to words she's struggling to find. Yet even when Terezi can't describe what she's feeling, the audience knows, because her condensed dialogue is expressive enough for us to be able to tell. It also helps that Terezi is one of the most invested in the other cast members, being - if not more righteous - then more analytical of her friends, taking in why they behave the way they do. It doesn't matter that arc-wise she goes in circles, because you can tell exactly how it keeps happening.

I feel like if Terezi didn't have that factor, if there wasn't so much weight to her emotional presentation and if the audience wasn't able to "feel" for her, then she would probably be significantly less popular. I guess that’s why many people feel it’s better for her to still be stuck in the “plot” of homestuck, to lack closure, because maybe closure would feel forced in this universe that’s taken so much from its kids? How can you “forget” what happened and just act like you never entered the game to begin with? Some of the other characters have this issue and it harms them deeply.

Let’s get into that!!!!!

Lord English and Calliope :

I feel so bad for Hussie. He clearly put a lot of thought into the relationship between Calliope and Caliborn, how their characters intertwine throughout this epic story. Yet despite them being the narrative fuel for the entirety of homestuck, and having an awesome thematic ending to their tales, it feels like the "cherub wars" part of homestuck never stuck its foot too deeply in the public consciousness.

Like, let's describe their narration: Two people born in the same body, one good, one evil. One is predestined to rule over the other.

In one universe the cherubs are left in their natural state. The Just cherub, Calliope, predominates... but because the universe is rigged, she is forced to be put into obscurity, residing for billions of years in a hidden dream bubble until the time is right. In another universe, there is intervention - Gamzee introduces the cherubs to humans, and they start to imitate their concepts and feelings. Because of this, Calliope becomes a softer being, engaging happily with the humans. She even wants to take mercy on her brother! But Caliborn takes on human ambition and grows determined to stop his sister from predominating, taking advantage of the human concept of “cheating” in order to beat her at their own game.

Caliborn defeats his sister, and is thrown into a session where he’s forced to overcome seemingly impossible challenges. He succeeds, and is given the ultimate power. Caliborn can will the universe to how he sees fit.

Caliborn’s given just desserts by getting trapped in the juju by the alpha kids but not before the monkey’s paw of trapping all the (alternate) beta kids for millenia, and in becoming trapped, he ends up becoming Lil Cal and Doc Scratch, who manipulate events so that he will rise again as an adult.

But the one thing that drives Caliborn more than anything is the desire to destroy his perfect sister - Calliope. A never ending thirst for her death. For predomination Caliborn never predominated normally so he never gets over it. This is part of why he’s so obsessed with showmanship and art too, to one-up her character. He circles the universe destroying all that is irrelevant, all that is obscure, in the hopes of demolishing all versions of his sister, having the primal fear that she will one day catch him out.

Our predominated calliope meets with the ghost of her alternate self, who tells her that her purpose as a softer human version is to just live her life. To be free. To appreciate all that humanity offers her. Whereas the Alternate Calliope’s role is to commit the ultimate sacrifice, to put an end to her brother’s ego. She absorbs the Green Itself into a catastrophic black hole that erases what is left of the universe.

You think that is the end, but Calliope is reborn in a new form, rewarded for her hard efforts, and becomes a full narrator for the story itself, protecting it from the evil of the Prince. She’s an active guide for the characters of Homestuck, wastching over them. She destroys her brother once and for all, absorping him inside herself.

Wasn’t all of that FUCKING AWESOME?!?!?!??! “Wow”, you think, “Calliope sounds so hardcore!!! I’m sure she’s an amazing character to have such a conclusive storyline like this!!”

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Literally nobody on the internet sees Calliope as their favourite character, except for maybe Past!Shelby Cragg who was her artist. And while Caliborn has his fans, nobody is a big fan of Lord English either. In fact most people tend to forget about the Lord English part of him because it’s just not that engaging!

Basing this on the above analysis about Terezi, what is lacking in terms of these characters?

Humor - Caliborn is a hilarious character, absolutetly no doubt about that. He’s so stupid and the way he sees the world is hilarious. It’s almost Terezi-ish even, except far more exaggerated in terms of his vulgarity and naivete, since he was locked in a fucking cage all his life. Caliborn makes us laugh pretty much every time we see him... but this character is lost entirely in Lord English, who does not wish to engage with the audience at all. Lord English is entirely a machine at this stage, just acting to destroy. As for CALLIOPE, she was never that great in the humor department. I’d be surprised if the original Callie knows what “jokes” are. Alt Calliope was also a stooge until the Epilogue where she trolls Dirk, and yes those parts are delightful and boost her in my eyes significantly, but in the core part of homestuck she is incredibly serious all the time.

Relevance - After reading me narrate the entire Cherub plot and how impactful it was on the entirety of homestuck you’d think I’m a fucking idiot for trying to argue that Calliope and Lord English are irrelevant, right? Well Too Bad!!! That’s exactly what I think. Doc Scratch was relevant to what was happening to our core cast of characters, manipulating them behind the scenes, taking advantage of them and fuelling their personal drama for his greater gain. This is why we love Doc Scratch so much and can even enjoy Ultimate Dirk for doing the same thing. Caliborn had a reduced impact on our main cast, but Lord English’s impact is pretty much nonexistent outside of the first time we see him in Caliborn: Enter. Once again, he’s literally only there to destroy the fucking universe, but when our main characters are either enjoying themselves in the new Alpha session or in Earth C, you have to ask why you or they should be interested in what LE is doing? Dave says so himself, that LE has not done anything wrong to him so he’s not hyped to go kill him. Calliope, meanwhile.... Her relevance is split in two, and neither is too substantial to what our main guys are doing.It “makes sense” as she’s such a passive character, but Calliope’s struggle with relevance doesn’t take me as impacting her too much, and I’ll get onto that in a second. Only one alpha kid ever thinks about her, she doesn’t think about anyone except herself, and while Jade has some kind of relationship with Alt!Callie, it isn’t a personal one by any means. Calliope’s impact on the emotional arcs of homestuck is so minimal that she was erased from the epilogues which she wrote herself. Even Calliope can’t think of anything to do with Calliope!!! How about that!!!

Oh, and of course, Authenticity - Caliborn feels like an authentic character because he deals with actual struggles. Caliborn finds it tremendously difficult to do things other characters might have an easy time with, like drawing, thinking in anything OTHER than straight lines... but he perseveres. Caliborn faces his impossible and brutal tasks head on to claim the Ultimate Reward. He’s fucking EARNED that ability to destroy everything in reality, and by god he’s let us know!!! This is why Caliborn is such a cherished character. Even though he’s evil as fuck, he feels like a real kid somehow. It goes without saying that although Doc Scratch has a different kind of authentic creepiness, Lord English has nothing on him that makes him feel real. He’s just a machine, as said before. CALLIOPE’s authenticity.... The alpha Calliope is a character who became “so nice” and so “perfect” that she ended up losing her fight against her evil brother just because she was that good a person as to let him get the better of her. Nothing that ever happens to her is her fault. She never gets in any conflicts with any character ever, except for that one time she yelled too loud in Candy but nobody told her off for it. Calliope is perfect at art, a fair enough writer. The closest thing to a “flaw” she’s ever had is getting so excited about her friends that she writes creepy fanfic about them, something that is parodied in Candy, which has been implied to be narrated (or at least retold) by Calliope herself in Meat. Simply put, Calliope is... a mary sue. A flawless character. There is absolutely no authenticity and no way to relate to her. Alt Calliope.... she’s a martyr? But why does she want to be a martyr? What does she care about the human characters? She’s even less authentic. It is badass to watch her tear down Dirk, and the story takes advantage of how unreadable she is by making her intimidating as fuck, an all knowing force to contest - no, overpower - that of Dirk or even Hussie himself. Alt Callie is more knowing in her fakeness, she has a better struggle as well what with having to escape from obscurity and overcome her brother, and therefore is a better character, at the end of the epilogues, than the original.

TL;DR: It’s not just about making interesting things happen to your characters. It’s making sure they have interesting reactions to what is going on. If your character becomes someone who things just “happen” to, and who does not respond to those things in an authentic way, then nobody is going to care for them no matter how important or existentially poetic their arc is.

#long post #homestuck #terezi pyrope #calliope #caliborn #doc scratch #lord english

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