#supe names in this show are interesting... curious to see what they will do w annie next season | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

homielander · 2 months

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the most interesting character detail about maeve through which i have extrapolated at least half my understanding of her is that she prefers to be called maeve. i frequently see "maggie" pop up in meta and fic as her chosen name, but quite literally nobody calls her that, including (and most significantly) elena. elena is maeve's tether to her humanity and her refuge away from vought, yet even elena only ever refers to her as maeve. (and in season 2, we learn that maeve started dating elena before she joined the seven -- before queen maeve's popularity would have become so inescapable that she would feel compelled to introduce herself by that name.) it's especially notable that in her final scene, maeve refers to starlight as annie for only the second time, but she is still called maeve by both annie and elena.

here's what we know about maeve's life as maggie: she had a rocky relationship with her father whom she doesn't seem to speak to anymore, she's from a "cousin-fucker hick town" as described by homelander -- i can't imagine this place being terribly lgbt-friendly, and she generally lacks connection with anyone she would have known before becoming queen maeve. she doesn't have fond memories of this time of her life, and perhaps that extends to all associations with it, including the name maggie.

i tend to think that becoming queen maeve was, in many ways, self-actualizing for her. the act that garners her national attention and earns her a ticket to vought is a heroic one -- she breaks every single bone in her right arm to save a school bus from falling off a bridge. and i know madelyn says she is responsible for the mythos of queen maeve, but this character was still aspirational, and likely someone maeve wanted to live up to. in any case, this new identity gave her a purpose and tools to achieve it: she wanted to help people! by her own admission, maeve enters vought bright-eyed and hopeful, not far off from annie. (maeve is also one of the only supes in the seven not to know about compound v -- she doesn't strike me as religious but believing she's among the very few born with powers would have strengthened her internal drive to be a hero.)

it's for the same reason that i think maeve actually... liked having powers? of course she says otherwise in her last season, but season 3 maeve is cynical and weary from about two decades of dealing with vought and homelander's abuse. they've used her first as the token woman and then the token gay person of the seven. after growing largely passive to the brutality of the job, the flight 37 incident forces her to confront all of the violence she's witnessed and tolerated. she's given pieces of herself away and she loathes the husk of herself that's left. i don't find it surprising that she would want to relinquish every single connection to vought, including her powers.

assuring herself that she will be better off without her powers comes with an added benefit: she gets to distinguish herself from homelander, who would be lost without his powers. and i think she is eager to make this distinction in her mind because there are some uncomfortable similarities between their initiations into vought. the mantle of homelander allows him to exert agency for the first time in his life, just as the mantle of queen maeve endows her with purpose for the first time in hers. (crucially, none of his current circle call him john, either.) they both enjoy being the most powerful superheroes in the world, the unending public adoration, and (in my interpretation) each other. they're also both overwhelmingly lonely and they know it -- homelander teases her multiple times about how she has no friends with a bit more bite in every passing season, while maeve is keenly aware of his isolation and exploits his yearning for love pretty effectively.

maeve steadily grows disillusioned with her position at vought because she still has a moral code, suppressed though it may be. even so, she nearly relents to homelander's vision: that they will be lonely at the top but lonely together. she's pulled out of her miserable state of inaction by annie and elena. annie reminds her of what a hero should be (what she was, once); elena offers her a way out of vought, serving as maeve's light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

she escapes that tower as maeve, not maggie. she rejects homelander's god complex which engenders his cruelty towards regular people and 'lesser' supes -- no one will call her queen maeve ever again, at least -- but it is still important to her to be a hero, and for better or for worse, she found that as maeve. i feel like she'd struggle to exist without her powers (possibly the self-awareness hasn't settled in yet) for all the reasons mentioned above. i like to think that eventually, she'll circle around to helping people and resisting vought however possible -- albeit on a smaller, more covert scale so she can continue living a peaceful life with elena.

#sorry for this word vomit i have just been thinking about maeve! what's in a name...#motivated by 2 years of reading takes about maeve wanting to be a normie (during s1-3 and prior) that i don't rly agree with #i'm not offering this as the 'right' interpretation of course this is just what makes sense for me!!#i have a couple of things i wanted to add (particularly re: maeve x HL since i know how consensual their relationship was #is controversial and i feel a bit weird slipping in that characterization of it w/o any follow-up)#but for now i am just going to say it fits with how i perceive her character trajectory and leave it there??#because i don't want to disrupt this post my thoughts on that #i also have mixed feelings on her ending but again not the post for it i suppose #queen maeve #the boys #maeve x elena #maeve x homelander #annie x maeve #supe names in this show are interesting... curious to see what they will do w annie next season

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 4 years

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The Bad Guy (1)

Bucky x fem!Reader

CHAPTER 1: THE FAKEOUT

Series: A Bad Guy ruins Bucky’s day. But turns out it’s the bad guy he needs to seek help from after all. New York may not have changed much for him, but there are certain things he is discovering to be quite new!

Chapter warnings: swearing.

A/N: @writing-prompt-s once gave a prompt last year that stuck with me…I don’t remember the exact wordings but it had something to do with the reader/writer being the villain having a crush on the hero, always finding excuses (or crimes) to meet them. One day they are getting their ass beat and you decide to jump in and save the day. This one is same but with a liiiiiiiitle twist

Word Count: There are times I wish I was a llama. or a cat. Now is one of those times.

“You can do it. You. Can. Do. It. You’re the man. You’re the freaking man. Yes. Yes. You got it. You absolutely got it.”

“You okay, man?” Bucky had to ask.

“You absolutely don’t got it. I can’t do it, man. I’m outta here.”

Bucky grabbed Scott’s arm before that guy could rush back to the SUV they had come in. As much as he wanted to kick this sweaty ex-thief out of here, he knew the plan wasn’t going to work in Scott’s absence. He needed a guy to make him seem legit. At least that’s what Natasha had told him.

“Calm down,” Bucky reassured the man who was sweating tennis balls by now, “you just need to show the ID. Natasha has taken care of the rest and I would be doing the talking. Okay?”

Scott was half-listening by the time Bucky had finished. “Huh? Yeah! Yeah! Cool cool cool cool cool cool cool!”

Bucky could empathise on some level with Scott. After all, it was weird for an ex-con to visit a prison as a fake lawyer while trying to get a felon out of there under the noses of the authority.

The plan was pretty simple. Arrange a meeting with that woman whom Bucky had met earlier, gain her trust, get her out of jail under the pretence of getting her to help with an unsolved case and find out the location and identity of the people behind the theft of Tony’s precious painting.

Simple.

Then why was Bucky’s back feeling so wet whenever a humid wind blew at the opening of every rusty door in the maximum-security prison?

The room was covered in cameras in all corners. To Bucky’s satisfaction, Natasha already told him and Scott they did not record any conversations for lawyer-client confidentiality- so any conversation that was about to happen was going to stay between these three. The musty smell of the room was somehow familiar to both of them, bringing mixed feelings to the surface- to which they barely had time to react when a figure in orange jumpsuit walked in, forcing all their attention on it.

“Hey boys!” You greeted the party, already recognising Bucky from the rendezvous you two had a few days ago. “Ay!! You’re that beat cop no one listened to that day!”

Bucky did not know how to react to that. He was not really expecting their interaction to go this way. Scott, on the other hand, was a little relieved to have your attention glued on anyone but him.

“Oh, right! I told you we’d be having the conversation after I get processed,” you added with a tone of realisation, “Wow, I didn’t know you were so into that robbery!”

You dragged the chair out with your leg and sat on it, legs spread wide- keeping comfort over societal mannerisms. Resting your cuffed hands on the table you gave a knowing smirk to Bucky, who was trying to figure out what exactly was going on behind that viciously delicious smile. “Or is it something else that is intriguing you?” You raised a brow. "Did I use that right? Intriguing you? Something that you're intrigued by?"

"That sounds better," Scott blurted out, regretting it the very second because now your suspicion-filled eyes were all for him.

"You…" you narrowed your eyes at Scott, making the man sit straight in his chair.

"He's my lawyer," Bucky was quick to dive in, "I mean, he's the lawyer we-I... he is interested in represen...He’s a lawyer." For the first time in his life, Bucky was glad Scott and Sam had forced him to watch Law and Order.

“...ok...kay.”

"Scott. Scott Lang," he introduced himself, bringing his hand forward for a shake.

“You have the eyes of a thief,” you stated while Scott’s hand was still in the air, making the poor man slowly take it back while his pale face looked at Bucky with an ‘I told you so’ expression. “No wonder you’re a lawyer.”

Next moment, you slumped into the chair, looking a little offended at something Bucky did. Or so he thought. “Did I hurt you?”

Bucky blinked at you before his brain smacked his accelerating heart to give something instead of just sitting there. “I’m sorry?”

“Did I hurt you the last time we met? I get that I have some kinda...powers but I don’t just throw them around. We could have had a conversation over some prison coffee. You didn’t have to bring your friend here.”

It took three seconds at minimum for Bucky’s brows to shoot up and his lips to crack wide in a smile. “W-what? No! He’s not here for me. He’s here for you. We’re getting you out of here.”

It was hard to put a word into the expression you just gave. Your eyes shifted between the two men while your open lips were shut and your face tilted a little towards the door.

“Uhhhhh-” was the only thing coming out of your mouth till your body got up from the chair and your cuffed hands pressed together towards your company- “listen, cop guy...man. I really meant it in a casual way when I said we’ll ‘talk later’. I don’t really know how much you’ve read into this. I mean, I would say ‘at least buy me dinner first’ but I am kinda scared as to where that might lead us. Good, God! Now I’m wondering what would you have done if I’d said something more like ‘hey, let’s f-”

“NO!” Bucky nearly jumped off his seat, his hands over the table trying to stop your words from coming out from a safe distance. “I’m not getting you out of here because I like you-” he stopped right when he heard himself, watching your curious eyes witness his mouth play him like a ten-cent flute- “no, I mean I like you but not in that kind of...what I mean to say is I know why you tried to steal that painting. I found out from my sources that these paintings are being used by this new mafia around the world supplying narcotics and codes on the trafficked girls and boys to their buyers for bids. And I was hoping you could help us catch the people behind the...painting.”

Bucky was cursing himself right and left, feeling the heat rise in his cheeks at nearly messing it up. Why did she have to be this accurate? His inner voice mocked him before smacking him in the head and calling him a jock.

“I don’t know if you remember but I was caught by you guys while threatening the New Yorkers.”

“While you were trying to help Ste-Rogers. Captain Rogers. And no one caught you. You surrendered yourself.”

“I hate cops. I can’t work with them.”

“You won’t be working with them. You’ll be working with us. Me and a couple of my friends.”

“I don’t work for free. And before you put a price tag on my work, remember that I am inside this prison because I want to stay here. For now.”

“How about a date with Steve Rogers?”

“Dude, you can’t put a price on my-wait what?”

“I’ll ask him to go out with you if you catch those sons of bitches.”

Maybe it was the serenade playing from somewhere inside the prison. Or maybe it was the sun strolling in from the windows. Or maybe it was the mention of his best friend that made your pupils go wider, your fingers work over the skin on your arm, doodling some invisible hearts with a bitchface before you straightened from the table and the sound from your cuffs nearly made Scott fall off his chair.

“I don’t work with supes. They disgust me. Especially Tony Snark and his redhead sister and that C-grade Legolas. I’m out.”

“We won’t be working with them. But I can pull a few strings to get you that date. I promise. And I’m sure Steve...Rogers would be more than willing to go out with you if there is one less bad guy walking out on the streets.”

“...you better not be joking about this-”

“James Barnes.”

“James. Because if you are, I will drive a monster truck into your house, take away your pet and fuck your mother till she forgets her own name.”

“My mother’s dead,” he was quick to add while Scott gasped at the audacity of this bitch- you; you were the bitch.

“Your girlfriend, then,” you simply shrugged. Bucky’s brain straight away flashed to a two-second fantasy of you and Natasha in her room, on her bed.

“Bold of you to assume he has a girlfriend,” Scott chortled till he could see Bucky’s Winter Soldier parts staring at him with all the coldness.

It wasn’t in his nature to give a place to bad things inside his Bucky heart. It definitely wasn’t in the now peaceful Winter Soldier’s nature to peek from inside Bucky and stare with stars in his eyes at the woman coming out in her shirt and jeans topped by a leather jacket. She’s bad, his mind kept ringing the gong, real bad. And when that wasn’t enough, she put on those aviators to shield her eyes from the harsh noon sun, walking towards him with the strut that said she was woman enough to grab someone by the balls if need be. You’ll get yourself killed by a woman, Barnes, his mind went off again.

“No, I won't,” he muttered out loud.

“What?” Scott asked.

“What?”

Bucky tried to ignore him, his eyes stuck on you as you came and stood by them.

“Keys,” you ordered, watching Bucky fish his pockets without breaking eye contact and handing the keys of the Land Rover to you. “Let’s go.”

Scott grabbed Bucky by the arm to pull him closer. “Dude! She has the keys!”

“...okay? Why are we whispering?”

“Wh-What are we gonna do if she tries to do something...evil!”

“Like what?”

“Like I don’t know, throw us off a cliff! Or drive us into a wall. Or worse, go over the speed limit in the city!!”

“Relax! I’m here,” Bucky reassured before opening the door to the back seat of the car for him. “I got you.”

Hopping in and sitting next to you, he noticed for the first time how you smelled like a pleasant mixture of spring and citrus.

“What cologne is that?” you called out from nowhere while turning on the engine, turning to look at Bucky.

“Uhhh….it’s an aftershave. For men.” He nodded, cursing himself instantly for adding that last bit. Of course, it’s for men, you twat!

“Smells nice,” you complimented before turning out of the parking spot.

“I’m glad you’re on board with this,” Bucky stated, trying to undo the mess he made a few seconds ago, “I wasn’t trying to overstep when I-we decided to get you to help us out.”

You chuckled, shifting gear.

“Oh, sweetheart! One, I loved this isn’t an automatic. Those are for weak testicled-babies. And two, you clearly misinterpreted me in there. When I said I was not expecting you to bail me outta jail for a date, I wasn’t grossed out by it, darling. I liked it.” You leaned a little closer to Bucky- having a glorious view of his pupils go wide like oceans with endless pits- to end him with one last whisper and wink. “In a very kinky way.”

And just as the car swerved out to the wide road, Scott could feel the air leave his lungs. “What have we done,” he whispered to himself, questioning all that was about to come.

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