#storm front

Tornado captured yesterday, from Storm Chaser eye.of.ty outside of Clear Lake, South Dakota. The power & beauty of this storm are truly breathtaking. ~beccawise7 💜🖤

Here are Ty's words to describe it...

"This is not AI. Yesterday, I witnessed what was probably the most incredible Tornado intercept I'll ever have in my life. Words can't describe the awesome power and experience this truly was. " -eye.of.ty

What an amazing world.

EDIT: Adjustments here okay but i know i painted Storm Front Harry attractive and i’m standing by it because the text is literally on my side here

like let’s lay this out properly:

first of all: man is 6’9” with that whole “looming wizard in a trench coat” energy. that "not afraid to wear jewelry" energy. that alone is doing numbers

he gets his exercise going out on brooding walks → he's not jacked in Storm Front like he is in the most recent books but I like this young, 25-ish look for him

the narration downplays everything because it’s from harry’s POV and his self-image is… charitable to call it inaccurate

admittedly he needs to learn to shave consistently and comb his hair but nobody's perfect and the scruff works wonders for the female gaze

a little pale and sleepless but again that's its own kind of raccoon-in-trash-can charm

but more importantly: other characters tell us what’s actually going on right from the first book

Bianca St. Claire — a literal supernatural seductress who does not hand out compliments for free — calls him “pretty” in Storm Front

and this is before they’re enemies

she had absolutely no reason to gas him up

she simply looked at this man and went “yeah. pretty.”

multiple women across the series flirt with him, notice him, or react to him physically

and not just random civilians — we’re talking dangerous, confident, often supernatural women who are not easily impressed

and then there’s his vibe, which honestly might be the strongest evidence:

deep voice

dry, slightly unhinged humor

that whole “hasn’t slept, covered in bruises, will still put himself between you and something horrifying without hesitation” thing

like i’m sorry but that is not “unattractive man” coding. that is “tall, intense, kinda scrunkly feral, completely not intentionally compelling” coding

the only reason this is even a debate is because we are trapped inside harry’s brain while he’s like “i look terrible. I look like a scarecrow that lost a fight with a coat rack”

sir.

respectfully.

Harry spends all of Storm Front convinced that the spell that killed Tommy Tom could only have been cast by a mortal practitioner. Which, yes, wizards do have the lion's share of phenomenal magic power, but also several later books have centered around various vampire courts and the major spells they can pull off. Try telling Thorned Namshiel or Lasciel that they can't do that, see how well it goes for you. Heck, The Archive would be easily capable of it (not that she would), and calling her a mortal practitioner would be a stretch.

I'm at the end of Fool Moon and Harry hasn't mentioned the Accords at all yet.

And something I forgot: Murphy is a terrible cop. She's not beating the ACAB allegations, she's too busy beating her handcuffed suspect! Who is Harry, incidentally, who did literally nothing to provoke it in this book. He's not hiding information from her, she's just wildly leaping to conclusions and going straight to police brutality as a response. Twice so far she's tried to arrest Harry in the middle of active combat situations in which he was the only thing keeping her alive. Get a fucking grip, Karen. Thank fuck both she and Harry grow and change dramatically over the series.

It's kind of neat weirdness, though, in the sense that clearly some of this stuff Jim just hadn't worked out yet, but it's explained in-universe because Harry is a dumb baby wizard who doesn't know jack about squat yet. He's such a big clumsy puppy--he wears his magic out by popping a few light bulbs and blowing up a jukebox. He can't cast evocations near anything he doesn't want Extremely On Fire, including himself, because he's got almost no control so it comes out like an uncapped hydrant. He did most of his apprenticeship under a sketchy dark wizard, then essentially Wizard Summer School with McCoy for a little while to catch up, but it wasn't in Justin's best interests for Harry to have a well-rounded education and getting information out of Ebenezer is like getting blood from a stone. Harry's magic education has gaps that you could drive a semi-trailer through, let alone anything passing for wizard cultural knowledge. Most of the useful things he's learned have come from Bob, which is basically like teaching yourself off of YouTube but with a personalised peanut gallery. Magic politics? Forget it, he's never heard of her.

Homelander: when he made his first appearance as homelander in his like late teens or early twenties vought made him apart of a boy band but it failed really bad so vought swept it under the rug and erased it so bad even homelander doesn’t remember it. When homelander was a kid he’d throw the little bit of furniture he had in his lab room as an act of defiance and the doctors would walk in afterwards to see him curled up in the corner and they’d say “you done?” And he’d say “…yeah” in an embarrassed tone

The deep: he’s the type of dude to set his alarm at 11:11 am and pm just to wake up and make a wish, when he was a kid and his parents would take him to sea world he’d go into the bathrooms and cry because all the dolphins were depressed and they’d tell him they wanted to die

Starlight: as a kid when her school would have a school book fair if she saw a kid that didn’t have enough money to buy anything she’d buy it for them. I feel like starlight was one of those girls that had a room filled with Justin Bieber merch when she was a tween

A-train: when a-train was in elementary school he would race other kids to impress girls and he’d say he was “super fast because i have magic shoes”. A train is the type of dude to let his nieces do makeup on him and not wash it off the whole day

Queen Maeve: Maeve more then likely has Irish heritage and vought had found that out and made her name “queen maeve” and they thought it meant she who rules" and they’d be right but it also means “intoxicate” so they really named her “queen intoxicated”. She had arm wrestles with all of the boys in high school and broke their ego when she’d win

Sister sage: Back when she was in school she was years above the classes she was supposed to be in such as she should’ve been in fifth grade but was in high school because of how smart she was. She was bullied but it didn’t phase her because she knew the same bullies would be asking her to help with homework or studying

Black noir: noir was a great artist in school he always won awards for his art but he parents thought it was “girly” and threw out all his markers/crayons and he gradually lost his artistic skills. He has a little sister and would always fight with her but whenever it got physical he’d always let her win making her think she’s really strong

Firecracker: after she started taking those drugs for homelander she would get really sad and maternal over Jesus she cried once thinking about baby Jesus and Mary. Firecracker acts like she’s a great cook but she isn’t allowed into a kitchen because she would burn water

I know what they tried to do with soldier boy. Making him both a person who cares for his son, has an honor codex and still some good values deep down, while also beeing a toxic jerk. But having contradicting values doesn't mean flip flopping the whole time.

The best way they could have gone is show him protect homelander (like against the speedster) but also talk back to him. Saying things like, he is my son so no body gets to kill him, but he is wrong so I must change him.

His humanity and strong character where he never stays quiet no matter if he is wrong could shine this way.

In the end he is trying to leave with homelander. Trying to convince his kid that this is too far and they can have a new beginning elsewhere. When homelander doesn't want to give his power up, ben treathens to go alone. Resulting in the betrayal.

An easy arc to understand and get behind.

In season 3 ben says how he always wanted a son. Giving him the relationship he always wanted in season 5 while twisting it against his values could work. This is defently more interesting than having a love relationship with storm front, which was never mentioned before and contradicts his previous love.

P1-3 Homelander &Butcher