five-rivers

[five-rivers]

You've mentioned ultraviolet and infrared ages. What are those like?

What would a magenta age look like? There's no pure wavelength that corresponds to it.

What about the new color that's been invented, olo, that can only be experienced by carefully activating particular cells in the human eye? Would that even count?

Mixed red/green light and pure yellow light are indistinguishable to humans. Are those the same color? Do they give rise to the same age?

I'm going to answer all of this, but I'm not going to answer in order, so bear with me.

To start with, although this wasn't made with the greatest scientific rigor in mind, I have been writing with the idea that it's the actual wavelength(s) of light given off by the ectoplasm that indicate the character of the age (hence why, in Turpentine, the yetis specified that the age was true black, not perceived black). So, olo is, sadly, off the table, much like eigengrau.

So, that gives rise to a few different scenarios.

The ectoplasm is in a single band of wavelengths that is generally perceived to be the given color.

Both x-wavelength ectoplasm and y-wavelength ectoplasm are present.

The same ectoplasm is giving off both x-wavelength and y-wavelength light.

Scenario 1 is what I've been assuming for most of these asks, so I won't get too deeply into it here. It's the most common scenario.

Scenario 2 mostly occurs during transitional periods, when one age is changing to another, although composite ages exist. Usually, the two different types of ectoplasm won't mix well enough to make an intermediate color, they'll wind up looking marbled or speckled instead. Red and blue is likely to get you a war between heaven and hell, or something like Mankar Camoran's Paradise (sorry for the Elder Scrolls reference).

I think scenario 3 is the one you're mostly interested in, though. This would be when the same ectoplasm is giving off two or more wavelengths that combine to appear to be a different color. In this case, the resulting age would be substantially different than both the color it appears to be (scenario 1) or a composite age with its component colors (scenario 2). I'm not sure if ghosts would even perceive it as the same color, since there's no real reason to assume they have the same color perception mechanics as humans. For my own sanity, however, I'm going to say that such ages are rare, outside of white mixes and magenta.

On that subject, I think that magenta would be a sort of Alice in Wonderland or Gulliver's travels sort of deal. There are rules, and people are very serious about them (except when they aren't) but the rules run on nonsenseoleum and dream logic. I think a red-green yellow age might wind up having some zombie stuff going on, but I haven't got a strong concept for it at all.

The thing with ultraviolet and infrared is that they're actually huge swaths of the EM spectrum, much bigger than visible light. There are lots of possibilities within those categories, from ghosts inhabiting radio channels to eldritch things that follow arcane laws.

[five-rivers]

With the dpxdc tagging discourse flaring up again, and seeing multiple people attest that they are losing or have lost interest in the phandom because they can't find new Danny Phantom content without scrolling past too many blocked and untagged dpxdc posts, I'm wondering how interested people would be in a particular solution:

The idea here is, if you have new non-crossover Danny Phantom content, you can reblog it into the community when you post it to the tag. People who want to look for new, non-crossover content could be guaranteed a source for that. People who make new non-crossover content would have a second opportunity for people to find their posts where it's not hidden under dozens of dpxdc posts.

Administration and enforcement would probably be exhausting for a single person -- I'm not volunteering sole responsibility. But I don't want to lose the community we have here, and this seems like a possible solution that doesn't require everyone to just do X, which hasn't worked in the years since dpxdc exploded in popularity.

[five-rivers]

For the changing of ages AU, in one of the asks you said that blue-purple would be angelic/divine bureaucracy. What role would Danny have in that? Would he a Nephilim? How would certain ghosts treat/'dote' on him compared to other AUs?

I'm an angel-based celestial beauracracy au, Danny would be quite happy as a guardian angel for Amity Park! In a lot of ways, what he does wouldn’t change that much, and his job would actually get easier, with other 'angels' or 'divine spirits' finding things to do other than terrorizing people. However, his absurdly high power level in comparison to ghosts of a similar age would get worse, since he actually has 'worshippers' (his fan club) and he'd probably have various 'angelic' responsibilities outside of Amity Park pushed on him because of that. He'd also develop a habit of compulsively info-dumping to perceived authority figures and become very attentive to his homework and similar things.

As for him being doted on... from the outside, the situation would be sort of like 'why is the sanitation director of this one town reporting directly to the president?' Followed by 'why is the secretary of health acting as the sanitation director of this one town?' Followed by 'why has the president adopted the secretary of health, and why is the secretary of health fourteen?'

I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it's what's in my head!

Basically, Danny would get called in to do various chores (actually vitally important) and give reports. He'd get his wings taken care of while giving the reports, too, I think. Meanwhile, the official adoption paperwork is slowly percolating through the system, with the amount of time spent together used as one of the arguments for adoption.

[five-rivers]

If you're still taking AU asks, what color would something like a paradise be? And what kind of quirks would it have?

You could get paradise-like places from any of the colors (except black), honestly, depending on what your view of paradise is. Red and purple ages have fabulous, decadent parties and hidden places of great 'natural' beauty. Cyan ages are frequently home to pristine tropical islands and sandy beaches. Green ages tend to be highly varied. Yellow ages at their best have all the upsides of life and few of the downs. Blue ages are probably the closest to fluffy cloud heaven, though.

The thing is, paradise is like utopia. No two people are going to agree on what it looks like. It's also important to note that while the appearance and behavior of ghosts might change with the age, their morals generally don't. So, even in a very beautiful age where aggression is turned down, you're still going to have nasty people doing nasty things, just like how in Baroque Danny's allies were still trying to be his allies and help him (even if they were also manipulating him in ways that might seem horrible to humans). I don't know if you'd still consider it paradise, in tnat case.

[five-rivers]

Yes, exactly! Of course, what you're made into might not be entirely up to you. You're not the one holding the crucible. Or the hammer, for that matter.

What would an orange age look like?

For orange, I've got two diametrically opposed options that I'm trying to see if I can merge, somehow.

One of the things I associate with orange is amber. Amber preserves things, encases them, freezes them in time... like some conceptions of ghosts picture them as being trapped in the moment of their death, or eternally reliving portions of their lives. Ghosts here might eternally act out their last moments, or important memories, or have trouble forming new memories. Even ghosts that are able to act independently are unable to really change. Maybe in some cases, the amber isn't metaphorical. Maybe some ghosts are trapped imobile, like bronze statues.

The other idea has to do with fire and hot, molten metal. I'm picturing classic hell or Muspelheim type landscapes. A place where you're melted down, refined, reforged.

I'm toying with how to combine them. Maybe if you don't want to be trapped, static, you need to embrace being changed in ways that are outside of your control. Maybe ghosts in amber and bronze are harvested for their materials. I'm not sure yet!

[five-rivers]

What would an orange age look like?

For orange, I've got two diametrically opposed options that I'm trying to see if I can merge, somehow.

One of the things I associate with orange is amber. Amber preserves things, encases them, freezes them in time... like some conceptions of ghosts picture them as being trapped in the moment of their death, or eternally reliving portions of their lives. Ghosts here might eternally act out their last moments, or important memories, or have trouble forming new memories. Even ghosts that are able to act independently are unable to really change. Maybe in some cases, the amber isn't metaphorical. Maybe some ghosts are trapped imobile, like bronze statues.

The other idea has to do with fire and hot, molten metal. I'm picturing classic hell or Muspelheim type landscapes. A place where you're melted down, refined, reforged.

I'm toying with how to combine them. Maybe if you don't want to be trapped, static, you need to embrace being changed in ways that are outside of your control. Maybe ghosts in amber and bronze are harvested for their materials. I'm not sure yet!

[five-rivers]

I actually get a bit frustrated when I see dc fans complaining about the Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug crossovers on ao3 because it’s so easy to filter those out. You just go to the fandoms list and exclude em. Maybe exclude Danny and that ladybug girl and catboy as characters too.

You can’t do it that easy with the dc crossovers though.

I like Danny Phantom crossovers a lot, and that includes stuff like Teen Titans, Superman, Justice League 2001, and Young Justice. I can no longer access those without spending 10 minutes working around with the filters.

Not a fan of batfam crossovers? Just exclude Batfam. Oh? A good half of them weren’t under the batfam tag and were just under the main dc tag? Just exclude every batkid except Dick Grayson. Oh? A good chunk of them didn’t have character tags? Just search for Teen Titans specifically.

Well, turns out 10 of these are actually Batfam fics and have nothing to do with Teen Titans. And they don’t make that clear in the tags, summary, or the first 8k words of the fic since it’s all on the Danny Phantom side of things until chapter 4 when Damian Wayne comes out of fucking nowhere and calls Danny Danyal for some reason.

Please can we properly tag stuff, I can’t deal with the batfam takeover. I’m being entirely serious when I say that more than half of all Danny Phantom crossovers are batfam and there is no way to easily access other danny phantom and dc crossovers.

[five-rivers]

For the color changes AU, what would yellow be? For some reason the first thing that comes to mind is the Teletubbies and their baby sun

Yellow is for sort of Egyptian-type afterlives. Egyptian-like in that the afterlife is similar to life - they imagined that in a lot of ways you just sort of keep going with whatever it was you were doing - rather than in terms of being a desert with pyramids or whatever. In a lot of ways, they seem like a 'normal' world, analogous to earth, but there are still some quirks.

[five-rivers]

For changing of the ages, what color would be closest to your Loved AU?

Oh, goodness, I'm not sure. I think it'd have to be something composite. Dark colors, maybe purple and green, paired with ultraviolet, to make it nicely alien.

[five-rivers]

I'm curious in your vibrant au what Mamadoriya and Bakugo have been up to during the time Izuku was captive. And if/when they'll be reintroduced?

Oh, yeah, if I write another chapter, they'll be right there. I haven't quite decided how long Izuku's been gone, but Inko's been holding on, hoping, all the time, partially out of spite. There weren't a lot of resources put into finding Izuku... If Tsubasa wasn't taken at the same time, they wouldn't have spent any at all, probably, assuming that Izuku killed himself.

Bakugo, meanwhile, is allergic to self-reflection, so for a while he got worse. But without Izuku there to be a 'safe' target, he went after some people he shouldn't have and actually got (shocker) punished for it. He's in therapy, but unfortunately, by the time Izuku comes back into his life, the therapist has only gotten as far as 'randomly attacking people is villain stuff.'

Otherwise, they've mainly been doing what they did in canon.

[five-rivers]

For the AU asks! The changing of the age AU (I'm assuming that's the color one, if I'm wrong please ignore xp) I don't know if you have explained this already but what if there was like I mixing of the colors, so like a red-purple would be more orderly demons like the DnD devils? Or if there was a blue-purple like sea nymphs?

Can you tell I like the purple sky?

Border colors can be unpredictable!

Red-purple would generally be your best bet for vampires and werewolves, actually. Monsters that follow a set of rules. If it fell a little closer to red, then you could get DND-type devils and larger nations of demons with stricter, possibly hard-coded, hierachies.

Meanwhile, true blue is more for the divine than the oceanic (Seascape is about a cyan age), so for purple-blues you'd get stuff that's closer to celestial beauracracy, or pantheons divided in orderly ways. Which can still include sea-nymphs, of course! It's just not as likely for that to be the core concept.

I like purple, too! I actually woke up thinking about it this morning, which is why I put up the post asking for questions. XD

[five-rivers]

How did toshinori escape the nomu facility. How was All for One defeated in this au?

Shimura Nana saved him! Rather, she and the hero team she was part of (which may have consisted of a few other familiar faces :3). At the time, they were part of a HPSC taskforce dedicated to dealing with villains the HPSC didn't want to publicly admit the existence of, such as All for One, and they managed to track some of his movements to the facility, whereupon they had to fight dozens of monsters.

The team really should've handed Toshinori over to the HPSC, since he was obviously also experimented on and had various modifications, but he was also obviously still intelligent and had his own will, so Nana convinced the others to help her hide the signs that Toshinori had already been experimented on.

All for One was defeated in much the same way as in canon, except that All Might wasn't the only hero fighting him that day, since Toshinori couldn't guarantee his quirks wouldn't be stolen (One for All doesn't exist in this AU). This meant that there were people on hand to make sure All for One was really, 100% turbo dead.

Leaving Dr. Garaki to be the big bad of this AU. :3

[five-rivers]

I haven't done a white age yet! I'm currently imagining that, in a lot of ways, a pure, bright white would be the opposite of a black age (which represents the nothing after death, cessation of existence).

So, I've got two main ideas for white ages, which can kind of overlap.

In the first, white ages are ages with SO MUCH ENERGY. They're chaotic and brilliant, full of action and movement and creation. New ghosts form more easily, existing ghosts become much more powerful, duplication and similar powers become easier (but watch out: you might not be able to re-absorb them), and things get... overcharged.

Ghosts might spontaneously destabilize and dissolve into multiple new ghosts, especially if they have multiple obsessions, or if they let themselves build up too much energy. Ghosts spend a lot of time trying to shed energy. Their obsessions get overcharged as well, and over time, between ghosts splitting and new ghosts being formed, things tend towards platonic ideals. Or, as ghosts take refuge in the real world, animism. There's a spirit for everything, and a spirit for just that thing.

Of course, if the ghost can shed enough energy and maintain their sense of self, they can avoid that, and many do. Danny would probably be fine in this case, since he has his human half to rely on for stability... but he'd have trouble with duplicates.

In the second idea, what happens with white ages is that the energy sort of bypasses anything even pseudo-physical and goes straight to the conceptual. Ghosts lose their bodies and become more like raw thoughts, collections of concepts, ideas, spirits without bodies. If they want to interact with the physical world, they have to latch onto something that is physical, through possession or overshadowing. Otherwise, the most they can do to humans in this form is sort of... infect them with their ideas. Like, if the Lunch Lady is hanging out in the real world, the people around her would start to think about food, and cooking, and gradually their thoughts would come to align with Lunch Lady's thoughts.

As for off-whites, I'm thinking it depends on what the tint color is, to some degree, so it can be radically different than pure white. A touch of blue might get you crystal towers that vibrate and sing. Yellow or brown gets you ivory, or an infinite library where every memory of every ghost is filed neatly away, and tall pale trees grow up to touch a million suns. But as long as the color can be mostly interpreted as white, the age edges into the abstract and conceptual, or the over-energized.

I think a very light gray (still visibly gray, but only just) would mitigate some of the instability/disembodiment of the pure white ages, but would still tend towards the spiritual.

Send me asks about my bnha stuff and/or my changing of the age AUs. I'm trying to get the writing juices going despite the sickness.

[five-rivers]

Practicing skykids! This one is based on @fantasyfan20's Rowan.

[five-rivers]

Send me asks about my bnha stuff and/or my changing of the age AUs. I'm trying to get the writing juices going despite the sickness.

[five-rivers]

vibrant

(inspired by @pocketramblr's eye glow AU. Please let me know if you think I should do more of this! Can be found here on AO3.)

Pressure and sound rippled through the liquid that surrounded Izuku, and he pushed against the glass, hoping, praying to any god that would listen.  There was another rumble, deep and heavy like thunder, but more.  The heavy cap on the top of Izuku’s tube rattled, high-pitched, against the glass.  

Coming– whispered the most talkative of the voices, told you he was coming–

She had, but Izuku hadn’t dared to believe her, not until now.  Not in the way she’d wanted to be believed.  After all, no matter how great All Might was, he couldn’t be everywhere, couldn’t save everyone, and the odds of him investigating Izuku’s disappearance in particular were miniscule.  Izuku was no one, friendless, quirkless, the only person who’d miss him was his mother.  

Except even loaded dice could hit long odds.  Izuku recognized the sound of All Might’s Detroit Smash even through the glass and the viscous liquid he was suspended in.  

He twisted closer to the glass, pulling against the cables and tubes plugged into his back and stomach.  Stretching, his foot found the glass behind him.  Purchase.  Bracing.  He pushed.  Harder.  A spark of light jumped off his skin, briefly dancing along the discolored and jagged stripes of skin that spiraled up his right arm, and his muscles ached - more than usual, that is.  

But the next time the shockwave of All Might’s smash ran through the containment tube, Izuku was rewarded with a sharp crack.  The tube wasn’t designed to take these pressures.

Villains never follow proper engineering procedures, said one of the voices, the quieter one.  Careful–

The crack traveled down from the top of the tube and quickly spiderwebbed.  Izuku flinched back, a sudden pain in his head, and the tube fell apart.  He narrowly avoided impaling himself on the jagged glass that stuck up from the bottom of the tube, and gagged as the cables caught him, half suspended, and tugged on sensitive organs. 

Center, then clockwise, spiral out, said a voice.  Izuku was too distracted to tell which one.  Stomach, then back.

“Aynoaah,” hissed Izuku, garbled, reaching forward and around, to his stomach.  He’d watched, too, last time, when they’d plugged him in.  He twisted and tugged and wrenched and groaned as the cables came away and finally let him drop fully onto the ground.  Shards of glass cut at his feet, but he didn’t care.  He was, if not free, then at least closer to it than he had been for a long time.  

He stepped over the rim of shattered glass and into the lab, only stumbling a little.  

Run, whispered some of the voices.  Hide, said others.  

-help Toshinori?

Izuku didn’t know who that was, but the talkative voice spoke about him often.  It could have been her son, he thought.  She always sounded so sad when she said it.  So sad, so longing.  

Don’t know what they can make you do, said the angriest voice, and that was also an argument.  Izuku had been fighting, fighting, fighting, but sometimes the good doctor’s words crawled beneath his skin and itched, and sometimes he just didn’t want to hurt.  It was cowardly, he knew, but that’s what he’d always been.  A cowardly, weak Deku who couldn’t do anything.

Who couldn’t save anyone.  

What they’d done to Tsubasa–

Another ripple rattled through the facility, and even though Izuku should have left, should have turned around and run, he didn’t.  Despite everything, there was too much left of the boy who had chased hero fights, that had thrown himself in-between bullies and people who would turn on him without a second thought, that had tried, however futilely, to keep Tsubasa from being snatched off the street.  

His bare feet carried him towards the fight.  

Quietly, said the youngest voice.  Let me show you.  I remember.  I remember.

Izuku thought he might have been a hero, once, or a hero hopeful.  Someone underground, or training for it.  But then, he’s thought that about all of them, now and again.  Wishful thinking.  

But he was good at being quiet, whoever he had been, whatever he had been, and he and one of the others guided him close to the wall, keeping him out of the way of scuttling, once-human things with multicolored eyes, the ones the good doctor always called Johnny.  Izuku recognized them.  Not by their real names, but by their quirks, as much as he hated himself for that.  The bigger ones, the ones given more unique names, and the ones with useful quirks were all gone.  Probably fighting All Might, or evacuated by the one called Kurogiri.  It didn’t escape Izuku’s notice that he was still here.  Useless and unwanted even in this state.  Terrible thing to feel terrible about.  

The building shuddered, and so did he, pain arcing up his arms.  But he heard a grunt of pain, and he ran forward, eyes wide.  Only the urging of the voices made him stop at the doorway and take shelter.

This part of the facility was wrecked.  Izuku had never been here before, it was too close to the outside, he was too uncontrolled, too unfinished, but he could imagine what it was supposed to look like.  A sort of atrium, or arena.  A square pit, with a railed and raised gallery around the edge, stuffed with different types of monitoring and measuring equipment.  Many lights, to illuminate what was happening.  This was where finished products were assessed and marketed.  

The good doctor needed funding for his experiments.  Izuku had overheard him talking, bemoaning the fact that his great patron had died and he had to lower himself to taking commissions.  

But it wasn’t like that now.  The gallery was half torn down, the railing twisted into pretzels.  The machines were cracked and sparking.  The overhead lights were flickering, some of them hanging from their cables.  

And All Might struggled with the one that the good doctor kept as a bodyguard.  They’d had a name, once.  Had screamed it, as the good doctor brought his body back to life again and again and again.  Izuku didn’t remember it.  

The good doctor was so proud.  So proud, so proud of the quirks he’d been able to add to the poor corpse of a man.  Multiple copies of regeneration, shock absorption, pain negation, and an unnatural strength that wasn’t even quirk related.  That the thing was a basically brain dead automaton was incidental to the good doctor.  He’d even turned it into a joke, calling it Nomu.  Brainless.  

The quirks in Izuku were different.  The good doctor’s goals had been different.  But the way he called Izuku Deku, puppet, was exactly the same.  

All Might pounded Nomu into the wall, and it roared, black nails scrabbling against All Might’s suit - it didn’t leave a scratch.  It wouldn’t.  All Might’s suits were always made of the best support material available.  

For the first time in a long time, Izuku felt like smiling.  He didn’t, his teeth pinning his lower lip into place.  

Nomu pounded a fist into All Might’s stomach and All Might flinched.  Izuku flinched, too.  What was that?  Was Nomu’s punch really that strong?  Izuku had thought the fight was dragging on because of Nomu’s regenerative capabilities, but if it could really hurt All Might–

Toshinori!  Look out!

Izuku still didn’t know who Toshinori was, but he wheeled around, trying to find what she had noticed.  Then, by All Might, he spotted it.  He wasn’t the only experiment that had crept out to watch the fight, and Nomu, apparently, wasn’t the only combat ready one to be left in the lab.  

He didn’t think, after that.  He didn’t think the voices did, either, all of them yelling, screaming, even the quiet one.  They were with him, all of them, remembering just exactly how to do what they were going to do, their knowledge like needles pounded into Izuku’s flesh.  

His hands wrapped around the doorframe, denting the heavy metal, and he threw himself forward, into the arena, into the sharp-toothed monster that could have been him, if he was just a little less lucky.  

It snarled, eyes strobing as its quirk activated, and a sharp pain through his head told him to jump back.  Its limbs swelled grotesquely, then ruptured, disgusting bits of flesh and bone spraying outward, one of them nicking Izuku’s cheek, the shockwave making Izuku tumble.  It was better than if he’d stayed up close to take the explosion head-on, or if it had succeeded in latching onto All Might.  

If he made it out of here, he had to thank Kacchan.  He knew how to deal with explosions.  

There was a wet, slurping sound as the experiment’s body knitted itself back together.  Quirks really were amazing–

He cut off the thought.  The good doctor thought that, too.  The good doctor liked to talk about quirks so much he even talked to Izuku about them.  And Izuku had almost enjoyed it, once, he was so starved for any humanity at all, but then the voices came, and they reminded him to be better.  

The experiment was coming for him again, and there was a flash of red, yellow, blue from the corner of his eye.  All Might had shoved Nomu into the exploding experiment, and now he was looking down at Izuku, eyes burning blue and gold.  

Izuku– cringed.  He was a monster.  He didn’t mean to be, he didn’t want to be, but he was.  That’s what he’d been turned into.  In the next minute or less, All Might’s Detroit Smash could be turned against him.  

Toshinori…  The name was as quiet as a sigh, but it was the loudest thing Izuku had ever heard, even over the rest of the screaming.  

She couldn’t actually mean–?

The explosion experiment was moving again, and Izuku exclaimed in warning.  All Might moved, beautiful, efficient power.  

But Nomu was aiming for his side again, and Izuku remembered the kind of noise he’d made when he was hit there before.  

Faster! Shrieked one of the voices, and the world streamed around him, liquid for a split second, and then he was pushing the great fist off course.  

This was stupid.  This was suicidal.  And maybe Izuku did want to die, after everything, but this was the only thing he could do and still live with himself.  

He saw the other fist coming for him, Nomu retaliating, and Izuku braced himself, only to feel himself yanked backwards by the scruff of his neck.  He yelped, kicked, but didn’t catch anything.  All Might was better than that.  He tossed Izuku up, to the gallery, where he landed surprisingly lightly.  Immediately, he launched himself back down, feet first, to kick the exploding experiment away.  He was sent tumbling again.  

But as he fell, he saw that there were other experiments, crawling closer.  Johnnys.  Small corpses.  Small corpses with interesting quirks.  With useful quirks.  The voices noticed, too.  They always seemed to, when he spotted something important, and they clamored at him.  Even the ones that had wanted him to hide now urged him to act.  

He crawled up the wall, fingertips digging into the metal and concrete walls.  That one.  The one with the tongue.  He seized it by the leg, and before it could react to the sudden attack, threw it at the exploding experiment.  It tried to attack Izuku on the way there, sending a bubble-gum pink piece of his tongue at Izuku, hut he dodged, leaving the tongue to splatter stickily against the wall.

Then, the Johnny was colliding with the exploding experiment.  Sometimes, there were safeguards to keep them from attacking each other, but the Johnnys usually had simple programing, just to protect the good doctor, and the other experiments almost always responded reflexively to being attacked in a battle, from what Izuku had seen and overheard.  

It was a gamble, but it paid off.  The Johnny died messily, but not before snaring the exploding experiment.  Its body swelled, ready to rupture, near the sticky pink goo holding it to the floor, but All Might was faster, putting a fist through its head, blue and gold eyes leaving trails of light in their wake.  

The other Johnnys scattered, suddenly wary of Izuku, but he was fast, too.  They’d made him that way, the good doctor and his assistants.  The gruff voice, the one that hated Izuku almost as much as he hated himself, helped.  He caught the ones he wanted and sent them flying into the path of Nomu.  

Body spikes, bone spurs, paralysis–  That last one got him too, sparks rolling over his body, making him fall from the machine he’d climbed up on.  But, more importantly, it got Nomu, and it froze up, for just a moment, for just long enough for All Might to plow his fist all the way through Nomu’s neck.  Izuku watched, elated and terrified, as he pulled off Nomu’s head and threw it down the hallway.  The metal bits in the brain clattered as it rolled out of sight.  

All Might hunted down the remaining Johnnys efficiently, while Izuku was left still twitching.  Then, all at once, it was just him and Izuku.  

Oh, Toshinori, said the talkative voice.  I told you, he would come.  

Izuku closed his eyes, waiting.  There wasn’t really anything else to do.  He wasn’t any different than the Johnny’s he’d just watched All Might kill, and this way… it’d be over.  

“Are you injured?” asked All Might.  

Izuku’s eyes snapped open, incredulous.  He met All Might's eyes - just blue, now - and was suddenly seized with something like a survival instinct.  He scuttled backwards, afraid, and found himself wedged into a gap between broken machines.  

All Might raised his hands, palms forward.  “I’m not going to hurt you.  It’s going to be okay now.  Do you know why?  Because I am here!”

Izuku wanted that to be true.  He wanted that to be true so badly.  

“Do you remember your name?” asked All Might, calmly.  

Izuku stared at him.  The way he asked that question, like he actually knew…  Like he’d encountered something like this place before.  Well, maybe he had.  

He has, said the talkative one.  He’s Toshinori.  He’s been here before.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” said All Might.  

Izuku swallowed and licked his lips.  “Ayyremmer.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I,” said Izuku, with some difficulty.  When was the last time he’d actually spoken to a human being?  The good doctor certainly didn’t count.  “Remem’er.”

“Very good,” said All Might.  “Can you tell me?”

Izuku swallowed again, and started to shake.  What was All Might doing?  Izuku was dangerous.  He was one of the good doctor’s experiments.  He wasn’t a person anymore.  

“All right, it’s okay, you don’t have to,” said All Might.  “You…”

He looked uncertain.  Izuku didn’t like that.  All Might always looked confident.  

And then, All Might changed before his eyes, body shrinking, steaming.  A minute later, all that was left was a cloud of steam and an emaciated scarecrow of a man.  A man who had the same bright blue eyes as All Might.

He reached up to the neckline of his now-drooping hero suit, and pulled down the hidden zipper, exposing–

Exposing the kinds of scars Izuku knew very well, because he had them, too.  

“I know what you’re going through, kid,” said All Might.  “I know, because I–”  His voice broke.  “Because forty years ago, I was right where you are now.”

Izuku stared at the scars for an interminable moment.  Then, he looked back up into All Might’s eyes.  He opened his mouth.  “Nana says hi, Toshinori.”

.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur.  All Might called… people.  The first people who showed up weren’t the police, but a tiny old woman, a tinier old man, a tall man in a long buff overcoat, the hero Eraserhead, and the principal of UA.  

The talkative voice got really excited about the tiny old man, but after the tiny old woman kissed him, eyes twinkling with her quirk (Recovery Girl…?), he got really tired, so he wasn’t really able to figure out what she was talking about.  He felt bad, but the man in the buff coat asked him a lot of questions, and he had to focus on those…  even if he was having trouble remembering them.  

Then, the police came, and the next thing Izuku knew, he was sitting in the back of a car with All Might, half asleep.   

He had questions.  He had so many questions.  

“Al– All Migh’?”

“Yes, young man?”

“D’you– Do you think,” said Izuku, carefully, “I could be… a hero?  Like you?”

All Might put his hand on Izuku’s knee.  “You already are.”

[five-rivers]

vibrant

(inspired by @pocketramblr's eye glow AU. Please let me know if you think I should do more of this! Can be found here on AO3.)

Pressure and sound rippled through the liquid that surrounded Izuku, and he pushed against the glass, hoping, praying to any god that would listen.  There was another rumble, deep and heavy like thunder, but more.  The heavy cap on the top of Izuku’s tube rattled, high-pitched, against the glass.  

Coming– whispered the most talkative of the voices, told you he was coming–

She had, but Izuku hadn’t dared to believe her, not until now.  Not in the way she’d wanted to be believed.  After all, no matter how great All Might was, he couldn’t be everywhere, couldn’t save everyone, and the odds of him investigating Izuku’s disappearance in particular were miniscule.  Izuku was no one, friendless, quirkless, the only person who’d miss him was his mother.  

Except even loaded dice could hit long odds.  Izuku recognized the sound of All Might’s Detroit Smash even through the glass and the viscous liquid he was suspended in.  

He twisted closer to the glass, pulling against the cables and tubes plugged into his back and stomach.  Stretching, his foot found the glass behind him.  Purchase.  Bracing.  He pushed.  Harder.  A spark of light jumped off his skin, briefly dancing along the discolored and jagged stripes of skin that spiraled up his right arm, and his muscles ached - more than usual, that is.  

But the next time the shockwave of All Might’s smash ran through the containment tube, Izuku was rewarded with a sharp crack.  The tube wasn’t designed to take these pressures.

Villains never follow proper engineering procedures, said one of the voices, the quieter one.  Careful–

The crack traveled down from the top of the tube and quickly spiderwebbed.  Izuku flinched back, a sudden pain in his head, and the tube fell apart.  He narrowly avoided impaling himself on the jagged glass that stuck up from the bottom of the tube, and gagged as the cables caught him, half suspended, and tugged on sensitive organs. 

Center, then clockwise, spiral out, said a voice.  Izuku was too distracted to tell which one.  Stomach, then back.

“Aynoaah,” hissed Izuku, garbled, reaching forward and around, to his stomach.  He’d watched, too, last time, when they’d plugged him in.  He twisted and tugged and wrenched and groaned as the cables came away and finally let him drop fully onto the ground.  Shards of glass cut at his feet, but he didn’t care.  He was, if not free, then at least closer to it than he had been for a long time.  

He stepped over the rim of shattered glass and into the lab, only stumbling a little.  

Run, whispered some of the voices.  Hide, said others.  

-help Toshinori?

Izuku didn’t know who that was, but the talkative voice spoke about him often.  It could have been her son, he thought.  She always sounded so sad when she said it.  So sad, so longing.  

Don’t know what they can make you do, said the angriest voice, and that was also an argument.  Izuku had been fighting, fighting, fighting, but sometimes the good doctor’s words crawled beneath his skin and itched, and sometimes he just didn’t want to hurt.  It was cowardly, he knew, but that’s what he’d always been.  A cowardly, weak Deku who couldn’t do anything.

Who couldn’t save anyone.  

What they’d done to Tsubasa–

Another ripple rattled through the facility, and even though Izuku should have left, should have turned around and run, he didn’t.  Despite everything, there was too much left of the boy who had chased hero fights, that had thrown himself in-between bullies and people who would turn on him without a second thought, that had tried, however futilely, to keep Tsubasa from being snatched off the street.  

His bare feet carried him towards the fight.  

Quietly, said the youngest voice.  Let me show you.  I remember.  I remember.

Izuku thought he might have been a hero, once, or a hero hopeful.  Someone underground, or training for it.  But then, he’s thought that about all of them, now and again.  Wishful thinking.  

But he was good at being quiet, whoever he had been, whatever he had been, and he and one of the others guided him close to the wall, keeping him out of the way of scuttling, once-human things with multicolored eyes, the ones the good doctor always called Johnny.  Izuku recognized them.  Not by their real names, but by their quirks, as much as he hated himself for that.  The bigger ones, the ones given more unique names, and the ones with useful quirks were all gone.  Probably fighting All Might, or evacuated by the one called Kurogiri.  It didn’t escape Izuku’s notice that he was still here.  Useless and unwanted even in this state.  Terrible thing to feel terrible about.  

The building shuddered, and so did he, pain arcing up his arms.  But he heard a grunt of pain, and he ran forward, eyes wide.  Only the urging of the voices made him stop at the doorway and take shelter.

This part of the facility was wrecked.  Izuku had never been here before, it was too close to the outside, he was too uncontrolled, too unfinished, but he could imagine what it was supposed to look like.  A sort of atrium, or arena.  A square pit, with a railed and raised gallery around the edge, stuffed with different types of monitoring and measuring equipment.  Many lights, to illuminate what was happening.  This was where finished products were assessed and marketed.  

The good doctor needed funding for his experiments.  Izuku had overheard him talking, bemoaning the fact that his great patron had died and he had to lower himself to taking commissions.  

But it wasn’t like that now.  The gallery was half torn down, the railing twisted into pretzels.  The machines were cracked and sparking.  The overhead lights were flickering, some of them hanging from their cables.  

And All Might struggled with the one that the good doctor kept as a bodyguard.  They’d had a name, once.  Had screamed it, as the good doctor brought his body back to life again and again and again.  Izuku didn’t remember it.  

The good doctor was so proud.  So proud, so proud of the quirks he’d been able to add to the poor corpse of a man.  Multiple copies of regeneration, shock absorption, pain negation, and an unnatural strength that wasn’t even quirk related.  That the thing was a basically brain dead automaton was incidental to the good doctor.  He’d even turned it into a joke, calling it Nomu.  Brainless.  

The quirks in Izuku were different.  The good doctor’s goals had been different.  But the way he called Izuku Deku, puppet, was exactly the same.  

All Might pounded Nomu into the wall, and it roared, black nails scrabbling against All Might’s suit - it didn’t leave a scratch.  It wouldn’t.  All Might’s suits were always made of the best support material available.  

For the first time in a long time, Izuku felt like smiling.  He didn’t, his teeth pinning his lower lip into place.  

Nomu pounded a fist into All Might’s stomach and All Might flinched.  Izuku flinched, too.  What was that?  Was Nomu’s punch really that strong?  Izuku had thought the fight was dragging on because of Nomu’s regenerative capabilities, but if it could really hurt All Might–

Toshinori!  Look out!

Izuku still didn’t know who Toshinori was, but he wheeled around, trying to find what she had noticed.  Then, by All Might, he spotted it.  He wasn’t the only experiment that had crept out to watch the fight, and Nomu, apparently, wasn’t the only combat ready one to be left in the lab.  

He didn’t think, after that.  He didn’t think the voices did, either, all of them yelling, screaming, even the quiet one.  They were with him, all of them, remembering just exactly how to do what they were going to do, their knowledge like needles pounded into Izuku’s flesh.  

His hands wrapped around the doorframe, denting the heavy metal, and he threw himself forward, into the arena, into the sharp-toothed monster that could have been him, if he was just a little less lucky.  

It snarled, eyes strobing as its quirk activated, and a sharp pain through his head told him to jump back.  Its limbs swelled grotesquely, then ruptured, disgusting bits of flesh and bone spraying outward, one of them nicking Izuku’s cheek, the shockwave making Izuku tumble.  It was better than if he’d stayed up close to take the explosion head-on, or if it had succeeded in latching onto All Might.  

If he made it out of here, he had to thank Kacchan.  He knew how to deal with explosions.  

There was a wet, slurping sound as the experiment’s body knitted itself back together.  Quirks really were amazing–

He cut off the thought.  The good doctor thought that, too.  The good doctor liked to talk about quirks so much he even talked to Izuku about them.  And Izuku had almost enjoyed it, once, he was so starved for any humanity at all, but then the voices came, and they reminded him to be better.  

The experiment was coming for him again, and there was a flash of red, yellow, blue from the corner of his eye.  All Might had shoved Nomu into the exploding experiment, and now he was looking down at Izuku, eyes burning blue and gold.  

Izuku– cringed.  He was a monster.  He didn’t mean to be, he didn’t want to be, but he was.  That’s what he’d been turned into.  In the next minute or less, All Might’s Detroit Smash could be turned against him.  

Toshinori…  The name was as quiet as a sigh, but it was the loudest thing Izuku had ever heard, even over the rest of the screaming.  

She couldn’t actually mean–?

The explosion experiment was moving again, and Izuku exclaimed in warning.  All Might moved, beautiful, efficient power.  

But Nomu was aiming for his side again, and Izuku remembered the kind of noise he’d made when he was hit there before.  

Faster! Shrieked one of the voices, and the world streamed around him, liquid for a split second, and then he was pushing the great fist off course.  

This was stupid.  This was suicidal.  And maybe Izuku did want to die, after everything, but this was the only thing he could do and still live with himself.  

He saw the other fist coming for him, Nomu retaliating, and Izuku braced himself, only to feel himself yanked backwards by the scruff of his neck.  He yelped, kicked, but didn’t catch anything.  All Might was better than that.  He tossed Izuku up, to the gallery, where he landed surprisingly lightly.  Immediately, he launched himself back down, feet first, to kick the exploding experiment away.  He was sent tumbling again.  

But as he fell, he saw that there were other experiments, crawling closer.  Johnnys.  Small corpses.  Small corpses with interesting quirks.  With useful quirks.  The voices noticed, too.  They always seemed to, when he spotted something important, and they clamored at him.  Even the ones that had wanted him to hide now urged him to act.  

He crawled up the wall, fingertips digging into the metal and concrete walls.  That one.  The one with the tongue.  He seized it by the leg, and before it could react to the sudden attack, threw it at the exploding experiment.  It tried to attack Izuku on the way there, sending a bubble-gum pink piece of his tongue at Izuku, hut he dodged, leaving the tongue to splatter stickily against the wall.

Then, the Johnny was colliding with the exploding experiment.  Sometimes, there were safeguards to keep them from attacking each other, but the Johnnys usually had simple programing, just to protect the good doctor, and the other experiments almost always responded reflexively to being attacked in a battle, from what Izuku had seen and overheard.  

It was a gamble, but it paid off.  The Johnny died messily, but not before snaring the exploding experiment.  Its body swelled, ready to rupture, near the sticky pink goo holding it to the floor, but All Might was faster, putting a fist through its head, blue and gold eyes leaving trails of light in their wake.  

The other Johnnys scattered, suddenly wary of Izuku, but he was fast, too.  They’d made him that way, the good doctor and his assistants.  The gruff voice, the one that hated Izuku almost as much as he hated himself, helped.  He caught the ones he wanted and sent them flying into the path of Nomu.  

Body spikes, bone spurs, paralysis–  That last one got him too, sparks rolling over his body, making him fall from the machine he’d climbed up on.  But, more importantly, it got Nomu, and it froze up, for just a moment, for just long enough for All Might to plow his fist all the way through Nomu’s neck.  Izuku watched, elated and terrified, as he pulled off Nomu’s head and threw it down the hallway.  The metal bits in the brain clattered as it rolled out of sight.  

All Might hunted down the remaining Johnnys efficiently, while Izuku was left still twitching.  Then, all at once, it was just him and Izuku.  

Oh, Toshinori, said the talkative voice.  I told you, he would come.  

Izuku closed his eyes, waiting.  There wasn’t really anything else to do.  He wasn’t any different than the Johnny’s he’d just watched All Might kill, and this way… it’d be over.  

“Are you injured?” asked All Might.  

Izuku’s eyes snapped open, incredulous.  He met All Might's eyes - just blue, now - and was suddenly seized with something like a survival instinct.  He scuttled backwards, afraid, and found himself wedged into a gap between broken machines.  

All Might raised his hands, palms forward.  “I’m not going to hurt you.  It’s going to be okay now.  Do you know why?  Because I am here!”

Izuku wanted that to be true.  He wanted that to be true so badly.  

“Do you remember your name?” asked All Might, calmly.  

Izuku stared at him.  The way he asked that question, like he actually knew…  Like he’d encountered something like this place before.  Well, maybe he had.  

He has, said the talkative one.  He’s Toshinori.  He’s been here before.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,” said All Might.  

Izuku swallowed and licked his lips.  “Ayyremmer.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I,” said Izuku, with some difficulty.  When was the last time he’d actually spoken to a human being?  The good doctor certainly didn’t count.  “Remem’er.”

“Very good,” said All Might.  “Can you tell me?”

Izuku swallowed again, and started to shake.  What was All Might doing?  Izuku was dangerous.  He was one of the good doctor’s experiments.  He wasn’t a person anymore.  

“All right, it’s okay, you don’t have to,” said All Might.  “You…”

He looked uncertain.  Izuku didn’t like that.  All Might always looked confident.  

And then, All Might changed before his eyes, body shrinking, steaming.  A minute later, all that was left was a cloud of steam and an emaciated scarecrow of a man.  A man who had the same bright blue eyes as All Might.

He reached up to the neckline of his now-drooping hero suit, and pulled down the hidden zipper, exposing–

Exposing the kinds of scars Izuku knew very well, because he had them, too.  

“I know what you’re going through, kid,” said All Might.  “I know, because I–”  His voice broke.  “Because forty years ago, I was right where you are now.”

Izuku stared at the scars for an interminable moment.  Then, he looked back up into All Might’s eyes.  He opened his mouth.  “Nana says hi, Toshinori.”

.

Everything after that was a bit of a blur.  All Might called… people.  The first people who showed up weren’t the police, but a tiny old woman, a tinier old man, a tall man in a long buff overcoat, the hero Eraserhead, and the principal of UA.  

The talkative voice got really excited about the tiny old man, but after the tiny old woman kissed him, eyes twinkling with her quirk (Recovery Girl…?), he got really tired, so he wasn’t really able to figure out what she was talking about.  He felt bad, but the man in the buff coat asked him a lot of questions, and he had to focus on those…  even if he was having trouble remembering them.  

Then, the police came, and the next thing Izuku knew, he was sitting in the back of a car with All Might, half asleep.   

He had questions.  He had so many questions.  

“Al– All Migh’?”

“Yes, young man?”

“D’you– Do you think,” said Izuku, carefully, “I could be… a hero?  Like you?”

All Might put his hand on Izuku’s knee.  “You already are.”