#but the villain was literally like. the principal or something because i couldn’t come up with a cool idea

[shatteredsnail]

occasionally i think about the original dw plot from early last year and just go hey. what was that.

[ghostiiiee]

Just Like Me

To read at my Ao3 CLICK HERE This is the first chapter. sorry is its a little rough. :sweatdrop:

Almost forgot! Tw: i will be going heavy on quirkless discrimination and mental health issues. Theres not much in the first chapter but i do want to touch on it at some point.

School was never something he looked forward to. After all, what was there to look forward to? He was used to getting bullied, made fun of for being different, called names, shoved around. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Many years ago, maybe he would have been the normal one? 

Then again, what even was normal?

It used to be normal to go to school- learn history, math, science and whatever language the school taught. 

It used to be normal to not have any powers, after all -  superheroes were a dream. Stories people made up to tell themselves. Heroes existed, yes, but they never had powers. Heroes were just people, average people. 

Again, there's another word that's changed. Average. 

Normal. Average. 

Two hundred years ago, it was normal for the average person to look human.

Two hundred years ago, it was normal  for the average person to have no powers.

Two hundred years ago, it was normal for superheroes to only be a thing of stories.

That was two hundred years ago. Not now.

Now it's weird to not have powers.

Now you get bullied for being regular. Quirkless.

One of 20%. 

Mathematically, he thought it was stupid that so many people get treated so differently. He did remember Mr. Lancer telling him of people getting treated for less. Mr. Lancer told him two hundred years ago, 10% of the population was seen as satanic because of what hand they used to write with. A similar estimated percent was discriminated against because of who they loved, or what they identified as. 

“Sadly, Mr. Fenton, the human race has a history of not tolerating those who they see as a minority.”

“I remember that from history Mr. Lancer.” Danny sighed, leaning his head on his hand. His eyes stared out the window, looking at the stormy weather. “I remember you talking about how things used to be.”

The teacher pursed his lips, staying quiet and looking at him with concern.

Lancer had asked Danny to stay after class to speak to him. He never did like how Daniel’s peers would gang up on him after school ended. The best he could usually do was this. Casper’s principal was... far too likely to be accepting of anything the more wealthy students’ parents had to say.

“Is that why you’ve been spacing out all day then, Danny?” 

It was asked gently. Danny’s eyes glanced over to the balding teacher before darting back to the window. He hummed for a moment. “...Kinda. I got a lot on my mind.”

“Penny for your thoughts then?” Lancer pulled his chair next to his desk.

It was quiet for a few minutes, the sound of rain gently pattering against the classroom windows filled the room while Danny collected his thoughts. Blue eyes watched raindrops roll down the glass.

“I don’t get it, Mr. Lancer.” His voice was quiet as the floodgates opened. “Everyone in my family has quirks. Dad is strong. My mom can copy anyone’s fighting styles just by watching. Jazz can look at someone and-.... well you know.” He sank down into his chair. “Aunty A, even has a quirk. I've never seen her miss a shot. And then there's me. Daniel James Fenton. The first quirkless person in our family in a long time. Don’t get me wrong either, it doesn’t bother me too much.” Liar. “It’s just... it feels like the cherry on top of everything else.

“My parents got an invitation to teach some classes at UA in Japan. In Japan, I've never lived anywhere but here. Amity Park. It’s not like they can leave me here. PLUS, Jazz has always wanted to go there for the General studies.”

“I understand your concern, Danny. But I’ve seen your work,” There was slight amusement in Mr. Lancers voice. “Aren’t you good at building things? I know I’ve caught you tinkering with something more than once in class.”

Danny’s face flushed red. “...My parent’s usually make those. They’re old models of support gear they have made. I was seeing if I could get a glitch out.”

“And?”

“...I keep shocking myself.” He mumbled. “It hurts like hell.”

“While I can’t say I’m happy that you are getting injured. As long as you are safe, I'm glad.” Mr. Lancer offered a smile to the teen. “As for the other predicament, you are always open to contact me if you need me after you move.”

“Thank you Mr. Lancer.”

~~~~~~~

Danny was thankful that they moved over the summer and not in the middle of the year. School was already hectic enough as was. Moving in the middle of the year was not something he ever wanted to do, let alone moving across the globe in the middle of the year.

He kept to himself for the first few weeks. He liked to walk around, exploring the new area. It felt different than Amity park. More crowded. He noted early on there was definitely more hero around too. It didn’t bother him too much.

That's a lie.

More heroes means more villains.

He didn’t like villains.

He also didn’t like being a hostage.

Lucky him!

He was held hostage by a villain not even before the end of the second week. Not that this was a first time experience for him, having been a favorite target back in Amity Park. He knew all the heroes back home personally because of it. People just loved to take quirkless people hostage. One would think, with the target that seems to hang over his head, that Daniel James Fenton wouldn’t take such risks as walking around alone at night. One would think that if he did, it would be out of necessity, and he would at least have something on him to defend himself.

...yeah no that's not the case. Why in the world would that be the case?

Danny was shoved onto the ground, air leaving his lungs as he hit. He gasped for air, trying to look at who was targeting him now. He couldn’t really tell much about the person, ratty clothes and a hoodie pulled up to cover their face. Nothing could be seen under the hood, it was just shadow, pure, black shadow.

“What’s a runt like you doing out right now?” The villain crouched next to Danny. Chuckling when he tried to scoot away. They put a foot on one of Danny’s wrists, “Ah-ah. Now that’s rude. I’m talking to you punk.”

Danny didn’t respond, wincing at the pressure on his arm. 

“It’s rather rude to ignore your elders.” The villain put more pressure, adjusting so they were crouched like a vulture next to prey.

“F-fuck you. I’ve seen worse.” He growled

The regret in saying that was nearly instant. In the blink of an eye, the ground next to his head - that was solid concrete what the hell- was shattered. The villain was making an inhuman noise, a low gutteral sound coming from them. “You haven’t seen my worst. I wasn’t gonna do much to ya, but I’m starting to change my mind kid.”

He knew he should do anything else - he was already on a thin line - but fuck it. He had a free hand anyways. He grabbed something from his pocket and slammed it against the villain. “As I said before. Fuck. You.” He pressed the button on the side.

The machine sparked to life. Quite literally. Danny still didn’t know what it was supposed to do, but he could make it shock things. Like a weird taser. Unlucky for Danny he was literally pinned to the ground beneath the villain getting tased. And as everyone knows. Humans are conductive. Very conductive. 

Strangely the villain didn't even flinch. The growl getting louder as they grabbed the device from their shoulder and crushed it with their hand. Danny started shaking. Okay so that was a horrible idea. 

The shadows of the alley gathered around the villain. Climbing up their clothing and slowly slithering along their arm. They held Danny down, forming chains around him. In the villain’s hand, a knife, absorbing all light, The villian made the move to attack, and Danny closed his eyes, waiting for the pain to come.

It never did.

It lessened. 

Weight lifted from him, a weight he hadn’t realized was there besides his arm. Tentatively he opened his eyes. 

The villain was on the ground a few meters away from him, knocked out and tied up to a fire exit- similar to how Batman would leave criminals for the cops. Danny blinked. He hadn’t heard anything. So what in the world happened? And how could that have happened so fast? 

Standing up, he looked around for a sign of anyone being there to help him.

Oddly enough. It seemed no one had caused the villain to go down, at least not that Danny could see. Blue eyes scanned the area for a moment, looking for anything that wasn’t there before. Nothing popped out. Nothing was out of place. It looked like no one had been there.

He let out a breath he didn’t realize he had been holding. The air condensed, forming mist as it left his mouth and floated away. It was like when he first stepped outside in the winter. Which was strange- it was the middle of summer. A small frown formed on his face. The nights here weren’t that cold normally. 

He brushed it off, ignoring the goosebumps running along his skin as the air chilled. Perhaps whoever knocked the villain out had a rather cold quirk, he mused to himself. Heroes normally make themselves known at this point, checking to see if he was okay. 

He had an inkling it wasn’t a hero. At least not a licensed one. Not that he minded. He didn’t care who it was really. They saved his life… he was grateful for that.

Danny looked up to the clear sky, moonlight peaking over the buildings enough to illuminate the alley where the street lights glowed. He smiled up to the stars. “Thank you.” He said softly. “I wasn’t paying attention tonight.”

He left the alley, starting his way back home. He never caught sight of the figure watching him.

[abluescarfonwaston]

I think Edgeworth did have some care about the truth, but only during the active investigation part of a case. Cos in AAI he's more open to poss during the investigation of Faraday & Rell's murders compared to 3-4's trial where he's just a bitch. I think Gumshoe & Edgeworth both say something about how he trusts the cops to carry out the investigations correctly as well, which would add to his warped 'all def are guilty, therefore I must sentence them' mindset by the time the trials on.

Oh you've done it now anon. You've flipped my switch. Prepare yourself.

Okay so my saying he doesn't care about the truth at all is unfair. He does. Now i don't think it's totally fair to compare our baby faced aai boy to the man from aa1 who by his own admission did bad things for the sake of his verdict. (How bad? What things? This largely depends on whether you believe the added in later 1-5 Edgeworth about how he never falsified evidence (which to be clear I don't think he'd have been Blatantly illegal. Gumshoe says if he did something bad he'd admit it and we have that proven as true in 1-4, getting off track - Edgeworth is an unreliable narrator especially about himself, but if you think he did do illegal and not just shady shit you're valid)) He had four years drowning in a corrupt system under Von Karma with little to no support. It's more than reasonable to think he may have lost sight of his ideals during that time.

But that's not what you're saying. Edgeworth cares about the truth during the investigation but not during the trial. Yes. Look. Look this is one of the things that makes Edgeworth a Good lawyer by their systems standards. That he trusts the evidence he's given and fights with all he has until the last. (He praises Franziska for being a good partner during 3-5 for this reason)

"I'm not like you and Franziska. You keep coming for me even when you know the truth isn't with you." (Roughly)

They're good prosecutors because they Keep fighting until any doubts are cleared! (Even if that makes them look like villains to the defense) It makes them Terrible to face in court cause if there's any weakness or doubt they'll jump on it. But that's what the defense is supposed to do as well! (Wright literally uses the same moves as them in 2-4, as he should!) Even if their court system has largely forgotten that by aa1. Diego and Maya both talk about pressing for weakness in testimony (even if it hurts your case). It makes Them good attorneys! (Even if it makes them look like villains to the prosecution. Mai- always poking holes in perfectly good testimony. Rude Edgeworth she Just died!)

This is the principal their system. That the sword and shield fight and reveal contradictions until the 'truth' is revealed. Because - and here's what I think is actually so interesting about turnabout sisters - if they hit a point where they don't have enough for the defense or prosecution to call a verdict then THEY INVESTIGATE AGAIN!!!

Why am I so excited by that?! Because in turnabout sisters we see the Prosecution Switch defendants!!! We go from Maya on day one to Wright!!! It's the only (i think?) Time this happens but they don't restart the trial completely like we would. They treat it like Day 2 of the same trial. Because the trial isnt Actually about the defendant! It's about the Incident.

What does this mean? It means that if Edgeworth had gotten that extra day to investigate the case then we get a Real showing of who he is. Because during the investigation Edgeworth is open to different versions of events and changing his stance as information is revealed! It is not his Duty to fight for a verdict, even if he doubts it's validity! It's his and Gumshoes job to bring the appropriate person to trial for the incident and convict them!

Which means if Wright Hadn't read those names and forced a confession we might have had a Very different day three depending on how you interpretate Edgeworth/how broken their system is.

Because there's a non zero chance that Edgeworth Couldn't get Redd White before that point even if he suspected. Edgeworth goes out of his way to Warn you it's a rigged game from the start. They couldn't investigate him! But now he's the star of the show and maybe they Can with that extra investigation time. Have Edgeworth walk up to the bars and release Wright himself. (If Redd White is guilty I'll prosecute him myself) Edgeworth the third day of the trial to get his (correct) verdict and his record stands. (Which is bad for him in the long run but whatever)

Or if the investigation fails, either due to corruption/incompetence be it on Edgeworth's end or Edgeworth's fault (the police) then we get a bad time for Wright where he fights for his life again and we just draw out the screen time by an unnecessary few hours. (Or he losses and everything sucks. Bad ending all around)

Honestly the 'fights for the defendants guilt' thing isn't even the main point. Edgeworth is Supposed to. Wright is Supposed to fight for their innocence until the bitter end. It's why Wright is honestly at his Best lawyer during Engardes case - bud you JOB is to defend and make sure they're given a fair trial regardless of innocence! Don't give up til the gavel sounds!

The real difference isn't that Edgeworth stops fighting for their guilt - he still puts them through the ringer - it's that he stops actively sabotaging the defense! He's a bitch in 3-4 because he's hiding shit! He's a bitch in 1-2 for that same reason! Diego says it, I'm pretty sure - press the lies even if it hurts your case. Edgeworth attacking Vasquez is him pressing for the lies! (Even though it hurts his case)

Because that's the real thing 1-2 established. They're not actually beholden to the Defendant. These trials are about the Incident. And their job is to clear up all the lies until only the truth remains.

That's just not what Von Karma taught. It's what Miles forgot.

"My father fought for the victim and the accused."

It's what their whole system forgot. Edgeworth only fought for the victim. Hammond only fought for the accused.

They have to do both. To find the truth.

[neesieiumz]

PAIN - Chapter 1 {Shouta Aizawa x Reader}

Story summary:  You’ve been away for so long, for over thirteen years. As soon as you graduated, without saying by to the man you like and your best friend, you left. Not even leaving  a note, Aizawa and Yamada had to hear from your female best friend, Nemuri that you were going to join the I.H.A.C, the International Hero Agency Commission. You became the best hero there, saving so many people with tactical precision, but you’re always overworked yourself, to the point where you’ve dropped and fainted while walking to your office. Concerned for you, your boss called your old principal, who’s been looking for a new teacher to teach about stealth and rescue operations. Deciding to send you, even though you’ve adamantly refused, you’re finally coming home... a place you abandoned a long time ago.

Chapter summary: You were with your teammates, discussing how to write up a report, this were the worst part of your job. That’s when you’re called to your Unit Chief’s office, the man who represents your team with the Higher Ups. What does he need, and who do you see again?

A/n: MERRY CHRISTMAS!! This is the second gift I have for everyone! Keep in mind that I have not started the second chapter but I’ll see if I can get it out before the end of the year... but I can’t promise that...In the prologue/ sneak peek, I had your female best friend be Mirko, but I changed it to Midnight, because she was the only one who went to school with Aizawa and Mic. I wrote this in three days and took one to edit. So enjoy this first chapter and hopefully there will be more to come!

Word Count: 4.2k

Chapter 1 - A Decision of a Lifetime

You were sitting at a table, in the conference room with your teammates, discussing how the report should be split up. Who should take cultural impact, how the people reacted, the steps we took to bring stability and what not. You were currently arguing with one of your male teammates, someone who you’ve but heads with before. This was nothing new. 

“I’m telling you, I should take this part, I was there during the Rancin incident. I saw everything that happened!” Your teammate, Chad Barrymore, argued, slamming the papers on the desk. 

You rolled your eyes, “but who’s the one who actually solved it? Oh right, it was me!” 

The rest of your team was sitting around, some looking at their phones, some already starting on their assigned part of the report. One of your teammates even took this opportunity to catch up on some sleep. 

“Chad, who was assigned leader of this team?” You questioned, already knowing the answer.

He groaned and rolled his eyes, “you were,” he mumbled under his breath. 

You smiled and assorted the papers in front of you back into the file you had. 

“That’s right, me, Y/n L/n, not Chad Barrymore. Alright? You’re the best at the budget report and justifying why we used over 200,000 american dollars over our budget,” You smile sheepishly at him making him glare at you before snatching up the papers and putting them in his own file. 

“Fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna like it,” he grumbled, making you shake your head and roll your eyes. 

“Who actually enjoys doing the reports?” You questioned, mostly  to yourself. 

“I do!” Your teammate, Mariposa, popped her head from ehr laptop where she had already started her part of the report. 

You shook your head and laughed with the rest of your teammates, “Mariposa, you are one in a kind.”

“Y/n L/n, You’re needed in Agent Prowess’ office, Agent Y/n L/n, you are needed in Agent Prowess’s office at this instant…” The announcement went off, making you groan and plant your head face down on the table where you and your teammates were sitting. 

“Uh-oh, someone’s in trouble,” One of your teammates, Michelle LaRue, teased, poking you in your back. 

You swatted her hand away from your body and slowly lifted your head up and looked around,

 “Why me,” you groaned, slowly getting up for your seat. 

“Maybe you’re finally getting that promotion, you’re literally the youngest here but you’ve been here for over thirteen years, the longest out of anyone here. it’s time for you to finally get paid your dues!” Another teammate of yours, Ian Adewanju, exclaimed. 

His words made you burn red with embarrassment, reminding you of the fact you are 31, you are the youngest one on the team yet you’re the one who's been here the longest. You shook your thoughts out of your head before turning around and heading out the door to go to your Unit Chief’s offices. You had just gotten back from a sting operation in Aprain, helping their forces uncover a huge child position ring. There were villains with very strong quirks, and that country's heroes were outnumbered by the ring’s villains so they had called us. My team especially to help narrow down who was the leader and how they should go about freeing all the children they trafficked. We were given temporary hero licenses and stayed there for about a year, being those countries’ heroes until they were able to get a stable enforcement system in place. After that, we come back to base, on an independent island, where we stay for 4-6 months until our next mission. 

And there’s always another mission. 

You reached Agent Prowess’s office and knocked on the door a couple of times. You waited for a response before you could enter. 

“Come in, Agent L/n,” You heard his muffled voice call out. 

You opened the door and immediately closed behind and stood guard, standing up straight and placing your hands behind your back. 

“Agent Prowess.” You greeted, looking at the wall behind him. 

You didn’t see the person who was sitting on one of the couches, wasn’t your concern yet. Probably someone who just wanted to meet you in person. 

You heard a couple of paper shuffling around, “at ease Agent, I want to introduce or rather, reintroduce an old face from your past.” 

Your face twisted a bit in confusion, you stopped looking ahead at the wall and looked at your unit chief. You then noticed a white blur sitting on the couch in front of your boss’s desk. You got a closer look. And then you froze. 

It couldn’t be…

But it was, it was your old principal from U.A. What the heck was he doing here? What would the Principal of one the best hero schools in Japan, top two and some say they aint number two. You tried not to show your surprise in your face but you knew Principal Nezu knew you better than that, but he said nothing as he continued to sip the complimentary tea that Prowess always offers to his guests. 

“You remember Principal Nezu, don’t you Agent L/n?” 

You took a deep breath and nodded, not saying a word. You could hear the clanking of fine china hitting the table before hearing a throat being cleared. 

“It’s good to see you again, Ms. L/n, it’s been over a decade since I last saw you. At your graduation, I believe.”

Before you could stop yourself, you mumbled “It was the last time anyone saw me.” 

Prowess’s throat cleared and you closed your mouth quickly and lowered your head. You could hear a hum come from Nezu. You tried to ignore it as you waited for Prowess’ instructions. 

“L/n, I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m worried,” Prowess started, making your head shoot up in confusion. 

Worried? What is he talking about? You were confused, did you do something? Was something in your reports wrong, did someone complain about your behavior recently that you weren’t checking in within yourself? You doubt Prowess would have let you walk around with so many complaints about your behavior without telling you about it or having consequences laid out. Your mind raced through all the possibilities that could have happened. 

“Agent L/n, we can hear your mind racing 5 miles a minute. Calm down, nothing happened concerning your work ethic. You’re a good agent here and a good hero as well,” he started to explain. 

He gestured for you to take a seat on the couch in front of the one Principal Nezu was sitting on, you glanced at him and your boss before slowly walking over to the couch and slowly sitting down on it. 

“As you know, you were recruited from a hero course school, which is very rare as you were recommended to us by one of my peers. You came here straight from graduation and have never let up. You’ve been here since you were 18, barely even an adult in the world. You were one of the top students in U.A, who had the potential to be something great, but you came here, a place where you’d never get fully recognized for your accomplishments.”

You sighed and leaned back into the couch, wondering where this conversation was going. This was information you already knew, things that you lived. You remember when you got the recommendation, the talk with Principal Nezu and your homeroom teacher. When they were talking about your options with your older cousins.

“Prowess, I’m not understanding, why are you telling me this?” You couldn’t help but ask him. 

You still weren’t understanding why you were here with your old principal in front of your new boss. You looked in front of you to find a poured cup of tea right front of you. You glanced up at Nezu who simply looked at you with a smile. You scoffed before grabbing the teacup and taking a sip. 

Chamomile, with honey, nice…

“You were one of the youngest recruits here, and out of your training class, you’re one of the only ones who’s still here. This job weighs on people and a lot can’t take it after a while.”

“But you’re still here,” you interrupted his spill. 

“I came here after being a hero in America for over 10 years, the high rise lifestyle wasn’t for me. Most of the recruits we got were sidekicks that needed a place to go, heroes who still wanted to make a difference even if they couldn’t work anymore. You were different.” He noted, opening a file, your file you assumed. 

“You immediately came from the hero course in U.A, you had some of the best offers one could have ever have been given, even a sidekick offer from the current #2 Hero in Japan, am I correct?” 

You sighed and nodded, turning your head to look at him as you finished the tea. Prowess gave of a soft chuckle before continuing to flip through your file. 

“You decide to come here, out of all places. An isolated island, away from everyone with limited english skills as well… I questioned it, my superiors questioned it, but you were one of the best, if not the best we’ve ever seen. We couldn’t give up a gem like you, because you decided to come here… but we should have let you go sooner.”

You froze, mid-way of putting your cup down on the table, and slowly turned your head to look at him. He was staring at you with concern, a look you hated seeing with him but was a regular occurrence with you. 

“Last week, before you came back to base. You were admitted into the hospital for extreme exhaustion, for the 16th time. Your teammates were concerned about you. I’m concerned about you, and I should have put my foot down about your own well-being.” He said, leaning back in his chair.

“I didn’t because we were getting an amazing track record, your team was being asked for specifically. You have been overworking yourself, not recently but for the last 13 years,” You rolled your eyes he said that but he caught it, “don’t roll your eyes, you know it’s true. You’ve been overcompensating for over 13 years.”

“I don’t know what you were running from but it was obviously too much for you to stay in Japan but now I want you to do something for me. Principal Nezu is in need of a teacher, a teacher that can teach aspiring heroes about stealth and rescue operations. And I know that you were the perfect person for the job, you are the perfect person for the job…”

Your anger roared through before you could stop it, the cup in your hand was crushed by a cloud that you summoned on accident. 

“Deep breaths, Ms. L/n. Take deep breaths, we’ve had issues with your anger before…” You heard Principal Nezu say in Japanese, hearing the language you once spoke all the time. 

You felt your hands shake as you took deep breaths and leaned back into the couch. You placed your head in your hands to stop the shaking but that just triggered your legs to start moving up and down in its stead. Your face felt wet, you licked the side of your face and tasted the familiar salty liquid. Tears. 

“So what,” you garbled out, “you’re forcing me into retirement to go and teach some snot-faced brats?”

“I’m making an executive decision to let you go before you destroy yourself, Y/n… I’ve always seen you as someone I need to look out for, even if you were the most capable at your job… you were never the best at taking care of yourself.”

“I didn’t have an excuse of how to get you out but until Principal Nezu here asked for someone here to be a teacher at U.A… I knew it had to be you,” He finalized, closing your file before handing it to Nezu. 

You said nothing as the exchange of papers went on. You were sinking back into your thoughts. 

So that’s it huh? After 13 years of giving your life to help people, helping people off the grid. And now I’m being sent back to the place I ran away from. Run away from everything that’s haunted me for most of your life huh…?

“L/n,” he called out. 

You slowly turned your head to look at Prowess, who was handing you some papers. Your retirement papers were in his hands. You sighed before reaching over to grab them from his hands. 

“I know you’re mad at me, but trust me on this… It’s time to let you go off this job and find something else, something else that makes you happy and not want to overwork yourself to death. It may not be teaching, but it’s definitely not here.”

You looked at him with low eyes before getting up and walking towards the door, not waiting for his permission to leave his office. 

“Ms. L/n, I know this isn’t ideal, but know that you are the best person for this job… just trust me on this…”

You sighed at Principal Nezu’s words, and turned your head slightly to look at him. 

“We’ll see about that, Principal Nezu…”

                                                           ---

You didn’t return to your teammates after that, heading straight to your room.  You laid on your bed, papers discarded somewhere on your desk. You held your pillow in your arms, staring into the nothingness that is your ceiling. You didn’t have much belongings, mostly souvenirs from the countries you were assigned to. Your walls are white and blank, the only thing you brought from Japan was a picture frame, a picture of before everything went wrong for you. 

A knock came at your door. You lifted your head and turned it towards the door but didn't get up to answer it. You wanted to be alone, you weren't ready to face anyone, especially your team. 

“Hey Y/n, we… we heard about what happened. Where Prowess is sending you…” You heard the voice of Blake, one of four females on the team, called out. 

“Y/n, I’m gonna be honest with you, I had a hand in your transfer… I just didn’t realize he was turning it into a chance to force you to retire… that you weren’t coming back at all… that we were losing our leader for good…”

You laid back down on the bed as you registered her words. She had a hand in this? She’s the reason I have to leave? 

“I know that isn’t what you want to hear but I’ve been here right beside you, I came here after 7 years you were here and I saw so much pain behind those eyes… you reminded me of myself when I was a hero in France… constantly throwing yourself into work,” she started to explain, making you sit up on the bed.

“Although with me, it made me lose everyone that I love. All for fame and glory, while you threw yourself in work for different reasons. You threw yourself to forget who you once were, and everything you knew about your past. Babes, I’m scared for you and I know it’s time for you to get away from this place, you’ve been in these walls for 13 years… don’t you think that’s enough?”

Once again, you could feel your anger rushing right through you. They don’t… they don’t understand what you’ve been through… they don’t understand what’s waiting for you back in Japan… you had to get away and you had to stay away from Japan, it doesn’t matter… it doesn’t matter, he can’t… he couldn’t find you here… he couldn’t find you here, he couldn’t track you down here…

“But I also know you, and so does Prowess, you’re running… that's why you never took the opportunities to go home and see your family… and that’s okay, you don't have to see them.. You don’t have to see them, but you need to get away from this desolate place.”

You threw your pillow on your bed before flopping back and laying on it. You looked over at your night table and saw two picture frames sitting on it. The one you had brought when you first arrived here, and a recent one, from a couple of years ago when you were on an island country, helping them out until they also had a stable hero system. You were with the locals and they were throwing you a goodbye party. You were smiling, holding a child of a family you had gotten close to… the first time in a while you were happy with yourself. 

You took a deep breath before turning around on your other side. You just wanted to go to sleep and pretend that you weren’t actually leaving, that you weren’t being forced to go to Japan. You could hear Blake walking away.

                                                           ---

[This conversation is in Japanese]

The air was cold, and tasted like salt water from the surrounding ocean. After Blake came to your door, you couldn't fall asleep, your head spinning after all the information that came at you at once. You grabbed a blanket, a random bottle of alcohol you had lying around and a glass before coming to the one place where you could feel like you could breath. You were on the rooftops, watching the sun go down and sipping on a glass of some kind of spicy alcohol, you honestly didn’t look at the bottle. 

“I thought you would be here, Ms. L/n.” A voice called out behind you. 

You didn’t bother to look back at who it was, there were only so many people who spoke Japanese here and none of them were on your team or weren’t even close to you. 

“Should have known that you would find out where I am,” you mumbled under your breath, downing the rest of your drink. 

You could hear him walk towards you before stopping right beside you and looking out into the horizon with you. Together the two of you watched the sun lower together. You pulled the blanket closer as you felt more chills throughout your body. 

“So then you should also know I have an idea of why you're running. You can’t hide much from me, Ms. L/n,” he added. 

You sighed, using your hand that held the glass as support for your head. You could feel a headache coming, making you groan out loud. Using your free hand, you moved your head around until you could feel and hear your neck crack. You felt a pressure at your shoulder, and you looked over to find a water bottle and a couple of pills  being handed to you. You glanced at Nezu who was still looking at the horizon before looking back down at the bottle. Sighing, you took the pills and water bottle. You threw the pills in your mouth and ripped open the cap and downed the entire bottle in ten seconds. 

“You’ll be safe at UA, I hope you know that, we’ve introduced a dorm system including one for teachers. I promise you.”

“Not as safe as I am here,” you scoffed. 

You looked away from the sunset, placing your arm down and using it to support you from behind. 

“How do you know that?” Nezu questioned. 

You said nothing, which answered Nezu’s question. You could feel him turn around and start to walk away. 

“Your plane will be here in two weeks, use that time to say your goodbyes and figure out your lesson plans and learn about your students. I would pay particular attention to the incoming class of 2A.”

You scoffed, 2A huh?

                                                          ---

“AND IN FIRST PLACE, IS Y/N L/N!! One of the most strongest quirks I’ve ever seen in a first year, there’s nobody to match her in battle formations and strategies, even when faced with a difficult quirk, she found a way out and was easily able to snag that FIRST PLACE TITLE!!” The announcer yelled out as the crowd cheered on. 

In the center of the stadium was the stage, where the winners were being honored in front of everyone and in the center was you, Y/n L/n, with the biggest smirk on her face. Hair in a large afro puff, with a purple bandana. You were tired but you were happy, you had fought and trained hard for a long time for this. This first step to creating the path to becoming one of the best female pro-heroes Japan and this world has ever seen. You looked at the rest of your peers as they cheered you on and gongradualted you on winning the U.A Sports Festival. You looked to your left and saw a close friend of yours, Oboro giving you a thumbs up. You winked and gave him one back, mouthing “good job” to him.

“Y/N!!! OBORO!!!” A loud, familiar voice called out to you. 

You looked at where the voice came from and saw Yamada, your closest friend Nemuri Kayama, and him, Shota waving at you, although he wasn't waving but he was staring at you. You gave him a soft smile while you felt your cheeks burn before turning to Principal Nezu who was offering you the gold medal. You bent down, low enough for him to put the medal on you. Once you stood up, you lifted the medal slightly to get a good look at it. 

First place felt so good…

The ceremony ended and soon enough, you were getting ready to go home to show your family what you got, what you had won, even though you knew they were all watching you. You were tired and just wanted to get on the first train to your home when you heard Yamada call out to you again. You flinched at the loud noise, his quirk was called “Voice” after all. You turned around to find him, Kayama, Shirakumo, and Aizawa all walking towards you. You smiled tiredly and flipped your bookbag on your back. 

“Hey guys…” you greeted sofly, “what’s up?”

They all stopped in front of you, all ready to go home as well. 

“For someone who won first place as a first year, you look like pure shit,” Aizawa said bluntly.

You rolled your eyes, “I’m just tired, over using your quirk will do that. I know my parents will have a whole party waiting for me when I get home.” 

“Well, let’s walk to the train together, I’m sure we’ll be able to get you out of your tired mood by the time we get to your stop!” Shirakumo said, turning towards the door. 

You glanced over at Kayama who was looking at Shirakumo with heart eyes, you walked up to her and nudged her with your elbow. This made her snap out of her heart eyes and look at you, you look abc at her with a knowing smirk. 

“Shut up,” she mumbled, making you laugh out loud. 

The both of you followed the three boys out of the room and out of the school. All five of you walked to the train station, Yamada having to take a different train because he lives in the opposite direction of the four of you. You waved goodbye to him as he waited for his train and the four of you got on the one waiting for you. You all got on and immediately found seats, well for you and Nemuri, Shouta and Oboro had to stand at the poles in front of you. As you were riding on the train, Kayama got a call on her cell, possibly from her mom. She groaned and answered it, but the call wasn’t long. You could hear her voice start to rise and even could hear her mom’s start to rise. They argued for a while and then she quickly ended the call and turned to look at you. 

She gave you the same puppy eyes she always gives you before she asks you the same question she always asked you before. You exhaled and looked away smiling. Shouta looked at the both of you before rolling his eyes, making you reach over and pinched him in the stomach. He grunted and wacked your hand away from him, making you smile at him before poking him and leaning back into the bench. 

“Yes, you can spend the night, you know my mom doesn’t care,” you laughed , pushing her softly. 

“Thank you L/n, I can’t deal with her tonight! You know she got a new boyfriend and he honestly creeps me out,” she groaned as she remembered interactions with her mom’s new boyfriend. 

“You’re welcome,” you giggled, giving her a one armed hug. 

“Aww, group hug!” Oboro shouted, pulling down Shouta with one arm and pulling Nemuri and you into a big group hug. 

“Oboro, fuck- warn somebody please!” Shouta complained, but was ignored by said man who just pulled him closer to all of us. 

We all laughed at his pain, who just made a grunt-like noise but made no movement to wiggle out of the group hug. 

“Yamada would be jealous,” Nemuri said, as we all separated from the hug. 

You looked out the window and smiled softly… you were so happy...

[symphonyofthewrite]

If These Walls Could Talk (Ch3) (with cover art!)

(AMAZING cover art by Junki Sakuraba on Instagram and Deviantart!!)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Chapter Summary: “‘Alucard’, they called me. The opposite of you. Mother never liked that. Did you know that? She hated the idea that I might define myself by you. Even in opposition to you. She loved us both. Enough that she wanted us to be our own people. Living our own lives. Making our own choices."

Chapter 3: “Alucard”

The castle doesn’t like it when Adrian leaves.

Adrian is a child of both worlds, so he must walk in the day every once and a while. He cannot stay in the castle, in the night, forever; he must travel outside the room, feel the sunlight without the glass. He must understand his mother’s people; his human half. A glass half full is a glass half empty, and he understands his duty to fill in the blanks where humanity is supposed to be.

Castlevania is unsure. Afraid, perhaps. It does not know much of humanity…but it does know that their blood tastes sweet, their words sound sour, their hands feel bitter. It knows they are not likely to treat the son of the vampire king with kindness.

It knows of only one human whose touch and words are sweet without taste.

If his mother can be kind… is it possible other humans can be too? Or does being a mother simply necessitate kindness? Is it possible there is more to them than sour speech and the bitter fists? That they are more than just something to fill its master’s appetite and quiet his boredom?

Lisa tells them all so. She gathers her family in the room, and tells them stories of knights and heroes, witches and villains. Of good kings, and evil priests. Of good gods, and evil queens. Of demons and zombies and the heroes who rose up against them—(and maybe Adrian can be one of them, some day). Of people who have nothing but manage to change the world anyways. Of people who have everything but are empty all the same—(that one started to sound a little too familiar). And not all of the stories are read out of books. Some are real, were history. Some she’d even seen herself. Some were told to her. She said she heard some of the most wonderful ones from a Speaker once. She even made some up. Until Adrian himself formed stories when she wasn’t there to tell them.

Dracula looks out the window at the rain, chuckles to himself at the fact that too many of her stories end happily…but something deep inside his eyes is trying, trying to believe her. To believe there’s truth to these stories, even those she made up. To let the light in her eyes flow into his. He tries to make up his own stories too, sometimes. But the darkness in his presence does its best to swallow the light in her words.

Adrian snuggles up beside her and the gleam in her eyes reflects in his without a second’s resistance. Enough that after a childhood of listening to these stories, begging for his parents to take him outside, he can barely wait to experience it himself.

That’s not to say he never left. She took him out on little trips, letting him take bites of the world out there. Each time he came back with treasures—(well what he considered treasures)—in his hands, and a grin secured firmly to his face, and he’d ask with voice bright and fast as a hummingbird, where they’d go out next, and how long he’d have to wait. Even his father took him out to the enchanted forests and grottos of the world for lessons, but always made sure they were the deepest, most well-kept secrets of the world, where no human would find them.

Well, most of the time. There were times when he came back with tears in his eyes. He’d ask What’s a ‘monster’?, and his father would lean down, put his hand on his cheek, and say Definitely not you. Lisa would plead or argue with her husband, but when Dracula would leave, the moon would turn red, and he’d remember what blood tasted like.

But this is different. This isn’t some day trip to come back with trinkets, some night lesson to come back with knowledge. The time it’s stretched out, and stretching them thin.

When he leaves and doesn’t come back that night… that morning…the next…the room tries to speak but finds there’s no breath in it, like it got the wind knocked out of it.

This is a different emptiness from what Castlevania was before. It isn’t a principal, not simply a fact of life. It is an absence. An absence of something living. An absence of a fact of life. A true emptiness in that the room was once full.

It doesn’t take long for the room to know what I miss you means; that absence creates ripples of yearning in its wake. That emptiness aches to be filled. It misses the games he played in the sunlight, it misses the lullabies, the drawings, counting the stars and sitting by the fire, the moments when the family would tell stories to the walls they didn’t know were listening.

It even misses the crying.

The clock tower’s ticking eats away at them from the inside.

And within the ticking, the room, the castle, wonder what the humans will do to him out there.

Will he be a monster in their eyes? An enemy, a beast, an ugly thing? Will they not see the light in his nature, rather the dark that nurtured him?

Will he be a cacophony to their ears, the screeches and howls of undead things, instead of the symphony they know his voice to be?

Will his blood be that of demons and beasts to their noses, and will they cast him out for not being human enough?

Will he be a toy in their hands, just as he played humans-and-vampires, just as he pretended to fight monsters with wooden swords?

…But he is alive, and living things ought not be played with, for they cannot be imagined into something they’re not.

And if he is a toy to them…what will they make of him? Will they imagine him as a human like them? Or will they imagine him into a monster he is not? Will they realize he is neither? Will they think he needs the night when he is perfectly fine in the day? What stories will they tell of him?

Castlevania has not met many humans. But those it has were prone to make monsters out of decent men, and weapons out of instruments of peace.

Will the humans’ mouths be forked and deadly as ever? Will their hands be weak and empty as ever? Will they assess him as fuel for their ever-greedy fire? Will they take the life—they who have so much of it—take the single life they have here, the one that brought it to them all—and crush it out of him, figuratively or literally?

Will they bully him, and scorn him, and lie to him, and cheat him and hate him and…hurt him?

The room twists and spirals in its thoughts, as if going down a hill, and throbs at the last word.

Or… says the castle softly, Will they welcome him? Will they understand him? Will they see him as we have? As he truly is? Will his light withstand the darkness in them? Can he bring life to these bloodthirsty beasts?

When Adrian returns, what—or who—will he be?

The castle and the room wonder, and wait, and question, and long for him as they are left in the dark, holding their breath until breath itself is but a fleeting memory.

They couldn’t say how long it had been since he left, it could have been a lifetime. But one day, as black and white as the rest, the morning comes with spreading color, and breath tumbles into the deepest corners of the room again.

They are equal parts nervous and eager to hear the stories he has to tell; for these monsters and men are more than toys.

And he does have stories to tell.

Out there, adventure exists in more than just books. Out there he can learn without charts and lectures; he can learn by doing, by experiencing. He can put to use, and to the test, all the spells and techniques he practiced indoors. Out there the scenes that were pictures before are real, are alive—the rain licks and the snow bites, the grass whispers as the wind sings its haunting melody, and the rivers join in response. Out there he can smell the trees, and flowers, the campfires, listen to the howls and chirps of the animals, and feel the sun on his skin without the glass to separate them. Taste the world. And out there the heroes and villains are animate too—he can speak to them, and won’t have to dream up their responses. He can make friends and enemies out of words and actions instead of wood and clay. Out there the threats, the demons and monsters are real too, and he has to fight them with something sharp—be it his pen or his sword. Out there, imagination is a weapon against reality. Out there he doesn’t have to imagine his world to life because it already is. And he is alive in it…this is his life that he is finally living.

That is what a life is. The idea echoes in the room.

(If this is a life…are we alive? The room asks.

Alive isn’t the same as life. Castlevania mutters softly, and doesn’t explain.)

And, amongst all the adventures they learn that while he walked the world a spell, his mother’s people gave him a new name:

“Alucard.”

Alucard. The reverse of Dracula.

They looked at him, they listened to him, they spent time with him and they understood—(breathe again and be still, they understood)—they understood that he was not the dark and the cold and the death his father is. In fact, they thought that he was so different from his father that this reversal must be his name.

The room is proud of him, happy for him, relieved, for this was its purpose, its hope. Relieved to have him back—more full of life and light than ever.

Lisa, while always proud of him, doesn’t like the name. She named him after all, it makes sense that she wouldn’t appreciate a dismissal of the name she chose. But…there’s more to it than that. She doesn’t want him to be defined by his father. She doesn’t want him to be a difference, a reverse. She wants him to be himself. Him and his father to be different people. She wants them to be themselves; not dividends, fractured pieces of one another put back together in different orders.

(But aren’t we all fractured pieces of each other? Don’t we take fragments of each other to make up ourselves?)

This is a strange thought to Castlevania, for it has always been defined by Dracula, and never minded, but perhaps mirrors ought not mind their reflectors. Adrian is no mirror. Still, the castle has always compared the boy to his father. The room was always meant to be the opposite of the Dracula, of his castle. The boy’s very existence has always spelled the reverse of everything they knew. Its only fitting the boy would be a reversal of his father.

‘Adrian’ is a nice name…but ‘Alucard’ fits like a tailored suit.

Adrian likes the world. Makes sense, he likes the sun, the day, the mirrors, the books, the stories, the people.

But what doesn’t make as much sense, and what’s more important, is the world likes him. At first its strange, but as the castle thinks about it more it makes sense; they may have come with pitchforks before, because they didn’t like Dracula. …But Alucard is not Dracula.

The room breathes deep, more alive than ever. And, as its master returns, tells his story, the room learns too.

Castlevania may be able to move for its master, but the room is stuck in its place. It cannot see the rest of the world like the boy can. It understands now that Alucard being different from Dracula also means that he cannot stay inside like his father does. That though it hurts when he leaves, the room can never be everything he needs the way the castle can for Dracula. That he is made for something bigger than four walls…even if those four walls were part of what made him.

It understands that breath cannot be a constant for it. That its master will leave, and the room will be hollow and ache for certain periods of time. This is a fact of life. This is what living is.

But it also understands that he will always come back. This isn’t something it reasoned or multiplied out. This is just something it knows within the oldest parts of it; that they will never be apart forever.

Now that the room is alive within the castle it will always be its own existence. Even if it’s empty, even if it gets broken and battered, it will always be the universe they built for him, a universe can’t be destroyed by mortal hands. It can never be fully erased as long as Alucard lives.

(…And Castlevania understands that is dangerous.)

The room understands that though life was always a stagnant thing for the castle, it is more dynamic and elusive for it. It will go through periods where there is nothing in that room, and the emptiness will throb, but in the same way that Alucard has the kind of life Dracula could never have, the room will have the kind of life the castle could never have.

The room’s breath will ever be catching itself and falling, like a dance, as if always during the most exiting part of a story.

[mashiraostail]

please momnight conent? Like student reader is upset/struggling with the material and goes to her for help or something literally please momnight im begging u

omg u do not have to beg kind anon i am happy to write momnight

“I’m sorry I feel really stupid..” You scrub at your face sitting in front of your teacher, she’s crouched down to eye level, one arm draped across your desk. “I just don’t understand this part at all..” You set your pencil down to use both hands, scrubbing at both of your eyes now.  “Hey come on, don’t say that!” Nemuri squeezes your wrist, “you’ll hurt yourself, just try reading it over again, sometimes that’s all it takes to get it to click.”  “I’m wasting your time, you have way more important things to be doing.” You mutter, “I’m sorry Midnight I think I’m a lost cause.” She lets out a loud gasp at that.  “Don’t say that sort of thing! NO way are you a lost cause!” She closes the book between you, “look at me.”  “I’m embarrassed. I know I’m strong but when it comes to bookish stuff I’m totally useless. You must think I’m an absolute moron-”  “No, I think Present Mic is a total moron.” She rests her chin in her hand as you finally look at her, chuckling to yourself over her jab at your English teacher.  “There we go. A little smile helps you feel much better huh?” She nudges your calf underneath the desk, you nod meekly.  “And anyways... I don’t think you’re a moron, I think you’re a kid. A student with a lot to learn. But you’re learning, even if its hard. Honestly, that's commendable, if this doesn’t come naturally to you putting in all the work to still do well is admirable, you don’t have to be the best you just have to do your best.”  “But I-” “No buts.” She frowns, “don’t talk back to your teacher.”  “Ow did you just pinch me- stop!” You pull your legs up into your chair as her attack on your leg continues.  “No one is good at everything. And yes I mean no one. Not a single person.”  “Well... what about All Might?” As soon as you finish she’s rolling her eyes. “He can’t even make a cup of coffee, and he’s never sent me a text that doesn’t have some sort of spelling error.”  “Principal Nezu?”  “He’s not a person he doesn’t count.”  You snort at that and rest your chin against your bent knees. “Well what about you? It sure seems like your good at everything...” You hug your legs to your chest and she pricks up a bit as you continue, “I just wanna be like you. You’re strong and smart and everyone likes you and you’re reliable and even if people underestimate you you always prove them wrong, even when you aren’t in the spotlight you’re doing the most to help...I... I wanna be like that, I wanna be just like you Miss Kayama.”  “Oh god I...I think I’m gonna cry.” She sucks in a deep breath. “What? Why would you do that dont-! Don’t cry!” You fumble as she sits back on her haunches.  “Well then don’t be such a little cherub!” She argues and then sighs, “look, I’ll be honest with you okay?” She reaches out and takes your hand, “it’s a really long time coming. Three years is a lot longer than it seems, and you’ve got a lot to learn. But you’re right, you are strong, and you are smart, smarter than you think.” She promises as she rests her chin on your desk, “even by coming to me for help you’ve proven how much you want this, how much you care about getting to your destination and..you know between you and I..you really do remind me of myself when I was your age.” She sighs wistfully and you grin at her, “yes you do, we’re practically spitting images of each other.”  “Shut up Midnight.” You chortle, unfolding your legs. “Ouch! What happened to Miss Kayama?!”” She pouts, picking her head up, “I’ll report you for insubordinance.”  “No you won’t.” You cheese at her and she shrugs, waving her hand.  “Ehhhh, yeah I guess you’re right. I won’t. especially not after you said you think I’m perfect.”  “Well are you or aren’t you?”  “Hm...I’d like to think I am.” She taps her bottom lip with her free hand and you snort, “though Mic says I have a terrible music taste, and Eraser says my sense of humor is shot...once Vlad told me I’m the worst driver he’s ever had the displeasure of accompanying on a grocery run, All Might says I’ve got one of the messiest cars he’s ever seen...oh Hound Dog also told me once that I make the worst cup of coffee on the planet and Cementoss agreed with him. But those are just opinions and they’re subjective so I’m...subjecting them to the trash.”  “I don’t think that’s how constructive criticism is meant to work.” You grin at the thought of her fellow teachers digging into her though.  “Ehhh..you say tomato..” She waves it off and then piques, “now I’ve got a question.” “if it’s about this material then sorry because I’m really shot for-”  “No, no. You really want to be like me?”  You flush, you can feel it in your ears, you murmur, “...yes...”  “I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you-”  “Yes!” You shout it a little louder than intended but she’s just laughing. “Really? Me?” I didn’t think I was exactly childhood role-model material.”  “That’s why I liked you..” You pluck at the fabric of your shirt, “everyone always wrote you off, but you always came through in the end, you always proved you were a lot more than your branding. I thought it was cool...that you didn’t try to be one dimensional, that you could be pretty and strong and smart.” You look up at her, “everyone likes you, everyone relies on you. I want to be that sort of strong. Forget picking up cars, forget punching in villains..I want people to need me like they need you. Like I need you.”  “Wow, I’m really gonna cry.”  “I told you don’t cry!” You snap, “you’re embarrassing me.” You cross your arms and she gasps. “You’re the one who went on the wild tangent!” Her laughter fizzles out and she stands, “come on.” She offers you a hand, “I think you get to call it for the afternoon, you’re probably the last student left here.”  You let her pull you out of your seat, she wraps an arm around you and squeezes you into her side, “how about an extra day to work on the assignment?”  “Are you playing favorites?” You ask her wearily.  “No. If someone else needs an extra day all they need to do is ask.” She hums, “try rereading the chapter tonight, and writing a summary of it. Give that to me tomorrow and I’ll let you know if you’re on the right track.”  “What if I’m not?” You gnaw at your lip nervously. “That’s what I’m here for, duh. Now let me walk you back to the dorms.” 

[mooncademia]

Hello, I love your writing very much ! Could you write a comfort scenario with aizawa x wife where his wife failed and she’s slighty injured at the hospital plz sorry if i made mistake i'm not an english speaker😅

Ahhh! Thank you so much for liking my writing (im crying heart emojis 😭it truly means a lot) and for your lovely request! I love this scenario and I hope you enjoy!! (your english is amazing btw!) 

Always

PAIRING ~ Aizawa x reader

GENRE ~ fluff/comfort 

SUMMARY ~ Hospital visits are not fun at all, and when Aizawa got notice that his wife was in the hospital, he quickly came to you with no hesitation but with  overwhelming love and support. 

WORD COUNT ~ 1.2k

Aizawa Shouta is usually calm during frantic situations. From being a pro-hero for so long and a teacher at U.A, he had his fair share of quick-thinking during catastrophic events. With his rational, cool mind and his intelligent wits, he knows what to do during emergencies.

But today was not such a case.

…Your wife is currently at Musutafu’s General Hospital…

Those words just couldn’t get out of his head. He received a phone call lunch break while he was grading papers from yesterday at the teachers’ office and hearing those words made his heart raced immediately into fight-or-flight mode. Excusing himself from U.A during the middle of the day was probably one of the most irrational things he may have ever done (especially at the fact that he was literally homeroom teacher of U.A), and even though Principal Nezu has given him full permission to leave early with total understandable approval, one will still probably feel a slight embarrassed or ashamed…but to Aizawa, he couldn’t care less at the moment.  

He just needed to see you. Now.

What if you are— He thought as he ran to the entrance of the hospital with brows furrowed and raven-black hair as messily as ever from racing through it with his fingers for the millionth time (a habit he does when he’s stress).

No. You are alive. Aizawa’s other side replied back. With a low grunt, he paced to the front counter, exchanged names and ID with the lady, and headed straight to your located room.

Heart pounding in his ears, Aizawa felt that he could crumble any second now as he slid the door to see you bandaged up around your ribs and arms. Your head was facing the other side, not noticing the door being opened.

“Y/N,” Aizawa croaked as he immediately walked towards you.

You turned your head to see your husband right next to you and your eyes widened in surprise.

“Shouta?” You exclaimed. “Why are you-“ You stammered as you realized that it is the middle of the day and he should be in U.A.  “I’m so sorry for disturbing you at work.”

Aizawa sat down next to you and grabbed your hand softly. “Don’t you dare apologize, Y/N. I- I should have been there…I could have-“

“It’s not as bad as it looks, Shouta. Really. It is just a small concussion and a few minor bruises on my ribs and arms, but nothing’s broken,” you said to him as you curled your fingers easily to prove it. But that didn’t seem to erase the distress on Aizawa’s face. “Hey, who was the one who was all bandaged up that Hizashi Yamada began calling you ‘mummy man’?”

Aizawa couldn’t help but smile at your teasing as he glided his hand to your cheek.

“Ok, we are not going to be comparing injuries.”

As Aizawa caressed your forehead, you felt warm at the heart. It may be selfish of you for feeling this given that your husband sacrificed his work time to see you, but you were so glad that he was there by your side at the moment. The scene from this morning’s incident couldn’t go away and you swelled up as you told him your story.

“The villain can copy people’s voices exactly. It was a mimic quirk,” you explained looking down at your bed so your eyes wouldn’t meet his. “After splitting up, I heard a wail from my teammate upstairs, and I quickly ran up to help her. But instead of seeing my partner, it was just the villain hiding behind one of the corners…and I was too late to notice…I couldn’t-“ you curled your fingers into a fist as anguished filled your lungs. “I couldn’t capture him and instead I was stupidly knocked unconscious.” You finished bitterly as you reflected back on your failure. Hearing your teammate scream in pain pushed your buttons to move, but instead of seeing your teammate, you felt an eerie presence behind you and all you could remember was the villain’s smug smile and a painful knock on your head.  

You have failed in missions before, but if you had been a tad bit wiser or quicker, you might have sensed that something was odd immediately when you couldn’t find your teammate.

“Hey, look at me,” Aizawa said in a stern voice, popping you back into reality from your bitter thoughts. He lifted your chin up so you could see his face. “You didn’t do anything wrong. His quirk wasn’t revealed yet until you found out.”

“But I was so weak-“

“And what if that voice was your teammate calling for help? You did your best Y/N, don’t put all the blame to yourself. It’s okay to feel bad…but remember to let go.” His tone was deep and gentle. “And plus…failure doesn’t mean you’re weak because true weakness is holding onto that image of yourself and not moving forward.” 

You were stunned to hear such powerful words coming out of your husband’s mouth. Sure, Aizawa has lifted your moods with his comforting supportive talks, but the gaze he held was full of sincerity that it not only soothed your fired emotions, but it also made you feel a strange surge of determination and hope.

“Thank you, Socrates,” you joked with a twinkle in you eye that made Aizawa’s lips twitch a smile as he rolled his eyes and leaned forward to give you a kiss on the forehead.  

“Anytime.” He replied back softly with his half-lidded eyes more mesmerizing than ever.

Aizawa then headed out the door to come back carrying a bag of takeout with a familiar logo on it. “You must be hungry,” he said as he laid the bag on the table next to you, popped open the lid of the container, and fed you your favorite warm soup that you always order from that restaurant.

As Aizawa fed you (he refused for you to do any work, including lifting up a spoon with your bandaged arms), he began to talk to you about his day so far, making you laugh and smile as you listen to his stories. Sometimes it is just the mundane things—like talking about one’s day— that eases your mind and body back to a familiar state that makes you feel cozily content.

As you exchanged conversations and finished your meal, your eyes began to droop and before you could reach to grab the blankets, Aizawa swooped down and grabbed them for you.

“No. Let me,” he said ever so smoothly.

Gosh, he really was perfect.

You smiled warmly at him as you grasped the back of his neck and pulled him close for a kiss.

As Aizawa caressed your cheek softly, you noticed him still sitting next to you comfortably.

“Shouldn’t you return to U.A?” You asked.

Aizawa shook his head. “I’m staying here with you.”

You intertwined his fingers with his and hummed happily in reply as you propped your head comfortably on the pillow.

“Love you, Shouta,” you mumbled as your finally closed your eyes.

You didn’t see it, but Aizawa smiled at you with a smile that would probably make his whole class turn to stone in shock (and perhaps endless teasing from Present Mic), because it was just that beautiful.

“I love you too, Y/N. Always.” 

[the-hunchback-of-notre-dame]

Screenwriter Tab Murphy Talks “Hunchback,” “Atlantis” and “Brother Bear” During Walt Disney Family Museum Happily Ever After Hours

by Tony Betti | Source (x)

Over the weekend I had the fortunate opportunity to attend the Walt Disney Family Museum’s Happily Ever After Hours Virtual Program featuring screenwriter Tab Murphy.

Tab Murphy has a wide embodiment of work for the screen, but this program primarily focused on his work for what is now known as Walt Disney Animation Studios. He contributed to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and Brother Bear.

Right off the bat, Tab said that his first foray into animation was a bit jarring. He wrote the script, and then partnered with Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz who, as he put it, had the script posted on walls all around a room and would then go up to certain sections and draw big Xs through the words and say “this is where we think a song should be.” As they worked together though, Tab said he realized how right they were to do that, and the end result is simply amazing.

Anybody familiar with the original story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame may recall that there are a ton of characters present in the original novel aside from the namesake Hunchback, Quasimodo. He said that was where one of the hardest parts of writing the movie adaptation lied, especially for a Disney animated film, noting that there was a certain “checklist” of sorts for a Disney film that the characters had to hit. So they developed the film around the characters that would best fill the roles of the principal lead (Quasimodo), the Hero (Phoebus), and the Princess (Esmeralda), along with the obvious villain, Claude Frollo. He said that the story was exceptionally dark for a Disney film, but he found the heart in it when you would take away everyone else leaving Quasimodo to do his own thing with the birds or the gargoyles, and the world got bright and colorful. This sentiment is actually echoed in the production design of the film, whenever Frollo is present, the colors are grays and dark shadows, and muted and boring hues, but whenever Quasi is involved in his own thing there are far more colors and brightness.

He also elaborated on his love for writing the character of Esmeralda, saying he felt that she was Disney’s original activist, and she was most definitely not a damsel in distress, standing up for the issues, with Tab citing the line (though he flubbed it a little) “You mistreat this poor boy the same way you mistreat my people. You speak of justice, yet you are cruel to those most in need of your help!”

When asked about the development of Quasimodo, Tab pointed out that more classic adaptations of the story, such as an earlier incarnation from Universal in their horror movie craze, took the character and turned him into a literal monster, some sort of terrifying creature. “This is a human being,” Tab said, adding that his version would not scare you but draw out empathy. But he still had to be realistic. He couldn’t be the hero either, that wouldn’t be true to the source material, but he echoed thoughts and ideas shared by animator James Baxter in a recent program from the museum, that he needed to be gentle and warm to reinforce that this was a human and not a monster.

Interestingly, Tab said that he had not watched the film in its entirety since the world premiere back in 1996 up until about two weeks before the program, forgetting how beautiful the final product turned out. He said he cried his eyes out and believes that story holds up because of that emotion, something that everyone can relate to at some point in their lives, that they’re different and feeling alienated and an outsider who overcomes that. “Everyone who worked on that movie, everyone was on their A-game.”

After Hunchback, Tab was assigned to tackle Tarzan, though he openly admitted he wasn’t as involved in that one as much as people think he was. Shortly after he began, Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise (directors of Hunchback) asked him to join their team for a radical new movie that would buck the trends of Disney Animation, Atlantis: The Lost Empire. According to Tab, the pair pitched him the idea while comparing it to Disneyland, saying “You know how you go in to [the park] and go right into Fantasyland, through the castle, see the princesses and fairy tales. Well, we’re going to take a hard left straight to Adventureland.”

Tab was excited, this was going to be something so out of the ordinary and he would be a part of it. He noted that he was especially excited because of the subpods that would shoot out of the Ulysses. At another point in the session, Tab mentioned that he was never worried about budget when writing for Disney animation, noting that the animators were so good they would figure out how to get what he wrote onto the screen successfully, with the Subpods off the main submarine as they battled the Leviathan an excellent example of that. He also elaborated on what he referred to as “movie moments,” those special quotes that you know, when writing them, people will always remember and associate with the movie, with Atlantis having one of his favorites, when Helga is firing the flare gun at Roarke’s balloon and uses his own words, “Nothing personal.”

As many know, the film was not an immediate box office success. It didn’t do poorly, it just didn’t reach the numbers that Disney likes to see. Because of that, Tab thought he had written Disney’s first flop. The film came out in 2001, and he said it wasn’t until last year when he was stuck at home that someone had exposed him to the following that Atlantis: The Lost Empire has acquired over the years. He even started getting letters and messages from fans, some saying that the film had inspired them to be linguists or archeologists as those who were younger when they saw it are now adults exploring their career path.

Tab has an almost Jeff Bridges-like quality to him, almost channeling the Dude from The Big Lebowski, and elaborated on the sentiment of career paths, commenting that when he was in school, he was studying forestry and biology. In one of his best pieces of wisdom from the session, he said that “Part of knowing what you want is knowing what’s not meant for you.” It was his love of movies that continued to grow prompting him to get into the industry as a screenwriter. However, that background in forestry and wildlife would come in handy on his next assignment, Brother Bear.

Tab said goodbye to the kids, and jetted off to Florida for a short-term residence at the Yacht Club resort where he would go to the Animation studio that was part of the Disney-MGM Studios (now Disney’s Hollywood Studios) where Brother Bear was in production. Most of the original story, he said, was created from campfire stories that he and director Aaron Blaise would share. Together they wrote the original story which was mostly similar and had Kenai being transformed and subsequently mentored by an older bear named Grizz, voiced by Michael Clarke Duncan. He packed up and left and only after that did they change one prominent piece of the writing. Grizz would now be dropped for a younger bear, Koda, and that one “movie moment” as Tab says, where Kenai has to say the “he did something bad.”

Tab said the story of what happened on Brother Bear is truly the story of animation. It’s living and breathing. Things get dropped, added, changed, tweaked. He felt like a starting pitcher in a baseball game, there to set you up for success and then be moved or changed out to make sure the game is won, but also only one part of the greater team as a whole. When asked about how he would draw out emotion in his writing he said he would only put the words down, and it was the rest of that same team that would succeed in making you feel something, adding that he might have words that touch you emotionally in scene, but the rest of the team knew how to enhance those words and make it something truly special.

[five-rivers]

Long Night in the Valley, Chapter 6

Plans were made.

And discarded.

Different plans were made.  

These were also discarded.  

The problem (besides the fact that their best planners (except Yaoyorozu) were out of commission) was that no one knew what needed to be done. If anything.  Yes, Midoriya had run out of the testing center.  Yes, the whole situation where Midoriya was initially placed in a group apart from all the rest of them was shady.  Yes, the fact that Aizawa and the other half of class was still missing was distressing.  

But they didn’t know what was actually happening.  They didn’t know if the others needed help, or what help they would need.  They didn’t know why Midoriya was running, chased by heroes of all things. Jirou had wondered out loud if Midoriya had been mind-controlled by a villain with a quirk like Shinsou’s.  In response, Kaminari had a (brief) breakdown agonizing about whether he had inadvertently helped a villain kidnap his friend.

What a mad banquet of darkness.  

Luckily, they were training for… well, not situations like these, to be honest, but situations.  Just. In general.  Dark, mysterious situations, where one wrong step could send a person plummeting into an abyss of misery.

Anyway.  

When in such a vexing a perilous situation, the thing to do, as Momo had pointed out, was gather information.  

Was Jirou plugged into the wall?  Yes.  Did Shouji manifest enough ears and eyes to make even Fumikage slightly disturbed? Yes.  Did Yaoyorozu make tiny listening devices that fit on the mice and insects that Kouda had called?  Yes.  Did Kaminari spontaneously manifest hacking skills that no one knew about and then deny that they were hacking skills?  Yes.  Had Dark Shadow pressed herself flat to sneak under doors and temporary room partitions?

Also, yes.  

He tugged on Dark Shadow with his mind, directing her to return.

“Find anything new?” he asked.  Tsuyu, his current partner in not-crime-quite-yet and lookout, leaned closer as well, interested.  

“The lady whose quirk they were using passed out,” reported Dark Shadow.  “Everyone she used it on is still asleep.”

“Nothing about Midori?” asked Tsuyu.  

Dark Shadow’s facial expressions were often limited, but, this time, her scowl was clear.  “Stupid stuff.”

“Like?”

Dark Shadow huffed, and Fumikage felt her annoyance. “Like he’s a villain or a spy. Stupid.”

Tsuyu closed her eyes and swallowed with obvious distaste.

“Do you think that’s why he ran?  It seems unlike him.”

“Huh?” said Dark Shadow.  “Midori didn’t run.”

“What are you talking about, Dark Shadow?” asked Fumikage. “Speak clearly.”

Dark Shadow elbowed him.  “Midori’s friends ran!”

“You mean Ochako, Todoroki, and Iida?” asked Tsuyu.

“No, they’re still asleep.  His friends.  Like you and me are friends, Fumi!”

“You mean his quirk?”

“Uhhuh,” said Dark Shadow, bobbing.  “They’re like us.  Isn’t it obvious?”

“Not really,” said Tsuyu.  

Fumikage leaned and against the wall and slid down to put his head in his hands.  “What a mad banquet of darkness, indeed.  It is as if we journey at night, through a verdant and shadowy valley—”

“Come on, we have to tell the others,” said Tsuyu, nudging him.

.

“What happened?” asked Hitoshi, softly, not quite believing what he’d heard.  He rubbed his fingers over the folds of his artificial vocal cords, stored in the top pocket of his backpack.  Legally speaking, he wasn’t supposed to have it, or any hero support gear, outside the school he wasn’t licensed, even provisionally.    But Hizashi had insisted, and Kayama-sensei didn’t object, so…  

“According to the Hero Commission,” said Hizashi, voice tighter than his hands around the wheel, “Shouta and some of the 1-A students were targeted by a villain at the testing center.”

“What?  What villain? Shigaraki?”  That was the one that had been targeting 1-A again and again and again.  The one that had hurt him so badly at the USJ.  

“No,” said Hizashi.  “They said it was Midoriya.”

Hitoshi blinked, his brain first trying to find a villain that matched the name before shoving his fellow student’s face into his mind’s eye. “You mean, he’s the one that wound up fighting the villain.  How many bones did he break this time?  Or did he get a new quirk?”

“No,” said Kayama-sensei.  “They’re really saying that Midoriya is a villain.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” stated Hitoshi. “They think the second coming of All Might sunshine child is a villain?  If he got locked in Tartarus, half the population would, I don’t know, start confessing their sins and become model citizens before the day was out.  If his quirk wasn’t bone-breaking nonsense, I’d say it was the power of friendship.”  He stopped, considered that last sentence.  “Wait, this is about his quirk, isn’t it?”

“We don’t know,” said Hizashi.  

“They’re saying he kidnapped All Might.”

Hitoshi wondered if this was what people felt like when he used his quirk on them, because his brain had just bluescreened and was struggling to restart.  

“They’re what?” screeched Hizashi.  It was a good thing he was the one driving the car.  Hitoshi winced and covered his ears.  

“Didn’t All Might steal Vlad-sensei’s car?” asked Hitoshi, feeling dazed.  “How do you get from that, to Midoriya kidnapping him from across town.”

“I don’t know,” said Kayama, “but it’s all over Heronet and the commission is starting to release it to news networks.”

“That has to be the- the stupidest thing I ever heard! I’d put more money on Yagi kidnapping Midoriya,” said Hizashi, loudly and angrily.  

“What the rat god said before we left makes much more sense now,” said Kayama, mournfully.  

Hitoshi blanched at her reference to the principal.  But then curiosity got the better of him.  “What did he say?”

“That to keep custody of all our staff and students, we were going to have to be creative.”

.

Hizashi had expected many things upon arriving at the testing center.  Being refused access to the unconscious teacher and students was one of them. Obstructive bureaucracy was one of them. People telling him something was illegal or forbidden by protocol when he knew it wasn’t was one of them.  Chaos was one of them.  Confusion was one of them.  Lack of organization was one of them.  

In these things, he was not disappointed.  

What he didn’t expect, however, was for the remaining half of Shouta’s class to not only be one hundred percent down with kinda-sorta kidnapping, but to have already laid a lot of the groundwork for it already.  

Maybe he should have.  But he didn’t.  How was it that Shouta, aka Mr. Expulsion, aka Mr. ‘you have no potential,’ had kept all the students from a class that had no scruples against committing things that most people would consider crimes?  A class that, having been given time to bond, would probably collectively turn to villainy rather than betray one of their number?

He paused and considered his long relationship with Shouta. Mentally squinted.  Never mind.  He could see it now.  

Well.  It wasn’t as if Hizashi wasn’t like that, too.  He’d never really considered expelling any of them.  Except Mineta.  Grape Juice was on thin ice.  

“We most likely would have acted already,” Yaoyorozu said as the rest of the class distracted the commission officials who were supposedly supervising the pickup of the children, “but we didn’t know what we’d do after. No escape plan.”

Reasonable.  The bus driver (Green Light, the Transit Hero) had gone back to the school after dropping them off and had to turn around once he heard the news.  

But, now, Recovery Girl was coming around with a fleet of ambulances from the hero hospital UA contracted with.  A hospital that was, incidentally, not the same as the one the Hero Commission wanted to bring all the people still affected by Saito’s quirk.  

Ambulances had room for riders.  It was unorthodox, but it would work.  

“Well, you have one now,” said Hizashi, quietly.  No one expected him to be quiet.  It made him almost invisible when he was.  

“I know you already have a plan,” interjected Hitoshi. “But is there anything I can do?”

Momo blinked.  “Actually, yes.  We could get them out anyway, but it would help a lot if we had the keys.”

.

The search for Uraraka hadn’t been going well before the city started to fall apart around them.  In fact, it had been going incredibly poorly, because various versions of All Might kept popping up to try and punch Suzuki’s face off.  Literally.  At least two of the All Mights had declared that as their intention prior to attacking.

Tenya wasn’t sure if he should be concerned about his friend’s mental state or baffled about his incredibly violent mental view of All Might.

Perhaps the eyeless villain in Kamino had left a strong impression on him?  But All Might couldn’t have been responsible for the villain’s injuries! It was All Might.  He hardly ever injured villains he took down.  

On the other hand, the villain at Kamino had been terrifyingly strong.  If there were to be an exception to the rule, he was certainly it.  

But the real reason, in Tenya’s opinion, the search had been going poorly was Suzuki.  The man would not stop talking.  His theories were even worse than Todoroki’s!

“That All Might is fake,” he was saying.  “He isn’t even using his quirk, just like Midoriya.”

“I think we all know that the All Might that exists in Midoriya’s mind is not, in fact, the real All Might,” said Aizawa.  

“This destruction is just another ploy, another distraction—”

“We get it,” said Aizawa.  “But it isn’t centered around us, so, logically, it must be centered around Uraraka.”

Suzuki scoffed.  “We should be looking for what Midoriya is trying to hide.”

“The only reason we aren’t beating you up right now,” said Aizawa, “is that we are looking for Uraraka.  So, shut up.”

“What about me?”

Tenya whipped around to see Uraraka stooped over behind them, breathing heavily, hands on her knees.  “Sorry,” she said, “I ran all the way here.”

Aizawa hurried over to her.  Tenya noted that he never quite turned his back to Suzuki.  

“What happened?” he asked.  “Where were you?”

“D- Izuku wanted to talk to me,” she said.  “He said something dangerous was about to happen, but if we went farther in, we could maybe get out?”  

Under normal circumstances, the overly vague report would have been cause for scolding, but Tenya could see how her eyes flicked to Suzuki. There were details she didn’t want him to hear.

“Did he say how to go further in?” asked Aizawa.  

“No.  That happened and he ran off.”  She gestured towards another building that was slowly collapsing.  

“Wait a moment,” said Suzuki.  “If you’re here, what’s there?”

“Uh,” said Uraraka.  

“He told you, didn’t he?  What did he say?”

“Excuse me!” said Tenya.  “You are being very rude right now!  Uraraka has just come back from a harrowing experience!”

Tenya was not very good at lying, but this wasn’t really a lie, per-se.  

The distinction didn’t seem to matter to Suzuki, who gave him a brief, incredulous look before turning back to the gathering storm.  “He doesn’t want us to see this.”

“Don’t you dare,” said Aizawa, eyes narrowing.

Suzuki didn’t listen.

Tenya caught up to him without any trouble and punched him in the back of the head.  “Ow,” said Tenya, who had forgotten he wasn’t wearing his hero costume.  

“Did you break your fingers?” asked Aizawa as he dragged Suzuki back by the foot.  

“I’m going to have you all arrested and stripped of you licenses, unless—”

“Because we didn’t help you with an illegal interrogation? No, you’re not,” said Aizawa.

“Nana!”

The voice bounced off the buildings and was swept away by the wind.  

“Nana!  Master, where are you?”

It was the voice of the younger, vigilante All Might.  

“Is he calling the name or the number?” asked Uraraka.  

“Master!  Please! Answer me!”

With a shuddering heave, the building right next to them tipped over, falling into rubble before it even hit the ground.  The storm wind, heavy with rain and lightning, whipped down the street with all the force of a hurricane.  Tenya had to brace himself and cover his eyes.  

When he could see again, it was to discover Suzuki had run off again.  Towards the fallen building.  

Tenya was honestly torn between letting him get beaten up by whatever had flattened the building, whether it be Midoriya’s subconscious, the illusory All Might, or something worse.  Although, arguably, all those were the same the same thing.  

But Tenya was training to be a hero.  Heroes couldn’t pick and choose who to save.  He, and everyone else took off after Suzuki.  

They all stopped, though, when a boy in a torn UA uniform clambered over the rubble.  The boy cupped his hands around his mouth.  “Nana!”

That hair was recognizable from a mile away, not to mention the height.  All Might. Yet a different version.  Tenya had known UA was All Might’s alma mater, but seeing him in a uniform like this, seeing him vulnerable, not in the way of a man at the end of his career, but as someone just starting out, someone like them, was oddly humbling and completely terrifying.  

What pushed him to this?  What put that distraught tone in his voice?  What put that bloody slash in his uniform and bruised his face?

Tenya had a sinking suspicion he knew what.  He didn’t even want to come into contact with the memory of that monster from Kamino.  

All Might was scanning the ground, looking for- Looking for something.  Someone?

His eyes fell on them, and even from this distance, Tenya could see them widen.  All Might began to scramble down the hill.  

“You,” he shouted, as he came closer.  “You—Underclassmen.  Have you seen-?”  He gasped for air.  

Even Suzuki, from what he could see, looked taken aback.  

“Have you seen a woman about—” He hesitated and adjusted his hand downward, to about the height of his chin.  Which was still taller than Tenya.  

All Might was tall in high school.  Or, at least, Midoriya thought All Might was tall in high school.  

This was confusing.  

“A woman about this tall.  She’s—She has black hair, and she wears it, um, half up.”  All Might fanned his hand behind his head to illustrate. “She’s a hero.  Wears- Wears yellow gloves.”  He paused for a moment, eyes flicking from one to the next.  “You haven’t seen her.”  He whipped back around.  “Nana!”

“What even is this supposed to be?” demanded Suzuki.  

“Truly,” said Todoroki, “their bond is inspiring.  For All Might to tell Midoriya even of this tragedy…”

“Todoroki!  That’s entirely inappropriate!” exclaimed Tenya, turning to face his classmate.  

The wind picked up again.  The buildings began to twinkle.  

Earlier, you said something about being a vigilante. What was up with that, anyway?

Midoriya’s voice sounded like it was right next to him, and yet the sound was entirely sourceless.  

The colors shifted.

.

Izuku wasn’t sure if he wanted to curse the bystander culture encouraged by the hero system or bless it for its unintentional effects.  Even though Toshinori was clearly suffering, slumped against a wall and shoulders heaving, no one stopped to help him.  In fact, most people were averting their eyes, barely looking at him.  

Generally speaking, Izuku decided, he’d curse it.  In this particular instance, however, it benefitted them.  

He looked back and forth before dashing across the street, not caring about jaywalking at the moment.  He jogged up to Toshinori, swallowing the name before it left his lips. Right.  They were undercover, and the commission definitely knew Toshinori’s real name.  

“Dad,” he said instead, and mentally felt himself collide with a wall.  Couldn’t he have picked something else?  Come up with some fake name?  Or just not used a name to begin with.  With effort, he picked himself up and his dream-self kept running.  “I got your text,” he said, instead, for the benefit of anyone listening.  He inserted himself under one of Toshinori’s arms.  “Let’s go home.”

He smiled at a couple of people who were staring and hoped they wouldn’t report this.  

“I can walk, I can walk,” said Toshinori heaving himself off the wall with a shudder.  “I’m fine.”

This was a lie.  Izuku could still see the flashback playing out in his mind’s eye.  Even so, he nodded and tried to give Toshinori space, even as Toshinori put one hand on his shoulder and leaned on it heavily.  

This mental invasion was wearing both of them out.  No.  All of them out.  This was not, they reminded him, at all normal.  

Five gently pressed ways of dealing with flashbacks into his awareness.  Thank goodness for Five and his comparative normalcy.  

“We’re okay,” he said.  “We’re just on a street in Musutafu.  You can feel me, right?  And the sidewalk under your feet.  And you can hear the traffic and smell the cars.”  He kept going.

Toshinori gave a hum of assent after each item Izuku listed, but he could tell it wasn’t enough.  He might be able to see and hear, to touch and taste, but he could do the same things to that mental battleground.  

“What if,” said Izuku, desperately, “you tell me a story?”

“A story?” rasped Toshinori.  

“Y-yeah.  Earlier, you said something about being a vigilante.  What was up with that, anyway?”

.

It isn’t well known, said Yagi’s voice as the world came back into focus in an entirely different city with entirely different weather and signage, but I didn’t grow up in a terribly pleasant area.  

In fact, there was quite a lot of crime.  

Aizawa caught sight of a familiar head of yellow hair positioned above a plain gakuran.  The younger version of Yagi was staring down an alleyway.  

Suddenly, Aizawa felt himself pulled to stand right behind Yagi. A man with a mutation quirk was being mugged by two young men with fire quirks.  He blinked.  The scene didn’t change, even behind his eyelids.  He couldn’t see his students, or Suzuki.  

What was this, a cutscene?

I, ah, rather disliked that.  Obviously, my thoughts about become a symbol of peace for the world were, well… Just thoughts.  But even then, for my own little corner of the world, I wanted to make a difference.

Yagi, showcasing the fact that he’d always been a bit of an idiot, pulled on a medical mask and threw his bookbag at one of the muggers and punched the other one in the face.  At least he wasn’t using his quirk to do it.  The villain would have been paste on the side of the building.  

On the other hand, this was presumably some imagining of Midoriya’s, possibly based on a story he heard from All Might, if the voiceover was anything to go by.  

Oh, said Midoriya, I did that a couple of times.  Stop a mugging, I mean.                                                                                                                                          

I thought you said you weren’t involved in any vigilantism.

It wasn’t vigilantism!  They were just things I happened to run into, and I couldn’t just not help.

Sometimes, I wonder if your quirk really isn’t something like a villain magnet…

The scene shifted again, making Aizawa feel dizzy, even though he wasn’t moving.  Except, maybe that was why he felt dizzy.  Motion sickness.  

I never knew my parents.  I grew up in a foster home.  

Aizawa blinked, and the scene became clear.  A small apartment building with a tiny, tattered lawn. Someone’s shoe had been left on the sidewalk in front, and Yagi was climbing the stairs to the door.  

Then, Aizawa was inside, and internally wincing at the noise level.  Screaming preteens were so far out of his comfort level you couldn’t see it with a telescope.  

(The exception, of course, was Eri.)

As he watched, Yagi was shoved several times, tripped, and had a water-manipulation quirk used to drop something that Aizawa suspected was toilet water on his head.  

Overall, the attitude towards people like us wasn’t quite what it was now, but to be parentless on top of that?  Many of the other children at the home thought there had to be something wrong with me.  There was a sigh.  Judging from what I’ve seen of your memories, I suspect you had the worse time of it.

I had Mom, though.

Aizawa found himself in a small bedroom.  Pinned to one of the walls was a corkboard.  Which looked distressingly like Todoroki’s.  Yagi crossed his arms as he contemplated it.

Once I had built up my confidence, one of the things I was trying to do was find out about a human trafficking ring.

Oh, yeah, those suck.  

… Why do I feel like you have personal experience in the subject.  

It wasn’t my fault.  

Soft, fond laughter filled the room before it was whisked away and replaced with a warehouse that just screamed ‘villain hideout.’

There was a fight.  

I tried my best, tried to be sneaky… I knew I wouldn’t win in a straight-out fight.  But…

Yagi was surrounded and clearly losing.  Then the doors burst open.  A figure floated, framed by the threshold, backlit by the streetlights.

First contact, whispered a voice like the wind.

Nana, said Midoriya.  

Nana, agreed All Might’s voice.  She saved me.  I… Didn’t want to get caught.  I ran. Went back to the muggings.  

And then?

And then—

Another change in scenery.  A sidewalk by a stream.  Yagi stood in his gakuran a few meters away from a woman in a hero costume.  The yellow gloves stood out.  

And then, a week later, she found me.

The woman’s head snapped in Aizawa’s direction, and he had just enough time to realize she could see him before the scene glitched out and he was falling through an empty sky.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Smokey brand Retrospective: The Gift and the Curse

Brendan Fraser has seen a resurgence lately and i love every bit of that. Dude has been one of my favorite actors for decades. I’m an Eighties kid who grew up during the Nineties so i was right there when he came onto the scene. I was a massive fan f all of his early work; Bedazzled, George of the Jungle, Encino Man, Airheads, Blast from the Past, and even Monkeybone. Dude hit his stride right around the Aughts and then completely disappeared. We found out later it was because of some really f*cked up sh*t but he made it through and proved he still had with Robot Man on Doom Patrol. I’m so glad this guy got another shot at this movie star sh*t but i wanted to revisit the franchise that put him on the map: The Mummy.

The Mummy

I love this campy ass flick, man. I saw this one in the theaters because, at the time, i was super into CG. It had only been a few years since Jurassic Park blew that sh*t out the water and only a few months after The Matrix made everyone sh*t the bed. The Mummy just missed that window but it was still incredibly enjoyable. This was my Indiana Jones because i didn’t care about Indy for a long time. It’s not that they were bad movies, i was just too young to appreciate them. The Mummy came out right at the time i started to really understand why i liked cinema, what a good permanence truly was, and how beautiful a film could be. The Mummy covered almost all of those bases. Fraser did an excellent job as Rick O’Connor and Rachel Weisz stunned as Evelyn Carnahan. F*cking Evie, man. I was already a fan of Fraser but this movie made me really pay attention to Weisz and she became one of my favorite actresses. It helps tremendously that she is f*cking gorgeous! Rounding out the cast is John Hannah as Evie’s brother, Johnathan and Arnold Vosloo as the titular mummy, Imhotep. Also, i can’t not mention the scummiest of scumbags, Benny, portrayed so effortlessly by Kevin J. O'Connor.

I absolutely adore this film. It’s a not the best example of Nineties cinema, how can it be, and it’s a terrible remake of the original Universal Mummy but it does what it wants to do very well. I love the ideas and the world they built with this campy clusterf*ck. It shouldn’t work, it should be terrible, but it’s one of the funnest films i have ever seen. It has it’s issues, absolutely, but they are minor compared the non-stop action, the incredible cinematography, the dated but ambitious CG effects ,and solid performances from every principal actor. They really let Fraser do his thing and that energy carried over to the rest of the cast. Evie is every bit the bad ass as Sarah Connor or Ellen Ripley but is still a very girly-girl; Something that seems to be frowned upon nowadays. Imhotep id an unrelenting, vicious antagonist who controls powers from long ago, literally willing the seven plagues of Egypt into modern times. This movie is all over the f*cking place but it worse so well and every time i see it, i have as much fun as i did way back when i was a ripened fourteen years old.

The Mummy Returns

Boy, this one suffers terrible from Sequelitis. It does nothing new and is an almost exact retread of the first film but we have new characters and a new villain in the guise of... The Scorpion King! Yes, this is the first film that titular Arachno-Monarch makes his first appearance portrayed by a very young, very beefy, and later, very poorly rendered, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson! That’s right, long before he was Franchise Viagra, way before he was punching out Dom into a stalemate in them god awful Fast flicks, The Rock got his start here, in the sequel to The Mummy and he’s f*cking terrible! Oh my god, is he bad but it works. His awful, awful, performance fits right in with the utter camp of this ridiculous franchise ans, to no one’s surprise, i loved every second of it. Now, as much as i love The Rock in this thing, i have to absolutely give it to Patricia Velasquez as Meela Nais, the physical reincarnation of Imhotep’s regicide partner and f*ck-buddy, Anck-Su-Namun. I didn’t talk about her much in the entry about The Mummy but that as mostly because she was more a plot device rather than a character. She isn’t much else in this one either but at least we got to actually see her for more than ten minutes. Plus, that fight between her and Nefertiri was f*cking glorious. Sixteen year old Smokey appreciated the f*ck out of that.

The returning cast hits their points perfectly. That chemistry never falters. Fraser, Weisz, and Hannah are exceptional together and Vosloo is, somehow, both far more menacing and hilarious at the same time. There’s this scene toward the end where he is utterly defeated and it’s the funniest sh*t i have ever seen. I also really enjoy both Oded Fehr as Ardeth Bay far more in this one than the last because he gets to do sh*t finally. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje was also a welcome surprise as  the muscle, Lock-Nah. Dude just kinds of stands around and i think he gets into a fight with Fehr that was pretty cool but a little trite. Obviously, as a film from the early Aughts, it has it;s problems. There’s a ton of culturally insensitive sh*t that Zoomers would probably be upset about but, you know, f*ck em. It’s like a sense f humor is illegal nowadays. That said, having Rachel Weisz, as gorgeous and half-naked as she is and was, portray an Egyptian is a little much nowadays. At least Patricia Velasquez is a type of Brown? An attempt was made. This thing is a mess and i enjoy every second of it. The Mummy Returns is substantially worse that the first but, at the same time, just so batsh*t that it is equally as entertaining. But f*ck that kid, though. Every time he’s onscreen all of the good times are thrown right out the goddamn window!

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I gave this one the hard pass for years. It looked like trash. Like straight up dog sh*t. This thing came out seven years after Returns and i just didn’t care. I was one hundred percent in my hipster film snob era and couldn’t be bothered. For a full f*cking decade and some change. Seriously, i just watched this thing the day before yesterday. For the first time. It was the inspiration for this retrospective because, after seeing this train wreck, i went back to check out the first two just to get the taste of dogsh*t out of my mouth. There are several changes made to the formula that immediately take me out of this film. First, and most egregiously, no more Rachel Weisz! She didn’t come back for the third. The reason behind her absence has run the gambit from vanity, to scheduling conflicts, to literally never getting a script. I don;t really care why, all i know is that her absence was felt. Maria Bello did her best but she isn’t MY Evie. Another “choice” was to age up that awful f*cking kid into an awful f*cking adult. That’s right, this is a “passing of the torch flick” and Luke Ford’s Alex O'Connell was supposed to take over the franchise going forward. That didn’t happen because this is Rick’s franchise. The Mummy would be nothing without Fraser and the at was proven when this thing tanked. It wasn’t all bad though. I really liked the new mummy, Han. They did some really fin things with his abilities and Jet Li never once phoned in an action scene. Unfortunately, even with the strength of the brand and outstanding lead performances, this thing still sucks.

I had a time with Tomb but it wasn’t like the time i had with it’s predecessors. I don’t know if it’s because I'm so much older and hardened by life but all i see is the flaws in this one. It doesn’t have the nostalgia goggles like the first two so i can’t enjoy it like i enjoy those. I just see plot holes instead of camp. Bad CG instead of rustic attempt. Poor set pieces instead of Nineties jank. Bad character writing instead of unfortunately hilarious dialogue. Tomb isn’t terrible but it ain’t good wither. It;s mediocre and i know the first two aren’t great but they’re better than whatever this wanted to be. It’s weird to see because there are a lot of great ideas here. I can see the vision that lays outside the margins and it’s frustrating. Fraser does is in his element as Rick and Li’s Han is a physical powerhouse but that’s not enough. As awesome as this movie gets when those two are on screen, literally everything around them is dismissible and i don’t understand how or why. I think a lot of the chemistry was lost when the focus was shifted to Alex from Rick and the recasting of Eve really didn’t do this film any favors. However, even with all of my frustrations, i can’t say i had a terrible time with this thing. It was entertaining, if a little bogus.

[makeste]

just another long rambling post trying to explain why I, a Bakugou fan, would treasonously want him to lose his quirk

this is something I had originally intended to post about later down the line, after we actually know for sure whether or not Bakugou is going to lose his quirk. but seeing as parts of this post (see: point #5) also indirectly address some issues that people had with the latest chapter (283) as well, I decided I might as well jump the gun.

this is a topic I’ve gotten a lot of asks about, and so I’ve tried to gather all of those various arguments into one single post with my own comments and rebuttals. however, the purpose of this post isn’t really to convince anyone or change anyone’s mind. it’s pretty much just an explanation of why I am so sold on the idea. I think it’s a little defensive at times, and I definitely feel like one of the side effects of getting asks like this...

...is that I feel compelled to explain that yes, as the veritable mountain of Bakuessays on this blog can attest to, I am in fact a Bakugou fan, and have not been standing here this whole time just waiting for the perfect moment to rip off my disguise revealing my secret “#1 Deku Stan!! BAKUGOU CAN SUCK IT” shirt underneath while cackling nefariously. like. just so we’re clear on that here.

I know I’ve said this repeatedly, but it’s precisely because I’m such an adamant fan of Bakugou that I’m excited over the story potential of him possibly becoming quirkless. as for why I keep bringing it up, honestly it’s mostly just because I keep getting the asks, lol. and so my options are basically to either say “ah you know what, you’ve convinced me,” or to keep trying to explain my reasoning at the risk of making everyone increasingly mad and/or bored.

anyway, so there are five arguments which I want to address, and they are as follows:

it’s repetitive/boring/we’ve already had the plotline of a prodigy student losing their quirk.

it cheapens Bakugou’s character development by directly “forcing” him to learn something, instead of him arriving at the conclusion on his own.

losing his quirk would put him on the back-burner, story-wise, and exclude him from further fights and story development.

Bakugou doesn’t need to learn anything more/there isn’t anything important Bakugou could learn by losing his quirk that he couldn’t learn in some other manner.

losing his quirk would mean him falling hopelessly behind Deku, and playing second fiddle to him when he should be Deku’s equal. it would render his whole story and all of his development meaningless.

before I get started, please be advised that this is a very long post. like, tragically long. idk I did my best to rein it in but it just got ramblier and ramblier sob anyways so here’s a cut.

okay!

1. it’s repetitive/boring/we’ve already had the plotline of a prodigy student losing their quirk.

have you ever heard people pose the argument that all of the good stories have already been told? the idea is basically that there’s no such thing as a truly original story anymore, because humankind has been telling stories for thousands of years and we’ve exhausted any and all original ideas by this point. the problem with this, though, is that it assumes that (1) stories must always be 100% completely original in order to be good, and (2) if the basic building blocks of two stories are the same, then those stories must basically be identical. which is very much not the case. classic story structures are classic for a reason. the best stories are based around themes and conflicts and story beats which have been reimagined in a million different ways, and which work precisely because they’re familiar, and because they still resonate with people each and every time. and each and every time, it’s still a different story, because even if the ideas and themes and even some of the emotions are the same, the people are different, and no two people’s stories will ever be exactly the same.

all of which is to say that firstly, just because someone has already lost their quirk doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting enough concept to explore again. but more importantly, Bakugou and Mirio are not the same person. Bakugou is a completely different character than Mirio, with a completely different personality and history, and completely different relationships with the other principal characters. in other words it is absolutely not the same story at all. Bakugou won’t react the same way as Mirio. he’s not a character who can be faded into the background like Mirio unfortunately was. and most importantly, he’s a character whose own personal history with the formerly quirkless main character makes this an extremely personal and compelling character arc which would hit in a vastly different way than Mirio’s. I don’t think it’s repetitive at all, any more than “the heroes fight the villains” is a repetitive plotline. basically this argument, which is subjective to begin with, just doesn’t hold any water to me, I’m sorry.

2. it cheapens Bakugou’s character development by directly “forcing” him to learn something instead of him arriving at the conclusion on his own.

okay there are two counterarguments that I want to make here. the first is that this has always been Bakugou’s character development process since day one. he has never simply just arrived at a zenlike conclusion on his own through stern self-reflection or anything like that. his entire story has been him learning and growing from one humbling experience after another. examples:

he stops bullying Deku after Deku saves his life.

he undergoes a huge shift in attitude after Deku beats him in their training fight on the second day of school. he eats a healthy serving of humble pie and listens to the constructive criticisms that Momo, Aizawa and the rest pile onto him afterwards, and the result is that he becomes less cocky and starts taking his training much more seriously.

he wins-but-loses to Todoroki in the school festival and it serves as a reminder that simply winning isn’t everything. being the best is meaningless if it’s handed to you. as a result his determination is fueled even more.

he is LITERALLY FORCED POINT-BLANK to work together with Deku in order to pass his final exam. he is dragged kicking and screaming. I can’t stress enough how completely unwilling he was to learn this lesson otherwise lmao. it’s abundantly clear that he would never have done this on his own had the lesson not been almost literally beaten into his own head.

his experience at Kamino -- being targeted because he was perceived as villainous, and feeling responsible for All Might’s retirement afterwards -- is perhaps the best example of how Katsuki takes a terrible experience and uses it to grow leaps and bounds as a person. he develops a new awareness of how his actions can potentially be perceived by others (a vital lesson if he ever hopes to make it to the top). and he’s profoundly humbled (I keep using that word, so I just want to pause a sec to clarify that I mean it not in a “humiliated and crushed” way, but in a “freedom from pride and arrogance” way; in other words this is ultimately a positive thing, even if it comes about in an unpleasant way) by the experience, enough so that he finally lets his walls of pride crumble enough to have his weirdly violent heart-to-heart with Deku. and as a result the two of them grow closer, and All Might sets him down the path of Win To Save and Save To Win. something which I feel compelled to note that he still had ABSOLUTELY NO CLUE ABOUT beforehand. this is another thing that literally had to be spelled out for him before he could grasp it. it’s very hard for me to conceive a way of somehow spinning this particular development, which is by far the most important in his arc to date, as being something he just “learned on his own.”

and I forgot to mention it, but him failing the provisional license exam also directly contributed to the character development mentioned above! that was what finally tipped him over the edge. even though he was reeling from everything that had happened at Kamino, he still had too much pride to actually open up to anyone about it until this second “loss” of sorts finally convinced him that he really was doing something terribly wrong, and pushed him to talk to Deku about it.

and that brings us to where we’re at currently! there are a few other things I didn’t mention, like Jeanist lecturing him on the meaning behind choosing a hero name, and his internship with Endeavor teaching him... something. tbd lol. but anyways my point here is that Bakugou has always been a character who learns chiefly through his mistakes and painful experiences. it’s extremely rare for him to just arrive at some new tidbit of enlightenment all on his own, and if it does, it often still originally stems from a past -- often painful -- experience. that’s just how he is. his stubbornness is one of my favorite things about him, but it’s also always hindered his growth to some extent, and has made it harder for him to change his viewpoint all on his own, even though he is to his credit very open to change once something finally does sink in. he’s someone who’s always trying to be better. it’s just that a lot of times he needs to be nudged and pushed in the right direction, particularly on those few occasions where the thing he has to learn is something that runs counter to his current viewpoint to such a degree that he’s resistant to learning it (see, again, working together with Deku in the final exam).

and that finally brings me to my second counterargument to this point, which is that I very strongly feel that having to learn something “directly” in this very blunt manner does not make it cheap. that actually comes off as a bit insulting to all of Bakugou’s previous character development if I’m being honest. his development isn’t cheapened just because something was harder for him to learn. he’s not less of a good person just because he had a harder struggle to learn those things, and needed help and guidance, and made mistakes along the way. I feel very strongly that people shouldn’t be judged on how they grow, or their reasons for that growth. that to me feels like gatekeeping the concept of being a good person. “Bakugou isn’t as good of a character because he only started saving others and caring about people after he got kidnapped.” like, come on. people grow through their experiences! that’s literally where all growth stems from, even growth that on the surface appears to be self-fueled and motivated. every single action, every single motivation, happens because at some point or other, that person experienced something that led to them thinking and feeling that way, and deciding to do that thing. we are the sum total of our experiences, I believe is how the saying goes. and that goes double for characters in a story, because watching them go through those experiences is how we the audience discover who these characters are.

anyway so this argument is also a miss from where I stand. if it takes losing his quirk for Bakugou to have an epiphany about true strength, and what truly makes a hero on the inside, then goddammit, good for him. that’s nothing to be ashamed of. in the end that’s still his hard-earned growth, and he’s not any lesser for having learned it through adversity instead of just stumbling upon the answer somewhere along the way.

3. losing his quirk would put him on the back-burner, story-wise, and exclude him from further fights and story development.

hard disagree here as well. losing his quirk would be the single biggest thing that ever happened to Bakugou. a development like that would almost demand we focus on it. perhaps not right away (just like we didn’t immediately focus on him right after Kamino), but it would be inevitable. in fact, I’d argue that Bakugou losing his quirk is one of the only ways to guarantee that the story puts his character development back at the forefront again at some point, and doesn’t just drop the plotline entirely in an “eh, good enough” manner. it’s a development that basically makes his character development the focus of the plot, instead of us only ever getting little side anecdote scenes of “slowly becoming less of an asshole” for the rest of the series. it’s character development on hard mode, to be sure, but the fact of the matter is that Bakugou is not the main character, and so his personal character journey is only going to make it back to the forefront of the story if and when something significant enough occurs so as to make it worthy of being a focus.

as for the other half of this argument, the thing to understand here is that “Kacchan loses his quirk” is NOT the beginning, middle, and end of that storyline all in one. it absolutely won’t be “welp too bad, guess you can’t be a hero after all” and that’s that. “Kacchan loses his quirk” is only the first act of a story arc that continues with “Kacchan struggles with the aftermath of losing his quirk”, and concludes with “Kacchan regains his quirk and reemerges stronger than ever.” how that will ultimately play out, I don’t know! Vestiges; Eri; OFA; the quirk-restoring bullets which the villains also had at some point unless I’m misremembering things; whatever! the key thing here is that I have faith that it will play out. every single argument you see here is in the context of me believing that the endgame here is not a loss for him, but a win. it’s actually the win, because if all goes well, he comes back stronger than ever because he’s finally done away with the one remaining thing that was holding him back -- that lingering unnecessary fear, insecurity, and pride that’s still at the root of so many of his actions even now.

which brings me to my next point.

4. Bakugou doesn’t need to learn anything more/there isn’t anything important Bakugou could learn by losing his quirk that he couldn’t learn in some other manner.

you’ve no doubt guessed it, but I once again disagree here lol. he definitely still has more to learn. Bakugou’s character development thus far has been extraordinary, but all the same, I still want more for him. I don’t think this is the best he’s capable of. his ceiling is much, much higher, and to say that this is as good as he gets is to underestimate him imo.

here’s an incomplete list of things that Bakugou, at present, is still clearly struggling with, numbered alphabetically so that I can explain afterwards how losing his quirk would address each one.

a.) he still obsessively compares his progress to Deku’s at every turn. we got a little bit of insight into his thought processes just recently in chapter 275, and it was extremely revealing. his rivalry with Deku has been a good thing thus far, but this is primarily because up until this point he has been able to keep pace with Deku. so much of his confidence and self-worth seems to hinge on this one specific thing which is notably outside his control, and that’s troubling to me. but more on that further down in a bit.

b.) he’s still incapable of admitting that he cares about people (which is endearing to be fair, but nonetheless indicates that he still views caring as a weakness, and is uncomfortable acknowledging or expressing it).

c.) he has not yet sorted out the problem of coming off as hostile, vulgar, and aggressive even when a situation necessitates him to be more cooperative. to put it plainly, he’s incapable of dialing back his personality even the slightest degree and as a result gets edited out of interviews and has his friends constantly scrambling to apologize and/or interpret for him. I know that a lot of people -- myself included -- actually adore this feral side of him and even consider it one of his most endearing traits, but still, the fact of the matter is that it’s not a good thing that he’s entirely incapable of even the slightest bit of emotional regulation. at some point he’s going to have to sort his shit out at least a little bit; even Endeavor and Mirko are capable of reining it in when it comes to dealing with the public at large and with the press. if he wants to reach the top ranks he still has a lot of growing to do here.

d.) he still thinks of his own worth purely in terms of physical strength. this is a big one. Katsuki has always defined his own world in terms of strength and weakness. “strong” is good; “weak” is bad. people who win are strong. people with quirks are strong. he has a good quirk so he’s strong. Deku doesn’t have a quirk so he shouldn’t be strong (which becomes a paradox and a source of great fear and confusion to him when he realizes on a deep subconscious level that Deku somehow is strong in spite of lacking a quirk). All Might is the best hero because he’s strong and never loses. he’s going to be even better than All Might, and he’ll do it by being strong and never losing.

except that these ideas are all limited, and limiting. physical strength is not the only kind of strength. All Might wasn’t the number one hero and the Symbol of Peace only because he was strong. Katsuki isn’t strong only because he has a good quirk. but he’s still stuck on this idea regardless, and everything he does, everything he is is defined by this idea. even now, with everything he’s learned, he’s still stuck in this limited perspective. and the very obvious problem with that is that it places him in a precarious emotional position where if he ever actually loses, or something happens to strip that physical strength of his away, his entire core of self-worth stands to fall apart as a result. he’s put all his eggs in that basket. and it’s the source of all of his insecurity, and it’s a weakness that’s just waiting to be exploited, and which is holding him back from discovering and acknowledging so many other good things about himself.

e.) and last but not least we’ve got what is by far his biggest current failing (and I say not to put him down, but rather in that same spirit of “learning to acknowledge your own weaknesses” which he himself has so readily embraced), which is that he is still only focused on himself. mind you, I’m not saying that he’s a bad person, or that he doesn’t care about other people! but I am saying that he is self-centered, and that’s just a fact, and I would defy anyone to try and argue otherwise tbh. he is constantly and completely focused only on his own goals. and on top of that he also has great difficulty seeing things from any perspective other than his own, which has been the cause of numerous clashes and misunderstandings with other people, some more disastrous than others (see: that one time he thought Deku must be looking down on him because he couldn’t conceive of a situation where anyone would actually want to accept help from someone else, rather than being self-sufficient, and thus assumed that Deku’s attempt to help him was in fact an insult). he casts himself in the role of the main character, and dismisses most everyone else as “extras.” and it took him an extraordinarily long time to learn the importance of learning from and helping other people (and again, this was something which had to be explicitly spelled out for him. I’ll say it again and again if I have to, because it’s so important in understanding where Bakugou is coming from and what his mindset is in all of this. he had to have it spelled out, because it was genuinely something which wouldn’t have occurred to him otherwise, because it’s so alien to everything he grew up believing up till that point, and because he has so much difficulty seeing other perspectives).

and again, I’m not saying this to dump on him or imply that he doesn’t care! because he does; we’ve seen that demonstrated on multiple occasions. he has compassion for others. he wants to do the right thing and he wants to be a good person, and he tries very hard in his own way. but he is nonetheless still stuck in his own perspective. he struggles with empathy and being able to see from other people’s points of view. and that is a huge barrier to his becoming the greatest hero of all time, and it’s probably the most difficult barrier to overcome. the behavior is something he can and has been chipping away at little by little, but the root causes of the behavior are still there.

anyway. so now that I’ve said all of that, which probably could have been its own essay in and of itself, how would losing his quirk do anything to address these issues? so let’s now break that down point by point as well, using the same alphabetical numbering system as before. I’m skipping the first one because I’ll address it further down, so we’ll start with b.

b.) it makes him more vulnerable in that it’s a huge blow to his pride. how is that a good thing you ask? because pride is always a double-edged sword. the downside is that losing it hurts his self-esteem (but more on that in a sec), but the upside is it opens him up more to accepting kindness from other people, and allowing himself to express kindness and caring himself in return. pride is almost always the biggest obstacle in doing that. so the short of this is that it could lead to us seeing a more open, willingly vulnerable side to him that would strengthen his relationships and serve him well in the long run.

c.) in a similar vein, the ego check would probably help to address some of his emotional instability as well. a not-insignificant chunk of his tactless exterior is basically just a projection; a tough guy persona he’s constructed over the years as part of his neverending quest to be strong. there’s also a fair amount of insecurity (interpreting everything other people say in the worst way possible and reacting with defensive hostility), arrogance/boastfulness, and fear of vulnerability (aka weakness) mixed in as well. so I could see the whole experience leading to a softening of his personality. in my ideal world this would mostly be just temporary, with his usual Bakuattitude gradually being restored piece by piece as his soul searching adventures wear on and he starts acting like his old self more and more. but I do think that in the end, the loss of that insecurity in particular would go a long way towards helping him gain the ability to chill out just a little bit more when the situation calls for it.

d.) it strips him of that physical strength he’s depended on and defined himself by his whole life. sometimes we need to lose something in order to see and appreciate the other things we take for granted or don’t even realize that we have. Katsuki has so many other qualities that make him a good person and a great hero. he’s intelligent, perceptive, brave, resourceful, and extraordinarily determined. he’s strategic and analytical and quick-thinking. he inspires devotion in others and is a natural leader. and he is honest and sticks to his principles and stands up for his beliefs. there is so much more to admire about him than just strength. so many other kinds of strength that he has. and stripping his quirk away would force him to see that at long last. he’s not just a nobody without his power. the things that make him a worthy hero at his core have very little to do with his quirk.

e.) and then the big one -- learning to see past himself. the truth is that Bakugou has always led a relatively privileged life. he was good at everything, the things he wanted came very easily to him, and he’s basically been at the top of the food chain since he was very young. but the downside of this is that it led to a deep-seeded fear of losing all of that, or failing to live up to it. and because he feared weakness so much, he’s spent his entire life looking down on weaker people. his fear of weakness led to him despising anyone with those “weak” qualities that he secretly feared, rather than having compassion for them. add to that the fact that he just has a hard time seeing outside of his own perspective, and we’ve got a situation in which perhaps the only way for him to really gain that kind of compassion and empathy is to experience some of these things for himself.

becoming quirkless is a way of presenting new challenges to him that he would have never faced otherwise. it forces him to answer questions he’s always been too afraid to ask. it forces him to look at himself in a way he never has before, to take a good long look at his own fears and desires. what if you can’t become the number one hero? do you just give up? do you stop trying? do you stubbornly push back against the inevitable? what happens if you do become weak? do you just accept that for the rest of your life? just sit back and watch as everyone else moves on without you? how can you fight without a quirk? what can you do without a quirk? why did you want to become a hero in the first place? why did you seek out strength? what was it for? why do you struggle with everything you have to reach the very top??

and I’d like to think that some of the answers to those questions are, yes, I am still strong. and, no, I can’t give up. and, no, I won’t accept defeat, no matter what. and, I’m not sure, but no matter what happens I’ll keep on fighting. and, because the person I admired taught me to never, ever give up. and, because I wanted to surpass my limits. and, because I want to be the best version of myself.

and that is growth. and it’s precisely the kind of growth you can’t achieve until you’ve searched deep within yourself and laid your soul out bare. and it will make him a better character, and a better hero in the end. and that’s what we’re all here for isn’t it? that’s literally what this story is about. the journey of these kids growing up to become spectacular heroes. so, just, I don’t know. is it really such a great surprise that I want to see it?

anyways, this was by far the longest of these answers and this post is really starting to wear on, so let’s just get to the last one and wrap this up.

5. losing his quirk would mean him falling hopelessly behind Deku, and playing second fiddle to him when he should be Deku’s equal. it would render his whole story and all of his development meaningless.

okay, listen. first of all, this argument often comes bundled with a whole host of other arguments about Bakugou’s relationship with Deku, and how the narrative has already given him numerous other “losses” to Deku, and how this would just be the latest and greatest loss of all. and I’m just going to say it straight up: this argument is ridiculous to me. actually, what it reminds me of is the very same flawed mindset that Bakugou himself has which I mentioned earlier (the forgotten point 4.a), where he is obsessed with comparing his progress to Deku’s at all times, and only considers himself a success if he beats out Deku. the idea here is basically that Bakugou and Deku are running along parallel tracks with the same end goal/finish line of becoming a hero. and so if Deku gets too far ahead and starts lapping Bakugou or something, then it’s like a slap in the face with regard to all of Bakugou’s hard work, and it makes Bakugou’s whole journey pointless because no matter what, he’ll never be able to catch up, especially if he loses his quirk, which is like the metaphorical equivalent of him spraining his ankle.

the thing is, this entire analogy is flawed. first of all, if Bakugou doesn’t sprain his ankle at some point, he'll miss out on discovering and healing a separate underlying injury that’s been unknowingly hampering his progress this entire time. and second, the race isn’t timed. it’s more like an infinite series of races where the finish line is never actually set in stone, because the finish line isn’t actually “beat the other person”; the finish line is “run as fast and as far as you possibly can, and do it in a better way than anyone has ever done before, and while you’re at it maybe stop and save a few million people, because being the best runner isn’t actually about being faster than each other, even though that admittedly makes this a pretty crappy analogy.” anyways though, so what this means is that the sheer magnitude and scale of this race is such that little victories and losses here and there are ultimately meaningless in the big picture. maybe Bakugou sprains his ankle. maybe Deku breaks an arm or two or three or four. maybe someone shows up at some point and starts uprooting the entire track all around them and they have to put the whole race aside for the time being, because what the fuck. and maybe after spraining his ankle, Bakugou eventually comes zooming back ahead on a segway. and maybe Deku stops running for a while without Bakugou there, because he loses sight of his goal without his rival there to keep him on pace.

but anyway! the point is that declaring a winner and loser in this race before we reach the end is kind of absurd in that it ignores the whole nature of the race and how long-term it is. you see the beauty of the race is that it’s actually the opposite of footraces in real life. in this race, the longer the two of them run, the faster and stronger they become. and this same logic applies to any hurdles which are placed in their lanes along the way. the goal of these hurdles isn’t to trick or punish or humiliate them; it’s to help them get even faster and stronger and ultimately closer to their goal. and also, tbh? it’s a long, long race you guys. and so sometimes, as a fan, you almost start to want to see those hurdles. because otherwise it’s just a lot of endless running and running and running. so yeah, go ahead and throw in a damn hurdle or two and some traffic cones and maybe even a long jump here and there. because that’s part of what makes the thing great to watch in the first place.

and I don’t care whether or not Deku is ahead right now, because I also love Deku too by the way, and because I’m not invested in prematurely declaring a winner. and if Bakugou himself gets upset that Deku is ahead? if Deku pulling ahead of him is enough to send him spiraling into despair, and questioning everything about his life, and losing hope and purpose? well then honestly I would say that’s all the more reason for him to go on and get that new character development, because I don’t want him to always be hindered by those kind of toxic thoughts his entire life. their rivalry should serve to make each other better, not bring each other down. so if Bakugou’s ego is still so fragile that he can’t handle a loss to Deku -- a loss, mind you, not the loss, because ultimately these are all just little battles, and not the actual war -- then I want him to grow the fuck up and get the fuck over that, goddammit. he’s a bigger person than that. I want him to grow beyond that. I want him to develop the real, actual confidence that allows him to bounce back from something like that, and to move on better and wiser and stronger, instead of getting dragged down by the pettiness of it all.

in short, if losing to Deku would really be enough to render his story meaningless, then maybe it’s time for Bakugou to find some meaning in his story that’s not dependent on him winning or losing to Deku. because I for one am not actually in this thing just to see which character “wins.” I couldn’t care less who actually wins. I just want to see my boy grow up big and strong and self-actualized, the better to kick ass without anything holding him back. that’s it.

so this brings me at last to the end of this seemingly neverending post. I have no doubt this won’t be the last of my quirkless!Bakugou debate posts in spite of me trying to comprehensively address every single point I could think of lol. but for now it’s my best attempt. and by the way, if it doesn’t actually happen, that’s fine! I love the idea, but I’m not gonna go full on “oh happy dagger” with it if it doesn’t actually pan out lol. the downside is it will mean that I’ve posted this entire 5600-word dissertation for nothing, but you know what, sometimes that’s just how fandom goes.

[patchofsunlight]

if ur requests are still open then can i request bakugou having a crush on aizawa's adpoted daughter? idk i just think it'd be funny seeing his reaction to finding out who the readers dad is lol thank you !

YES THIS IS VERY CUTE YES

warnings: unedited, cursing, and I think that’s about it!!! also this is the last request for the 800 followers thing FINALLY thank you everyone that requested ily

despite the fact your dad was one of the teachers, you took the entrance exam to UA like everyone else

he told you you could just try and get in with recommendation but you didn’t want that either

you wanted to get in by yourself, and Aizawa respected that

and did you get in with flying colors

you and Bakugou met at the entrance exam. He couldn’t help but admire how you fought and worked, and, well, maybe you weren’t as much of an extra as everyone else

the fact you had classes with your father was so funny to you

you just went to school, listened to whatever he had decided to teach, came back home, and clowned him for looking like a homeless man the entire lecture

no one but the other teachers and Principal Nezu knew you were Aizawa’s adopted child

it was decided it would be better if that was kept under the wraps. In that way, no one would talk about you only getting in because of your dad or stuff like that

and potential villains wouldn’t target you

it was mostly chill, you had your friends and lived your life

your dad was way more severe on you than on your other students, that’s for sure

he wanted you to be strong and he’d make you strong.

so many extra sparring and training sessions i SWEAR

and Bakugou noticed how much harder than everyone else you worked, maybe even harder than him

and he wouldn’t have it

so he started to train even more, and what was his surprise when he kept encountering you and Aizawa training at crazy hours of the morning

you explained it by saying you asked for extra training because you wanted to be stronger

Bakugou respected that

Aizawa, however, saw this as an opportunity of having more free time, so congrats! Now you have sparring sessions with Bakugou literally every fucking day

to be honest you already had a crush on him before that

he was just. kinda hot

and his voice sounded nice? you didn’t know what you saw in him exactly but there was something!!!!

and your sparring matches just intensified that

he started bringing little tupperwares with breakfast for the two of you

and water bottles

because you always forgot both

and “I’m not fighting you if you have a disadvantage, dumbass. If you’re too weak to try and actually beat me, then it’s not a fair fight, and I don’t want it.”

of course it wasn’t because he actually cares

haha no!!! never!!!

haha

he definitely has a crush on you too and he definitely cares

you start to get closer and you have a bunch of stupid inside jokes and he usually would think those are dumb and useless but he actually loves having stuff only you two understand

you don’t talk a lot out of training but you always say “good morning” to him and sometimes he walks with you back to the dorms

and sometimes he invites you to eat whatever he cooked for dinner by saying “he cooked too much”

no he didn’t

he just didn’t have the guts to ask you to eat with him and admit he actually loves being around you

you start getting up even earlier than you usually do so that you can spend more time with Bakugou before and after training and he adores it

you’re very hesitant to tell him about Aizawa being your adoptive father because what if he thinks you don’t deserve to study at UA? What if he doesn’t wanna be your friend anymore? You’re sure that you have feelings for him by now and you don’t want to lose him

but the fact he doesn’t know such a crucial fact about you is starting to make you feel antsy and guilty

you don’t wanna keep secrets from him, for some reason. You want him to know everything there is to know about you and like you anyway

so you tell him one day before leaving your daily sparring session to take a shower and get ready for class

“Hey, do you think you can come over to my room after class? I wanted to tell you something.”

“Sure. I want to tell you something too.”

Great! Now you’re both nervous

he spends the whole day overthinking

What if you don’t wanna be his friend anymore? What if you don’t like him anymore? What if you catched up on his crush and don’t want anything to do with him? What if you think he’s too rude and mean and got tired of being around him?

he goes to your room after class like you asked and you’re pacing around

“I’m here, dumbass. What do you want?”

now he wants to hit himself in the face. Fuck, why did he say that? He didn’t have to treat you like that he’s such an idiot you obviously don’t want anything to do with him and—

“I just… Wanted to tell you something. Something about me that I want you to know. It’s— it’s okay if you see me differently after I say it and it’s okay if you don’t wanna be my friend anymore but—”

“Don’t be stupid, Y/N. That won’t happen.”

are you going to confess to him???????????????????????????

do you like him back??????????????

oh my GOD you DO

he’s so certain you’re about to tell him you’re in love with him

“I have something to tell you too.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe… Maybe we can say it at the same time, then? To save us from the embarrassment?”

he chuckles and you blush at the sound

“Sure.”

“Okay then… On three, alright? One, two, three—”

“I have feelings for you.”

“Aizawa’s my dad. Wait, what?!”

shit

fuck

oh no

oh no

oh hell no

shit!!!! shit!!!! abort mission!!!! ABORT MISSION!!!!!

and at the same time what the FUCK

“Aizawa is your DAD?”

“You have FEELINGS for ME?”

“No, I don’t! What do you mean Aizawa is your dad?”

“He adopted me when I was younger and he’s my dad. That’s why he’s tougher with me and that’s why I started doing the extra training outside school hours with him. Now can we go back to the part where you have feelings for me?”

“I don’t have feelings for you. Did the school board know that when you applied?”

“Yes, but I insisted on taking the entrance exam like everyone else, so it didn’t matter,” you hesitated, momentarily forgetting the fact he just confessed while you tried to tell him about your family life, “you are the first one I’m telling this to. I didn’t want anyone to think I only got in because of him, or that I don’t deserve to be here.”

“Tch,” he rolled his eyes, “of course you deserve to be here, stupid. You work harder than everyone else, sometimes even harder than me. That’s why I have feelings for you.”

“OH! SO YOU DO HAVE FEELINGS FOR ME!”

“NO I DO NOT”

“YES YOU DO”

“NO! DIE!”

“don’t worry, Katsuki. I have feelings for you too.”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP! Wait, what?”

[darkpoisonouslove]

Winx Club Season 7 Thoughts Part 1

I am kinda anxious starting this season because it is the only one I have seen nothing from. I have heard plenty about it, however, and none of it was good. Combine that with the unpleasant experience that season 6 was and I am not too thrilled but at least I will have watched everything once I have this out of the way so here I go for it.

I have to say that the intro isn’t too impressive.

7x01:

- Told you Stella has the stamina for a marathon if she has the right incentive. Why are they at Alfea again, though? And acting like they’re freshmen again? Not to mention that they have sneaked into the school more successfully when they had a lot less power.

- Jeez, I thought Griselda caught them but it was a monster... A fairy animal. K, Faragonda taking care of it was kinda cute but why don’t they know about the Nature Park? And why is Faragonda being so stern? It’s more than we have seen from her for a very mild offense (by Winx’ standards).

- Ugh, Stella with the fashion again. And why is there such a rift between her and the other girls? This is getting annoying already. Not to mention that Bloom’s voice sounds like Stella’s from the previous seasons.

- Kiko can never catch a break, huh? Especially when there are other animals/pixies/selkies/etc around.

- I thought that the barrier was only letting through those pure of heart or something like that. It probably would have been better considering that our villain will have fairy magic (I know something about this). What stops the animals from running away, though? And since when is Faragonda so into animals? She said she created the park but we have never seen her actually take care of animals or anything.

- A digmole? Wasn’t there something like that in Pokemon?

- Dammit! I was just excited to see what happens when a fairy animal attacks another fairy animal and they were like “That doesn’t happen.” Oh, I guess fairy animals are too good to have actual animal instincts or anything. I want to see a carnivore fairy animal that eats other fairy animals and I want to see how they deal with it. That is just a normal thing. And it would have been more interesting. And Roxy is acting like an animal attacking another animal is the worst thing ever. I have some bad news for you, hon.

- They really lost against a bird? And does this episode plan on introducing the villain of the season? There has been zero plot so far.

- Oh, villains! At last. I thought they were going to eat the digmole but nope. Kalshara is somehow planning on turning them into an army. Brainwashing them I guess? Brafilius is already annoying and it has been one scene. This is off to a good start.

7x02:

- The secret of the Ultimate Fairy Power is entrusted to the digmoles????? And why does she want an army of fairy animals? Could’ve picked anything but sis is just over here looking at the cute animals and going “Yep, a fearsome army that does make!” I mean, turning cute animals super evil has so much potential but I would not trust this show to even consider it, much less do it.

- Brafilius is already annoying as fuck. At least the previous villains were somewhat competent but this? He’s a clown! Kiko could beat him! What the hell were they thinking? At least Kalshara turning into the cat thing was super awesome! I really loved it.

- “It’s not like we can go back in time...” And you know they’re gonna go back in time. That sentence just screams it.

- Why would the Stone of Memories send them back in time? And why has no one tried to steal it? You could fuck so much shit up with that! Also, why did they think they could pull off time travel? Much better writers have tried and haven’t managed without creating as many paradoxes as possible. This show was a goddamn mess even before that. Besides, in season 3 there was a room in Alfea that could access any place in the past, present or future. They should have just used that but then there would have been no Butterflix transformation and shit.

- “Little time machines”? So now there are more stones? Also, they are changing the goddamn past by even being there! They are going to meet people that couldn’t have met them in the normal time line and that will change things in one way or another. This is incredible bullshit and they haven’t even stepped into the past yet.

- Great going. Just jump in the past (they don’t even know how many years back they went) without changing clothes or anything. They could give life to new words and slang before their time. Besides, Stella has her fashion thing so it would have been cool if she’d figured out what was appropriate for the time period and changed their clothes.That would have been a great usage of her fashion obsession but it never comes up when it would be actually relevant and useful.

- The crest proves that they are at Alfea? Not like, I don’t know, the entire goddamn campus? And how is walking into the main gate “not attracting attention”? This is stupid as hell.

- Why is Griselda acting like a principal even as she’s a student still?

- Oh, so now we get a change of clothes. But how will they blend in when everyone else is wearing the exact same uniform and they are just there in their specific colors? Even the clothes aren’t the ones from the uniform. And now Roxy totally looks like a Bloom clone.

- Of course, Faragonda is a major klutz just like Bloom was when she first arrived at Alfea. And, of course, Bloom can sense it’s something familiar.

- How did they get to the exhibition before Faragonda? And poor thing, she doesn’t seem to be a favorite of Headmistress Mavilla. Actually, Mavilla sounds a lot like Griselda and she seems to trust her so why didn’t she make Griselda Headmistress? Or was it not her choice?

- Of course, Roxy, the literal fairy of animals, has no idea that the animals can do all those things, much less how to make them do the things. Amazing.

- My god, Faragonda is such a dumbass! She is brave but I think she is trailing the line between brave and stupid a little bit too clumsily. How did she not die? For real? I mean, this is the thing here - in the original time line, Winx weren’t there to save her. So how did she not die during this reckless adventure she threw herself in?

- Well, at least they finally started doing something. I know they are allegedly trying to be undercover (Mavilla is shit as headmistress if she didn’t notice there were outsiders on her show in her very own fucking yard!) but they should have tried helping even sooner.

- Young Faragonda looks so much like Flora. I swear they just slapped Flora’s design on the screen, touched it up a little and thought it was good to go.

- Oh, that other fairy that just showed up is Kalshara, isn’t it?

- Why are they in the Headmistress’ office if they’re trying to stay undercover? Also, I already don’t like Mavilla. She seems like such a snob.

7x03:

- Why the hell are Winx in class? They shouldn’t be there. But, of course, we can’t have a scene without Winx in it.

- Damn, Kalshara’s metamorphoses are just on point. But her attitude is legit that of a witch and I am kinda surprised no one has caught on to that. Though, on the other hand, all of the teachers seem so hellbent on the students’ performances instead of on actually teaching them learn how to do things. Under Faragonda’s management, the school seems much more relaxed and friendly.

- Omg, Faragonda really took the book. She is such an idiot! Also, she should definitely ease it on criticizing her students after the shit she herself pulled. She legit stole the book AND miniaturized Mavilla’s fairy animals? What the hell Faragonda? Did you have any brain cells when you were young?!?!?! I can only explain this with her growing up as a witch and not realizing that what she did was not okay.

- Oh, Bloom actually figured out that Kalshara can’t be trusted 30-40 years into the past? She could have turned evil after that! She could have had a daughter that could do the same magic. This deduction does not make sense.

- Wow, they really did drop in the correct moment, right before Kalshara got her weird transformation. And Faragonda is so responsible for what is happening. Nice one!

- So Kalshara forced a metamorphosis on her brother and is now using him as her servant? I feel bad for him now. Even if he is incompetent and annoying. It is her own damn fault that she forced him to remain with her.

- Why do the digmoles look pink now? They weren’t pink before.

- Lmao, Faragonda turned Kalshara into a kitten. That was just... kinda dumb, really, but anyway.

- Love how Roxy didn’t get the Butterflix transformation even though she did all the same things that Winx did. The bullshit is real. Also, the Butterflix transformation sequence is so unnecessary. I wanted to watch all of it like I do every time it is the gaining of a new transformation but it just annoyed me too much so I skipped it.

- Wait, if she erases their memories, no one will remember that Brafilius and Kalshara escaped and someone needs to take care of them. I mean, if someone had taken care of them in the past, none of this would have been happening. Why is everyone stupid?

7x04:

- The digmoles dug up Faragonda’s office? Wow, okay. But why is she being like that with Stella? Though, I guess she wouldn’t remember her own fuck-ups if they were erased from her memory. But wait, in order for Mavilla to erase the fairy animals from their minds, she must have erased all their education at Alfea as well. What the hell? None of this makes sense.

- Yeah, no one has seen the statue before. And Faragonda could have helped them figure out what they changed by telling them what was up with the statue but nah. She doesn’t seem worried that they changed the past even if she warned them to try to avoid exactly that. This season is already exhausting as hell.

- WHAT are they wearing? Gorgeous, my ass. At least all their boyfriends are good liars.

- They aren’t even gonna elaborate the Nex and Layla thing? Like, they didn’t exactly officially get together in the end of season 6. And he is still an asshole so why is Layla even with him? He’s making digs at her friends and she isn’t even noticing?

- “This mission is for girls”? Wtf?!?!?!

- Oh, god, they really stole at least some of the fairy animal designs from Pokemon, didn’t they?

- Wait, how will they know they have found the animal with the first color when they have no idea what the first color is?

- Wait, Roxy knows that the digmole was kidnapped and instead of wanting to protect it, she’s all “it can take care of itself”? What the fuck? Also, Nex keeps being an asshole and why is Helia starting to act like him as well?

- I thought fairy animals didn’t attack each other? Why are those two fighting and mocking each other? *sigh*

- Great! So the digmole went with Roxy despite everything and she managed to get it kidnapped again as well as lose her Stone.

- Why the hell is the recap for the next episode the exact same as the one that was in the end of 7x03?

7x05:

- Roxy, it can always get worse than that. At least the others aren’t mad at her.

- Man, why is Brafilius doing more work than Kalshara when she is the more competent one? It would have been easier for her to get the job done but she is a lazy fuck and that will get her defeated in the end.

- So Roxy can’t travel without her stone and one stone can only take one person? I guess that’s why they use those chairs in the teleportation sequence. I just don’t understand why they didn’t use the link between the Stones to figure out where Brafilius is instead of needing Roxy to tell them where he’s going.

- WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY WEARING?!?!?!?! Stella, I think you have not grasped the concept of camouflage well. This thing is gonna get you killed if you need to run or do anything, really, instead of just stand around. No one loves it, Stella. No one!

- Are you kidding me? The costumes are actually working?! And I have to say that they would have had their wings pierced if they’d transformed so the costumes actually saved them. I can’t believe it. It is just too stupid but it happened.

- Why is that dinosaur acting like a dog? And why are they so relaxed about it? If the mother finds them, they may not live to see another minute if she thinks they’re a threat.

- A fun game? This is not a dog, goddammit!

- That dinosaur is literally a T-rex and they are making it act like a dog. What the actual hell? Also, wtf was that with the other animal that almost drowned them in a river of tears. Where did the writers get their inspiration for this season? Also, I kinda have a feeling that that is the animal they are looking for because, boy, does it not blend in.

- A giant spider again? We’ve already done that! In the same show! Not to mention that the giant spiders have been so overdone in media in general! But twice in the same show? Come on!

- Oh, Butterflix has special powers as well? Of course, it does.

- Oh, come on! Bloom’s hands were practically free at first and she has fire! She could have freed herself!

- Why is this animal in the colors of Layla’s outfit? And did she just bond with it? Omg, she did. Wtf? Are these animals gonna be relevant again? Oh, wait, it’s coming to the present too. Not like it will die lonely without its species. Why not tear it away from its natural habitat? Makes total sense.

- Ugh, I am gagging over Nex’s “flirting” and “romanticism”. At least Squank (is that how you write this? I honestly don’t care enough to look it up) kiss-blocked him and that was the one good thing in this episode. Why does Layla even look at him? He is so obviously a jerk!

7x06:

- Oh, Kiko AND pixies AND the fairy animals? Oh, goodie! And why tf are the Winx in class? What more is there to learn?! They can do everything, except defeat a damn spider.

- I am surprised the pixies didn’t drown. But at least everyone is being patient except Cherie. Why are Layla’s bonded creatures such crybabies?

- They are learning metamorphoses now? Really? How convenient.

- Why is everyone being an asshole to everyone? Wizgiz is terrible to everyone. He was allegedly very concerned about the fairy animals but now he is mad. Bloom is being an asshole to Locket even though it is not the pixies’ job to take care of their pets. I just can’t take this anymore.

- Wow, Layla figured out that the pixie thing was not a good idea? I am impressed. Why don’t they just leave Squank in the park? They can’t keep it on campus with how easily it is upset and causes trouble.

- Why is Roxy not going? It’s not like they’re headed for the past. She could go.

- Why did she say “my parents live there” instead of “this is my home”? At least we’re seeing Flora’s parents. And her father is such a dork. It is refreshing after all the fathers being so serious and composed. But her mother is such a peaceful disaster. I don’t know how she does it. At least the plants were kinda cool.

- Hello, Miele. So they just forgot that we already know about her being a fairy and going to school and then they show a flashback of it? It’s like Bloom doesn’t remember the flashback and Flora does? Wtf?!

- “Do you know where we are?” “In the middle of the forest.” Somehow, that is not reassuring or specific enough.

- Not like they’re hurting the giant fungi or something. This episode kinda reminds me of the evil willow in season 1, except that one was interesting.

- So Butterflix works only on non-nature? Well, I have bad news for you. Most of what you’re constantly surrounded by is nature!

- Why are the fungi stripping them of their transformation? How the hell? You know what? Whatever.

- Oh, damn. Even Flora got trapped. This is starting to get a little interesting. Not that they won’t be saved somehow - probably by Miele who sneaked after them - but I am starting to feel a little tension. I can’t believe it.

7x07:

- Didn’t she have to find the place where the fungi originated? Miele is just sprinkling them wherever and it’s working. Because, of course, it is!

- Flora, you would have died if Miele hadn’t saved you! And you have pulled so much shit over the years. You really don’t have the right to criticize her. At least she let her go with them.

- They’ve already ridden the ladybugs back in season 3. But that’s too far back for the writers to remember even if they brought back the ladybugs.

- They already fought the fungi. But can’t they use their energy to give nature energy so that it can fight the fungi that they can’t with their powers? Yup, that’s what they’re doing.

- Yeah, I think the glowing eyes suggest that something is happening.

- They are finally using their powers in a more interesting way! I cannot believe it. But isn’t Flora gonna bond with the magiwolf?

- Flora’s special spell looks both pretty cool and powerful. I just love me some glowy magical auras!

- Did they bond? They did, right? But why didn’t Flora hear him speak like Layla did with her fairy animal? Anyway, I love it! It is so adorable! And very mischievous. Do they really think that taking it to Alfea is a good idea? They do need to learn how to take care of their fairy animals and keep them in check instead of threatening to destroy the whole school.

- Flora, Flora, Flora. Smh. It can always get worse! At least they figured out that the pixies can’t get the job done. Winx can’t get the job done, let alone the pixies.

7x08:

- At least they are spending time with their fairy animals. But I am not a fan of them being so pushy, and especially Flora. She has always been so patient with plants but she is being so insensitive to Amarok. He’s a magiwolf! He’s not used to living in a fucking dorm!

- Man, Nex is such a damn asshole! At least this time Layla actually said something even if it was not nearly as much as it should have been. (She should just dump him tbh.) I just wish Helia hadn’t been dragged into the mess as well.

- Why is Flora mad at Helia? He hasn’t done anything wrong. He is even helping keep Amarok occupied in a more peaceful and orderly manner. One again, why is everyone being an asshole to everyone else?

- That cat is so fucking adorable! I want one! Who has a stone that can teleport me in the Winx universe so that I can get a kitty?

- “Cheeky losers”? Yeah, they totes talked like that in the Middle Ages. What the hell? Did no one figure out that they are going to have to make the medieval people speak in a period-correct manner? Apparently not.

- That kitty looks like a dangerous little beast. I am rethinking my desire for one.

- If they wanna stop the guards/soldiers/whatever without hurting them, why not just use some morphix? That can solve their problems.

- Why are people afraid of the fairies? What the fuck are the Earth fairies doing at this precise moment? They should be around at this point/still.

- It would have been so interesting to see what would have happened if Barfilius had been unable to get back to the teleportation chair and had been stuck between different times. And he could have hitchhiked with Winx when they were coming back or something. At least there would have been a point to his incompetence.

- What the fuck is this Rainbow Company and why the fuck did the writers think it was a good idea to include them? Wait, did Rainbow just drop their own company’s self-inserts?

- Those clothes I dig! I am not entirely sure how accurate for the time they are but I like the way they look.

- Well, they’re acting in a medieval play now. I have run out of “what the hell”s to give.

7x09:

- I am honestly not a fan of Musa falling for the valiant medieval musician. What is she gonna do? Take him with her like they’re doing with the animals?

- So the kitty is cute again and I want one again (even though it seems to be only one).

- I don’t think Kalshara particularly cares about Brafillius but it’s cute that he thinks she does. Especially since he has been shown to be scared of her.

- What the hell are those creatures that Brafilius summoned? That does not look like native Earth species. And poor donkey also.

- Did Musa just get caught because she was being distracted by a boy? Yeah, she really needs to get her shit together after Riven.

- Don’t tell me Orlando will fight Brafilius with music!

- Yeah, Musa definitely looks like she is handling this.

- They’re really being pretty useless in this season and having to get nature to do their job for them. And how convenient that they got the Butterflix transformation by barely doing anything for it (Mavilla was even shocked and said it was impossible).

- Wtf, did Musa just summon water drops? But the visuals of her special spell were so damn cool! THAT was actually pretty creative.

- She bonded with the cat, I knew it! It was pretty obvious that that was gonna happen.

- They are really finishing the play? *sigh*

- Did Musa just disappear in front of the entire crowd? Talk about a poor decision. They just stopped freaking out over the magic.

7x10:

- Yeah, Brafilius couldn’t even try to figure out if the cat has the First Color but why haven’t Winx tried? They have the perfect opportunity now that the cat is bonded to Musa. (And boy, what a snobby cat. I can see how it can look like Musa when she starts pouting.)

- Okay, Nex actually trying this time and taking to Squank was kinda cute, ngl. If he keeps being like that, he can stay.

- Helia really do be competing in origami with a cat... And getting destroyed... Quite literally.

- Why don’t Winx try to take care of their own damn animals! They are the ones that are bonded to the animals, yet they keep pawning them off on their boyfriends and then getting all sulky when something goes wrong. Well, the animals are primarily your responsibility so if you can tone the criticism the fuck down, that would be great.

- Omg, the bat metamorphosis! Kalshara has the best power!

- Now they wake up! Couldn’t pay attention to the racket sooner!

- They left KIKO in charge of these very massive, very wild animals? Wtf, he couldn’t even handle the pets in s4.

- Oh, the kitty can communicate? First origami, now this.

- Is that bird gonna be Stella’s animal? Yep, it will. But it’s spelled, right? Can the bond unspell it? That will be nice.

- Oof, Kalshara spelled the animals. And Winx’ powers aren’t supposed to work on them... right?

- Stella, it’s obviously spelled! You didn’t do anything wrong! Just use your brain instead of your anxious heart.

- Oh, she actually did! And they bonded! I think that was the cutest bond so far. But she named her bird Shiny? Okay, Stella.

- Stella’s special spell is pretty plain compared to those of Musa and Flora and even Layla.

- Oh, they fucked up Kalshara and Brafilius’ hideout. Finally. We’re gonna change locations at the very least. It gives the illusion of something happening.

7x11:

- Those tigers don’t look very fairy-animal-ly.

- Stella is really gonna make the animals wear clothes? Wow, they really outdid themselves this time and I don’t mean that in a good way.

- So... shiny eats gems? Interesting.

- At this point I’ll take Bloom x Sky over the fairy animals nonsense.

- Lmao @ Squank scaring Critty out of her mind. But poor Brandon with Shiny. I’m afraid she might eat him as well if she manages to get close enough to “kiss” him.

- What the hell, Stella? Here’s a simple equation for you - dying = no more fashion!

- Come on, Stella! You’ve faced so many monsters over the years? Why are you scared now?

- Okay, that’s definitely magical and definitely dark. But they have faced worse things.

- Poor baby tigers! But why don’t Winx just use their nature powers?

- Finally! And Nex was actually being useful this time. Plus, look at those super cute tiger cubs! Precious little balls of fur!

- Soooo... why are half of Winx handling this and the other half aren’t? There is legit zero reason for that. And Stella’s special spell can reverse the effect of the wild magic? Why the hell didn’t she use that back on Linphea... Oh, wait. That’s right. Their powers were taken by the fungi. Okay, this checks out for once. Surprisingly, I am also amazed that I remember as far as 5-6 episodes back. I wouldn’t have guessed it.

- Okay, yeah, the tiger cubs are so cute that they could turn a person good indeed. But, please, don’t take them to Gardenia!

- Oh, my god! What the fuck are tigers gonna do in Gardenia?! They could have found them a safe place with people who know how to take care of them in their native country! That would have been a better idea.

7x12:

- Roxy is “borrowing” the fairy animals? Tell me she’ll get her own!

- What the hell happened? And how does such a small bird knock out such a big wolf?

- My god, Flora is really getting on my nerves this season by scolding Amarok so much. Shut up, Flora! You’ve had your klutz moments too! And you are the one that took a magiwolf out of the damn forest and are trying to make it live in a dorm!

- Are you telling me that there are only, like, 7-8 planets? Because that is how much globes they have there and they seem to imply that they have covered the whole universe in their monitoring of the fairy animals.

- Are we going to see Tecna’s parents again? I am so excited! Oh, and they had Timmy over without even telling Tecna? That is actually kinda adorable! It means that they are really getting along with him!

- Where did Brafilius go? Back in time but when exactly? At the creation of techno magic? Don’t tell me he’s gonna fuck it up completely? Yep, he did!

- Tbh I expected more chaos. I guess only the droids are techno magic and the rest is just plain technology. Oh, and the cars are freaking out.

- Well, Brafilius is trapped now. If they don’t fuck up, they can have him arrested.

- Tecna is sure getting poetic for someone that is so technical. Her magic is always so damn awesome, though! How have I not noticed before this rewatch?

- Dammit, they’re gonna miss Brafilius again!

7x13:

- Oh, goody. Only Bloom hasn’t gotten her fairy animal... Aaaaaand it just showed up! I mean, this unicorn’s hair is legit made of flames! It is obviously gonna be her animal. She even said she always wanted a unicorn (just like any girl ever) in season 4.

- Who’s working in the rescue park when Winx are running around in the past?

- The pixies just really caused a mini storm? And how is holding on to each other while floating aimlessly in the air “taking cover”?

- Why are they on Earth again? How come they met 1/3 of the fairy animals on Earth?

- Even the pandas aren’t cute enough to make me care for this episode when it is so fucking useless. Half of it is done and nothing has happened. And real life pandas are actually cuter. Sorrynotsorry.

- Wait, what? Is all the bamboo... a simulation? Wtf happened there?

- Oh, thought the unicorn was trying to make the into shredded cheese but it just trapped them instead? Boooooooring.

- It’s wild magic, we know! It was obvious. Except Stella is trapped and she can’t unspell it with her special spell.

- How convenient that her fire powers are working on a unicorn that was shooting fire blasts out of its horn. You know, totes like a dragon. Of course, Bloom just managed to unspell it even though that should be Stella’s specialty.

- Not a song! Oh, thank god, it didn’t last long.

- Don’t tell me that the unicorn has healing powers... Well, of course it does! And it can also speak to all of them even though the other animals can only speak to their bonded fairy. Right.

- Oh, come on! If the unicorn could counteract the wild magic, why did it even get changed by it?! The “cure” was right there in its body!

- Well, this emotional resolution ain’t shit.

I did do part 2 here despite my reluctance (but hey, it wasn’t that bad).

[herohotline]

Wet Clay (P.1)

Shouta Aizawa x Reader

A/N: alright let's try this again. take 2 everybody

Summary: You’ve been officially hired as U.A’s first school counselor. You’re assigned to help the hero course- learning more about their students and teachers along the way. And if you manage to catch a crush on one of said teachers... You just hope he doesn’t distract you from doing your job.

Word Count: 3,300+

Part Two | Part Three | Part Four

If there was one thing you knew about U.A, it was that the school seemed like a never-ending magnet for trouble. They’ve already been on the news twice this year due to villain attacks, and it made you wonder: hey, who’s taking care of the aftermath? 

You’ve been working as a freelance therapist for over ten years, and you reached into several things. Family sessions, PTSD recovery, addiction therapy, the works. So with high hopes, you came to U.A one day with a proposal for the principal. Getting a meeting with him wasn’t easy, so you intended to use the time you got with him wisely. 

Your meeting was scheduled at a random time of day- the middle of the school day, really, so when you made your way to Nezu’s office, you saw several students. They seemed like busy little bees, rushing over to the cafeteria with smiles- it must be lunch hour. The whole place was insanely big, and you wouldn’t have been able to navigate it on your own- so good thing you weren’t. 

Your tour guide sure was loud, though.

“It’s great that Nezu let someone in, but he wouldn’t tell us what it’s for!” The hero you recognized as Present Mic had been chatting animatedly the whole time, and you tried your best to keep up with his energy. 

“That’s strange,” you say back to him, adjusting the grip on your briefcase. They checked it at the front gate- happy to see it was only a few business papers. “I don’t think what I’m talking to Nezu about is very secretive.”

Present Mic waves his hand in the air, making a ‘ppsh’ noise with his teeth. “Nezu likes to mess around with us teachers a lot. I’m not surprised! Oh, and here we are!” He spins rather suddenly to face you, presenting the large office doors to you. 

You look at it curiously. “...Isn’t Nezu supposed to be a small animal?” How could he fit through the door…?

Mic laughs as if you had made some sort of joke. He opens the door for you, patting your back as you walk inside. “I’ll be here to escort you out when you’re done, good luck!” He whispers- well, his own way of whispering, which is still very loud, before thrusting you in the office and closing the door behind you. 

You blink once to try and realize what just happened.

“Ah, ___!” Nezu greets you as you stand still in the rather large office, his little body looking comical behind his desk. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting with you!” Oh boy, here we go. You don’t really appreciate Mic thrusting you into this, literally, but you smooth out your clothes and walk toward the principal’s desk.

“I feel the same way, Nezu,” you smile at him as you shake his little paw across the desk. “I’m glad you’re willing to listen to what I have to say.” He gestures to the seat beside you and you gladly take it, making yourself comfortable.

“Of course. It’s been chaotic but I’m always willing to hear ideas for the school. You mentioned therapy?” The business has begun- but oddly enough, the animal pulls out a tea set and begins to brew. 

“Simply put, yes. With all the events that have been happening at your school lately, I believe it’s due time for a therapist to be hired. You’re training heroes, and while it’s important that they’re physically ready for the world of heroics, I believe they should be mentally ready as well.” You take a cup from him, muttering a ‘thank you’ as you continue to give him your proposal. “Just this year, you had a kidnapping. I know you took care of it, but those sorts of things have a large impact on kids- they might be teenagers, but they aren’t fully developed. Then there’s just the thought of studying and working to be a hero- it’s stressful, and I believe every child should have a good outlet for when it gets to be too much.” 

Taking a sip of the tea, you hum under your breath. It’s a wonderful citrus flavor.

Nezu smiles. “I looked into you- I hope you aren’t offended, it’s merely what we must do for letting strangers into the campus. You’re a therapist, correct?”

You nod. “I’m not offended, I figured as much. And yes, I am. I’ve been in the field for over 10 years, so I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about when it comes to mental health.” 

“Of course! I don’t doubt you!” Nezu laughs- a squeaky little noise. “You’re right, the students deserve a good person to talk to about their struggles. The question is… are you sure you can be that person?”

So he had caught onto you. Yes, more than anything, you wanted to be the one to help these kids. It’s a bit ballsy to walk into an office and suggest they hire you, unprompted, but you believe it’s the right move to make. Nothing will get done if you don’t put the first foot in, after all.

“Yes,” you tell him, as determined as you can. “I would like to be the test driver in this. With how many students U.A holds, one therapist for so many kids is nearly impossible. I’d die of stress before they do,” you pull your briefcase up to your lap and open it, handing him a few papers. “These are the things I’ve planned if you were willing to go through with hiring me. I’d like to focus on the hero course first, a few sessions with each kid throughout a few months. I want to learn about these children, and from what I learn, I can fully deduce what sort of changes need to happen in U.A. Like if my work is even needed here, or what type of therapy should be offered or special programs.” 

Nezu flicks through your papers with an impressed smile. “You’ve thought a lot about this,” he says, “you seem to care very deeply.” 

“I’m passionate about helping others how I can,” you tell him honestly. “And frankly, if you don’t mind my honesty, U.A is long overdue for a school counselor. Every child deserves to have someone to confide in, plain and simple, Nezu.”

At your statement, he laughs. It’s not because he thinks you’re joking, but he knows you’re right. “I love your attitude!” He says. “And you’ve convinced me. We’ll start our hiring process right away, and you can show me more of your plans. I’m happy you came to me today.”

“Oh, what?” Your eyebrows stand up in shock. “Really? Wh… really?”

“Yes!” Nezu smiles. “I had already decided on hiring you before you came. But meeting you was a pleasure and convinced me more.” He hands out his small paw again and you slowly shake it.

“Welcome to U.A, ___.”

---

Getting home, you looked back at the meeting and for a second you think you were tricked. But you’re soon emailed several background check forms and sessions for drug testing- the works of getting hired at a very cautious school. So you deduce that it’s not a trick- but it’s very strange. 

You’re grateful though, and you accomplish what you can right away such as the background check, quirk information and license, and sending in your history with therapy. Nezu told you that if you were quick, you could have your first day in just a week. It shocks you- a week? It’s so soon!

Maybe, you think, they’ve already been thinking about hiring a counselor for a while. It was long overdue, and now they’re in a rush to get you in and working. You suppose that with everything that’s been going on for the school, that’s fair. 

You hope you can do this- the last thing you want is to let this opportunity slip through the cracks and let everyone down. 

---

After a full week of filling out paperwork, various meetings, and a lot of movement speeches that you’ve given yourself to get through it, your first day at U.A comes, bright and early on a Monday morning. And, interestingly enough, your first big task of the day is getting dressed. 

The students have uniforms, but the teachers all wear their hero costumes, and you’re not a hero. So what on earth do you wear? You glare at your closet for a long time before finally slipping on a simple button-up shirt tucked into some slacks. It’s the most professional-casual you can get, right?

Taking the train to U.A was a bit busy, but you were buzzing with first-day energy that you couldn’t even mind the pushing and shoving of people coming on and off the train. You’re sure that the longer you have to take the train, the more it will bother you, but today it seems like nothing can break through your hopeful exterior. 

God, you hope this works. You hope the kids like you. 

It feels funny to walk into U.A with no guards hounding you- but thanks to your I.D that you got just yesterday, you walk in without any problems. It makes you grin. Your first stop for the day is to find Eraserhead- you’re meeting with his class first and taking over homeroom for today. Tomorrow, you’ll meet with the other hero course. 

When you walk into the teacher's lounge, nerves are tingling your senses. It feels like it really is the first day of school, but instead of a student, now you’re a teacher, sort of. The room looks empty, so you assume the teachers have all gone to their classes for the day. You wonder where Eraserhead is…? 

It’s as you walk around the desks in a curious manner that a yellow bag on the floor catches your eye. Quite frankly, you do a double-take on it-- is someone sleeping in there?

“Hello?” You walk up to the bag. “Is that you, Eraserhead?” 

You remember Nezu joking about something like this, but you didn’t take him seriously. As the sleeping bag rolls around, your eyes widen in surprise as you see that yes- this is Pro-Hero Eraserhead sleeping on the floor. 

His tired, dry eyes look up at you. “You’re the therapist?” He asked, his voice deep and scratchy. 

“...Yes. ____.” It’s all you can manage to say as you watch him slowly crawl out of his bag, picking it up and standing on his feet. All of a sudden, he’s looming over you with his height and it almost catches you off guard. “Thank you for working with me,” you shake yourself out of your thoughts and present your hand to him. 

As he shakes it back, you notice that his hand basically engulfs yours. Woof. 

“I’m glad you’ll be working with the students,” he says, and his honesty throws you for a loop as he begins to walk off, you following him from behind. “Do you mind telling me what you have in store for the day?”

“Right!” You try to walk a little faster so you can walk side-by-side with the man, his legs quite longer than yours. “I figured I'd like to introduce myself, let the kids get to know me. It’s hard to suddenly have a new face around, as well as being expected to talk about your problems with a stranger. So I just need to not be a stranger anymore.” You look up to Eraserhead and he silently nods. You figure that’s his way of telling you ‘good idea’? 

“We’re here.” He stops in front of, again, another rather large door. They all seem to look like this. “Get ready.”

As the door opens, you’re immediately met with the sound of teenagers laughing and yelling. Eraserhead heads in first, thankfully, and you peek your head in to get a look of the students. You’ve seen a lot of them through the news, so some faces are familiar, while others aren’t. 

“Class,” Eraserhead’s authoritative voice cuts through all the noise. The students are quick to sit in their seats, heads up and attentive for their teacher. He sighs, his shoulders sagging in a tired manner. “Today, ____ will be taking over the class,” you take that as your cue to enter the room, standing next to Eraserhead silently. “I’ll still be here, so don’t disrespect them. Listen to them, take what they have to say seriously.”

That seems to be the end of his little speech as he shuffles away in that same sleeping bag you found him in. You step up to the podium, and your nerves are back as you look at the sea of students. Oh boy. 

“Hello, everyone,” you smile. “As Eraserhead mentioned, my name is ___. There’s no need for formalities with me, you can just call me by name. My job here at U.A is to be your school counselor.” You watch as several of their faces change and you laugh a little. “I know, it’s strange. I’m here today to ask you a few questions. My first question being, how many of you are comfortable talking with a stranger?” 

None of their hands raise beside a rather sparkly boy with blonde hair. 

“I appreciate your honesty!” You gesture for him to put his hand down and he does so. “Most of you aren’t going to come to me right away with struggles you may have, and I understand that. My job today is to have you all get to know me. We’ll be doing a few activities, and by the end of home-room, you’ll go back to your regular classes. Are there any questions?” 

A hand shoots up right away, and you nod your head to the girl it’s attached to. She looks very attentive and scholarly- you have a feeling she might be a class president or something like that. “Why has the school decided to hire a counselor?” 

“That’s a good question. What’s your name?” You ask. 

“Yaoyorozu Momo.”

“Thank you for asking, Yaoyorozu. Truthfully, with all the events that’s been going on in your district, the school believes we should be more attentive to our students' mental wellbeing.” You feel like you’ve gone over this pitch thousands of times… “It’s important that you all have an outlet when you’re stressed or upset.” 

Yaoyorozu seems satisfied with your answer as she nods, her hand going back in her lap. Another hand rises after that- not as confident as Yaoyorozu, but still there. 

“Yes?”

“I was wondering- my, uh, name is Midoriya Izuku! I was wondering what we’d talk about in your office?” The boy has wonderful green hair that curls at the ends, freckles on his cheeks that make him look innocent and cute. He’s somewhat nervous, which intrigues you, but you move on to his question. 

“Yes, in my office…”

The rest of the period goes like this. You eventually get a question out of almost every student, and they seem to be warming up to you already. You’ve learned most of their names- but you’ll probably need a few days until you remember them all. After the questions, you do a few games together that you thought up- things that typically would be done in middle school. You split up the classroom as you have them learn more about each other- things like ‘go to the left side if you’d rather lose your taste, go to the right if you’d lose your smell’. They were simple activities that the students seemed to mostly enjoy, and you participated in them as well. 

At one moment, you asked a very specific question on purpose: how do you feel about your quirk? If you like it, you would go to the right side of the room. If you dislike it, you’d go to the left. If you weren’t sure how you felt, you’d sit in the middle. In the end, only you and boy with white and red hair stand in the middle as the rest of the class sits on the right. 

“What is your quirk?” He asks you and you smile down at him. Everyone turns their attention toward you, clearly interested. 

“My quirk is called Sensory. If I use it right, I can heighten my own or someone else’s senses such as their hearing or sight. But if I use it wrong, the person goes into sensory overload.” You explain it as simple as you can, and a pink hand raises in the air. You can’t quite remember her name… 

“Why don’t you like your quirk?” 

“Well, I don’t dislike it,” you quickly reassure the class, “but I have my reasons, as I’m sure Todoroki has his own as well?” You look down at him and he nods silently. “Anyway, I asked this question so that you all would get to know who I am a little better. Quirks are a great way to express yourself, but it’s important to remember that it isn’t the only way. It’s okay to not feel completely at home with your Quirk, but it’s important to understand it and accept it as a part of you.” 

After the activity ends, the period is over and it’s time for you to go down to your office. Eraserhead offers to walk you there since you’re still new to the building and you gratefully take it. The two of you leave the classroom with a stern word from the teacher for his students to wait patiently for Present Mic to arrive ‘or else’. You have a feeling that there's no real threat behind his words, but it seems to work. 

“So,” you fill the silence in the hallway, “do you think it went well, Eraserhead? You know them best.” You look up at him and the hero reaches up to run his fingers through his hair. He’s not quite looking at you, but you know he’s paying attention. 

“You don’t have to call us by our hero names,” he huffs and his hands go back into his pockets. 

“Oh! Well… To be honest, the forms Nezu gave me never mentioned any of the teacher’s names, so I don’t actually know…” 

“Typical of him,” the man rolls his eyes, his lips tugging upward just a bit at the ends. “You can call me Aizawa,” all of a sudden you both come to a stop and you realize that you’re outside of your office on the first floor. “Mic is Yamada and Midnight is Kayama… I’m sure you know who Yagi is.” You nod. “You’ll learn the rest of their names along the way. The 1-B teacher is Kan, by the way.”

“Oh, good! Thank you, Aizawa,” you smile up at him. “And thank you for walking me back.”

“You’ll get used to it in a bit,” he sounds sure of himself, making you believe him. “And… you did fine with the kids. I can think of a few who might come over by the end of the week.”

His reassurance is honestly very touching, as you weren’t really sure of yourself. 

“I hope I have at least a week, my office is kind of baren right now,” you laugh at yourself a little. “And thank you- it’s good to hear. I really hope this goes well, you know? I think I can really help them- I want to help them.”

Aizawa just stares down at you but you’re honestly getting used to his silence. You can already tell that he’s a man of few words, so you’re grateful that he’s talked to you as much as he has. You laugh again- you’re not sure why- before opening your door and waving goodbye to him. He leaves after that, and now it’s just you alone in your office.

You sigh as you look around the room. It’s got the essentials- two chairs, a couch, and a table in the middle. Then there’s a desk in the corner of the room, but other than that, it’s empty. You’ll definitely have to fill up the area to make it seem more welcoming- maybe you can bring some things over from your apartment. 

All you know is that you’re determined. By the end of the week, you’re going to make this place feel like home.

[wiznard]

Brett Arntt                                                                                                                        2474 words

Zero to Hero

By Brett Arntt

All I could smell was my neck hair burning. I was on my stomach waiting for my daily beating. Ok hold up, let me take a second to explain what’s going on here. So everyone has some sort of “super power” I say it like that because not everyone’s power is super or impressive. While some people have super strength or super speed, some people's power is that they can quite literally remember a lot of stuff, or they can breathe underwater. So while they are impressive they are far from being super. At this moment I’m getting my butt kicked by a guy who can egnite himself on fire which makes him a pain to fight or in my case not get hit too much. Anyways back to getting my butt kicked. I started to get up when I got hit by what felt like 100 cinder blocks in the back. I fell back down and winced in pain. “Look at this, the powerless freak is once again on the ground.  Gonna call mommy?” It took me a while to remember that voice but after I did I was amazed it took me this long. It was Charles. We were friends in grade and middle school but I never got a power when I turned 15 so he left and went to find cooler friends. I started to get up when he kicked me back down, this time I wasn’t able to keep my wince in. In case it wasn’t already obvious Charles has super strength. Finally the school bell rang and everyone left to go to their last class. I stayed there on the floor unable to move. I’m pretty sure my back was broken...again. I would probably make a bigger deal about this except this was far from the first time that this has happened since starting high school. I think this is the fifth time actually. The only reason I’m not paralyzed is because the nurse can heal serious injuries so at most I’ll just have really bad back pains for a month. That’s if I’m lucky. After twenty minutes the nurse and the vice principal came to the school’s garden where they found me laying there. The vice principal took me into the nursing office where they could heal my wounds. We talked about what happened and he left me with the nurse. “You can’t just keep letting them treat you like this,” the nurse said. “I know I know I just don’t see the thrill in fighting you know.” He looked at me in his usual disappointed manner but left it at that. When the final bell rang I hobbled out of the school and started home. As I headed home my mind started wondering as it usually does. I was thinking about what I would tell my mom so she wouldn’t worry or do something drastic seeing as she does enough anyways. My mom is a superhero. She's one of the better superheroes actually. She has an amazing super power. Whenever an enemy uses their power against her she can copy their power and use it too. She keeps their power too. So she’s one of the stronger heros. It’s good she’s a hero cause if she was a villain they probably wouldn’t be able to stop her. I finally made it to my apartment and started up my steps when I heard Charles again. “Hey loser, we were looking for you. We feel like we didn’t beat you up enough earlier.” I stood in front of my door with my heart beating fast. I was already in immense pain and I wasn’t sure how much more my body could take. Before I could do anything I was laying on my back. Must’ve been that Tommy guy he has super speed. I started to get up when the hits started coming. For the next thirty minutes I was getting the snot beat out of me. When they finally left I was laying there bleeding. I couldn’t move at all. Whenever I started to breathe it felt like something was poking my heart and lungs. They had broken my rib cage and they were now facing in different directions. Great, I'm laying outside my apartment in the middle of the sidewalk dying. I felt my breathing slowing down and my eyes grew heavy. I’m down. If I die here then I die. I closed my eyes and faded off. 

I woke up hours later in a hospital bed. My mom was asleep in the chair next to me. The tv was blaring and I tried to set up to turn it off. When I got up the pain that I didn’t feel originally went everywhere and I let out a huge scream. My mom was on her feet looking around for any danger that there could be. When she looked over at me her face seemed relieved that there wasn’t anything there. “Honey you need to lay down, your body needs rest and time to heal.” She started rubbing my head until I passed out again. When I finally woke up two days later the sun was shining through my window and my mom was gone. I ended up staying at the hospital for another two weeks. I probably needed to stay there longer but Mr. Lemon, the school nurse, came and helped out. I was still bandaged and needed a cane to walk. I started walking home because my mom wasn’t there. I hadn’t seen her since the night when we first arrived at the hospital. I wasn’t worried because this happens a lot, she travels around the world saving the day but this time something didn’t feel right.

 When I got to the apartment there was a black van parked outside and the door was wide open. I hobbled inside and there were four guys looking through the house. They turned around and saw that I was there. The first guy walked over to me and started asking questions. “Where is the vial?” I stood there staring at him not saying anything. He got visibly frustrated the longer I said nothing. “Where is the vial? Don’t you realize that we need it so we can make a new one so the world doesn’t fall into chaos?” He walked away and continued looking for this vial thing. Finally I decided to ask about it. “What’s so important about this vial thing that you want. What’s in it?” The man turned over to look at me. He looked very annoyed like I just asked him the dumbest question and the answer should be obvious. “The vial has your mother’s powers so when something happens we can make a hero just like here so the world doesn’t fall to chaos. We do it with every very powerful hero we’ve come across.” He turned back around and went back to his searching. “Wait, what do you mean when things go wrong? You mean if right?” The man let out a huge sigh and turned back to me, “No kid I mean when. What are you trying to tell me right now? Your mom died last week, did you not know or something?” I collapsed on my couch. All four guys slowly looked over to me with the same confused expression on their faces. Finally one of them spoke up, “Kid you did know your mom died last week?” I couldn’t form an answer. They all looked remorseful. “I’m sorry kid we weren’t aware. We saw the package on your bed and assumed you had known.” 

I didn’t know of any package. I got up and hobbled up the stairs and towards my room. When I got to my room I saw it. A bright red box almost as big as my bed was set up on my bed. I opened it and there was a lot of stuff in it. A ton of papers and new articles talking about how amazing my mom was. Her suit was in it. The dark purple with the red gloves and boots. The small red mask to cover half of her face. I felt the costume and noticed there was a lot of stitching that wasn’t there a couple weeks ago when I had last seen it. It looked like more than half of the costume had been destroyed. I lifted the suit up to get a better look at it when another news article fell from it. It was tucked away inside the suit. It was an article going over her death. She was fighting some alien from space and in order to defeat it she had to plunge the both of them into a volcano. After reading this I looked at this suit again. That was why the stitching was different and looked ruined; this wasn’t her real costume, it was a crappily made replica. Her real one was at the bottom of some volcano. I was about to throw the box across the room when I noticed there was a smaller package. On it was a note saying the choice was mine. I opened it and there was a vial. It was a beautiful purple. I was tempted to drink it...but there was something stopping me. I had wanted to be a superhero my entire life but now that the moment was here and I could be one it just didn’t feel right. Yes I want to be a superhero but not like this. I wanted to be a hero on my own, not with my mom’s powers. I heard the front door slam shut and heard the black van drive off. I set the vial on my desk and put my “mom's suit” on top of my closet. I put the papers and news articles away and then I went to bed. Life would never be the same I knew that. Life would be way different because it was just me and my mom. I had no other family; at least none that mom ever told me about. I stayed home for another week.

 No one came to visit or nothing, just me. It was quiet but I knew it wouldn’t last long. Eventually someone would come and I’d be whisked away to Child Protective Services. The door knocked one day when I was watching another news report on my mom. When I opened it I saw a middle aged man in a black suit. “Ah you must be Master Arntt, I’ve been sent to pick you up and bring you to your grandfather.” Now here’s the thing: my entire family on my dad’s side disappeared without a trace. No one's been able to find them for a little over sixteen years. They were said to be crazy people, and it was good for everyone that they disappeared. And my grandfather on my mother’s side died when I was three. So when he said he’s here to bring me to my grandfather I was very skeptical. “Uh my grandfather died twelve years ago so I don’t appreciate this joke.” I started to shut the door when the man pushed me back and walked into the house. “Now listen here while I am very sorry to hear about Liz’s father. I have no relationship with that man. I am picking you up on account of Lynn, your father’s father.” I stood staring at him waiting for him to say psych or something because there’s no way this man knew my grandfather was on my dad’s side. “Yeah yeah alright bud and I went to prom with Taylor Swift.” I started to walk away when he grabbed my shoulder and started talking again, “Well than I feel bad for that Ms. Swift because you seem rather rude. I wouldn’t want to go to prom with you. I wonder why she would.” I searched his face for any signs of a smile or something to prove that he was pulling my leg but no matter how hard I looked I just couldn’t. “Hold up, you're not joking are you? Like you’re actually here for my grandpa on my dad’s side?” He looked me straight in the face and puffed “Well of course I am why would I lie to you? Don’t worry about your stuff, someone else will be here to grab it for you. We must go to your grandfather’s right away.” 

Eleven years later….

I stood on the rooftop surveying the city. It was quiet tonight but the night always starts out quiet. I took a seat on the edge of the roof while the wind blew through my hair. Sometimes when it gets this quiet I take time to reflect on the last eleven years of my life. I moved in with my grandpa and he trained me to become a hero without any powers. The first five years were dedicated to training the other six I spent on the streets taking out bad guys saving the day. I still don’t have powers but I’ve mastered all forms of martial arts and hand to hand combat. I’m skilled with any weapons put in my hand. My favorite are my short katanas I keep with me. A lot has happened these eleven years. The vial containing my mom’s powers got stolen while my stuff was being moved to my grandfather’s place. While as of yet no one has made any moves with them or has been seen using them I’m still on the lookout for them. I plan on finding the thief and extracting the powers from them. I laugh to myself. As if it’d be that easy they have one of the strongest super powers ever. They are a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately for them they are probably on their own while I’ve made some allies over the years. My old friend turned high school bully Charles once again became my best friend after a fight we had four years ago. The organization that funded the hero considered me a threat after  I beat up one of their crooked heros after he stopped a robber but he himself took off with the money. Charles thought he had me cornered when I was able to get the upper hand and flipped the fight over to my favor. After we realized who the other was we had a laugh and I told him about the crooked hero who later himself got arrested. Samuel, a man with the ability to move things with his mind. Ray, a man who could ignite himself on fire. Frank, a man who could see weak points in enemies and could beat them easily. Finally Chey, a woman who could control the weather. Separate we are strong but together we are dangerous.

[symphonyofthewrite]

If These Walls Could Talk (Ch3)

Fandom: Castlevania Netflix

Summary: Vampires do not have reflections, and castles do not have hearts. But Dracula is no ordinary vampire, and Castlevania is no ordinary castle. If castles can fight, maybe they can think too.

The series, and Adrian’s childhood, told from the perspective of the castle.

Chapter Summary: “‘Alucard’, they called me. The opposite of you. Mother never liked that. Did you know that? She hated the idea that I might define myself by you. Even in opposition to you. She loved us both. Enough that she wanted us to be our own people. Living our own lives. Making our own choices."

Notes: Hey, thank you so much for all the likes!! If you could reblog and/or leave a comment too it would be greatly apprecaited!!

Chapter 3: “Alucard”

The castle doesn’t like it when Adrian leaves.

Adrian is a child of both worlds, so he must walk in the day every once and a while. He cannot stay in the castle, in the night, forever; he must travel outside the room, feel the sunlight without the glass. He must understand his mother’s people; his human half. A glass half full is a glass half empty, and he understands his duty to fill in the blanks where humanity is supposed to be.

Castlevania is unsure. Afraid, perhaps. It does not know much of humanity…but it does know that their blood tastes sweet, their words sound sour, their hands feel bitter. It knows they are not likely to treat the son of the vampire king with kindness.

It knows of only one human whose touch and words are sweet without taste.

If his mother can be kind… is it possible other humans can be too? Or does being a mother simply necessitate kindness? Is it possible there is more to them than sour speech and the bitter fists? That they are more than just something to fill its master’s appetite and quiet his boredom?

Lisa tells them all so. She gathers her family in the room, and tells them stories of knights and heroes, witches and villains. Of good kings, and evil priests. Of good gods, and evil queens. Of demons and zombies and the heroes who rose up against them—(and maybe Adrian can be one of them, some day). Of people who have nothing but manage to change the world anyways. Of people who have everything but are empty all the same—(that one started to sound a little too familiar). And not all of the stories are read out of books. Some are real, were history. Some she’d even seen herself. Some were told to her. She said she heard some of the most wonderful ones from a Speaker once. She even made some up. Until Adrian himself formed stories when she wasn’t there to tell them.

Dracula looks out the window at the rain, chuckles to himself at the fact that too many of her stories end happily…but something deep inside his eyes is trying, trying to believe her. To believe there’s truth to these stories, even those she made up. To let the light in her eyes flow into his. He tries to make up his own stories too, sometimes. But the darkness in his presence does its best to swallow the light in her words.

Adrian snuggles up beside her and the gleam in her eyes reflects in his without a second’s resistance. Enough that after a childhood of listening to these stories, begging for his parents to take him outside, he can barely wait to experience it himself.

That’s not to say he never left. She took him out on little trips, letting him take bites of the world out there. Each time he came back with treasures—(well what he considered treasures)—in his hands, and a grin secured firmly to his face, and he’d ask with voice bright and fast as a hummingbird, where they’d go out next, and how long he’d have to wait. Even his father took him out to the enchanted forests and grottos of the world for lessons, but always made sure they were the deepest, most well-kept secrets of the world, where no human would find them.

Well, most of the time. There were times when he came back with tears in his eyes. He’d ask what a What’s a ‘monster’?, and his father would lean down, put his hand on his cheek, and say Definitely not you. Lisa would plead or argue with her husband, but when Dracula would leave, the moon would turn red, and he’d remember what blood tasted like.

But this is different. This isn’t some day trip to come back with trinkets, some night lesson to come back with knowledge. The time it’s stretched out, and stretching them thin.

When he leaves and doesn’t come back that night… that morning…the next…the room tries to speak but finds there’s no breath in it, like it got the wind knocked out of it.

This is a different emptiness from what Castlevania was before. It isn’t a principal, not simply a fact of life. It is an absence. An absence of something living. An absence of a fact of life. A true emptiness in that the room was once full.

It doesn’t take long for the room to know what I miss you means; that absence creates ripples of yearning in its wake. That emptiness aches to be filled. It misses the games he played in the sunlight, it misses the lullabies, the drawings, counting the stars and sitting by the fire, the moments when the family would tell stories to the walls they didn’t know were listening.

It even misses the crying.

The clock tower’s ticking eats away at them from the inside.

And within the ticking, the room, the castle, wonder what the humans will do to him out there.

Will he be a monster in their eyes? An enemy, a beast, an ugly thing? Will they not see the light in his nature, rather the dark that nurtured him?

Will he be a cacophony to their ears, the screeches and howls of undead things, instead of the symphony they know his voice to be?

Will his blood be that of demons and beasts to their noses, and will they cast him out for not being human enough?

Will he be a toy in their hands, just as he played humans-and-vampires, just as he pretended to fight monsters with wooden swords?

…But he is alive, and living things ought not be played with, for they cannot be imagined into something they’re not.

And if he is a toy to them…what will they make of him? Will they imagine him as a human like them? Or will they imagine him into a monster he is not? Will they realize he is neither? Will they think he needs the night when he is perfectly fine in the day? What stories will they tell of him?

Castlevania has not met many humans. But those it has were prone to make monsters out decent men, and weapons out of instruments of peace.

Will the humans’ mouths be forked and deadly as ever? Will their hands be weak and empty as ever? Will they assess him as fuel for their ever-greedy fire? Will they take the life—they who have so much of it, take the single life they have here, the one that brought it to them all—and crush it out of him, figuratively or literally?

Will they bully him, and scorn him, and lie to him, and cheat him and hate him and…hurt him?

The room twists and spirals in its thoughts, as if going down a hill, and throbs at the last word.

Or… says the castle softly, Will they welcome him? Will they understand him? Will they see him as we have? As he truly is? Will his light withstand the darkness in them? Can he bring life to these bloodthirsty beasts?

When Adrian returns, what—or who—will he be?

The castle and the room wonder, and wait, and question, and long for him as they are left in the dark, holding their breath until breath itself is but a fleeting memory.

They couldn’t say how long it had been since he left, it could have been a lifetime. But one day, as black and white as the rest, the morning comes with spreading color, and breath tumbles into the deepest corners of the room again.

They are equal parts nervous and eager to hear the stories he has to tell; for these monsters and men are more than toys.

And he does have stories to tell.

Out there, adventure exists in more than just books. Out there he can learn without charts and lectures; he can learn by doing, by experiencing. He can put to use, and to the test, all the spells and techniques he practiced indoors. Out there the scenes that were pictures before are real, are alive—the rain licks and the snow bites, the grass whispers as the wind sings its haunting melody, and the rivers join in response. Out there he can smell the trees, and flowers, the campfires, listen to the howls and chirps of the animals, and feel the sun on his skin without the glass to separate them. Taste the world. And out there the heroes and villains are animate too—he can speak to them, and won’t have to dream up their responses. He can make friends and enemies out of words and actions instead of wood and clay. Out there the threats, the demons and monsters are real too, and he has to fight them with something sharp—be it his pen or his sword. Out there, imagination is a weapon against reality. Out there he doesn’t have to imagine his world to life because it already is. And he is alive in it…this is his life that he is finally living.

That is what a life is. The idea echoes in the room.

(If this is a life…are we alive? The room asks.

Alive isn’t the same as life. Castlevania mutters softly, and doesn’t explain.)

And, amongst all the adventures they learn that while he walked the world a spell, his mother’s people gave him a new name:

“Alucard.”

Alucard. The reverse of Dracula.

They looked at him, they listened to him, they spent time with him and they understood—(breathe again and be still, they understood)—they understood that he was not the dark and the cold and the death his father is. In fact, they thought that he was so different from his father that this reversal must be his name.

The room is proud of him, happy for him, relieved, for this was its purpose, its hope. Relieved to have him back—more full of life and light than ever.

Lisa, while always proud of him, doesn’t like the name. She named him after all, it makes sense that she wouldn’t appreciate a dismissal of the name she chose. But…there’s more to it than that. She doesn’t want him to be defined by his father. She doesn’t want him to be a difference, a reverse. She wants him to be himself. Him and his father to be different people. She wants them to be themselves; not dividends, fractured pieces of one another put back together in different orders.

(But aren’t we all fractured pieces of each other? Don’t we take fragments of each other to make up ourselves?)

This is a strange thought to Castlevania, for it has always been defined by Dracula, and never minded, but perhaps mirrors ought not mind their reflectors. Adrian is no mirror. Still, the castle has always compared the boy to his father. The room was always meant to be the opposite of the Dracula, of his castle. The boy’s very existence has always spelled the reverse of everything they knew. Its only fitting the boy would be a reversal of his father.

‘Adrian’ is a nice name…but ‘Alucard’ fits like a tailored suit.

Adrian likes the world. Makes sense, he likes the sun, the day, the mirrors, the books, the stories, the people.

But what doesn’t make as much sense, and what’s more important, is the world likes him. At first its strange, but as the castle thinks about it more it makes sense; they may have come with pitchforks before, because they didn’t like Dracula. …But Alucard is not Dracula.

The room breathes deep, more alive than ever. And, as its master returns, tells his story, the room learns too.

Castlevania may be able to move for its master, but the room is stuck in its place. It cannot see the rest of the world like the boy can. It understands now that Alucard being different from Dracula also means that he cannot stay inside like his father does. That though it hurts when he leaves, the room can never be everything he needs the way the castle can for Dracula. That he is made for something bigger than four walls…even if those four walls were part of what made him.

It understands that breath cannot be a constant for it. That its master will leave, and the room will be hollow and ache for certain periods of time. This is a fact of life. This is what living is.

But it also understands that he will always come back. This isn’t something it reasoned or multiplied out. This is just something it knows within the oldest parts of it; that they will never be apart forever.

Now that the room is alive within the castle it will always be its own existence. Even if it’s empty, even if it gets broken and battered, it will always be the universe they built for him, a universe can’t be destroyed by mortal hands. It can never be fully erased as long as Alucard lives.

(…And Castlevania understands that is dangerous.)

The room understands that though life was always a stagnant thing for the castle, it is more dynamic and elusive for it. It will go through periods where there is nothing in that room, and the emptiness will throb, but in the same way that Alucard has the kind of life Dracula could never have, the room will have the kind of life the castle could never have.

The room’s breath will ever be catching itself and falling, like a dance, as if always during the most exiting part of a story.