#either answer is not wrong

[xanderscollection]

There's a stranger in my room, he calls himself my brother.

There's a stranger in my room, he says we are vastly different from one another.

There's a stranger in my room, we grew up together.

There's a stranger in my room, I think I need a refresher.

There's a stranger in my room, I think it might be me.

There's a stranger in my room, I don't think I'm ready.

[stillness-in-green]

The thing that doesn't make sense to me if Izuku resolved to kill is how it doesn't let them prove AFO wrong? AFO did his big reveal which only makes it clearer how deep the grooming went and it should've been time for Izuku to understand Tenko and Tenko to understand the abuse then reject the mindset forced onto him. But Izuku killing Tenko doesn't do that. Tenko just dies. It feels very wrong.

I guess Izuku just wasn't very interested in proving AFO wrong! Honestly, the only thing I immediately remember Izuku disputing the guy on was the same thing he disputed Shigaraki on: that he was anything more than a human being. AFO isn't a Demon King, but just a lonely man. Shigaraki hasn't transcended humanity; there's still a human somewhere deep inside of him. Izuku won't correct his allies' use of dehumanizing language for Villains, of course, but he's quick to push back when the Villains themselves self-aggrandize.

Sorry, I really only have withering disdain for Deku at this point. And I guess I don't really see any evidence that Deku was ever particularly driven by "proving AFO wrong." He wants to stop AFO, certainly, but that's because AFO is a monster who takes advantage of vulnerable people to maneuver them into doing Bad Things that advance AFO's Bad Plans and sets them onto Bad Paths that are difficult to walk back, not because he expressly opposes AFO on this or that ideological point about the nature of humanity and society.

(Hit the jump for the rest of a somewhat rambly reply.)

If anything, current evidence is that neither Deku nor the manga itself really do disagree with AFO about the frailty of humans, as expressed by Tsukauchi answering Deku's question about how to prevent future tragedies by shrugging and saying, "You don't, because life fucking sucks sometimes and that's just how it is. Our hands are completely tied on improving the system as we have it, so all we can do is punch out the Villains that appear in front of us to stop them from causing more harm."

That's also me being a bit harsh, of course. The fact that Deku is even still asking that question in the epilogue suggests that the manga hasn't reached its final answer yet, and maybe it will yet come up with something better! It doesn't have much time left, but it's still possible!

All the same, Deku is still having to ask that question in the epilogue because he never truly faced it over the course of the story. Never thinking about what Shigaraki as a person said in favor of fetishizing the Crying Child, never coming up with any kind of non-violent plan of attack or conversational approach, I have to ask what exactly about Shigaraki did Deku ever disagree with AFO on?

AFO, in the end, characterized Shigaraki as a puppet he molded exactly as he desired, a doll who he sculpted and programmed to act as he wished, a feeble child who has never made a single decision that AFO didn't cultivate him to make. So far as I can tell, Deku never really contested that framing. He didn't know the extent of it until the full reveal, of course, but Deku, like AFO, insisted on approaching Shigaraki solely through that "Crying Child" lens. He seemed to believe that nothing Shigaraki said or did on the surface really mattered (save as a reason that Shigaraki had to be stopped and potentially killed), that the "truth" of Shigaraki was that feeble little weeping boy who never grew up.

How could Deku possibly "prove AFO wrong" in that context? He doesn't even disagree with him! I mean, he's got some nice talk about how people deserve a second chance, sure; he says that people doing wrong doesn't make them Villains for the rest of their lives. What does do that, however - insofar as I can tell from how opaque the series keeps Deku throughout the final war - is refusing the hand out of the darkness. You stop being a victim and become a Villain for the rest of your life by choosing to remain a Villain even when offered an alternative (no matter how patently awful that alternative is).

Shigaraki chooses to remain a Villain and Deku doesn't have a counter for that because Deku never really got past the false binary represented by Villains and Victims to begin with. And I think the same goes for people who expected Shigaraki to just fold when he realized the extent of the grooming he'd undergone. Disallowing Shigaraki any agency in who he is and what he's done is defining him the same way AFO and Deku both did; when Shigaraki refuses to accept that framing, refuses to be a passive victim, the only thing left for him to be is a Villain. And when a Villain refuses to stop...

Well, Hawks already told us what the Heroes' answer to that is. "Someone has to die." As no one ever stepped up to prove him wrong, as far as the story is concerned, he isn't.

AFO always knew that victims can be turned into Villains with the right nudges; that's the whole reason for him cultivating "warped seeds" whenever and wherever he found them. Hero Society is - and always has been - much too rigid in its enforcement of the Hero/Villain/Victim narrative to effectively combat him. Crucially, Deku - the boy who wants to bring everything back just the way it was - doesn't disagree with him. He thinks AFO is an asshole for setting people up to fail, but he doesn't disagree about what failure means. So if AFO, Deku, and the story itself are all in agreement, what's even there for Deku to disprove?

Now, there is something that would prove AFO wrong, but it isn't something you can do while insisting on drawing lines to separate sad manipulated woobie victims who just need to be saved from awful unrepentant villains who just need to rot. It isn't something you can do while infantilizing Shigaraki Tomura.

The way to prove AFO wrong is to make room in society to help all Villains. Even if they aren't asking for it, even if they never ask for it, and even if they're jolly bastards who don't really deserve it! As long as there's a point at which it becomes okay to give up on trying to save Villains, Shigaraki will remain unsavable. He will insist on being unsavable. He could no more let that go than All Might could step aside and let AFO's attack kill an innocent at Kamino.

That's what it means to be a Hero for Villains.

Ultimately, what makes AFO right is that he knows that Hero Society makes it difficult if not impossible to uncross the victim-to-Villain bridge, and so anyone who does cross that bridge (with or without his influence) is that much more susceptible to him. Deku, in turn, thinks the only Villains he can save are those who drop everything and come sprinting as fast as they can back to the Hero side, so anyone who won't do that is someone he can't help.

Shigaraki refused to stop trying to create a better world for Villains. Toga refused to live in a world that would imprison her. Twice refused to give up on the friends no Hero would help. It's the same with every other Villain who refused to quietly endure their status quo: in a society that refuses to change how it treats Villains, anyone who won't submit to suffering in silence cannot be saved.

That's the paradigm AFO exploits, and Deku will never prove him wrong without resolving to change the paradigm first. We'll see if the last two chapters get him there.

[hellenhighwater]

huge shoutout to rejection sensitive dysphoria and the attorney who mentioned that I'd misspelled "forfeiture" in my notes, ensuring that I will literally never misspell that word ever again. Thanks, it's just what I needed. I would have rather been shot, but this works also.

[theminecraftbee]

"You know," Jimmy says, irritated, as Grian hangs upside down in front of him, sticking out his tongue. "You know. For someone somewhere he's not supposed to be, you seem pretty uninterested in actually going home. If I didn't know better, I'd say you all want to stay here and cause problems."

Grian pauses, looks at Jimmy, and blinks slowly.

(Pop quiz. You are Grian. How do you answer this question?

A. "I'm enjoying hanging out with you, you know." B. "Last time the world ended, I put finishing touches on my base and tried not to think about the fact that I was pretty sure Scar's plan was to kill us, and I'm still not certain I lived after that, either." C. "There's a painting of Pearl in a tomb, and Ren crawled out from beneath it. I'm not so sure we ever weren't here." D. "Maybe I want to see you when I don't have to kill you." E. "What do you know about fixing rifts, anyway?" F. "Do you really think you get to escape me, Tim?" G. "I'm scared too." H. None of the above.)

"Aw, are you trying to get rid of me?" Grian laughs. "Too bad, Tim. You can't escape me if you try."

"Ugh," Jimmy says. "Figures."

"You're stuck with me for now. Believe me, Tim. I'm not going to just not look into it. I'm just... taking my time, is all."

"Well, take your time faster." There's a long pause. "Unless you're going to take Scar, I guess. He hasn't been half bad, really."

Grian makes an offended sound.

(Pop quiz. You are Grian. Is the answer given above true or false?)

"Well now I'm going to try to figure out how to re-light the rift even faster," he says. "You've gone and ruined it, Tim. Look at what you've done."

"What? No! I mean, yes! I mean, agh! Why are you so confusing?"

"I think I'm perfectly simple," Grian says primly.

"One day professors will teach a course about you, and it will be all the students' least favorite class," Jimmy says dryly.

"Ouch. That was almost a good burn," Grian says.

"I hate you," Jimmy says.

"I always feel bad for unrequited emotions," Grian says.

"I'm going to force you to play Monopoly later," Jimmy says.

"What? No, you can't do that here," Grian says, alarmed. "Jimmy, you can't do that here. Jimmy."

Jimmy huffs. "That's what you get for bringing everyone through that Rift thingy of yours. Don't think I haven't heard the others talking, either. That whole thing was your fault, wasn't it?"

(Pop quiz. You are Grian. Do you regret it? If so, why do you regret something that let you see all of your friends in one place for the first time in a long time? If not, why don't you regret the fact that you've put them all in irreversible danger? Please answer as completely as possible.)

Grian sighs. "Yeah," he says, and it's almost fond. "I suppose that's what I get."

"Now, get down from there and give me my hat back."

"Why on earth would I do that Tim? I'm so comfortable up here!"

"Agh -"

[youchangedmedestiel]

[coolnonsenseworld]

Last piece ❤️💙

There are still leftovers of the Calendar as well as some A5 prints with calendar pieces 💞

linktr.ee/Mezzy (or check my Tumblr for links)

[greentea-and-cookies]

Stolas after the Full Moon episode:

"I'll fucking die alone if this goes bad!!" It went horribly bad

[not-poignant]

If someone stopped reading your story, not because of anything wrong you've done, would you be interested to know why? Or would that just be unpleasant?

That would just be unpleasant, anon.

The reality is a lot of people just stop reading for a lot of reasons, and hearing someone's negative feedback isn't really that useful, because I'm writing the story for the people who really love it, and not for the people who got bored or stopped liking the themes etc. And then of course there are folks who just stop because life intervenes, which is normal.

Generally speaking there's a saying which is: If you wouldn't ask that person for personal advice, why are you listening to their criticism. And I tend to apply that pretty aggressively to strangers on the internet tbh!

Part of it is that I take negative critiques very personally, and can spend a really long time feeling like I should change an entire story for one person who's already stopped reading, or like I should be trying to fight to keep that one person's interest instead of like...focusing on all the readers who are actually just enjoying the writing as it is. And changing my writing for the people who aren't finding it interesting enough to keep reading (and/or who don't have time and/or who find it too upsetting etc.) is not going to help anyone!

So yeah, generally speaking telling a person why you've stopped reading a story is like...not really a thing to do (and that's true for most authors).

About the only time I don't mind it is when someone starts reading again after a period of absence where they've been stressed and I get a comment like 'Ah I haven't been around due to life/stress/illness but I'm so happy to be back and reading' lol, which I don't think is what you're referring to!

[totally-not-peter-parker]

I can't decide if the rumor that I'm secretly Ollie's bio kid, or the one where I'm actually Dick's bastard kid everyone covered up is funnier

[arbiterlexultionis]

The Letter

*Warning: Angst, mentions of suicide and generally misery. If your in a poor place mental health wise, please skip past this post and seek help. And regardless and whether you are or arn’t, drink some water, eat some food and love yourself*

So, in a No One Knows AU things are getting more and more dangerous for Danny. The injuries are piling up, the rouges are getting more and more dangerous, his fathers slowly but surly becoming less and less and of lost cause in terms of accuracy, close calls are getting closer.

He starts to worry that someday, something will happen and he won’t make it home, and every one he cares for will be left desperately searching for him, for who knows how long, not knowing his corpse is probably phased into the ground, floating in space, or in another dimension entirely. And the thought of everyone he loves being so lost and confused because he took a second bite of the big one hurts almost as much as dyeing the fist time, so he decides to make a “If your reading this, I’m probably dead.” letter. Just to clear the air and say goodbye and all that jazz.

But the last thing a grieving parent needs to know is that they spent months trying to murder their child, mourning friends don’t need to know that all the canceled plans, detentions, avoidance and secrecy that caused so many fights was because their “Bad Friend” was out risking, and in the end sacrificing, their life for them and their home. So he leaves out any and all mentions of Phantom. Just a whole lot of “I’m sorry I couldn’t make it” “it’s not your fault” “I’m in a better place now” “there’s nothing you could have done” and a few “don’t feel guilty”s thrown in just incase his identity was discovered because of his death.

However, it turns out that a super hero’s “I’m sorry I didn’t make it back home to you” message that includes absolutely nothing about being a super hero reads a lot like a suicide note. Like, A Lot.

Whoops.

Maybe Jazz goes snooping as a worrywart big sister and find a very good reason to worry, maybe Jack and Maddie stumble upon it, you could have a classic “oh no that’s not my homework” mix up and Lancer’s now trying harder then ever to help Danny succeed, Sam could have been trying to uncover whatever the hell Danny’s been hiding with Tucker along for the ride.

Regardless, someone finds the letter and everyone is straight up not having a good time.

[worstloki]

Fortesa Latifi, We Were Young

[travellingtribble]

so the plot holes... were just plot holes? the unexplained things were just... unexplained things?

[cerise-on-top]

Hey love bug! Guess who's backkkkk😍can you do farah and Kate laswell comforting reader with a headache bc I have one right now probably because I eat a shit ton of sugar and haven't drank water since the last ice age

Hey there! Please drink some water! I know you sent that request in a few days ago, but I hope you're feeling better now!

Farah and Laswell with a Reader with a Headache

Farah: She’d get fussy over you and demand you drink some water immediately. Won’t say too much while handing you a big glass of water, though. You better drink half of it in one go and gradually drink the rest of it sooner rather than later. She makes sure that you will drink the water and refills the glass as well, doesn’t matter how much you complain. She can be stern when she needs to be and this is one of those times. She doesn’t immediately grab some headache meds, though, opting for literally everything else first. Drink some water, go to bed at a reasonable time, take a long nap, just rest up, that sort of stuff. Only when the headache doesn’t seem to be going away will she resort to giving you some meds. Or when it worsens, whichever comes first. However, if it’s just a headache because you haven’t slept well in a while, then she’ll usher you to sleep while she does most of the housework. Will be quiet while she does so, however. She’s a very competent sniper, she knows how to be quiet while doing something.

Laswell: Like Farah, she would not be very pleased with you not drinking much, or any, water. Will give you the nearest bottle of water she can grab, even one with a flavor you like to give you more of an incentive to drink it. Will also make sure that you actually drink it, she’ll stand beside you and watch you down the water bottle, leave and emerge with a new one in hand. Will also use meds as a last resort sort of thing and tries everything else before that. It’s not that she’s against using medication, but using too much of it can lessen its effectiveness, so she’d prefer you take a nap or go to bed to make it go away. If the headache won’t go away or gets worse then, like Farah, she’ll grab the meds and give you some. Will also usher you to bed if you’re not feeling well, she’ll leave you alone for the time being. Cooks dinner for you and her and only calls you when it’s time to eat. Afterwards it’s time for you to go to bed again and sleep the headache off. Laswell can handle herself and the housework in the meantime, but she will be a little more stern with you if you decide to wake up for no good reason. You will be sleeping it off, whether you like it or not.

[ra-vio]

You just gotta draw kirby sometimes

[abelllia]

I'm just curious

[gideonisms]

Had such a Day. Idk what's making me approachable to everyone but I need to stop doing it