Spakel "Sparkle" Sweete's Links
Kel the cat is her best friend, and has been for... gosh, almost as long as she can remember. She wonders, sometimes, if she's the reason he got into podcasting. If his research doubles as a way to find some scrap of information, anything, that would help her stay safe this week.
She knows better than to ask. So they usually go bowling. Argue about whether or not capes are cool. Break arcade machines from overuse. That sort of thing.
Sparkle has been Kel's best friend for about twenty-two years now, if his memories check out. Excluding that one time in third grade where he wanted to kill her for stealing his fruit-shaped erasers, but that's playground drama for you.
Ever since the Death Ray crashed outside town, he's been worried sick about her - and her social life. Spakel may as well be a leper, given the frequency her family is targeted by superheroes and villains, so he tries not to treat her weird. Tries to be normal.
It's a lot of pressure, being the fun one.
Sparkle's friendship with Un the robot is... complicated. On one hand, he saved her life when she was just a little girl. On the other hand, he did break her trust and kidnap her for ransom purposes about a decade later. On the other other hand, when that fell through he let her go willingly, and then promptly beat up the next villain that kidnapped her. (She'd already escaped by that point. But y'know. Thought that counts.)
Seriously. He is so fucking weird. But she's come to accept that of all Didera's villains, he's one of the least dangerous. They hang out sometimes, mostly at his Evil Lair when there's more of a bounty on her head than usual.
Un rescued Sparkle from his creator's original world domination attempt. It's part of the reason he's hailed as a hero, but in his eyes "don't kill kids" is a perfectly sensible standard for a villain to have.
He's kidnapped her countless time since - the first attempt backfiring when he realised her father (the city's Mayor) does not prioritize her life, and thus can't be blackmailed in that fashion. They got to know each other quite a bit during that awkward evening, and subsequent "kidnappings" are purely to get her out of other villains' line of sight. The emotional equivalent of faking a phone call to get a friend out of a bad date.