Pride High

""It isn't easy starting a gay-straight alliance at a school for super-powered youth, but the Out Crowd isn't giving in!""

- series tagline

Pride High is a comic book series written by Tommy Roddy and published by Pride Comics. It follows a gay/straight alliance at a superhero high school. The website also allows for readers to create their own characters on the message boards, and these characters have a chance to appear on the comic (and one of them has even joined the core group of characters).

Within the story, Pride High is the titular gay/straight alliance, and they act as a squad for the school's Inter-Squad Championships (ISC), in which students sharing a unifying interest form a five-person squad and compete with other said squads throughout the year in academics and, more noticeably, physical stadium matches. The prime antagonist squad to Pride High is called the Argonauts, a group of primarily super-strong characters.

Aside from the ISC, there is also a prevailing mystery, as one of the Pride High members dies early on, and the squad investigates what he was doing that may have lead to his death.

Tropes in the official comic issues (Canon)

 * A Mind Is a Terrible Thing To Read: How does Kid Mischief find out he is able to read thoughts containing strong emotion? When he hears people thinking homophobic insults about him. Also stated in Mindsweeper's bio as what happened when he gained his powers.
 * Animorphism: Chip Cheetah, Stallion
 * Anyone Can Die: dies in the events that take place between issues 1 and 2.
 * Armoured Closet Gay: Strongly implied with.
 * Art Shift: Issues 1-3 were drawn by Brian Ponce, but subsequent issues have shuffled artists.
 * Badass Bookworm: Suravi
 * Badass Longcoat: Mindsweeper
 * Badass Normal: Most of Teh H4xx0rz, Iron Crusader, possibly El Sonido and Doctor Alexander
 * Bald Black Leader Guy: Mindsweeper again.
 * Brainy Brunette: Suravi
 * Cast Full of Gay: Due to the audience, most reader characters are gay, or at least bi, which can lead one to assume the school is overrun by gay students.
 * Casting a Shadow: Nightfall
 * Catch Phrase:
 * “Crivvens” – Scotch Bonnet
 * Crazy Prepared: Teh H4xx0rz, Iron Crusader
 * Crossover: Issues 5 and 8 cross over with the Legends. Issue 4 has Flaming Arrow of Heroscribe Comics in a cameo, and he appears in Pride High Freshman Flashback, originally posted on the Heroscribe Comics website.
 * Curb Stomp Battle:
 * Disability Superpower: Suravi is blind but, having light-based powers, she can feel changes in light. Mostly, though, she needs a telepathic facilitator. Limbless also qualifies.
 * Double Standard: Kid Olympus disparages Kid Mischief and Mindsweeper for being "so blatant" because they're holding hands. When Kilauea (formerly Pele) mentions that he holds her hand while in public, he responds with, "That's different."
 * Due to The Dead:
 * The Empath: Kid Mischief and his mentor, Mischief. Cameron Ashton is also an empath, though in his case, this is crossed with Emotion Eater.
 * Expendable Clone: According to the ISC referee. Unison thinks otherwise, and hates to see his clones die. They do get hurt a lot though.
 * Fiery Redhead: Scotch Bonnet
 * Five-Man Band: Any of the ISC squads
 * Pride High
 * The Hero: Kid Mischief
 * The Lancer: Scotch Bonnet
 * The Smart Guy: Chip Cheetah
 * The Big Guy: Unison
 * The Chick: Suravi
 * Argonauts
 * The Hero: Kid Olympus
 * The Lancer: Beowulf
 * The Smart Guy: Oblivious
 * The Big Guy: Smash and Crash
 * Maka Koa (formerly Lili'uokalani)
 * The Hero: Kilauea (formerly Pele)
 * The Lancer: Howle
 * The Smart Guy: Nuku
 * The Big Guy: Kahuna Lapauu
 * The Chick: Nightmarcher
 * Teh H4xx0rz
 * The Hero: Screw
 * The Lancer: Vaporware
 * The Smart Guy: Bouncer
 * The Big Guy: Deadlift
 * The Chick: Kimmick
 * Five-Token Band: Though not intentional (according to Word of God), still can apply.
 * Kid Mischief: Hispanic (Puerto Rican), gay
 * Mindsweeper: Half-black, half-white, gay
 * Suravi: Indian, lesbian, blind
 * Scotch Bonnet: Scottish, bi-curious
 * Chip Cheetah: British
 * Unison: Asian (Chinese—Hong Kong)
 * Kid Olympus: Hapa (half Greek, half Chinese)
 * Kilauea/Pele: Hawaiian
 * Flash Back: Issue 2 does this to tell about a main character's death and the aftermath at the same time.
 * Gravity Master: Gravita
 * Green Thumb: Verdant, one of the faculty members, is capable of controlling plants through manipulating their "life essence".
 * Heteronormative Crusader:
 * Jerk With a Heart of Gold: Kid Olympus
 * Kid Hero - the protagonists are sophomores in high school
 * Leet Lingo: Teh H4xx0rz
 * Light'Em Up: Suravi
 * Make Me Wanna Shout: Howlé from Maka Koa has the power to focus his voice into a sonic blast.
 * Making a Splash: Wave Witch
 * Me's a Crowd: Unison's power is to make duplicates of himself, who are identical to him in every way (including the ability to make more duplicates).
 * Mind Over Matter: Kid Mischief and Mischief are telekinetics
 * One-Scene Wonder: More than one reviewer wanted to see more of Sister Bliss, despite only showing up in the background in a couple panels in issue 1 (though she was shown more prominently in issue 7, as she is a member of the Vixxens).
 * Performance Artist: Subverted with Capp. ("Just because he's a dancer doesn't mean he's gay.")
 * Playing With Fire: Scotch Bonnet
 * Powered Armor: Iron Crusader
 * Schedule Slip: Due to the independent nature of the comics, schedules are rarely kept. Issue 8 was scheduled for July 2008, but was finally released as a preview on the message boards on November 2011. Issue 9 is still scheduled, though.
 * Screams Like a Little Girl: Issue 7--"I heard one of the girls scream." "That was Chip."
 * Shared Universe: Implied with Lucky Legendary and Heroscribe Comics. These could be alternate universe versions, however. This could mean that So Super Duper is in their universe, as well, but it is debatable whether said comic appears in the Heroscribe universe (the indication: a Psyche side-story was included in Heroscibe's Queeroes anthology and was originally posted on its website—the comic itself did not explicitly tie in with the other heroes). As well, some stories in the message boards may also take place in the main universe.
 * Shout-Out: So subtle it's almost a whisper out, but of you look closely at the beach scene in the latest update, you can see that KO is reading Hero, a real life novel about a gay teen superhero. If you've seen the cover before, it's obvious.
 * Sidekick: In the original conception, the kids were supposed to be this to the adult heroes (upon whom the series was to revolve). Kid Mischief was obviously supposed to be Mischief's sidekick.
 * Sins of Our Fathers: The faculty distrusts Cameron Ashton because both of his parents are villains.
 * Sizeshifter: Thunderfoot
 * Something Else Also Rises: After his and Mindsweeper's "mental making out" in issue 1, Kid Mischief tells Scotch Bonnet, "We just need things to... settle down" before they follow her out of the assembly hall.
 * Stockholm Syndrome:
 * Super Breath: Beowulf
 * Super Mode: Powerup
 * Super Speed: Chip Cheetah
 * Super Team: ISC squads, Champions of Atlantis, World Warriors
 * Super-Hero School: The core concept of the series is that these are students at a superhero high school.
 * Tag-Team Twins: Smash and Crash do this during wrestling matches for optimal results.
 * Teens Are Short
 * Transsexual: Masquerade, Stallion, Gravita
 * Trickster Twins: Smash and Crash
 * Water Is Blue
 * Xtreme Kool Letterz: The Vixxens team name. Teh H4xx0rz often talk like this (ie: “pwned” and “stfu”) and their name shows instances of it, as well.
 * Yin-Yang Bomb: Faculty member Lightspot can control light and darkness.

Tropes on the message boards (Fanon)

 * Alternate Universe Fic: Some stories on the message boards are explicitly not canon (and others might be out of canon, as well), the most notable being My Deadly Valentine, Poseidon Preparatory Academy for Successful/Exceptional Youth and The Thirteen Trials of Dionysus Tan.
 * An Ice Person: Still and Red Shadow (who combines this with Playing With Fire).
 * Animorphism: Protean, Dragrant, Animal Boy.
 * Artificial Humans: Aeon Diva.
 * Black Magic: Asmodeus' powers are almost entirely centered around this.
 * Dishing Out Dirt: Antaeus.
 * Elemental Powers: Mystica's magic manifests as these, allowing her to cast spells based on the four classical elements.
 * Five-Bad Band:
 * Seraphim
 * The Big Bad: Sea Embers
 * The Dragon: Phobia
 * The Brute: Zhia and Bind
 * The Dark Chick: Lash
 * Gnosticism: Aeon Diva derives some of her powers from the gnostic Aeons
 * God of Evil: Lilith is presented in these terms for the most part, although she's not really a serious depiction for the most part.
 * Horny Devils: Asmodeus technically counts, being a Lilim.
 * I See Dead People: Split
 * Keet: Itako, also Animal Boy to a slightly lesser degree.
 * Ladette: Aeon Diva
 * Light'Em Up: Aeon Diva, though so far she can only produce normal white light, nothing more.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: Due to the amount of members on the boards, there have been many characters created. Sometimes more than one can count will show up in a Role-Playing thread. Also, a rule stating that each reader could only have two official characters was lifted in late 2011, so things don't look to be changing course anytime soon.
 * Making a Splash: Split (with George in control)
 * Man Child: Asmodeus, though he sometimes can come off as more of a Psychopathic Manchild. Also Itako.
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Slightly subverted with Asmodeus, as while he IS that very demon, he is one of the good guys.
 * Our Demons Are Different: Asmodeus.
 * Playing With Fire: Prideboy, Mystica and Asmodeus (both through spells), Red Shadow (who combines this with An Ice Person), Firesprite, Flaming Arrow, Damian, Jörmungandr and Itako (through the use of his spirit beast Aguni).
 * Powers Via Possession: Split
 * Prehensile Hair: Bristle
 * Red Oni, Blue Oni: Split has this in one person (Red--George, Blue--Amber)
 * Ring of Power: Lifter of the Veil has these, and other magical gems.
 * Shock and Awe: Aeon Diva.
 * Soul Power: Split
 * Split Personality: Split's power manifests as this
 * Transsexual: Split, Speculum