#what the fuck did i just wrote

[aerahyasashi]

Hi queen aerah! I'm a follower from quotev and i really love your works especially divine punishment 🩷🫶🏻 i was hoping to request something, if you accept ofcourse, if you do then could you please do a yandere suguru one?🥰

𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐀 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓?

“𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐊 𝐌𝐄 𝐈𝐍 𝐌𝐘 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐒𝐄𝐄 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈'𝐕𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆.”

╰┈➤𝐒𝐘𝐏𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒: Nanako and Mimiko asks you the reason as to why you’re wearing a blindfold, and what they found out chilled them to the bone, as they realized the truth about your blindness.

╰┈➤𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: Yandere stuff, Medical description of stuff, Manipulation, Drugging, Forced Blindness (Lmao)

╰┈➤𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒: Yandere! Suguru Geto x Oblivious! Blind! Reader

╰┈➤𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: I do not support or approve of any of the behaviors and actions depicted in this story. The content is intended solely for entertainment purposes. Hearts and reblogs are greatly appreciated<3. Kinda mid ig? Not rlly satisfied abt this. I'll do the other reqs next once i get the motivation to write<3

Masterlist

You softly hummed a tune while sitting on the plush mattress, feeling Nanako gently brush your hair.   Mimiko was lounging on your lap as she stared at the ceiling.

“Your hair is so soft mama.. like silk”

Nanako said, admiration tinging in her voice at the softness of your hair, showering you with compliments as she held the right section in her hand and the left in her left hand, leaving the middle section loose. 

Despite having no vision, you could feel her lips curling into a smile and it made a small smile to appear on your lip.

“Thank you, Nanako.” You said softly.

The bond between you, Nanako, and Mimiko had grown strong over time, as they were practically adopted by Suguru, your husband, and raised as his own.  Despite Nanako and Mimiko’s bratty tendencies, they showed genuine kindness and affection towards you.

Nanako, in particular, often displayed a more bratty attitude, while Mimiko seemed content to follow her lead like her loyal minion. It was reminiscent of the classic dynamic between a popular girl and her devoted sidekick.

However, despite that, you loved them too, and treats them as your own daughters.

“Mama, can I ask you something?”

Nanako’s sudden inquiry cut through the air, her eyes searching for affirmation as she sucked in a deep breath and stole a fleeting glance at Mimiko. Without breaking eye contact with you, she searched your expression for any signs of discomfort, to know if you are comfortable with her asking you questions.

“Hm? Ofcourse,” You replied.

Curiosity danced in your mind as you could feel Nanako’s hesitant demeanor. Even without sight, the slight hastening of her heartbeat was a sign of her nerves. Sensory perception was your gift, something that helped you a lot, because you don’t really have a vision.

“Well...” Nanako trailed off, unsure of how to start.

“Don’t hesitate to ask, okay?”

You gently reached out, your fingers seeking hers, your lips parted when you felt the texture beneath your touch felt different—It wasn’t Nanako's hand you held, but Mimiko’s.

“...wait, your hands feels different.. wait no, these are mimiko’s”

The sudden awareness painted your cheeks with a blush of embarrassment, a mix of confusion and awkwardness mingling in your expression.

As the realization dawned on you, Nanako's suppressed laughter bubbled forth, a ghost of a smile gracing Mimiko's features. A reassuring squeeze of your hand conveyed understanding and acceptance. “It's okay,” Mimiko's silent gesture seemed to say.

Apologizing sheepishly for your mistake, you couldn't deny the lingering embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” you murmured, hoping to dissipate the awkwardness that hung between you.

“Didn’t see that, sorry girls.” You chuckled.

“Mama, stop with the blind jokes.” Nanako deadpanned, watching you rub the taut muscles on the back of your neck awkwardly.

“Right..”

“Um, right... What was it you were going to ask, Nanako?” You quickly shifted the conversation, eager to move past the momentary misstep.

“Well...”

Nanako hesitated for a moment before speaking, her voice barely above a whisper. She cleared her throat, her gaze fixed on you as her fingers gently ran through your hair.

“Why do you always wear a blindfold?”

The room fell silent, the weight of her question hanging in the air. 

Confusion clouded your expression as you searched for the right words to respond. The idea of why you wear the blindfold had never crossed your mind, as it was just a part of your daily routine. After all, you were blind, and the blindfold didn't make much of a difference in your world of darkness. All you knew was that Suguru had made it clear that it should never be removed—and you had no desire to provoke him.

Nanako could sense your discomfort as she observed your tense body language. Worried that she may have touched a nerve, she inquired tentatively, “Are you okay mama? You seemed agitated...”

“Nanako...” Mimiko began, her own brows knitting in concern. “That’s quite a sensitive question, don't you think?” She spoke softly, trying to redirect the conversation. 

Realizing her misstep, Nanako quickly shook her head and apologized, burying her face in the crook of your neck, her features partially obscured by your hair. “Ah.. I’m sorry mama! I didn’t realized that i was being insensitive...”

“It's okay,” you reassured her awkwardly, letting out a nervous chuckle as you cleared your throat.

“You’re not mad?” She asked, her voice soft and vulnerable as she pulled away from you, her eyes wide and pleading. Her puppy eyes looked up at you, brimming with an innocence that would have probably tugged at your heartstrings—only if you could see it.

“Hm..? ‘course not, don’t worry," you assured her, a gentle smile playing on your lips.

“‘S fine, really,” you said, your tone calm and reassuring.

“Ah.. right, about your previous question...Well, the reason I wear the blindfold is because Suguru told me to.”

“Huh..? Why would Geto-sama want you to wear a blindfold?”

Nanako’s perplexed tone cut through the air like a sharp blade, her confusion palpable. In her mind, she had painted Suguru as one who adored gazing into one’s eyes, the windows to one’s soul. But now, she couldn’t fathom the reasoning behind concealing them, especially when blindness couldn’t erase the existence of your eyes.

“I... Don’t know...” you trailed off as the room fell into an uneasy silence.

The silence was eventually shattered by Mimiko’s voice, breaking through the tension.

“Geto-sama says that you have the prettiest eyes that he has ever seen.” she chimed in, her gaze flitting between you and Nanako. A subtle shift in her posture saw her abandoning her spot on your lap, choosing instead to perch on the plush mattress.

“Huh? Geto-sama saw mama’s eyes?” Nanako asked, looking flabbergasted.

“Nanako, He’s her husband.” Mimiko reminded her twin sister.

“Right...”

“But then.. if he likes your eyes so much, why would he want you to hide them?” Mimiko’s words cut through the haze of confusion.

Your brows drew together, shoulders slightly slouching.

“I suppose that remains a mystery,” you finally replied, your voice laced with a tinge of curiosity and apprehension.

Mimiko and Nanako studied you curiously, wondering what your eyes truly looked like. Were they as beautiful as Suguru had described? However, they had never been permitted to remove your blindfold, and they weren’t the type to disobey Suguru. Despite their bratty tendencies, they were obedient. 

But then, What secrets actually lay behind that blindfold? They were tempted to take a look, Yet, the girls remained restrained by their loyalty to Suguru, reluctance staining their disobedient thoughts. 

“Perhaps he prefers it that way?” you mused, resting your head on your palms and propping your elbow on your thigh.

“I’m not really sure, if i’m gonna be honest.. he just likes it that way i guess.”

“I can’t even remember how I lost my vision too.”

You had no recollection of how you lost your sight, as your memories seemed to have vanished without a trace. All you knew was that Suguru was your husband, and he claimed that you had lost your memories due to your immune system attacking your eyes. 

According to him, your immune system had somehow identified your eyes as a threat, leading to inflammation and damage that resulted in your blindness. He insisted that there was a scientific basis for this too, as the immune system would attack the eye once it recognized its existence.  

And ofcourse, as the dumb little thing you are, you Believed him.

“Mama, are you okay?” Mimiko’s concerned voice breaks through the fog of your thoughts, drawing your attention. 

You compose yourself, managing a smile.

“I’m fine,” you reassure her softly.

Nanako’s eyes are searching, her worry palpable. “Are you sure?” she presses gently.

You can’t help but be touched by their concern, feeling a warmth blossoming in your chest. Meeting their gazes, you offer another smile.

“I promise, my loves, I truly am okay,” you say, a hint of laughter in your voice as you reach out to embrace them both. 

A surge of gratitude sweeps over you as you hold them close, basking in their presence.

“Having you two by my side and a husband who supports me tirelessly every day, I couldn’t ask for more,” you whisper.

“Life is tough, but atleast i have you all.”

Dumb little you was so oblivious and didn’t knew that suguru was the reason why your life was tough.

If only you had been aware that he was the mastermind behind all of this. He orchestrated the entire scheme that led to your memory loss and deceived you into believing he was your husband. It was also because of him that you lost your sight, although you were too dumb to realize it at the time. 

Suguru was deeply enamored with you and the two of you were once in a romantic relationship. However, when you decided to break up with him, his feelings of love turned into obsession. He resorted to disturbing and dangerous tactics to make sure you stayed with him—Such as manipulating and drugging you, all in the name of his overwhelming love for you as he was unable to bear the thought of losing you.  

It may have been your mistake to allow him into your life, however. Perhaps if you had declined Satoru’s invitation to hang out with him and Suguru, you would have never crossed paths with him. Maybe if you had refused to give Suguru your number or declined the love letters he presented, things would be different.

You wouldn’t be in this situation.

After embracing the girls tightly, you gently released them and affectionately patted their heads. Your expression brightened as you spoke,

“I’ll just show you how they look like to satisfy your curiosity, ‘kay?”

Nanako and Mimiko both eagerly nodded in agreement.  

“I bet they’re really pretty just as Geto-Sama says!” Nanako says and Mimiko nods in agreement.

“.. Suguru shouldn’t mind, at least I hope not,” you muttered under your breath.

With a deliberate motion, you gently lifted the blindfold with a slender finger, allowing just a sliver of sight for Mimiko and Nanako to catch a glimpse of your eyes. The room grew eerily silent as the two girls eagerly leaned in, their gazes fixed upon your mysterious orbs.

However, what they beheld was beyond their wildest imaginations, shattering their preconceived notions. Their eyes widened in disbelief, their pupils constricting in shock as a chilling wave of fear washed over them. Their jaws slackened.

Your eyes were tightly sewn together by a thick black thread infused with cursed energy. The thread was so tightly wound, and your eyelids were merged together, giving the appearance of eyes belonging to a puppet with carefully stitched features.

That was when they realized that you weren’t actually blind.

Nanako’s throat constricted as a strangled gasp clawed at her lips, her heart hammering violently against her ribcage. Mimiko’s body tensed, a tremor coursing through her frame as her eyes widened in sheer horror.

Suguru’s presence seemed to loom unnoticed until that moment, as he loitered casually by the door, propped against the wall with a nonchalant air, his head cocked to one side, observing them with a detached interest.

He was just there the whole moment you three were talking, completely silent and just watching.

A shiver ran down the two girl’s spines as their gazes collided. Suguru’s lips curled up in a knowing smirk, his ice-cold eyes staring at them as he brought a finger to his own lips as he mouths something.

“Can you keep a secret?”

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

[itsthislake]

“Icarus.”

it's all about freedom really

Credit goes to An Sifakah for the poem. Enjoy!

Support me on Ko-fi maybe?

[putridcowboy]

the most important step in the hero’s journey is the gay sex

[clarabow-mp3]

i've been thinking about this all day so here's my thoughts on @sillylotrpolls 's "which member of the fellowship fucks":

frodo: too busy Brooding and perhaps even Yearning. maybe once or twice in his youth but to me just doesn't seem like the type of person to have casual sex.

sam: also too busy Yearning, but also just doesn't seem the type. he has a job, he's busy, he's in love with his boss AND the girl at the pub, it's a whole thing.

pippin: for all intents and purposes is like. 17. so again maybe once or twice but in very awkward, fumbling ways that made everyone involved think "wait, did that count?"

merry: fucks severely. confident, kind, intelligent, always there to lend a helping hand (😏). of course he pulls hobbits of all genders constantly. the only potential wrench in the works is the fact that he at the very least is already acquainted with his future wife, so maybe they've got something going on in which case he is probably not out romancing other hobbits.

gandalf: be so serious. who is he fucking? hobbits? saruman? shame those big naturals are going to waste but he does not fuck.

boromir: next after merry, imo. has been around, fighting battles and in taverns and such, and is prone to temptation so has definitely fucked at some point, probably multiple times. however he does hate himself for it.

aragorn: lives in the woods singing about his one true elven love. no way.

legolas: is not married, and therefore has not had sex. elf marriage is the one time tolkien wrote about sex and you're all ignoring it.

gimli: sure. why not? gimli fucks. good for him.

[bonefall]

it is healing to come onto this blog and see basic respect for diasbility after being in other corners of the fandom and reading the words “snowkit could never be a warrior because he wouldnt know what anything is. he wouldnt even know what a clan is because nobody could explain it to him” said in full seriousness

Im..... That statement is so ableist I cannot even imagine the worldview you'd need to have in order to come up with that.

They really think the only way anyone learns anything is through verbal-speaking-words-noises? No one has ever observed something before? Not even once?

This is beyond touching grass, this person just fell out of the fucking Jurassic Period when all they had was ferns and stegosaurs.

I just...

OH YES. I remember my first day of Society Lessons as a hearing person, where the everything was explained to me. Via Audiobook. FIRST they spoke and said, "you are standing on the ground." It was a life changing revelation, and the world began to spin.

But it did not stop.

THEN they said, "there are fingers on your hands." The sensation of flesh and bone crackling into existence is indescribable, but I did not yet know pain, until they told me, "that hurts." I began screaming immediately.

And yet... it continued.

They explained so much. Chairs. Tables. Walls. The sky. Frogs. Ionizing radiation. Breathing. I was told all of it, in one sitting, and only then did I understand. Only when my ears were bursting with normal hearing knowledges, did they begin... my final test.

A strange wall-chair-finger emerged from the sky-of-the-wall, stood on the ground several times, until it was in front of me. A second one came behind it, this one slimmer. The audiobook gave these things names;

Human. Father. Mother. Door. Walking. It was completely impossible to know what these things were until that very moment.

I watch a human dip a hook into water and produce a fish, and I recall my Society Lessons where they called that "fishing." I am decked in the face by a nefarious hooligan, and I have only the audiobook to thank when I know I have been "punched" by a "bad guy." It was only the magic of verbal-speaking-words-noise that made me understand that there are "other people" and that they "do stuff."

Sometimes, even, in "groups."

Before the Society Lessons Audiobook, I knew nothing. I was pure, innocent, uncorrupted by concepts such as "parents" and "door." I am grateful every day that there is no such concept as "being shown things" or "simple logical reasoning" or "looking."

Blessed be those amongst us who escape the horrors of the Society Lessons Audiobook. I pray that you never learn what anything is. Be free! Free as a bird, which also knows nothing and famously cannot learn. 🤗

DEAF/HOH FOLLOWERS I'm losing my mind do you want me to bump a 'Hearing Disabilities Herb Guide' to the top of my priorities? Something you can use to bludgeon whackadoodles like that. This is ridiculous

Obviously not a MEDICINE guide but like; common causes of hearing disability in clan cats. Accommodations for hearing loss vs congenital deafness. Actual difficulties of not having that sense Clan-by-Clan. Debunking of misconceptions like... not being able to learn APPARENTLY.

[ashersanity]

Just what you fucking deserve.. filthy slut.

Might as well clean up my shitty drafts one by one, starting with this one. Wrote it while on 2 hours of sleep a few weeks ago. Expect a mumbling mess of nonsense.

Expanding on my other post depicting a jealous Whitney.

Pairings : (A possessive, jealous M!Whitney x gn!PC)

Summary : (PC has a bad time with Whitney in the alleyway..)

Content warning! : (dub-con, non-con if you squint hard enough, physical violence as in slapping, semi-public fucking, lazy writing, lots and lots of degradation, whitney being whitney as always)

“How many times?” Whitney gritted out between breaths, skin slapping against skin resounding lowly in the sketchy alleyway. The one that you usually took to get home, in plain sight of the bustling street where anyone could just walk in on your ass getting destroyed. “How many times did that bitch fuck you?” He repeated, and honestly you didn’t know exactly to who he was referring to. Robin, Kylar, Sydney..? There were too many to count and your silence filled with gasps only seemed to further piss off the delinquent, grasping at the back of your hips and using it as leverage to fuck you harder.

“I-I didn’t—“ You had barely manage to get that one out only to be interrupted by a squeak and a whine, feeling like your legs might give out at any moment if it weren’t for the other holding you up right now. He only took it as encouragement to quicken his movements, hips meeting your rear with every sharp thrust.

“Liar.” He muttered, his face close to yours, this position way too intimate for what was going on. “You fucking lying bitch.” He snarled, rough hand grasping at the back of your head, keeping your limp body in place as he fucked you raw against the wall.

“How. Many. Times? I bet it’s because you flashed your ass again, huh? Didn’t you? Fucking whore!” Smacked you clean across the face, your cheeks burning red from the slap and having your hole stuffed full with Whitney’s cock, the familiar sensation of his length moving in and out of you that you squeezed oh so eagerly around. Fuck, you were seeing stars from how fast he was going, no way were you going to manage walking past the bathroom tomorrow.

“Yeah, that’s right.” The bully hissed, his pace momentarily slowing down for a second to spread your cheeks and look at your tight little hole squeezing around his dick, pink and puffy from his daily treatments. “No one can fuck you like I do. I just need to pull out my cock and you’re lapping at my knees like a dog. Don’t even need to put it in, you just cum from sucking it, don’t you?”

A blush crept up to your face from his words, remembering the embarrassing moment where you had come undone in front of him and his friends just from sucking him off in the boy’s bathroom. He really didn’t have to mention that part, trying to deny it even if it was half-true.

“N-no, I d-don’t—“ You hitched out, body slowly easing into his rough pace and relaxing against him, arms coming up to wrap around his neck. Your compliance had his pissed off tone slowly shift into his usual one, low and husky whenever he was horny.

“Fuck, there’s my good whore, my slut.” He cursed under his breath, threading his fingers through your hair and tugging gently. “Only l get to see you like this. Fucked dumb and stupid, no one else. Not some bastard, not some whore. Me. Got it?” Whitney sighed out, burying his face in the nape of your neck and biting down. Hard. Hard enough to draw blood and elicit another whine from your mouth that you desperately hoped wasn’t heard by any passerby, lest you wanted to get arrested again.

“You’re all mine, right? Cmon. Say it. Say who you belong to. Who’s my fucking slut?”

“M-me, Whitney.” Voice shaky and slurred, answering him back without second thought.

“That’s right, that’s it. Shit..” The blond groaned against your skin, grip tightening on your hips and angling his cock to go in deeper, pressing down on the visible bulge against the skin of your stomach, clear outline of his entire length fully inside you. “Cum for me, bitch. Let me see how much you love having my dick inside you.”

That was all you needed, body reacting on its own and cumming hard, making a complete and utter mess of yourself. Watched on with a smug smile as you came right around his cock, hips bucking up and hands reaching up to grasp at the blond strands of hair on his head for support, the same ones you’d twist and pull at in math class whenever he teased you under the desk.

It took a while to come down from your high, shaking and twitching all the while, gasping for air before looking back up at Whitney’s grinning face, pressing an uncharacteristically soft kiss to your forehead.

“That’s right. I own you.” He stated plainly, lips possessively pressing against yours, murmuring once more.

“And don’t you fucking forget that, slut.”

[carionto]

Everything gets recycled in Human space. Everything.

When we from the Coalition made first contact with Humanity, their space was a disaster in waiting - countless pieces of debris from jettisoned thrusters, random junk from individual space wannabes, and dead satellites that failed to enter a descent orbit, among other objects.

During the period before they and Earth vanished, it became an almost impassable barrier even without our containment measure.

From what the Humans have told and shown us, after they had that massive explosion that burst trillions of tons of the surface and mantle up, the sky was almost constantly dark. One of the first priorities they set was cleaning that up immediately or life on Earth was heading for a fatal ice age. And so they did, in spite of all other calamities happening at once, they put forth enough time, energy and resources to create their extraordinary Orbital Cleaner Crews.

For decades thousands of volunteers went up to man various harvesters, pilot drones, manage processing efforts, and often manually fix problems on the spot. The sheer chaos made predictive navigation and communication of any kind nigh impossible. It was suicide, as well as a complex and delicate task. Not to mention the fact that the Human population had been reduced to less than a billion, with all the associated challenges on the surface. Still, during a time of calamity and uncertainty for their future as a whole, some Humans stepped up to do what had to be done to preserve their future.

Most died on duty, only once most of the chaos had been dealt with did the mortality rate drop below 80%. The memorial for their sacrifice is a humble yet humbling small docking ring with all the surviving vessels and equipment they used parked and locked in stasis, and the names of each engraved on the outside hulls. If there is one thing that unites all civilizations across the galaxy, it is the culture of remembrance.

The result of their effort was an Earth that would not freeze to death, and their legacy is the unmatched professionalism and thoroughness of the OCC. Every object not planet-side is tracked. Regular scanner sweeps find anything as small as an iron atom that shouldn't be there, and within days any newfound junk is picked up and sent to the most relevant station for recovery, recycling, or reuse.

Even the maddening process of their planet crackers as they tear up moon after moon to be used in their insane projects doesn't leave a speck of dust afterwards. Everything has value, be it sentimental or practical, and nothing is left on the wayside.

When it comes to keeping their space clean of junk, Humans have become obsessively compulsive.

[lottieurl]

fundamentally i disagree with the notion that Jeff Knows Everything because he read shauna's journals. that implies not only that shauna wrote in detail about Everything that happened during those nineteen months but most crucially it implies shauna wouldn't be an unreliable narrator

[delta-piscium]

@steddie-week day 1: Hunger | 1.1k words cw: light angst in that Steve is a little sad/dealing with some mental stuff but like hurt/comfort (not EDs which mental stuff combined with the prompt word might make it seem like, hunger is used as a metaphor)

Sometimes Steve doesn’t talk to anyone for days. He just shuts himself in his room and hides, barely leaves his bed. Pretends he doesn’t exist, or that time has stopped and he’s the only thing that exists.

Sometimes, he’ll go back too soon, feel bad for the ignored calls and drag himself out of bed to see the people who matter most to him. But it won’t feel warm and soft those times. He’ll be too raw and It’ll feel like they’re grabbing his insides and eating them. Pulling his heart and brain out of his body and devouring them without letting him eat theirs in return. 

Usually, he’s okay with that. He knows his place, he knows that’s what he’s for. For other people to get fed. And he’s happy to feed, to do that for them. 

He loves them, of course he’s gonna give himself over. It’s just that sometimes they take too much. They don’t know they do he thinks, they don’t know they’re eating him alive. That he’s presenting himself on a silver platter and letting them take take take, and that sometimes they take too much.

That’s why he disappears, so he can grow back. So he can give more. Because if he stops giving he's afraid they’ll get tired. He won’t be useful, he can’t give when he’s like that. He starts craving, he starts wanting. He feels starved and wants to take and feed too, and that’s not part of the deal. He’s not supposed to eat, he’s supposed to be eaten. So when he turns hungry and ravenous he hides, he isolates. 

Robin is the only one who truly gets this about him, who doesn’t take and demand. She gently accepts the things he gives and never without giving too, forcing him to stay whole. It’s overwhelming and sometimes he has to hide from that too, he doesn’t know how to deal with the force of it. He’s so used to the constant hunger it’s a shock when it’s gone but he’s gotten better. And anyway, he and Robin are part of one whole so whatever is given or taken between them is never really gone. It stays with both of them.

Robin is the only one, or she was the only one he should say. Because now there’s Eddie. Eddie who gives and gives and gives, almost as much as he does. But who doesn’t seem to dwindle and dim like Steve does. Who doesn’t seem to starve or hunger. Eddie who notices when Steve does, when he stumbles and gets greedy. Who holds him up and makes him whole with a look, a touch, a word. 

Eddie who breaks in through his window when he shuts himself in his big empty house and lays with him in his bed, softly telling Steve stories and running his fingers through his hair. 

It’s wonderful.

It's the worst. 

“I’m afraid you’re gonna end up as empty as me,” Steve tells him, whispers it into the dark. “That you’re here now and you’re giving and I’m taking and you’re gonna be the one left with nothing.” 

Eddie doesn’t respond immediately but hums in acknowledgment, lets him know he heard and is thinking. 

“This is good for me too,” he says eventually, “being with you and resting. Getting to be here for you when you never used to let anyone but Robin be. It’s good for me too.” 

“It can be good and still drain you.” Says Steve, knows it to be true. He doesn’t resent giving the way he does, he loves it, it’s good. It drains him. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees, “this doesn’t drain me, you’re comforting me too. It’s balanced.” 

Balanced. That’s what Robin tells him too. That’s what Nancy sometimes asked him for when they dated and he couldn’t let her see the cracks. That’s what he wonders about with his other friends. 

He doesn’t usually know how to do that. He doesn’t know where the lines are. He doesn’t understand how Eddie knows. 

“You let me give, and I let you give, so it’s balanced. We don’t take from each other, we gift and we receive. It’s balanced. You have to let other people give sometimes too, Steve.” 

It hits something deep in him, the last words. He knows this, he doesn’t want to know it. 

“I’m afraid they won’t. if I open myself up to it. If I ask, I’m afraid they won’t.” He says it so quietly it’s almost inaudible but Eddie hears. 

His hands still in Steve’s hair for a moment before moving again, gently scratching his scalp. 

“I know baby. But that’s not fair, they want to give too. If they knew how much they took without giving back they’d be heartbroken. It’s not fair to you or them.” 

Steve lets Eddies words wash over him, he knows he’s right. They’d be nauseous with it. His sweet wonderful friends and family would be crushed.

“Sometimes it will happen, maybe,” Eddie continues when Steve doesn’t respond beyond a sharp breath in. “Sometimes people won’t know how to give after only getting but you gotta let them try. Sometimes they’ll learn and adjust, sometimes they won’t and you’ll have to deal with that. But you can’t starve yourself like this because you won’t let them try.” 

"What if I take too much?"

"Then they talk to you, like you should talk to them."

“When did you get so wise,” Steve snorts, his voice is tight but he makes the effort, tries to lighten the mood. Deflects, like he always does. 

Eddie lets him, a little, knows Steve has to. But he’s still serious when he answers.

“Wayne is like a never-ending well of insight and digging around in everything, never lets me get away with shit.” 

The opposite of Steve’s parents who were the first to take from him and never give, never look into his eyes and tell him to eat. 

“He’s a good guy,” Steve tells Eddie instead of weighing him down more than he already has. Instead of acknowledging and relieving the hunger pang that strikes him at the thought. Even now, here, he doesn’t know how. 

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “I’m here to relay his wisdom, like playing telephone with whatever stuff he teaches me. The things your parents took away from you.”

Eddie still knows, of course, he does. He always knows.

“And what do you get?” Steve has to ask.

“I get you. I get everything.”

Steve smiles, turns around to kiss Eddie. He doesn’t feel empty when Eddie kisses him back, hungry. When he takes and devours. 

[wumiings]

“airplane created the pidw world from nothing” “airplane is an unwitting prophet recording his visions” airplane is altering a pre-existing world death note style; reality has to keep readjusting itself so that whatever new bullshit aphrodisiac plant he invents has ‘always’ been there. it didn’t use to be like this.

[slime-sandwhich-nom]

Can't believe charlie slimecicle finally embraced his destiny and returned to the corn, where he can finally lead the corn cult.

[inkskinned]

not to romanticize my mental issues but sometimes having adhd is very useful because today during a meeting that could have been an email i kept thinking about crabs wearing small tophats and having little dancing parties and how they'd sound in tap shoes.

and when my boss was like "raquel what do you think?"

i was like "well, i think the others have made good points about this, of course, and i'd be happy to circle around later on it, but i'd love to take a moment and resonate with this before offering my own suggestion. i want to hear what others think before anticipating the client's needs."

and then i went back to not listening but this time it was imagining snails that joust.

[justatalkingface]

The 'Great' MHA Read Along, Part Five (Chapters 22-44): The Mandatory Exploitive Tournament Arc

Been awhile, huh? Let's see if I can still pull this off. I'm warning you, this is probably going to have a bit of heft to it.

We start off people trying (and failing) to investigate Shigarki and the Villains and, first off, a couple of things. The whole, 'Quirk Registry' shit? Very X-Men. I'm... kinda mixed feelings on it. It makes sense for a government to try and keep track of this kind of shit, but at the same time it feels like a whole lot, you know? That said... the way the guy in the suit phrased it makes it seem like they only searched for 'Shigaraki/Disintegration' and 'Kurogiri/OP warping' pairings, which seems... dumb. Like, really dumb.

Are they.... are they not going to search for anyone with a similar Quirk? Because it sounds like there are other people with similar Quirks, so... what about them? Oh, this pale haired guy who mutters a lot about how horrible heroes are isn't named Shigaraki, so clearly this isn't the guy? Do some ground work or something, man, bloody hell.

*spits out drink*

Even All-Might thinks Shigaraki is a man-child, lol. Brutal. That said... Vlad goes, 'You mean he's just like a kid with a 'power' or something?!'

And I. My dude. You're just some guy with a power. It feels like some depersonalization of the 'villains' because, yeah, everyone in this story is, in fact, just some rando human, 99.9% of the time with super powers. I don't know, it just feels like that's this really concerning perspective for someone in authority to have.

'I keep forgetting this is an actual school!'

That. That's... actually really concerning? Everyone, literally everyone, from Aizawa, to the students, to the actual author, can't seem to figure out if UA is some military academy meant to pump out child soldiers, or an actual high school meant to prepare children to go into society. And not to belabor the point here, one I've talking about on and off again for awhile, but that's fucked up.

I can't help but get the impression that UA (and presumably every other hero academy) is some military complex, setting up the students to live a life where the only way they know how to live is through violence and trying to be famous, but it's just... pretending to have standards, pretending to care for the kids as anything more than the next generation of... idol-police, or something. The way every school related thing is so out of place, the way their grades are so unimportant... it's very telling.

And like. It's not a bad thing, per say. Morally bad, sure, but from a story telling perspective? For a story like this, the way the heroic's school is morally dubious is actually a really good plot point to work off of. But... that's the problem. It never happens.

If the setting was fucked up enough, it'd be understandable if it wasn't explored, but it's not. I feel like there's some fertile ground to talk about... how heroes don't know how to handle living normal lives. How to cook, clean, do taxes, hIstory (which is, of course, very loaded sort of topic in a more dystopian kind of a set up) and so on. There's no way they have the time and energy to do all the thing a normal kid should do at their age, and as they grow up, and get these dangerous, fucked up jobs? There has to be consequences to that.

And the next line later, they bring up, you know, a bunch of terrorists just attacked the school. Which is, in fact, a serious fucking concern! What does Aizawa say?

'No no, we're only doing because we're so sure we have this shit locked down.'

Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact, have this shit locked down. In the least.

My god, this is so fucked up. It's pretty clear that the fact this is still happening is because UA, and heroics as a whole, honestly, is doing a show of force to try and make all the bad things go away. In all honesty, they're putting these kids lives at risk; the only reason nothing went wrong isn't because 'the school had all its ducks in a row when it comes to crisis control' or what the fuck ever, but because AFO didn't want to do anything. And you know why he doesn't interfere?

Because it's so damn useful for him that they flat out broadcast the details of the students and what their Quirks are!

And don't even get me started on this 'Olympics have fallen out of favor' bullshit. It's a world wide event, and it doesn't matter if the population has... shrunk (? That's what my translation says, anyways. Is this honestly saying that so many people died that the Olympics no longer holds any attraction? I mean.. what? What the fuck? What happened???? Why in the hell is this getting brushed over?! Or is that just a bad translation, and if so what is he saying is the reason the Olympics no longer have any appeal?) or whatever, because that's just... bullshit. That's just bullshit. If super powers happen, and they get at all stabilized and regulated like they are in here, all that's going to happen is that the powers are going to be part of the Olympics, and a lower population count really isn't going to change the fundamental reasons why it's popular in the first place.

Speedster racing, various forms of competitive flying (racing (in all its variations), acrobatics, mid-air dancing, synchronized flying.... flight along has dozens of potential new Olympics sports, easy), something like shot-put hurling but with some kind of projectiles, fire, lasers, whatever? Oh yeah, the Olympics are going to be just fine.

So please, Hori, spare me your obsessive need to make heroics the most important thing EVAH all of the time.

But, wait, there's more! It's not just, the new super Olympics, oh no, this is for their careers. In high school. This is, apparenlty, a make or break moment for the rest of their lives (again, with however that undefined heroics ranking and what not works). How old are they? What, fifteen? 'Here, go do bloodsports, and if you fuck up, you're going to be a menial, loser fry-cook of a wannabe police officer, dressed in brightly colored spandex for the rest of your life, barely making any money, and never getting any real respect or validation for putting your life at risk'.

Oh, I have opinions on the Sports Festival, believe me, I have a lot of opinions, but I'd like to save at least some of these more for when the actual Sports Festival starts, and not, like, five pages into the first chapter out of what, twenty two? We've got the time.

Uraraka! You're an actual character! My, this is nostalgic. I always loved the contrast between her hyper cute-zied design of her and the fact she's down to beat the living shit out of someone at the drop of a hat, and it's nice to have that again.

(Also, she's showing more ability to inspire the class here than Bakugou has shown literally the entire series, no matter how much Hori goes on about his 'charisma' or whatever.)

And then we get into her "impure" motivations to be a hero, (which I've also talked about on occasion), and it's very humanizing, both for Uraraka as a character, and the industry as a whole. It's one of those great set ups Hori ended up dropping on world building, which sucks because it'd be so interesting if he got into the nuts and bolts of the world a bit. I'm not saying we need to see the tax code or anything, but for a series that's about corruption and what not, some more detail would really help pull all of this together.

Ah, Dumb Might. I didn't miss you, except I kind of did because Dumb Might is still better than Useless-Side-Character Might.

Also, can I talk about how stupid it is that Dumb Might is burning his less than an hour's worth of time 'teaching' students again? Because holy fuck that's such a waste it's honestly criminal.

And what the hell is this switch in motivations, here? All Might never mentioned, you know, replacing him is the Symbol of Peace before now. Before this point, the whole reason he chose Izuku is that he'd be worthy user of his power, not, what, replacing him. If Izuku never gained any real fame, but still managed to save a lot of people? Before-this-point All Might would have been fine with that. More than that, he would have been proud of it, proud his successor was humble and chose to focus on doing good rather than fame. Hell, not too long ago it was pointing out by All Might that Izuku wouldn't want to use All Might's fame to benefit himself, to go slow and steady and earn his success rather than relying on fame.

Where the fuck did this come from? What the fuck kind of pressure is he trying to put on this kid?

And then right after that, we see flashes of who All Might used to be with the whole 'don't forget how you felt at the seaside park, that day', bit. Because, like, that's good. That's great! It's real, and deep, and gritty, and I'd love it if it wasn't being use with this set up, because those expectations work in other shonens, but they don't work here. Izuku can't do what All Might did, because he can't stop damn hurting himself. Going Plus Ultra, here, now, for this? It could cause real, serious harm to him for the rest of his life! And for what? To make a good impression?

And if something would call him on that, it could still work, because All Might is canonly shit at taking care of himself, that could, like, close the circle for all of this, bring it together with the two them as shit at at self care as a place to build them improving off of, but for whatever reason, Hori never went all the way on that because he was too damn afraid to commit to it, commit to a story, commit to a theme, commit to a moral.

...Holy shit, how many pages is this? We haven't even gotten to actual Sports Festival yet in the post about the damn Sports Festival.

And now we have this creepy, kind of morbid mob of people filling the hallway to stare at Class 1-A for.... being attacked by terrorists.

*what the fuck.jpeg*

What is wrong with you people?! What the actual hell is wrong with you???

And then Shinso rolls up:

"Wow. Look at these arrogant assholes, so excited about not getting killed. I'm going to declare war on them, because they deserve it for getting all high and mighty."

...

You know, I completely forgot about the epic story of, 'Shinso Hitoshi and his Completely Unmerited Persecution Complex'. I'm sad that I remember that now.

Bakugou: "People's opinions don't matter once your at the top."

Me: *looks at how much people's opinions matter to getting to the top, and staying there*

Me: ...Uh.

Thank you, Kaminari, for pointing out his edgy bullshit is, in fact, actually bullshit, and is only going to make his life more difficult for no reason. I like you as an actual person who does things other than cheerlead for Bakugou.

Izuku. Izuku no, Izuku...! Damn it. Bad Izuku. Bad! Stop getting inspired by the festering waste spewing out of Bakugou's mouth!

Cue all of two panels of the media being absolute assholes only out to make ratings with no redeeming features.

And... here's the actual Sports Festival, god knows how long into this post later!

(if you believe the text editor I just posted all of this into? Well into four pages. ...Even with my generous use of spacing, I think I have a problem.)

..Wait. Wait. Where the hell is this happening?

*does five seconds of research on the wiki*

I'm right. They have a stadium for this. Like, a giant ass sports stadium that exists for this. Only for this. That is used once a year.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering why UA isn't just it's own city. Like, Izuku should have moved here, along with the rest of the students, and all the families and various staff needed to run this just.... live on site. It's not like it'd cost them anything, since they apparently have spare cities sitting around for the kids to trash.

That's... that's actually a really interesting idea? Because it'd be a hero run city, then, which feels like it'd work well into the over commercialized, corrupted state heroics is supposed to be like, their overwhelming level of influence. I don't think that's what Hori was going for, to be clear, I think he has no idea just how much space he's causally put on UA's campus and didn't think through the implications... at all.

Ooh, and here comes Todoroki's characterization.

And... here comes the bloodsport, because that's what all of this is: bloodsport. They're throwing a bunch of teenagers onto this stage, broadcast them to the entire country, and have them fight against each other for fame. This society is so fucked up.

Random Gen Ed kid: Yeah, he placed first in the Heroics Entance Exam.

...Yeah. As fucking stupid as it is that Bakugou somehow placed first, it does make sense the person who place first in the Heroics Entrance Exam would be class representative in a school for heroics. Damn, you're salty, kid, but you're also kinda dumb, not going to lie.

Bakugou: *opens his mouth on live TV*

Bakugou: *vomits diarrhea for the entire country to see*

Izuku: ...Wow, Bakugou's so cool! He's grown up and mature now!

...Izuku. Izuku, buddy, please, stop doing this to yourself.

As yet another thing I've mentioned before, a lot of our views on Bakugou comes from Izuku. Izuku who has, from chapter one, all but worshipped Bakugou. Even when he does things wrong, even when he's actively fighting against him, Izuku can't stop himself from going on and on about how great Bakugou is, how cool and tough and determined he is. Izuku's hero worship of his abuser is sheltering Bakugou's actions from the readers, papering over all of his worst traits with a a transparent facade that he's this glorious figure. It's the narrative going the extra mile to cover his arrogant ass, to make him seem like a rival instead of an bully, someone worthy of respect rather than contempt.

Hmm. I don't want to go too much into the nuts and bolts of the event, I think, since I've done that before, so let's try something else: How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child? Where I, you guessed it, count how many times a teenager could have been killed, on national television, in this event.

Count one: The start of the race itself, where... *counts how many kids are in 1-A, multiplies by eleven*... two hundred and twenty kids run forward at the same time, trying to force themselves through the same opening. This shit is why it's illegal to shout fire in a theater, because a stampede like this could get someone trampled to death, or maybe crushed by the sheer weight of the crowd (which is something that happens, someone getting killed by the a crowd of unruly people just... squeezing them on accident).

*stares at Shinso being carried around like a wannabe king instead of using his own damn legs judgingly*

Count Two: Mineta gets bitched slapped by a robotic arm bigger than he is. I don't think I have to get into how that could be fatal.

Count Three: The army of Zero Pointers who could easily step on someone.

*Momo wondering about how UA can fund this makes me feel very validated, BTW*

Count Four: Todoroki dumping the Zero Pointer on the rest of the competition to block the way, again for obvious reasons. He obviously doesn't meant to, but this kid isn't even looking back. This is both lamp shaded and then dismissed because it happens to the only two people who could shrug that off, but holy shit that could have killed so many of them.

...The cameras are robots. The cameras are robots with AIs that are cheering on the other robots. I- I can't- what?!?

And then everyone can't stop themselves from praising Bakugou for the radical idea of going over a problem instead of blasting through it. Wow, Bakugou. Amazing. Such brains, such smarts.

Count Five: The Fall. Because there's no way that anyone could get themselves killed by. You know. Falling. If I was more generous, I'd say something like, 'There's probably something down there to catch them if they fall', but I'm not terribly impressed by UA's ability to actually keep these kids safe, so that doesn't make me think they'd have thought that through that much.

Grudgingly, I'm going to give a landmines a pass, because they're explicitly supposed to be non-lethal, and them blowing up didn't do any real damage. Burns, maybe, possibly a broken limb, probably some scars, but this count is about people dying. Izuku's pile could have been, maybe, but that's a level of deliberate action on his part big enough that I can't really blame UA, per say.

Eraserhead, on how 1-A has improved: I didn't do anything.

...Well. At least he's honest.

One other thing: I've said before how bullshit All Might telling Izuku to 'fight to win' was, and right here, here's the proof: All Might explicitly going, "I was afraid you'd be too nice to try and beat other people in competitions, but you proved me wrong! I'm so proud!". You know, fighting to win. Like he later says Izuku doesn't for some mysterious reason *cough*, to make him seem at the same level as Bakugou, *cough*. Poor, poor All Might, yet another victim of Bakugou's narrative warping favoritism.

And here we see the management kids going all out in how to sell Izuku and his brand, which is so very fucked up, for them and the people they're 'selling'. I'm aware this is something that celebrities go through, (which is fucked up for them as well, don't get me wrong; I'm an equal opportunity 'this is fucked up' call out-er), but these kids are in high school. The fact that they're doing this, and getting this done to them, in such numbers, in such an early age... yeah. There's no way this could give them lots and lots of long term stress and psychological problems, right?

Meanwhile, as we get to the offical rankings, I think it's time go back over the 'How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child?' count... at five. Five times they could have been killed on complete accident.

That is not a good score.

I'm stopping it here because the other events don't have the same problem, but instead of a whole new problem of delibrately pitting them against each other. On live TV. With minimal supervison. Cementoss popping in at the last second in Izuku vs Todoroki, considering how badly Izuku got hurt in the process, does not fill me with a great sense of these fights being well monitored.

*gets an omake chapter*

*Bakugou gets called Izuku's childhood 'friend'. Bitch, please.*

So. Here's a new point: the million point bullshit is... well. Bullshit. It's the snitch in Quiddich all over again, giving the hero something both super import, with an extra layer of difficulty, to drive up the stress and stakes, only kicked up by a million. Making more than the others makes sense, and making it enough to pass by itself is still pretty reasonable, but making it so excessively much has no point other making Izuku feel isolated from his peers and hunted by his classmates.

Also, Mt Lady going on about how 'great' an exercise the second round is is missing the point that this is literally a thing Japanese kids do in school. Literally, this is a game they're playing with Quirks, not some tactical exercise; it's like saying that playing hide and seek makes you great at hunting people down or something. Again, Hori, dial back your constant need to tell us how great the Sports Festival is. Because it isn't. It really, really isn't.

More doses of everything drooling over how great Bakugou is, and how much of a total shit of a human being he is, joy. Mineta and Shouji's teamup is actually pretty damn brilliant, even though it's tainted by how much of a one-dimensional character Mineta is. Iida is getting shown as Izuku's enemy, but honestly it looks more like he's just trying to improve himself more than anything, while acknowledging how competent Izuku is. Not just that he won the first round, or has a lot points but that Izuku, as a person, is the goal he wants to surpass; there's some good shit there, and pretty validating, if Izuku could allow himself to accept it.

Oh Mei! Mei... actually, I have a post I need to do about the Mei and Izuku dynamic at some point, how they're so designed to work together, but yeah she's fun.

And then Uraraka thinks about how strategic Izuku is being and again, I can't help but contrast this with how things happen later on; even if Izuku never lets himself really feel the respect people have for him, people at this point in time really, honestly seem to respect him, not for his Quirk, but for his brain, his determination, his heroism; it's so well setup for Izuku to stand on his own two feet without OFA and it's some really good stuff. It's a shame Hori gets rid of it.

Hmm. Class B. Class B is... interesting. They're set up as rivals but after this it never goes anywhere, and just leaves us with a bad impression of Monoma, without letting him get a good chance to get past it. I don't like him, honestly, his personality grates at me and he needs to get over himself, but he doesn't deserve the hate he gets from the fandom.

That said, though, the Class A vs Class B victory philosphy is honestly just another example of destroying yourself vs having realistic limits, how All Might and Izuku keep destroying themselves vs everyone else not doing that. The fact Class B is actually thinking ahead is smart, but the series doesn't give them that credit because it's not ambitious enough... even though that runs straight into conflicting with Izuku and his issues.

Hori, fucking commit already. In all honesty, it feels like 1-B should have won over Bakugou and knocked him out of the compition; they planned it out, and played him like a sucker, because he's a bullheaded moron. It's all right there, but right as they win... Eraserhead shows up in the booth and says, 'Yes, you've won, but actually no, because Bakugou need to win anyways. So he is. Because REASONS!' Then All Might gets dragged into that same bullshit just to make it really clear that no, Bakugou is right. Planning? Strategy? That's for losers. Real winners just need to want it hard enough, and no one wants things more than Bakugou!

It would have been better, as a story, and for everyone's character development, if that had happened. Bakugou would have lost to some 'nobodies', Izuku would have gone past him without even validating him with a fight, and Class B and Monoma would have gotten a better chance to show themselves as characters; win win win.

And then Endeavour shows up. Fuck Endeavour. Also that is a man who looks like a serial killer. Dumb Might continues to reign and be completely unable to recognize when someone hates him when he monologues about it right in front of him.

Meanwhile, Bakugou is just... there. For some reason. Why? Why does he need to be there for this? It makes his hissy fit later even worse when you realize he knows why Todoroki doesn't use his fire, and it has literally nothing to do with him. Ignoring him, though, Todoroki and Izuku's moment here is some good stuff, a nice setup for a healthy rivalry based on mutual respect, rather than the toxic mess he has with Bakugou.

Ugh. That cheerleader bullshit. Honestly, it says a lot that they can be told that, 'Aizawa says you need to dress up as cheerleaders', and apparently no one questions this, because of course Aizawa would pull some kind of weird bullshit on them with absolutely no warning at what anyone else would think is the worst possible time.

Midnight being really creepy about how she talks to teenagers, of course, and now... Shinso.

'Consent is for losers' Shinso. 'Everyone is coasting on their Quirks except for me, who only knows how to use my Quirk' Shinso. 'Let me use my Quirk on someone before we even get in the arena so I can blatantly cheat' Shinso. 'No one else has dreams or ambitions' Shinso.

I don't like Shinso. I like the idea of Shinso, sure, but that idea is another one of those paper thing veneers Hori likes to put on his characters, without doing the work to make that match the reality; the only hardship we've seen him go through is his apparent inability to work hard. Like, everyone loves Shinso, in story and out, they can't stop themselves from telling him how great his Quirk is. And you know what? It is. It is a great Quirk.

But Shinso talks like he's had a such a hard time with it, even though he seems to love it, love using it, and the way he acts, like he knows he can go through a career as a hero based only on that Quirk. He's wrong, since he's so out of shape he can't even run, apparently, but he's operating off that assumption at this point, which conflicts with his poor little martyr act.

I want you to look at the iceberg Todoroki makes, and compare it to his efforts against Stain. If he did that against him? That fight would have been over the minute he showed up, and Todoroki ambushed him. This is pretty much our last moments of Todoroki, certified badass, before the nerfs roll in. Savor it, Todoroki fans, because he'll never recover from having to lose against Bakugou.

Another omake, which seems like foreshadowing about Hori deals with women characters: bringing up a good characterization, or valid idea (do women heroes need sexiness to do their jobs?), before throwing it away to fall for the same tropes that he was making a stand against just a minute ago (women getting in a cat fight, which apparently gets really explicit, all of this on a TV before Mineta, Hori's avatar of his own horniness).

Then, as if to prove my point, we get Bakugou vs Uraraka where, like Class B before her, she does everything right, gets the win... and then gets it taken away at the last minute by idiotic bullshit pulled out of nowhere (since when could Bakugou make a blast like that? Why does he need those bomb gauntlets if he can do that?) because Bakugou isn't allowed to lose. And then Eraserhead, Hori's mouthpiece, shouts down the crowd, and us, when we think bad thoughts about it because that isn't allowed either; we need to love Bakugou.

Bakugou respects women! ...Just as much as he respects everyone else. That is to say, he doesn't. Hell, he doesn't respect her enough to think Uraraka planned her own fight! He just gets one line for one second that makes it seem like he respects her, but of course once that moments gone it's back to the normal level of complete disrespect. That's totally character growth right there, one second of acting different before returning right back to standard behavior.

So... Izuku vs Todoroki. I like the fight, it's very dramatic, very cool, but... stop to think about it a second, and about a minute in, Izuku's entire ass hand is broken. That is not OK. Why are they letting it go on? It's simultaneously a great fight, but a seemingly awkward implementation of Izuku having a Quirk, because so much of this arc is built off of him not using a Quirk, not having it. This fight only works with it, though. And it's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's shallow at the same time because of the Quirk, because Izuku has to go Plus Ultra, has to go past his limits. Instead of accepting a more reasonable win, he has to win, period, and he doesn't have the power for that.

There's this awkward conflict here between the story's various narratives, between Izuku needing to suffer, and struggle, and break himself, and his more grounded planning and actions, and you can see Hori's old, better planned out ideas getting replaced with newer, less thought out ones. It's honestly kind of a theme for this arc in it's own right.

Flaws aside, though, the fight is gripping, and it's a great setup for Todoroki, a great starting point in making him an important character, in giving him growth. Shame Hori ends up throwing all that away literally the next fight.

Well, before that happens, let's talk the one two punch of, 1, Izuku having done himself permanent, life long damage, which nobody thought to stop, and 2, the sheer, unmitigated clusterfuck of Recovery Girl going, 'I'm not going to treat wounds like these'.

So. If Izuku breaks anything... well. She's not going to treat that. I guess he has to walk around with a broken finger/hand/arm, without any medical attention whatsoever? Well. I certainly don't see any problems with that.

Then we get Bakugou, who canonly has problems using his Quirk for extended periods of time, outlasting someone by using his Quirk for extended periods of time, before going on to fight someone who uses cold, his canon weakness, and ignoring how it should completely neutralize his Quirk to overpower it, through what I can only call his sheer, narrative warping concentration of favoritism.

On what happens after he wins... I've seen people say that he doesn't mean to attack Todoroki, just try to wake him up, but looking at that scene: he's holding Todoroki's body up with one hand as if to shake him, sure, but it's the other hand that's the problem. The way he's holding it is, for his Quirk, an offensive pose, making it ready to attack his target. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (against my own opinion) and say it's not proof positive that he was about to attack, but there's no getting around that Bakugou had himself perfectly set up to hit Todoroki, full blast, while he was unconscious. Even if it's the more innocent explanation, that feels like something that should have disqualified him because... that's really concerning. That feels a step away from him threatening victims he thinks should have stood up for themselves or something; it's not heroic, in the slightest. The fact they had to knock him out, presumably for Todoroki's own safety, says enough about how bad that is.

The fact that the ending comment is basiclly lamenting from his perspective, that this 'isn't what he wanted' is... certainly a choice. He won, but, gasp! The person with long held issues in using his full power that long predate him didn't use his full power! The poor baby!

Then we get to the award ceremony where they... chain him up? Why!? If the doesn't want the damn award, don't give it to him; they let those guys earlier give up when they felt they didn't deserve it, why is Bakugou different? It feels like it's Hori tying him up here, against Bakugou's own will, and characterization, to give him that win just so he can win, but also to forcefully set up Bakugou's own importance with the League later. It's ham handed. It's probably child abuse. It's stupid.

It's fucked up all the way down, is what I'm saying.

Then All Might shows up, and fucks up his entrance timing because he's not allowed to win anymore, of course, and then forces that medal on Bakugou.

Uuuugh.

Last couple of panels, though, are pretty nice: we build up Uraraka's character, get the next arc set up, set up Izuku (fucking finally) getting away to use his own damn power, and develop Todoroki a bit.

A nice little cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[alyona11]

The duality of man is when you love Hadestown so much that you hate Hadestown

[generalecapodiurano]

I've only seen the last 3 episodes with English subtitles and I thought that the translator made Goultard too mean calling Joris "shorty"

I was so sure that petit bonhomme was more of a term of endearment, like "small gentleman", but no. They've really called my poor Jojo "little guy" all this time. Those mean motherfuckers