it's me, i'm the Heroes trash

luv how early-show Peter is big eyes cuteys uke sweet little bro like Nathan help me I am but a baby boy 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺 then you start to get some more insight into what a mess Nathan is and by the end he’s a trembling broken mess of a person who the vastly more stable and competent (somehow) Peter needs to like gently hold and put back together lest he collapse like a fragile porcelain bird

another assumption i've been treating as #confirmed #fact is that angela's fake story about arthur's depression + suicide attempts was a real story about nathan. the best lies containing an element of truth and all that

also interesting how an alternative interpretation of nathan's ability lends itself to some of the fundamental misreadings of his character which r so fucking ubiquitous for some reason. flight interpreted as a manifestation of feelings of superiority, being above it all, total detachment, etc, which could be assumed of nathan when we first meet him but then unravels almost immediately unless you're approaching this character with willfully obtuse contempt lol meanwhile if your HEART is PURE you'll see that it's all about nathan's desire to escape his life as it is and transcend boundaries, and his reluctance to act on that desire speaks to a lack of self-assurance stemming from a lifetime of abuse and manipulation (and tbf also cultural norms, particularly wrt incest, which would give anyone pause...aside from peter who famously doesn't give a fuck). and every time nathan takes a step towards living an honest life, via some attempt to publicly acknowledge that he can fly, they fucking kill him 🚬🫩

people literally fall for the mask Nathan puts up and don’t look deeper, which like sure if you watch a few episodes of the show from the beginning he does seem like just this fake (I mean. Everything about him IS fake) politician asshole who thinks he’s ‘above it all’ but it doesn’t even take far into season 1 to see that facade start to crumble and falter, like you do have to be obtuse about it to not see it, his power IS thematic in a really obvious way… also your point about the way Peter and Nathan respectively grew up and how it ties thematically to their powers is so plainly true and simultaneously galaxy brain. Peter doesn’t know anything different than just being able to be his authentic self (partially from parental neglect in the place of Nathan’s abuse, where they just sort of don’t gaf about him, and partially because he had Nathan to love him and that’s all he’s ever known and Nathan had no-one), and Nathan resents him for it a bit cause he can’t have that even though it’s what he wanted for Peter, but you’re RIGHT Nathan ‘gives’ his ability to peter too and Peter is free and happy and excited to use it and Nathan can’t do it and has to stand seething on the ground

the way that peter has two (2) non-nathan love interests and with the first one his idea of flirting with her is to posit a scenario in which the two of them r siblings and with the second one their first kiss happens like two mins after her brother tells peter "you're family" . . . ok man

arthur and angela subjecting nathan to human experimentation and all kinds of abuse and manipulation from the moment he was born, for the purpose of using him as a puppet in their schemes, which eventually results in nathan developing basically the only power that could allow him to fuck up said schemes. arthur and angela having also brought into existence the one person who could inspire nathan to do such a thing. arthur and angela failing to anticipate this outcome, even with their combined powers of mind reading and precognition. machiavellian cringefail couple of all time

"your incestous children r out here making u look dumb as hell" is a sentence for the history books

s2 peter, who has total amnesia, instinctively finding a way back to nathan before he's even consciously aware of who he's been missing 🤝 s4 nathan, who's suffering intense dissociation as a result of existing as a mind transfer in someone else's body, instinctively seeking peter out in every lucid moment + forcibly regaining control of said body when peter is calling out to him

that deleted scene where they’re looking at campaign photos and Angela says to Nathan ‘you look fat in that one’ is so out of pocket asdgjhkl she also chides him for saying the word ‘ass’ like he’s five years old. like scolding him for not being mommy’s good little boy while also shamelessly negging him HE’S THIRTY-EIGHT this house is a fucking nightmare

nathan: I've been selfish, arrogant... obsessive third one a little incongruous there!! the way he steps in close to peter while saying it. idk calling himself obsessive over peter out loud is crazy work