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last-words-ofashootingstar · 6 months

Text

Allure

Part One:Sunshine

❥MATZ x fem reader

Kim Hongjoong and Park Seonghwa. The most known and feared alphas of the new generation. It took two dozen elder alphas to subdue them and stick them in the world's most secluded prison- hidden away in the mountains. The prison that sweet little omega (Y/n)'s works at.

Knuckle Velvet (Part Two)

Smoke (Part Three)

➯a/n: i've always wanted to write a story i would like to see as a movie or show, and i very much enjoy supernatural and dark romance, so i made this ! it does get very dark so please read the warnings and take care of yourself first and foremost. i am very proud of this, i hope you enjoy 💕

✃ "Because you're... alluring."

✫彡wordcount: 9.3k

♫"Hey, you should leave that young thing alone, ain't no sunshine when she's gone, only darkness everyday." - Flower Face (original by Bill Withers) ♫ Allure Sountrack

(>ᴗ•)♡´･ᴗ･`♡genre: smut, YANDERE, a/b/o au

ಠ_ಠWARNING/content: DEAD DOVE I MURDERED THAT BIH

chapter specific: literally what have i done, not beta read(ironically), criminal MATZ, alpha MATZ/omega reader, forget everything you know about werewolves, so much world building, extremely yandere behavior, talk of attempted child murder, class division of werewolves, panic attacks, vulgar language, mind control, lots of scent stuff, unhealthy relationships, ptsd, flashbacks and nightmares, physical violence, manipulation of others dreams, supporting character death, forced soul bonding, forced marking, reader implied to have mental health issues, murder, gore, violence- all that good stuff. THIS IS NOT A NON CON FIC ALL EVENTUAL SMUT WILL BE CONSENSUAL.

⁂perm taglist: @stvrfir3 @tunaasan @marievllr-abg

⁂fic taglist: @potatomountain @spooo00oky

MATURE UNDER CUT MDNI

˚➶ ｡˚ PART ONE ˚➶ ｡˚

You hate weekdays. That much is true for a lot of people. You like to think your reasoning is especially valid.

Every Monday through Friday like clockwork, 6:30AM you walk into the prison. That on its own wasn't so bad. You lived only ten minutes away; the gothic building looked over your village in tandem with the mountains. You could see it when the weather was clear, even from your bedroom on the edge of town. You were no longer afraid of it like when you were a child.

You are, however, afraid of the newest prisoners.

New arrivals didn't usually rock you. This is the only prison in the country fit to hold lycans, after all. They all got transferred here eventually. From beta's who were just stealing to eat, to alphas who used their powers on humans, to those who believed in the old ways and fed on humans.

You had to interact with them all face to face.

You weren't excited for that particular aspect of your job this week.

You made your way through the double doors and greeted the security guard, your friend Hyolyn, as you went through the metal detector. It went off on account of the scent blocker that was embedded in your neck. She chuckled and switched it off so it stopped its incessant beeping.

"Don't laugh at me!" You threw a smile her way as you got your small purse from the plastic bucket she slid towards you. She doesn't bother to check your bag. She knows you well enough to know you wouldn't bring in any "fuck shit", as she would say. "You alpha's don't have to worry about accidentally spewing scent everywhere."

"Thank goodness for that, this place would stink to high heaven." Her unintentional reference to the new arrivals makes the air turn stiff. She could tell you were on edge immediately. "They aren't all that scary," she lays a comforting hand to your shoulder as you fiddle with the long strap on your crossbody bag.

"I heard one of them killed Alpha Greene... you think that's true? That guy was huge, I saw him at The Thing last year, I almost peed myself cause he looked at me-" You stop your own rambling, taking a deep breath and letting it out as a shaking sigh. "I don't want to go in there. Honestly, why can't we install a laundry chute or something, fuck."

"I'll follow you up, I c-"

"No, no, it's visiting day. You need to be down here. You know Chungha? Her daughter is visiting today. Don't want you to miss her." You offer a sad, tight lipped smile, but that doesn't trick her instincts to protect her weaker pack member. She knows you too well to be tricked.

"You just scream and I'll be there. Either of those cocky fucks lift a pinky in your direction and I'll gut them. They don't deserve to see a trial anyway."

A small exhale in the form of a chuckle lightens her protective instincts, she can tell you feel more at ease with her promise to be right there at the slightest hint of trouble.

"See you, Hyolyn."

"Later, babes."

You wave your fingers with a smile as the elevator doors slides shut. As soon as they clunk together, you let it fall and crouch with your head in your hands, taking in deep and slow breaths as you try and force all of the rumors you've heard about the two newest inmates away from your head.

The older alpha of the duo was the first born in this generation. They're always powerful. But he was born to two bloodthirsty rouges. Born in sin and blood lust.

The younger alpha was born just some months after, to an arranged marriage that was purposefully formed to make powerful children. They surely regret that now. Some say the man has the strongest, sharpest claws since the first lycan in Talbot Castle.

When the elevator dings, you're already upright and have that strong facade on that you put on when you're clocked in.

˚➶ ｡˚

You start with the familiar. "Hey, Chungha," you tap on the silver bars of her cell, "hand 'em over." She smiles as she stands, stripping the sheets from her cot and holding them through the bars for you. "Thank you," you draw on with a tug on your lips that matches hers.

"Yunnie in town?"

"Mhm," you hum as you fold the blanket before dropping it in the large basket on wheels, "she came over for stew, I made sure to feed her good and well, don't worry."

You know it was probably problematic, but you couldn't help it. Chungha came here three years ago on a charge for battery, and over those three years you became sort of friends with her.

The battered in her case was her grandfather. When her five year old daughter, Jiyun, started to show signs of being an omega- he left her in the snow to wither away. She managed to survive until her mother came home, and said mother was furious.

She was lucky she didn't charged with attempted manslaughter.

"She said she'll be here first thing."

"Thank you," she had a heavy pull on her voice. You don't have the emotional connection to other wolves like an alpha or beta did. But it was clear to anyone she was being sincere. "You're a good woman."

"Don't mention it, Yunnie is good company. Oh," you start to wheel the basket away when you remember something. You reach into the purse that you had set on the handles. "She made this at art class, asked me to give it to you so it didn't have to wait in processing."

It was a small, cruelly made ceramic bowl in the vague shape of a heart. It was clearly made by an eight year old, but made with love.

"I owe you."

"Just keep working on that parol work." You said lightly and blew a kiss as you moved to the next cell.

The rest of your work nearly cleared your mind as you went from cell to cell, floor to floor. Omega's were on the second floor. Beta's on the third. Alphas on the fourth. High security on the fifth.

It's on the fourth level that you begin to feel those nerves that you had just worked away. The scent was becoming stronger. They didn't put them on blockers? Maybe they didn't think it would be worth it. Everyone knew that they were the worst of the worst, they didn't even try to hide it. They would undoubtedly be put to death. Why waste two perfectly good, expensive, blockers?

The basket of used sheets is nearly full, accumulating into a weight that makes you put your back into it as you push it into the elevator.

Your index finger reaches out, and before you can stop yourself you've pressed the button to the fifth floor.

You blank out until the door opens again. Your teeth are eternally grateful for the gum between them so they don't grind themselves into dust. The mint flavor does little to calm your nerves.

The only thing that makes you come back to your own head is Changbin. He's a big, buff beta with a gun full of silver bullets on his work belt. He won't let them hurt you. His smile washes away a lot of the nerves.

But the growl that rumbles against the walls makes them return ten, one hundred, one thousand fold. You don't dare say a word. A deer in headlights until Changbin places his hand on the small of your back. "Go on, don't give them the satisfaction of scaring you. They aren't going nowhere no time soon. Take a look."

He motions you deeper into the hall, florescent lights buzzing above you, matching the jittering feeling in the deepest pit of your stomach. It smells too strong. Too much. You're about to fall to your knees from the weight and you haven't even come face to face with the near feral criminals.

Changbin opens the doors at the end of the hall.

They've definitely gone all out to keep them in place. Two large cages placed next to each other in the middle of the enormous room. Made of pure silver and wrapped in wolfsbane. The unpleasant smell of the plant makes your nose twitch. A ring of blood ash surrounds it. Only omegas can pass through blood ash, and now you start to realize why they sent you.

You want to curse the warden, but the second you open your mouth, a loud cackle sounds out from one of the cages.

Changbin's hand twitches at the gun attached to his side.

"Oh wow," the smaller alpha chuckles, eyes closed, head tilted back, as he sniffs the air. "I didn't expect that." More manic giggles slip past his lips.

You haven't even looked up to see them and you want to cave in on yourself.

"What are you rambling about, huh?" The guard next to you shouts, making you flinch instinctively.

"That sweet... sweet, smell," he moans. You can hear him shuffling. "From a peppy little spit fuck omega."

You gasp abashedly, and now two laughs ring out. You want to wonder how they can smell you. Your insurance provides the best scent blocker in the country. But you're too scared to breathe, let alone think.

"Shut up," Changbin groans, he can feel you tense next to him, "don't piss me off, Kim."

"Awe," a new, rumbling voice makes you cower the second it reaches your ears, "this your mate? Hm, no... you wouldn't bring your mate here. You're not an idiot. Then, say... omega." You don't make a move to look when he addresses you, you stay looking at Changbins grip on his gun, silently.

"Omega, come!" Your feet move for you, and that manic laugh almost makes you wet yourself as you realize that your wolf is making you move toward them without your consent. You stop just outside of the blood ash, where you know you're safe.

"Changb-"

"No. I'm the one you're speaking to."

Changbin seems to be weighing his options, eyeing the men as they eye you.

"Why are you here? You a shrink?"

You shake your head.

"You a lawyer?"

Again.

"She works here, dumbass, look at her scrubs," the younger speaks, and you nod subconsciously, to which he giggles, "what can we do for a pretty little thing like you?"

When you refuse to speak, the guard does it for you. "She's here for your sheets today. Get used to her."

You hated that this was your job, but it was easy and accessible, and available for omegas. Werewolves are clean freaks. Every day you had a different cleaning task, but you didn't complain. Not until right now- you wanted to rip out the throat of whoever's idea it was to not shoot these criminals on sight.

"Ah," he hums, and you can feel his eyes raking your body. You can feel both of their eyes. "Not too bad of a sight to get used to. Huh, Hwa?"

"Mh, that's right... can't wait to get my hands on her."

Your head snaps back to Changbin.

"Awn, she thinks he's gonna help her!" The high pitched giggles bounce around in your head. "Oh, little omega~"

The saccharine coo finally pulls your eyes to the men in the cages.

If you thought you knew what fear was before this moment, you were wrong.

The two strongest criminals in the country, staring you down like a piece of meat. It doesn't matter that they are the ones in cages of silver and wolfsbane. You are the one who feels cornered.

You can immediately feel out their dynamics. The taller one is the older one, quiet and still in his cage as he sits in the center. Shaggy, shining hair framing his face and neck like an elegant piece of lace over a brides face. He has a sleeve of tattoos on one forearm, a thick tattoo on his neck. Eyes glowing a deep, blood red, as he tries to read your entire story with only a look in your direction.

The giggling one is less intimidating, only by a hair. Chemically lightened locks pushed back messily, letting his entrancing features shine in the light from the narrow windows high on the walls. He has tattoos as well, but they seem few and far between. His eyes are human for a moment before they meet yours. Instantaneously, they flick black.

The knot drops from your throat and you let out a small, pathetic, squeak.

Changbin breaks your staring contest with the alpha, shouting orders at them. "Take the sheets off your cot and set them outside of your cage. Do not attempt to touch her, I will shoot you."

Neither criminal makes a move to follow his orders, both simply staring at you.

A low growl is emitted when the older alpha finally snaps up, tearing the sheet off the sorry excuse for a bed in one fell swoop. The younger follows his lead, shoving their sheets through the bars that are wrapped in the poisonous flower.

You look to the guard, and he nods, "go." With his finger twitching at the gun ready to pull it, you jump over the dark red ashes and into the wolves den, snatching the sheets up as quick as possible and dashing away, out the door before they even get a chance to lock in your scent up close.

The giggles follow you all the way to the elevator and ring in your head even as the thick metal thunks shut.

As you take a deep breath, you notice the sheets are gripped to your chest, your claws drawn subconsciously in your panic and ripping them up. "Shit!" You let out a curse and shove them into the bottom of the basket so you don't have to smell it as closely on the long ride to the basement.

˚➶ ｡˚

The lingering wafts of your fresh scent are long gone, nothing to distract the alpha's from their caged boredom and bubbling rage over being caught. "I'll have that runts heart in my hands by the end of the month." Hongjoong groaned, to no one in particular- he knew Seonghwa was too deep in thought from their recent revelations. "Fucking back stabbers. They're more pathetic than a bitch in heat trying to get off with a dildo."

The thought hit his mind as soon as the words left his lips.

The thought of you, legs spread with your hand dipped low, trying to satisfy your primal urges and-

"Stop that." Seonghwa growls, kicking the bars of their shared 'wall'.

"Settle down!"

"Oh, like you weren't thinking it!" Hongjoong rolls his eyes, a scowl on his face as he crosses his arms. "Your ruts coming and you don't want your-"

"I said stop," he nearly roars, grabbing Hongjoong's state issued orange top and ripping it with his claws as he pulls him forward.

"I know you want her because I want her too." He whispers, smirking at the telltale signs of desire and bloodlust in his mates eyes. Red swirling around the brown of his human eyes. "Imagine how good she'll smell when we take out that stupid blocker. We'll be drowning in her scent." He moans, grabbing his wrist, "I get the honors, my claws are sharper, anyways," he draws them quickly, digging them into his skin as if to prove a point.

"I can use my teeth, mark h-"

"Oh, will you two stop? Love of God..." The guard in the large room slaps his book down on the rickety table. "What is there possibly for you to be fighting about? You're about to be executed, you know that right? No jury in the world will let you walk, especially the human half."

Their frustrations turn to the man, letting each other go. "Ah, you think so?" The older croons, dragging his index over his bleeding wrist and bringing it to his lips, sucking it clean before he continues. "We won't be around these parts long enough to meet the jury."

"What do you mean by that?"

Hongjoong covers his mouth when a laugh slips past. Seonghwa simply smirks as he sits cross legged, eyes locked with the guard as he licks his wound.

"What do you mean by that?!"

The blonde man breaks out in a fit of laughter. The brunette simply flashes his bloody canines in a twisted smile.

˚➶ ｡˚

You spent the whole time doing your daily tasks trying to hype yourself up to go back up to the fifth floor.

You usually went top down, four to one. Nobody has ever been on five before.

You go bottom up today, starting at Chungha with a full basket of freshly washed sheets. She prattles on about her visit with Jiyun, and how she's so thankful for you.

You choose that as your focus point for the rest of the work day, even as you press the button to the fifth floor.

You think back to the first time you spoke to Chungha, she was a crying mess, unable to sense that you were an omega like herself. She cried and cried and cried as you held her hand through the bars of temporary holding. She cried for her daughter, for cursing her with the shame of being the weakest link of any pack. When she looked up and saw your eyes, barely glowing, she cried more.

She apologized profusely, but you reassured her that her words were true, and you hadn't been offended. You told her that, in fact, she was the first to ever share your feelings of what being an omega really meant. It meant loneliness beside anyone but other omegas. Fake relationships born with people who only stuck around because of their primal instincts to either prey on you or protect you. It meant facing the fact that you were outcasts from both of the world's dominant societies. Outcasted from humans for being a werewolf. Outcasted from werewolves for being weak. So weak, in fact, that blood ash didn't even think of you as a wolf.

That night, you drove four hours to the next village over and looked after her daughter until her aunt had room. You remember the first thing the girl said to you. She didn't speak that whole day, surely in shock from the past few days events. But when you tucked her into the motel bed, she spoke as soft as a ghost, "sing me a song?"

You hum it to yourself now, the soft sound reverberating through the metal around you until the door opened.

You wheel the basket with you this time, like it will protect you as you approach the open doors, already feeling the unwavering gaze of the criminals.

"Hey, dolly~" Hongjoong, you had learned when you took a peek into their files, purred your way.

You didn't give him the satisfaction of responding verbally, but he saw the goosebumps on your arm as you reached into the basket, stretching on your tip toes to get the last two sheets.

"You never shut up do you, Kim?" The guard sighed with an exhausted tone, making you smile as you slowly made your way to the ring of red dust.

The throaty rumble from Seonghwa, the older, taller wolf, makes that smile drop to the depths of Hell.

The new guard seems to notice your anxiety, eyeing you up- in a much less predatory manner than the caged men. "Go on, 'mega. I'm watching them."

A bang on the metal bars makes you glue your foot right back where it came from. It's the blonde one, "you shut the fuck up!"

"No, you shut the fuck up! I'm the one with the silver bullets!"

All of the yelling is making you tremble, Hongjoong and the guard going back and forth. "She isn't your omega!"

"She ain't yours!"

Seonghwa watches with a sinister smile as you back away from the ash and the guard, calling to you quietly, "hey."

The soft tone of his voice makes you raise your eyes, but not your head. His eyes don't hold that threatening and dominating red from before. They're a soft brown color that reminds you of a beautiful dark oak in the morning sunshine. "What's your name?"

"(Y/n)..." your tongue moves without your consent, fresh blankets held to your work scrubs.

You desperately want the guard to notice this trance you're in, and grab you out of it. You want to do it yourself, but you can't do anything but admire the beauty of the criminal who has you hypnotized.

"You're a pretty omega, y'know? What color is your wolf?"

"Black..." It's a slur off your lips, barely registering in his sharply tuned ears over the yelling that continues to fill the room.

"Mine too. What's her name? His is Akma."

"Solis."

"Very pretty. Is she fast?"

"Yes."

"Does she want an alpha? A mate?"

"Yes."

The guard finally notices your raised gaze, affixed to the infamous, unlawful, man. He puts his gun back in the holster quickly before gripping your shoulder and forcing you to turn around. "You idiot, didn't anyone ever tell you not to look a first born in the eyes?"

"Sorry. I'm sorry." No one had ever told you that, actually.

Both of the criminals share a smirk as the man from your pack attempts to calm you. It wasn't hard for them to figure out you were an alpha-less village. They could smell every single wolf in five miles, and not a single stench from a wolf even nearly as strong as them.

There was, however, you. A honeyed smell that filled their guts with the primal need to rip out the eyes of anyone who dared look at you.

The guard couldn't be more wrong. You are their omega. You just don't know yet.

"Go and give these fucks their sheets, then get the hell out of here." The man shoved you, making you jump clumsily over the ash so you didn't break the seal.

He yells at them to back up, and they do so without a fight.

You shove them both in at the same time before running back out quickly, grabbing the empty basket and dragging it with you, the sound of the wheels scraping with the force of your panic echoing in the near empty room.

"You guys get off on scaring defenseless girls?" The guard scoffs, not expecting an answer as he drags the chair out of the room and slams the doors behind him.

Seonghwa lets his facade fall the second the door shuts, falling to his knees and grappling at the sheet like he's a starving man with the last piece of food on Earth. Hongjoong watches for a moment in confusion until the scent catches up with his weaker nose. Then he's quickly falling in the same position.

"It worked, the guard was so easy to distract," Hongjoong chuckles, face buried into the sheet that smells vaguely like you from your time spent holding it. "What did you learn?"

"(Y/n), a black wolf named Solis," he pauses, eyes rolled back as he takes a deep breath. They're red when they re-open. "No mate. It's really her."

"You think we should have told her?" Hongjoong inquires, looking through the bars.

He's never seen Seonghwa on his knees for anyone but him or the moon.

"No," he shakes his head, turning to lock eyes with him. "She'll figure it out when I mark her."

"When I mark her."

He rolls his eyes at his defiant nature, knowing full well he won't disobey his orders no matter how badly he wants to do something.

In a dog eat dog world, the strongest was the most powerful. Unlike their human neighbors, werewolves don't decide political or social standing by money or family name. They decide based on who comes out on top in a battle of the body and of the wits.

It had been determined years ago, when they were just young rebellious pups, that Seonghwa was the alpha. A fight in the woods under the moon had set it in stone between the two.

He could have ripped Hongjoongs throat out right then and there, but now, 13 years later in the present; they're bonded for life.

Sometimes he still sees Hongjoong as that 12 year old boy under his teeth, still snapping and growling even as he bled out with tears in his dark eyes, fighting to survive purely out of spite.

"You can mark her first," Seonghwa speaks quickly, turning his back as he puts the sweet smelling sheet on his cot.

He smiles at the man, a quiet thanks spoken through their bonded souls.

˚➶ ｡˚

Tuesday, they don't see you until much later in the day, but they bask in the sight of you opening the door with a broom and tray in hand, smiling at Changbin. You'll be here for a while, it's a big room.

"Hey, Binnie," you whisper to the beta, and Seonghwa has to bite his tongue.

Binnie? Ugh.

Hongjoong isn't so polite, "hey, Dolly! We don't get a hello?" You barely peek at him, eyes flicked from him right back to the floor in a millisecond. He knows you noticed his pout when he hears the smallest 'hello' tremble by your lips.

You start in the corner, headphones attached to your walkman with your favorite song on repeat to try and soothe yourself. Bill Withers calming voice blocks out every word of the teasing alphas, but you can still feel them mocking you and picking at you.

You don't dare sweep anywhere near the blood ash on the floor. One less precaution in place was one more thing to worry about.

"Bye, Binnie."

He does growl that time, eyes narrowed on your back until the door shuts.

˚➶ ｡˚

Wednesday, you have a frown on your face. "Three days in a row?" The guard Hongjoong got in a yelling match with, Merle, greets you as you come into the cavernous room, "bad schedule huh?"

"No kidding," you sigh, feet slightly hesitant to pass the dust border, "I'm here to fix your shirt. It's state property." You don't look at them, but they know who you're referring to.

They act like they don't, though. Just to hear more of your voice. To make you wriggle under their attention. "Sorry? What do you mean?"

You look and point to Hongjoong, his collar ripped from Seonghwas grasp. "State property."

"Ah, of course." He grins like a jackal, pulling it over his head and sticking his hand out of the bars just in the slightest. "On one condition."

You pout, eyes on the shirt which is just far enough away that you'd have to step closer. And it's the cutest fucking thing they've ever seen.

You look back up at him, silently asking. "Sit and talk with us. The guards here are no fun!" His laugh makes you jump back further, he sounds like a mad pirate.

You look over to Merle, who just shrugs, "just get it over with so these guys will shut up. They're only talkative around you, they need an audience for their antics."

"We won't bite," Seonghwa chuckles with his teeth exposed, making you shiver.

"Fine, give it here." You take a single step forward, palm out infront of the blonde.

When you grab it and go to race away like always, his claws wrapping all the way around your wrist stops you, sharp edges threatening to slice your skin down to the bone. You scream your head off, silenced when Seonghwa coos softly, "sit with us, and talk."

"Let me go..." you plead, eyes frantically flicking to Merle, whose gun is drawn to Hongjoongs head from the border of the ash, waiting for him to take one more wrong move so he can rid the world of one of its greatest criminals.

"Sit, omega." You do so, slowly lowering to the floor with your wrist and life still in Hongjoongs hand. "You have your sewing kit with you, I can hear the buttons hitting the needle. So sit, stay, and talk while you fix it."

Once again, they're the ones caged in. But you're the one who's stuck.

One look to Merle tells you he probably wouldn't help you even if he could get to you. He lowers his gun as your tailbone hits the concrete floor.

Your thin work scrubs do little to fight the cold of the old flooring, one reason of many that you shake as you reach into your purse and get the small tin box.

Hongjoong releases your wrist and sits mirrored to you, hands perched on the bars in the gaps of the purple vine flower wrapped on them. Seonghwa comes to the corner of his side of the split cage and breathes in deeply through his nose, eyes locked in on your every movement. "So you're essentially the errand lady? Maid?"

"Yes..." You murmur under your breath as your fingers work to thread the needle, slowly backing away until you're out of reach, but still stuck in the blood ash with no one to rescue should the men infront of you decide to rip their cages open. You only stop backing away when you hear a warning growl.

You don't care to see which it came from, you just want to do this as quickly as possible and get far, far, away. They could have chose anyone to focus their annoying efforts on. Changbin, Merle, the warden. But no, just your luck.

"You live in the village, right? Were you born here?" Seonghwa continues to do the talking as you carefully fix the shirt.

"Yes. And no."

A small hum from the one in front of you is a sign they want you to continue. "I was born to an overpopulated pack. They kicked me out when I turned eighteen. Our old alpha took me in." The hitch in your voice is a clear sign that it's a sore topic. And Hongjoong continues to poke the wound.

"How did they find you?"

"Woods."

"Woods?"

You can't help the small growl of frustration, lip curling as you look up. "Woods."

The reaction is one you wouldn't have expected from a normal person, but then- they aren't normal.

They laugh, cooing over your gesture of anger. Compared to them, you seem like a teacup puppy. "My, my," the brunette chuckles breathily, "is that Solis coming to play?"

"At least she can," you snap, sent to the back of your own head as your wolf tries to defend you, "she isn't a caged mutt."

Hongjoong breaks out into a manic fit of laughter, while his paramour is the opposite: his eyes flick red before your own, sharp teeth on display in a show of dominance over your smaller ones that are subconsciously bared at him. "Watch it, omega." He spits his words with venom, "I won't be so nice when I get out of here."

You rip the extra thread with your claw, kicking the shirt across the floor so it sits at the bottom bar of Hongjoongs cage. His chest still wracks with laughter, watching as you sit up in a low squat so you're still level with the alpha.

It's clear that you aren't currently you. Your wolf has control of your mouth and body, crouched in a position akin to that of a dog ready to pounce as you hiss your words, "I'm going to laugh in your face as you hang."

"Aw, is that how dear old alpha died?"

"Cut it out!" Merle screams disinterested, eyes glued to his flimsy magazine.

"I heard he got gutted~" Hongjoong giggles, watching the color flicking in your eyes.

"I'll gut you!" Your threat only makes him laugh more.

"(Y/n)!" The voice of Hylyon breaks your wolf away from you immediately, falling to your bottom and crawling to the sound unwittingly. "You fucking idiot, Merle!"

She reaches over the blood ash and pulls you over the ring, letting you collapse into her as she drags you away, still throwing profanities at the incompetent guard. Hongjoong is laughing loudly. Seonghwa yelling at you to come back. The elevator cuts of his roar, the last thing you see through your blurry vision is his fist making a dent in the silver cage.

You fall onto the floor of the metal box. Thoughts flood your head too quickly for you to swim though them, making you drown and try to escape by releasing the pain with tears. You don't even notice when your friend turns her key in the elevator to make it stop in its tracks, you only see her when she sits right infront of you.

"Babes, calm down, I've got you," she reaches out slowly and places a hand on your leg, slowly rubbing her thumb over your knee.

"I can't go back up there... they're too strong, they make me feel like I'm suffocating," you splutter through gasps, "I'm too weak!"

"Hey, hey, you're spiraling!" She opens her arms and pulls you into her, letting you sob into her uniform. "In and out, girl," she holds the back of your neck securely, almost instantaneously making you calm. "I got you... I got you..."

You sit there for a good while, crying into her shoulder as you sort through your wracked brains.

Your alpha was gutted. Right in front of you. Because of you.

Unbeknownst to you, their tuned ears are still listening in, the elevator stuck within their ear shot as you begin mumbling your favorite song to yourself through tears.

˚➶ ｡˚

The sound of claws slicing through the skin on your back rings in your ears. Though, you can't feel it. Your eyes are locked in on your own claws, dug into the hardwood floor of your humble home to keep yourself from being dragged.

You've been here a million times before.

Blood pooling off of your body and onto the frigid surface below you. Teeth sharp and bared to the moon though the open window, begging that she might let you survive. Eyes aglow with your instincts as your wolf tries with every fiber of her being to turn, but she knows it's no use.

The distorted voice above you drips with mocking venom, a chuckle as its owner realizes you can't even fight back like other wolves might: by letting your wolf fully transform.

The wind blows through your curtains, washes your body in the artic breeze. The snowflakes on your windowsill are so delicate, all of their features fade into a blurry mush as they make contact. They melt, dripping down your wall.

This time it's different.

You're turned over, gaping wounds slammed into the floor as always, but when you look up to your aggressor it's different.

His eyes aren't the yellow of a rouge, but the red of an alpha. His hair isn't that unruly blonde curl that you pulled at frantically, that you can still feel on your finger tips when your hands are unoccupied. It's long, shining, soft looking dark locks.

You fall through the floor into another time, another place.

Face first into the snow: your hands, shaking with adrenaline, do little to catch you.

You don't remember this.

This isn't right.

This isn't your nightmare.

You find yourself in a clearing in a forrest, the densely packed trees creating a bubble of nature around you. "(Y/n)?"

You whip around, coming face to face with an unfamiliar man. Almost face to face. If he weren't floating a few feet in the air.

His legs are crossed under him, hands facing palms up on his knees.

"Don't worry. You're only dreaming." He speaks calmly as he floats around you in a circle, like a shark examining its potential prey.

You follow him with your feral gaze, that familiar feeling of an adrenaline crash quickly approaching.

You know you're only dreaming. You've had that last dream more times than you can count in the past three years. It always plays the same. But not this time. You're only slightly thankful that you don't have to witness your alphas death again, but the gratefulness is overshadowed by confusion.

"Are you an angel?" You whisper, watching the man's soft and rounded features as he comes to a stop in the air in front of you and gracefully lowers to his feet.

"I can be, if that's what you want me to be. I'm only here to watch your dreams, fight off the nightmares."

"Why?" You feel distant from your body, watching powerlessly as your hand takes his, letting him lead you out of the clearing and into the darkness of the woods.

It disappears around you, warping into a spring day on a familiar path.

"A favor for a friend."

With the snow gone, you're in your spot, your old towel on the dewy grass with a book laid atop of it and the soil beneath your feet as you approach.

"Enjoy."

The hand vanishes from your own, leaving you alone on the side of the path. You look for him. But he's just an eidolon, watching you from the sky where you can't see him.

You warily take a seat and pick up the book.

˚➶ ｡˚

They don't see you again through the week. And when the next Monday comes by, their sheets are removed while they're in the showers.

Hongjoong sighs from his place on the floor, for the tenth time in the past half hour.

"Hong-"

"I miss our omega!" He whines, cutting him off.

Seonghwa stands from his cot, slowly lowering to the floor next to their shared bars. He lays flat on his back, mirroring Hongjoong as he tilts his head to look at him. "Soon." Is the only word he utters.

He reaches through the silver bars, ignoring the sting as the fresh wolfsbane brushes his wrist, and takes his hand.

The both of them look up at the ceiling through the bars of their enclosure.

Your scent is long gone from the room, and their noses can barely pick up on it through the rest of the village and prison.

"I want out of here," Hongjoong whispers, so lowly that the guard can't hear him from outside of the door, "when are they coming? Your bond with them is stronger, I can barely feel them..."

"Soon." He repeats, "very soon, Joong."

˚➶ ｡˚

Tuesday you manage to talk your coworker into sweeping the top floor, and you rejoice in the freedom of not being under the alpha's gazes. You've worked out a good schedule to completely avoid seeing them, and it's made your job feel like it's back to normal.

You can still smell their power wafting through the AC, but it's bearable. You distract yourself in your free time by making excuses to be on the second floor with Chungha and the other omegas.

Today, that excuse is 'omegas need physical outlets too', and the warden let you bring up buckets and brushes so you could all scrub the base boards.

"Oh, I've got one!" The omega to your left speaks, lifting his brush in the air in a eureka moment, "Texas Chainsaw Massacre or... Halloween?"

Chungha scoffs with a smile as she scrubs away to your right, "are we including sequels? There's like a billion!"

"No, stand alone original," Beomhan goes back to scrubbing as he continues, "both of them are classics but which one is a better classic?"

"Halloween is the classic slasher, Texas Chainsaw is like psychological horror," you chime in as you dip your brush into the bucket, sitting on your calves as you take a breather. "I think it's not fair to compare them... but Texas Chainsaw, definitely."

They laugh along with you, and Chungha shakes her head, "Halloween has more rewatchablity. You don't want to see Sally go through that more than once, but Laurie Strode fights harder and it's more like, yeah I'll watch her kick ass again."

"Cinematography in both is so beaut-"

The lights above you flicker before they shut down completely. People start muttering their concerns, quite a few of them looking your way. "Don't worry!" You hop up and get your keys from your pocket as you make your way to the locked stairwell. "I'll go and see what's going on, keep scrub-"

A loud siren echoes in the brick walls, shocking you all to cover your ears.

Everyone looks to you for answers, and you don't have any as your brain starts throwing theory after theory at you.

"It's okay, go back to your cells! Shut them behind you!"

They listened, however grumpy about it. The cell doors locked automatically when they were closed.

"Hey, what's going on?" Chungha asked over the clanging of the cell doors. The two of you, along with Beomhan, were the only ones left after a moment.

"Go back to your cell, Beomhan, hurry."

"No, what's happening?"

The sirens cut off and leave you in a pregnant pause for a moment as you simply try to calm yourself.

A deafening scream ricochets through the air vent next to you, scaring you into their arms as you all stare at it.

Usually, the air flow covered the echoes throughout the floors. But with no power, you could hear everything- albeit muffled.

Yells and shouts. Gunshots. Growls. Unidentifiable chaos. And above all, your ears tuned in on a rumbling, calm voice through it all.

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone... It's not warm when she's away..."

Your eyes widen as theres a bang at the stairwell door. "Go, go!" You grab each of their wrists, dragging them into Chungha's cell. You slam it behind you and let down the sheet she has over it, backing away and staring at it as you hear the door hit the wall behind it with the force it's slammed open.

"(Y/n), what the hells happening?!"

You slap your hand over his mouth and bring a finger to your lips. The other omegas on the floor are all making a ruckus, and you can only hope that it will confuse that unfortunately familiar voice so he can't find you.

˚➶ ｡˚

The beta in the large room ignores Hongjoong as he continuously asks after 'the pretty omega'.

He just sweeps and sweeps, finally understanding why you hate coming up here. He has his back turned to the cage, and consequently, to the windows.

High on the tall walls, the narrow glass is opened from the outside. Seonghwa smirks, and gestures his head to it. Hongjoongs gaze follows, and he has to slap a hand over his mouth so he doesn't laugh.

A skinny figure is sliding its way in through the window sideways.

He drops to the floor as silent as a mouse, landing on his knees and grinning wildly up at his alphas.

Hongjoong throws his head back in preemptive relief, while Seonghwa is watching with a similarly wide smile as the man walks straight through the blood ash, breaking the circle with the tip of his shoe.

The worker still has his back turned as the lock on Seonghwas cage is picked with a long claw. He doesn't even know what's happening as the next thing he knows, he's thrown across the floor.

Blood ash knocks up around him, coughs wracking his body as he looks up to his assailant.

Park Seonghwa, newly freed from his cage, looks down at the worker with his eyes glowing red.

"Now usually..." He begins, crouching to be face to face with him, "I'd go through this whole place just for the fuck of it and cause some beautiful chaos. But I'm looking for someone."

"(Y/n)?" He stutters out, backing away only to knock into Hongjoongs legs. Stuck between the two criminals, he chooses his own head over yours. "The second floor! Sh-she's on the second floor!"

"Let's go get our omega, Joong."

Nonchalantly, Hongjoong draws his claws and slices the neck of the worker. He hops over the gurgling body and follows his mate with an ecstatic giggle.

He wraps his arm around the skinny man's shoulder, "Wooyoung! Our savior~" He ruffles his hair and laughs as he groans.

"You guys know I've got your back. Seonghwa told me about your new omega, you seem excited," he mimics the alphas smile as the eldest of the trio opens the doors.

The guard on duty, who happens to be Merle, looks back with wide eyes.

"Yes, oh yes!" His eyes roll to the back of his head, touching the stitches you made on his shirt. "Oh, you'll love her, she's a feisty omega just like you."

He makes a run for the fire alarm at the end of the hall, but Seonghwa is faster. The beta is tackled to the floor.

"I'm glad you both will have a buffer, tired of you always at each other's throats during ruts," Wooyoung laughs, looking down at the guard as they pass.

Seonghwa had simply torn out his throat with his bare hand and made his way to the elevator, holding it open with an impatient glare.

The door closes behind them and the only sound is Seonghwa's heavy breathing.

"You're real eager, huh?" The omega breaks the silence, "San should be coming in any second to block the main door. No one will get past him. The rest are in the village, just as we planned."

"Good, she'll need somewhere to rest before we take off....Fucking idiots, thinking they can cage us." He groans, eyes flicking to the number above the doors as it dings.

3? "Fuck."

The door opens and the woman on the other side takes a moment, nearly walking in before she notices the crimson liquid dripping from Segonhwa's hand.

She makes it halfway through the hall before Hongjoong pounces on her, fighting her effortlessly as if she's a rag doll. The guards run to try and save her, but it's too late for the unfortunate woman, and they just signed their own death certificate as well.

Seonghwa and Wooyoung make quick work of them, but their plan is already foiled as the lights flicker to a halt and leave them bathed in dim light of the setting sun in the few windows.

The alphas fall to their knees as their sensitive ears are bombarded with a loud, incessant siren.

"Wooyoung!" Hongjoong screams over it, "go turn that shit off!"

He nods, taking the keys off a mauled guard and dashing to the stair well, leaving it unlocked behind him.

Hongjoong crawls to Seonghwa, collapsing into his chest with his teeth clenched and palms over his ears. His ears were always more sensitive.

His partner places his hands over his, thumb running over his own. He looks down with his eyes glowing red, meeting pure black.

He leans and kisses him deeply, all teeth and bloodlust, trying to merge their souls until the sirens cuts off.

Their foreheads rest together, ignoring the chaos of the beta's around them yelling to be released.

"Are you ready?" Seonghwa whispers, gathering another set of keys from the fallen workers. He throws it to one of the locked in prisoners, a smirk on his face. So much for not creating chaos.

"Let's go," Hongjoong holds the door to the staircase open and lets him go first with a dramatic bow.

It takes one scream to start the havoc. The entire prison is filled with the sickly sweet sounds of caged animals with a taste of freedom. Gunfire and howls bring a smile to Seonghwa's lips as he sings out,

"Ain't no sunshine when she's gone... it's not warm when she's away..."

He hums the song with a wide grin as Hongjoong kicks the door. It takes only one more kick before it slams open and bangs against the cement wall.

The omegas in their cells are all yelling at them, at one another, in general.

Hongjoong kicks one of the many buckets on the floor over and groans, "here I was thinking she'd make it easy. I guess we'll have to go cell to cell!" A small spike of a heartbeat in his ears makes him smirk, following the sound that he memorized the first time he'd heard it.

Seonghwa follows him, immediately zeroing in on the same cell. He comes to stand infront of it, his breath making the blanket behind the bars sway slightly.

You see both pairs of orange slip on shoes and you feel your heart stop in your chest.

You cower further into the corner with Beomhan as Chungha stands in front of you. The sheet is grabbed from the outside and ripped away, making you all shriek.

"Were you playing hide and seek?" Hongjoong giggles, throwing the blanket to the side with his eyes never leaving you, a scowl growing on his features as he notices the way you're curling into another wolf. "You should know better than to hide from your alphas. Come on out."

You shake your head, gaze lowered as you hold onto the back of Chungha's uniform.

"(Y/n)," the saturnine man speaks, "come here."

"No, leave us alone! Leave me alone," your voice cracks despite how strong you want to appear.

"If I have to drag you out of here I will be very angry. Just come on, do us all a solid."

"No-"

"Open the fucking door!"

"No!"

The cells were built to hold lycans, which means lycans shouldn't be able to get in... right?

"Fucking-" Seonghwa hits the bars, leaving a dent and making the three of you jump.

Hongjoong leans on his tiptoes and whispers into his ear, and whatever he says makes his eyes begin glowing a murderous red.

He slowly wraps his clawed fingers around the bars, and the way Hongjoong backs up makes your stomach churn in anxiety of what's about to come.

And it was warranted anxiety.

With a loud growl and a single tug, he rips the silver bars from their cemented place in the wall, causing a large crack to form.

"Holy shit!" Beomhan screams, arms wrapping around you tightly.

Chungha is ripped from the small room and tossed all the way across the room, back colliding with the wall and leaving her unconscious.

You yelp as Beomhan meets a similar fate, torn from your grasp and out into the rec room like he's a mere bag of trash. You see Hongjoong approaching him with his long black claws out and proud, but your vision is blocked by the large alpha infront of you.

Your hips back into Chungha's small desk, and your hands clamber around, landing on something small and solid.

You swing it at his head and he ducks, grabbing your wrist and dragging you out of the small cell. You manage to swing again, making contact with his head. The small ceramic bowl shatters into pieces and leaves him only temporarily stunned, glaring down at you.

"Fucking stop," he growls quietly, shoving you to the floor.

He lets you shuffle away, only because Hongjoong is right behind you.

The blonde chuckles, pulling you back up by your collar and crashing you face first into one of the round steel tables bolted into the floor. "Ow!" You yell out as your head makes contact, fighting against him with all your might, but it's fruitless.

He kicks your feet apart and stands between them, leaning his chest over your back. You can feel his nose against your neck, over the healed skin above your scent blocker. You snap your eyes shut and do the only thing you can thing of.

You can't fight. Begging to these men would be useless. You can't disappear into the floor like you wish you could.

"Please, Selene," you pray to the moon, tears slipping past your shut eyes as you feel the claws of the mad man on your neck.

You cry out as the other worldly sharp nails slice into your neck, slowly and almost surgically. His other hand is cupped on the back of your head, keeping your head pushed into the cold metal. "Shhhh," he gushes above you, "it's okay."

Seonghwa sits at one of the bolted stools and rests his head to mimic yours, cheek on the table. "We'd've been more gentle if you listened, omega."

Between the tips of his claws, Hongjoong holds your small alloy scent blocker. Almost instantaneously, your natural scent floods their senses.

Their deep rumbles of pleasure make you snap your eyes back shut, missing the way Hongjoong stomps on the device.

"Fuck," the wolf behind you curses, body pressed close to yours like he wants to fuse together, he places his hands in yours and tells you, "you might want to squeeze."

"Wh- ah!" Your scream echoes over all of the other chaos as his teeth sink into your left shoulder, and you do just that. Your clawed hands squeeze around his, sharp nails knocking together as you hold on like his hands are the only thing keeping you from slipping to the underworld.

It feels like a million pins and needles washing over you, leaving you paralyzed in place as he purrs into the wound, making your bones vibrate.

A warm, comforting hand on your cheek makes you force your eyes open. Seonghwa smiles sweetly, like he isn't witnessing one of the biggest crimes in the lycan community.

Forcing someone to be your mate for the rest of your mortal lives.

"Breathe, omega," his words make you realize you're holding your breath, and you let it out as a sob. "That's it," he hums, rubbing his hand down your head with all the gentleness he's capable of.

Hongjoong pulls away with a moan, resting his head between your shoulder blades as he catches his breath.

Your wolf is already calling for her mate, howling in the back of your mind as you cry.

"Don't worry, we'll take good care of you." Seonghwas words have little time to register in your adrenaline filled head as he turns your head the other way and climbs up on the table.

It hits you when he moves your ruffled shirt away from your right shoulder. "No! No!" You find yourself with two million pins and needles in your body now, squeezing Hongjoongs hands all over again as Seonghwa sinks his teeth into you at an excruciatingly slow pace.

They're bigger, or maybe they only feel that way because your body is on fire. You sob freely, feet stomping pathetically to cope with the pain.

What little comfort you find in Hongjoong squeezing your hands back is washed away by the simple fact that it's him. That blood from his claws drips onto your skin.

It feels like a century later that the older alpha finally pulls away, a bellow of pleasure as he runs his thumb over the wound: making you jump.

"Your turn, omega."

The weight of their bodies is gone, but you can't bring yourself to move. Out of fear, maybe. Pain, perhaps.

"You know what happens to wolves who don't finish the bond." Hongjoong purrs teasingly, knowing full well that you will have to mark them back least you want to suffer at the hands of the moon herself.

A life with them was better than being turned inside out and left to the elements. Just barely.

You lift yourself on shaking arms and nearly fall as you turn. You would have if not for Hongjoong catching you. He lifts you back to the table much gentler, letting your legs dangle as you sit on the table top.

"Why... why me?"

"... Have you heard of Harry Talbot?"

"Harry Talbots a myth... what's he got to do with your fuck shit?"

"Harry Talbot was the first wolf that could smell his mate. He could tell just by her smell, they were meant to be." Hongjoong slots his way between your legs, smiling down at you with his bloody teeth, "her smell called to him. It wasn't just good. It wasn't a normal scent. It was...alluring."

You were growing dizzy, head spinning.

"Strong alphas can sniff out their true mate. And, baby, we're the strongest that there is."

You have to force yourself to swallow. Have to remember to breathe.

"Why? Because you're... alluring."

That's the last thing you can register before your world turns dark.

˚➶ ｡˚ PART ONE END ˚➶ ｡˚

#yandere fic #smut fic #ateez fic #yandere ateez #park seonghwa #yandere seonghwa #ateez matz #kim hongjoong #yandere hongjoong #ateez smut #ateez x reader #matz x reader #hongjoong smut #seonghwa smut #yandere ateez x reader #yandere x reader #yandere werewolf

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yonch · 8 months

Text

it's been 15 years and you can see better than ever

(design notes under the cut) (there are spoilers)

ok this got really long. here you go

sif:

ditched the cloak. it was collecting dust in their closet until recently, but they realized they don't need to cling to their grief so much anymore. someone else will need it more soon.

ditched the eyepatch. the prosthetic eye is a labor of love designed by isa, as is literally everything else they're wearing.

they cut their bangs finally and started braiding their hair back so it wouldn't obscure their vision as much anymore.

they like darker/tighter clothing and prefer function over form but unfortunately their gay ass boyfriend keeps treating them like a dress up doll so they're stuck wearing waistcoats and a fancy cloak. (they don't mind. it's designed to look like loop.) they keep flowers in their many pockets to give to people.

they're a woodworker in their free time. they don't usually talk about being any sort of savior so he just becomes sif the guy who's really good at carving birthday presents for people and also tags along with isa to charity parties and fundraisers

41 year old 5'1" they/he absolutely zero intention of Changing. bonded to isabeau. they adopted a kid who leo or i might post about some other time i think. her name is estelle.

isa: i'm not taking credit for the design that's by my friend @fembard /@leoweooo. i'll include his design notes

isa dresses mostly for comfort, he doesn't like wearing stuff that might get stained or ruined when he's dyeing clothes or chasing stelle around in the mud or something, all his fashion sense goes into his handiwork

he Changed a few more times over the 15yrs, eventually settled. picked up she/her pronouns again on the side but was never really able to ditch the name isabeau and he kinda ran out of names anyways...

kept the long hair, kept a few inches in height, very happy to fulfill the role of male (space) wife

can't ditch the kimono jacket it's the piece de resistance. odile influence and Wisening Of Age means its made with a little more knowledge of ka buan technique but still very clearly an Isa Design. the fabric is imported silk sif!!!!!!

39 year old Tall with a capital T he/she "i swear i'm not a weeaboo i'm just really into ka buan fashion" vaugardian indie clothing designer in your area help support this man in his attempts to use his family members as living advertisements for his brand

mira: with design input from @jastertown thank you my friend

i took a lot of inspiration for the sparkly, sheer fabric on her dress from euphrasie. she's not head housemaiden yet because she doesn't feel like she's ready but everybody knows it'll be her

speaking of inspiration. she's been taking a lot of fashion cues from a certain lady in dormont that she thought was kind of scary, but it turns out she's very nice? they're besties now.

she got rid of the earrings for a little bit but then she realized she just liked how they look on her. so now they go ding ding! it's for her and nobody else, and that's how she likes it.

moved her ornaments to her skirt because they ding ding more often there. her necklace also jingles with merriment.

38 year old she/her advanced cisgender+ legend who's realizing that people are trying to get her to be the pope but all she really wants to do is write yaoibait fiction that looks like it came straight off of ao3

odile:

my glorious hag. she started shrinking about 3 years ago. all those years of bending over books has finally caught up to her. her hips are fuuuuuucked. but she has a sick cane that sif carved for her so everything's okay

she was already pretty comfortable and settled in her sense of style when she was nearing 50 so i don't think she would change much. darker clothing maybe. ditched the high-waisted pants for some looser slacks.

she's started writing a familytale of her own. the only person she's told about it is bonbon, who caught her up way past their bedtime, and scribbled all over one of the pages. she'll pass it on to sif when the time's right, after she's written down everything she can remember about their family.

64 year old she/her wasian researcher recovering from hernia surgery who's getting really into things like "political activism" and "body craft law reformation in ka bue" and "making sure people aren't sourcing their hrt from back alleys"

bonnie:

prefers to go by boniface these days. it's cooler. more mature. please stop calling me bonbon that's a nickname from when i was 10 guys c'mon guys ugh fine frin you can still call me bonbon but not around my girlfriends ok (nobody calls them boniface except for odile)

speaking of which they have 3 butch lesbian girlfriends. this got established as a joke but i think they have it in them. they're still young!!!!!!! they should be at the club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

they traveled for a while with everybody but eventually settled down back in bambouche to start a little family owned restaurant with nille featuring dishes from all over the globe. people travel from all over to get a taste of boniface's good eats... bambouche is bustling. (they have a few recipes that are sourced from the country. they meet people every once in a while who find something achingly familiar about it, and they usually direct those people to jouvente to get in contact with frin.)

26 year old they/them "i dont know how tall i am but i'm taller than za" chef cooker whose restaurant keeps lighting on fire because this time i swear nille i can figure out how to do cooking craft i swear i wont explode the kitchen this time please i promise

loop:

ok. this is where lozy gets to just talk about what he thinks happens post game. i think they stick around for way longer than they really should and follow the crew around on their travels (mostly invisibly) because they're sooo fucking scared of change they're sooo scared and they're so scared of their wish fucking up beyond belief. they're kind of incapable of aging or dying in this body and theyre like permanently 26 which is what spurs them to finally move on.

i think they go back to their timeline eventually after making a Brand New Wish to "go back to their real family." alas the universe leads and we can only follow. and it turns out loop has actually made a real family in stardust's world also. this is my justification for why they can pop in between sasasap and isat worlds without much repercussion. i think they're always permanently loop shaped in isat but i imagine they can probably go back to their original body in their home timeline... might design that later. who knows. i'm fucked like that

i just think they deserve a chance for their own happy ending you know. isat's a game about how it's never too late to communicate and how you shouldn't punish yourself forever and ever. and i think theyve punished themself enough you know.

ok tank you for reading if you read this far. it's really big and long so i would understand if you didn't. but i hope you liked it. thoughts appreciated. here's a little something for the people who read all the way through.

#isat #in stars and time #siffrin #siffrin isat #isafrin #isat game #postgame isat #loop #isabeau #mirabelle #odile #bonnie #boniface #spoilers are only under the read more #my drawings #etoile tag

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uriekukistan · 4 months

Text

JJK 261 ANALYSIS: What happened, how, why Yuuta made the choice he did, and a discussion of tragedy & major themes of JJK

MAJOR spoilers below the cut so please read at your risk.

i wanted to dissect what happened a bit, and address a few points i saw floating around since the leaks dropped. of course, these are all my interpretations, so feel free to disagree, i just had a lot of thoughts floating around that i wanted to put out for discussion.

I. Gojo was never coming back

first of all, i don't know how you guys expected him to survive bisection. i said this earlier in the day as my justification for why i didn't think gojo was coming back, prior to leaks, and i don't think i can say it any better now.

and this is just my interpretation of reverse curse technique, but if anything, yuuta in this chapter supports my theory. in the scene where he's on shoko's table and arata nitta says that he's used rct to keep the wounds from getting worse, but it might be too late for yuuta to recover. in that case, gojo wasn't coming back from being sliced in half. it's just not possible.

additionally, and this is another thing that i've said for a long time. he says right in episode 6 (i forgot the chapter) that his dream is to reset the jujutsu world raise up a generation of strong students that work together. that is why he became a teacher. this very clearly comes from his relationship with suguru, and it's one of gojo's clearest motivations from the beginning.

the problem is, in order to achieve this, he has to die. so long as satoru gojo is alive, he will have to carry the burden of being the strongest alone. his students won't have to work together, because gojo will just take care of everything. this is already in the works, with how many people have come together to stand against sukuna. if gojo lived and defeated sukuna on his own, this wouldn't have happened, and bringing him back would, again, reduce the need for his students work together.

unfortunately, gojo has been doomed by the narrative from the start, and his primary goal as a character basically requires his death to be realized in its entirety.

II. They're not heroes, they're jujutsu sorcerers.

yeah, i'm stealing megumi's line because it's true. he literally said it twice for a reason, and then yuuta said a repackaged version of it in this chapter ("we're about to fight history's strongest jujutsu sorcerer. if we can win by throwing away our humanity, we shouldn't even be arguing about this").

trust, all the characters are well aware of the ethical issues with taking gojo's body after he's dead, both with what it means for gojo, and with what it means for yuuta. but this isn't a story about heroism, this isn't a story about the power of friendship. if it was, yuuji would have saved junpei all the way back at the beginning of the series. it was pretty clear from the start that this wasn't going to be the typical shounen manga like that.

in fact, expecting it to be is unrealistic. it's unrealistic in real life too, if i'm being so honest. everyone wants to think they'd take the moral high road in this type of situation, but the reality is, when you're fighting tooth and nail against an opponent that is fighting dirty, you have to fight dirty too if you want to win, and i think that's what yuuta is trying to point out in this chapter.

this happens in real life wars which im not gonna get into examples because i dont want to start that kind of discourse, but like...it's so great to be idealistic and hope that virtue will triumph simply because it is virtuous, but i think if you take a look around, you'll realize it's true that good people do not get what they deserve simply because they're good (that's so megumi of me to say...). or if you think of it like a board game, if a player is cheating, it is infinitely harder to win without cheating yourself.

maybe this is a bit pessimistic of me to say, but you will not win a dirty fight without getting dirty yourself, and i think it's pretty clear that sukuna fights dirty.

additionally, it's shitty to see gojo be weaponized, and i understand that, but it plays into the themes about strength in jjk, which i will get into.

III. This was not an "ass pull."

i don't really have much to say to this. did you think yuuta wouldn't take kenjaku's technique? plus, kenjaku being eaten by rika is probably the only surefire way to ensure that they're dead and won't just hop to another body. i've already said why gojo wouldn't come back, but it makes sense that if yuuta were to copy kenjaku's technique, who else would he body hop into, if not gojo? there's already narrative evidence to support this action, from the guidelines of yuuta's technique, kenjaku's technique, and gojo's technique, to the character of yuuta okkotsu, which i want to do an analysis in a separate post for him, so i won't get into that right now.

idk...to me, all the threads connect, plus i felt like yuuta's return was foreshadowed pretty heavily in 259 & 260, with the mention of yuuta's plan that yuuji couldn't know, and then on the last page of 260, the comparison of sukuna and yuuta, so for me, i always thought that it was not actually gojo, but yuuta at the end of 260.

IV. Themes of JJK: The burden of being "the strongest," or even just strong

even many jjk fans see gojo as "the strongest," and nothing more, doing exactly what the narrative sets up as one of the chief problems of jjk. a lot of gojo's actions are spurred on by the burden he feels from being the strongest modern sorcerer. his entire character is built around this problem of the responsibility and burden that falls on someone who's considered to be "the best" at anything.

in fact, this is also a driving point for geto too, and the conflicts geto and gojo come into with each other, as well as geto's inevitable fall from grace. it all comes from this issue that's at the core of jujutsu society. gojo recognizes that, and, as i mentioned, that is why he became a teacher. so that no young sorcerers will feel the burden of being the strongest alone.

the problem is this is easier said than done. after gojo dies, this burden gets passed down to yuuta, and he feels that immense pressure, which is why he decides to do what he does. he says "haven’t we been pushing the burden of being a monster onto gojo-sensei alone? if gojo-sensei is gone, then who else will be the monster? If no one intends to become one, then I will!" and i think this really powerful evidence of the pressure and burden of being the strongest, and i think the word monster is really important here. the burden pushes people to be something they're not, a shadow of their true self.

it distorts morality, like with geto. it isolates people, like with gojo. it forces people to go to unspeakable lengths to uphold their burden, like with yuuta. it leads people with immense power to doubt themselves, like with megumi. it leads people to feel like a cog in the machine, not a human, like with yuuji.

this is sooo so important and a key theme of jjk, and this chapter in particular, and the driving force behind yuuta's actions.

V. Themes in JJK: Loneliness and Isolation

this one has, in my opinion, a bigger role in the story overall than just in this chapter.

as i mentioned before, gojo is lonely. the only person who could understand him was geto, and he turned away from him, and then died. he seems like a silly guy or whatever, but it's just a mask.

but geto also felt alone and isolated, and that's why he turned away. between gojo and geto, neither of them were able to put share the burden of carrying their strength alone, and it's what kept them apart and made their relationship so tragic.

arguably, and though he would never admit it, sukuna is also lonely, though it's buried deep within him and something he will likely never acknowledge, despite it, and his lack of understanding of love (arguably a symptom of his loneliness), are major reasons for the way he acts.

yuuta, though supported by maki, inumaki, and panda in a way that the previously mentioned characters are not, is still isolated. he alone carries the burden of his strength. he was also alone his whole life after rika died, and then again when he was shipped off to africa, away from his friends (yeah he had miguel, maybe i'm missing something, but i dont see them having that type of relationship.

not only that, but yuuta recognizes gojo's loneliness, and reaches out to tell him not to try to stand by himself once again, and gojo admits that's something he can't do, the reason being his relationship with geto.

even further, yuuji and megumi, the parallel to satosugu, are both deeply lonely, except for when they have each other. i mentioned in this analysis that the reason megumi can't just get up and keep going is because he's alone and has been for over a month. i want to get into this more in my next point.

VI. Where I think (hope) this leads for JJK

a satisfying ending for jjk, in my opinion, would be the resolution to this loneliness and burden of strength issue that has been present throughout the narrative. something like yuuji being able to save megumi and them being able to correct what went wrong with satosugu in their own relationship.

personally would like to see satosugu reach the ending they should have had through the itafushi parallels - let them save each other! but i do know gege said only one of them (the trio + gojo) will die, or only one will live....that was years ago maybe he changed his mind :D

we all want to see yuuji take down sukuna himself, but i think it would be a great resolution to see everyone take down sukuna as a team. no one person is alone, no one person has the burden of the strongest. i know i said this wasn't a "power of friendship" manga, and i stand by that, but i think this would be the perfect ending. yuuta throws his humanity away to do what he did in 261 because he felt like it was the only choice and it was something he alone could do, but yuuji represents unwavering humanity (literally his name), and i think to preserve that, they all need to share that burden. let them realize they need each other.

this is what gojo died for, and this is what he lived for. this is why he became a teacher in the first place- to raise a generation that can be strong together, that can support one another.

VII. "It's poorly written torture porn!" "There's no point if there's no happy ending!" etc

i said this in a separate post but tragedies have existed in literature since the 6th century BCE, 2600 years ago. many of the most popular stories throughout history have been tragedies, for example, orpheus & eurydice, romeo & juliet, even things like the fault in our stars and the titanic movie. here's a quick explanation of what it means for a story to be a tragedy (yeah it's from wikipedia but they want me to pay to access the original source and im not doing that for a jjk analysis)

one of things i like most about this definition is the use of the word "catharsis," which is to say that the expression of strong emotions is a way of bringing about renewal and relief. in literature, it's used to say that with the arousal and following release of negative emotions relieves suppressed emotions for the viewer. im not gonna get too personal with it, but i know i've experienced this with jjk.

additionally all of the aforementioned tragedies, they have a message, no matter how sad they are. orpheus & eurydice inspires perseverance and faith in the gods. even something like titanic has messages about everlasting love that overcomes all boundaries. jjk has its message too, and it's long underway. we just have to wait for it to reach its conclusion.

it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when we only get one chapter a week, and the fact that the pain is so dragged out is a bit tiring, i'll admit. but that doesn't mean it's bad. having negative emotions stirred by a story doesn't mean bad writing. i mean, i would hope you feel sad. i would hope you feel angry. i would be concerned if you didn't. but given that jjk is a tragedy, that just indicates good writing. especially these last two chapters, i've felt moved in a way nothing else has done for me in a long time.

as always, these are just my thoughts!!! im happy to hear from anyone what they think :D

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo satoru #sukuna #yuuta okkotsu #jjk leaks #jjk spoilers #jjk 261

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five-rivers · 2 months

Text

green is for envy, black is for trigger

A long BNHA oneshot!

So, they didn't realize at first what it meant when the teachers announced that Deku was going to UA. Hell, they didn't really get what it meant when it was just Bakugou that was going. Not that any of them, least of all Hideo, actually thought Bakugou would get in. The whole thing was a pipe dream. Only forty kids from the whole of Japan got into the hero course every year, and even if Bakugou was great at a lot of stuff, those were still long odds.

But Deku?

Deku, who had to have how his own name could be pronounced literally spelled out for him? Who broke down into tears whenever someone made a joke? That noodle-armed wimp with a death wish? Useless, quirkless Deku?

Not a goddamn chance. Not even with a miracle.

But Deku did get decent grades. Not as good as Bakugou, but the fact that a genetic throwback got passing grades at all was kind of freakish on its own. Shinozaki used to joke that it was because he was having special ‘tutoring sessions’ with the teachers, but both the teachers and Bakugou were so uptight about stuff like that. It was a joke. A kind of creepy joke, and Hideo was sort of glad when Shinozaki knocked it off, but still.

Anyway, inasmuch as Hideo thought about it at all, he assumed Deku got into one of the other courses. Although he only really knew about those because of the sports festival and Bakugou nerding out. Support and business or something like that. They probably only took Deku because they needed to meet some kind of pity quota. Hideo's dad was always talking about stuff like that at dinner. Mostly about mutant quirks, but Hideo figured it applied to deals like Deku, too.

But life went on, and no matter how ticked off Bakugou was about his glory being snatched or whatever, everyone else had entrance exams too. There would be time to complain about it later, or not. Hideo kinda figured Bakugou would eventually appreciate the stress relief beating up Deku would bring even through high school. He'd heard the hero course was tough. He certainly took advantage of it now. Enough that Hideo felt sort of bad about it, now and again.

The swan dive dare had been a little messed up. Sure, quirkless people usually killed themselves eventually, but let them do it at their own pace.

Hideo sort of envisioned him, Bakugou, Shinozaki, and Kanemaru hanging out together on weekends, dragging along whatever new friends they'd managed to make at their new schools. It'd be fun, hearing about Bakugou's glamorous life as a hero student, and Kanemaru's adventures at the local rich kid school.

What happened was Kanemaru drifting away, and Bakugou dropping all three of them like a hot potato.

It was– Well, for the first few weeks, he'd been mad. They hadn't been best friends or any sappy crap like that, but it was annoying to realize you'd been tolerated rather than appreciated. But then he'd heard that UA had been attacked, he'd gotten some new friends, and Kanemaru started hanging out again when he figured out all the cigarette hookups at his fancy school were trash.

And he was sort of looking forward to seeing people try to beat Bakugou up on national television.

So there was that.

But what he'd seen instead–

There was no way. There was just no way.

But there it was, on national television.

Deku.

Useless, quirkless Deku. In the sports festival. In the third event.

With a quirk.

It had to be some kind of trick. That's what he thought at first. But it'd have to be one hell of a trick to fake a whole quirk like thag out of nowhere, and there was no way Deku was that smart.

Maybe he'd been replaced or something. Hideo had heard of people with body snatching quirks. But, then, that'd be two quirks, and whatever urban legends said, Hideo wasn't dumb enough to believe in the quirk boogieman.

Could he have been faking being quirkless? The very thought made Hideo nauseous. No. No way. Not a chance. No one with power would tolerate that.

There had to be another explanation.

His phone was buzzing. The group chat was going wild.

He scanned through the messages. Shinozaki was disgusting, but he had good ideas, sometimes, and Kanemaru got rumors from his rich kid friends that took much longer to reach Gungan High, and their other friends were more of the same, but maybe one of them could see what Hideo himself was missing.

His eyes stopped on one of Shinozaki's texts.

i bet its trigger

where would deku eve get trigger, Hideo typed.

idk but its not like you can but a quirk on the street

Theres a guy in my class whose quirk makez every1 atoung him sing in tune, wrote Kanemaru, maybe its like that

with strength like tgat? r u serious rn noone like that ia gonna work for a quirkless deku unless he has more money than god its trigger ffs

But whered he get it?? asked Hideo. And would it even worj on a omeone Quiklessm?m

u cab get trigger cheap if yu know where to look

And how the hell did Shinozaki know that? He and Hideo weren't exactly squeaky clean, with the cigarettes and all, but trigger was something else. Like heroin was before the dawn of quirks.

deku prolly just has some bs weak asf quirk that hes juicing

That nauseous feeling came back, and this time, Hideo was able to identify the emotion fueling it as mostly anger. Red, hot, roiling anger.

It wasn't enough that Deku stole a spot at UA from someone who'd live past twenty, but he'd taken a hero spot? And he'd done it with drugs like the cheater he was?

If Hideo had been allowed to take trigger during his entrance exams, he'd have gotten into a hero school, too! Hell, maybe even UA, if Deku could do it. Hideo, after all, had a quirk that could be used even without trigger!

weve dot tobdon somethin

*got to do

It only took a minute for Shinozaki to reply lik what??

idk tellthe police if it's a druf thing right? Or just tell ua

He flicked away from the chat and, hands still shaking with rage, started looking up how to file a police report.

“And you think your former classmate is using trigger because…?”

“Because he didn't have a quirk like that before!” said Hideo, frustrated. No one was listening to them.

“UA's got a pretty great training program,” said the police officer at the desk, a bored-looking woman with fish scales around her eyes and ears. She reached over to a small spray bottle and spritzed herself. “Pick any one of those hero kids and you'll probably hear the same thing.”

“You don't get it,” said Hideo. “We all thought he was quirkless.”

“Well, clearly not,” said the woman.

“Yeah, but don't you think that's a little suspicious, that he never used his quirk at all before, and now he comes out with that?”

“Yeah,” said Kanemaru, who was ridiculously intimidated by the police station for a rich guy. Shinozaki hadn't even come, claiming he was too high to be anywhere near a police station. “What he said. Deku never used his quirk at school or anything.”

The woman raised a scaly eyebrow. “Did it occur to you that your classmate was simply following the law against public quirk use? Or that he didn't want to use a quirk that broke his bones. Quirk counselor probably told him not to use it.”

“He never went to the quirk counselor at our school.”

“You know private counselors are a thing right? I'd be seeing a specialist for a quirk like that.” She leaned back in her chair and looked up at them. “Do you really think a school full of heroes wouldn't notice something like that? Save yourselves some stress and go home.”

“But–”

“Seriously. Go home.”

“Any luck?” asked Shinozaki, whose eyes were indeed bloodshot.

“No,” said Hideo.

“And we haven't heard back from the school, either,” said Kanemaru mournfully.

“Figures,” said Shinozaki. “The police suck.” He twirled a blunt between his fingers, then lengthened them to offer it to Hideo. “Want a hit.”

“No,” said Hideo, wrinkling his nose against the rancid smell.

“Yes,” said Kanemaru, snatching it. “God, that sucked. What do we do now?”

“I don't know,” said Hideo. “We've got to get some kind of proof, otherwise the police won't take us seriously.”

“We could follow him,” suggested Kanemaru.

“Hell, no,” said Shinozaki. “You remember what chasing him was like in middle school.”

“We caught him whenever we wanted to,” said Kanemaru.

“Hell, yeah, we did. But he always knew when we were following him, and if he's pulling this off, he's not using where anyone can see.”

“What then?” demanded Hideo, frustrated. “Break into his house? Find his stash?”

Shinozaki snorted. “When his mom works from home? Putting Deku in jail isn't much good if we're there, too.”

“How the hell do you know Deku's mom works from home?” asked Hideo.

“Unlike you, I listened to Bakugou's ranting. She's a programmer or something dumb like that.”

Kanemaru perked up. “Maybe we could ask Bakugou!”

“After he ditched us? If he hasn't done anything yet, he's not gonna. Give me back my weed already, Kanemaru.”

Reluctantly, Kanemaru returned the blunt.

“There is one way, though,” said Shinozaki as he took another hit. “It'd be real risky, though, and it'd cost ya.”

“Yeah?” asked Hideo. “What's that?”

“Well,” said Shinozaki, “someone with a habit has a different reaction to someone taking trigger for the first time. We get that on camera, and it's all over for him.”

“I thought we couldn't follow him,” said Kanemaru.

“I'm not talking about following him, moron. I'm talking about an ambush. The freak still has to go home sometime, doesn't he?”

“Wait,” said Hideo. “You want us to, what, pin down someone high on trigger, shoot him up with even more, and then just stand around filming him? Who's the moron here, exactly? Where would we even get trigger? It's not like weed or tobacco. We can't bribe a college student to go into a trigger dispensary.”

“The trigger's the easy part,” said Shinozaki. “So long as Kanemaru can cough up the money. I know a guy.”

“I'm not fighting a guy on trigger!” said Kanemaru, shaking his head. “That's worse than roids! And he's got to be doing those, too, right? And he's got combat training or whatever, right?”

“Freaking chill already. Quirk or not, it's still crybaby Deku. No one's asking you to fight him, anyway. What’re you going to do? Pop out your eyes at him?”

“It's not like your quirk is much better,” said Hideo, trying to channel the police officer's cool skepticism. “I'm not fighting anyone alone.” According to his dad, that was the height of stupidity. You always brought backup.

“How is it that I'm the highest one here and the only one that can think? We aren't fighting anyone.”

“You know someone who takes hits or something, too?”

“No, idiot. I'm talking about your after school book club. How'd you think they'll react to someone who's basically quirkless putting one over on people with natural talent?”

Hideo's spine had gone as stiff as a board. “How the hell do you know about that?” Even his parents didn't know about that! Not that his parents knew anything.

“I listen, duh. To spell it all out, my proposal is that moneybags here gives me cash to get the trigger, then our literature lover can get his meta friends riled up and ready to do the delivery, and we stand well clear with cameras rolling.”

“I don't know…” said Hideo. He was totally behind liberation philosophy, people should be allowed to use their quirks to their fullest extent, but he was pretty sure that the people most likely to help with this kind of thing were the radical hierarchists, and they skeeved Hideo out.

“You never know anything,” complained Shinozaki. “And you say that I'm not civic-minded. Whatever. Something awful's going to happen, and neandertoe there will be right in the middle of it and you'll come crawling back to me and my plan.”

Hosu was burning.

Hosu was burning, and Stain had almost killed another hero.

Hosu was burning, Stain had almost killed another hero, and right in the middle of Stain's insane motive rant video was Deku.

Hideo picked up his phone and called Shinozaki.

Izuku wasn't so far removed from who he'd been in junior high that he couldn't tell when he was being followed. However, unlike when he'd been in junior high, there was more than one reason to follow him. In junior high, the only people that followed him were bullies, teenaged and otherwise, looking for a soft target.

But now? It could be anything from sports festival enthusiasts to the police (he had just broken a bunch of quirk use laws) to one of the villains he'd whirlpooled at the USJ, out for revenge.

The only people he was sure weren't following him were Kacchan and All Might. Kacchan, because stealth was one of the few things he was definitively bad at, and All Might, because being stalked by the number one hero had a very distinctive feeling, and this wasn't it. Besides, the figures he saw ducking out of his line of sight didn't have All Might's proportions, and he was almost a hundred percent sure that All Might only came in two shapes.

But they hadn't done any units on stealth or counterespionage in class, yet, so all Izuku had to draw on in terms of solution to his problems were his hit-and-miss strategies from junior high. He couldn't even call for help, because the fight with Stain had trashed his phone. He was hoping he could convince his mom to replace it with a mid-range hero model, but he hadn't quite managed yet.

So, his plan was as follows:

Play dumb as long as possible. If he started running, so would they. The closer he got to home before they closed in, the better.

Keep an eye out for patrolling heroes, policemen, or even convenience stores with sufficiently intimidating cashiers. He didn't think there were any suitable ones at the moment. The conbini closest to Izuku's house was staffed by a jerk who always tried to steal Izuku's change from now until midnight, but he might still come across one.

In case of being cut off, don't run randomly if there's another choice. Running randomly let the pursuers pick the route. Izuku knew paths, shortcuts, and hazards only people familiar with the area would know. He should take advantage of that.

Get home and call for help. Failing that, get to Kacchan's. If it was just bullies, they'd give up. If it was a more sinister group…

An unusually large group of older teens turned onto the road in front of Izuku, all wearing hoodies and oversized medical masks. Izuku promptly turned off the road, jogging through an alley and briskly striding onward.

If he wasn't already in trouble over the fight with Stain, he might have decided to use Full Cowl to jump his way home… except, what would he do if he accidentally ran into a person and hurt them, or broke someone's windows or something like that?

Maybe, if he went to the park, then cut through the thrift store in that one basement… No, if there were as many people following him as he thought, they'd be able to cover all the exits, even there. On the other hand, if the nicer person was at the counter, he might let Izuku use his phone.

He wished there was somewhere he could just hide until the people following him gave up, some building or business he could duck into, but that would require people who were actually willing to intervene in a beating, and most of the people around here… weren't. Some of them would call the police or hero hotline, but (with a few notable exceptions, none of whom lived or worked in Musutafu or its suburbs) even the best heroes couldn't just appear as soon as they were called. That's why they patrolled.

Speaking of patrols, finding one of those would also be good. But Izuku's mental timetable put the nearest one a mile east, if Kamui Woods was his usual amount late and not extra late, which was also possible. Kamui Woods was pretty popular, so he got stopped by fans regularly. He didn't usually come this way, anyway. The main villain hotspot in the area was the train station.

Mount Lady sometimes did surprise patrols, to boost her image, but Izuku hadn't figured out the pattern of those yet, if there was one, and he didn't have his phone to check if she was doing one today.

Although, if he had his phone, he could just call… Who would he call? Not his mom, most people who were okay with beating Izuku up wouldn't hesitate to beat uo his mom, too. Kacchan was still at his internship for another day, and wouldn't have picked up the phone for Izuku, anyway. He wasn’t sure where most of his other classmates lived. All Might would come get him if he called, and All Might wasn't busy as All Might - he had a car - but Izuku really didn't want to bother him. Calling the police, well, they wouldn't do anything unless he was actively getting beaten up, which looped right back around to the time thing.

Izuku had always thought it was remarkable, how fast you could get the crap kicked out of you if enough feet were willing to do the kicking.

At this point, Izuku had counted six sets of willing feet. Or two, if they both had shapeshifting quirks. He shouldn't rule something like that out.

But he had the sinking feeling that there were more than two. Or six, for that matter. A lot more.

He cut through the ground floor of an apartment building, ignoring how the doorman swore at him. He went out the service entrance. He wasn't too far from home, now.

But before he'd gone another street, he'd picked up another tail. Or regained one. He wasn’t sure.

Whoever or whatever was behind this was much more organized than the bullies and muggers who went after him in high school. He was- well, he'd already been scared, but now he was concerned, too, and that was a different kind of emotion entirely. Sort of. Probably.

When he got home, he'd call All Might. All of the really bad organizations who'd want to target Izuku would be connected to All Might anyway.

After this next corner, he just had to go one more block, and then–

Oh.

Somehow, Izuku hadn’t considered that the people following him might already know where he lived, and be waiting there.

He hesitated for only a minute as his brain registered a group too large for him to take on even with One for All.

There wasn't anyone for him to protect here but himself.

He ran.

New plan: Evade capture. Acquire a phone. Call the emergency line. Use One for All only if he was backed into a corner; he didn't think the police would be amused by a second quirk use incident less than a week after the first.

Hands reached out towards him. He ducked away from several, and almost ran into another, tipped with sharp claws. They raked over his arm, barely avoiding drawing blood. The owner of the hand laughed, and another person kicked at Izuku's ankles.

Izuku jumped over the feet, and he flipped the next person who tried to grab him. He could hear the crowd - and it was a big enough group to call it a crowd - jeering and calling out to him. It was nothing really identifying, unfortunately. They were calling him Deku, quirkless, and a fake, but the groups of people who would know to call him those things included both former classmates and incredibly serious villains.

The sidewalk underneath Izuku's feet crumbled, and his heart leapt into his throat - Shigaraki? No. Both the pattern of destruction and its products were different. Shigaraki powdered things. The concrete here was still in recognizable chunks.

He caught himself with his other foot, adjusted for the new terrain, and kept running. A volley of dark beams forced him to swerve and duck and turn onto another street. He thought there was a conbini up ahead– no, that was the next street down, but that apartment building left its ground floor open–

The broken concrete under his feet started to twitch and levitate. He changed direction again, now running on the street itself. There were hardly any cars here, even on a normal day. Today, the streets were dead, otherwise he'd try waving one down. How had they managed that? Bribery? Stolen construction and detour signs? He used his backpack to shield himself when the levitating chunks of concrete pelted him, then dropped it as he was strafed by a spurt of fire.

He hissed as he patted out his sleeves, then reflexively punched the next masked face that appeared in his vision. His muscles and tendons in that arm pulsed with pain, still not entirely recovered from their ordeals in both the sports festival and the fight with Stain. He switched tactics for the next person who tried to grab him, sweeping their feet.

There were some really cool quirks on display here, but they all felt rather… unpolished. Unpracticed. It kind of pointed away from these people being career villains. But then, so did their ages. Some of these people were adults, but not many.

That didn't mean they weren't working for worse villains.

A pop of compressed air went off to his left, and a pair of wires went shooting after him. They had tasers, too?

Something slammed into the ground around him, creating deep circular indentations. Telekinesis? An invisible giant? No, gravity manipulation. Izuku stumbled and was forced to use One for All just to get back up, and then he was hit over the back of the head with something.

He lashed out, caught flesh, and struggled away from the grip. But he'd lost what little lead he'd had on the main body of the pack. They were circling, now, cutting off escape routes. Could he use One for All and Full Cowling to get up on a roof? Not without fighting people with wall-crawling quirks. Still, that was fewer people than he was dealing with now. He tensed, getting ready to jump, and was suddenly hit with extreme vertigo, intense enough to drop him to his knees.

When it passed, he looked up to see a foot coming towards his face. He wasn't able to dodge.

The only good thing about the next few minutes was that One for All kept them from pinning him. He was hit with dozens of quirks and dozens of feet. He pushed them off, but he didn't have a good idea of how much of One for All was too much for a person to handle without serious injury.

But then someone - someone with at least a mild strength quirk - got hold of his right arm and twisted.

The world went wobbly, and the next thing Izuku knew, he was on the ground, restrained by a truly painful submission hold and multiple quirks, including the vertigo and gravity quirks.

“Come on, bring it over!” The movement in the crowd became more purposeful.

Left hand, pinky finger. Letting it heal naturally if Recovery Girl wouldn't help would suck, but not as much as letting these people do what they wanted to him, he was sure. He flicked his finger and the wind pressure pushed back the nearest members of the crowd, sending them toppling into one another. Izuku staggered to his feet, still dizzy. Up was the only way out, but he wasn't sure he could aim–

Something sharp sunk into his right bicep, and he punched the person holding it. Which, ow, his pinky.

He pulled the sharp thing out of his arm, which wasn't the best first aid decision he could have made but he was still learning. A hypodermic needle?

A minute later, the needle fell from Izuku's nerveless fingers. It didn't fall far. When had he fallen down again?

There was a burning sensation spreading down his arm and across his shoulders. It started as a surface-level itch, but then it went more and deeper, and–

Izuku had thought he knew pain. Shattering three of his four limbs in one go at the entrance exam, breaking his legs at the USJ, repeatedly breaking his fingers at the sports festival– He hadn’t done those things for fun. He thought he knew burning, too, from ten years as Kacchan's punching bag.

This was different. This wasn't just his skin burning, melting, his blood was on fire, his bones. He was cracking open with every beat of his too-fast heart, something terrible trying to get out.

This was agony, all the way down to his soul.

Hideo was feeling pretty good about things, actually. Elated, almost, like on a good roller coaster ride. Yeah, there were risks, but this was kind of like hero work, wasn't it? Giving the bad guy a beatdown and exposing him for the whole world to see.

As soon as they got the needle in him, everyone stepped off, giving Deku room for his freak out and Hideo and the others a clear shot at the action with their phones.

“Crap,” said Shinozaki. “Crap, crap, crap.”

“What?” asked Hideo, distracted by how Deku was writhing on the ground. It almost looked like he was fighting himself. Freak.

“It's not like I got him the good stuff that goes down smooth, but that's not– If he's a user, he shouldn't– That's not what he should be acting like!”

Hideo's good mood vanished fast. “Wait, you mean he wasn't on trigger…?”

“It's fine, it's fine, we just can't post this anywhere, we've got to stay quiet, it's not like he'll be able to identify us– We didn't touch him.”

But that wasn't the imminent problem, was it, if Deku had a quirk like that? If he had a quirk like that, and they'd just given him a shot of trigger? A quirk booster?

“Uh, um, guys?” said Kanemaru. “When you say don't post it…”

“Yeah,” said Shinozaki, backing away, “I mean don't post it anywhere, forget that it happened. Never speak of it again. All that good stuff.”

“But I, um, I sort of… livestreaming. I'm livestreaming.”

“You idiot–”

“Hey! Hey! Get away from my friend, you creeps!”

Ochako flopped down on her bed, doing her best impression of bonelessness. Her internship with Gunhead had gone great, but she was so frickin’ tired. She was glad it ended half a day before everyone else's - except for those guys who got caught up in Hosu, she guessed. Iida was still in the hospital, but apparently Deku had gone home last night.

She sighed. She'd text him, but he'd emailed everyone saying his phone broke, so that was out. So… she'd probably just scroll through the internet… it was a peanut butter and crackers for dinner sort of night…

Her phone rang. She frowned at the number, but answered.

“Uraraka! Dieu merci, I was not sure you would answer!”

Ochako sat up. “Aoyama? What's wrong?”

“It is Midoriya! I have found this, this livestream, of a bunch of gangsters chasing him through the streets. And I call the police, but they do not get there so fast, and all our classmates, they are on their internships, and he must be near home–”

“Send me the link,” said Ochako, slamming her feet into her shoes and grabbing the can of pepper spray her mom had gotten her when she first started to live alone. “Jiro and Mineta should still be in town, too, they got internships with local heroes.” Who else was still around? Ochako knew about Jiro, because she'd considered interning with Death Arms, too, and she remembered where Mineta was going, because he'd been gross about it, but there had to be others still around. “You call them, okay?”

“Oui, Uraraka, I am sorry I cannot help more–”

“It's fine, it's fine,” said Ochako, jogging down the stairs outside her apartment. She didn't remember where Aoyama was having his internship. “The police, they're sending a hero, right?”

“I do not know. They did not say, only that it would take time, that they have to confirm, that they do not know where this is, this video.”

She reached the bottom of the stairs. “Okay, okay, I've got to go now, but you'll send the link to the video?”

“Oui, it is sent. Be careful, Uraraka.”

“I will. Bye.”

She hung up, then, and quickly navigated to the link Aoyama had sent her. She swallowed back the anger she felt when she saw masked and hooded adults grappling a clearly-injured Deku, and started scanning the video for landmarks and street signs. There had to be something.

She rewound slowly, slowly. The street signs were too small and blurry in the video, she couldn't read them.

Wait.

She scrolled forward. That apartment building had its name on the front in huge kana. She plugged the name into her maps app. It wasn't too far from here. If she ran–

She was moving before she finished the thought. She knew where it was, where Deku was.

What she'd do when she got there… she wasn't sure. There were at least thirty guys in the video. But people who did stuff like this were ultimately cowards. Sometimes, if they knew someone was watching them, if they knew someone saw what they were doing, they'd stop. That's how Ochako's parents stopped a yakuza beating, once. They'd just gone out with a broom, a baseball bat, and a phone connected to the police.

… there had been a lot fewer of them, too, though, if she remembered correctly.

It didn't matter. If she had to use her quirk, she'd use it. It'd be her first public quirk use citation, and if that meant she was suspended or expelled… it didn't matter. What kind of hero would she be, if she didn't do her best to help a friend?

She turned the last corner and saw the knot of villains. She couldn't see Izuku from here, but he was visible on the livestream clearly enough.

She dialed the emergency line. “I'm on Obi Street, near the Millenium Building,” she said, once the operator had answered. “There's a group of thirty villains beating up a student.”

“How do you know they're villains, ma'am?”

“They're using their quirks.”

“Understood, I'm sending your location to the nearest hero. Please find a place to shelter until they arrive. Do not approach the villains, and stay on the line.”

Normally, Ochako would have followed instructions. Honest. But the villains moved strangely, and it was Deku. He was basically her best friend, especially since Sakura back home stopped talking to her for stupid reasons.

“Hey! Hey! Get away from my friend, you creeps!”

“Ma'am--" said the operator, but Ochako wasn't interested.

Some of the villains turned towards her. Others, apparently, hadn't heard her.

“Who the hell're you?” demanded one of them, who was clearly used to using his mass to loom. Joke was on him. It didn't matter how much mass he had when she could use her quirk to negate it. “Some kind of pervert slut who gets off taking it from subhuman freaks?”

Ochako didn't know how to respond to that, so she didn't. “I have the police on the phone, so you'd better get lost!”

“Ma'am, please–”

“You think those fascist pigs scare us? We're part of the new revolution, the–”

The big man stumbled and looked back. The other villains jostled into each other, disorganized, and for the first time since looking at the livestream, Ochako saw Deku.

He looked terrible. Of course he looked terrible. He was being beaten by a small mob. He was bruised and bloodied and panting.

His tongue was black.

There was something else black, too. Something like a gnarled, black root, growing from Deku's tattered sleeve and wrapping around the villain's ankle.

“No,” said Deku, except it didn't sound very much like him at all.

A thick, opaque fog exploded into being. And then the screaming started.

Hands gathered Izuku up. Not gentle, exactly, but careful. Not hurting. They pulled him through the dark where lights flickered, uncertainly, like memories. He opened his eyes and saw their faces, glowing, like fires that refused to be extinguished. He knew them, but he didn't. They could have been his, but they weren’t.

“Ninth,” theh said, they whispered, they chanted. There was power, there, burning and immense, and behind that power was purpose, but it was distorted, warped and shredded around the edges.

This was not how this moment was supposed to go.

There should have been triumph. This should have been sacred. A sharing of memories, a meeting of minds, a point of convergence, of singularity.

How dare they?

How dare they–

–trap them - poison this - forget history - throw away this peace - hurt the boy - call them useless - touch Toshi's child - young Midoriya - say those things to Uraraka?

Uraraka was here?

Hush.

Or–

Listen.

Feel this. Every strength they ever had. Every memory that could aid their task. Every skill, every scrap of knowledge, every quirk, every second of every year spent running-hiding-fighting. All of it, brought together and finally expressed.

They knew about trigger. They had seen it, in all its gruesome forms. Its purpose was to strengthen quirks, but the side effects - bodies twisted, quirks out of control, brains working at a fraction of their normal capacity.

One for All was a quirk. A strange quirk, a difficult to understand quirk, but still a quirk, and everything within it was part of a quirk, and every thought they had happened in the brains of their Eighth and Ninth.

At the moment, they were insane. And they knew it. And they didn't care.

The purpose of One for All was to stop All for One, but that kind of specificity was a human foible, not something so easily encoded in the core of a quirk. The end to which it put itself was the very destruction of evil and the eternal rebirth of hope. Its favorite means was violence.

“What are you talking about?”

Izuku tilted his head to one side. Had he been talking? Mumbling? Muttering? He should probably work on that. But it didn't seem to matter so much when Blackwhip and Fifth were whispering to him the secrets of how to use rage to rip an enemy limb from limb, and Danger Sense hovered around him like a protective halo, Hikage watching his back.

They were so, so, angry that it had spilled back over into serenity, like an overflow error on a computer.

A fist came flying for him out of the swirling vapors of Smokescreen. As soon as it brushed his cheek, Gear Shift grudgingly reversed its momentum. Second did not approve of their current stronghold, but that did not mean he would permit an attack.

There was a snap, and then a scream, the man– no, the boy. He couldn't be more than a year out of high school, if that. The boy grasped at his broken wrist, howling.

Izuku hadn't even done anything. It was his own fault.

Smokescreen whispered of an attempted escape, and Blackwhip dragged her back. They weren't done with them yet.

He didn't want to kill them or anything. They just wanted to hurt them a little. Ten years of quirklessness… twice. And four lifetimes on the other side, running from people who thought meta powers were curses, or a symptom of a disease. It was the same kind of bigotry, just reversed.

There was just so much pain. It hurt so much. In his chest, in their head, in their hearts.

Maybe if these little monsters felt some of it, they wouldn't do it again. Maybe some of it would go away.

Hideo stumbled through fog bank after fog bank, and started to wonder if he should call his mom. He didn't always get on with his parents, but, if he was going to die…

There was a sort of scraping sound. Then, footsteps. They had to be close, close enough to touch. The heavy fog dampened sound eerily. Hideo froze, hardly daring to breathe.

“Stop it! Stay back! How are you still moving?”

“Your vertigo quirk has its weaknesses, although it's useful for combat otherwise. I'd ask you why you aren't trying to be a hero, but it's clear the problem is temperament. Or, well, your entire personality, to be quite honest.”

There was a thump, a cracking sound and a shriek.

“Stop! Stop! What do you want? I can– my family has money. Connections. We can get you anything you want! Just stop!”

“There is nothing we want more than you never doing anything like this again.”

The voice sounded like Deku's, but the cadence was all wrong. Deku was a meek, shivering, stuttering nerd, and Hideo would have sworn that he'd stay that way, no matter what drugs they gave him.

“I won't! I won't!”

“It's nice of you to offer, but the only way people like you stop is of they're forced to stop, or if they're made to regret what they've done. A lot. All the time.”

“No, no, please! No!”

There was an ugly cracking noise, and then a wet thump.

“Pathetic.”

Oh, god. Oh, god, what kind of quirk was this, even? There was no way Deku had a quirk like this all this time.

A horrible thought came to him then. What if it wasn't Deku? Body-snatching quirks were a thing. Hell, Bakugou had been targeted by one of those guys just last year. And Deku had no friends, basically no family. Who would notice when he started acting different? Other than them, apparently.

That was actually kind of sad. Hideo would probably have had more pity to spare for Deku, though, if he wasn't using it all on himself.

There hadn't been any sounds over there for a while, now. Maybe it was safe to move again?

“Hello, Hidaka Hideo,” said Deku's voice, right in his ear. “It's been a long time.”

Kyoka wasn't entirely sure what was going on. She had only been on the phone with Aoyama for a few confused seconds before the large-scale villain attack alarm went off, and what Death Arms said to her just after hadn't helped matters.

Midoriya? Taking trigger? That didn't make any sense at all. He was friends with Iida. Totally straightedge.

But apparently, he'd been given trigger. As in, drugged, by a gang trying to beat him up. Which, honestly, made even less sense. Giving trigger to a guy you were fighting with… It was like throwing a pair of brass knuckles to a guy you just hit, and daring them to do one better. It was stupid.

It was also on video, so Kyoka had to admit that some people were just that dumb, as unbelievable as that sounded.

Whatever the Mensa squad's original goal had been, the result was… this. A fat, billowing cloud that occasionally sprouted writhing black tentacles and faint but disturbing screams. She didn't know what kind of quirks could combine to make something like this, and she didn't care. She wasn't Midoriya. The villains must have gotten spooked by Midoriya's quirk or something. She just had to hope that they hadn't gotten spooked because Midoriya had broken all the bones in his body.

What had happened at the sports festival had been… hard to watch.

“Alright,” said Death Arms, “before we go in there, let's get some things down. Earphone Jack, this Midoriya is your classmate?”

“Yeah,” said Kyoka.

“He's not going to be himself, jumped up on trigger. Don't try to get near him, or any of these villains. He won't listen to reason, and I'll bet that these guys've been taking trigger, too, for a quirk effect like this. You're going to be flanked the whole time by these two,” he said, nodding towards a pair of sidekicks. “The only reason we're bringing you with us is because we need someone who can navigate in all that crap, not for fighting. Understood?”

Kyoka nodded. “Understood.”

“Everyone else, go for restraint over injury, where possible. We don't know if there are civilians other than Midoriya caught up in this.”

He spent another couple of seconds arranging the marching order, but then he finally gave them the order to move in.

Inside the cloud, the air was cool, and drier than Kyoka had expected. Not like fog, more like smoke. Somehow, the screaming she'd heard on the outside was quieter in here as well. Must be some quirk…

“Group of three, that way,” she said, pointing.

They took care of the villains quickly. They didn't seem much older than Kyoka, and their quirk control was much worse. They were tied up in class-C restraints in seconds.

“We're going to have to carry them back out,” said Death Arms with a grimace. “We can't just leave them here.”

“Oh, thank god,” said one of the villains. “You guys are actual heroes!”

“As opposed to what?” asked Death Arms, gruffly.

“The punk is probably talking about me.”

Kyoka jumped and turned. Whoever that was, they'd managed to sneak up on them while making no sound at all. Not even breathing.

The man was bald, wearing leather, and the same sort of rugged as Death Arms. He also sort of… faded into the smoky clouds around him, almost as if he were made of them. Even accounting for mutations, his smile was a bit too wide, his eyes a little too blank.

The black, lashing tentacles around him, however, looked very real, especially when they scraped along the already-battered asphalt near his cloudy feet.

“And who're you?” asked Death Arms, readying his fists.”

“They should have stayed away from our kid,” said the man without moving his mouth. Then, in Midoriya's voice, “It hurts! “

“Where-” started Death Arms, but the man was opening his mouth, wrist and wider. Too wide. Inside was a perfectly black hole.

A faint rushing noise was the only warning before a dozen of those black tentacles came pouring out of the man's mouth. They jostled and grabbed and wrapped around, and by the time Kyoka got her wits about her again, she and the rest of the heroes had been deposited outside the cloud.

Death Arms looked shaken. “I think we might need backup for this one.”

Ochako caught another glimpse of yellow gloves and a fluttering cape. It was a hero. It had to be, even if Ochako didn't recognize her. Now, if only Ochako could get her attention…

She pushed through another bank of smoke. The smoke was… weird. When it first appeared, it looked like it was coming from Deku, but that couldn't be right. He had a strength enhancement. Like All Might. But then, those black root things weren't a normal part of Deku's quirk, either.

Maybe it was like Tsuyu's quirk. She had a lot of different things she could do, and you normally wouldn't describe it as a jumping quirk instead of a frog mutation, but it did let her jump high. She just… wasn't sure why Deku would do that. Unless he didn't know?

Ugh, all these things could wait until later, when her friend wasn't in trouble.

“Miss Hero!” she tried again. “Please wait!”

And this time, to Ochako's surprise, she did.

She was tall - but not as tall as Ochako first thought. She was floating above the ground, and the way the smoke clung to her…

“It's yours, then, the smoke?” asked Ochako, a little out of breath.

“Not exactly,” she said, in a voice as thin as the smoke.

A partner, then? “The person they were beating up was my friend, do you know where he is? Is he safe?”

The hero inclined her head, and then dissolved, the smoke that made up her body tearing away from itself. The clouds behind her patted as well, revealing a large crater, and–

“Deku!”

She hopped down into the crater, avoiding broken electrical cables and gushing pipes.

Deku looked even worse than he had minutes ago. Red and green sparks danced over his body, and his skin was a ghostly gray. He was shaking, and clutching at the ground, raw fingertips digging deep grooves into the remaining concrete.

But before she could get to him, smoke swirled out of his body, and two more figures coalesced out of it. A slender white-haired man in a t-shirt and loose pants, and a shorter, younger man in a long, high-collared coat that reminded Ochako of Best Jeanist's costume.

“Wait a moment,” said the white-haired one.

“Why?” demanded Ochako. “Who are you people?”

“It's people like this that give my brother so much power,” said the man, which answered nothing. “They could use their abilities to help, but instead they act out of jealousy and envy.”

“Unless there's been a big change recently,” said the other man, “that dosage of Japanese trigger lasts for three minutes, maximum.”

Ochako looked down at her dead phone. How long had it been?

“Wait a moment,” repeated the white-haired man. “There is still justice to be done, there are still things to be made right.”

“I'm sure you're tough. Are you tougher than concrete?” asked the other man. “We don't remember that.”

“Wait a moment. I wish my brother were here, so I could pound his stupid face in.”

“We really, really don't.”

“Uh,” said Ochako. Were these guys, like, all there? “There are villains here who tried to hurt him, so–”

“Wait a moment,” said the white-haired man. He sounded frustrated. “Wait a moment. They are being discouraged.”

“Vehemently.”

“Wait a moment. He won't remember this. Tell him we will speak again.”

“We'll try, anyway.”

Ochako looked between the two of them. Maybe she could run by them… Were their bodies even solid?

Deku shuddered, and the force behind the movement sent more cracks through the concrete, deepened the crater. Ochako threw up her arm to protect her eyes from dust.

When she lowered her arms again, the figures of the two men were dissipating back into smoke, and the smoke itself was wisping away. Deku was lying still, now, eyes closed, breathing heavily. Ochako checked him carefully for quirk effects, but didn't see any, and approached.

“Deku?”

He didn't respond. According to the first aid course she'd taken to boost her chances of being accepted at UA, she shouldn't move him unless there was imminent danger, in case of broken bones or neck injuries. The pipes and wires… that situation would probably hold for a while longer. The villains…

She climbed back out of the crater and looked around. She could see both sides of the street, now, even if it was hazy. The glass in most of the nearby windows was broken. The street itself and the sidewalks were gravel. One streetlight had been knocked over.

And scattered all over were the prone forms of the villains. They didn't look like they were moving. Ochako stared at the nearest one, frightened, until she saw that they were still breathing. So she should stay with Deku until first responders got there. Hopefully, that would be soon.

Her phone chirped as it came back to life, whatever quirk effect keeping it inoperable disappearing with the smoke. She looked down at it, briefly. It was an older model, and usually took a minute or longer to turn back on all the way.

She scanned the street again, squinting to see through the thinning smoke, and, oh thank goodness. That was Death Arms, wasn't it? And Jiro! She waved frantically.

This whole thing had lasted only a few minutes, but it had felt like forever.

In other news, the large-scale disruption in residential Musutafu today occurred when a group of thirty-two villains chased down and injected a UA student with trigger. The villains were mostly high school and college students with otherwise clean records. According to Musutafu PD, the villains believed the student was somehow using trigger to fake having a quirk. A statement released by UA with the permission of the student's guardian not only refutes those claims, but includes select medical data from the student's most recent hospital visit, only days before. These records show no evidence of the student having ever taken any form of performance enhancing drug. The student was the only civilian injured in the event, and is recovering at an undisclosed location. The police are investigating the possibility of classifying the incident as a hate crime. Now, Ms. Long with the weather–

Izuku pried his eyes open blearily. His head was pounding, his bones ached, and his mouth tasted like he'd licked Dagobah Beach. Before he'd cleaned it up. Where was he and what was he doing there?

He blinked a few times. Actually, that ceiling looked familiar…

“Ah!” said Recovery Girl, who was suddenly in his field of vision. “You're awake.”

Before Izuku could ask what had happened, she was running through a cognitive test. Despite his confusion, he answered her questions as best he could, and she didn't seem disappointed, so he must have gotten a good grade. Was that something you could get on a cognitive test?

“What is the last thing you remember before waking up here?” she asked, finally.

“Uh, um,” said Izuku. “I used one of the gyms at the school… here, I mean… for physical therapy stuff. Then sat in on one of the support classes - that was really cool - then, um, the train… and I was walking home… Was I hit by a car?” he guessed.

Recovery Girl sighed. “You were attacked by villains and injected with trigger. Trigger heavily cut with other drugs, no less.”

“What?!” said Izuku trying to sit up. Recovery Girl pushed him back down.

“The villains were all captured. They won't be doing anything like that again.” She set a bowl of broth down on the table attached to Izuku's bed.

“But did I– What did I–?” Even if he didn't remember anything, trigger made people do all sorts of weird stuff. And One for All wasn't an ordinary quirk.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Recovery Girl. “You focus on recovering your stamina, so we can do something about all those microfractures you have.”

“I thought– I thought you said you wouldn't treat me anymore,” said Izuku, bewildered.

“I never–” Recovery Girl stopped, pressed her lips together. “What I meant to say, at the end of the sports festival, is that I won't be able to heal you with my quirk if you keep getting injuries like that. There's a limit to what can be healed, even with quirks, as you well know.”

Izuku thought back to All Might's wound, and shuddered. Which. Ow.

“If you can keep that down,” said Recovery Girl, nodding to the broth, “I'll see about letting some of your visitors in.”

“Like Mom? And, um, All Might?” guessed Izuku.

“Your mother is here already,” said Recovery Girl, nodding at the green-haired lump in the neighboring bed. “Just got her to take a nap herself, after she spent all night fretting. But, yes, All Might isn’t above using his position to get to the top of your visitor list. Although he isn't the only one on it. All your classmates called in from their internships, and I had to ban that girl from the support course. I won’t have untested support equipment around my patients, no matter what the medical applications are. Uraraka and Jiro from your class were also here earlier…”

Izuku listened as she bustled around the medical wing and continued to chatter about his visitors and well-wishers, and felt… warm. Later, he was sure there would be consequences beyond missing memories, sore muscles, and broken bones, but for now… it was nice to know he had people who cared. He didn't think he'd ever get tired of that.

With a shaky hand, he picked up the soup spoon and started on the broth.

“Mr. Hidaka,” said the lawyer, more to Hideo's father than Hideo, even if the lawyer was technically representing Hideo, “I'm afraid to say that the government's case is ironclad. Between the livestream video, the messages to the other defendants, being found at the scene of the crime, the evidence of quirk use… The best we can hope for is the young villain diversion program, but that's only possible if you plead guilty and implicate any other co-conspirators. Otherwise, you're old enough to be charged as an adult, and even if they don't do that, juvenile villain facilities aren't great places to be.”

“But Deku–” started Hideo.

“Hideo,” growled his father.

“I was attacked–”

“Hideo, shut up. You'll take the guilty plea and hope you get it in before any of rhe cretins you call friends. And if you say anything about this Midoriya boy again…”

Hideo swallowed and nodded. Goddamned Deku. How come he got everything good, and Hideo was in here? It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair. Goddamned Deku.

But what was he supposed to do? He wasn't an actual villain. He just wanted things to be right.

“Fine,” he said. “I'll do it.”

“Great!” said the lawyer, gathering his papers. “I just have to talk to the prosecuter.”

Goddamn Deku. Why couldn't Hideo have his life?

#bnha #fic #my fic

186 notes · View notes

bratzforchris · 2 months

Text

BODYGUARD!CHRIS HEADCANONS

in which: headcanons about bodyguard!chris and his beloved princess (part of my bodyguard!chris au)

warnings: mentions of violence, murder, and sex

♕ from the second chris met you, it was practically an infatuation. everything, from the way you interacted with people, to the infectious smile that always made its home on your face, drew him in

♕ what he wasn't expecting, however, was for you to have an in depth conversation about political affairs with a duke from a neighboring kingdom, only to ask him later that night to help you sneak out

♕ bodyguard!chris who will doing anything to keep his princess safe, even if it means killing a man with his bare hands

♕ quite literally the definition of the grumpy to your sunshine. it's rare for you to get big gestures of affection out of chris, but you can see it in the way his blue eyes crinkle as he watches you that he loves you more than words could ever express

♕ bodyguard!chris who has to keep his emotions in check at balls. he can't stand watching you dance with other men, their eyes aglow as they try to seduce you with corny jokes and sneaky hands on your ass. it's hell on earth for him

♕ if there's one thing chris gets more of a high from than protecting you, it's fucking you with your tiara on. it's the way he can practically see the innocence and good girl façade melting away as he pounds you into the mattress, face down, ass up

♕ bodyguard!chris who will threaten any man who even looks at you the wrong way

♕ if there was a way to describe your and chris' dynamic, it would be a doberman and a golden retriever puppy

♕ bodyguard!chris who gets a thrill out of sneaking around with you. he loves the nervous little giggles that escape your mouth after he bribes the stablehand into letting the two of you have the royal barn to yourselves, or when you pull him into the royal gardens at midnight

♕ bodyguard!chris who would watch the world burn if it meant he got to be with his princess <3

author's note: is it hot in here?? are you hot?? no but fr i need bodyguard!chris 🫦 thank you all for your support on this au!! feel free to come yap with me about it any time 🎀💜

tags: @blahbel668 @hearts4chriss @jetaimevous @sturnsdoll @new2024cats4life @gxldenlush @sturnioloxlver @1800-love-me @littlebookworm803 @sturnsmia

#user bratzforchris #bodyguard!chris ⋅˚₊‧ ୨୧ ‧₊˚#chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo imagines #chris sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo x you #christopher sturniolo #christopher owen sturniolo #christopher sturniolo fluff #christopher sturniolo imagine #christopher sturniolo fulff #bodyguard au #princess au #sturniolo triplets #sturniolo x reader #the sturniolo triplets

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foxgirlmoth · 3 months

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Okay, lets go through this apparent list of positives that Biden is in favor of.

Trans Rights: There have been multiple laws within states to fully close off especially trans kids rights to medical treatments and more. This is extremely current. Biden puts in minimal effort to look like he's doing anything at all for trans and queer rights, and there haven't really been any efforts aside from doing one or two proposals that immediately get shot down, and he's more than okay with that, hence why there's no longer really any push for this shit still. If you're trans, you can't piss in Utah without the risk of getting a fine right now. Even though these are state laws, the fact that there's been nearly zero effort federally to address this besides the title IX rule, speaks a lot about priorities in this area.

Abortion Access: Are we just forgetting the whole Roe V Wade getting overturned thing that happened in 2022? Are you really trying to say that this is good for abortion access? Abortion access has gotten actively worse.

Environmental Reform: Biden has endorsed extreme oil drilling projects and in general oil companies still love him! Not to mention the train crashes which we'll get to later.

Healthcare Reform: Covid-19 is still around and is sadly predicted to stay around for a long while. Healthcare is still private and a competitive field in the US and that causes major issues as well. If you look this up, you see articles titled along the lines of "Biden has lowered the cost of insurance" and meanwhile it just dropped in 2020 once during the pandemic but has been growing in cost.

Prescription Reform: Reading into this, not much has changed, which isn't surprising under genocide Joe. Drugs in the US are still higher than anywhere else in the world, and with healthcare issues still abundant, this is still a big issue.

Student Loan Forgiveness: Student debt is still extremely high in the US, and while Biden has rolled out some plans for forgiveness, it's a fraction of the debt, and he primarily uses the whole thing to win over swing states. This is a dangling carrot that provides very little overall.

Infrastructure Funding: Train crashes from 2020-present, worldwide, but notice the amount of US crashes! Neat! Quite literally just look up train crashes in the US during his presidency, there's too many to link here. It is also important to remember that Biden signed a bill to prevent rail strikes, preventing a lot of pressure to the government and the economy, which would have been a GOOD THING. Seriously, this guy has fucked up our environment and our rights in multiple ways.

Advocating Racial Equity: Structural racism within the US is still a huge problem, Biden hasn't addressed much. Also people are still in cages on the Mexico/US border (Which has been maintained by every president in office since it was established), with a very recent crackdown on the border.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Just. Look at the racial equity and trans rights sections above. Biden does the bare minimum, loves focusing on swing states, and all around uses the ol' carrot on a stick.

Vaccines and Public Health: Once again look above at sections on healthcare, abortion access, and prescription reform. Its bad. Remember how Covid-19 vaccines aren't being continued for free?

Criminal Justice Reform: This is just structural slavery still. Disproportionate amounts of black people are incarcerated, police are still heavily funded under Biden. He does not care about reforming the justice system, he even supports cops breaking up campus protests! Cool!

Military Support for Israel: Yup! Both sides suck! Biden has a very long history of sure hating Arabic countries though! He's done nothing but ship weapons and participate in the genocide of Palestinian people. Would Trump also do this? Yes. Does this mean this is an issue you should just drop and call a non-issue? No, what the hell are you talking about.

Israel/Hamas Ceasefire: Netanyahu has no plans to accept any actual ceasefire, yet Biden still provides weapons and support. Wow! That sure is weird? I wonder if Biden really cares about a ceasefire or how he just looks publicly.

Biden is not a good president, much less a good human being. You provided such a flimsy chart with zero resources or support behind you, and it just feels like people are just making shit up at this point. Get your heads out of the liberal cesspool you grew up in.

#This one got long #Please feel free to correct me especially in regards to anything concerning foreign policies @ people not from the US #As someone who lives here in the US I don't have the lived experiences that come with this shit nation constantly fucking up the globe #Liberals are unable to imagine a better world #Stop calling Biden some kind of amazing president. He's funding a genocide and has effectively been asleep at best during his time #And been doing much worse while he's actually been doing anything #He is not some sleepy old dude he's a war criminal and a person who has enacted great harm towards many many people

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lobautumny · 8 months

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Alright, guess this toy's gonna talk about Palworld, because it's seen Discourse™️ start to crop up about how "supporting the game is immoral because it's stealing designs from Pokemon!"

Now look, this toy's not about to sit here and tell you that all of the monster designs in Palworld are completely original and the game isn't, on some level, a bootleg. Obviously a lot of the designs are bootleg pokemon. That's not the point it wants to get at. The point is that it doesn't really matter.

First of all, nobody is being hurt by Palworld having knockoff pokemon among the ranks of its monsters. Game Freak is not some tiny indie developer struggling to make ends meet having their work unfairly co-opted by a big, bad corporation. Pokemon is, in fact, the largest, most profitable media franchise of all time, and Palworld is an indie game. The reason that something like this would hypothetically be scummy/shitty is if someone were taking someone else's work, changing it slightly, claiming it as their own, and thus depriving the original creator of credit/visibility that they should've had. But that literally can't happen here, because everyone already knows what Pokemon is. So unless it gets found that they're stealing designs from fakemon artists or something (there was one alleged instance, but it seems to have just been a coincidence of two different people having the idea of "what if Chimecho but with big, bulky arms?"), Palworld is hurting nobody through having bootleg designs, so the moral argument against the game falls flat.

With that out of the way, there's a much more interesting topic to discuss here: Why is it that when someone's fangame gets C&D'd, everyone immediately jumps to the creator's support, accurately assessing that our copyright system is broken and primarily serves to hurt independent artists, but the moment a developer makes the changes necessary to make sure their fangame doesn't get hit with a C&D (and to allow them to make money off of it), it's suddenly bad and cringe and unoriginal?

The argument that "Palworld is lazy and unoriginal and therefore bad because the monster designs are too similar to Pokemon's designs" is something that this toy would be willing to hear out if Palworld were a turn-based singles-format RPG with similar systems/overall structure to those found in Pokemon games, but, uh. It isn't. It's a third-person shooter with monster-catching mechanics and, like, Factorio-ass automation and base-building, from what this toy can tell. And it doesn't know if the game is good, as someone who has not played it (or even really seen gameplay of it), but it can absolutely tell you that the game's not lazy.

Sure, they could have done more to make the monster designs feel more unique, and that's absolutely a valid criticism for the game. This toy doesn't want to come across like it's saying otherwise. It just wants people to recognize that that's kind of a nitpick when the game is, on a mechanical and genre level, something completely different from anything any Pokemon game ever has been or ever will be, and that nobody would be complaining about laziness or a lack of originality if this came out as a fangame literally just using actual pokemon. In that reality, people would've been popping off at how high-effort it is, actually. And like, even putting money aside, this game literally could not exist as a fangame. A while back, someone uploaded some videos on Youtube showcasing a fangame they were developing that was an FPS where the enemies were pokemon. They got hit with a C&D and their Youtube account was terminated within a couple days of the videos being uploaded. The game was not monetized, and in fact, never even had a download link, to this toy's recollection. Palworld would have suffered the same exact fate if it wasn't its own IP.

#autumn rants #palworld

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kifkay · 4 months

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How do Winx react to injuries

Bloom: her fighting style means she gets injured A LOT. sometimes, by her own powers. she doesn’t notice the wounds during a battle; adrenaline and pure stubbornness warding off the pain. the moment fighting ceases, however, Bloom is fainting, shaking and/or throwing up at the mere sight of blood. her and gore don’t mix well.

(Winx had come to expect that reaction and have their own little routine of taking care of Bloom post-battle. Flora starts lifting weights at some point, to be strong enough to catch Bloom whenever she faints in the sky — they’ve had too many accidents…)

Stella: so dramatic about it. i imagine her clutching Musa’s hand and honest-to-goodness whining, while Flora holds her down to disinfect a shallow cut on her leg (all the while Musa is probably sporting a mild concussion and broken ribs). and throughout all of that, Stella never stops talking, flinching and exuding a general aura of clinginess. needless to say, the winx are very annoyed with her and her dramatics — although they are grateful for the levity she brings.

after a tough battle, when one of the girls gets hurt so bad they’re not sure she’ll make it, Stella changes. it’s like a switch is flipped: she finally realises that survival is not a guarantee for any of them, and that — that scares her like you wouldn’t believe. she no longer draws attention to her wounds; instead, she helps Flora check in on everybody first and patiently waits her turn. doesn’t talk much either. just hovers around the girls, pale-faced and slightly shaking, until one of them wrangles the fairy in a bear hug and tells her: “i’m okay.”

Aisha: is the most likely to hide her injuries from the girls. she tries to take care of it on her own, or slip away to the nurse in a middle of the night; all to not burden others with it.

(the winx eventually learn about that little habit (when Aisha literally faints at a ball Alfea hosts). they go on to assure her how much she means to them, “taking care of me is rotten work//not to me, not if it’s you”-style.)

Flora: has an unusually high pain tolerance. insists on treating other people’s injuries first, no matter how minor, before she even begins to worry about her own. usually, very calm and professional about the whole ordeal; doesn’t feel comfortable being fussed about.

Musa: doesn’t react to pain very well. gets snippy and short-tempered with the rest of the girls, to her own chagrin and guilt. gets angry when others fuss over her. sleeps a lot when injured.

(but Musa IS a good emotional support when the other girls get injured and need to clutch onto someone to pacify their nerves.)

Tecna: due to the culture on Zenith, Tecna views her body as a mere tool. she is not gentle with it, doesn’t like the work that takes to maintain its health. whenever there is a choice between, say, cauterising a wound and proceeding with the mission, or taking an hour to heal it with magic — Tecna would choose cauterising it despite the pain. Flora and her get in countless arguments over it.

#winx club #winx headcanons #winx #winx bloom #winx brandon #winx flora #winx riven #winx sky #winx stella #winx specialists #winx musa #winx club bloom #winx rewrite #winx au #winx tecna #winx aisha #winx timmy #winx helia #winx nabu

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pearlprincess02 · 3 months

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libra sun 11H, taurus moon 6H, scorpio rising, libra mercury 12H, scorpio venus 12H

libra sun: is a day cardinal air sign. the symbol of libra is the scales and its glyph reflects both balance and the setting sun. libra rules over harmony, balance, decisions, love and beauty. libra is the diplomat and mediator of the zodiac. libra comes across as fair, peace-loving, and creative. however, libra it is sign that does not like to decide on just one side, but likes to remain neutral. that's why decisions make them difficult. but they like appearance and beauty, which means that in love, libra will always look for someone who looks nice and it will be important to libra that this person is looking good. libra is also a sign that will always fight for justice. no matter what, they will always be on the side of justice and prove it. libras adore high art, intellectualism, and connoisseurship.

sun in 11th house: miss/mr. popular. committed as fuck. most people love you and if they don’t, it’s because of a projection. chatty. should be a podcast owner. makes a new friend every week. really good at social media. open minded. wants to save all of the animals. “if we don’t have earth, we have nothing.” this is the friend you seek to help take your mission statement up a level. to the natal owner: you can’t save everyone!! not everyone is worth your genuine love and support. learn boundaries.

taurus moon: a taurus moon has a calm and peaceful energy. they are resilient, practical, and have a strong interest in material things. taurus moons have a natural ability to stabilize any situation while remaining grounded. they are reliable, persistent and determined to get things done. with the grounded and stabilizing energy of taurus, they have strong emotions but also take the time to process them. taurus moons enjoy the simple things in life and appreciate a comfortable and stable environment. they are focused on creating and maintaining a sense of security in their life, whether it's in their job, relationships or just simply being at peace. taurus moons are a mixture of deep feelings, practical thinking, and a grounded outlook on life. they are a calming presence who can also bring stability to any situation. they are likely to value and appreciate comfort, stability, and peace, and strive to create that in their life. taurus moons can also be stubborn and slow to open up or move. their greatest desires may be for a sense of security and stability in their life, both in material and emotional ways. they also highly value comfort and love, and desire love and adoration from others.

moon in 6th house: you are always think of ways to help those you love with your emotional support. this is the house of daily work so you may experience significant emotional experiences at your job that shape and change you as a person. it’s also the health house so having the moon here could indicate that you are at your best emotional health when you have been taking care of your physical and mental health.

scorpio rising: dark just dark - their eyes look dark even if they’re light colored, dark auras, tattoos, literally looks like a fucking shadow ok, doesn’t realize they death glare people they hate, i love these people tbh they’re so intriguing and beautiful in a mysterious way, DEFINITELY attracts obsessive people and friends, probably feels like they’ve been 20 different people in their lifetime - always transforming their image and looks

libra mercury: a libra mercury indicates a very charming and balanced approach to communication. you likely have a strong ability to communicate in a friendly, diplomatic, and socially intelligent way. you enjoy engaging in conversation and may be very comfortable being the center of attention. you enjoy connecting with other people, and you likely have a tendency to keep things light and positive. you are likely to approach conversation in an intuitive, gentle, and diplomatic way that avoids confrontation or conflict. you may have a strong need for harmony and balance in your interactions and relationships.

mercury in 12th house: you need to create a space in your life where you can retreat into your own private thoughts. you are quite happy in your own company and tend to prefer to work alone or behind-the-scenes. you may forget things easily.

scorpio venus: a scorpio venus is characterized by a deep and intense approach to relationships. people with this placement may have emotional walls up, making it challenging for them to open up and be vulnerable. they may have a darker side or be attracted to the hidden depths on others. they may have a strong intuitive nature, seek out deep and meaningful connections, and crave intimacy and trust. they may have high standards and expectations when it comes to relationships and expect their partners to match their intensity and be willing to explore deep levels of trust.

venus in 12th house: these are my artistic people, they have a lot of passion and compassion. they tend to be attracted to spiritual or helpful people. they value connections and are naturally drawn to others; they find much comfort in helping those around them. they are looking for a partner with good character and empathy.

@danseuse-de-ballet

ᵒᵇˢᵉʳᵛᵃᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ ᵃʳᵉⁿ'ᵗ ᵐⁱⁿᵉ

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allthecanadianpolitics · 23 days

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All the tax does feel so high though i get why its necessary but it feels like a bit of a kick in the ass especially in ontario where they have still 13% sales tax and it's hard enough to get on any subsidization. Like theres hardly any accessible housing support, 1 in 19 ontarians use food banks, disabled people are constantly in a battle with the government to get any sort of income. So im watching the quality of my neighbourhood and schools go down and eugenics literally being encouraged instead of just. Having a universal basic income. It's probably a gross oversimplification for what my understanding of all the underlying issues going on, but I'm not seeing the extra hundreds of dollars I spend a year go back into the pockets of the people who Actually need it.

My issue is if you just cut the tax, then social programs will disappear, which won't be a net benefit imo.

So if you are going to remove general taxes like sales tax, you have to significantly target other areas such as with wealth taxes.

I'm just saying that while it would be a good thing to ease pressure on lower income people, you have to have a plan to replace the lost income or you could end up hurting low income people in other ways (such as decreased income supports from less tax revenue, or decreased funding for public transit, etc).

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theology101 · 5 months

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Literally in the first episode of Fantasy High, I watched an arguement that I had several times with my conservative uncles. It boils down to “According to the main message of your faith, our Divinity accepts everyone who is good of heart and kind - hating people for any reason is antithetical.” Kristen was arguing positive points using her faith as a guide

Which like - im not a christian or religious anymore (raised southern baptists and decided that if God exists he’s cruel) but the immediate writing off of everyone who’s part of a Main Stream Religion as Problematic really pisses me off, ya know?

Like sure, Wolfsong has waterslides and snowball fight and a lot of entertainement during a major holiday and then everyone is trying to figure out how they’re evil ehen they’re just having fun. Hey, my former church (Prestonwood Baptist Church and Benttree Community church in Dallas Texas) i have met so may deeply devout and scripture oriented people who are so incredibly loving and giving that they are leagues above anyone else I know, and for Good Friday they still had a wayer slide cause that shit is fun. Some of the most hateful people I know ALSO use religion as an excuse.

I get that organized Religion can house a lot of hate and evil (im writing my thesis on American Fascism and evangelical faith is a big part) but so many people who are Religious are just good people? Like the basic morals of the Torah+Talmund, the Bible and the Qur’an are really positive? Half the catholic church is socialist?

It just speaks to the religious illiteracy in America. Helio isn’t bad - the racist worshippers who through ‘as above so below’ influence their god ARE bad. Brennan says the Harvestmen are a fringe Minority - newsflash, the KKK is a christian group and the majority of christians reject them and find their message to be a spit in the face to Jesus. Why would it be different in Fantasy High if its supposed to be a commentary? I think Helio chose Kristen because he wanted her to free him from the racist status quo (he was giving her spells for all of freshman year supporting her against Sol up until Spring break if not beyond)

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #fantasy high junior year #fhjy #saint kristen applebees #kristen fantasy high #kristen applebees #helio #i think Helio is a himbo #and his dad is a Monarch #galicaea literally murdered Cassanra and y’all root for her church to get redeemed but Sol and Helio? Evil and doomed to hell #it also shows a misunderstand of dnd ‘good’#the evil gods are the ones who send demon armies or try to destroy civilization #sol is a manipulative and stern bastard but when the Apocalypse comes #he’s probably gonna save us #dnd ‘good’ is different from our good

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awryval · 6 months

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death of an author, reclamation, and you

"We never are what we intend, or invent 'Cause I make little lies and then I pull them apart Think something dark's living down in my heart And if I wanted to die before I got old I should've started some years ago digging that hole"

Brand New. "At the Bottom." Daisy, 2009.

Brand New was among one of my favorite bands in high school, and I still listen to them today. Their music is important to me and shaped a big part of who I am. Their lyrics about being tortured, burnt-out, and choking on the weight of your own self-perceived flaws are relatable! Their compositions ooze with a level of self-hatred that can only be genuine. It's utterly depressing, and I adore it!

That's not not the full story, though. Jesse Lacey, the vocalist of Brand New, is a sexual predator. This informs everything about how the music of Brand New is. It's self-loathing for a very good reason. I love Brand New. I condemn Jesse Lacey. These two statements coexist. I used to be a part of the /r/brandnew subreddit, and when the allegations against Jesse Lacey came out in 2017, many redditors of that sub were quick to claim "death of the author." After all, the band had broken up immediately after the news broke, and they had also cancelled their tours. Currently, the people using that subreddit mostly talk about buying old BN merchandise and discuss what their favorite concert memories were. Jesse Lacey himself confirmed that the allegations against him were true, so there isn't much debate to be had. The subreddit serves as a monument for fans who still enjoy the music, and as a platform to speak about it with like-minded fans.

In my opinion, claiming "death of an author" is a slippery slope. We can't always claim that Miku is the creator of Minecraft. But often, we see that that is the response people have when a creator is outed to be problematic; "I still like the thing So-and-So made, so I will ignore that the creator exists!" The reason that this worked for Miku Minecraft is because, by the time that Notch was publicly making transphobic comments, he did not own Minecraft anymore. The joke is quite literally that he does not own the thing that people like. He sold it to Microsoft, so he doesn't get royalties from it anymore. You can play Minecraft devoid of supporting its original creator. This joke works so well because it is an actual case of the death of an author! That's great and all for Minecraft, but what about other instances? What happens when we claim "death of the creator" erroneously? And why are we so obsessed with this concept anyway?

So like, back to Brand New... they released their last album, Science Fiction, back in August 2017. The allegations came out later that same year. I own all of Brand New's discography physically, including their last release. I bought most of it off eBay when I was 15. I was not supporting them post-allegations. But that leaves me with a lingering question- what do I do with all these CDs that I still very much enjoy the music of? From how I see it, there are two firm camps on this topic:

Camp 1: You know about Lacey's crimes now and his music cannot be separated from his actions. Solution: Throw your CDs away.

Camp 2: It's something you bought without knowledge of Lacey's crimes, so you should enjoy it anyway. Death of an author! Solution: Continue as usual.

I'm not fond of either of these answers. They come off as too polarized for a situation that is the entire Pantone swatch library of grays. "But, how are there any shades of gray when its clear that Jesse Lacey is in the wrong?" I want to provide some counter questions for you to think about:

What about the other people in the band? You might not be directly supporting the sexual predator anymore, but there are other victims here too- effectively his band mates lost their jobs overnight. (Another example would be LOSTPROPHETS)

Is it feasible to destroy each object you own because it was created under problematic circumstances? When or when isn't this the case? Does it apply to your cup of coffee? Does it apply to the clothes you wear? What about any product with palm oil in it? What about the hardware in your computer? If you look into any company, you're going to find some horrific things you don't like about it. The takeaway here is that it isn't beneficial to treat situations like these as black or white. I don't think that destroying my CDs is going to do anything to take away the abuse that Jesse Lacey caused. Nor do I think ignoring the context of his music will do anyone any favors. The music he made is a product of his crimes. To ignore that fact would be disingenuous to why people enjoy his music and why the music exists in the first place. There's another element here, though. I, and many others, are no longer monetarily supporting Jesse Lacey. You can't even officially support the release of Brand New's music anymore as their record label (Procrastinate! Music Traitors) doesn't even seem to have a functioning website anymore? Regardless, I wouldn't want to support his music in a way that supports him, anyway. Yes, I enjoy the music and the themes of it, but I do not want to be directly supporting abuse that happened BECAUSE he was a vocalist in a band. And I can safely do this with CDs that I bought secondhand, right? This is death of the author. So what's the issue?

I believe there is an issue when people claim “death of the author” far too quickly and scramble to reclaim the media for themselves. It’s an increasingly popular trend these days to pluck characters/concepts from an author deemed to be problematic. "I'll save [Character I like] from this shitty piece of media!", they claim. I don't think people realize how multifaceted in effect that is, though. For instance, if the author is actively making money from their creation, you can't truly "reclaim" a character from them. It's more like you're paying homage to them with fanart.

My best on-going example of this would be Floraverse. There are a multitude of reasons why people do not like the author/s of Floraverse, which I will not go into here. To put it simply, though, since its inception in 2013, many artists and writers involved with Flora either left or were kicked out. These artists either directly contributed to the art and worldbuilding of the webcomic, or were heavily influenced by it. To this day, there are many times someone links me to art on Discord and I’ll say “oh I remember that person, they used to be a Flora fanartist!” and the other person is absolutely floored that that artist was ever linked to Floraverse. Anyway… There have been multiple attempts at people trying to reclaim Floraverse from the author, and this never works out. Like, it really doesn’t work out. Any time that someone tries to reclaim Floraverse characters for themselves whilst condemning the author, that person is dogpiled by the Floraverse community. Which is a weird behavior for a CC BY-SA webcomic, but I digress. Here are some highlights:

In 2019, there was a thread dedicated to Redesigning Floraverse that immediately got taken over by Floraverse itself a month later.

An artist got harassed for multiple years (I think it was 2020-2023) for having an oc based on Beleth, a character in Floraverse.

Just 2 months ago, an artist got harassed for drawing fanart of the characters

Historically, reclaiming Floraverse characters from the author hasn't worked out. And I mean.. why would it? It's an actively running "webcomic" (I'll be charitable) and with an active community that supports the author's current works and views with their wallets. It's one thing to enjoy a piece of media with a problematic author and want to reclaim that media for yourself. It is another for this reclamation to actually be effective. Attempts of "reclaiming" Floraverse get written off as fanworks that the community dislikes. You cannot reclaim Floraverse characters as they do not exist in a vacuum. Listening to secondhand Brand New CDs does work in a vacuum; Jesse Lacey's career is dead in the water. The same cannot be said for reclaiming the art of Glitchedpuppet and co. Floraverse characters and stories are not divorced from the abuses they cause. Characters will be used as strawmen to abuse community members, past or present. Or entire works will be up dedicated to making light of your childhood trauma! These characters were made by an abuser, and will be used to abuse. That is a simple fact about Floraverse. Except... in that statement, I'm not even talking about Glitchedpuppet, the current author of Floraverse. I'm talking about Marlcabinet, the previous author of Floraverse. This statement does however, apply to both of them. Hey, wait a minute, that's weird! I've been talking about "death of the author" for this entire post, and I just said that reclaiming Floraverse characters can't work because the way the characters were used to abuse real people doesn't exist in a vacuum. So like, why does this work within the Floraverse webcomic itself? Marl is the abuser of Glip, but Marl is also the author of the majority of early Floraverse. Isn't the story itself, as it currently stands, an act of reclaiming characters used to abuse community members, minors, and any detractors? Then who is to say that those who contributed to Floraverse and were similarly abused are not also allowed this same privilege? Their real-world suffering is what fuels the comic. When I was 13-16, I adored a Floraverse character named Cayenne. His whole deal was that he was an autistic child slave and was horribly abused by everyone around him. Weird character to connect to, but he’s the character that made me figure out I had autism! I drew a LOT of fanart of this character and I even own a (gifted) life-size plush of him. The authors only ever treated him as a joke and it was a joke even within the Floraverse community that I was the only person who actually liked/cared about him. Sometimes I think about reclaiming him for myself. But I also don’t want to get harassed, and I know I could design much better things, and write better things. Conversely, I also think about how this is the exact character that made me get into contact with Marl when I was 16. It’s a heavy weight to carry knowing that this exact character was the reason I was almost in the clutches of a child predator. Glip personally deferred me to him. Reclaiming Cayenne would hold emotional value for me as a reminder of my triumph over a predator. Would it be wrong for me to reclaim an abused child character from a comic that abused me and many others as children? I've no clue. And I don't think anyone can answer that. I've waffled on it for ~2 years now. Reclaiming Cayenne would give attention to an individual that profits off abusing others, myself included. I'd say that reclaiming Floraverse characters wouldn't be a case of "death of the author", but the original creator of them was a child predator that's no longer on the internet. Floraverse is already practicing death of an author, and it is a shell of its former self. That being said, it is not a story that only has one author. Its other authors are still active, and these authors include every person that it has abused in its wake. After all, it's a comic that relies on you to know about its dramas with and traumas of real people. Tell me: Does a death of the author matter when its being written about you?

#text #brand new #floraverse #death of the author #abuse #grooming

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