#this thing is so fucking unhinged

[adhd-winterfalcon]

imagine freshman congressman james ‘bucky’ barnes is accused of being homophobic and/or racist and he’s just like. i am married to a black man. and everyone is like “what?? who????” and he’s like “:) captain america”

[inkskinned]

i'm still trying to piece together the truth of it. when you left, you said: feel free to spin this narrative however you want. i have no idea if you were being cruel or if you just genuinely don't remember what you've done to me.

it's hard because i'd done so much of the work for you. i had seen the parts that flaked off, the rust underneath. i started separating you into two people - the one i loved, and the one who hurt me. i had this fantasy version of you - my partner - and then i had this stranger, a third person who would show up randomly to shatter me. i am deliriously glad i'm no longer with "the stranger". i miss the gentle (unreal?) "other" you terribly.

at first, i was so strict about my boundaries. i remember telling you to get the fuck out of my house if you were going to talk to me like that. by the end: i would justify your behavior for you, accepting even your mistreatment as "my fault" in the grand scheme. i look back on the person i was before you - smart, independent, confident - and i feel a strange sense of detachment. i don't even recognize me.

even in one of our last conversations, you said: if you want a partner that always talks warmly to you, find someone else. there was a time that a comment like that would have made me leave. and instead, somehow, i just placidly accepted that kind of thing. you were literally telling me that i wasn't allowed to have a reaction to your cruelty - and i just took it, because you'd so fully turned things around on me.

when people are faced with irrationality, a rational brain tries to make sense of it. this is the trap. they're lovely in the morning, gentle and blue-eyed and sweet. like nothing even happened, they breeze around the house and kiss you on the mouth. but at night; who is that? they snap almost randomly; flying into an impotent rage about just-about-anything. it just doesn't make sense. so the problem must be me, and my brain, and how i think.

the traumatized brain just wants peace. so maybe i'm misremembering. maybe you were just having a bad day. maybe it's actually me.

you eventually would fully turn on me and start implying that i am the bad actor in our relationship. that's what happens, right? that's literally in the playbook. you went to therapy for all of a month, told her a half-truth, co-opted therapyspeak. you figured out how to reframe your actions as "seeking peace." any time i stood my ground, i was "gaslighting." when i asked you to be more gentle, you said i was "tone policing." you said, randomly, i had emotionally manipulated you - i still have no idea what that's even specifically referring to. maybe my consistent requests for calmness and empathy?

and while i literally know better, and i'm sitting here, trained by you, thinking: wait, fuck. was i actually the person you made me out to be?

and the thing that scares me is that i literally do not know if you ever actually saw what you were doing to me. when you'd tell me how you remember arguments, you'd always summarize them in a way where you come off as gentle and easy: "i was trying to set an important boundary." what had actually happened was 15 minutes of you shouting at me i know you did something shady, just admit it already. eventually you'd say my reaction to your shouting (when i finally reacted, which usually happened around hour three) was inevitably "disappointing" and "another way i'm silencing your feelings."

how many times did i ask you - beg you - to just take accountability? looking back, i don't think i ever heard you say: you're right. the way i talked to you was wrong of me.

i am trying to tie together the two people into a full version of you in my head. yes, you made my coffee and made me laugh and spent hours on the phone with me. and yes - you would scream at me until i had to run away and hide behind something.

i wish i did have a narrative i could pull out and shape to my whim. i wish i did have some semblance of reality. instead i just stand here, strange and vibrating, wondering: what the fuck just happened?

[clarionglass]

here we go :) part one of three, updates to be released weekly!

---

sam says 4 (game master cinematic universe, part 3)

Ruby was at her mum's for a family dinner she couldn't miss on pain of death, apparently, and the Doctor was many things, but a family dinner kind of guy wasn't one of them—particularly when Carla had already slapped him once in the short time he'd known her. He thought he'd broken his streak of bad luck with mums, but… well, seemingly not. So he was companionless for a few hours, and while he could wait for her to get back, maybe catch up on his reading—what was the point of waiting when you had a time machine? 

He ran his hands over the TARDIS console, marvelling at her clean lines and metallic flourishes, the way that even now she felt brand new but familiar, and paused. He��d just pop off for a quick adventure, nothing too dangerous, but—where to go?

He could scan for a distress call nearby, and pitch in to help. He could drop in on Donna and Shaun and Rose, beautiful Rose, and see how they were all doing. Or he could just hit the randomiser button, and jump in feet first wherever he ended up.

He remembered a conversation from a long time ago, when he wore a different face, and his gorgeous TARDIS wore a face too, for the first and only time.

“You didn't always take me where I wanted to go.”

“No, but I always took you where you needed to go.”

He grinned. Who could resist an offer like that? He pressed the button and whooped as the time rotor spun into action, ready to see where the universe would take him.

---

Apparently, he was needed pretty close to where he already was. Earth, 2024. Huh. Same planet, same time—within a few months of where he’d left Ruby, even. The main thing that had changed was the location: he was now in the good old US of A. California, to be more specific, and Los Angeles to be more specific still. And to really narrow it down, the Doctor discovered as he poked his head out of the TARDIS doors, he was in… a broom closet. Not bad, as a parking spot—a bit squeezy, but out of the way. And as he poked his head out of that door, he could finally see he was in the backstage corridors of a studio of some kind. Film or TV, if he was to hazard a guess, it was a different vibe from Abbey Road.

With a shrug, he decided to go exploring.

It couldn’t have been more than a minute before a young woman wearing the full-black outfit, headset, and permanently stressed expression of a production assistant came running up to him.

“Are you the fill-in Sam organised?” she asked breathlessly, and honestly, seeing the look on her face, the Doctor didn’t have the heart(s) to tell her no. And really, what was the Doctor, if not a professional fill-in? This, this was why he had a randomiser button on the control panel, because whatever he was about to get himself into was going to be fun.

“Sure!”

“Oh, thank god,” sighed the production assistant, relief dawning across her face. “When Ally tested positive this morning, I thought we were sunk for the record, because we called around and we couldn’t get a hold of anyone. But then Sam said he could get someone in, and, you know, here you are, and just in time, so—ah, yeah, if you could follow me this way?”

Smiling all the way, the Doctor followed his guide through to hair and makeup, looking around as they went. The studio seemed to belong to a company called Dropout, according to the branding scattered around, and things seemed, at least on the surface, to be… well. Fine. He couldn't tell why he'd been brought here yet, which meant that when he found the reason, it was going to be particularly tangled. He couldn't wait! 

And then he looked back at his guide, still engulfed in a miasma of anxiety, and realised he'd been too busy looking for clues to notice the person right in front of him. 

“Hey, it's cool, you've found me,” he started with a gentle smile. “You can relax. Hi, I'm the Doctor. What's your name?”

“Oh!” she said, startled. “The Doctor, yeah, of course. Um, hi, I'm Kaylin. Look, sorry, it's just that I've been so busy this morning, I'm so distracted… Shit, and I would've completely forgotten to get your details too. There's paperwork to fill in, but you can do that later. Um, just for now, though, can I get your pronouns?”

The Doctor thought for a moment. “He/him, for now.”

Kaylin nodded, making a note on her phone. “Okay, cool! And do you have any socials?”

“Not me, babes,” he replied. “I'm hardly sitting down long enough to be able to update, you know?”

“On a day like this, I know exactly what you mean,” she said. “That's okay, Lou didn't have socials either for the longest time. Right, so if you go through there, the team will get you sorted, and once you're done, someone will take you up to the greenroom. All good?”

“All great,” the Doctor replied. Kaylin flashed him a quick, relieved smile, then hurried off.

Hair and makeup was a fairly quick process, the sound mixer fitted him with a microphone, and before too long, Kaylin was back to take him upstairs. 

“This is the greenroom,” she said, pushing the door open. “The rest of the cast for the episode are already here—they’re great guys, and they’ve both been on the show a lot, so they’ll be able to help if you’ve got questions. And if you need anything else, just come find me or any of the other PAs, okay?”

The Doctor nodded, beamed at Kaylin, and walked in.

---

The greenroom was small but comfortable, and its occupants, two men around the same age as the Doctor appeared, looked up as he entered.

“Oh, you’re new,” the taller of the pair said, clearly giving him the once-over.

The other sighed with a mixture of fondness and exasperation, just as clearly used to his friend’s antics.

“Hey, I’m Brennan,” he said, levering himself up to standing from his perch on a chair arm, and holding out a hand. “That’s Grant.”

The Doctor took it warmly. “The Doctor. Just passing through, and happy to help.”

Grant’s eyebrows quirked. “Doctor… something?” he prompted.

“Or is it just ‘the Doctor’?” Brennan asked.

“Just ‘the Doctor’,” the Time Lord confirmed cheerfully. “You’ll get used to it, everyone does.”

Grant didn’t look convinced, but—

“Copy that,” Brennan shrugged, and settled back on the arm of the chair, returning his gaze to the door.

Grant, in turn, looked at the Doctor and rolled his eyes in a clear expression of ‘no, I don’t know why he’s like this, either’.

“Okay,” the Doctor said after a moment of watching the watching. “I wasn’t going to ask, but now I think I have to. What’s up with the door?”

Brennan huffed a laugh. “Well, the last time there was one of those up—” he pointed to the Out of Order sign stuck to the bathroom door, “—we got locked in here for the game.”

“He’s paranoid,” Grant interjected.

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Brennan retorted. “Or just cautious. Because Sam’s been acting weird lately, and we’re coming up to the last few records of the season, so he’s probably planning something way out of the box for the finale. And the original cast was you, me and Beardsley, so…”

He shrugged one shoulder meaningfully, and Grant nodded, conceding both the point and the potential for chaos.

“So if Sam comes in to give us the briefing, rather than waiting til we’re on set,” Brennan continued, “or there’s anything else weird going on, I’m gonna know about it right from the beginning.”

He turned to the Doctor. “The only reason I'm not quizzing you is because I know for a fact Beardsley was genuinely scheduled for this, so you can't be a plant by the production team. No offence.”

“None taken,” the Doctor smiled. “That sort of thing happen often, does it?”

Grant and Brennan exchanged a look. 

“More than you'd think,” Grant answered with a grimace. 

“Alright,” the Doctor said slowly, then brightened. “So what is it we're actually doing?”

Grant gave him a disbelieving glance. “You don't know—?”

“Very last minute fill-in,” the Doctor said breezily. “But don't worry, I'm a quick study.”

“Well, you're not that much worse off than the rest of us,” Brennan said encouragingly. “You know about Game Changer, obviously, if you know Sam, and we only find out the rules of the game once we get on set. Hopefully,” he added, with a dark look back at the Out of Order sign. 

The Doctor nodded. No, he didn't know Sam, and he didn't know Game Changer, but he could work out the situation from context clues. This was a game show. And with the Toymaker banished, and Satellite Five not coming into existence for another 198000 years, give or take, he found himself smiling. Maybe third time would be the charm. 

“Mmm, hopefully they aren't going to throw you in the deep end,” Grant said. “Because Brennan might seem lovely now, but as soon as we get out there, he's a whore for points. He'll stab you in the back and won't even blink.”

Brennan barked with laughter. “Yeah, and you wouldn't?”

“Excuse you, I'm always a goddamn delight,” Grant replied, the very picture of injured dignity. 

“Oh, absolutely!” agreed a new voice. The Doctor turned to the now-open door to see a bearded man in a pinstriped suit smiling broadly. “That's why we keep inviting you back!”

Grant bowed sarcastically. “Why, thank you, Sam. Good to know I'm appreciated by someone here.”

“Always,” Sam replied, gently but firmly ending that particular path of the conversation. He scanned the room, and his eyes lit up when they landed on the Doctor. 

“Ah, you must be the Doctor!” he said with obvious delight, walking over with his hand outstretched. “I'm Sam—thanks for filling in for us, you've made sure we're going to have a good show. Seriously, it's a pleasure to have you here.”

“Aw, cheers!” the Doctor smiled, shaking the offered hand. “Glad I could help out, I'm really looking forward to this!”

“Well, great!” Sam exclaimed, then took a step back, regarding all three players in turn. “Now, folks, I'm just letting you know that we're just about ready to start the record, so if you can start heading down, that'd be great.”

Grant and Brennan nodded—Brennan, the Doctor noticed, with relief. 

“See you down there,” Sam said, smiling. “Have a great show, and—”

His eyes caught on the Doctor's for a second, twinkling. 

“Good luck.”

---

Backstage, the Doctor, Brennan and Grant were marshalled into podium order and given a final briefing from the crew. And then, with a thumbs-up from Kaylin, that was it.

Showtime.

“Get ready for a Game Changer!” came Sam's voice from onstage. “Tonight’s guests: he can shoot off a monologue with laser accuracy; it’s Brennan Lee Mulligan!”

Brennan, his back to the camera as the curtains opened, spun on his heel and, with a stone-cold expression, pointed finger guns straight down the barrel, before letting the facade crack open. “Hi!” he exclaimed, and walked over to the leftmost podium.

“It’s his first appearance, but he’s already on fire; it’s the Doctor!”

The Doctor leant against the archway to the stage and flashed a broad smile towards the camera, then in a few skipping steps, had bounded over to the next free podium. What the hell, why not make an entrance?

“And even in the toughest of mazes, you’ll always be able to find him; it’s Grant O’Brien!”

Grant dipped his lanky frame into an approximation of a curtsey, spreading his arms wide, then sauntered over to the closest podium with a grin.

“And your host, me!” Sam announced, a ring of manic white showing around his irises as he beamed down the barrel of the camera. “I’ve been here the whole time!”

“This,” he continued, pushing his microphone shut and stowing it in his jacket pocket, “is Game Changer, the only game show where the game changes every show. I am your host, Sam Reich!” 

As he said his name, he looked at his hands, front and back, as if he was pleasantly surprised to be himself, then gestured towards the three podiums.

“I am joined today by these three lovely contestants! Now, you understand how the game works.”

“Of course not,” Grant started. “You know we don't.”

“We can't, Sam, that's the whole point of the theatre you've set up here,” Brennan said over him. 

“Not yet,” was all the Doctor said, anticipation starting to drum a tattoo of excitement against the inside of his ribcage. 

“That’s right!” Sam said brightly, shooting finger guns at the camera. “Our players have no idea what game it is they’re about to play. The only way to learn is by playing. The only way to win is by learning, and the only way to begin is by beginning! So without further ado, let’s begin by giving each of our players fifty points.”

The Doctor, biding his time, watched the reactions of his fellow contestants. Grant looked at the front of his podium, checking the point total, and nodding approvingly when he saw that yes, it was sitting at a round fifty. Brennan, on the other hand, was starting to frown.

“Players, Sam says: touch your nose,” Sam began, and Brennan sighed the sigh of someone who wasn’t happy to be proved right.

“Oh, no,” he groaned. “Oh, you son of a bitch. Wasn’t one this season enough?”

He touched his nose anyway, as did the others, and Sam smiled encouragingly. “Sam says: touch your ear.”

When they all did, Sam nodded. “Touch your other ear.”

Everybody held still, fingers on the ears they had originally touched.

Sam beamed. “Easy, players, right?”

“You say that now,” Brennan said darkly. “Which makes it worse, because all you're doing is setting us up for failure.”

Sam gasped, pretending offence. “Would I do that?”

“Yes,” Brennan and Grant replied in unison, which drew a grin from the Doctor and set Sam off chuckling.

“And I'm not having it,” Brennan continued, leaning his elbows against his podium and pointing at Sam with the hand not touching his ear. “You better watch yourself, because I know how this game works, and you're not going to get one over on me.”

“Strong words, Brennan!” Sam said, clearly delighted by this response. “Okay, then, let's start making things a bit more interesting!”

The game continued as per Sam Says usual, some rounds done as a group and some individual. Points were won, sure, but lost slightly more frequently, and even the Doctor found he was having to concentrate to avoid getting caught in the host's traps. 

It was fun. Genuinely, it was like playing a game with friends, and the Doctor felt himself leaning into it. There wasn't any sign of danger—maybe there wasn't a mystery to solve at all, and the TARDIS just decided he needed a total break. 

Well, probably not. But the way things were going, he was able to let himself hope. 

“Alright, players,” Sam said a good few rounds in, just as pleasantly as he would start any other question, and the screen behind him dinged as a new prompt popped up. “Survive the death beam.”

For a second, everything was frozen perfectly still. 

And then came the crash, the explosive noise of heavy machinery moving relentlessly through a drywall set.

The Doctor was already moving. “Everyone down!”

“Duck!” Brennan yelled at the same time.

The two of them hit the ground within milliseconds of each other, but Grant was still paralysed in the face of the giant, science-fiction type laser cannon that had just ploughed through the wall. 

It whined ominously, screaming its way to fever pitch. And then a sharp pain in Grant’s ankle made him stagger, pitching forwards onto the carpet behind the podiums as the Doctor rolled away to avoid getting pinned.

“Sorry, babes,” the Doctor whispered. “But it was either kick you to get you down, or—”

A hideous metallic screech ripped through the air, and all three of them could feel the crackle of ozone as a beam of energy swept across what had, moments ago, been neck height.

“…Or that,” the Doctor finished with a grimace.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Grant breathed, suddenly very conscious of every inch of his 6’9 frame. “Thanks.”

“Well done, players!” Sam exclaimed delightedly from above them. “But… sorry, I didn’t say ‘Sam says’, so that’s a point off for everyone.”

“What the fuck!” Brennan snapped.

“Are you actually insane?” Grant demanded at the same time, his voice overlapping with Brennan’s.

In response, Sam just wheezed with laughter. “You can come back to your podiums,” he said, cheerfully ignoring them.

Nobody moved.

“Very good!” he acknowledged, and even without seeing his face, the grin was obvious in his voice. “Okay, Sam says: come back to your podiums.”

Although the words were innocuous, and his tone was just as light and breezy as usual, there was nevertheless an edge hiding just underneath the surface. And while the death beam loomed large in the minds of all three players, it was impossible to consider disobedience as an option.

Slowly, they stood, returning to their places. Now they had the time to look at it properly, the death beam was even more sinister, and Brennan and Grant both kept flicking nervous glances its way, ready to move if it looked like it was charging up again.

The Doctor, however, was focused purely on the man standing in front of them. Unbothered, Sam met his gaze like a challenge, a mischievous smile playing about his lips.

“Oh, you’ll love this one,” he said, and the screen changed. “Sam says, starting with Grant: say my name.”

Grant frowned in confusion, but answered quickly nonetheless. “Sam Reich?”

The man himself shrugged tolerantly, moving on. “Brennan?”

Brennan just stared at him coolly. “Do you take me for a fool?”

“Well caught, Brennan!” Sam said happily. “Sam says: say my name.”

“Sam,” Brennan replied, suspicion clear in his voice. “Samuel Dalton Reich.”

He nodded, still with a hint of indifference. “And lastly, Doctor.” His smile broadened. “Sam says: say my name.”

It was easy. Too easy. And as the Doctor looked into the eyes of the man calling himself Sam Reich, he felt his hearts stutter in recognition, because something had changed. He wasn’t hiding himself anymore, and while the face was different yet again, the Doctor would know the shape of that soul anywhere. It was impossible. It was inevitable.

“You can’t be,” he breathed. 

Sam smirked, leaning in across his podium. “Oh, but Doctor… I’ve been here the whole time,” he stage-whispered with a wink.

“He said you lost,” the Doctor said, shaking his head, looking wrong-footed for the first time that Brennan and Grant could recall. “You lost, and he trapped you.”

The other two watched, uncomprehending, but Sam just smiled, drumming his fingers against the podium with an audible beat, fast but distinct. Four taps, four taps, four taps. “I’m waiting.”

The Doctor took a slow, deep breath. Set his jaw. 

“Master.”

---

missed an installment of the game master cinematic universe?

original idea by @ace-whovian-neuroscientist: x

art by @northernfireart concept: x scissor sisters sketch: x sam and his doppelganger: x

writing by me (!) part one (escape the greenroom): x part two (deja vu): x part three (sam says 4): you are here!

[benevolenterrancy]

I've finally started Thousand Autumns! I've barely cracked the cover but my first impression is that Yu Shengyan is hilarious and I love that he's just had this nonsense dumped on his lap by his absentee shizun

(obviously please don't tag spoilers I am literally just starting this series and am going in as a blank slate)

[starry-bi-sky]

a half-ghost--? no- no wait, that's a changeling. that's even worse.

so i'd like to preface this by saying this stems from me going entirely off the rails thinking about tales of the passerine-- which is frankly quite on brand for me to think of one au, and then develop it so far left ways that it makes another au entirely.

bUT. Context! Danny's ancestors sometime before they immigrated to America had a fae marry into the family. This had its Side Effects. Naturally. The Fentonnightengale responsible for this charmed a fae thanks to their swagless nature and awkward demeanor, so instead of getting eaten the fae thought it was cute instead. The fae marrying into the family had an affinity for music, but that kinda repressed itself by accident -- blame the salem witch trials.

By the time Danny is born, the fae blood has become so latent that it really doesn't show up anymore other than the Fentons Eccentricity and obsession with the supernatural (a latent desire to return home to the fae realm - aka infinite realms). There's an unnatural charm surrounding the fenton that really only creeps almost every human within a visual radius, and Danny is no exception.

hoWEVEr. the accident that turned danny into a halfa in one timeline did no such thing in this one -- it just reactivated his latent fae blood, and reactivated it with a fervor. Effectively turning Danny from a human into a changeling.

Danny just thinks at first that he's a half-ghost -- only to realize later on from Clockwork that he's not one at all. He's very much fae -- which is a wild discovery for Danny to make. It also means his rogues are quite a bit more intimidated by him. Fae are above ghosts in the Infinite Realm Creature Hierarchy, no matter how powerful they are. A fae can still Steal the name of a ghost, so Danny's rogues are rather skittish/unsure around Danny until they realize he doesn't know he's a changeling -- after that, many of them vow to try and keep it secret amongst themselves.

Danny's 'ghost' form is rather birdlike, and in human form his appearance warps to match his comfortability. When he's alone with his friends he starts taking on unnatural features. -- his blue-green eyes brighten and his pupils elongate, his teeth sharpen, and his ears grow longer and animal-like. His hair softens to be more feathery, his nails sharpen. In general he takes on more 'bird-ish' features. At school, around his parents, and when he's stressed, tense, or scared, he looks completely human -- an instinctual survival mechanism.

As a ghost, he has large, pretty wings that gradient from black to dark purple-blue, with a shimmer across the feathers that resembles the aurora borealis. His limbs elongate, his legs becoming bird-like and his talons grow on both his feet and nails. His ears vaguely resemble a rabbit's, although they don't flop down like one. All his teeth sharpen. Razor sharp chompers, capable of biting through bone. His eyes take on a greenish-hue, but otherwise remain the same color, albeit his sclera becomes blue-ish and his pupils become diamond-shaped and white. Rings of seafoam blue circle around his iris, creating a reflective sheen. He makes chirping, creaking noises, and when he speaks there's a faint overlap that is very enchanting.

Overall he's rather beautiful in a terrifyingly inhuman way, its hard to take your eyes off him. He has a lot of feathers. He's very drawn to singing and music in general, and gets into music sometime after his accident. He likes flutes/ocarinas/woodwinds the most, followed shortly after by strings, and then piano. He also slowly loses the ability to lie -- which is really annoying and also terrifying until he learns how to reword himself and become a better wordsmith.

SInce this stemmed from an older brother dpdc au, its gonna stay an older brother dpdc au alsfh. i'll just get to the dpxdc part in another post since i wanted to get this off my chest first

[halfhumanhalfasleep]

GODDAMNIT THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE SKETCH LAYER

(extra bonus points if you can guess the inspiration for this one)

[starcurtain]

Alhaitham, the moment his roommate leaves town: Ditches his house, hangs out in shady back alleys at the port, joins the black market to make illegal purchases, picks fights with random Eremites in the cafes, brawls with the chief of police, raids a forbidden temple, overthrows the government--

Call that "Kavehless Behavior."

[lgbtlunaverse]

I feel like too often people frame Nie Mingjue's issues as ignorance borne from safety. Like, they think that because of his privilege as a sect leader he doesn't know what it's like to be in danger and forced to make hard choices to survive. And I disagree. Strongly.

First of all, Nie Mingjue is very familiar with death not only from war but from. You know. Actively dying since the age of fourteen. Let us not forget Nie Mingjue is dead! Super dead! And maybe he didn't die the exact way he expected to but he did, absolutely, know he was going to die. To act like Nie Mingjue is unfamiliar with the scenario of "do something you find morally reprehensible or die" is to ignore that he has been living that exact scenario and chose death.

Nie Mingjue knows death is a risk for someone like Jin guangyao, in fact he explicitly acknowledges it even in his worst moments like the stairs in chapter 49. Had his issue been ignorance, then he would've responded to Jin Guangyao saying that he's in danger and has to sacrifice others for his own safety with "No you aren't you'll be fine." But he doesn't. He accepts the fact that jgy is in danger with no qualms and says: then you should die.

That's not him betraying his values, those are his values. He is, essentially, pro-suicide. Jgy is like hey I have a moral dilemma what should I do and nmj straight up goes "Kill yourself" and earlier that same chapter when he was faced with a moral dilemma he went "I'm gonna kill myself." He believes the solution to moral dilemmas is suicide! He is extremely consistent about this! When it's pointed out to him that it would have been dangerous for Wen Qing to oppose Wen Ruohan it doesn't phase him because he thinks putting yourself at risk to do the right thing is the only moral choice. The idea that he can only hold this belief because he is himself somehow not in danger, again, requires you to ignore that he is dying the whole time. And it doesn't deter him. He is the idea of self-sacrifice as a moral good taken to its absolute logical extreme. Someone who is ready to die and demands the same from everyone else.

It makes him a very fun case study for fandom, because a lot of fandom spaces also tend to revere self-sacrifice as the ultimate good, and yet we get very uncomfortable when someone starts demanding it of characters we love. Like woah, hold on, that's a bit too far isn't it? Only we the audience get to do that!

[alaritheaurora]

Petition to add Branzy to the Realm. He'd go so hard. He'd go crazy. He'd spend three days straight creating a super machine that maxed out every skill at once and also unlock the nirvana flight (despite it being disabled) and then while he's walking away from it he'd trip and fall into a creeper hole and lose all of his lives consecutively. Plus, it might motivate Clown to log on.

[dr-mohan]

telehealth therapy with buck

[super-nova5045]

overall the fnaf movie was a 10/10 experience! josh hutcherson should be in more movies where he can whimper

[nyxofdemons]

still not over this. never going to be over this. what the fuck

[sugusoko]

my pitch for vincent/lucrecia dynamic because there's no way she fell in love with him if she didn't like them a little pathetic

[wiredalienvampire]

today i had been thinking a lot about black spy and I might have had a revelation about myself... oops..

[skitskatdacat63]

2024 Azerbaijan Grand Prix - Oscar Piastri(pt. 2)

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

hello! can you talk more about that vault(?) fic? the one where afo manages to bring his brother’s consciousness into Izuku’s body

Oh I love this fic. Trigger warning for discussion of suicidal thoughts/tendencies.

The premise is that AfO figured out decades ago that One for All likely held a copy of his brother, and that he could get him back if only he could get his hands on that Quirk. Gran Torino made the call that All Might needed to go to America for his own safety because of how desperately all for one was pursuing him, thinking he was trying to kill him before he got strong enough to stand against him. No, he was trying to do to all might what he eventually achieves with Izuku, which is force his brother behind the proverbial wheel.

And the thing is that in his dream world, he doesn’t actually want his brother in someone else’s body. That’s entirely too mobile. Too fragile. His brother can run from him and die again, and All for One wants to foreclose the possibility. He wants a world where he never loses his little brother again.

One for All cannot be taken by force. I know that canon made it more of a battle of wills when it came to this, but I like that rule as more of an absolute. He has absolutely no way to take his little brother by force. The person holding one for all needs to give it to him.

So he realizes he has two options 1) convince the current user to give up one for all, or 2) force his brother’s consciousness to the forefront, keep him safely contained (so fucking vaulted), and then wait him out. His brother is a bleeding heart who is likely to give in so this boy gets his body back. Or, he’ll force him to accept so many regeneration quirks that he’ll never die, and all for one will therefore never lose him, as long as he keeps him contained for his own safety (so so fucking vaulted). Either way, he gets his brother back.

Izuku gets kidnapped from the training camp. His arms are broken to shit from his fight with Muscular, he can barely access any of one for all when his body isn’t shattered, and he’s told, in no uncertain terms, that if he tries anything that Bakugou will be murdered in front of him with excruciating care. Bakugou gets the sales pitch, and Izuku is taken into a back room and strapped to a table.

All for One approaches him. His offer is simple. Give him One for All, and Izuku and Bakugou will live. If he refuses, things will get… extraordinarily painful for him.

Izuku refuses.

All for One doesn’t argue. He just places once hand to Izuku’s face, and there’s an odd sensation like a fish thrashing against a line coming from somewhere deep in his gut. The last thing he remembers is feeling like the fish had been pulled free of the surf.

First doesn’t wake immediately. All for One needs time to repair his new body, and his little brother also always reacted… strongly to things. Prone to irrational fits. Running. Harming himself. He truly was someone who needed to be protected from himself, honestly.

The heroes are coming. They’ll take his brother from him again, just like that horrible whorish vigilante from all those years ago. But All for One has prepared a safe, secure vault for his baby brother to help him with this transition. He knows Yoichi will react poorly. He knows he’ll be upset. He always was so sensitive about things like forcibly occupying a high schooler’s body. But they’ve been apart for two hundred years, and All for One is convinced that they can rebuild with time. This will be good for them. They’ll be happy again, eventually.

The heroes arrive. He arranges for some of twice’s doubles of Dabi and Compress, with the real Spinner, to secure his brother and take him to the vault he prepared for him. He is excruciatingly clear that if they hurt his brother in any way, he will skin them to make tasteless boots. They seem to be operating under the illusion that he is being hyperbolic. He is not. Here is the pattern he will instruct garaki to use when repurposing their husks, and it is fucking ugly. A single rash moment in battle that was definitely, absolutely not his fault deprived him of his baby brother for two hundred years. All for One will not lose him again after searching for this long. They will ensure he escapes this battle unharmed and alive or All for One will ensure that such terms can no longer be used to describe them.

Which is a strong energy to bring to your newly hired villains.

Based on how All for One speaks about his brother with the League, they’re expecting this delicate, sensitive little daffodil who needed to be coddled and may end up all snotty and weepy if he woke up while they were moving him.

First wakes up and immediately tries to kill every single person in the room including himself.

The last thing he remembers is what he thought was a very successful sacrifice play that ensured his husband and the rest of the resistance escaped and him succumbing to bittersweet death in his brother’s arms. Like, it was very dramatic. He promised his brother that he wouldn’t haunt him because no part of him would ever pick to stay by his side. Really pulled it all out for this one. Everything goes black with damning finality and then suddenly he is awake and In A Place. First is used to suddenly being In A Place. It is a universally bad thing for him. His brother is a fucking asshole kidnapper who has no respect for personal boundaries or autonomy or First telling him to his face to go fuck himself and usually if he wakes up and is In A Place, then his brother is the reason. His husband doesn’t pull this shit. He is considerate and sensitive to First’s instinctive distrust of Places. First gets to decide if he wants to be in a Place when his husband’s involved. Even if he had no choice, even if First passed out and he had to get him to safety, he’d be there or someone First knew would be there when First woke up, instead of these…

Literal clowns?

They’re dressed like fucking idiots. He doesn’t recognize them. Definitely not part of the resistance. Based on the Everything Else happening, he assumes they’re a new batch of the goons that his brother goes through like fucking disposable razors. Goons styled by colorblind clowns and possibly a ninja turtle enthusiast?

There’s a mirror. Now there was a mirror. Obviously these guys were not using it. First lashes out and breaks it with his own fist. He grabs the biggest shard and slams it into Compress’s neck. Clown #1 dissolves into a puddle of boiling black shadow

Spinner, was not expecting this energy: WHAT THE FUCK

They are surprised. This is good for First. He is also surprised but knows better than to let that stop him. He uses the opportunity to stab the one with the shitty fucking Matrix coat in the eye. He also dissolves into boiling black shadow.

Spinner, backpedaling hard: oh fuck no no no I’m real—

First does not see why this would stop him. Like. He is sort of trying to kill his brother’s men here. That’s like. Implicit in the war thing they’ve got going on. He goes for the eye again.

Spinner does not feel this is a safe environment for him to be in, suddenly.

All for one’s gentle soul and fragile disposition baby brother has a weapon and a willingness to kill. Spinner feels he was not adequately briefed on the situation. He is the only one who is not a copy. He can be killed for real. And he will be turned into a pair of ugly fucking boots if he hurts a single hair on this kid’s psychotic little head. Spinner does what he feels is his only option and flees the scene.

First was not expecting this but will take it. He gets off the table so he can get the fuck out of here.

Huh. That feels. Weird.

He feels like absolute shit, which isn’t a shock. But his body just feels weirdly different. Like everything’s been taken out and put back together incorrectly. He feels. Shorter?

First chalks it up to the disorientation of whatever the fuck his brother did to him. But there’s a window to escape with and it’s closing. Time to get the fuck out of here.

The way he sees it, he’s got some very limited options. He can escape, find his husband and the rest of the gang, and go back to trying to tear down his brother’s operation through blood, sweat, and tears. Or, he can try to escape and fail, in which case he needs to kill himself while he still can.

He just. He can’t go back in the vault.

He knows his brother wants him back in there. He spent like ten years in there the first time. He cannot end up back in there and just hope that his husband is alive and that he’ll find him again and save him again and that he won’t spend another fucking decade staring at walls. His brother kept him alive against his will the first time and he’ll do it again.

He made it clear to Kudo before they got married. He just couldn’t do it. If he had to pick between dying and being recaptured with a hope of rescue, he was picking dying. He is more scared of going back into that vault than he is of anything else in the world.

He makes it outside. It’s chaos. He doesn’t recognize the city. He doesn’t recognize any of the people.

There’s a man there, fighting what appears to be his brother in some kind of fuck off ugly metal helmet thing. The man is tall, and he is golden, and he is dressed like the heroes from his comic books, which gives First pause, because he thought that only their resistance had started going for the comic book motif, and none of them looked like that. Their outfits looked like Red Dawn meets the dumpster behind a Spirit Halloween.

This man looks like a real superhero.

And that’s his fucking opening right there. Superman got a blonde dye job, moved to Japan, and was punching his brother in his dumb fucking steampunk headpiece that he now wears for some reason. That’s a fucking great distraction that First can now use to fuck right off and find his husband. No vaulting him today, no siree.

He can’t explain it. It’s like muscle memory. He sees his brother gear up to strike the man, and his body moves before he can think about it. He doesn’t even realize what he’s done until he’s already slammed his foot into his brother’s kneecap.

Oh. So. That’s different.

Using One for All now is sort of like finding out your Razor scooter got upgraded to an F-22 Raptor. He barely used any of it and he feels like he just feels like he did the superpower equivalent of huffing cocaine. What the fuck happened to it?

But he doesn’t have time to inspect that. He hasn’t been this close to his brother since he escaped the vault. He’s only seen him in the distance, once or twice, during close calls. And, you know, when he thought he was dying in his brother’s arms what feels like minutes ago, but he’s not counting that.

First, looking at his grunge fucking darth Vader headset: *flat as a board* oh no what ever could have happened

All for One: you’re awake

All Might, also here: my boy thank god you’re okay

First, ignoring the Superman cosplayer, really, really hoping his husband did that: does it hurt. It looks like it hurts.

All for one, taking a step towards him: you shouldn’t be up so soon

First, immediately putting his mirror shard to his own throat: dont fucking come near me

First feels weird. His voice sounds weird. He doesn’t recognize anything. And he’s really thinking he should have run when he had the chance.

His brother does that thing he fucking hates. That thing where he acts like First is a lunatic on a ledge and he’s the saint trying to coax him down. It was always like that with him. His brother acted like First was crazy and needed to be placated and confined for his own safety. And anything, anything he did got that treatment. He doesn’t like his brother fucking killing people and wants him to stop? First is just irrational. emotionally unstable. He doesn’t want to stay with him? It’s because of his Problems. He tries to kill himself after years of isolation and, and having nothing? Just the proof his brother needed that First was an mentally unwell danger to himself.

All for One tells him to put down the shard. He’s just disoriented still. He needs to rest. He needs to calm down. If he just goes with his men, they’ll take him somewhere safe, and they can talk about thi—

They’ll lock him in a fucking bank vault. No thanks. If he takes a single fucking step towards him, First is slitting his own throat.

All Might is confused. He doesn’t know why they’re acting like this. But his priority is getting Izuku the fuck out of dodge. He begs Izuku to run while he covers him. Everything is all right now. He’s here.

First:

First:

First: okay I’ll bite who the fuck is this guy

All Might, in dawning horror: Izuku?

First, squinting: who?

He must not have realized yet. All for One was hoping he could explain everything to him in… better circumstances, but he guesses not.

Yoichi has a mirror shard. Perhaps he should look at whose throat he’s holding it against he does something he can’t take back.

First looks in the mirror shard. Some random fucking kid stares back. He drops it in shock and it shatters on the ground.

What the fuck. What the fuck.

It’ll be an adjustment. All for One knows that. It’s—it’s been a very long time since they’ve been together. Longer than he thinks. Things will be different now, but they’ll be better. They can finally be together again—

What the fuck did he do. Is this. Did he put him in someone else? Who—Whose fucking body is this

All for One promises him that he was nobody. Nothing. He wasn’t important. And first just. Laughs. All this goddamn time and his brother still couldn’t get that whoever he is was important. They all had been important to First. That’s why he couldn’t fucking stand to stay with his brother.

And all mights just. Despondent. No. No, he couldn’t have—

First is so fucking sorry. He is so fucking sorry.

All for one insists it doesn’t matter. He got him back. All this time, and he finally got him back, and that is all that matters now.

First asks him how long it’s been. And all for one tells him that he lost him two hundred and thirty nine years, seven months, and eighteen days ago. He has missed him for every moment.

He knows how it ended between them. He knows. But it will be different this time. All those people who forced themselves between them are gone. They can be happy again—

First wants to know how he died.

All for One doesn’t need to ask who he means. He knows. That stupid, asinine, brother-stealing bastard from all those years ago. He always suspected that something happened between them. In those months his brother was being kept from him, he caught sight of them, once or twice. There were a few scant moments that made him wonder. A clip of panic in his brother’s voice when he called that bastard’s name that seemed too personal for comfort. Second letting his hand linger at the small of his brother’s back. He never could confirm it, but doubts lingered

All for One tells him that Second killed himself two weeks after First’s death.

First, immediately: you are such a fucking liar

All for One: he deserved it

First: you’re PSYCHOTIC

All for One: he took you from me

First: I LEFT YOU

All might, the other heroes, the fucking news, wondering what the fuck is going on: …

First is straying dangerously close to a panic attack. He’s in some random fucking kid’s body. This kid’s dad(?) is here and he is dressed like a fucking idiot and that feels really mean to think considering First is possessing his child. He admittedly regrets thinking that. It is two hundred years in the future and everyone First loves is dead. His husband is dead. His brother is still alive and he has not changed at all, thereby proving that he can and will keep this up forever and he will never ever fucking change or let First go. Actual, literal death was apparently not enough to save him from his brother.

And then All for One does that thing again. That fucking soothing placating voice bullshit that makes First feel fucking insane and he’s not crazy he’s not he swears he’s not. He’s not crazy or unstable for being upset that his brother put him in a boy.

It’s not going to be fucking different. It’s not going to be fucking better. He’s unhinged. First wants nothing to do with him. God, fuck, why can’t he ever get that? It is not that First is unstable or that other people got between them or turned first against him or however the fuck he lies to himself. First hates him—

All Might Detroit Smashes.

He’s just. He’s at his limit. His boy is not his boy. He needs his boy to be his boy again. All for one is right fucking there and entirely too close to his boy who is not his boy but who will be his boy again because All Might will move heaven and earth to get Izuku back. Detroit fucking smash.

Things get very tense after that.

First tries to help. He has no idea what the fuck is up with this Quirk but he’s a very dirty fighter who is willing to bite. All Might insists that First get to safety while he holds all for one off. First tells him that he’s not exactly doing hot on his own. he’s like. Literally turning to smoke. And he knows his brother—

All Might tells him that this is not for his sake. That’s his boy’s body. Please.

There are. Random fucking children soaring over head? Another child flying to them on handheld explosions? God, what the fuck is the future. And First thought his time period was weird.

They’re screaming at him to take their hand. And All Might begs him to take it.

First jumps.

The kids turn into another agonizing moment in what First is rapidly realizing is just his life now.

They touch down, and these kids hug him like he’s their world. They call him Midoriya and they ask him what happened back there and they never let go of him, not even for a moment. There’s a boy with red and white hair split right down the middle, and no one even bats an eye at that, even though in First’s time that would have been enough to get him killed in the middle of the city square, depending on the city. First’s hair had him on thin fucking ice more often than not and he could have just been like. Albino. One of these kids has fucking engines in his legs. Are engines in legs a thing now. First doesn’t remember seeing that in his time.

The kid with red and white hair never lets go of his hand.

And all he can tell them is that he’s sorry.

He ends up in a random, shitty, deserted ramen shop out of the way with these kids and the atmosphere is fucking tense. If he is not Midoriya and that is not his body then Todoroki wants him fucking out of it. They all do but Todoroki specifically is bringing an Energy. Where the fuck is Midoriya.

And First doesn’t know. He doesn’t know who this kid is. He doesn’t know what his brother did. Last he remembers, it was two hundred years ago and he was fucking dying. He woke up after it was already done.

Look. He. He cannot possibly be more sorry this happened. He’s going to try to find out what happened to their friend? Brother? Collective boyfriend? He doesn’t know, this is just an incredibly strong energy right now. He’s going for try to figure out what his brother did to him. If there is any way to give him his body back, First will do it.

But he needs to make tracks for right now. His brother is going to be after him.

It was on the news, playing in the corner of this ramen shop. All Might won, but it cost him everything, and all for one still escapes in the end. Some guy with a teleportation quirk gets him out of there while the other heroes are detaining him.

First needs distance to stay clear of his brother, and he needs distance to have an absolutely nuclear grade crash out, though he does not say the second part out loud.

First knows himself. He can admit that he was a very self destructive person, but only when he is feeling particularly self destructive, because it feels too much like admitting his brother was right about him.

They were sort of locked in a vicious cycle. His brother controlled every single aspect of his life and First started self destructing because it was the only control he had in his life. His brother then used his self destructive tendencies as proof that first needed to be protected from himself, and then he controlled him more, which made First more desperate, which made him more self destructive, which made his brother control him more. It was all very chicken and egg of them.

He was reckless. He had suicidal tendencies directly correlating to his ability to open the door of whatever room he is in at any given moment. He goes very south very quickly if he feels trapped. He was an asthmatic smoker in shitty post societal collapse Japan where he had no reliable source of inhalers. He took his first run at vigilante justice when he first escaped his brother and he was like a buck ten soaking wet and had no special powers and was very physically below average and it involved a lot of hitting people with pipes in shady back alleys and culminated in him getting shot in the fucking chest and his brother finally catching up to him and putting him in a fucking vault for ten agonizing years “because look at what happens when you’re on your own, you end up homeless and shot, this is for your own good”

First is, frankly, horrifyingly self aware of the fact that he would have killed himself in a flame out in like two weeks max post-vault had it not been for Kudo. He doesn’t like this about himself. But he is aware of it.

His husband is not an option right now. His husband is dead. He was alive an hour ago, and now he’s been dead for two hundred years.

They’re all dead. His husband. Bruce. Their entire team. His brother probably fucking murdered them horribly and if First ever confronts him on it he’s going to act like First needs to get over it because it was so long ago

But it wasn’t long ago for First. It was an hour ago. They were alive an hour ago. Two hours ago? He hadn’t even realized that his brother had found him. He was happy. They were all together, First and his husband and Bruce. They were laughing about something. He can’t remember what. He forgot in the panic. It was the last time he ever heard them laugh and he can’t fucking remember what it was.

First needs to get the fuck out of here.

He cannot launch himself into a self destructive spiral. He cannot. This isn’t his body. This is some kid’s body, and he’s obviously very loved based on how much everyone fucking hates first for this.

So he just needs space. He always does better when he knows he can get space. He gets worse when he feels like a rat in a cage. He just needs to get space, and breathe, and then maybe he’ll figure out how to stop feeling like the universe ended around him and forgot to take him with it. It blinked into nothing and he’s left suspended in this sucking, agonizing void of nothing.

His husband was alive an hour ago, and now he’s been dead for two hundred years, and First is used to losing everything so he doesn’t know why he isn’t any better at it by now. It hurts so goddamn much every time.

He just needs a minute. He just needs to cry, and break down, but not the kind of breakdown that ended up with all those wanted posters of him that made him look like the unabomber. He needs to get the fuck out of here. He’ll—fuck, with any luck, he will never see these kids again. He’ll figure out how to make this kid’s life his own problem again and the kid will see them around. First is out of here.

It is then that he realizes those sirens were coming their way.

Huh. Did they. Call the police on him?

He sort of. Huh. He sort of forgot they could do that.

First was in shitty post societal collapse Japan an hour ago. Police stopped being an option when he was like, fuck, sixteen or so? Hard to remember, what with how the crippling stress and hopeless depression and also his brother secretly fucking with him with a weird psychic quirk in an attempt to “improve their relationship” sort of ate holes in his own memory. Very fuzzy about his own life at times. Police haven’t been an option for a long time, is the moral of the story. And he. Huh. Sort of forgot that they could do that. He’s honestly impressed at the foresight that would have taken them. They really called the cops on him in advance?

Iida, blustering: no, don’t be ridiculous, we didn’t—

Todoroki, vitriolic: yes

That is NOT his fucking body and he needed to get the fuck OUT of it. And since it’s not his fucking body then if he walks off with it Todoroki is treating this like another kidnapping and he is not fucking around after the last one. Which is exactly what he told Mr. Aizawa while texting him under the table to send fucking swat because no one was going anywhere until this shit was fixed

Aizawa has had a long fucking day. He had to be airlifted here to find his fucking students. Midoriya is apparently possessed. The Symbol of Peace has fallen. His fucking students went rogue and ran an illegal rescue mission in the middle of a goddamn war zone. And Todoroki Shouto just sent him his location with a phone book of information that can all be boiled down to “I need you to get this guy out of Midoriya’s body right fucking now.”

He sends himself. He sends police backup. He sends EMTs. The HPSC sends Hawks, who is existentially exhausted.

First needs a fucking cigarette that he can’t have because this isn’t his body.

Todoroki, the second he gets out of the car: *jabbing a finger at First* there he is sensei erase him

First: *laborious sigh*

Aizawa:

Aizawa:

Aizawa: give me a second to catch up

Aizawa cannot just fucking erase him. He wishes it was as easy as simply erasing him. This doesn’t work like that. He could have erased whatever Quirk All for One used on him while it was happening. But all for one (fucking hopefully) is nowhere near them and isn’t like, actively projecting his brother into Midoriya. His brother is just there now. Aizawa’s quirk is just a pause button. They need to hit rewind.

Todoroki thinks they should try it anyway just to cover their bases.

First eyes the incoming cop cars. Yep, a lot of them. And more adults dressed like fucking cartoon characters. He is plagued by the suspicion that this is his fault.

He asks to clarify that this all means that they will not let him bounce.

Todoroki, advancing on him: you are not taking that body anywhere you son of a bitch

Iida: *has to hold him back*

Hawks is tired. He is eyeing the intolerable amount of camera phones recording this from the edge of the police line. He claps. He says they should take this somewhere private. First looks at him with a withering exhaustion and asks him why he’s dressed like a fucking boy band member. Hawks says that everyone needs to find a car and get in it.

First ends up in room with Aizawa, Hawks, some weird talking bear-rat(?), a guy actively on fire, an old man, and a collection of other people who dress like fucking wizards. Wizards with bad taste. And, hauntingly enough, a completely normal man wearing a trench coat and a tasteful hat. This horrifies first, because it means that dressing like a normal fucking person is still acceptable in the future and all of these other outfits are choices. First is again tormented by the suspicion that this is his fault.

The kids are gone. They were not allowed to come in for many reasons, including how Todoroki kept trying to start shit with him. First feels like he’s appearing before a fucking wizard counsel.

This admittedly reminds him of being rescued from his fuck ass brother’s vault and meeting with the resistance leaders for the first time. He recognizes this bit. These are the people who have assembled to fight his brother who are seeking to combine their collective pools of information. First is, however, a naturally unhelpful person, so he’s gonna let them go first.

They do not say anything. Fine. Okay. He actually has a question.

Why do these kid’s bones fucking suck?

No one was really expecting that question.

First is really not trying to complain about the body he is occupying against everyone’s will including his own. He is neither a beggar nor a chooser and is sensitive to the fact that some of them knew him. He asks this out of growing concern. From the bottom of his heart: What the fuck. Does this kid have extremely early on set arthritis or something? First legitimately thought this was some underlying injury he didn’t know about or a side effect of whatever his brother did but the longer it’s gone on the more he’s started to suspect that this kid just walks around like this. He has constant, chronic, and unbearable pain. Please know this about him and put him on some kind of industrial grade pain killer when he’s no longer possessed. Actually please tell first that they already knew about this and that he was already was because this is legitimately terrible and he’s hoping this kid wasn’t walking through life like this.

Aizawa was not aware. He is now. He’ll address it with Midoriya when he returns. It’s not surprising. First should actually be aware that Midoriya’s body suffers severe backlash when his quirk is used. So first should refrain from using it and damaging his student’s body further while he’s in control.

Oh. That was his next question. Why the fuck does this kid have his Quirk?

It’s definitely his. It feels exactly the same, just… dialed up by a million. Like the same song being played on the radio versus played over concert speakers. But it doesn’t make sense that he has it again. First gave it away before he died. Even if his brother somehow brought back his Quirk with him, he shouldn’t have it—

Wow, lot of blanks stares. First reevaluates what’s happening. You people don’t know anything do you.

Okay, how about everyone else tells him what they think is happening right now. First still needs to decide how honest he is going to be.

Bear-rat man cuts in to say that on that note, he believes protocol dictates this meeting be postponed. All Might is the designated lead on this case, and much of the information is obviously confidential. It shouldn’t be discussed or disclosed further without him there to… moderate.

First decides the bear rat definitely fucking knows what’s up.

The other heroes are like. Fuck that. what the fuck just happened. Who the fuck was that guy. How the fuck did he have multiple quirks. A city ward is destroyed do they get that. Kamino ward was leveled in large part by this fucking fight. They were so outclassed it wasn’t even funny and they feel like they got sent in blind. Did all might know about that fucking guy before they went in

In the end, it turns out to be a nonissue. All might forces his way into the meeting against medical advice. He is still sort of bleeding. An extremely disgruntled doctor followed him from the hospital and is trying to reapply gauze with great distress.

All Might ignores everyone. He just looks at First. He asks him if Izuku is still in there.

First wishes he fucking knew the answer to that. This kid was obviously loved, based on how fucking angry everyone is at him. And he wishes. Fuck. He wishes his bullshit with his brother hadn’t ruined another host of lives.

He really is sorry, for what it’s worth. And don’t worry. He already knows it’s not worth anything.

First is going to try to get his kid back. He just… is a bit dry on ideas about how to do that in the instant moment.

First knows the look of a man who knows exactly how far his brother will go. This is the guy who has been after his brother. He asks All Might if they’re doing this here or getting a room.

The heroes are empathic that they’re doing this here, except for Aizawa, who is emphatic that they are getting a room that he will also be in. He needs to know whatever secrets these are for his student’s sake but no one else can know them until he decides it’s safe for his student. It is not a popular stance.

All Might doesn’t care. The secret of All for One is out, and the secret of one for all is so compromised already… and it’s going to get worse from here, based on what he’s heard. If All for One recovers, he will be increasingly aggressive from this point forward. He’s going to come looking for his younger brother. Is that right?

First laughs. It isn’t funny. Yeah. Yeah, he’s gonna start razing cities to the ground the second he manages to patch together enough lung tissue back together to take a full breath.

Nice work on that one, by the way. Really. He means it. And was the helmet All Might’s work too? Impressive. Did more damage to his brother than First ever managed.

The secret of one for all cannot become public. But all might can no longer help in the fight against all for one. Yagi won’t recover from this. Responsibility will fall to the people in this room. So it’s only right they know what’s happening.

Aizawa has to be restrained.

He’s furious. Yagi gave a two hundred year old power of apocalyptic potential to a fucking fifteen year old and now that fifteen year old is fucking possessed. He broke all of his fucking bones with that power. He broke all of them. And he didn’t tell Aizawa anything.

Yagi could not care less about anything happening around him. He cares about Izuku. Thats his boy. He can’t have been too late. There has to be a way to get him back.

Maybe. First doesn’t have a clue. He just woke up like this. He doesn’t know if his brother buried the kid or just.. scooped him out. Like evicting a fish from a tank. He doesn’t know where Izuku went.

Yagi tells him that he didn’t know. He didn’t know that all for one was still alive, and he didn’t know he’d do this to Izuku. He wouldn’t have—he’d have done better, if he had known.

Gran Torino blames himself. He should have known.

Gran Torino had the dubious honor of bridging the gap between seventh and eighth when it came to managing all for one. After Nana’s death, but before Yagi was grown.

All for One tore the country apart looking for who had inherited the Quirk. He had been desperate to find them.

At the time, Gran Torino had thought it was a bit strange. He figured he wanted to kill Yagi before he became a threat, but. All for one wanted the next One for All alive.

There was nothing official about Nana’s tie to the boy, and they had been careful when they met with him. Yagi was one face in a crowd, and All for One spent years spinning his wheels tearing through Nana’s old allies.

All for one once became convinced that nana had passed it to one of their old buddies. He went after him, but before he could capture him or Gran Torino could warn him, some two-bit villain looking to collect on the bounty killed him.

All for one had him vivisected for it, then floated the video of it through the criminal underground to make a point of what happened to people who showed initiative with All for One’s marks. If he wanted someone alive, they’d better be fucking alive.

Gran Torino forced Yagi on a plane to America after that. It shook him too badly. He was barely holding it together, and there Yagi was just bleeding grief over Nana, Gran Torino knows he did a shit job at helping him through it. Yagi kept trying to help. He wanted justice for what All for One did to his mentor. And Gran Torino was so terrified of fucking up the last thing nana left to him that he just… came down on Yagi like a sack of bricks for it. He shouldn’t have. He knows it hurt their relationship.

He should have realized back then that this was about more than neutralizing a threat. All for One was acting too oddly after that. He was too desperate. And it makes sense now, knowing that he was searching for his brother. One for All was his link to getting him back. If the Quirk was lost, his brother finally slipped from his grasp.

The meeting devolves quickly.

First is on edge. The more this goes on, the more he’s certain that he’s not going to be free to leave at the end. They’ll be nice about it, sure. They’ll say it’s for his protection. His brother loved that line himself.

He’s boiling in anxiety over it and trying not to show it. He hasn’t had the time to process anything that happened or his grief over losing all his loved ones. And he was kind of an abrasive person in life, frankly? He was physically pretty weak and spent most of his life under someone’s thumb. Verbally lashing out is one of the few ways he could push back.

He can tell the heroes are sort of disappointed by him.

The bullshit he and Kudo and Bruce and the rest pulled to fuck with his brother, apparently, turned into the model for a society. He doesn’t know. It wasn’t ever supposed to become this. They didn’t even think of themselves as superheroes, really.

They started just. Putting little fucking flares on their outfits. Doing some more visible, showy rescues of random people. Thats it. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a full super hero thing.

A lot of it was to fuck with all for one. First knew how to get under his brother’s skin. And his brother hated superhero comics. He thought that they were ridiculous. He thought they were impractical. He thought they gave First too many bad ideas.

But it was also a bit of a PR move? Society fucking sucked when he was alive. There barely was a society. Japan had dissolved into a fractured mess. They were basically living in fucking city states by the end of it.

People were afraid. They didn’t have anything to rally around or trust. They didn’t have a government they could really rely on.

Superheroes were just a familiar image they could use as a reference point. Comic books, manga, the fucking marvel movies that blew up right before it all went to shit—people recognized superheroes from them. They could use that familiarity to build trust and support.

Apparently the PR campaign did too well, because he’s getting the impression that they viewed the first heroes as these upstanding, reasoned forces of justice and first is just a some guy with a bit of a foul mouth trapped in a kid’s body.

It just. He’s not his best self in that meeting. At one point he asks endeavor if his flame mustache is involuntary or if he’s just compensating for something. It. Is not taken well.

First does recognize that his emotions are more unstable than usual. He assumed it was a side effect, and then he has a horrifying realization

First, stopping dead: is this kid in puberty right now

Aizawa: … I assume so

First, burying his face in his hands: oh my god

Aizawa: are you okay

First: i had a fully developed brain this morning and now I’ve got the cognitive skills of a toddler. You don’t think you can feel when you don’t have a fully developed frontal lobe but you totally can. No I am not okay. I thought I was concussed. Oh my god I feel like I just got downgraded from windows 10 to windows 1.

Aizawa:

First: I think it’s only fair to warn you I think I’m like 900% more impulsive now and I was already very impulsive before this

The meeting ends. Hawks tells First that they have a safe house for him. He’ll be safe from his brother there. Hawks will escort him personally.

Ah, first thinks. This is not an optional activity.

He’s very cooperative. He gets in the car. He makes a few nervous comments about his brother and if he’ll be able to find him at the safe house.

He then brute forces open the locked car door and flings this kid’s mortal body out of it at 75 mph before fucking off into the night.

WHAT FIRST IS DOING:

It was an impulse move okay he warned them he was more impulsive than usual okay if anything this is on them

WHAT FIRST IS ALSO DOING:

He’s not doing captivity okay he’s just not. These guys suck and he’s not staying with them. He doesn’t trust them and he won’t do it

He has a loose set of priorities. The number one priority is getting this kid back in his own fucking body. He doesn’t actually trust those guys to make that their priority.

Okay like. He trusts some of them to prioritize that. Guy who fucked up his brother and keeps looking at him like he’s gonna cry, sure, this kid is his priority. The kid’s really angry teacher. Whoever that red and white kid with all the aggression was.

He doesn’t fucking know about the rest. But he’s pretty good at reading the writing on the wall. His brother just permanently injured their main fighter. This kid’s body holds that guy’s Quirk. Out of the two of them, one of them is all for one’s brother who has insider information on him, who has an emotional advantage, and who has experience fighting him. Meanwhile the original kid has been doing this for like four months and has chronic bone pain.

He’s the more strategic option. But he’s not going to fucking abscond with this kid’s body. Like, yes, admittedly that’s what he’s doing right now, but it’s so he has better odds of ultimately getting the kid back. He doesn’t trust those guys to do the right thing so he needs to fuck off and stay free long enough to get the fuck out of this kids body and go back to being dead.

This is frankly very long already so a more loose outline of the rest:

Throughout this all there are flashbacks to first growing up at the dawn of quirks. Except they’re not flashbacks. They’re Izuku, trapped in the depths of First’s memory.

First is in a diner with his brother, before it really went to shit. Before society completely dissolved and before he ran the first time and before his brother locked him up. They were fighting, like they always were now. His brother stomped off to the bathroom. A man sits down in the booth across.

But it’s too soon. He’s not supposed to meet him yet. This isn’t how it went.

All the patrons are frozen around them. You can’t change memories, after all, and this isn’t how it went. Second didnt meet First until the vault, more than a decade later. But this isn’t really the past, and he’s not First. He’s Nine. And he needs to concentrate on what Second is telling him.

Existing in One for All is wonky. It just collects everything. It’s a wad of gum stick to the bottom of your shoe picking up dirt with each step. Every memory, every feeling, every person who’s ever imprinted on it is still in here. And it’s all mixed together and it’s easy to get lost in the memories.

It’s hard to navigate. You have to fight to maintain a sense of self. Imagine every person is a glass of water. One for all has nine of them all dumped in the same bucket. It’s so easy to get confused, and it’s slippery to navigate. If you think of something, you risk getting sucked to the memory and slipping back into it. You forget it already happened. You live it all again. A lot of them just get trapped in a loop when they die and join the rest. Third thought his life was flashing before his eyes until first and second found him and pulled him out of it.

First was better at navigating it than the rest. He had the most practice. But he’s not an option for obvious reasons. Nine needs to focus now. He needs to remember who he is. They need to get out of the memory before Nine forgets again. What’s his name? No, he’s not Yoichi. He needs to remember his nam—

His brother calls his name. And First is sitting in the booth alone.

All for One just fucking tossed Izuku’s consciousness into the collective. He could have been in any of millions of moments that any of them lived. It was like trying to find a specific pebble thrown in a fucking ocean. The past users just started combing through everything trying to find him so they could get him back in charge of his body.

Third falls on the fucking grenade that is searching through all the memories of First and Second being disgusting together. Someone has to, and Second fucked off to go do whatever the moment he realized what All for One had done. Second has been. Not okay. He wants his fucking husband back.

First and Second were so goddamn repressed about it the first time around that Third honestly didn’t know what he was going to walk into. Watching them dance around each other was like watching two aliens who learned how to be human exclusively from bbc period pieces try to imitate human courtship. He had no idea what the fuck they were doing in the moment. He asked second one time if there was anything going on that he wanted to talk about and Second responded with a singular and unyielding “No.” and you know what? Third was fine with that answer.

Whatever the case Nine is like five years old and Third cannot have him personally living Third’s idiots reenacting the hand flex scene from pride & prejudice 2005 on infinite goddamn loop. He cannot even begin to conceptualize the developmental damage that would do to him. Second took off in a fit of manful emotion before Third could force him to go search the memories of those repressed fucking finger grazes before the memory of their bullshit did permanent damage to this kid’s ability to form relationships or experience healthy emotions. Oh okay. No it’s fine Third can do it.

Third always joked that those two assholes could have either never gotten past charged eye contact and suffocating tension or they could have fully gotten married and simply never told anyone. He still somehow did not genuinely expect that they got fully married and never told anyone. What the fuck guys.

Okay so they didn’t legally get married but laws had an iffy relationship with “existing” when they were alive so it wasn’t so much an option. Also they were both considered terrorists by the majority of the people claiming to be the Japanese government back then so legal marriage wasn’t so much an option. But still he did not expect to stumble on a memory of those assholes deciding that they were married and doing their own private vows thing which they did not invite Third to. He was like their only friend. Come on guys.

Admittedly he sort of gets it? Like. He doesn’t. That’s actually insane. But he also knows First and Second are so fundamentally fucked in the heads that he can kind of see how they got to that point. Both of them lived like they were in deep cover hiding from their own fucking lives. They played things so close to the vest that they had fused with the vest. He wishes they lived in a time where therapy was an option because no one has ever needed it more than those two.

First once told him, in a profoundly uncharacteristic moment of genuine and honest vulnerability, that he tried to never let it show when he loved something because his brother would find out and take it from him. It always went that way. His brother had decided, years ago, that First would have no choice but to love him again if he was all that First had. And so he wasn’t allowed to have anything but his brother for the longest time. There was a reason why the room they found him in was fucking empty.

Third always sort of counted that confession as one of the biggest honors of his life because he’s never seen someone with trust issues like first and it meant something when he gave you even an inch.

He was closer to Second than any other person alive (or dead, he guesses) save First, and the closest Second ever got to an emotional confession with him was after First died. He told him, out of the blue, that he was so goddamn lonely now. Then he was dead by the end of the week.

Third always sort of assumed that First and Second still held back from each other because that's what they did with everyone, and maybe that's why Second took his death so bad, because he regretted not going for more. But the more Third intrudes into the memories of just the two of them, the more he realizes that they didn't hold back. It didn't make sense. They didn't even make it a year before First died and Second followed. And Second would not tell Bruce his name for the first year they knew each other. After three years together he confessed that he had lied about what his name was because he wasn't sure if he could trust Third yet.

It's somehow worse to know that they let themselves be reckless with the other. That they'd been open with the other. Because Second was cold and calculating and impenetrable and First was like a feral dog who bit. Like. Third's life had not been a walk in the park but if he thought about Second or First for too long then he risked actually crying. Second appeared to assume that every single person in his life would sell him out until thoroughly proven otherwise and it was very clearly a learned behavior. Third asked First what his name was on the day they met and he did not fucking know. His brother only ever called him little brother, and he wasn't allowed to see anyone but his brother while he was in the vault. He hadn't needed it in so long that he guesses he forgot.

Neither of them ever seemed to want anyone close enough to stab them in the back. They both made themselves so alone in life, and then to catch glimpses of them as open and vulnerable and happy--

Second really must have been so fucking lonely after First died. Third understands why he did what he did a little better now.

Second had some kind of serious damage in his past that he never told anyone, except maybe first, considering they were fucking married. Third didn’t know what happened and was not going to ask. Five once slipped (he claims accidentally) into Second’s memories and saw something, though he never said what. But he looked at Second kind of sadly after, and Second then refused to acknowledge him for an entire calendar year. And third is talking about real world time. They exist in a weird dream logic mind scape. Time moves differently here. Five was intolerably moody about Second icing him out and First had to intervene to put an end to it which makes more sense now since First was his secret fucking husband—

Third, when he finally finds Second: you got MARRIED and didn’t TELL ME

Second:

Second:

Second: it never came up

Third: oh FUCK OFF

If Third is being very, very generous, he gets not telling anyone while they were alive. All for One had some kind of psychopathic control freak sixth sense for when First had literally anything good in his life. He remembers that after All for One caught sight of the two of them one time for maybe three and a half seconds and suddenly shit got weird

All for One had a habit of getting ahold of one of their comms units or finding a way to get one to them just so he could be a freak about his brother. He knows it made First uncomfortable. All for One would always demand to speak to him and Second absolutely fucking refused to allow that unless First wanted it, which he never did. So the calls would always descend into extremely explicit threats about what would happen to them if First was hurt when he came to collect him. It was never about giving him back, because all for one was killing them all for this no matter what. Returning him wouldn’t save them. But there was room to negotiate on how painful it needed to be.

This would go on until Second would get fed up and shoot the fucking comms unit, which usually was like three minutes in tops

Anyway after the one (1) time all for one saw them together suddenly all for one felt the need to include threats about what would happen if anyone had been inappropriate with his brother or he if he found out that Second specifically had taken liberties with him. Third never found out what the actual threat was because second immediately fucking shot the comms unit and refused all questions.

Second got a lot of side eyes after that.

Okay but after? After?? They have had several hundred years to bring this up. What the fuck guys.

Second feels they are getting off topic. The point is finding Nine and getting him back to his body and First back with them. (Third: yeah I bet you want your husband back with—) Why was third even in those memories.

Uhhh Third was saving Nine from the irreparable fucking trauma of remembering what it’s like to date and apparently be married to Second. Nine’s slipping around all over the place. No direction. Total crapshoot about what memory he’ll end up in. They can afford to miss him slipping into one of the million fucking times First tried to fight some bitch with a pipe. But they seriously cannot have him stumbling around in First’s marriage. Like. For ethical reasons.

Second: *profound silence* there are some moments he should not se—

Third: I KNOW

Third is really taking a fucking bullet here. God he does not want to see this shit. He has to live in Nine’s bones with these assholes.

It also just feels really weird? The three of them really were friends, but Second and First had so many goddamn issues that they just struggled horribly to ever really talk about anything. Except with each other, apparently, because he knows way more about them from glancing furtively at these memories than he’s learned in like two hundred years of friendship. Their romance was sort of like when the really angry feral shelter dog got inexplicably attached to the quiet neglected one. It was kind of sweet, and also the weirdest goddamn thing Third has ever seen

First is in their makeshift gun range. Second is helping him learn to shoot. He steps up behind him to help him position the gun—

Third: And that’s where we call time folks. God that’s not even proper gun handling they sicken me. Nine trust me you want to follow me out now

It takes them a couple tries to get Izuku to remember himself long enough to shake free of the memories. It’s not that unusual, honestly. Most of them spent a while after they died slipping. The rest of them have to constantly go fishing for them while they’re still new.

Second and Third explain to Izuku what happened. Third separately explains to Izuku that he needs to swap back with first asap because second is so pathetic and sad without his husband that it’s hard to watch. The last time he was this visibly upset was after First died.

Third: god look at him. He’s a wreck

Second, in the distance: *emotionless, unmoving*

Third: i don’t know if ive ever seen him so emotional

Izuku:

Second: *scratches his nose, still emotionless*

Izuku:

Third: ugh it’s hard to look at

Third tells literally everyone First and Second were married by the way. They all live together in this kid’s bones and the fact that two of them are married is relevant to the group. Everyone was very upset by the news, except nana. This means she won the bet.

Izuku: so uh. What do you think first is doing with my body

Third, knows him too well: oh he is having a nuclear grade crash out right now

Izuku, eyes wide: oh

Second:

Second, clipped: probably.

First is and he’s making it everyone’s problem. Fundamentally he has spent his entire life trapped in a profoundly abusive relationship with his brother and it reached such levels of toxicity as to have societal impacts still felt centuries later. He and his brother have not improved or changed and they are in fact doing what they have historically done and escalating their relationship problems to an issue of national security.

He’s back on his vigilantism bullshit. He feels obligated to be the one going after his brother because of the everything. Besides, it’s bad enough that he hijacked this kid’s body. If he can do something to handle his brother so this kid won’t have to then he owes it to him. So he’ll do what he can while he’s figuring things out.

The league is so fucking distressed by this fact. What was expected in First’s time is not what is expected in the modern day. They’re operating in two different genres entirely. Fundamentally the league thinks they are in a slightly edgier version of Megamind and First thinks he is in the Vietnam War.

Shigaraki: which one of you fuckfaces ordered pizza to our fucking hideout—oh my god it’s a bomb

It does not help that all for one is a delusional freak on main about his little brother. The league has borderline developed a psychic link with one another just from the amount of uncomfortable and charged eye contact they are making.

It’s sort of like when you realize halfway through the story that your friend sincerely was the problem the entire time. Like there is something profoundly wrong with All for One and it fucking shows when his brother is involved.

First is trying to carve a path through whatever criminal underworld he encounters because he is a man on a level 900 crash out who was just handed a cataclysmic trigger for all his trauma, like all of it, and the superpower equivalent of a hydrogen bomb. He doesn’t have time to figure out what of this bullshit is his brother’s fault so he just adopts a razed earth approach. He’ll fight all of them, honestly

All for One: my brother has always been very emotionally sensitive. He upsets himself so easily.

Dabi, distressed: he fucking stabbed me

All for one: yes he does that sometimes. It’s how he handles is emotions. He isn’t well. He needs to be in an enclosed space with soft lighting and low levels of stimulus to manage his mental health

Dabi: are you talking about that room with no windows and a bank vault for a door. wait are you saying you put him in that thing for his mental health?

All for One: I took care of my brother for many years I know what he needs

The issue with this is that all for one will kill everyone if First dies in a terrible passion again and he needs people to understand this. The first time someone actually manages to land a serious hit on First, All for One decapitates him and sends the head to his wife and the body to his child. There was no reason for the separate shipments. They lived together. The behavior is simply unhinged.

During this time First is the vigilante equivalent of an endangered owl on a golf course that the criminal underworld is trying to safely and gently capture before they get in trouble with the game warden, who is his insane fucking brother. Meanwhile he’s an adult man from two hundred years ago who thinks he’s at fucking war and is trapped in a body ravaged by puberty. He’s running around doing the most out of pocket shit and screaming at his brother to fuck off. Absolutely everyone is profoundly disturbed by first and his brother’s relationship and would like to be less involved in it. But this is not an option.

The League is trying to quiet quit their own criminal enterprise. They are so profoundly uncomfortable by whatever it is that All for One is doing now that they feel like they just need to do the villain equivalent of going out for milk and scratchers and never coming back. Except they feel like all for one will take that poorly so they found a new hideout and are just slowly moving their things over there. Every time they leave to do something they just fill their pockets and bags with anything they can and move it into the new place. They’re gonna do a hard rebrand into the Coalition of Villains and try to distance themselves.

Meanwhile first is hitting a bump in his vigilante career because this kid’s friends appear to be hunting him for sport

Class 1-A wants Midoriya back. Whoever is in his body appears to be working through… a lot of things. But he can’t do it in Midoriya’s body.

First does not fucking want to he wants to be dead with his husband and also he cannot emphasize the chronic pain enough. He has been trying to find a psychic quirk that could help he has been breaking into this kid’s apartment to talk to his mom he binge watched the entire mighty movie franchise trying to spark something and he is getting shit. Can someone please believe him because he feels like he’s made his overwhelming desire to not be here super clear. He is so sad and generally despairing and he misses his husband so much

Leading the charge is the red and white kid and the explosions boy from before. They both appear to be dealing with a lot of personal things. Not that first has any room to judge, but.

Both appear convinced that They Hold The Secret To Reawakening Midoriya and the secret is to scream at him that they know he’s still in there before confessing shit that they should be telling their priests. He just. He doesn’t know. First has been generally tired for most of his life. This is not an exception. This all feels like really private information that he should not have and does not want.

The spiky haired kid appears to have carried a lot of guilt around like a cross that he is trying to lay at First’s feet. Something about how he was there too and didn’t save him and wasn’t good enough and regretting everything that happened between them. First isn’t sure. He’s getting the sense that there was something up between him and this Midoriya kid and he thinks that helping him reclaim his body is the road to absolution. Something about a river? First is begging people to stop trying to achieve emotional reconciliations with him he does not know the lore

Todoroki meanwhile is gay

He’s had a lot of time to think about Midoriya and what he means to him. More time than he’d like. He’s had to live without him these past few months and he doesn’t want to. He wants to spend every day together. He wants to be heroes together. And they’ll never be able to do that if Midoriya doesn’t wake up

Todoroki sleeping beauties him

It does not fucking work

First was honestly not expecting that and less than thrilled. Like yeah he’s running on fifteen year old hardware but metaphysically he’s an adult and he’s married and his husband is dead and he’ll never be over it. Um. Let’s never talk about that again.

First is pretty sure this is not an emotional actualization thing. He’s tried that already. He voluntarily subjected himself to like 9 million of these kid’s baby photos while his mom cried and tearfully told him how much he meant to her. He let fucking All Might cry on him on a moonlit beach and tell him that he thinks of him as his own so son please come back to him. If there is a single emotion that could bring him back to the surface surely First has sparked it by now. He needs a Quirk to get this kid back a Quirk he is begging people to stop trying to connect emotionally with him he’s very skittish about that kind of thing it feels like a trap

Izuku also thinks he needs a Quirk and knows which one it is. And, great news: they already have it

He slipped into Six’s memories by accident. Once, Six was patrolling the streets and ended up chasing a bag snatcher. When he caught her, he grabbed her arm, and in that moment he felt the same thing Izuku felt when all for one did this to him. All for One took her Quirk and used it to swap him with First

In the memory, Six exploded with his own smoke.

Six tracked her down later. Her quirk let her activate and manipulate other people’s quirks. All for one didn’t use some psychic quirk to swap them, because he didn’t need to. He used One for All.

One for All is a stockpile Quirk, but not in the traditional sense. Stockpile Quirks usually required a stockpile to work. Yaoyorozu required a stockpile of body fat; it didn’t build up fat to begin with. But one for all was actually stockpiling everything it came into contact with. It had a perfect copy of First already stored inside of it. All for One just activated what was already in its stockpile. And if he used one for all to do it? They could use it to reverse it.

They just. Don’t know how yet.

One for All is just really goddamn weird. They’ve clocked up two hundred years of experience between them and still are surprised by it. Seven was the first one to realize that the emotions of past users lingered. Eight was the first one to turn into a different fucking person with one for all. He was the only one who got a Hannah Montana form and honestly none of them know how he did that. Five and Six are convinced that Nine will be able to use their Quirks and they want him to try as soon as he gets his body back because it will be so fucking sick

So they’re trying to figure out how to swap out consciousnesses. It is. Going slow. Like this shit is difficult. It is weird dream logic bullshit. The human mind was not made to exist in harmony with eight others. And it was not made to exist purely in a mental state. Learning how to navigate one for all is like learning how to swim in a pool without buoyancy. It took them years to figure out how to make chairs. They were really gearing up to try and contact nine through his dreams, dramatic style, sitting in the chairs. It was going to be sick. But that’s the culmination of 200+ years of work. Chairs and spooky dreams. They need more.

Izuku can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t going to work without First. He’s at the wheel right now. He’s in control of their Quirk. Part of the reason why it’s so hard to navigate OfA is that it’s infinitely more difficult to activate it or use it at all when you’re in it. Literally the only time they managed to trigger it from the inside was during the sports festival with Shinsou, and that was only for a moment. He thinks for this to work, First needs to do it from the outside. And for that, they need to talk to him or Izuku will never wake up from this

Oh look. Izuku's awake.

The LoV and the Shie Haissaki still end up collaborating, but its even more tense right now, because All for One is out and a grade a freak and the League is in the process of trying to leave before all for one realizes that’s what they’re doing. Dabi does not want to fucking be here okay they would have left already but shigaraki and twice got into a three hour argument about whether they could practically smuggle their beds out or if they should just get new ones and now Dabi has a piece of baseboard strapped to his leg beneath his clothes and it feels like a wingnut has fallen into his sock. He doesn’t want to be here he just doesn’t

First was doing something unrelated and one of the Shie hassaiki clobbered him from behind and only realized who he was later and took him to Chisaki in a panic for the damage to be fixed before all for one found out about it and honestly it’s the most stressful thing to happen to them in a long time. He woke up after he was brought down there and his instinctive distrust of waking up In A Place kicked in and he started biting immediately. Then one of them shot him in a panic with a quirk destroying bullet and he dropped like a sack of fucking rocks. No one can remember if the gun was loaded with the temporary or permanent kind and they are absolutely begging the league to be cool about this and not tell AfO. And honestly? Dabi doesn’t want to tell that guy. He’s sort of team psycho biting little brother. Like holy fuck Dabi’s a villain but he’s not that kind of villain. Every time he sees that vault he feels like a creep by association. AfO has such a rancid family dynamic that it’s making Dabi rethink his own. Should he call his mom.

Izuku wakes up

And he locks in

He doesn’t know how long it’s been. He doesn’t know where he is. There’s a man here who has paired his feather boa lined fur coat with a plague doctor mask and Izuku feels profoundly judgmental about that and inexplicable responsible for it.

He does not ask questions. He does not hesitate. He has a lot of memories in living in a much more hardcore time and has inherited first’s profound distrust of being In A Place. Plague doctor mask has a highly destructive five point contact quirk he is not afraid to use and Izuku knows where first likes to hide his knives.

From the Shie haissaki’s perspective all for one’s freak of a baby brother lunged up from being dead unconscious and immediately started cutting off fingers. What the fuck

At around this same time the heroes launch their raid to save Eri

For the moment Eri is just fine because Izuku is riding on fucking instinct. He stole a gun, shot some people with god knows what because these are NOT bullets, sprinted off down a random hall, and found a little girl obviously being abused who was locked in a random room

Izuku has very strong feelings about this for all of the old reasons and several new ones

He offers her his hand. He asks her if she’d like to leave this place. He promises he won’t let anyone hurt her

Eri takes his hand

Now they’re escaping together. From what, Izuku doesn’t know. This compound seems to have a lot going on right now. He can’t access One for All, which makes sense. It must be erased somehow if he’s awake. He just. Really, really hopes it wasn’t permanent

Dabi, stumbling on them: oh fuck which one are you

Izuku: *wild eyed, has a gun*

Dabi: you know what? I don’t want to deal with either of you. Do whatever the fuck you want *walks off*

Lemillion led the charge into saving Eri. He ran off ahead of all others, and he encounters Izuku first. He recognizes him immediately. All Might has been coming to Night Eye for help getting him back into his body and he has a picture in his wallet of Izuku that he keeps showing mirio while crying. But he thinks First is still in charge, so he approaches the situation like a horse girl attempting to soothe a wild stallion

Izuku, squinting at him, profoundly confused: don’t you go to my school?

Lemillion: oh my god Midoriya is that you??

Izuku: yes??

Lemillion: what are you doing here???

Izuku: I DONT KNOW I WOKE UP AND I LOCKED IN

Lemillion, immediately and instinctively recognizing that they have the same soul, tearing up slightly: fuck yeah little man let’s get you two out of here

Izuku’s confused but enthusiastic about whatever this is. He doesn’t know this little girl but he would die for her. He shoots people and their quirks stop working. He’s a great shot now. Second was a great teacher when Izuku wasn’t being hurriedly ushered away from the gay bits. Fuck is that Kirishima??

Izuku: KIRISHIMA

Kirishima, immediately recognizing his homeboy is back: YOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Mr. Aizawa is here too. Mr. Aizawa looks at him with such a profound exhaustion that Izuku assumes it’s about something he did. He’s sorry, Sensei.

Aizawa: fuck Midoriya??

And I genuinely was going to try to get this to a decent stopping point but this post is so long now that it is crashing tumblr. It has taken me five minutes to get this sentence to type. So we end here before I lose this whole post and cry