#romance novel heroes

[samijey]

Drew Mcintyre - WrestleMania XL

[nonegenderleftpain]

To all the new, young MCR fans out there who are just finding them during this tour - you will never know what it was like to be a fan back before and during the hiatus.

And that's a good thing.

I have been following My Chemical Romance since I was ten years old. MCR was the band that the freaks liked. The band that young queer kids were called fags and dykes for liking. Someone once called them the "poster child for suicidal depression," and they aren't wrong. We watched the band struggle with drugs and drinking and idolized how much they were able to do while blackout on tour, because if they could do something so powerful at such a disadvantage, then maybe we could, too. We watched the popularization of "guyliner," because having a term for men wearing makeup could make it an ironic fashion statement instead of a deliberate choice that would get you left bloody and unconscious on the floor of a gas station bathroom. We watched these guys destroy themselves, and we saw ourselves in them because we were destroyed, too. We wanted to believe that we could be just as important, no matter how broken we were, and we found shared experiences at concerts and cafeterias and skate parks and libraries, with other fucked up kids that wanted to listen to the guys that didn't care if people called them gay. The guys that made out on stage to the jeers of thousands of people and got bottles of piss thrown at them but kept doing it anyway. The guys that played with gender and sexuality and everything on the fringes of acceptability, in their lyrics and their performance and the way they treated each other.

This was important. It was life-saving. It provided a comparatively safe space in an unsafe cultural environment for the freaks to find comfort in. It was also hugely and dangerously unhealthy.

I've talked at length to my friends about how healing and lifechanging this tour has been for me, and I want to illuminate that for these young fans that are falling in love with MCR like I did when I was their age. When we were kids, most of our heroes were already dead. They died young, had tragic lives, and we saw ourselves in them. I fully believed MCR would end up the same way. It would have been so easy to be martyrs - to die young and beautiful. Gerard said it himself, back in the day, that MCR was destined to die young in a car crash and stay beautiful forever, and I think he truly believed that.

So they broke up. And, like a miracle, things started to change. They got clean. Got married. Had kids. Not just Gee, but the lot of them. They aged out of the 27 club, and then out of their 30s, and they only seemed to continue to thrive. Today, in 2022, Gerard Way is 45 years old. He has wrinkles. He has a daughter who is older now than I was when she was born. And they are touring again.

The cultural change from when I was a teenager to now, when you guys are, is monumental. It's insane. It's fantastic. Back in the day, Gerard made some occasional comments about playing with gender presentation (that all us trans people, including those of us that didn't even know yet, hunted down and cherished and kept in our chests for safekeeping), but the idea of doing something so flagrant as headlining Riot Fest in a dress was ludicrous. It would have gotten him booed (still did, even now). It could have gotten him killed. The fact that Gerard Way has stepped on stage three separate times this tour in a dress (so far! it's not over!) is such an incredible, monumental change from when I was a kid and I am so, so happy for you to be experiencing it as kids.

I had a cry about this at a P!ATD concert in 2018, after seeing preteens running down the halls in pride flags, and I feel even more strongly about it now than I did then. That you're able to talk openly about Gerard's gender performance without fear, that you're able to hear them go by he/they pronouns, that you're able to interact with other young fans in the wake of MCR's revival in a safe environment and take in the messages that are at the core of what they stand for? These are beautiful fucking things.

You can't know what it was like, growing up with MCR back in the day. But you get to know what it's like to grow up with them now. Cherish that. In Detroit, Gerard told us to take our meds, and reminded us that we made it. They made it. They fought through the hard parts, fought the demons, and came out the other side better for it. As you watch them put those demons to rest from concert to concert, know that there are older fans cheering you on, so fucking happy to see you sharing this experience with us, and so excited to see what way this changes you. We know it changed us.

[floral-stede]

Stede + red roses ✿ red roses symbolize desire, passion, and true love

[mermaidsirennikita]

There’s nothing better than reading a book about a girl engaged to an evil warlord while falling in love with a hot lower class guy and thinking “this is great but God I hope the evil warlord is a hero in a future book”

And discovering that the evil warlord is in fact the hero of THE NEXT BOOK

[separatist-apologist]

At the risk of reviving haters bookclub, so much of the trash that gets praised as "good" because of spice has the WORST smut ever written. Cringy dialogue, implausible positions and an author who barely has command of the language she's writing in despite being a native speaker (and asking people to pay for something that can't even rise to the level of mediocrity). Five chilipeppers for "do you like that?" and 0 foreplay?

[elenaferndale]

Finished the portrait of Sillah - another one of my oc. She has some awesome fire-magic that I really love writing about! She can draw out inflammation from wounds and illnesses, she can heat up things around her and she is always warm and lovely - a perfect friend 💕

[howifeltabouthim]

When I saw him the other night he was just as handsome as ever;—the same look, half wild and half tame, like an animal you cannot catch, but which you think would love you so if you could catch him.

Anthony Trollope, from Can You Forgive Her?

[triviareads]

found this book in the wild a couple months ago and I believe THIS is the step-uncle-niece book you mentioned a while ago @mermaidsirennikita?

[thebisexualwreckoning]

Slowly collecting every single Marissa Meyer book as if I’m a dragon and they are my horde

[beautifulworldsstuff]

"A hero would sacrifice you to save the world, but a villain would sacrifice the world to save you."

Do anyone know a novel/ movie/ managa... anything that is romantic that represents that quote?

I'm dying for Villain x hero or Villain x civilian thing...but a real superheroes settings.....do you get me?

[xehanortsreport]

xemqua as a ship is fun but ngl ever since kh3 came out ansqua has also been eating my brain (both, both are good). xigqua is also fun. the three of them being obnoxious dark boyfriends to anti aqua even.

[fated-mates]

ANTIHEROINES!

If she’s a criminal, a grifter, a villain or a generally bad dude, we’re here for her, we support her, and we’re rooting for her to fall in love!

In this one, we talk about the way ANTIHEROINES play in romance, about how we hold them to different standards than antiheroes (it’s the patriarchy, that’s why!), and about why they seem to be more prevalent in historicals and paranormals than they are in contemporaries.

[micamicster]

The thibg about calling the guitar fabio. Is that Fabio is a famous romance novel cover model so famous in fact that his name has become a shorthand for the kind of bodice-ripping romance that Amina is so obsessed with but the guitar?? The guitar, this is key. Are you with me? The guitar is Saira’s

[mermaidsirennikita]

of all the euphemistic phrases and words historical romance authors use for "dick", my favorite is BY FAR "breeding organ", because I think it is the funniest, I think it is the thing I most believe a 19th century SuperVirgin would call it

and

frankly

it's like not a lie

[invinciblerodent]

brb, i have to go and. make strangled noises at nothing real quick; it just hit me over the head how Wyll's use of the metaphor of dancing as a stand-in for romance and intimacy really just. accompanies him all throughout his story, and how perfect it is

I guess I should have expected a character like him, that's both deeply poetic in his speech and courtly in his upbringing, would come to idealize a chivalric romance a bit, and translate his feelings on/of love to an element of courting that's as ritualistic and processional as ballroom dancing, but sometimes just realizing the obvious can really knock you off your feet for a second

like. just like how there is almost a blueprint to a perfect storybook romance in both stories and -consequently- in his head (I think romance might even be one of the literary genres with the highest number of unwritten rules that need to be fulfilled for a work to count as a romance), there is also a fairly strict method to a court dance. There is a series of well-known and practiced steps that was laid out in advance, and one is to perform them in succession, and in sync with one's partner. If one of the parties doesn't know or doesn't want to follow the rules/steps, it gets... tangled, messy, and you both stumble. The dance and the relationship both fall apart. The happy ending of a tale is not reached without all the steps in-between being followed, and he so dearly wants his fairytale ending, his happy, fulfilled love, I just---

it's such a perfect metaphor, and what makes it even more perfect is that Wyll is ostensibly aware of it, and he chose it, purposefully, and i don't want to watch the Act 3 commitment scene because I've not yet done it myself and don't want to spoil it, but I would be so surprised if he a.) made no mention of storybook romances, or b.) didn't just straight up propose y'know

i'm (metaphorically) crying, if it were possible to play this game on six different characters simultaneously without getting bored or confused I fucking would

[elenaferndale]

Probably the most shady of the boys: Ager, the furtive rogue. This character started out so shallow, and has grown to be such a huge part of the story and the background of it. I can't wait to dive further into Ager's past and future, as he has become one of my favorites to plot-build into. His time will come 🖤