#being heroic enough to help him. he has nowhere else to go and he WILL backtrack on his own morals to save his skin if he has to

[julie-su]

Brain HATE sleep feed Google document novel length Scourge fanfic

[luimagines]

Breathless

Masterlist

A commission!

They requested a bit of hurt/comfort with Warrior. Where you get separated in battle and reunite at the end.

Content under the cut!

Was it the sound of the drums or the pounding of footsteps?

Was it the beat of the battle or the beat of your heart?

Was it the ticking of a clock or the clashing of metal?

You don’t know anymore. You’re forced to keep going. You can’t think of anything else but this moment. You’re surrounded. There are monsters everywhere. There are three guardians on the scene. And at least seven aerolizalfoes that have taken to the skies to rain what you only call literal hellfire.

You had to keep going. You had to keep fighting. You had to find the others. You had to get back to them. You had to help them.

Three arrows impale themselves into your shoulder.

You scream and fall to the ground from the impact. You manage to throw your shield on you to brave the ones that follow- but that was your good arm. You’re out.

With a curse, you push yourself back onto your feet. You’re frantic. The tips of the arrows seem to scratch against your bone. They tear into your flesh the more you move. Are they normal arrows? Were you shot with acid instead? It burns. It’s hot. It’s searing into your flesh and fileting it without mercy.

You take off running.

Another arrow trips you up. It slices into your calf but embedded itself into the ground next to you. Through some miracle you don’t fall to the ground again, but you spin, keeping your momentum and you continue forward.

You can’t use your bow anymore, you think as you duck behind some large rocks for cover. The monsters that were following you don’t seem to realize where you went and you try to keep as silent as possible. You don’t sit down. That would almost be as bad as a death sentence but you squat and crouch. It’s the only thing your shoulder would allow you to do.

You try to catch your breath. There’s no more left in you. All your breath has been taken and tossed with wild abandon. A part of your body wants to lean forward and have you face plant into the ground but you hold yourself steady.

The monsters pass you, intending to find you up ahead to continue the chance.

Your blood keeps roaring in your ears even as the others sounds dim as they pass you by. You slowly make your way to stand again, the very strength of your heaving threatens to give you away. With your hand on the rock, you inch around and look over it.

Nothing.

Yet.

They will come back when they don’t find you and you know you have to act quickly.

This knowledge pushes you forward and you go back the way you came, taking a random turn every now and then to avoid the eyes in the air. You come across a cliff and peer to the top.

Warrior is fighting an aerolizalfoe with three bokoblins closing in on him. You can feel your shirt stick to your back as the warmth spreads through your tunic and past your armor.

The pain is ignorable now- your entire focus is on the man who’s being pushed to the edge.

Lightning brightens the sky behind, right as he moves to strike the beings in front of him. His face is the very definition of fearlessness. If anything it’s sharpened and glowing with determination, courage and righteous rage.

It’s enough to take your breath away. How heroic he looks in that split second. You’re driven by a need, a want, to help him but you have little options. You’re stuck with only your sword in your non-dominant hand. You may have no enemies around you but your adrenaline is heightened at the sight of him.

And then the cliff starts to crumble from beneath his feet.

You don’t even realize you scream. “LINK WATCH OUT!!”

Belatedly, when the voice registers, even if you don’t recognize it as your own, you realize that there’s nowhere for him to go. Between the steep cliff and the monsters ahead of him, Warrior is effectively trapped.

He seems to notice this when he looks back at you. His eyes meet yours and they widen. Primal fear shatters his fearless image and he turns back to the monsters ahead. He gets low. He steadies his stance and he miscalculates.

He places his weight right on the weak spot of the cliff and it was just the needed push for it to fall. Warrior falls with it. The bokoblins stay back but the aerolizalfoes dives to torch the man.

You don’t know why you thought it would even be a good idea but you throw your sword. It cuts across the creature. Your half hazard aim makes the flying blade more deadly and the creature crashes into Warrior instead. Both begin to tussle during the fall.

You can only watch.

Somehow, Warrior uses it to soften the blow of the crash and he rides the body down the cliff. At the final hurdle he jumps off and rolls next to you. Your sword falls by your feet.

Silence.

A beat.

A moment.

A wail.

You’re crying. 

You fall to your knees beside him and your good hand comes up to cup his face. “Are you hurt? Are you ok?”

“Me?!” Warrior wakes up from his stunned trance. “You’ve been shot!”

“We’re in a battle, Darling, it happens.” You laugh nervously, trying to look over for any injuries he might have. Your tears come out in a steady flow. It alternates between each eye but you don’t have the strength nor the care to wipe them away.

Warrior places his hands gently on your shoulder and moves to look at your neck and your head. He tenderly moves his fingers through your hair to check for any other injuries that may be hidden within. “You scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” You say. It’s a whisper. But the deafening silence around you makes it seem like cannon fire. You declare it to him and it’s only for his ears to hear. “I didn’t want to distract you.”

“Too late.” Warrior chuckles and bows his head to you.

The pain in your shoulder returns and your tears begin to take over for a different reason entirely. 

Warrior notices. “We have to take care of that.”

“I know.”

“It’s going to hurt.” Warrior says, moving your hair aside and moving behind you.

“I know.”

“Ready?” He says. His fingertips seem to be a cooling balm over the wound even if he’s only barely grazing over the cloth itself.

“No.” You admit. “But the faster we get it over with, the faster it will stop hurting.”

“I knew I liked you for a reason.” Warrior chuckles. “I’ll be quick.”

You close your eyes and take a breath. You can sense that he’s waiting for you to relax enough to pull one of them out. Despite your anticipated fear of the pain, you manage to do so.

He pulls it out.

You scream once and pause.

He pulls out another.

You bite the scream down, trapping it on your mouth but the sound leaves through your nose as it is.

A longer moment passes and Warrior rubs your shoulder consolingly. He gives you a moment to catch your breath again. A small kindness.

He pulls out the third and final one and you manage to only grunt from the pain. It does little to stop the tears that escape your eyes though.

Warrior says nothing but unleashes a fairy to heal the wounds from the battle. He lets her work until she flies away.

You feel dirty, sticky and grossly cool now that the blood flow has stopped leaking out of you.

Warrior crawls next to you. “Better?”

You nod and clean your face with your dirty hands. The tears mix the dirty and it smears across your cheeks but you manage to feel better enough to look Warrior in the face. “Thank you.”

He nods and picks up the end of his scarf. Warrior reaches over with it covering his hand and he cleans your face for you. “Any time.”

His soft look, his tender touch, the way he smiles shyly before retracting his hand. It’s more impressive than the photo worthy hero from before. And you find yourself breathless once more.

[hajimeiwaswife]

AUGUST | CHAPTER 6: UNEXPECTED CALLS

[Masterlist]

Chapter 5 Chapter 7

Summary: You’re marrying Izuku Midoriya in September, but he gets an emergency call from All Might’s old agency in the U.S., requesting his services for the entirety of August. A death threat directed at you for being his partner has his hair on edge. However, the always responsible, caring and heroic Shoto Todoroki comes to your rescue, offering to take care of you for the whole month. Who would have thought that 31 days were enough to make you reconsider your engagement with the number 1 hero and fall in love with the Icy Hot man who held your hand during the last breeze of summer?

Warnings: Everyone is 25 more or less, death threats, sexual innuendos (not actual smut). MDNI.

Wc: 2,1 K

Playlist

“Deku! What’s the situation?” the person at the other side of the intercom asked in a hurried whisper, waiting for their superior to give an order.

There was a long, chilling silence, not even his breathing could be heard in the astonishing void. Deku walked through the teared flat in the middle of nowhere, inspecting every object, both complete or broken, that he could find. He had received an alert of suspicious movement in here from a neighbour of the town nearby, but when he arrived, nobody was there and the clues he could have found were erased. Whoever was here knew they were walking on a thin line between what’s legal and not, probably already bathed in the water of sin.

He was frustrated. Already a week in the U. S. and he was as close to discovering the culprit as when he arrived. The Pro Hero passed his right hand over his uncovered and messy green hair, panting. He was already nervous with this case, then with your condition at Japan; he trusted Shoto with his body and soul, knowing him for so long and being friends since High School, but he would feel better being himself who protected you, kept you safe from the claws of evil, hugged you at night as you liked to be hugged and kiss your head when you fell asleep.

It didn’t help that you both didn’t talk at all the day before. He had been busy and you didn’t reach him, probably occupied with all the mess of the apartment and the burglar who entered. However, his heart was aching for a single word from you, just a ‘good morning’, even a text would work.

“Deku!” the intercom kept going on, expecting an answer from him.

“Nothing, they’re gone.” He announced, frustrated.

He looked around once more, angry eyes searching for something, anything, that could lead him to another point of the investigation. But there was nothing else for him to do.

“Let the scientific police come in.” he ordered, speaking directly to the intercom in his watch.

As the FBI agents came in, he stepped furiously out of the apartment and took his private phone out of his pocket. No notifications from you. Not a single message. His frustration and stress were increasing. Why. Why didn’t you talk to him all day. Why couldn’t you call. What was so important to not send a simple message. What were you doing. Where were―

He stopped himself once he caught onto what he was implying. You had just been attacked and threatened, you were completely vulnerable and you were probably fixing everything there was to your shared flat. Just like him, you were most likely busy. Releasing a deep breath through his nose, he tried to calm himself and passed a hand by his face. He needed to focus.

Just when he was about to move, someone touched his shoulder. He jumped, startled, and noticed how distracted he was to just be surprised by the officer in charge of the case. The man was taller than him, with dark skin and brown eyes that showed the experience he had in the field; intimidating, yet kind when needed.

“Sorry, kid.” Officer Ross said, placing a parental hand on Izuku’s shoulder. The pro hero just shook his head to indicate he thought nothing of it, even if it was a lie. He hated to not feel the presence of people approaching him.

“I’m the sorry one here,” he spoke in broken English. It was at times like these where he regretted not bringing you with him, he needed an interpreter. “I couldn’t find anything.”

“Let’s see what the FBI can give us, then.” The policeman sighed, “But it looks like a very hard case.”

“There’s no perfect crime, sir. We’ll catch them.” Izuku, Deku, promised with a sure tone; his insides doubting every single word that came out of his mouth.

Once in the commissary again, he took his phone from his pocket for the third time that morning and, gutted, he observed his full screen filled with messages, none of them from you.

He knew he was being dramatic; it had only passed a day and a half without hearing your voice, but it was more than what you would spend without reaching out to each other in the last few years.  

He wondered whether he should call you, to hear your voice just for a minute, to listen to you breathe. He wondered whether you thought about him, if you missed him as much as he was missing you. He wondered whether he should ask or wait until you claimed it yourself.

Looking around, he watched the whole office working on their own things and not paying him any attention at the moment. It was the perfect time. He opened the contacts in his phone and dialed your number, which was the first one and emergency one at the same time.

How beautiful you looked in the profile picture he had of you, smiling with your pretty lips, shiny eyes and clothes contrasting against the green of the trees. You both had gone on a little trip to the forest for the weekend, renting a modest cottage and walking around the place. It had been a pleasurable trip, both literal and metaphorical. Watching you enjoy yourself in nature was exquisite, but staring at your naked body squirming underneath him in the silk sheets was pluperfect, an out of body experience.

The hold tone brought him back to reality, where your body was no more next to him, nor was the musicality of the leaves that danced at the beat of the wind. He was back in Washington, on a mission far from you, and waiting for you to pick up your phone.

He was about to hang up when he heard it, the sound of someone picking up the call. “Hello?” he heard a sleepy masculine voice at the other side of the line, and for a moment, he thought he had dialed the wrong number. “Midoriya?”

Then, it hit him. “Todoroki!” Izuku exclaimed, relieved to hear a familiar voice, although confused as to why he was the one answering, “Where’s Y/n?”

“Sleeping.” His friend replied, the sound of a yawn being prominent from his part. “Why?”

“Oh,” The number one hero would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed, “I wanted to talk to her, we didn’t yesterday and I was worried.”

“I see,” Izuku heard shuffling at the other side, movement, and then steps. “Do you want me to wake her up?”

“No! No, let her sleep.” He had to be an idiot. It was late in Japan, he should have known, but his selfishness had taken the best of him. “Just ask her to call me when she wakes up. It doesn’t matter if it’s late here.”

“I’ll tell her.” Todoroki was a man of few words, Izuku knew that. Had it been another occasion he wouldn’t have minded, but at that moment? He wanted to know everything.

“So… How are things going? Any news of the case? How is Y/n doing?”

“We don’t have much information, just that whoever entered the apartment left cow blood everywhere, but not a single fingerprint, footprint, nothing.” He recognised it, the frustration in his friend, it was the same one he had with his own case. “We’re doing our best, and Y/n is doing fine. Sometimes she panics, but for the rest she’s okay.”

‘Does she talk about me?’ is what Izuku wanted to ask. He wasn’t brave enough. “I’m sure you’ll catch whoever is doing this.” He meant it, he really did. “And I hope both you and Y/n rest well.”

“She’s not exactly sleep-deprived for what I’ve seen.” Izuku chuckled, not knowing if Todoroki was for real or if he was joking. “Though I think it’s for the best, at least she gets to rest and forget about this for a bit.” There was a moment of silence, and then he heard the number three speak again. “Sorry, I thought I heard her talking.”

“She sometimes talks in her sleep; especially if she’s stressed.” Izuku explained.

“Oh,” again, silence. The green haired man waited patiently. “Yeah, she’s mumbling something about ‘being glad of meeting her majesty’. I didn’t know she was monarchic.”

“She’s not, ‘her majesty’ is Taylor Swift.” And then, Izuku heard something he had only heard once: Todoroki laughing. It was a high pitch sound, almost as if it didn’t want to come out and, if he was not mistaken, he could catch a bit of endearment.

“Oh God, you’re joking.” Todoroki continued laughing to the shock of his pro hero friend, who couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Now I understand a lot of things.”

“Yeah? Like what?” Izuku asked, curious. He waited a couple minutes until Todoroki stopped laughing. Deku didn’t think it was that funny, but it was good to hear what he only heard when Mr. Smiley attacked that one time.

Once Shoto stopped and calmed down a bit, he started explaining. “We went to the shopping centre today, you know, to buy some clothes for the both of you.” Izuku nodded, even though Todoroki couldn’t see him. “And on the way there and the way back we heard at least ten Taylor Swift songs.”

“Yeah, that’s very much like her.” The man smiled.

“I guess I’ll have to try and wake her up with her songs in the morning. She sleeps like a log.” Shoto complained.

“Tell me about it, I have to put at least five alarms every morning to get her to wake up and stand up.”

It was nice, talking about his fiancée with someone else in such an endearing way. He could tell Shoto was growing fond of his girl. “Does it work?”

“Not really.”

And then, Todoroki’s laugh again, this time accompanied by Izuku’s. “You know what’s the worst of it all? She told me before heading to sleep the first night that she was a light sleeper. Light sleeper my ass.”

Izuku couldn’t stop laughing. It wasn’t that funny. None of it was funny enough to have them both like that, but sometimes anecdotes of people you know and love make you lose your mind about things that aren’t that meaningful to others.

“I think I have never heard you use that expression,” Izuku said in between laughs.

“Your girlfriend, she uses it a lot, I think she’s rubbing it off on me.”

They laughed for a few minutes more, adding stories of both their school times and you. It was nice, Izuku thought, to be able to talk with my friend like that after a few days of stressing work.

“And what about your case? How is it in the U. S. A.?” Shoto asked.

Should he tell the truth? Maybe he could keep it to himself for a while. But this was Shoto, Izuku always told him everything, with no lies. So Izuku sighed forcefully before speaking, “It’s not going well.” Todoroki didn’t reply, waiting for him to say everything, “Much as in your case, we don’t find clues. No fingerprints, no forced entry, no bodies… This is a dead end.”

“You’ll get it at the end.” Shoto was sincere, he believed it, and Izuku was moved by the trust his friend had on him, “Do you think you’ll be here for the wedding?”

What he was about to say hurt, badly, “I don’t know.”

Silence again. They both were sharing a moment of hurt and companionship. Izuku looked around, and saw Officer Ross and a couple of police men looking his way; he had been too loud and he needed to work.

“Are you going to tell her?”

“Not yet.” Izuku nodded to Officer Ross, knowing it was time to work again. “Todoroki, I have to go. Please, don’t tell her about this.”

“I won’t.” Shoto said, firmly.

“Tell her to call me. I have to go. Bye.”

Todoroki didn’t have the chance to reply before Izuku hung up. He thought about the implications of Midoriya not doing it at the wedding, and your saddened face filled with tears came to his mind. A pang made its way to his heart, something definitely not familiar.  ‘I should go to the doctor’, Shoto thought. He placed your phone on the table and headed to his bed to try and sleep again.

Tossing and turning, not being able to close his eyes, he decided to put his headphones on and listen to something he wouldn’t have before you arrived in his life: Taylor Swift. That Jake Gyllenhaal you mentioned in his car was definitely Public Enemy Nº1. 

Tag list: @shoutocakie @kisskissshutmydoor @stxrrielle @motzgurke

© Hajimeiwaswife 2022 | All rights reserved. Do not copy, repost or translate. Comments and reblogs are always appreciated.

[a-fluffer-nutter]

Pep Talk

A/N - Here is a shorter fic of Barry Allen/The Flash being stressed out as the Justice League was in the dawn of their existence. Diana somehow makes him feel better. Enjoy!

Word Count: 735

           He wasn’t entirely sure if he was ready for it all, the whole world saving thing. Barry was not that old, definitely the youngest of this dysfunctional crew of heroes, if that’s what they really were. Barry didn’t consider himself a hero. He just was a guy that could run really, really fast. That’s cool and all, but like his teammate was Superman. Yeah, the Superman.

           Barry paced in the kitchen area of their facility, a secret base if you will. Bruce Wayne had purchased a large piece of land to convert into a training and residential area for the Justice League. Yes, Barry thought the name was hilarious too, even if he played a massive part in the naming of their team. Now, Barry wasn’t super wealthy, so when the richest man in the entire world told him that Barry was going to receive a large room in this giant, middle of nowhere, hidden facility, Barry got excited. Very excited. Taking all of his belongings, he moved to the top secret facility and has been living there for about a month now. Despite this, Barry didn’t feel very heroic compared to the others. He had been watching Batman in the news lately, and damn, Bruce was a hero. That man was incredible. Barry, despite helping to save the world, didn’t feel like he so much belonged in this exceptional group of misfits.

            This is where Diana came in. She had moved into the facility as well, though kept her office and job as an archaeologist and curator. It’s not like she had any issues travelling far, she could fly, which made Barry very jealous. Sure, he could get anywhere in the East Coast in less than an hour, but flying was so much cooler.

           “Hello, Barry,” Diana walked into Barry’s room, though the door had been closed for some time. Diana wasn’t one for privacy, Barry had noted early on in this living situation. Barry was sitting in front of his computer, reading through countless news stories on his heroic companions. Though once his door opened, her immediately clicked off, so only his screen saver was showing. “You are very stressed.”

           “Um, thanks?” Barry bit his lip, fighting off a bark of a laugh. Diana was very blunt, as was practically everyone else in the team. At least Cyborg was chill.

           “What is the matter?” Her smile was very sweet, though her eyes had the intensity of a lion biting into the throat of an antelope. “I can help.”

           “I am just stressed, no reason to it,” Barry sighed, leaning back in the rolling chair. “That’s it. Goodbye, Diana. I’ll see you at dinner.”

           Instead of leaving, Diana walked further into the room and stood directly behind him. He unconsciously sank into the chair, still intimidated by the powerful woman. Then, out of nowhere, she began to dig her fingers into his belly.

           “What the hell?” He choked out, cackling wildly, thrashing in his chair.

           “This is a way I was taught that humans can make each other feel better. It seems to be working well on you,” Diana beamed, smiling nearly as wide as he was. “You are no longer frowning.”

           “I can’t frown if I tried,” Barry squealed, letting out a snort as she poked his navel. “Okay, stop! I’ll tell you why I’m stressed.”

           “That was easy,” Diana pulled her hands away and clapped once.

           “I just feel like I’m not a good enough hero to be part of this group,” Barry let out after a few moments of taking in deep breaths, his lungs in desperate need of refilling. Diana frowned down at him, making Barry feel bad about his words.

           “You are the greatest of heroes, Barry,” she said firmly, eyes full of pride. “You are one of the bravest men I have ever met. I am thankful to have you by my side.”            “Wait, really?”

           “That is the truth,” Diana nodded, then pat him on the top of his head.

           “Thank you, Diana,” Barry replied, though she was already walking away. Her job was done in her eyes, and while Barry was very confused by that whiplash interaction, he somehow felt better. Sitting up, Barry relaxed his shoulders and held his head high. He was a hero, and despite Diana not being the best at pep talk, she made him feel heroic, and for that, he was grateful.

[fedzkun]

Villain Hunt Arc Meta: All For One’s Horrific Guide to Methodically Breaking Down Your Local OFA Holder

Ft. Turning the ‘Overpoweredness’ of OFA into a Setback, and AFO’s Successful Manipulations Of Midoriya Izuku

In which I also give AFO too much credit for all the pain he’s probably caused, and theorize that his plans to break Izuku actually started getting enacted even before he’d escaped Tartarus.

(A.k.a. me loving the angst because this is really good angst writing, but also hating it because the manga doesn’t come with a Angst with A Happy Ending tag unless you count Izuku’s ‘this is the story of how I became the greatest hero’ which isn’t really a guarantee of happiness )

So. What an arc! In the span of ten chapters (starting from the end of the War arc) Hori delivered a full-on Villain-looking, Vigilante Midoriya Izuku. Congratulations, Horikoshi, for finally introducing Akatani Mikumo!

The fast pacing and lack of breather panels are so fitting for this arc truly. AFO never gave them a moment’s rest. Yes, from henceforth as he’d promised... It’s always going to be his turn.

Izuku is making amazing progress with unlocking the full power of One For All. In his words, his abilities might as well already be on par with what a healthier All Might could do, and with no recoil to boot. Plus, there’s only one last quirk to unlock. For villain fights, I don’t think we need to worry about him losing, or him breaking anymore bones at this time.

Which, some might argue, makes Izuku too ‘OP.’

To start with, I want to talk first about the ‘overpoweredness’ of the One For All quirk. It’s a wonderful quirk truly, having inspired and amazed so many because of its sheer power. Used well, it could grant instant victories and restore the people’s wavering faith to the heroes. Because with a quirk like that on your side, everything’s going to be alright, right? There’s always gonna be that bit of hope that something is still strong enough to stand against the looming evil...right?

Yeah. That’s what the people who’d lived under All Might’s Era of Peace thought so too. History repeats.

OFA’s ‘OP-ness’ is both a great blessing and a great burden.

Here are some points on how the narrative has made OFA's 'overpoweredness' a setback:

1. All For One—that bastard—exploits the urge that comes with OFA. Just as ‘AFO the quirk’s’ goal is to steal OFA, OFA’s job is to defeat AFO, and Izuku is sacrificing himself to its cause.

Here’s another thing I want to point out: The conclusion that the heroes drew about AFO planning to capture Midoriya Izuku alive? In rereading, I’m starting to believe it’s nothing but a mere assumption of his plans. Aside from the deal made with Lady Nagant—of which I think AFO didn’t take seriously anyway and set her up for failure— (and while we as readers are already aware of his true intentions to wear Izuku down) it’s weird that nowhere had AFO directly mentioned to Izuku that he’s going to kidnap him and take his quirk from him.

2. OFA made Izuku so brilliant (e.g. Pros and former Pros alike going “This kid...”) that they really can't help but place all their hopes on him. Sighs. In an ideal world, this would be a dream come true of Izuku getting his due credit for all his heroic achievements Pro heroes have started to do to Izuku what they’ve done all their lives to All Might--which is to put him on the pedestal, while they fall back to cover him like guards/safety net. Hence, falling back to the One Pillar Model mindset.

3. OFA makes Izuku untouchable, not only to the villains, but also to his allies. Prime material to reinforce isolation. And if Izuku doesn't want to be caught, he won't make it easy for either side.

4. OFA IS SUS AF, OKAY? What are the Holders doing?! While gaining access to them makes it easier and convenient to have personal trainers in handling OFA, the vestiges prove to add a lot to Izuku’s mental load. If they’d allowed Izuku to come to the point of being caked with blood and filth, they’re not doing very well at guiding him. Realize that most of their arc interactions with Izuku is Quirk Talk. They, of all people, should know how AFO’s machinations work! Hey First, for the love of god, warn Izuku! He’s showing so many signs of being manipulated that you should be picking up on. please /sobs ;;

Tbf, like, I’m pretty sure that the Holders haven’t been as mentally okay either, which would feed into Izuku’s current mindset.

Now that the setbacks have been listed, let’s dive in to AFO’s plans to toy with Midoriya Izuku.

PHASE 1: Pre-Tartarus Breakout

Speaking of OFA being sus, there’s something that has been niggling at the back of my mind.

All For One basically tells Izuku: “You were my main interest that entire time I was in prison”. So, to pass the time in Tartarus (since he can’t use any(?) of his quirks), AFO has been doing nothing but apparently daydreaming and designing a personal hell for the Ninth Holder during that entire period. HOWEVER, it also made me wonder…

…Even before he’d broken out, had AFO made any moves at all in enacting his plans to break Izuku?

Yeah?

And here’s the kicker: he says that before Blackwhip bursted out.

AFO is a master manipulator. Assuming that Izuku doesn’t have any latent AFO quirk (for whatever reason *coughs* maybe dfo if you're a believer) or that Quirk Singularity has anything to do with it, what is the trigger to Izuku suddenly having access to Blackwhip?

I’d argue that it is All For One himself.

Why? What’s his goal? If you notice during the Joint Training arc, Izuku is feeling pretty confident about his progress. He’s rather happy and feeling blessed, and he is making leaps and bounds with base power OFA.

AFO can’t have that. He can’t allow the Ninth Holder to become too emotionally stable, or else he’d have a stronger will. So by somehow activating Blackwhip, AFO makes Izuku feel like he hasn’t made any progress with his quirk at all. During the evaluations, Izuku mentions that he still needs a lot to work on, and while not all of it is visible, with the way he behaves, it’s pretty evident that his self-confidence has taken a rather large hit.

But, wait! If AFO had tampered with OFA during the JT arc, paving the way to unlocking the rest (like he’d also done during the War arc when he tried to ‘steal’ it then), then wouldn’t AFO be sabotaging himself since he’d be making Izuku a more formidable opponent?

Sure. Except that the quirks inside OFA are mostly useless when it comes to the mental part of the fighting. The only thing they’re useful for is for the current Holder to be able to play keep-away in the physical realm. And AFO could easily just find counters for those through his work on Tomura.

You know how else the situation becomes advantageous for AFO? With every quirk unlocked, Izuku’s goalposts keep on getting away from him, and Izuku will always feel like he isn’t ready or prepared enough. Izuku will push and push himself to master OFA to its fullest, to become more powerful, at the cost of his mental/emotional stability and physical wellbeing as he wears himself down.

And every time Izuku grew more powerful, and became more ‘OP,’ he is burdened with all the aforementioned setbacks that came with it. He could be the most powerful person in the world, but it’s all for naught if he doesn’t take care of himself. This plan is both a high risk and high reward on AFO’s part, and as of the moment, with a bloody Izuku staggering all over, AFO is visibly reaping these high rewards.

PHASE 2: Post-Tartarus Breakout

He’s going to toy with Izuku until Izuku fucking breaks. What follows is his series of actions that instills the desired responses from Midoriya Izuku. Let’s see how the master manipulator plays this game of chess, shall we?

Izuku’s plan: Reach out to villains and try to save them.

AFO’s counter: Kill off those who turn their back against villainy and/or acknowledge Izuku as a true hero.

Izuku’s resulting response: Stop reaching out to villains. Gain an instant victory and move on.

After all, what do you get when you block a hero from showing sympathy? You get an unfeeling living weapon.

---

Izuku’s plan: Work with the top pro heroes to bring down AFO.

AFO’s counter: Make plans that will serve to highlight how the top pros are just slowing Izuku down. (e.g. Making moves while it’s raining, so as to divide them, but also to bring out No. 1 Hero Endeavor’s "slowness" in the rain. Nope, I don’t think that’s a throwaway line at all.)

Izuku’s resulting response: Grows more reckless, often leading the charge.

---

Izuku’s plan: Track AFO down.

AFO’s counter: Lead them to dead-ends. Or when they do supposedly reach something, endanger them.

Izuku’s resulting response: His tunnel vision worsens, as he grows more desperate.

---

Izuku’s plan: All Might following him around is okay since it would help All Might from worrying so much, and Izuku could simultaneously keep an eye on and protect All Might.

AFO’s counters: There are a lot to really fuck with this bond, damn you AFO.

Taint that passing the torch memory of ‘You’re Next.’

Declare that All Might no longer interests him. Liar. He outright stated before that he’s one for keeping a grudge

Send another assassin to Izuku [Underlying Message: You yourself are a walking danger zone to those whom you dearly care for.]

Izuku’s resulting response:

Interpret that memory of ‘You’re Next’ as taking up the position of being AFO’s shiny new plaything, and therefore supposedly sparing All Might from the torment (Unfortunately, making Izuku push AM away is just part of the torment ;A;)

Think that AM is no longer in the direct line of fire as long as AFO focuses on Izuku

Finally, push his last line of morale support away, and completely isolate himself.

Btw, I wonder how All Might feels about Izuku using Nana's quirk to get away from him.

---

The suffering doesn’t end.

Izuku’s plan: Save people.

AFO’s counters: (possibly offscreen) Send more villains and assassins to torment Izuku some more with the knowledge that he can’t save them. Sending villains out also puts innocents in danger.

Izuku’s resulting response: He won’t stop for anything. He won’t sleep, won’t eat, won’t slow down. He will always do his best to save as long as someone is in danger.

His body will keep on moving and moving and MOVING on its own.

--- All For One is very effective as a supervillain. He has managed to make the heroes think that his only goal is to capture Izuku alive for his quirk. He has Izuku right where he wants him: dancing to his tune at the palm of his hand, utterly toyed with, left with no escape in sight.

Psychologically vaulted.

.

.

.

PHASE 3

And so, if Izuku is being manipulated to drive himself further and further into self-destruction, what then is there left for All For One to do?

So much more. Because, my god, I think AFO has mastered the art of traumatizing the OFA Holders.

All For One once told All Might, “I will destroy all that you’ve protected.” And boy, is he delivering. He's definitely not done with AM btw.

First, he destroys All Might's image. And he is manipulating Izuku to drive himself to that point. To looking into his absolute worst.

And when that point arrives, AFO will hammer the final nail home.

Something like...

BEHOLD

JAPAN’S SYMBOL OF PEACE.

And oh, how it'll hurt. To see All Might's pride and joy be flaunted about as looking nothing like a hero to the masses, for him to be so utterly humiliated.

"See what I did to All Might's successor."

AFO will be banking upon the possibility that the angry masses will not want to be saved by whom they're tricked into viewing as someone that's the cause of all the pain. Izuku might have the willpower to stay true to his resolve, but with him on the verge of total breakdown, what would happen when he is shunned by the very people he is trying to help?

I once wrote a post about how the current events seem to be a bastardization of Izuku's wildest fantasies: he's working with the top pros, he has the most powerful quirk, and he's working with All Might (whom technically acts as a sidekick to him rn).

AFO has warped all that into a never-ending nightmare. And Izuku...

Izuku is really in need of saving.

Last thoughts:

Let me just say that it shouldn't be a competition about who gets to get through to Izuku. Right now, he’s gonna need all the help he can get, and it can’t be delivered by only one or two people. Saving Izuku is going to be a team effort, a solid support system that sees Izuku as their classmate/friend/student/actual person that they care about. And there’s sufficient space for that.

More hands reaching out means more chances to catch him if he falls.

[barid-bel-medar]

Bonus stuff for the the Jade (Attract, Repeal) AU

Inko is completely unaware that Toshinori has a crush on her. Almost everyone else around her (including Izuku) is aware of the crush. Enji is of the opinion it's going to go nowhere because Inko's taste in men is terrible, but kinda still hopes because he also thinks it would be hilarious

Endeavor actually has been number one a few handful of times over the years! Ironically enough being someone who doesn't obsess over 'being Number One' has allowed him to do so. Much like how not being overly obsessed with that has lead to him having things like a functional marriage and family life, including all his kids being alive and Touya being a hero (Apollo: The Stellar Hero) rather than a super villain.

Izuku has been trained to be a Quirkless hero! His reasoning for taking OFA here is viewing it as a tool, capable of helping him further in heroics, rather than viewing it as a necessity to have a Quirk to be a hero (he's spent too much time around people who have to extremely limit or be very original with their Quirk usage).

Lady Nagant was Inko's first ever intern. Events involving her also culminated in the first time Aoi committed a political coup. Touya was also an intern of Inko's, she and Enji agreeing her finesse focus would work better for Touya.

[nativehueofresolution]

i think it’s so fascinating how mj is someone who is naturally empathetic and easily picks up on the feelings of others, but she is not someone for whom being kind is always easy or automatic. it’s a skill she has to work for, and something she gets better at as she grows. and it’s part of why i love her so much.

(image heavy meta under the cut)

mj in general is uncannily perceptive and finds it second nature to put herself in someone else’s shoes--part of the reason being an actress makes perfect sense for her character. in spectacular spider-man 85, there’s a small gag where mj tells peter he looks troubled, and peter responds “tell me about it”, only for mj to go “okay!” and immediately list off the reasons why he’s upset. peter notes that mary jane “read [him] like a book” (keep in mind at this point they’d been broken up after peter’s failed first proposal and had fallen out of touch, and mj still doesn’t miss a step). 

with peter/mj being one of the cornerstone relationships for spider-man, it’s not hard to find moments throughout their time together where mj reads peter in a way no one else can--she’s one of the few people in the world that peter completely opens up to. but i think it’s notable that she still is attuned to peter’s emotions before they become close. she’s there for peter as they grieve over gwen together--most famously in the epilogue for tasm #122, but also in lots of smaller ways. she’s the only one who notices peter struggling to get through school after gwen passes, and she seeks him out when he isolates himself, repeatedly inviting him out of his shell.

(tasm #124)

but we don’t just see her do this with peter; she also steps in to help liz after harry dies, despite the way their relationship fractured once mary jane started suspecting harry was acting as the goblin.

(web of spider-man #101)

she sees past may’s folksy surface and seeming frailty, acknowledging the many difficulties she’s endured and the will of steel she has.

(spectacular spider-man #186)

she uses her class clown routine to help cheer gwen up after her father dies.

notably, she also is the first one to realize gwen has run off after flash gets into a fight, and she volunteers to be the one to go after gwen--admitting that even though it’s unlikely she’ll get through to gwen, she still feels like she has to try. meanwhile peter, the guy gwen was on the verge of marrying, was too caught up in his own feelings to check in with her.

(spider-man: death and destiny #2)

she defends peter and harry for being standoffish after gwen dies and harry overdoses.

(tasm #125)

she has a real sense for when people are hurting or in need, and when you put all of this together, mj starts to sound like a saint. and she is an incredibly compassionate and supportive person! but harry’s above reaction- while cruel and possessive -- isn’t coming out of nowhere. the end of their relationship was pretty terrible. mary jane flirted with peter a lot after gwen left him to go to england, and it clearly made harry feel hurt. there are lots of ways you can interpret her actions--she never considered their relationship to be serious, her feelings for peter were already present, she was trying to give harry a reason to end things between them. x-men/spider-man #1 has gwen suggest it’s a sort a reverse psychology mind trick to keep harry’s attention on her (something peter also suggests in another issue), and mj more or less agrees with her. regardless of her motive, she’s told multiple times that her behavior is hurting harry, and she keeps doing it. his anxiety about their relationship is part of what leads to him to start taking drugs. when she does eventually dump him, mj tells harry he’s “always been good for a few laughs”, but shouldn’t let it go to his head... words clearly designed to sting.

to be absolutely clear, harry had lots of his own issues that had nothing to do with her (including his deep insecurity that could often make him an insecure jerk), and mary jane isn’t responsible for anyone’s actions besides her own. but i do think it’s notable that she was dismissive of harry’s feelings and the fact she was hurting him, even though it’s repeatedly made clear in other issues mj does love harry as a friend; interestingly, she also had similar, though less extreme, behavior with flash when she and peter were dating.

(mj in tasm #97 / mj in tasm #162)

the difference here is that we get more insight into mj’s feelings and mindset, as her character has become more developed. when peter confronts flash about flirting with his girlfriend, he learns mary jane had been hiding the fact she and peter were seeing one another from flash. both of them are upset (peter acts just as petty and jealous as harry did), and mj describes just seeing peter again as “something that took more courage than i thought i had”. but she shows up anyways, and she and peter actually communicate with one another.

(tasm #165)

mj flirting with flash is just a reaction to all the messy and contradictory feelings being that come with being in a relationship, and the specific issues that are present in a relationship with peter. but the fact that she can explain all of this peter shows she’s still pretty in touch with her emotions, and it seems like a part of her suspected all along something like this would happen, as she tells betty in tasm #130 that she doesn’t want to fall in love with peter because she likes him too much. she’d rather keep things simple, even if it damages the relationship.

(also, just to be clear-- mj wants a real relationship. in web of spider-man #6, when she and peter are split up, she bemoans her single life and thinks longingly of what it would be like to be married and start a family. of what it’d be like to be with peter. but she cuts herself from this dreaming, because she says it’s useless to think of something she’ll never be brave enough to pursue.)

another prime example of this ‘being alone is easier’ attitude is how she acts around her sister gayle - whether it be leaving her to do the chores while she danced and played when they were growing up, or refusing to live with gayle after their mom died and running off to aunt anna’s. by the time we get to mj’s backstory, we as readers have started to get inside her head and listen to her inner monologues, so we know at this point that mary jane cares deeply about her loved ones and is acting out of fear and self-preservation because of the trauma she’s been through. but mj is also careful to show none of that to her sister, instead just putting up a “party girl” wall.

(spider-man: parallel lives)

mary jane is, once again, the only one noticing her brother-in-law feels trapped by the news of expecting a child, and it reminds her all the abandonment and forgotten dreams that have caused her family so much pain. in this case, empathizing with timmy - seeing his pain - caused mary jane to rudely brush off her pregnant sister, because she couldn’t handle being vulnerable about her feelings or getting involved in another tense family fight. it’s easier just to keep them at arm’s length.

(spider-man: parallel lives)

yes, mj can read people... but that doesn’t automatically mean she’s going to know how or even want to reach out to them. that’s the emotionally heavy stuff we know terrifies her. she’s just as likely to self-sabotage as she is to reach out to someone if she knows they’re dealing with something serious.

why do i bring this up? because it makes mj a richer, more human character, and it also makes her acts of kindness even more meaningful. it is very hard for mj to let herself become emotionally involved. even when she can read someone is hurting in a situation, she doesn’t automatically become considerate or comforting, even with people she loves.

that’s why her choice in tasm #122 is so outstanding--it’s not what mj wants to do, but she makes the choice to commit to peter and stay there for the hard parts. she chooses to be peter’s friend, she chooses to rekindle their relationship and marry him, she choose to stay with him even when their marriage is harder than she ever imagined. she’s a fierce friend to harry, even after everything that’s happened between them. she welcomes him back to school, she doesn’t give up on him when he’s the goblin, she notices he’s living out of his store when norman cuts him off and makes sure he has a place to go. she becomes so close with may that, after peter’s presumed dead, may calls mj peter’s great gift to her, and the reason she has to keep on living. she helps keep gwen’s memory alive. she chooses the people she loves. the fact that she fails, that she’s scared, doesn’t make her stop trying. she does it over and over again, and that’s what so heroic about her.

(tasm #275)

[happyandticklish]

Disarming Your Demons

Notes: Okay, so I’m only halfway through Jujutsu Kaisen, but I had an idea and I had to write it down. I’m not sure if I’m gonna write anything else for it until I actually finish the show, but I said that before and now this exists, so who knows really. 

Summary: Itadori discovers a new method to deal with misbehaving curses. 

Sharing a body with a thousand-year-old curse could have its downfalls, something Itadori was quickly becoming familiar with. Though he could control it most of the time, it was difficult, and took a strain on his mind and body. He put on a brave face afterwards, insisting that it was no big deal, but the truth was anything but. Sukuna’s ability to switch out with him was growing stronger, and the exhaustion was setting in faster now with each time Itadori wrestled back control over his body. In the heat of battle was one thing, edged on by desperation and the will to keep his friends alive. But it was the other times, when Itadori was tired and vulnerable and fully unprepared to battle his literal inner demons, that he regretted the lifestyle most.

Say, for instance, in his dorm room, half-asleep and dreary from a battle earlier that day.

“Hello again.”

Switching out with Sukuna was strange. He didn’t feel it in a physical sense, no pain or sensation inflicted upon him. One moment he was in his body, and the next he was trapped, a helpless bystander to the other’s will.

“You know, it’s awfully bold of those teachers of yours to leave you all alone like this at night.” Sukuna stood, stretching his arms above his head in satisfaction. “Do they really put so much stock in you to assume you’d be able to fight me, like this?”

“Sukuna.” Itadori’s voice was inaudible to anyone who might be passing by, an aimless thought floating around in his consciousness, but he knew the other could hear him nonetheless. “Give me back my body!”

“Please,” Sukuna dismissed, waving one hand as he strolled around the dorm, examining objects with a vague curiosity. “After you used me earlier? I’m growing rather tired of this dynamic, you know. Only ever summoning me when you need your friend healed, or a new big baddie rears its odious head. Then, afterwards, you hide me away without so much as a thank you.”

“I do appreciate your help,” Itadori started carefully, trying to keep his tone neutral. It was difficult though, when the other could easily read his true thoughts. “But you can’t expect me to simply hand my body over like some kind of puppet. I know what your true intentions are, and I won’t let you harm my friends or anyone else.”

“Oh, of course not, not heroic, selfless Itadori.” He placed a hand on the doorknob, twisting it and pushing the door open with one hand. “I wonder what would happen if I went to pay them a little visit now?”

“No!”

“Oh? Don’t like that, do you. Then why don’t you do something about it? Force me back, take over your body once more.” Sukuna chuckled dryly, pausing in the doorway. “If you can, that is. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the toll this is taking on you. Do you really think you have the strength to best me now, when you’re tired and weak from battle?”

Itadori tried, he really did. He knew he had to do this, but Sukuna was right. In his current state, he could hardly focus enough to remain present enough to speak to the other, let alone reclaim his physical form. With his last remaining willpower, he managed to gather enough strength to take control of one arm before he found himself blocked by the other. 

Sukuna’s eyes widened, and then he laughed, a throaty, derisive thing that made Itadori clench the fist he had. “One arm? Is that it? You truly are in for it now. I must say, I am impressed though. I didn’t think you had even that in you. Still, it’s no matter. I could end your world as you know it with both my hands tied behind my back. This pathetic defense is but a pebble in my path. I must thank you for the amusing display though—I needed a good laugh.”

Itadori watched helplessly as his body moved forward against his will, his mind racing as he tried to think of anything he could do in his position.

I needed a good laugh.

That was it!

Itadori would have smiled if he could use his mouth. An idea was formulating in his mind, crazy and nonsensical, but possibly just the thing he needed. It was a method that Gojo had employed once, to train him to focus on maintaining curse energy and resist distractions. He had no idea if the same thing would work on Sukuna, but seeing as he was in his body and therefore should be just as susceptible as Itadori had been, it just might work.

Sukuna stopped short as a jolt of sensation shot through him, and he snapped his head down to see his own hand squeezing his hip. “What the hell?”

“Ha! I didn’t think it would actually work!” Itadori’s voice rang out triumphant through the other’s mind as he squeezed again and again, quick and sudden so that Sukuna had no time to adjust to them. “Who knew that my own ticklishness would come in handy one day?”

“Tickli—what?” Sukuna started in confusion, but quickly slapped his other hand to his mouth to hold back… was that laughter?

He stumbled back against the wall, torn between shoving the other’s hands away and holding back the embarrassing noises leaking between his fingers. It was in times like these that he missed his four arms. It was hard enough to work with only two arms—one was impossible.

“W-What are you d-dohoing?” Sukuna grunted, trying to sound intimidating despite the silly grin quickly taking hold of his features.

“Tickling you, duh.” It was weird tickling his own body, and weirder still to have the sensation disconnected from him. He could feel the AC in the hallway on his arm, and the warmth of his hip under his hand, but that was all. It was disconcerting, but Itadori was grateful for it in this moment. He wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to continue if he could feel everything the other was feeling. He could only imagine how Sukuna was managing to stop himself from collapsing into an Itadori-sized puddle of laughter on the ground. “Haven’t you ever heard of tickling before?”

“I-Is that some k-kind of hihidden Jujutsu?” Sukuna snapped angrily, annoyed at the chuckle that had slipped into his words halfway through.

Laughter rang through his head, unhelpfully as Sukuna tried to hold back his own. “Dude, what? Of course not! Tickling is… well, it’s a human thing you know? When you lightly touch the human body, like this—” he scribbled his fingers up his sides suddenly—“They laugh! I’m not sure why though… science is still a bit iffy on that.”

Sukuna had stopped listening at this point. He had burst into panicked giggles the second Itadori touched his side, unprepared for the other’s change in strategy. Sukuna’s hand come down, wrapping around his wrist and pulling it up, away from his sides.

He drew in an exhausted breath, grinning in relief as he held the other firmly away from him. “There. Your… tickling, or whatever it is, is ineffectual now. Seems like you didn’t think this plan through, did you now?”

He was right. It was a temporary solution, but the truth was that Itadori was going to get nowhere with just one hand. Which was why…

Sukuna’s eyes widened as he felt a sudden pull at his person once more. His body was rebelling, and he fought back, trying to push back at Itadori’s attempt to switch back. He was getting stronger now, and Itadori was still weak, so it should be nothing to keep control from the brat. What he hadn’t expected was for Itadori to focus all his energy on reclaiming a single part of his body, leaving Sukuna unprepared for the concentrated force. He felt his fingers slipping on his wrist, his left arm losing connection just like the first one had.

“No!” Sukuna growled, but it was too late. Both arms were lost to him now, and he knew if Itadori could, he would be smirking.

“Yes,” Itadori countered. Surprisingly enough, he kept his one arm raised. He lowered the other one, poising his fingers under his arms and wiggling them in the air threateningly. “I remember this always being one of my worst spots. Unfortunately for you, I’m afraid.”

Sukuna narrowed his eyes in confusion, but before he could say anything he was stopped by the sensation of nails gently spidering under his arm. It was a slow, unhurried process, that never missed its mark. Instinct shot through him like a bullet and Sukuna attempted to bring his arm down protectively. He was stopped by the other’s remaining control of the limb, which kept it raised exposed and vulnerable over his head. It didn’t help that Itadori hadn’t worn a shirt to bed the previous night, so Itadori had full access to his bare torso.

Sukuna spluttered over a laugh, a hysterical cackling that only grew in desperation as time went on. Sparks flurried through him, his stomach erupting with what felt like millions of butterflies all taking off at the same time. It was impossible to explain how unbearable the feeling was, and Sukuna wondered how humans lived with such a weakness on their body all this time.

“A-Ahaha, stahahahap, eh, gah, stahahahap i-ihihit!” Sukuna’s head was thrown back, his eyes squeezed shut as a wild grin danced along his features. “Y-Yohohou irritahahating b-brahat!”

“Intense, right?” Itadori asked, not even trying to hide the amusement in his voice. “If only you had chosen a less ticklish vessel. You’re in for it now, though. I got to be honest, it’s kind of funny seeing a bigshot curse like you writhing around like a worm on a hook.”

“Shuhuhut uhuhuhup!” Sukuna demanded, though it came out far more giggly than he would have liked. He couldn’t concentrate like this, couldn’t even begin to start to try to reclaim his arms. He needed him to move his hand, maybe back to his hips, or somewhere else, anywhere else. He wasn’t sure if the rest of this body was less ticklish, only that he needed Itadori to move away from that spot.

“Not a chance,” Itadori scoffed. “This is way too much fun! Of course, you could always stop me. Just switch back and the tickling won’t affect you anymore; it’s that easy.”

“L-Lihihike hehehell Ihihihihi wihihihill!” He was slipping now, his body sliding down the wall in an attempt to get away. Unfortunately, you can’t run away from yourself, and those wiggling fingers followed him all the way down. “Cuhuhut ihihit ohohout wihihihith thahahat sphohohot!”

“Why?” Itadori asked innocently, loving this a bit too much for his own good. But could he really help it when he was given such a perfect oppurtunity for revenge? “Does it tickle too much for the big bad curse?”

Sukuna was going to kill him. Then, once he was sure the pest was well and truly dead, he was going to bring him back to life so he could kill him all over again. Right now, however, his focus was only on those devastating nails, light, barely-there touches that had his mind reeling. When his fingers traveled a bit too high, skittering at the top of his armpits, he finally gave in. “Yehehehes, ohohokay, ihihit tihihihickles, ohohor whahahatever y-yohou cahahalled ihihit! Sohohomewhehere ehehelse!”

“Are you sure you want me to go somewhere else?” Itadori questioned teasingly, circling the area with just one finger. Sukuna ducked his chin into his chest, unable to hold back the flood of giggles that caused. “Really sure?”

“Y-Yohohou, ahaha, yohou lihihittle—”

“Okay, okay.” Itadori moved his hand away, pulling his other arm down. Sukuna exhaled in relief, an exhausted grin still dancing on his features. Unfortunately, Itadori noticed. “Hey, don’t relax just yet. I’m not done with you. After all, you still haven’t given me back my body, have you?”

“What the hell—noHOHO!” Sukuna burst into laughter anew as his arms wrapped around himself, trapping him in a tickly hug as fingers wiggled up and down his sides. “S-SHIHIHIT!”

“Regretting your words yet?”

Sukuna thrashed wildly, howling as he doubled over in a useless attempt to protect himself. The snarky remarks were gone now, so completely was he lost to his own laughter. His skin twitched and goosebumps scattered up his sides, a helpless reaction to the playful tickling.

Because it was playful. Despite everything, he could tell that Itadori was having fun with this. And maybe, just maybe, the other was too. His insides felt warm and fuzzy in a way they hadn’t in a while, his laughter peaking between desperation and silly giggles. It was strangely addicting to give in like this, allowing the tickling to consume his thoughts and blur out any remaining negativity.

It was… nice.

“I-IIHIHITADORI!” His head was thrown back, a hearty flush spreading across his cheeks and warming his skin. “I-IHIHI CAHAHAN’T!”

“You know how to stop this,” Itadori reminded him. “Just switch back and the tickling stops.”

Sukuna fell back on the floor, unable to hold himself up against the relentless tickling. He let out a frankly embarrassing squeak, the sensations breaking through the last of his revolve. And finally, at last, he caved in.

With a start, Itadori felt the other ducking back into himself, releasing his body in the process. He stopped wiggling his fingers, sitting up slowly as he regained control of himself once more. He was sweaty and exhausted, like he’d just ran a marathon, and he could feel that familiar floating sensation in the pit of his stomach that came with being tickled.

“Damn brat,” Sukuna complained from inside him, and Itadori smiled fondly. He would have to remember this method for next time.

“What the hell?”

Itadori startled as a voice shot through his thoughts, and he glanced up to see Megumi standing in the hallway. He was still in pajamas, and his hair was sticking out in several directions. The look on his face implied he’d just woken up. The two made eye contact, Megumi taking in Itadori’s flushed features and his sprawled position on the floor.

Megumi furrowed his brows in confusion. “Itadori? I heard a noise and I thought… are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, totally,” Itadori dismissed, sitting up slowly. “I was… sleep-walking. Yeah, that’s it. Just a weird dream, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

Megumi continued to stare at him for a moment, clearly debating whether or not to believe the other. Finally, he sighed, rubbing his forehead tiredly. “Alright. If you say so. Just keep it down next time, will you? Some of us are actually trying to sleep.”

Itadori threw the other a hearty thumbs-up, grinning innocently. “Will do!”

Megumi frowned, but eventually disappeared back into his room, slamming the door behind him.

Itadori stood up fully, his legs a little shaky from the previous tickling, and decided to do the same. It was the middle of the night after all—sleep was probably in order. However, as he turned the knob to shut the door behind him, he heard a voice loud and clear in his head.

“Sleep tonight, young sorcerer, and get your rest. Because tomorrow—” a sudden pinch to his side as Sukuna wrestled control of his hand—“it’s your turn.”

Itadori regained control almost instantly, and his hand was his again as though nothing had happened. He smiled nervously, not doubting the other’s words for a minute.

And as he got into bed that night, pulling the covers tight around himself, he found he couldn’t wait.

[robininthelabyrinth]

lwj never really forgives his family's involvement in the siege, how does this manifest during the thirteen years?

If it had only been the pain in his back, the agony of punishment and icy chill of his family’s disappointment, Lan Wangji might have put it aside; he was accustomed to matters of discipline, and had known what he was likely bringing down on his own head when he had done what he did.

He knew his family loved him and only wanted the best for him, even if –

Even if.

But when Lan Wangji ran away from the jingshi to look for himself, finding only a small child, feverish but still capable of a little bit of babbling, still able to tell the story of what had happened – when he found the traces of blood on the ground, Wei Wuxian’s from when his power had backlashed on him – when he saw the bodies in the blood pool, already rotting –

They had kept this from him.

They had kept this from him on purpose.

They had all known.

For the first time in his life, Lan Wangji didn’t want to go home.

He knew he didn’t have a choice, of course. He had nowhere else to go, and the boy’s fever needed to be treated – but he didn’t want to go home.

“Is he all right?” a voice asked from behind him.

Lan Wangji turned, surprised: it was Jiang Cheng, who might very well rank at the top of people he didn’t want to see right now. He had led the siege against Wei Wuxian –

He looked awful.

Eyes full of broken blood vessels, with deep circles beneath them; skin sallow, even grey, as if he’d been stabbed and allowed to bleed out dry. He looked as though he was very nearly a corpse himself.

Jiang Cheng scowled when Lan Wangji didn’t respond.

“Is the boy all right, Hanguang-jun?” he asked, his voice raspy and harsh. “Is he – is he…”

His voice cracked.

“He lives, but he has a fever,” Lan Wangji said, ignoring the steadily increasing pain on his back. He had not been well when he’d escaped from the jingshi, not well at all; the doctors had estimated at least a year to recover, if he didn’t do anything to strain himself – after this outing, it would likely be three. The discipline whip was not kind. “Why do you care? Didn’t you execute the others?”

Jiang Cheng laughed, voice suddenly spiking into something high and horrible, and Lan Wangji abruptly became aware that Jiang Cheng was also, politely speaking, not well. No discipline whip for him, no, but something had gone wrong in the man’s brain – Lan Wangji might almost suspect a qi deviation, if only he hadn’t lived through a war.

If he hadn’t seen what grief could do to a man. How it could hollow them out while they still lived.

“I didn’t,” Jiang Cheng choked. “I didn’t – I told my people to gather them up, to take them back, we were going to interrogate them…at the time it happened, I was – not there.”

“Not there?”

“A coma, apparently,” Jiang Cheng admitted. “Not especially heroic, but then they do leave it out of all the stories: the great Jiang Wanyin, who took up arms against his own shixiong, then swooned like a blushing bride at the sight of – at the sight of –”

“The body.”

Jiang Cheng covered his eyes, shoulder shaking. “There wasn’t one left.”

Lan Wangji shuddered.

“Nothing to put in the memorial hall at home,” Jiang Cheng said. “Even his personal items, they fought over them like dogs, like they were trophies – someone stole Suibian, you know? I only managed to keep Chenqing because I fell on it. It rolled over to me. It was still –” He wavered, then laughed again, very nearly crossing the line between merely hysterical and actually insane. “I had to clean it.”

Lan Wangji had wished he had been there, at the siege, thinking that if he couldn’t save Wei Ying, he could at least die by his side, in his defense. He thought now, for the first time, that perhaps he was glad he wasn’t.

“Did you mean to kill him?” he asked, and Jiang Cheng shook his head mutely. “You led the armies so that you would have first rights to the spoils. To the prisoners.”

To one prisoner in particular.

“Nie Mingjue would have backed me,” Jiang Cheng admitted. “He obeys the rules of war – the largest faction leads, the leader claims the first prize. He didn’t want to be there, but I needed someone to support my claim to be the leader, I threw all those dead Nie cultivators at the Burial Mounds at him until he agreed…he cursed Sect Leader Jin to his face when he found out what they’d done with the rest of the Wens. I wish I’d done the same.”

“Your sect –”

“I wish I had done the same,” Jiang Cheng said, and there were tears dripping down his face. He didn’t notice them, didn’t bother to wipe them away; he had clearly become accustomed to the feeling. “At least then Wei Wuxian would be less burdened. He’s dead, you know.”

Lan Wangji knew.

“I think he must have died a long time ago, and I just never noticed,” Jiang Cheng said. “I was too blinded by my anger, by wanting to kill the Wens. I ignored it all. My shixiong died long ago, and in his place there was another person, the one who did all those things – I never understood why he did it, any of it. He once swore to me that he’d stay by my side, help me rebuild the sect, and then he turned his face away from me and never told me why, acted as if we were strangers, as if I meant nothing to him…and yet, when we were alone, he still talked as if he were the Wei Wuxian I knew.”

He shuddered, shaking hands reaching out to clutch at his sides as if he were suddenly cold.

“It never made any sense,” he mumbled, and maybe he really had lost his mind. “He said he’d stay by my side, but he didn’t; he said he wanted to do the right thing, but he – he killed all those people. So many people. He killed jiejie. He widowed her, then killed her, and – I don’t see how that’s doing the right thing. That couldn’t have been him, could it? Could Wei Wuxian, my Wei Wuxian, really have done all that?”

Lan Wangji didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to help – there was nothing he could do to help.

The only person who could help Jiang Cheng was already dead.

Thinking that, Lan Wangji decided to take his leave, but the barest hint of movement sent an abrupt spike of agony though his back, making him stagger; he had been standing too long, and movement was now a problem. He had promised himself he would only come for a moment, just long enough to see with his own eyes what had happened, and then he’d return – and then he’d found little A-Yuan, he’d known his time to stay was running out, he’d meant to leave, but then there was Jiang Cheng –

“Hanguang-jun? Hanguang-jun! Lan Wangji!”

The world went black before his eyes.

When he opened them again, he saw – some incredibly ugly drawings, etched into a wooden bed frame as if with a blunted dagger. He had never before seen anything quite so immediately repulsive to every aesthetic sense he possessed and yet somehow still oddly charming.

“You’re awake, then?”

Lan Wangji turned his head.

Jiang Cheng did not look noticeably better, though he had at least changed clothing; he was drinking a cup of tea with calming herbs, the uncontrollable tremor in his hand sloshing the liquid inside.

They were at the Lotus Pier.

“You brought me back?” Lan Wangji asked.

“The boy wasn’t the only one with a fever,” Jiang Cheng said. “Thirty three lashes with the discipline whip, and you went into a place as rotten as the Burial Mounds – you were almost asking to get sick.”

Lan Wangji could feel that his back had been well-bandaged, well-cared for – Jiang Cheng must have called a doctor. People would know, then, what he had done and what had been done to him in return - his reputation would be ruined, his family’s attempt to save face by claiming that he’d retreated into seclusion would be exposed for the lie it was.

He wished he was petty enough to be bitterly pleased by the thought, but all he felt was sick.

“No one will know if you don’t want them to,” Jiang Cheng said, almost as if he could hear Lan Wangji’s internal debate – he couldn’t, of course. Jiang Cheng was no Lan Xichen: he couldn’t read Lan Wangji’s expressions at all. “My Jiang sect’s Doctor Qin might as well be mute, for all he talks; he’s never said anything to anyone about anything other than medicine in the entire time I’ve known him. But he did say you shouldn’t be moved. For – a while. A long while.”

Lan Wangji wasn’t surprised; that was about what he’d resigned himself to expect. “When will my family come to pick me up?”

Jiang Cheng snorted. “The doctor didn’t say anything about you being deaf. Didn’t you hear me? You can’t be moved. You’re not going anywhere.”

Lan Wangji stared.

“No one uses this room, anyway,” Jiang Cheng continued, purposefully ignoring Lan Wangji’s incredulous gaze. “It’s off-limits to everyone, for good – sealed off. Might as well put you here, where I can keep an eye on you and make sure you’re not getting into trouble; I’m just across the hall.”

Across the hall –

The ugly drawings, the style suddenly breathlessly and painfully familiar.

This had been Wei Wuxian’s room.

Jiang Cheng wanted him to stay here, at the Lotus Pier, in Wei Wuxian’s room.

He shouldn’t, of course. His duty was clear: he should return home.

Lan Wangji thought about returning home – to the cold and empty jingshi, where there was nothing left that reminded him of his mother but his memories; to his uncle who loved him but did not trust him, who had helped kill the one he loved; to his brother who had all but lied directly to his face about it.

He thought about not having to return.

His fingers relaxed. He hadn’t even realized they were tense.

“How is the boy?” he asked, and some of the tension in Jiang Cheng’s shoulders released; he had been afraid that he would refuse and insist on leaving at once, Lan Wangji surmised. For some reason, Jiang Cheng wanted him to stay.

Lan Wangji thought he might know why. They had spent all those months searching together, side-by-side, those months when Wei Wuxian had disappeared – thrown into the Burial Mounds, though they didn’t know it at the time. Being side-by-side with Jiang Cheng again felt almost like being back then.

When they still had hope of finding him.

“He’s fine,” Jiang Cheng said, then frowned. “Depending on your definition of fine, anyway. He’d had a very high fever for a long time – by the time I got you both back here, he’d fallen unconscious; the doctor says he’s lost his memory.”

Lan Wangji thought about the things the boy had babbled about, the stories he’d told of the last moments of his family, the things he’d seen…“Good,” he said. “Better that way.”

“Never use two words when one will do, do you?” Jiang Cheng grumbled in a tone that had faint ambitions of sounding disgusted. “I guess I’ll just have to adjust to that…I’ve told my people that he’s yours, you know.”

Lan Wangji blinked. “Mine?”

“I couldn’t tell them he was surnamed Wen, could I? So it’s Lan Yuan, at least for now. Up to you if you’d prefer to keep your reputation intact by saying he’s a cousin, but it’d be easier if you claimed him as your own – that way no one could separate you. You visited Yunmeng during the war, I could say the mother was someone here. It wouldn’t be hard.”

Lan Wangji’s first instinct was to protest – A-Yuan was Wei Ying’s son, if anybody’s, not his own – but…no. The boy could not live at the Lotus Pier with the surname Wei.

Lan Yuan. It wasn’t a bad name.

He nodded his assent, and Jiang Cheng finished his tea in a single grim-faced swallow, standing up.

“I don’t suppose you told your family where you were going, did you?” he asked, and looked bitterly amused when Lan Wangji shook his head. “I figured as much. No one saw me bring you in, and no one ever comes here; the only ones allowed in the family quarters are my people, through and through. Unless anyone asks, I’m not answering. Let your family worry for a while; it’ll do them some good. You’re the best they have – they shouldn’t take you for granted.”

Lan Wangji wasn’t the sort of person who knew how to be pleased at other people’s misery, the type to be warmed inside by the spite of you hurt me now I’ll hurt you.

It was fine, though. Jiang Cheng would do it for him.

“Thank you,” Lan Wangji said, and didn’t say anything about telling his family where he’d gone. Jiang Cheng’s lips twitched in a smirk for a second. “Can you pass me the pouch I had with me?”

Jiang Cheng huffed and passed it to him. “You can’t play that thing all day and night,” he warned when Lan Wangji pulled out his guqin. “I’m just across the hall, remember?”

Lan Wangji nodded.

“And…”

“I will wait until you have returned before playing Inquiry.”

“Like I even want to talk to him,” Jiang Cheng muttered under his breath, but he didn’t deny that that had been what he had been on the verge of requesting. “It’s just a nice tune, that’s all. Catchy.”

No one had ever described Inquiry as ‘catchy’ before, and Lan Wangji suspected no one ever would again.

“The boy’s still sleeping, but I’ll bring him here when he wakes,” Jiang Cheng said, changing the subject. “I’m hoping to bring Jin Ling here, once in a while – I think Sect Leader Jin will agree if I hint strongly enough that I’ll consider leaving my sect to him if he lets me. I don’t really know how to deal with babies, though.”

“We will figure it out,” Lan Wangji said, and allowed his (totally unjustified) confidence to sooth Jiang Cheng’s ruffled feathers. It wouldn’t be that easy, of course – Jiang Cheng was still walking the tightrope on the verge of insanity, Lan Wangji was nearly crippled, and his family would be frantic once they realized he wasn’t coming home. Staying here was a stupid idea. Stupid, and spiteful.

It felt good.

[sunmoontruth-stiles]

Ok this is gonna be long. I’ve literally been slowly working on this for… too long. I’m just in a mood to have a long discussion about ships. I’ll be looking at canon and not, so bare with me. I don’t ship all of these personally. I’m mostly just picking the most popular ones. I chose to leave out a few that I just don’t want to talk about. I tried to keep this loosely chronological, but that quickly went to hell. None of this is meant to be hate towards anyone’s ship, just my personal opinions on each of them.

Canon:

Scott x Allison: True Classic

Scallison is so sweet as it is truly the epitome of young love. Romeo and Juliet, except Romeo is even more of an idiot and Juliet is a badass who dies for a cause. They’re moral and ethical codes are both highly valued by themselves, even if they don’t align with others very often. They loved with everything they had. They were beautiful. We’re they soulmates in the end, or just the first love who will always hold a special place in your heart? Who knows, but I’ll always love these immature kids who thought their love could change everything.

Stiles x Lydia: The Long Awaited

Stydia is as slow burn as you can get. Unfortunately their actual getting together was slightly rushed in my opinion. They didn’t have time to find their own as a couple because Stiles just wasn’t in the show enough at that point. I know the reasons behind it, but it did leave this couple at an awkward stage of official-but-not-shown. The idea that Stiles loved her as a kid, immature and infatuated, and he saw her for who she really was, will always be cute. Then they grew, changed, became friends, and found other people. Them finding each other later on, having real love that’s developed slowly, is a wonderful arc. Though, a part of me will always believe they should have pursued other story lines in the wake of Stiles’ absence from the plot. They’re finally together! …but we don’t get to see it.

Jackson x Lydia: The Image

Oh Jackson and Lydia. Honestly, I love them. Their connection at a time in their lives when they couldn’t open up to anyone else, just hits me right in the feels. I mean, god that HUG. You know the one. Always brings me to tears. I’m so sad their relationship was almost entirely depicted during Jackson’s kanima time when he couldn’t think nor truly act for himself. Those small moments of scared vulnerability when he wanted to protect her from himself… I’ll miss these two. They deserved to find other people and remain life-long friends. I loved their moment in the last episode. I wish they’d gotten to see each other grow. Also they had such bixbi solidarity vibes, and I’ll die on that hill.

Scott x Lydia: Leaders

Ok, I’m gonna be honest here. I ship it. The power couple they would have been?? Also them coming together after they lost Allison would have actually made sense. A part of me kinda wishes the writers had moved on from Stydia as a romantic relationship and leaned into them growing as friends and Stiles moving on from his childhood crush. Scott and Lydia actually would have had good chemistry. They were both very headstrong heroic types, but Lydia would have balanced Scott out well intellectually. They had the history, and I think it could had worked if they wrote it right. Plus, Scott and Lydia would have been a better endgame that Scalia.

Scott x Kira: New Beginnings

These two were adorable. Kira was a badass, don’t get me wrong, but she let herself be soft in a way Allison was always afraid to. This couple was truly Baby. Absolute dorks. I can definitely see the lasting quality between the two of them. They saw things very similarly, and had a ton in common. I do think Kira deserves more characterization outside of their relationship, like more of her friendship with Malia. Overall, her departure from the show will always be sad to me. It was bad writing. Scott was over her far too quickly.

Aiden x Lydia: Pretty People Herd

I honestly didn’t see much between these two other than mutual attraction. The best thing to come out of this relationship was Lydia’s line, “You’re not just a bad boy, Aiden. You’re a bad guy. And I don’t want to be with the bad guys.” Good character development moment.

Ethan x Danny: Step to Redemption

Danny really was the thing that made Ethan look outside of the pack for what he really wanted out of life. They had a few cute scenes. Gotta love Danny’s final remarks, “Dude, it’s Beacon Hills.”

Allison x Isaac: Unexpected Rebound

Ok, I like these two. Isaac could match Allison’s snark in a way Scott couldn’t. They both fought the progression of the relationship slightly. They didn’t expect to fall for each other. They were less willing to let someone in close. I’d love to have seen more… but unfortunately their time was limited. On a side note, sometimes their relationship did feel like ‘we both are in love with the same guy, let’s cope with each other’, but I find that completely valid. I’ll talk about Scallisaac later though.

Stiles x Malia: Anchors

Ok but, them <3 I love what they did for each other. Stiles was able to help Malia connect to her humanity and other people. He never tried to isolate her in their relationship and encouraged her growth. Malia offered Stiles the emotional support he never asked for. She defended him, fought for him, and loved him fiercely. Stiles needed that so much after season 3. I think they were a love that wasn’t meant to last, but the impact of it was forever. I wish we’d gotten to see a real end for them where they agreed that they needed to grow as individuals but would always still care.

Liam x Hayden: Three’s a Pattern

These two’s characterization stopped whenever they had storylines together. Their relationship was built on Scallison references. Hayden’s character could have been interesting, but they never really gave her a moment to shine. Liam has the worst plots when they revolved around her. Cute couple, poor writing.

Derek x Braeden: Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girl Boss

Derek deserves to be happy so much. Kate and Jennifer were just... jeez. Him and Braeden were cute and deserved more screen time. I think her intensity allowed for Derek to let go of control a bit more comfortably. Let Derek Be Soft. Anyway, love them.

Corey x Mason: Gotta Have That Rep TM

These two could have been cute if they were shown for more than two seconds at a time. I highkey forget Corey even existed all the time. Kinda just felt like a relationship to fill TW’s gay quota.

Jackson x Ethan: The Callback

Honestly? Loved them. Loved the chemistry. Loved the dynamic. Best twist. I know it was probably written in like that because Colton came out during his time away from the show, but it absolutely fit his character. Jethan is top tier.

Melissa x Chris: BAMF Parent Duo

Ok, so like, Melissa deserved this plot. She deserved someone to care about her. However... what the hell? Chris? In canon, his wife died like 2-ish years prior? His daughter died 1 year prior?? Is Chris really in a position to pursue a new relationship?? Also, like, Scott and Allison dated and loved each other up to her death. Kinda weird to have their parents hook up. I don’t hate it, but I don’t ship it…?

Scott x Malia: Lead up? What’s lead up?

These two came out of nowhere I stg. Like, 6B really tried to tell us this was something that had been slowly developing in the background? Also, I understand that they are their own people, adults, and completely in charge of their own romantic pursuits: but did Scott seriously never call Stiles? Like, Malia wasn’t just his first girlfriend. She was his first. Like, dude that’s your best friend?? Not even a head’s up? No, ‘hey would this bother you?’ Oof. Plus Malia was way too chaotic for Scott. She existed in gray morality that always prioritized her immediate circle, and Scott was a very black/white type of heroism. I just didn’t feel like they fit.

Non-Canon:

Scott x Stiles: Childhood Best Friends

Ya, sorry, I don’t ship Sciles at all. I get it. Like, I totally understand the ship, and I mean no judgment at all. I just see them as friends. I really value good male friendships in media because I feel like we don’t get enough, and I always liked these two.

Stiles x Derek: Enemies to Lovers. 100k. Angst. Hurt/Comfort.

God these two really are what fanfiction was made for. I could write a much longer discussion about Sterek, and I probably will eventually. I’ll try to keep this brief. These two weren’t always on the same side, but their approach was the same. They were very similar at their core. Plus, wow the chemistry. This should have been canon. Jeff’s a coward.

Allison x Lydia: Powerful.

This ship is so great. They really had a great dynamic, and a romantic plot would have easily fit the established narrative. Lydia’s confidence in herself and Allison’s confidence in her own abilities crossing over to each other because that’s what the other lacked? Iconic.

Danny x Jackson: He Gets Him

Danny really saw Jackson for everything he was and still cared. I wished we’d gotten to see more of them. I  want more background with Jackson’s eventual coming out and his friendship with Danny. Like, they ended up dating the same guy. What did Ethan have to say about that??

Stiles x Jackson: Bastards

Ok these two had a super fun dynamic. The asshole-energy between them was, great. The snark was always so entertaining.

Melissa x Noah: Family

How were these two not endgame? Their sons were practically brothers already. They had amazing chemistry. The flirting? Not to mention, their timeline would have made way more sense. Missed opportunity.

Chris x Peter: The Opposite of Love is Indifference, Not Hate

Ok so like, this was definitely one of those ships that I had absolutely no knowledge of before I was pretty into the fandom. Like, this was not something I would have guessed just after watching the show. That being said; my god the chaos alone…

Scott x Isaac: The Disaster Duo

Okay ya I love these two. Two dumb asses who act like idiot puppies. Such a fun dynamic. Plus?? Chemistry??? Hellooo

Scott x Allison x Isaac: Three Heads Are Better Than One

This ship is definitely one of my personal favorites. I very rarely poly-ship. I just feel like most of them are just love triangles with an ‘easy solution’, when two of them have no real connection. That is so not the case here. I feel like all of them have such great chemistry with each other. They also have a great dynamic as a group. Season 3A was really just Scallisaac rights.

Stiles x Isaac: I Hate You, jk…Not Really

Ok I loved their banter, but I really just don’t see this ship. Idk, I don’t personally ship it. Would have loved to see their friendship develop more tho.

Erica x Allison: Duo that would stab you with a stiletto

I don’t ship it, but I do wish we’d seen them become friends. I feel like they had a very artificial ‘girls fighting over a boy’ dynamic? They could have been such a badass duo.

Stiles x Erica: Batman x Catwoman

Ok I’m not sure exactly how to express my feelings for these two so bare with me. OMG I love their dynamic so much, and they are sooo cute. Their energy? Amazing. Chemistry? Great. History? It’s there and has so much potential. 10/10. Love them. But, no, I don’t ship it lol. Just really love their friendship, but with the underlying history of crushes.

Boyd x Erica: Was This Not Canon?

How can anyone not love Berica? Ugh they are adorable. These two deserved so much better.

Boyd x Cora: Survivors

Honestly I don’t really see it? Like they definitely had a connection, but it never felt romantic. I really feel like they just had to lean on each other and bond to make it through captivity, and it just lasted.

Boyd x Erica x Cora: The Pack

I literally learned this was a ship a couple days ago. Similar feelings towards this as Bora, but with the added hesitancy of we never actually saw Erica and Cora interact.

Cora x Stiles: Slow Build Up

These two were clearing being lined up to be a thing before Cora ended up leaving. I can’t say I’m disappointed they never happened. Kinda felt like they just wanted to straight-code Sterek.

Cora x Lydia: Mean Lesbians

Not much interaction to actually go off of, but yes I 100% support. They have very different approaches to problems, which is fun. Very ‘opposites attract’.

Malia x Kira: “Maybe you could date the coyote?”

Another one of my favorites!! They really complimented each other. Also, how full circle would they have been? They were introduced in back-to-back episodes. Malia stalking her as a coyote? The line from Kira’s dad about dating it? It would have been so funny if that ended up happening.

Malia x Lydia: Beauty and the Beast, but make it wlw

These two were fun. I liked their friendship, but I don’t really ship it. Though, rip Stiles that would have been hilarious.

Parrish x Lydia: The Cop and The Minor

Must I say more? Like, Parrish’s character, so sweet and big rule follower, did not make sense for what went down with Lydia. I love Parrish, but the dynamic just felt off. It didn’t feel consistent with the rest of his characterization.

Parrish x Stiles: The Cop and The Minor, but gay?

Ok, same reasoning as above, but also they had absolutely no connection romantically.

Scott x Theo / Stiles x Theo: Sometimes The Villain is Hot

Ok I’ve put these together because I have the same opinion for both. I don’t ship it. Neither had any rebuilding of trust, and Theo really hurt both of them. I just don’t really think they work.

Mason x Liam: Sciles Puppy Pack Edition

Similar to my feeling about Sciles, I just don’t ship these two. They had a good friendship, from the little we saw of it.

Theo x Liam: Anchors 2: Electric Boogaloo

Another personal favorite! I really don’t even understand why this didn’t go canon?? The elevator scene was just, so intense. They helped each other grow in 6B, and I really loved their dynamic. They should have hooked up.

Honorable Mention?: 

Parrish x Laura: What’s canon?

I’ve seen this in fanfic a lot, and I actually really like it lol. I thought I’d add it in here because I do love the creativity of fandoms.

[rainywritingsx]

hcs: kirishima, shinsou & bakugou holding out an umbrella for reader

Request: Could i ask for hcs for Kirishima, Shinsou and Bakugou x reader where she is standing outside drenched to the bone in the rain. He runs up behind her with an umbrella that is technically built for one. To conserve space, He pulls her as close to him as possible. 💐🕊

oh my gosh this is so adorable and soft, I caaanttt, this is too much for my poor heart to handle :(((((( also sorry that this request took so long, but first I wrote it thinking you wanted scenarios, only to find out you wanted hcs when I was about to post it lol. Hope you still like it tho! Have fun reading!

xxxx rainbow

If you enjy my writing and would like to give a little tip, you can buy me a coffee!! ^^

Words:1406

Warnings: Only some slight swearing

Kirishima Eijirou

Of course, the one day that you didn’t have enough time to check the weather for the day, it just has to be pouring outside.

You had studied at school for a bit with Uraraka, who left once she was done but you wanted to stay

and of course you forgot your umbrella

you have to go home tho, so the only option now was walking through the rain

however, after a while you’re already soaked from head to toe, maybe even getting sick tomorrow

After a while there is a stoplight, so you have to stop for a moment. Can’ that damn thing hurry up?

Suddenly, you don’t feel droplets falling on you anymore. With a small frown you lift your gaze, only to see an umbrella above your head

the heck?

that’s when, in the corner of your eye, you finally notice Kirishima

who sends you the sweetest smile once your eyes meet UWU

and this baby thinks you are just the most beautiful woman on earth, even when you’re totally soaked

but then you realise he’s getting wet now

“don’t do that, you’ll get sick!”

“Y/n, you’re the one who’s completely soaked at the moment.”

damn yeah he was right

“A true man wouldn’t let a lady he knows get sick instead of helping her”

stop it or i’ll melt

btw now that kiri was getting wet too, his hair fell down, his bangs sticking to his forehead

and you almost squealed at the sight bc he looks so cute!!!!

would be better if you weren’t outside where it was raining cats and dogs rn

“What if we share the umbrella?”

“it’s too small”

well dangit he can’t get sick either

so you pout and cross your arms as you take a step so that now you aren’t under the umbrella anymore

“If you aren’t standing under it i won’t either”

this boi cannot help but smile at how cute you are right now

he’s even blushing a little

after a small silence he gets an idea finally

it can go two ways but he will still try

bc he’s brave!!

so

he grabs your hand pulls you closer

not too close, you two aren’t standing against each other but still pretty close

and you become a blushing and stuttering mess

“now the both of us will be dry!” he smiles, almost resembling a puppy

well, it’s not like you mind being this close to him

so you nod

but actually, you aren’t completely dry, your back is still outside of the umbrella

and ofc best boy notices because he cares!!!!!

“Y/n, is it okay if I pull you a bit closer?”

“YES THAT’S MORE THAN OKAY.” you blurt out when he barely finishes your sentence

can you be any more cute to him?

he couldn’t help but cutely chuckle at your answer, but he was more than happy to hold you close

Hitoshi Shinsou

okay, tbh, the fact that you are now on your own outside, where it’s raining cats and dogs, is your own fault.

I mean, you decided to stop on your way home to pet some cute kittens

Not feeling like waiting, you choose to walk through the rain

curse those adorable kittens… their eyes were literally begging you to pet them

now because of that, you are cold, wet and tired because your clothes have become really heavy at this point

after a long silence, from the distance you can hear the sound of a car

when you look up, you see a car on the road, speeding into your direction

before you know it, its tires go through a giant puddke of water

as if you aren’t wet enough

as a reflex, you flinch and squeeze your eyes closed.

you hear the water splash, but you feel nothing?

you open your eyes, and are met with an umbrella that was held out in front of you

huh?

when you look behind you you see your crush, Shinsou standing behind you

though his action was almost heroic, his expression didn’t show that at all

“I see you’ve forgotten your umbrella again.”

jeez, okay,,,

“Well, it isn’t a long walk anyway. I can handle it.” you shrug nonchalantly

uhu, like you didn’t have an inner tantrum earlier

“yeah, you seem more than happy to walk through the rain.” he says, the sarcasm dripping in his voice

this jerk-

“fine, i guess I’ll just go.” he says after receiving no response

okay no an umbrella does sound nice

so you stop him

and well, he doesn’t leave

however, it catches your attention that shinsou isn't fully dry, so you tell him that

“why does that matter?”

“It’s your umbrella, silly!”

he’s a little lost on what to do at first

bc this boi kind of likes you and ashido kind of tolld him that but he did not believe it

but i guess our boy is feeling brave today

so he wraps his free arm around your waist and pulls you closer to him

to say that you are flustered is an understatement.

“w-what are you doing, shinsou?”

“You need to go home, and this the only way we will fit. Why, do you mind?”

“....no.”

maybe it was the fact that shinsou pulled you closer out of nowhere, but you decided to kiss his cheek before saying you two had to go now

and you bet he has this adorable small smile on his face the whole time

Bakugou Katsuki

as you walk through the rain, you can practically hear bakugou scolding you for not listening to him already

he told you it would rain today

out of frustration, you kick away a small rock that was on the pavement

but that was a bad idea

because it ends up on a puddle, causing you to get even more wet

I mean, does it matter? you’re already soaked

however, after a moment you realise the rain isn’t falling on you anymore

but you can still hear it ticking?

“What am I going to do with you….” oh, hehe, it’s bakugou

“Okay, maaaybe I should’ve listened to you.”

“You damn right should've, dumbass” he says and shakes his head in disappointment

without even saying anything else, he holds you against him

“I’m not going to get sick because you decided to be a complete idiot today.”

you can feel your whole body heating up, meanwhile his face isn’t showing a hint of emotion

is this really doing nothing to him?

little do you know bakugou is great at hiding his feelings

to an extent

he has a breaking point >:)

you can’t  tell his heart is pounding in his chest, or that right now he wants to do nothing but kiss you

and feeling you this close to him gives him butterflies, he’s struggling to keep his cool

you move a little closer to bakugou and gently hold onto his arm

now this

this startled him

he’s about to curse at you until his eyes make contact with yours

“we’re gonna walk, aren’t we? I don’t want to fall.”

right

bakugou shook his head to think clearly again, and without saying a word he just started walking

now that you aren’t getting more wet, it’s actually nice to be in the rain

it was a little romantic even

also

of course bakugou’s reaction earlier didn’t go unnoticed by you

but still, jumping to conclusions isn’t always a good idea

it could’ve been anything else, right?

maybe you should do something to be sure

your gaze goes to bakugou, who’s looking straight ahead right now, not noticing you at all. or maybe he pretended not to

feeling bold, you stop him for a small moment and ever so lightly press your lips against his cheek

this boi

he almost drops the umbrella

now his cheeks were clearly red, and his ears seemed to turn a little pinkish

you cannot help but laugh at that cute reaction

but he didn’t say anything

so you feel bad again

“I-i’m sor-”

“Dammit, I wanted to take the first step.” he grumbles. oh. wait what?

you look at him, but for a moment he says nothing

“Let’s just go.” he mumbles as he pulls you a little closer uwu

and you bet he will make up for not taking the first step :D

even if you don’t care, he still does

be prepared for 10/10 boyfriend material :)

[id-rather-be-an-outsider]

AOT Preference: Dogs

a/n: first time doing a preference in awhile, but I want to specifically say DO NOT EVER get an animal you are not completely prepared to care for. animals are animals and will act as animals do. if they act out that’s not on them, that’s on you. animals need to be in forever homes, and it’s your responsibility to create a suitable environment for them and to not put them in situations where they could potentially be harmed or harm others. know your animal, know their comfort zone, know their needs. don’t take an animal on unless you’re ready to parent a child that never grows up for 15+ years. be responsible pet parents!

edit: just realized I used she/her for Hange so I fixed it. apologies to all my nb folks!

masterlist

Annie Leonhart

Our girl Annie would have a Siberian Husky. Strong, agile, hyperactive and able to trek long distances, they’d be perfectly suited for one another. You would be invited to tag along, of course, but you would have to keep up, lest you fall victim to the whines of an overly dramatic husky who desperately wants you to get a move on.

Armin Arlert

English Springer Spaniel, for sure. He’d fall in love with their soft coat, and their size would make them the perfect lapdog for reading, and taking long walks outside... to do more reading. Definitely a bonus that they fit comfortably between you two in bed at night, and a bonus that their little tail looked oh so very precious when it wagged!

Bertholdt Hoover

A gentle giant himself, Bertie would end up getting a Great Dane. Unlike Reiner, he’s a lot better at managing his thoughts and feelings about their study abroad trip to Paradis gone wrong. All he needs is his gigantic lapdog and you, his adoring partner. Sometimes he’d pass out on the dog in the middle of a cuddle session, and the patient thing would stare at you with pleading eyes, waiting until Bertholdt finally woke up to escape from being stuck in his arms for another hour.

Colt Grice

Colt would get a pair of Dalmatians, one for each of you. He loves their spots, their sleek build, and their energetic, yet quiet temperaments. Picket fence and all, Colt would want the happy home life!

Connie Springer

Connie would insist on having two dogs, so they don’t get lonely when you’re away from the house. He would bring home a pair of puppies with floppy ears that were adorable - an American Foxhound and an American English Coonhound. To Connie, their howls at all hours of the day, only ceasing when he falls asleep, is absolutely glorious, but to his neighbors, it’s a sign they need to invest in earplugs. Sasha would regularly steal the pair away from you so she had a full squad to go hunting with, which you wouldn’t mind since they liked the trips and got their energy out that way.

Eren Yeager

Much like how Eren picks his friends, so too, would he pick his pets. Not caring much for pedigrees, nor where a dog came from, Eren would get a shelter mix pup, probably one that’s older and been sitting there for longer. He’d sense a kinship between them - two beings looking for peace, and they’d find it in one another. The dog being absolutely adorable in every way would only be a bonus.

Erwin Smith

Commander Erwin would have a wolf-dog hybrid. He’d find the creature out in the woods, abandoned by their mother, and see the strength in their limbs despite their fear, and their resolve to survive. He would take them on as his own and together, they’d be the perfect pair of leaders, alphas in their own rights. When you became the alpha female of the household, the little beastie took to you right away, hoping that maybe you would be the one to finally grant their wish of feeding them off your plate. Of course, you never did it, because that would be irresponsible! At least, you’d parrot what Erwin said until he was gone for the day. Then, if a few bites every week fell on the floor by some magic mistake, well, who else was gonna clean it up?

Hange Zoë

Hange would have a fox! They’d be so interested by their behavior, they’d end up testing them and doing fun (and very humane) experiments on them, like exposing them to different foods, toys and puzzles, to see how they’d react. Foxes aren’t a regular pet, and they’d be fully aware of that and even over prepared to care for them, doing research years ahead of time until they felt completely ready to take one on. Needless to say, you’d be fascinated by them, but would insist Hange keep a separate, pee-proof space for the little creature they rescued so long ago. As cute as they were, you preferred your house not be ruined by their inability to potty train.

Historia Reiss

Historia would intend to get a small dog. What she would end up with, however, would not be a small dog. She would fall in love with the warm, kindly brown eyes of a giant and adopt a Greater Swiss Mountain Dog right then and there, no hesitation. In the end, it would all work out. You couldn’t always be beside her in bed, but she was always guaranteed to have an enormous lapdog by her side at all times - her protector in the throne room, her helper on the farm, and her body pillow at night. Who needs a weighted blanket when you have a hundred-pound puppy sleeping on you?

Jean Kirstein

Jean would have a German Shepherd. He adopted them when he first wanted to join the Military Police, but after he changed his mind, he still cared enough to train his dog as militantly as he was trained. It actually helped him soften up a bit (which ended up catching your attention in the end), and who wouldn’t? With those big brown eyes and floppy ears, it’s hard to resist the urge to sweet talk... and maybe, just maybe slip one or two scraps of meat under the table. No one will notice, right? Other than you, of course, who notices everything, because Jean has never been good at hiding things from you.

Levi Ackerman

We all know Levi is a clean freak and would never want a small dog that does nothing other than bark. He’d have a Standard Poodle, probably an apricot color. They’re smart, good hunters, and most importantly, non-shedding! They also are very sweet, not unlike our Captain (even if he’s good at hiding it). The one thing he wouldn’t expect, however, would be to find a trouble maker in his home. Stolen shoes, stolen ties, stolen cravats, even - somehow they would all wind up somewhere his sweet dog seemed to frequent, but they were clever enough not to be caught, so what could he do?

Marcel Galliard

A chocolate lab! They’re sweet and adventurous, as well as protective, and are absolute cuties. Marcel would love having a fluffy companion, and would take his Labrador on long hikes every weekend.

Marco Bott

Marco loves to look forward to the future, and he’d love to experiment with a newer breed of dog. The Catahoula caught his eye with their well-muscled body, and your excitement over their coat pattern sealed the deal. When you both realized just how much energy they had, you ended up joining Annie and Marcel on their hikes and volunteering your pup for hunting trips with Sasha, so they weren’t up all night long playing.

Mikasa Ackerman

Mikasa is the only person out of this bunch that wouldn’t get a dog - she’d have two cats, at least one being a brown tabby. Mikasa’s so dedicated to her work that she wouldn’t see herself as a person with enough time for dogs, but she wouldn’t mind caring for two soft kitties who curled up on either side of you two every night, even if they somehow always managed to have their butts in your faces when you woke up. Cats have a way of doing that.

Pieck Finger

Pieck would own a Weimaraner. Curious, cute, and a standout, they both fit the mold of “dogs and owners who look alike” with their deep, inquisitive eyes and playful, loving natures.

Porco Galliard

Like Porco, Pitbulls can appear tough and menacing on the outside. Also like Porco, pitbulls are just big babies who want to be loved on. He’d likely already have one before you two fell for each other, and his pit would see the loving nature in you and start coming to you for snuggles - which might have made Porco feel left out, if he wasn’t always in the middle of it.

Reiner Braun

Pomeranian. This man has seen some shit, and what better form of comfort than you and a tiny puffball with googly eyes? Fortunately, his Pomeranian would be unusually mellow, understanding he relied on their calm to maintain his own headspace after everything that’s happened.

Sasha Braus

Sasha would get an Irish Setter and an English Setter. She would take her dogs on hunting trips to help her track down animals, and when they got home she’d sit up for a cuddle with her two favorite pups and her favorite partner, you. Cocoa after a long day of hard work is fantastic.

Ymir

Everybody knows that Ymir wouldn’t intend to have a dog. She wouldn’t want anything or anyone to depend on her, but one day, when a band of strays would come around her apartment and try to attack her, another random dog would come from out of nowhere, fight them, and chase the rest of the pack off. Upon seeing the heroic dog injured, Ymir would feel indebted and take them in. Just until they healed, of course - then, it would be off to the local shelter for them. But then, you would drop by for a visit and the dog would love all over you. And then, Ymir would keep waking up finding the dog had managed to crawl into her bed and sleep next to her every night. And then, one thing after another, Ymir’s heart would soften just enough to let the scroungy stray who saved her life have a spot, right next to the spot reserved for you, and your family of two would grow to be a family of three. And then, you would find a puppy on the side of the road and take them home to Ymir after you moved in with her, and your family of three would grow to be a family of four. And then, when the puppy grew up, Ymir would find her laying in a closet with a litter of semi-scroungy-looking pups, and your family of four would become a family of five, six, seven, eight... and so on.

Zeke Yeager

Zeke has wavy golden locks, and so do golden retrievers. They’re also both incredibly cute, sweet, and popular. Need I say more? Fine, if I have to convince you. They also both have very kissable, kind, and meddlesome faces. Don’t tell me you don’t see it there!

[royallibraryofdiavolo]

Wait for Me: Book 1

Summary: Attending Shiketsu High meant going to a somewhat old-fashioned school where there was a complete ban on dating for the students. Distance in a relationship would already be hard enough, but now Bakugo has to consider the possibility that he might not even get to be in a relationship due to this.

Breakdown: Reader attends Shiketsu High while Bakugo goes to U.A. No characters are aged up in Books 1 & 2. I do not use "y/n," so in instances when a name is unavoidable a character from the series or an OC is substituted, in this case Camie from My Hero Academia.

Word Count: 996 words

The room was quiet save for the endless ticking of the clock, and Gang Orca’s ceaseless lecturing. Despite it being the end of the school week, and the sun shining high in the sky, those who failed the second half of the Provisional License Exam were stuck inside the hot and stuffy room, who’s thermostat had been broken for years at this point. Maybe it was purposely left unrepaired so the room could be used as an additional punishment for failures, or maybe it was just laziness on behalf of the school administration; instead deciding to use the money to fund a new wing or something fancy, or a new unnecessary football field had it been an American school. The one fan did nothing to help cool the room, and only worked to move the musty air around.

Instead of being outside enjoying the nice weather, spending time with friends, or doing their hobbies, the students were stuck inside, with nothing to do but listen to the endless prattle of Gang Orca. There you sat with your peers from Shiketsu, the students from U.A., and the many other schools all with students practically chained to the room. Just a few classes ago you all were freely using your Quirks as you were forced to babysit a class of hellians masquerading as sweet, innocent preschoolers. Though tough, it was still preferable to the current situation you all found yourselves in. Not to mention that very few of the supplemental classes involved fighting and Quirk use, instead focussing on beating rules and regulations, heroic philosophy, and the like into their skulls, while also giving them endless paper tests over moral and ethical dilemmas. Not to mention the few classes dedicated to etiquette and social skill building, mostly due to a certain student’s struggle with social interactions and appropriate forms of expression.

If nothing else, the lunch break allowed for you all to temporarily rest up, and get in a small recharge before heading back into the cramped room.

You were at one of the few outside tables with Inasa and Shouto sat across from you, while Bakugo claimed he only sat with you three because there was nowhere else to sit; it was obvious to you that he did at least somewhat enjoy your company. You rested your head upon your fist, the other raised your drink to your lips so you could take a sip.

“This is so boring.” You sighed in exasperation.

“I’m sorry I am not better company!” Inasa shouted, but you stopped him before he could slam his head down on the table when he went to bow in apology.

“Not you. I meant the class,” You sighed once again “We should be out hangin’ with friends, or goin’ shopping, or something. But instead we’re forced to sit in that gross room while we literally melt.”

Inasa nodded in agreement, but Shouto seemed too focused on his food for once. Honestly the room wasn’t likely to bother him as much as it did you. Bakugo however was surprisingly quiet for once, though his mouth was still downturned in his signature scowl.

Deciding to take advantage of the situation, you put on your best neutral face as you started teasing him. “Y’know Bakugo, you’ll never get a date if you keep frowning like that.”

“Huh?!” It didn’t even take a second before he was glaring at you with a dumbfounded look on his face. “Who the hell cares?! I have better things to be doing than dating!”

“I’m sure that’s what it is, and not just that you scare them away with your looks.” You said while trying to hold back your giggling. It was getting harder and harder to keep yourself from laughing at his quickly souring mood.

“I ain’t changing myself for anybody! If they don’t like me as I am then they can screw off.”

“You guys are lucky you go to a school like U.A. Shiketsu is sooo old-fashioned with some of their rules. Like, we’re not even allowed to date! It’s literally against the school rules to go on dates and be in relationships!” You sighed dramatically as you moved to rest your head on folded arms on the table in front of you. “Last I checked we were in the 21st century, not stupid frickin’ medieval times or whatever.”

“Dating may not have existed during medieval Europe, but they still had complex courting rituals.” Shouto interjected, face remaining neutral. “Though they typically also included an agreement that the two would be married within a certain amount of time.”

Before you could respond Inasa began including his own comments, a majority of which weren’t entirely related to the initial discussion. This only led to a further spiraling throughout the entire lunch period, with the topic changing every few minutes or so. Bakugo remained relatively quiet, only answering in short sentences and grunts when asked questions directly.

Luckily for the students in the supplemental classes, the second half of the day seemed to go by quicker than the first half. Maybe Gang Orca and the other teachers in charge of the classes got a second wind after lunch, and simply wanted to end early, or maybe the lunch break invigorated the students more than they thought it would. It didn’t matter because it was now finally late afternoon, nearly evening, and the students were exiting the building with their backpacks, and either loading onto their designated bus, or chatting with other students while they waited for someone to come pick them up.

Before Shouto and Bakugo could get onto the bus that would stop at U.A. they were stopped by Inasa who eagerly asked them for their phone numbers, also giving them yours while he was at it. As this went on, unbeknownst to the students, Aizawa discussed with your teacher the possibility of joint training between U.A. 's class 1-A and your class from Shiketsu High.

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[the-lost-lights]

Beast Wars: More than Meets the Eye AU REBOOT: Part 1

Introduction

A long, long, LOOOOOOOONG time ago, I made an anonymous ask to @yes-i-write-fanfiction​ about an idea I had: what it there was a version of the Transformers comic Transformers: More than Meets the Eye with Beast Wars characters? I began working on it and soon, and with some help of yes-i-write-fanfiction, I made some profiles for the characters.

Despite my objective was to make all the profiles for an hypotetical “first season” of the comic, a variety of events caused me to give up the project.

Until now.

I’m going to give this project a second shot, rewriting everything and making it bigger and better than before (hopefully).

Wish me luck!

Story

The war against the Vehicons is over.

Optimus Primal, the heroic leader of the Maximals and the resistance, has defeated Megatron, stopping the Vehicon plague, healing everyone infected by it and turning the planet Cybertron into techno-organic paradise, at the cost of his life.

Despite the galaxy is now in peace, many tensions remain, making the hard-hearned peace fragile: the NAILs, led by Terrorsaur (that is unhappily sharing his body with Starscream) want that all Maximals and Predacons should not be allowed back on the planet after having caused the war, some alien civilizations accused the Transformers of having intentionally released the Vehicon virus and the Matrix of Leadership hasn’t been passed yet.

Cheetor, who became during the war the second in command of the Maximals, decided to try to open it because he showed multiple times the potential to become the next Prime, but during the public cerimony something unexpected happened: despite managing to open it, the Matrix rejeted Cheetor and merged with his best friend Lio Convoy, turning him into Lio Prime. Before anyone could react, the supercomputer known as the Oracle announced that Lio was going to be the last Prime and disappeared, causing chaos all over the planet.

Confused and in need of answers, Cheetor searched everywhere the Oracle and when he finally found it he asked why he wasn’t chosen and why lio was going to be the last Prime. The Oracle simply told him to search for the legendary Covenant, a group of twelve legendary knights created by Primus long before the birth of the first Transformers, and showed him the path for the planet where they sleeped.

Determined to accomplish the mission given by the Oracle (and partially because he hopes to avert its propecy so that he’ll be able to become a Prime), Cheetor decides to make an expedition in search of them, searching high and low for the best ship in the universe and Cybertron’s brightest and most heroic Transformers for the crew.

Shame that he only managed to recruit a bunch of weirdos, losers and misfits and the ship he found malfunctioned and sent them in the middle of nowhere.

Now Cheetor and his motley crew have to find where they are and how to reach the Covenant’s planet, all while dealing with lots of problems (both personal and not) and secrets, including the identity of the saboteur that is manipulating them for an unknown reason.

Characters

Cheetor (Rodimus):

Once one of the youngest member of the Maximals, he used to be a delivery boy before the war. One day, during a delivery, he discovered that the Predacons conquered his home town of Kaon and razed it to the ground, leading him to conscript in the Maximal army in search of revenge. Here he met Optimus Primal and Rattrap and despite the rocky beginning they became friends. During the war he slowly rise in the ranks and accomplish many impressive feats... and put himself in trouble lots of times. During one of his misadventures he met Lio Convoy, then known simply as Lio, and the two became best friends, having many adventures during the years until Lio discovered to have the rare potential to become a combiner, forcing Lio to remain in space with the other two parts of the combiner while Cheetor followed Optimus on Earth and was forced to enter into stasis when the ice age began.

He was one of the first Maximals to awake from slumber in the 19th century, and briefly acted as Rhinox’s second in command while he temporarely replaced the then MIA Optimus Primal as leader. When their existence became public, Cheetor began to act as the face of the Maximals and for a while acted as an intermediary between the UN and the Maximals, doing a decent job at preventing a war between the two species. During the Vehicon war he met again Lio, now having gained the rank of Convoy, and the duo managed to led the troops into saving some planets from Jetstorm. During the end of the war Cheetor became Optimus Primal’s second in command and temporarely guarded the Matrix when Optimus wasn’t considered worty of it anymore.

After the whole Matrix fiasco and the Oracle’s propecy Cheetor became determined to find the Covenant, no matter the hardships, but the numerous misfortunes made him doubt that he’ll be able to accomplish it and also convinced him that there’s a saboteur that is responsible for some of the incidents... or maybe he’s just paranoid.

He’s similar to Rodimus, personality-wise, but a little bit more responsible towards his crew and a lot more mature. The fact that the Matrix chose his friend hurt him a lot, and despite he claims to have accepted the Matrix’s decision and is very supportive for his friend, deep down a part of him despises him and wants to have his role, even if he knows that the Oracle’s propecies are never wrong. Despite he has many friends, the only bots he’s close in the ship are Tigatron and Rattrap and he also has a certain amount of respect (and fear) for Dinobot and Big Convoy.

He has a Transmetal body that grant him a flight mode, but after he is exposed to a mutagen he slowly starts to mutate into a stronger Transmetal 2 form, losing his ability to fly but gaining the ability to manipulate energy.

Big Convoy (Ultra Magnus+Fortress Maximus):

Originally a friendly and skillful, albeith a little strict, Maximal general named Slammoth (Big was a nickname given him for his size), he was put on charge of the special assault team known as the Wreckers shortly after the first Megatron took control of the city of Kaon. He was sent with his team to dispose of him and the rebellious Predacons by the government, but he secretly planned to simply capture him and force the rest of the rebels to surrender, preventing a possible bloodshed.

Unfortunately, his plan went very wrong and it ended up starting a million years long war in which most of his friends died and he saw and did horrible things, to the point that many Maximals want him dead. Despite this, Optimus Primal always defended him, stating that his strategic skills where unmatched by anyone and most of the time his actions ended up saving many Maximals.

Unfortunately, with the end of the war and the death of Optimus his situation soon became worse, and Big realized that he needed to leave Cybertron or else he would probably be condemned to spend what remains of his life in jail or be hunted down by vegeful bots. When he heard about the expedition, he begged Cheetor to let him join as head of security and he accepted, if only because he was afraid of what Big would have done if he said no.

He is very serious and takes his role of head of security very seriously, to thepoint that he put in jail half of the crew for having not properly saluted him. He suffers from PTSD and occasionally he has random bout of violence, and since his body is filled with weapons you can imagine what happens in those situations. He also enjoys metallurgy and writing poetry, but the sheer nihilism and lenght of it led to some poor bots that listened to it to enter into an angst coma.

He despises Rampage for having killed some of his closest friends during the war, and Waspinator because he keeps trying to analyze him. Most of the crew feels the same towards him, but especially Transmutate, who HATES him so much that she once almost killed him because she thought he harmed Rampage. The only bot that tolerates him and vice-versa is ironically Inferno, who shares his passion for metallurgy and has a similarly horrible past.

He turns into a mammoth and is classified as a living weapon of mass destruction due to his internal arsenal. He also owns an one-of-a-kind weapon called Matrix Buster that has enough firepower to destoy a star that he famously used to destroy a star system in order to not let it fall into Predacon’s hands.

Waspinator (Rung):

If you search “unlucky” on a Cybertronian dictionary you will find his face, and you also find out that his name is a synonym for it.

Nobody knows where he came from, not even him: all he knows is that he woke up with a big headache in a building in Kaon and before he could realize where he was Big Convoy demolished the building during the battle with the first Megatron. Extracted barely alive from the ruins by a group of Predacons, he was mistaken for one of the civilians that sided with them and recruited in their faction. Since then he got involved in many battles and many misadventures, from being stomped by an awakened titan to being possessed twice by the spirit of Starscream, being blown up so many times that you could make an army of him with his lost parts.

When he was forced to follow Megatron on Earth things for a while improved for him: after the ice age ended he woke up thousands of years earlier than the rest and ended up becoming the god of a tribe of hominids, leading an happy life until he run out of energon and was forced to enter stasis in order to survive.

And then he accidentally woke up in the 19th century and discovered that the other Predacons were awakening and he had to follow again his much hated leader, leading to him being blown up and beaten up again and again and again. Eventually he got fed up and in 1999 he decided to leave the Predacons and became a Maximal, who treated him much better than his former comrades despite they hated him for being a former Predacon. When the war apparently ended, he finally tried to relax a bit, but soon the Vehicon war began. Tired and not interested in fighting another war, he left the Maximals and Earth, becoming one of the ever expanding NAILs, and started living on a far away colony alongside them. While the universe was in chaos, he began studying psychology in order to help the many soldiers that wanted to have a better life and eventually he got a licence.

When Cybertron and the universe were saved he came back on Cybertron for an holiday, but when it was time to board the ship to go back home he mistakenly boarded the Lost Light and when he realized his mistake the ship’s engines malfunctioned and he found himself partially merged with a wall, dragged into a quest he didn’t want or meant to join.

On the good side, he now has lots and lots of patients, some of which didn’t blew him up during the war.

Waspinator used to complain a lot about his fate, with his famous catchphrase “Why universe hates Waspinator?” being a classic meme on Cybertron, but nowadays he’s mostly unfazed by whatever happens around/to him. It’s unclear if this is resignation to the fact that the universe hates him or simply he began taking things in stride, but one thing is for sure: he’s a massive magnet for weirdness and misfortune. He often spends time with the Survivors, a ragtag bunch of misfits (and Tigratron) that used to be Airazor’s crewmates and had similar misadventures during the years.

He turns into a wasp, but for a brief time he became a Transmetal and gained a jet mode. Unfortunately that happened by the time he got possessed again by Starscream, meaning that not only he wasn’t in control of his body, but technically it was Starscream that gained the upgrade instead of him, meaning that when he abandoned the body Waspinator was brought back to normal.

Rampage (Cyclonus):

One of the last remnants of a long gone era. The bot that became Rampage was once an astrophisician and a bot of culture that joined Galvatron’s (Beast Wars 2 Galvatron, not Generation 1 Galvatron) expedition to a newly discovered planet and got contaminated alongside the others by the highly dangerous Angolmois Energy, becoming an invincible beast with a thirst of destruction.

For a long time he was forced to obey his now insane and corrupted “leader”, who cut off part of his now immortal spark and put it in a device that crushed it if he tried to rebel, but he slowly planned his escape and revenge towards his oppressors. During that time, the only things that prevented him to slip further into insanity were books, which he stole from the ruins of conquered planets, and Depth Charge, the only bot that ever managed to fight against him and survive. They fought each other multiple times during the years, and Rampage always hoped that one day he would have been able to kill him, but that would never happen.

During the Vehicon war, Megatron managed to create an antidote to Angolmois and used it to cure Galvatron and most of his crew before slaughtering them. Rampage survived by destroying the hull of the ship, floating in the empthiness of cosmos until some members of the resistance found him and mistakenly thought that he was dead. He would have killed them in any other situation, but not then: most of the bots that tortured him for years were dead, including Galvatron, leaving him unable to get his revenge, and the only cure in existence was in the hands of Megatron. Furious, he forced his saviors to bring him to Optimus Primal and then offered to help him stop Megatron and then be dragged to jail for the rest of his life, but only if first he let him kill him with his own bare hands. Optimus reluctanctly accepted, and with his help the resistance managed to score some significant victories, but despite this no one was happy of him siding with them.

Especially Depth Charge.

Depth Charge hated having him around, since he killed billions of living beings along the galaxy and attempted to murder him more than usual. Megatron knew of this and decided to make Charge an offer: he would give him the Angolmois antidote to kill Rampage, but in exchange he would become a Vehicon commander. Filled with anger, he accepted, and in the span of a day Depth Charge almost caused the resistence to fall, causing the loss of lots of lives and resources. Rampage was devastated: he was healed by the effects of Angolmois, but the only bot he considered his rival betrayed everything he stood for and willingly sacrificed thousands of lives in order to kill him and the survivors blamed him for this. Rampage ran away and disappeared for a long while, crushed by the weight of his actions and the effects they had.

Rampage later reappeared on Cybertron in search of the few surviving members of Galvatron’s crew with the intention of killing them and then himself, but once he found them he discovered that Inferno mistook them fro bounty hunters and killed them. Furious, Rampage tried to kill him, but Transmutate’s attempt to escape from her capsule caused an huge explosion, knocking him unconscious. The trio got dragged on the Lost Light with the intention of treating and then leaving them on a civilized planet once they recovered, but the malfunction forced them to join the crew, which made Rampage very angry.

He hates being forced to partecipate to a mission he believes to be pointless and being surrounded by a bunch of people that either hate or fear him, but most of all he is tired: he lived a long time, spent most of his life as an evil insane monster and finally regaining his sanity at the cost of the closest thing to a friend he had. All he wants now is dying.

And yet he got attached to Transmutate, a defective point one percenter who most of the crew treats with a mix of pity and disgust, and developed a sort of respect towards Silverbolt, that was created in laboratory, forced to obey his mad creator’s orders despite he knew they were wrong and struggled to fit in the Cybertronian’s society.

Will he be able to redeem himself? Or he will remain the monster everyone says he his? Only time will tell...

He has a crab and a tank alt-mode, and lots of cannons and other weapons of mass destruction.

PART 2===>

[emdeedot45]

Fluff 46 - “I don’t know if I want to yell at you or kiss you.” 😘

Prompt #1 "I don't know if I want to yell at you or kiss you"

Sylvie was mad.

Normally, it took a lot for her to get mad, but that’s what she was right now. She was mad and frustrated and pissed off and every other synonym under the sun that could be used to describe this situation.

The situation? Well, it started yesterday when she and Mackey had tended to a call at an old cemetery down town. As if the location wasn’t creepy enough, a clown had fallen into one of the open graves and needed medical assistance. Sylvie felt her entire body tense when she saw what they were facing. She hated clowns. They were so deceptive with their painted-on smiles and dirty tricks. But ever the professional, she put her fears to the side focused on the job at hand. She was PIC, she was a mentor to Mackey, she had to show she could handle this.

They couldn’t deal with it alone, however, and needed a manpower assist to get the clown out of the grave. Luckily for them, Engine 40 had been close by and swiftly got the clown out and Sylvie and Mackey quickly got him into the back of the ambo.

“God, I hate clowns…” she’d grumbled as she closed the backdoors to the ambo.

“Really? I always thought they were kind of fun in an entirely stupid way.”

She’d turned around and saw Greg Grainger standing behind her, his hands casually resting in his pockets and a charming smirk on his face that Sylvie figured got him pretty much whatever he wanted.

“No. They’re horribly deceptive.” Sylvie explained.

“Well for someone with a fear you wouldn’t have known with how you handled that.” He praised.

Sylvie scoffed in response, “Ever the professional.”

“Yeah… so, what have you been up to lately? I haven’t really seen you around.” He pried.

She’d been around. Maybe not as much as she’d normally been – nights on her couch with wine and HGTV or wine and girl time with Stella felt much more appealing that being at Molly’s, trying to focus on whoever she was talking to but her mind – and eyes – wandering to Captain Matthew Casey instead. Somehow, they always managed to find each other in a room and it was infuriating. She was trying to forget him. How was she supposed to do that when they kept burring holes into each other with their eyes?

Sylvie kept having to remind herself that it was stupid. He’d moved on with the kitten claw sign woman. She needed to find a way to move on too.

She’d shrugged at Grainger when he asked, “Oh you know, here and there…” she said awkwardly.

Mackey opened the ambo door and poked her head out, “You coming? I’m starting to understand why you hate clowns so much, Chuckles will not stop staring at me.”

Sylvie shot her a sympathetic smile, “I’m coming.”

Mackey quickly glanced at Grainger before looking back at Sylvie and giving her knowing eyes. Sylvie then remembered what Mackey had said to her at Molly’s;

“Girl, clearly you need to get out and have some fun on your own.”

Sylvie closed the doors behind Mackey. Maybe this was her chance to have some fun. Maybe this was what she needed to forget about Matt Casey. A fun night out with a handsome firefighter.

Though, if he turned out to be a jerk, she was swearing off firefighters for good.

“Hey uh—” she began as she turned back to Grainger. “Do you fancy grabbing a drink tomorrow? I mean, it’s not a big deal, I’ll just be at Molly’s and maybe you could join. No pressure.” She rambled as he smiled at her.

“Yeah, yeah that sounds good.” He agreed with a nod. “I will see you tomorrow night PIC Brett.”

“Great. See you then.”

And that is how she got here.

At Molly’s, sitting with Grainger, mad as hell.

It had nothing to do with Grainger. He seemed like a nice, sweet guy.

But it had everything to do with Matt Casey.

From the moment they sat down at the bar, his eyes hadn’t left Grainger’s back. He was shooting daggers through the guy and Sylvie could see his jaw clench and his knuckles turn white from gripping his beer bottle too tightly – and it only got worse every time Grainger nudged her hand or her leg or any time he made her laugh.

Maybe Molly’s wasn’t the best location for this, but the whole thing was maddening. She could date whoever she wanted, wherever she wanted, and Matt couldn’t do a damn thing about it. He made his choice, and it wasn’t her, so he had to live with that. Besides, he was dating too and Sylvie said and did nothing. She just got on with things.

Though silently, her heart hurt was hurting, but she could never admit that out loud.

She put up with the jealous staring for an hour, but then she heard Matt obnoxiously scoff at Grainger telling her all about an heroic save he made the other day – and she snapped.

“Would you – would you excuse me for just a minute?” she asked, in the middle of Grainger’s story no less.

“Uh – yeah, yeah.” He said, a little taken a back by the timing of her request. She felt terrible, but she just couldn’t do this anymore. She slipped off her bar stool and stormed over to Matt’s table where he was sitting with Severide, Cruz and Gallo.

“Can I talk to you?” she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest, ignoring the wide eyes that were being sent her way by the rest of the table who were surprised by her abruptness.

“Sure.” Matt said as he downed the rest of his beer for liquid courage before following her out of Molly’s.

They walked a few metres down the path and away from the door before Sylvie spun on her heel and glared at him.

“What the hell is your problem?” she demanded to know.

“I don’t have a problem.”

Sylvie clenched her jaw. Matt’s emotions were always written on his face – why couldn’t he just put them into words? She knew he was mad and she was sick of him not being honest with her.

“Yes, you do, you’ve been staring at me and Greg all night. I’m not stupid Casey and I’m sick of us dancing around the tension between us, it’s infuriating!”

“Fine, I was jealous ok? I am jealous. It kills me seeing you out with somebody else.” he exclaimed back.

Sylvie shook her head, “You have no right to feel that way—”

“Doesn’t mean that I don’t.”

She knew it was hypocritical to say that, but what else could she say? Sylvie took another step back from him because she couldn’t possibly put any more emotional distance between them. They might as well be strangers the way they’ve been treating each other for the past few weeks.

“I don’t know what’s going on in your head Matt, I don't know where this is coming from considering how we left things, but this jealousy thing – it has to stop. You lost your chance. You have to live with that as much as I do.” She said quietly. “Besides, you’re the one who went out with Sydney first.” she pointed out. He’d moved on a lot quicker than she had, but he seemed to be forgetting that little detail.

“Yeah I did, and it made me pretty damn miserable.” He confessed as Sylvie looked a little shocked by his confession. “I always do this when I go through a breakup. I try to distract myself with someone else and normally – it does help with moving on, even in the slightest way. But this time? It didn’t help.” He said with a scoff. “It made it a heck of a lot worse. It made me realise that I – I would rather be alone than be without you. It made me realise that I am in deep. I think I always have been.”

Sylvie’s body relaxed at Matt’s words. She wished it hadn’t, but it did. He was looking at her with a deep sincerity in his eyes and she immediately felt her anger dissipate. He was the most trustworthy person she knew and she hated that she was trusting his words right now. She hated that she knew they were true.

He did exactly what she was trying to do right now. They were trying to forget about each other by losing themselves in other people – but it wasn’t working and it never would. Grainger just wasn't Matt. Sydney just wasn't Sylvie. And that was the bottom line.

“What's that look?” Matt asked desperately.

“What look?”

“That look” he said. Her face had softened completely without her even realising as she tried to bite back a semblance of a smile. “It looks like you’re trying to stop yourself from saying something nice or even smiling at me.”

Sylvie sighed and ran a hand over her forehead, “I just don’t know if I want to yell at you or kiss you right now and god, it’s so annoying, you’re so annoying!” she childishly insulted. She had to at least try and be mad at him otherwise she might in fact kiss him. He would rather be alone than be without her – how was she supposed to pretend like he didn't just say that? How was she supposed to pretend that it didn't make her heart skip a beat?

Matt couldn’t help but shoot her an amused smirk. Even when she was trying to be mean she somehow made it stupidly cute. Sylvie dropped her hand from her head and put it on her hip, her distressed expression changing to a deep glare when she realised how he was looking at her.

“Stop looking at me like that.” She demanded.

“Like what?”

“Like you want me to kiss you.”

Matt’s smirk grew, “I don’t think I’ll ever stop looking at you like that.”

“Dammit Casey…” Sylvie grumbled as she looked to her feet, not wanting to get caught up in his gaze. It was stupidly distracting, and she knew it would suck her back in – but it shouldn’t. There was still so much left to be resolved if it ever actually could be resolved.

He wanted her now because he couldn’t have her. But in the long run, he’d revert to wanting Gabby – he’d made that much clear the night of their kiss.

“I’m trying so hard not to love you but you’re making really damn difficult” She confessed quietly.

It was Matt’s turn to be taken aback by her words. She loved him. She was trying not to, but she did. Suddenly, everything he’d been feeling for the past year had started to make sense. He’d been in denial about his feelings. The whole thing just felt messy from the beginning. His feelings for her just came out of nowhere and he’d tried so hard to push them away and focus on their friendship – but it was pointless.

Now, he too trying so hard not to love her, but every smile, every encouraging word, even little glance in his direction – she made it really damn difficult

Matt let out a laugh of realisation. He loved her. He really did – and he was going to prove it to her. He took a step towards her, watching as her body started to tense again.

“I’m the guy for you Sylvie Brett” he said until there was just a breath between them. “And I know there’s so much more to talk about and you maybe don’t believe me right now – but I’m going to prove it to you. I’m the guy for you Sylvie Brett. You’ll see.” He said, his nose ghosting past hers briefly before he started backing away from her.

This was going to be get interesting.

[whetstonefires]

"Adult men who behave like Damian Wayne in his early appearances (without the sword) rule the world, abusively. He was groomed for that purpose, to be one of them. Fortunately he’s been given a chance to grow." in his early appearances so anyone that jump in front of someone who about get shot and shield them is evil😑 or other examples in batman and robin or street of gotham and other or were you just mainly talking about Damian and Tim and dick help Damian but stop take Damian development away

Okay, I don’t remember exactly when or where I said that sentence, but I do recognize it.

I’m not going to be directly answering the rest of your asks, Nonny, because you...kinda devolved to the point where the only bits coherent enough that I could tell you were probably a person and not a wordsalad chatbot were when you were insulting me, and there’s not a lot I can do with that. Or that I want to. But I’m using them to inform this reply.

So the thing is, by the time of his Batman & Robin series Damian was already out of his early appearances, although he does have some pretty  bad behavior in that period too. The time he tried to kill Tim the same way Dick’s parents were murdered really stands out.

The basic design for Damian, starting out, was that he was awful. He tries to kill Tim to ‘eliminate a rival,’ he throws Alfred’s food at the wall and calls it slop, he insults everyone he meets, he feels entitled to not only a relationship with his father but to an exclusive one, at the expense of every person Bruce already loves.

‘Entitlement’ and ‘violence’ were his chief initial traits. On purpose.

And when he was brought back for Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul and afterward as someone to save, and then as Robin, this wound up giving him enormous potential, because all they had to do was show he had the potential to grow as a person, and then they could follow through on that. He could do so. He could unlearn all kinds of terrible League beliefs and coping habits and learn to care and not-kill and be a hero.

We could watch him learn and earn that. It was really effective.

He had nowhere to go but up and that gave him so much scope for character growth. Which is incredibly valuable in a genre so simultaneously desperately static and starved for novelty as superhero comics.

But the thing is. Entitlement and violence as major character traits are forgivable in a child, especially one who’s been indoctrinated into them. He can grow out of them. But he has to actually do that.

If he makes it to adulthood and he still thinks he has a right to hurt people to get what he wants, to kill off rivals for the affection he feels is rightfully his own, to walk all over and insult The Help and anyone else weaker than him who can’t or won’t push back...what you have is a bad person. A dangerous one, too.

And if he makes it to adulthood like that and is in a position of power, which inheriting either Ra’s or Bruce’s power bases definitely constitute, what you have is, in one way or another, going to be a monster.

Now. DC has over the past couple of years, really since killing him and bringing him back nine years ago but more lately, chosen to roll back a lot of the progress Damian had made on growth, but also to keep some of it and direct it in negative ways--see the secret torture prison that he conceptualized as a ‘better’ way of being a superhero. Apparently they were worried if he became too good then the audience would lose interest in seeing him get better.

Which is a damn shame because there was a lot of progress left to make on the road he was already on. First of all: the being willing to take a bullet thing you bring up. Stack that up with how they’re having him think of what makes a ‘good’ hero, and that storyline he had about atonement.

Damian’s next phase should have been, in a kinder world, learning about how being a good person can’t be reduced to heroic acts. That you can’t pay off a conscious decision to be cruel with a moment of self-sacrifice. If you save someone’s life in a dramatic moment and then go abuse thirty other people, those don’t stack against one another. They’re both true.

I’m gonna bring in the Holocaust here, much as I know that’s bad form, because it’s a convenient source of people we can all agree are pretty evil.

Dr. Mengele was the kind of person who would throw himself into fire to save others. We know this, because he did. The resulting injuries are what got him sent away from the front lines to Auschwitz, where he gained lasting fame as one of history’s most relentlessly cruel monsters, by doing evil science on human beings.

People doing heroic things is not incompatible with their doing bad ones. It doesn’t make them good. It doesn’t protect them from doing evil. Those are two separate things, interrelated certainly but not interdependent.

In fact many of the same traits that allowed Mengele to be the kind of person who drags people out of burning tanks were probably involved his being the kind of person who systematically tortured people he didn’t think had the same kind of value--the conviction you need to run into fire even as you feel yourself burn is not inherently different from the conviction you need to walk with your eyes open into acts of systematic medical abuse. It’s just being applied differently.

Now. Damian, through his on-panel growth, had started wanting to not be a bad person, but he was much more heavily focused on the idea that he could do dramatically good things for this purpose than on the idea that he could be kind, or refrain from cruelty.

Not that he wasn’t learning to do the latter! But he hadn’t learned to value it the same way, or even I think to value it for itself, or for his own sake. He had learned kindness was allowed but hadn’t come to believe it was important, or something to work on doing better.

It was for Dick’s sake, mostly, that he learned a modicum of courtesy and respect, and so perhaps it’s not surprising that with the dissolving of their partnership he started to backslide, and slide off the rails.

It is sad, though. He absolutely had the potential to grow into someone who could be trusted with power, and DC keeps not letting him be that person.