Created by Lighthouse-Raiders on TikTok, S&D Tier follows two villains who have formed an unlikely friendship, and the radically different experiences they have at their respective levels of career criminality. Alex is an S-Tier Villain, a rank reserved for the most dangerous superpowered baddies on the planet, unable to be defeated by even whole teams of heroes. Morgan is in the D-Tier; they have superpowers, but aren't considered much of a threat to the public.
Alex is almost omnipotent and has powers as the plot demands, while also nursing a huge crush on Morgan. Morgan has an almost useless power, but a lot of drive to commit heinous acts against society, which are limited to robbing small businesses and planning elaborate heists. Morgan is Oblivious to Love, and Alex is willing to do a lot of things they consider needlessly intricate just to make Morgan happy.
This series provides examples of:
- Alien Invasion: An arc involves one. Alex and Morgan initially use it as an opportunity for looting, but eventually get asked by Morgan's sister to help rescue her husband Dave, then by Chad to stop the aliens.
- An Arm and a Leg: Chad has two robot arms, and tends to have them ripped off by Alex and occasionally Morgan a lot. And he only has robot arms because had already Alex ripped off his flesh ones.
- Affably Evil:
- When they're off the clock, Alex is a fairly chill and likable individual.
- Morgan's basically just a friendly neighbor who happens to have an affinity for planning heists.
- Ambiguous Gender: Neither Alex nor Morgan have stated genders, and their names are both gender-neutral; the creator has specifically stated that "Alex" isn't short for anything.
- Anachronic Order: The episodes are ordered by release date, not chronologically in the storyline. The creator has stated the last chronological episode (prior to the child Ducky Dodgers episodes) has already been released, but will not say which episode that is.
- Benevolent Boss: Morgan gets on well with their minions, at one point requesting Alex's help with a heist because the minion they tasked with helping them requested the day off to go to his daughter's piano recital.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: Alex regularly makes and takes phone calls in the middle of battles.
- Character Check: After dozens of episodes of Alex not seeming particularly evil, we get a brief arc where they turn face, ditch Morgan and marry a hero... and then rip her heart out at the altar. Because Affably Evil is still evil.
- Captain Ersatz: All over the place, as the series lovingly pokes fun at different superheroes. The main ones include...
- The Fairness Association, of which Chad is a member.
- The Chastisers, of which Morgan's brother in law Dave Dodgers/Leader USA is a member.
- The Conundrum Corporation, a group of teenage mystery solvers with a SUV and a talking cat.
- Ohio James, a sociology professor who ethically searches for artifacts and occasionally helps Morgan on heists.
- Complexity Addiction: Morgan delights in spending months or even years planning elaborate heists, even though their BFF can easily walk in, kill whoever's in the way, take the thing, and leave in less than five minutes. In fact, they get genuinely irritated when Alex keeps offering to do this, saying it's "boring."
- Dark and Troubled Past: Completely averted for Alex, who had a great childhood with loving parents, and was popular in school for being a superhero.
- Death Is Cheap: To an extent, there
- Death Trap: Discussed. Morgan has built quite a few, but they never kill anyone. In fact, they're surprised to find out Alex thinks a death trap should be fatal; they simply use them as diversions to buy time to escape.
- Doting Parent: Alex's father keeps a scrapbook of all their accomplishments, and they're still on good enough terms that Alex goes home for Christmas (in contrast to Morgan, who avoids their family like the plague).
- Embarrassing Ringtone: Alex's ringtone for Morgan is "Jenny" by Studio Killers. It's a great song, but the lyrics of the chorus are, "I wanna ruin our friendship. We should be lovers instead," which betrays Alex's true feelings towards Morgan pretty quickly. The only person around to hear it is Chad, who, despite being quite dumb, immediately realizes what it means.Chad: [obviously amused] That's an... interesting ringtone you've got for my sidekick.
- Enemy Mine: Chad and Alex reluctantly team up to find Morgan after they briefly go missing.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Alex is in love with Morgan, and seems to love their parents.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Alex dislikes the idea of killing civilians. They say it's because it's beneath them, but Morgan suspects otherwise.
- Played for Laughs, but they seem almost disconcerted to find out Morgan is a landlord.
- Face–Heel Turn: As a teenager, Alex was a superhero, before they became a bad guy for reasons unknown. They now regard it as an embarrassing high school phase everyone goes through.
- Fake Relationship: The "Christmas with the Parents" arc starts with Alex having told their parents they and Morgan were dating so Alex's mother wouldn't introduce them to some hot shot lawyer or similar.Morgan:[holding in laughter] Wait, you need my help to keep your life from becoming a Hallmark movie?
- Featureless Protagonist: While the series' creator portrays all the characters onscreen, they've stated that all the characters can look however the viewer imagines them to look and be of any race. Alex and Morgan also don't have canon genders.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Morgan should, by most standards, be an E-tier villain, since even a powerless cop can usually handle them with very little trouble. So what bumped them up to the D-tier? They're a landlord.
- Forced Transformation: Alex got drunk after watching Beauty and the Beast and turned several people into furniture in Morgan's apartment, before Morgan made them change them back. Notable exception is Morgan's toaster, who was turned into a toaster by a glamrock witch in the 80s and got caught in the wave of reversals.
- Friendly Enemy: Morgan considers Barnaby their best friend and archnemesis, and Barnaby lives in the apartment across the hall from Morgan.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: During a "Freaky Friday" Flip, Alex demonstrate a pretty effective method to use Morgan's power. They became a A tier villain
- Heel–Face Turn: Subverted. Alex declares they're bored with villainy and joins the good guys, even marrying a superheroine, but only part of a ridiculously cruel revenge scheme.
- Hero Killer: Alex has killed many, many superheroes in their time.
- Hidden Depths: Chad is a idiot who won't believe Morgan genuinely wants to be a villain, but he also reads to kids at the library, donates most of his paycheck to charity, and has a pet senior dog named Pebbly, who has three legs, one eye, is partially deaf, has a bad case of arthritis in her hips, is developing a cataract, was recently stung by a bee, and wagged her tail so hard she broke it.
- Literal Metaphor: Alex kills the superheroine who tried to redeem them with love by physically ripping her heart out of her chest.
- Love Redeems: An offscreen superheroine asks Alex out with the express hope of invoking this. It ends very badly for her.
- Minimalist Cast: Due to its nature as a one-person TikTok series, most episodes feature only Alex and Morgan—and sometimes only one of them. That cast has recently expanded to include Chad, Barnaby and Ohio James, but most of the time, other characters are only addressed offscreen.
- Mundane Utility: Alex's power is literally whatever power they want, whenever they want. They use it to clean Morgan's apartment, sneak food into movies, and put Morgan to sleep when they stay up way too long.
- Nigh-Invulnerability: If Alex can be killed, even they don't seem to know how. They report having survived being stabbed in their heart, having their brain removed, and having had their molecules torn apart.
- Nobody's That Dumb: Even Chad, a massive dumbass, understand the meaning of Alex's ringtone for Morgan which is "Jenny" by Studio Killers. It's a great song, but the lyrics of the chorus are, "I wanna ruin our friendship. We should be lovers instead"
- Noodle Incident: Alex questions why they're not allowed to be the getaway driver for Morgan's heists anymore. Morgan gives them a glare and says "You know why."
- Not Brainwashed: Chad is absolutely convinced Morgan is only committing crimes because they have been mind-controlled into being Alex's sidekick for some nefarious purpose. They haven't. In a twist, neither Alex nor Morgan makes any effort to pretend this is the case, and both try to disabuse him of the notion multiple times, but he refuses to believe it. Chad is just that dumb.
- Oblivious to Love: Morgan doesn't notice Alex's rather obvious feelings for them.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The first time we see Alex genuinely upset is when Morgan is mad at them. The next is when they try to summon Morgan and can't.
- Pet the Dog: Despite being a colossal douchebag who seems to have no regard for their sibling's feelings, Chad is concerned when they go missing and even works with Alex to try and find them, showing he does at least have a basic level of concern for their welfare. Chad also have a dog he care a lot about.
- Punch-Clock Hero: Chad, Morgan's younger brother, is a superhero and a condescending, self-involved dickwad.
- Real Name as an Alias: Chad Chester is a super-secret identity for the beloved superhero... The Chadster.
- Selective Obliviousness: Chad just cannot get it through his head that Morgan isn't being mind-controlled or anything; they really do want to be a supervillain, and absolutely do not want to be his sidekick.
- Shipper on Deck: Alex's parents adore Morgan and consider them to be part of the family, and want Alex to make it official by marrying them.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Alex repeatedly points out they can help Morgan complete all their schemes in thirty seconds flat without even breaking a sweat. Morgan never takes them up on the offer.
- Supervillain Lair: Alex has one in Antarctica. It has fibre high speed internet and a death ray.
- Til Murder Do Us Part: Alex marries a superheroine just to twist the knife in further when they murder her in front of her friends and family.
- The Unfavorite: Morgan is very clearly their parents' least favorite child, though whether that's due to their disappointing powers or their rejection of their parents' plans for them in favor of villainy is unclear.
- Villainous Friendship: Alex and Morgan are the best of friends and even end up living together.
- Villain Protagonist: Being supervillains, neither Alex nor Morgan are what you'd call good people. Morgan isn't a mass murderer like Alex, but they have no problem with it, either.
- Weak, but Skilled: Thanks to having a truly, staggeringly lame power, Morgan's gotten very good at lockpicking, recon, and the like to make their schemes work.
- What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Morgan's power is that they can teleport people... once a month. And they can only teleport people to them, not anywhere they decide. Oh, and their clothes don't come with them.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Morgan never takes the easy way out, preferring elaborate heists that take months of prep work and Death Traps that never actually kill anyone—by design! Justified when they explain that things being easy takes all the fun out of it for them.
