#? its not really a spoiler its a cover detailing what already happened in the manga but ill add this tag anyway

[kiisaes]

THE NEW MHA VOLUME COVER?

[taki118]

Yakuza Fiance ep 7 Manga Comparison

Ok we are getting into things now, again comparing the anime adaptation to its manga chapters and seeing what was lost. Warning I am using fanstranslations cause I'm lazy.

The train scene isn't so bad but again we loose out on some set up

I guess maybe spoiler? But Tsubaki shows up later and we get this cute image of her but the more important cut is what happens right after.

Yoshino starts talking about people she knows, and how she could easily hook Kirishima up with some good deals and such. This is kinda an important detail for the arc like in ep 6 where they removed her being more of a tour guide this helps to show that Yoshino is more tuned in than you'd assume, Kirishima included. She's reliant on him in Tokyo cause she's new there. (There's also the character beat missed in her saying he has theses connections too but his have.......different circumstances) Anyway this is what leads into the keychain scene. I do like how the anime leaves him dumbfounded holding them for a bit would have appreciated a little more of a linger maybe a simple zoom in for emphasis though.

Nao's scene with her college, I think club members, is cut down a bit you don't miss much but it is made apparent how she's not liked by the female members and that she's manipulating the guys more (we'll see this later too) I think the only real loss is this bit

Nao's internal thoughts are always pretty funny as she's really shows he mean side better. What's more of a loss is her thoughts on the bus.

This shows that Nao did her own digging the morning after from seeing the lock screen and putting that together with the new info she gets. It's interesting how Yoshino is described and how the word has spread (though its probably intentional by Kirishima) Anyway it gives a little more depth to Nao so its a shame.

Meeting and talking with Yoshino is similar but again we loose more Nao thoughts.

She's so low key bothered by the fact that Yoshino doesn't know who she is. (Spoiler she does girl you got played so bad)

Like Nao really just has the meanest thoughts (I really should do my dedicated metas) The only other thing to note is the manga makes it clear that during the elementary school incident she was already in middle school.

The bedroom scene with Yoshino and Shoma is basically the same the main difference being some Yoshino thoughts as she looks into things on the phone and this cute little interaction at the end

Again overall the Nao and Ozu confrontation is similar but some details are lost such as Ozu mentioning she's been ignoring his calls. But they did take out something pretty important for context.

Ozu explains himself and his actions a little more here in the manga (and kind of Kirishima's own) this leans into Ozu mentioning him more smoothly.

We also get a little more on why he wanted Yoshino too

Also Nao is more shocked in the manga all her assumptions about Yoshino kinda dying in an instant.

The aquarium "not a date" date is pretty close but we do loose some stuff as well. Like this cute moment from Yoshino

(Showing her naturally lazy side, haha)

Then we get more info on Yoshino's license and why Kirishima wants one

(He just wants to drive Yoshino around)

The volunteer club scene is pretty much the same but we get more dialogue implying that Nao isn't as good at covering her intentions as she thinks (I seriously think she doesn't actually do anything in the club)

Soooo they again cut some context as Kirishima explains about his um "patron" situation

Just saying a lot of things should start clicking when you hear this, again I really should get to work on my deep dives.

Anyway the scene after is pretty one for one which I'm grateful for but this might just be a me thing I think the phone interruption scene is a bit off

In the manga we never really see Kirishima's face outside of his fake smile so I always got the impression he let his mask slip for a moment in frustration at being interrupted the anime lets us see and I think it doesn't give the same impact.

Also while her talk with Shoma doesn't leave much out the framing of the shot isn't as impactful

Shoma really looks a little scared here, probably cause he knows how she gets when shes mad, but the anime he comes off just looking confused.

The scene with Kirishima and Nao is similar cut down a bit so feel the switches in tone more quickly than the manga though thats not too bad I did like how his VA handled it. Though we loose him implying Nao was going to try and use Yoshino and this line

The rest of the scene pans out basically the same again with just some added back and forth in the manga and more character hints. Like with the other shots I mentioned though I think the manga does a better job at conveying how panicked and surprised Kirishima is that Yoshino pulled one over on him

I think with just a little camera work the scene could have been really great.

I'll end things though with just how pretty and bad ass Yoshino looks in the manga like anime isnt bad but like

You really can't compare.

[angy-grrr]

Okay so I decided to continue the manga (BNHA) a few days ago. I still have a long way to go to lol. I mean, I've only read a couple of chapters at most. But yesterday I've accidentally come across the scene where Midoriya loses his quirk and Bakugo gives an emotional speech. So apparently Bakugo kinda develops a hero worship for Midoriya? I was like, yeah I knew Bakugo would have a redemption arc but I didn't expect this to happen. So I was surprised. Like, what happened? Bakugo belittling Midoriya for multiple chapters straight turned into some kind of a fan of Midoriya?

Oh really? You think he is a Midoriya fan?

Im guessing you left it during one of the beginning arcs, so you have a loooong ride to see his development and how natural it feels actually.

But if you want a more straight up explanation, the author changed his mind about his role in Izuku's life -at first he was going to be his opposing rival, out of his life and as a challenging source, someone Deku needs to beat to get into the top, without giving him any support, but he realized his better side would end up coming out, and now... He's really important and a part of the "people who support Izuku" group, lets say.

Spoilers without details under cut -I say big things that happened. Literally say them, I mean.

Katsuki: What? Am I a Midoriya fan? *looks to the sides* *process to constantly think about him, sacrifice himself for him making Deku lose control even tho others already got hurt, keep their rivalry going on as it motivates him and is his perfect reason to keep being in his life, is responsible for his past actions and apologizes after leading everyone to him when he run away bc it was too much to handle him and the others to get hurt, goes out of his way to hold him before anyone else when he falls, helps him train to achieve his goals, goes into a war in his team, when izuku is taken from that part of the battle he keeps trying to fight, gets targeted as izuku's closer person not friend, tries to win while talking to him even tho he is not there, dies while thinking about catching up to him while crying, has the All Might card they got together as kids in his pocket, sees Aura Might, his corpse makes Izuku lose control again, revives himself in the most dramatic way possible and makes eye contact even tho they are km away and the rain stops, has a Mary Jane coded cover with Deku, goes out of his way to get to him even ho he just revived, fights doctors and others multiple times to get to him, is the first and last person to make Izuku smile after the war along with All Might, cries over not being able to be by Izuku's heels for the rest of their lives, worries more about him losing his quirk than about him losing half of his + not being able to recover his arm*.

I cant write it all its just ridiculously too much. I skipped so many things already lmao.

[anakinthetrashking]

BnHA One-Shot Fic Recs (pt2)

 I AM HERE! With more recs for you! The last post was all about DadMight, such a beautiful genre *wipes tear from eye* This time its DADZAWA! if you happen to follow me, you might know that i really really(really) love Aizawa. a lot. So im going to try to keep this to only 10 recs, but,, well,,,, we’ll see anyway leTS GO

Aches and Pains by Badwolf36 Rating: G     Category: Gen     ~2700 words Summary: In which Izuku isn't willing to admit how much pain he's in, and Mr. Aizawa is just as much of a softie for his students as he always is. I’m always SO WEAK to stories that deal with the very real consequences of breaking all of your bones. Poor Izuku. I enjoyed the details of how he’s feeling, the way that the reader’s awareness of his pain waxes and wanes along with Izuku’s (temporary distractions can only do so much, A+ for realism there). Also, soft Dadzawa while not mushy-ooc-Aizawa! Conclusion: I love this and also want Aizawa to make me hot cocoa when there’s storms and i cant sleep!! (sidenote, everytime i see this username my brain shorts out bc my old ff.net account was also Badwolf## lol)

My Neighbor Shouta-ro by Hound_of_Heaven Rating: G     Category: Gen     ~2,700 words Summary: Yamada Hizashi, on Christmas Eve of the year he turns 19, jokingly presents Aizawa Shouta, also 19, with a Totoro kigurumi. Everything that follows after is pure chance. Heeeeeeeeeck this is ADORABLE. I- You guys- this is so pure and so precious and so!! go read it, i died. such fluff.

constrained by my own mind (im not fine) by CamsthiSky (tumblr: @camsthisky ) Rating: G     Category: Gen     ~1,500 words Summary: Midoriya Izuku is a problem child, and for some reason, Aizawa Shouta cares too much to let him fend for himself when the kid is obviously dealing with something First of all this is written by one of my fav Batfam writers!!! I was so hype when i saw this posted and OF COURSE IT WAS JUST AS WONDERFUL IF NOT MORE SO THAN I EXPECTED!!!! A+++++ in character for both Izuku and Aizawa. Izuku is jumpy and anxious and stressed and i love it. That the way Izuku started out, and while i am eternally happy at how much his life and social reactions have already changed, stuff like that doesnt just disappear in even a year, so I love fics that address that and expound on all the progress that he would have to make behind the scenes. and having Aizawa as the catalyst to begin getting actual help? *chef’s kiss* This checks boxes and then proceeds to cover the page in checkmarks LOL

remember from here on in by aloneintherain (tumblr: @captainkirkk ) Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~8000 words warning: spoiler heavy from manga chp 215 Summary: Aizawa glances from All Might to Midoriya quickly. It sounds impossible—he’s never heard of a quirk that can be handed down like a family heirloom—but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Midoriya’s inability to use his quirk at the start of the year. The strange, familial relationship between All Might and Midoriya. The slow malnourishment of All Might’s body, like his power was being siphoned away. “You’re …” Aizawa begins.“I’m All Might’s successor.” Midoriya’s proud but shaky voice rings clearly down the empty corridor. Aizawa finds out about One for All. Awwwwwwww yiiiiiiiissssssssss!!!!! reveal fic!!!! one of my all time fav tropes!!! Plus it expounds on some future theorys/possibilities(Spoilers!!!) and you get some great interactions between Izuku and Shinsou, and plenty of opportunities taken to wear out our already worn out catepillar-sensei. poor guy needs a break but would do anything for these kids. Incredible characterization, great feels!!

Those Hardest to Love Need it Most by DancingintheStorm Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~8,200 words Summary: Shouta gripped the phone tight enough to make the phone case groan. “So it’s true. Midoriya was Quirkless.”“Until soon before the entrance exam,” Nedzu confirmed. “That’s not relevant now, though, because—““Relevant?” Shouta hissed. “Midoriya is barely functional, socially. He doesn’t trust any adult. He thinks the whole world hates him. He apologizes for everything except breaking the law, and I’m sure I can trace every single one of those things back to his Quirklessness. You call that irrelevant?”  Aizawa visits Aldera Junior High and finds out some disturbing truths. Yes. Just. Yes. Righteous anger abounds, local anxiety-child is told for the first time that his life has worth, more at 10 (I LOVE THIS ONEEE)

The Gaunlet and friendships and how memes tie the two together by averypassionateperson Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~3,500 words Summary: Shinsou walks into his first day in the Hero Course hoping to get politely ignored. He walks out having gotten into a sanctioned fistfight with the entire Bakusquad and a whole lot of new friendships. Also, memes are responsible for most of this. This fic is SOOOOOOOOO much fun. Always sure to bring a smile and honestly all I could want from a fic about Shinsou’s first day in 1A!!!

like light through a window by achievingelysium   (tumblr: @queenangst ) Rating: T     Category: Gen     1,139 words Summary: The first time Shouta sees what Hagakure looks like, it’s because she’s covered in blood. Coming from one of the best Dadzawa writers around, is a delightfully haunting fic centered on Hagakure!! The Dazawa is of course, spot on, the premise makes your heart ache as it plays out like a movie in your mind. So smooth to read, while so emotionally painful. Ouch. It is a fic with imagery that has stuck in my mind like a plant with deep roots, bc i keep thinking about it despite my too-much-fanfic-reading-adhd-muddled-brain. I feel like i had more to say but tumglr erased the paragraph i had originally written. D:   (side note, as i am keeping these posts to 10 fics... this fic came from her series of 30 min fics which you can find here on tumblr ao3  its an absolute goldmine of one-shots, go check it out)

a frozen pond, dark and deep by walking_through_autumn Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~3,800 words Summary: In the aftermath of Endeavour's battle against High End, Aizawa escorts Todoroki to his home for special leave, and they have a conversation that has been long in the making. (Or: Over two car rides and the mystery known as bubble tea, Aizawa divulges information, Todoroki returns the favour, and trust is built over unexpected similarities.) This fic felt just as quiet as the two characters it surrounds, which was really nice. Even deep emotional grieving can be quiet, since everyone feels things and reacts to things differently. It was a brilliant way to chip away at these character’s walls to let light shine through without creating an earthquake event to destroy the walls completely, you know? and it works off of canon so well. ah yes seeing the process of Aizawa realizing that hes has adopted another child is my fav    anyhow i enjoyed it very much!

but still my heart is heavy (with the hate of some other man’s beliefs) by honeyandsunshine Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~3,500 words Summary: Nemuri jerks a thumb to the side window, presumably the one with the best view of the front gates. When Shouta looks, a small crowd, all of which he can recognize from his class, are gathered around a sleazy looking man with a camera and a microphone. Half their quirks are activated. Bakugou and Todoroki are smoking. From the bushes nearby, a rather enraged stag emerges. As he gets up, Shouta just hopes they haven’t already killed him. Or:Class 1-A defends their own. Aizawa suffers, but looks after them anyways. I love how this doesn’t go the way you expect it to. and how much Aizawa loves and trusts his class full of gremlin heroes. The Dadzawa is so soft, his logic is sound, my heart aches, and i kinda want to cry. really, really, really great you guys

bend, don’t break by heyhamlet (tumblr: @hey-hamlet ) Rating: T     Category: Gen     ~4,100 words Summary: It started, as it always seemed to, on what was supposed to be a pleasant day. ---A Christmas shopping attempt gone wrong, Aizawa and Midoriya have to survive a strange nightmare quirk, all while trying to work out how to get out of there alive. Aizawa is injured, Midoriya is panicked. It's less a question of what could go wrong, but more what could go right. Another fic that has not left my soul since i read it. Some of it is truly terrifying in a way that I hope never haunts my own nightmares. and honestly isnt that reason enough to read it? While near death experiences bond people together well, nothing beats being trapped with someone in a nightmare that is feeding off of your deepest fears! If Aizawa wasn’t considering adoption before, he certainly is now. Found family before the monster finds you...0.o go read it, its a treat from another top notch writer!

well, thats 10! the next post will probably be misc. bnha one-shots. Enjoy and don’t forget to give the writers your souls love and comments!

[secretpeachtea]

Onigiri Miya Tidbits Ch 5

Title: the graduation celebration

Genre: gen fic, reader insert

Word Count: 5.9k

Summary: Onigiri Miya is now hiring and you just happen to be the right person for the job. The business has been gaining popularity since its grand opening, and many customers travel from different cities just to have a bite of Miya Osamu’s delicious recipes. You did expect some craziness from working in food services, but what you didn’t expect was to be bombarded with frequent tomfoolery from a bunch of attractive volleyball players during your shifts.

disclaimer: manga spoilers

A/N: IM BACK. this literally took me a whole month to write and i hope there aren’t too many mistakes. if there are mistakes, feel free to point them out to me! other than that, hope you enjoy!

Previous///Next

Your back was aching from standing at the register for such a long time, so you decided to take a seat on one of the two chairs set up behind the counter for times like this. There was only a little over an hour left before closing, and there weren’t any customers at the moment, so taking a quick break wouldn’t hurt. It seems like Osamu was thinking the same thing as he plopped himself next to you languidly.

Your boss rests an arm on the back of your chair. “You tired?” 

“A little bit, but it’s nothing I can’t handle,” you reply back with a sigh. “How about you?”

Osamu takes off his cap and runs a hand through his hair before placing it back on his head. “Nah, I’m good. Just feeling a bit dazed. It’s been a pretty slow week, so I guess I’m just lacking some energy boost.”

“Yeah, I guess. We haven’t had any interesting customers come in for a while, huh.” You think back to the time when you had to babysit a certain volleyball team and when you interacted with a specific gamer during work. “Although, I can’t really tell whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

Your conversation was interrupted when you both heard the entrance slide open indicating the arrival of a customer. Or, rather, customers. A group of young men walked into the shop while also engaged in their own chatter. 

“We meet up after such a long time and you decide to come here?” A man with light brown, uneven bangs shoved his hands into his coat while sporting a blank expression. “Although, I can’t really say I’m surprised, Goshiki.”

The one addressed as Goshiki scowled in slight frustration. “I don’t trust any of the other options you all pitched in! I didn’t want to eat spicy ramen from the convenience store when we haven’t met up all together like this in so long! I won rock paper scissors too so it’s my choice, Shirabu-san!”

Another man with a crimson-tinted buzzcut chipped in with a lighthearted tone, “Are you sure you didn’t want to just come here ‘cause you heard about the cute register girl?”

“N-no! That’s not true, Tendou-san!” (yes)

“You’re so easy to read, Tsutomu! Isn’t that right, Wakatoshi-kun?”

Broad shoulders on a tall figure turned towards the redhead. “I suppose it is easy to understand Goshiki as if I were reading the gardening section of the newspaper.”

The fourth person of the group had a guitar strapped to his back with an...interesting outfit that you would not normally see someone wear voluntarily. “You guys sure haven’t changed at all. I can’t really say I expected to come here either.”

The last two people to enter the shop chuckled as they listened to their peers. One had a spiky undercut and slanted eyebrows, while the other had large, defined lips and tan skin. The latter spoke up, “Well, it’s not too bad, Semi. Plus, we’re here to celebrate Shirabu’s graduation and acceptance into medical school.”

You and Osamu are now standing behind the counter but the group of seven had yet to notice you both. You do a double take when you glance at the one who just spoke. Covering your mouth with one hand, you whisper to your boss, “Okay. I see what you meant by Benkei.”

Osamu just quietly chuckles.

It didn’t take long for one specific person to direct his attention at you as he walked to the counter. “Ah, (Surname)-san. How have you been?” 

At the sudden greeting, the rest of the group ceased their conversation.

You just gave the familiar face a small smile. “I’ve been doing well, Shirabu-san.”

“SHIRABU-SAN KNOWS THE PRETTY REGISTER GIRL?!”

You’re a bit taken aback by the loud exclamation by Goshiki, so you just stare at him with wide eyes. A couple people burst out laughing, mainly Tendou, Yamagata, and Semi. The poor boy’s entire body flushes red as he tries to get the guys to stop laughing. Shirabu just lets out a sigh and turns his attention back to you. It seems like the other two who weren’t part of the boisterous bunch also turned their focus to where you were.

“Sorry about that. I told you I would visit soon, but I didn’t expect to come with my former teammates,” Shirabu apologized.

“No, that’s okay. If that’s the case, then these guys must be the Shiratorizawa alumni you mentioned before.” You shook your head in understanding. You turned towards the others. “Nice to meet you guys. I’m (Surname) (Name), Shirabu’s college classmate.”

“Hellooo~ (Name)-chan!” Tendou joyfully greeted after listening in on the conversation. Goshiki was now hidden behind Ushijima’s large stature to avoid any awkward encounters. Yamagata and Semi rejoined since they were also curious as to how you knew their former setter. After some brief introductions, you had learned all of their names before going into detail of your relationship with Shirabu.

“(Surname)-san and I went to the same university and had a couple classes together since our majors were similar. We were both fairly diligent in our studies, so we often grouped up to do assignments.”

“Oh? What did you major in, (Surname)-san?” Ohira asks.

“I majored in Anatomy and Physiology. I plan on going to grad school for Sports medicine.”

You hear a small gasp behind Ushijima and a quiet, subtle statement of “She’s pretty and smart!”, but you pretend like you didn’t hear anything in hopes to spare Goshiki from any more embarrassment. Osamu seems a bit intrigued since he’s never really heard you speak about school but stays silent off to the side.

“Have you decided on where you want to go? I know you once told me you applied to a special Sports medicine program.” Shirabu asks.

You feel a wave of negative emotions at the question but try your best to control your facial expression. “I...um...was waitlisted from the program and was rejected from all the grad schools that I applied to…”

Your former classmate’s eyes widened a bit in surprise and lifted his hand to his chin in thought. “I see.”

You try to brush off any unnecessary thoughts by waving your hands in front of you. “There must have been a reason for that. My resume wasn’t all that great and they probably thought I was lacking in a lot of ways.”

“Nonsense. From the couple of times we’ve worked together, I know that you’re a very well versed and competent person.” Shirabu crosses his arms and looks straight into your eyes.  “I’m sure you’ll be able to come across a good opportunity with your capabilities.”

You were quite touched by Shirabu’s firm words and he’s managed to slightly lift up the corners of your lips despite the heavy weight in your heart. He’s fairly blunt and doesn’t like to sugarcoat words, so you know his words are genuine.

“Oh? How romantic~” Tendou commented. Shirabu just glares at the tall redhead and remains silent.

A sudden low rumble echoes into the air from Semi’s stomach. “Oh, sorry guys. I’ve been composing all day, so I haven’t gotten around to eating yet.”

“We should order now,” Ushijima advises. The rest nod their heads in agreement. As the Shiratorizawa crew puts in their orders, Osamu sets up his workstation to accommodate. The entire order came out to be quite a lot since most of the guys were heavy eaters and some ordered additional side dishes.

“Will this be all in one order or is everyone paying separately?” You ask.

Shirabu opens his mouth to answer but is interrupted by Tendou. “Since we’re here for a celebration, we can’t let the man of the hour pay for anything!”

“Are you suggesting that we split the cost of Shirabu’s meal or have one person pay for it?” Yamagata looked up thoughtfully. 

Tendou raised a finger into the air and wiggled it in denial. “Just one person will pay for all of the food!”

“It’s fine, Tendou-san. Onigiris do not cost that mu-”

“Nuh uh~ That’s not an option!”

“Alright. Then, how would we determine who pays?” Semi looked a bit weary at the suggestion.

Tendou clapped his hands together. “We’ll play some games to determine who the ultimate loser is! The winners from each round will be exempt from the next one! There will be three games in total. Whoever loses every single game and remains as the last person will be the one to pay for all of us!”

“Seems simple enough,” Yamagata comments. The other guys nod their heads in agreement. 

“This is a great idea!” Goshiki in particular seems fired up. “I will defeat you, Ushijima-san!”

“I look forward to your efforts, Goshiki.”

As if there was some kind of telepathic signal between the guys, everyone but Ushijima, Shirabu, and Goshiki look at one another. Sly smiles and pitiful expressions begin to form as they take a quick glance at where Goshiki and Ushijima were standing before turning back to each other in mutual understanding. It seems like the majority has come to the conclusion that one specific person will be walking home with a lighter wallet.

Shirabu, who’s already used to his former team’s antics, doesn’t even try to stop them. Once they start, it’s difficult to halt their chaos unless he wants to hear them complain about it for the next couple weeks. Although, he does make the effort to face you and Osamu. “I know they’re getting ahead of themselves, but is all this okay? I know you haven’t closed yet, so I wouldn’t want to disturb your business.”

Your boss just waves his hand to brush off the concern. “Nah, you’re good. It’s been a slow day and I was planning on closing a bit early anyways. Feel free to hang out and have fun as long as you clean up after yourselves. I’ll be preparing the food in the meantime.”

“Yeah, as long as I’m not mopping up someone’s vomit off the floor, I don’t have any problems with it either,” You reply.

With the final yes from the owner of Onigiri Miya, Tendou sports a wide grin and faces his peers. “I already have some game ideas, so all we need to do is set up everything like I ask!”

You’re just about to return to your previous seat behind the counter before the Shiratorizawa boys entered, but Tendou waved at you to get your attention. “(Name)-chan! Would you mind being the referee for the games?”

Bewilderment is evident on your face as you try to decipher the redhead’s intentions. You’re a bit cautious since the group is so unpredictable. “Oh, um, wouldn’t it be better if Shirabu-san watched over you guys? I think I prefer watching you all have fun from afar.”

“Aw~ That’s a shame.” Tendou pulls out a small box wrapped in a bright blue ribbon from the bag slung over his shoulders. “I was planning on sharing these gourmet chocolates with the person who volunteered to be a referee.”

“Huh?” There was a small glint in your eyes.

The lanky man gently pulled off the ribbon and opened the lid. Inside the box were 5 pieces of chocolate all laid out on top of a plastic mold. Each of the chocolates had intricate designs that hinted at the work of delicate hands and showed the amount of care that went into making them. The surfaces of each piece shined under the fluorescent lights and the delectable, mouthwatering aroma permeated the air. “I gifted some chocolates for our lovely graduating friend but had a couple chocolates leftover, so I made an extra box. It’s too bad that it’ll go to waste since no one will claim them.”

“...”

You stay frozen for a moment as you eye the exquisite sweets in front of you. “...What do you need me to do?”

Tendou lets out a small shout of happiness at your response, and you took one of the chocolates out of the box. You plopped it into your mouth and immediately tasted a burst of flavor. A soft, content sigh leaves your lips as you savor the dessert. There was a soft chuckle next to you and you assumed it was Osamu but decided that you were just going to savor the moment.  After gushing over two more pieces, you decide to save the rest for later and make your way around the counter to where the rest were waiting. 

Tendou briefs you on some of the games and you can’t help but sweatdrop at what he has planned. As you look to the side, you see Shirabu sitting on his own since he’s the only one exempt from participating in the competition. The other guys just seem to be waiting for Tendou to fill them in as well.

Goshiki notices your presence and starts to make his way over to you. “(Surname)-san! W-what are you doing over here?”

“Tendou-san asked me to be a referee for your games, so I’ll be watching over all of you from here,” you reply nonchalantly.

“What?!”

Tendou snickers beside you and places his hands on the younger boy’s shoulder. “Now, now! Let’s get ready for the game, Tsutomu!”

Since all you really had to do was monitor and keep track of the losers of each game, you take a seat next to Shirabu who just has a bored expression on his face and acknowledges you with a short nod. Tendou has now gathered everyone else into one big group and begins to gesture his arms wildly. “The first game is called ‘Pass the Napkin’! There will be two teams of three people, and it’ll be a competition to see which team passes more napkins in one minute.”

The guys just looked at one another with contemplative faces. This game seemed simple enough...or so they thought.

“There’s one special rule!” Tendou’s eyes glinted under the lights. “You can only pass the napkin with your mouths! No hands! No other body parts!”

Many faces grew pale at the “special” rule. Yamagata brings a hand up to his forehead regretfully. “I knew this wouldn’t be easy.”

Ignoring his former teammate’s exasperation, Tendou continues his explanation. “Each team will have two baskets: one full of napkins and one that is empty so that you can place the ones you’ve successfully passed. Team A is gonna be Wakatoshi-kun, Tsutomu, and Reon! The other two including me will be on Team B! Perfect even teams with 6 people!”

Ohira takes a brief moment to think. “Now that you mention it, Kawanishi isn't here.”

“He said he had a date, so he couldn’t make it today,” Semi answers. Although, Kawanishi’s absence seems to be in his favor at the moment.

“Let’s get started!” Tendou passes you his phone with the timer app opened as all of the teams make their way towards their respective napkin baskets. “Please count us off, (Name)-chan!”

All of the guys are staring at you as they wait for your signal, and you let out an inaudible sigh. “3...2...1...Start!”

Ohira and Tendou, who are the first people in their respective teams, begin inhaling a napkin with their mouths. The game has begun.

In Team B, Semi looks mildly uncomfortable, but Tendou spares no time and immediately passes the napkin to the former’s mouth. The redhead doesn’t even give Semi any time to comprehend anything as he goes for another napkin swiftly. As Semi turns to the last person in the group, Yamagata just shrugs his shoulders and takes the napkin quickly before blowing it away into the other basket. The three seem to realize that passing the napkins in rapid succession shortens the time of contact between each other and increase their pace with each napkin.

Team A doesn’t seem to be going as smoothly. Goshiki is the middleman and hesitantly receives each napkin from Ohira with flushed cheeks that only seem to be getting darker as time passes. There is an evident pause every time the youngest team member needs to pass the napkin to Ushijima. For some reason, Goshiki also seems to make frequent eye contact with you as he’s passing the napkin to the older pro athlete before quickly averting his eyes with an even deeper blush. As a result, Goshiki drops the napkins several times.

“S-s-sorry, Ushijima-san! I’ll get the next one!”

Both teams continue transferring napkins from one basket to another for a couple more seconds. Glancing at the timer, you see that there are about 10 seconds left. You open your mouth to start counting down the remaining seconds but a sharp, horrified gasp stops you. As you direct your attention towards the source of the noise, Goshiki’s posture is tense and he’s making a strange face at the opposing team. Shifting your gaze to his line of sight, you understand what had caused the poor boy to be in such a state of shock.

A lone napkin flutters onto the floor as silence creeps through the air. Yamagata is leaning forward in Semi’s direction while the latter has his hands anchored onto his teammate’s shoulders. Their lips are connected with nothing to separate the physical contact, but both males are too shocked to make any motion. Mortified expressions from Yamagata and Semi tell you that this predicament was not intentional.

“Oya?~”

Tendou’s sudden disturbance seems to break everyone out of the trance. The timer goes off at this moment as well and a cacophony of noises fill the room. Semi and Yamagata jump away from each other aggressively. The grey-haired male sprints to the bathroom to scrub down his mouth as Yamagata vigorously rubs a handful of napkins onto his lips. Tendou begins to cackle rather loudly while Ohira just lets out an amused chuckle. Goshiki becomes a sputtering mess, red spreading across his whole body. Ushijima blinks absentmindedly.

You watch the chaos unfold and notice Shirabu closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in disappointment. It takes a minute for everyone to get their bearings and Semi returns from the bathroom bashfully. He glances at Yamagata briefly. “That never happened?”

“That never happened,” Yamagata firmly agrees.

Tendou seems to have calmed down a bit because, before you know it, he already has both napkin baskets in his arms, one obviously more full than the other. “Team B is the winner!”

Ushijima is the only one to start clapping while everyone else just sweatdrops at the redhead. Tendou puts away the baskets and turns towards the group once again. “All of Team A will be moving onto the next game since they lost! Team B is exempt from paying!”

You watch as the lanky man saunters over to the counter and Osamu hands him a tray with three small rice balls. You make eye contact with your boss and he just gives you a smirk.

Tendou proceeds to explain the next game. “For the next round, there is one rice ball filled with delicious seasoned meat while the other two are filled with wasabi! The three participants must pick one of the rice balls to eat. Whoever chooses the tasty rice ball will be exempt from paying and the other two people will move on to the final game! (Name)-chan will pick a random name from this conveniently premade bag of names to see who will choose a rice ball first! Everyone will eat the rice balls at the same time though for fun!”

Yamagata gestures you to put your hand inside of a small black bag filled with what you assumed were the three names from the losing team written down on pieces of paper. You reach in and grab one of the papers and take it out of the bag before reading out the name. “Ohira Reon.”

Ohira makes his way over to where the tray was and picks up the rice ball in the middle without hesitation. He seemed pretty confident in his decision, but you didn’t really get the chance to question it as Tendou grabs your attention once again. “Please pick the next name!”

You turn back to Yamagata and reach out to grab another name out of the bag. Your hand stops right as your fingers graze the hem. You blink once and realize that the bag looked a bit different from before; it now seemed to be a more navy blue color. Wasn’t the bag black before?

Noticing your reluctance, Yamagata shoves the rest of your hand into the bag and gives you a suspicious yet pleading look. You inwardly sigh and proceed to pick out a name. “Ushijima Wakatoshi.”

The tall volleyball player chooses the rice ball to the far left leaving Goshiki to take the last one left without a choice. Tendou placed the tray down with a satisfied smile. “Now that everyone has a rice ball, it’s time to eat!”

Ushijima, Goshiki, and Ohira all consumed their rice balls in one bite. There were only chewing noises as everyone waited for any reactions. All of a sudden, Goshiki doubled over and threw a hand over his mouth.

You panicked. “Woah! I wasn’t joking about the vomit! You better not throw up on this floor!”

Terrified by your warning, Goshiki immediately ran towards the nearest trash can and practically stuck half of his head into it. Although he was able to control himself enough to avoid regurgitating everything in his stomach, he desperately spit out the entire rice ball with wasabi and tried his best to get rid of as much residue as he could.

You turned your attention back to the other two people who had eaten a rice ball, curious to see the other victim. Ohira wiped his hands on his pants with a content smile as he continued to savor his delicious snack. Ushijima, on the other hand, stood in his usual stoic stance.

“That was quite spicy.”

It truly is a wonder how someone could remain so composed in situations like this.

“The losers are Wakatoshi-kun and Tsutomu! Get ready for the last game to see who will pay for all of the food!” Tendou exclaims excitedly, completely ignoring the younger boy that’s now leaning over the counter in despair. “The final round is called ‘Find the Volleyball’! The two players will both be blindfolded and they will need to search for the volleyball that we will hide in this room. Whoever finds the volleyball first wins the game and the ultimate loser will be the one to pay for everything!”

Tendou takes out two sports towels and a volleyball from Ushijima’s duffel bag. He passes the towels to Ushijima and Goshiki so that they could begin blindfolding themselves. The others are just lounging around and waiting for the next game to begin. You notice that Ushijima is having some trouble keeping the towel over his eyes as he tries to tie it behind his head. Without thinking too much, you walk over to where he’s standing. “Ushijima-san, do you want some help?”

“Ah, yes. I’m having some trouble keeping this in place. Do you mind holding the towel over my eyes?”

“Yeah, sure!” For a moment, you take in his tall stature and smile sheepishly. “But, you might have to bend down a bit for me. You’re quite tall.”

Ushijima complies to your request and slightly bends his back as he places the towel over his eyes once again. You bring up your hands to his face and your fingers gently brush against his as you replace his hands with your own over the towel. The blindfold starts to fall a bit so your hold on the male’s face reflexively tightens a bit, your hands practically cupping Ushijima’s face. You start to lean forward to get a good look at the blindfold to make sure there are no gaps, not realizing how close you truly were to the volleyball player.

On the other side of the room, Goshiki’s eyes widen at the suggestive position you and Ushijima are standing in. He was just about to wear his own blindfold, but was struck by a great idea. “(Surname)-san, can you-”

“Tsutomu! You look like you need some help!” Tendou swiped the towel from Goshiki’s hands and immediately covered his eyes forcefully. “I can help you!”

Goshiki gasped in discomfort. “Ah! Tendou-san, you almost poked my eyes!”

Ushijima was finally able to successfully tie the towel around his head and you took this as your cue to pull away. He straightened his back and nodded his head in your direction. “Thank you, (Surname)-san.”

“No problem,” you reply with a grin.

Since both males were properly blindfolded, the game was ready to commence. However, instead of hiding the volleyball, Semi held onto it. You were a bit confused since you remember that the rule was to find the hidden volleyball, but at this point, you don’t even want to question these guys anymore. Tendou stood off to the side and projected his voice loud and clear, “The game starts…Now!”

Semi immediately passed the ball to Ohira and some of the guys who weren’t participating began to pass the ball amongst each other silently. Ushijima and Goshiki both reach out their arms in front of them cautiously to protect themselves from running into things. Although, their efforts were in vain as Goshiki stubs his foot on one of the chairs with a yelp and crouches to the ground in distress. Ushijima manages to knock over a bottle of soy sauce from the counter, but he doesn’t seem to realize what happened as he turns around and continues his search. Fortunately, the bottle didn’t shatter, but there is now a puddle of soy sauce coating the floor. You sigh as you grab a handful of napkins and make your way towards the mess. 

Goshiki seems to have changed strategies and is now crawling along the floor with one arm in front of him. He bumps into another chair and lifts his arm higher to steady himself. Suddenly, his hand came in contact with a round object that felt firm like a volleyball. “Yes! I found it!”

At his exclamation, everyone in the room shot their gaze to where Goshiki was and paled. Ushijima raised the towel obscuring his vision to see what was going on. Even Shirabu’s jaw dropped substantially. At this moment, Yamagata was in possession of the volleyball that was definitely not anywhere near the younger boy. 

In broad daylight, Goshiki’s right hand was placed on your butt. You felt every one of your nerves kicking into overdrive as soon as your body overcame the initial shock. Spinning around abruptly, you deliver somewhat of a roundhouse kick to the poor, blindfolded boy’s body and he ends up tumbling backwards dramatically. His pained groans snap you out of your exasperation and immediately kneel down to check on him. “Oh, sh-! Are you okay, Goshiki-san?”

With your help, Goshiki is able to take off his blindfold and sit upright. “W-what happened? Where’s the volleyball? Did I beat Ushijima-san?!”

“N-not exactly…” You play with strands of your hair unconsciously out of embarrassment. “Sorry about kicking you so hard.”

“But, I thought I felt the ball just now? Why does Yamagata-san have it? What else could I have been touching? And, why did you kick me? Unless…” Goshiki’s expression suddenly shifts from confusion to absolute horror as he starts to connect all the dots. He begins to shriek at the realization and he almost slams his head onto the floor in order to bow in apology. “I’M SO SORRY, (SURNAME)-SAN! IT WAS A COMPLETE ACCIDENT!”

You try to reassure Goshiki that you’re not angry at him. “I-it’s okay. I know it wasn’t on purpose!”

“Nice kick, (Surname)-san.”

“10/10.”

“Would pay to see that again.”

As voices fill the air, that’s when you realize that you were still in a room full of other people and your cheeks flush pink once again. The rest of the guys were observing the whole interaction between the two of you in amusement. 

Tendou gave you an apologetic smile but still seemed satisfied with how this ‘competition’ went. He cleared his throat to get everyone’s attention. “Alright! Congratulations to Tsutomu for winning the game!”

“Huh? I thought neither of them found the volleyball in the end,” Semi commented.

“Well, Wakatoshi-kun took off his blindfold first before anyone found the volleyball, so he automatically forfeited.” Tendou faced his best friend. “It’s for the best. You make the most money out of all of us, Wakatoshi-kun!”

Ushijima nodded his head in acceptance and proceeded to take out his wallet. “I cannot deny that.”

“WAIT A MINUTE!” Suddenly, Goshiki jumped up from his position and pointed at his peers. “WERE YOU TRYING TO MAKE USHIJIMA-SAN PAY THIS WHOLE TIME?!”

“Yup.” Four males voices all answered at once.

“THEN, WHY DID WE PLAY THE GAMES?!”

“‘Cause it’s fun.”

The four males continue to tease their youngest friend and you sigh for the umpteenth time today. Ushijima walks over to stand next to you and hands you the total payment for the food. “I believe this is enough to cover everyone.”

You spend a couple seconds counting the money before looking back up to the broad shouldered man beside you. “Yup, looks right to me. Thanks.”

Before you could make your way to the register, you feel a light tap on your shoulder. Turning your head, you see Ushijima’s hand inches away from where you felt the sensation and you’re surprised by what he says next. “Are you okay?”

“What do you mean?” You blink in confusion.

“You looked very uncomfortable before.”

It doesn’t take you long to realize that he’s talking about what had conspired during the last game. “Oh, yeah. I’m okay. Thank you for asking, Ushijima-san. You don’t have to worry about it too much. I wouldn’t mind if you or your other friends came by again after today either. I had a good time overall.”

“Ah. Then, I will take your word for it.” Ushijima gives you a small smile and then turns to walk back to his group of friends. The volleyball player doesn’t seem like the type of person to show much concern for other people due to his naturally stoic and aloof demeanor, but you were pleasantly surprised by his caring nature.

“Order’s ready, guys!” Osamu places multiple bags of food onto the counter. “I don’t mean to mess with your outing, but we are about to close, so you won’t be able to stay for too long.”

“No worries. I think we’ve extended our stay here long enough.” Shirabu assured your boss after being quiet for quite some time. “We’ll probably head over to Goshiki’s apartment anyways.”

“What?!”

Everyone ignored the boy’s outburst and started to grab all their food. As the Shiratorizawa alumni started walking out of the door the night air was filled with shouts of byes and thank yous. Shirabu turned to you one last time before following his friends. “We should keep in contact, (Surname)-san. You still have my number, right? I can also let you know if I hear about any other programs for graduate schools during my internships.”

“I do! I really appreciate it. I’ll see you again sometime, Shirabu-san!” You give him a final wave and he leaves through the exit lifting up a hand behind his shoulder in acknowledgement.

Today was definitely not what you expected from what started out as a slow, normal week.

“Still tired?” Your boss questioned you once again.

You smile as you remember him asking the same question a few hours back. “Exhausted, but strangely refreshed. Is that weird?”

“Definitely a contradiction.” He laughed at your answer. “You got yourself roped into an interesting group of people today. Didn’t know you had a sweet tooth though.”

A mild blush spread across your face as you start to stutter. “I-I normally don’t, but…”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Your boss gives you a thoughtful look and subtly smirks at your reaction. 

Recovering from your flushed appearance, you gesture a hand towards a certain box on top of the counter. “Did you want to try one of the chocolates? You’ll understand once you get a taste of it.”

“Why not?”

After quickly washing your hands in the sink, you slide over the box Tendou had given you and open it on the counter space next to Osamu. Your fingers snatch up a star-shaped chocolate and casually bring it up to his mouth. The taller male doesn’t think much of your actions and allows you to feed him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. After everything that happened today, your mind can only briefly sense that your fingers made contact with your boss’ lips. Although, your heart does linger on the fact that Osamu’s lips are much softer than what you expected.

Once the chocolate is fully consumed, Osamu lets out a satisfied hum. “Those Shiratorizawa folks sure know what they’re doing despite the craziness that follows them. Actually, there’s something else I want to ask you. You said you went to the same university as Shirabu-san, right?”

“Yup!”

“When did you graduate?”

You look up to the ceiling as you think. “Um...Maybe around a week ago?”

There’s a slight pause as Osamu takes in what you had just told him. “What?! I had no idea! Did you celebrate with your friends too?”

You shook your head. “Nah, I never really had a lot of friends since I was working so much in college and the ones that I’m close with are all overseas already.”

Osamu nodded his head in understanding. “Well, I got nothing against spending some relaxing alone time, but did you at least treat yourself with a cake or something?”

“I’m not really used to buying things for myself. It’s fine, though. I’m pretty used to pushing aside stuff like this.” You shrug your shoulders to emphasize your carefree attitude. Although, your eyes held a hint of sadness that Osamu would’ve missed if he didn’t have his full attention on you. “Plus, I didn’t even get accepted into grad school, so there’s not much to celebrate there.”

“How come it never came up in any of our conversations?”

“Oh, uh, I didn’t think anyone else cared.”

“...” Osamu stays silent and a slight somber atmosphere permeates the air. He contemplates about something for a moment before suddenly snapping his fingers. You look at him curiously and he just gives you his signature grin without telling you what he just thought of. Instead, he places a hand on your head and begins to pat it gently. “I don’t know how much it means coming from me, but you did well. I’m sure you’ve worked hard, (Name)-san.”

You felt a slight sting in your eyes and lowered your head so that your boss couldn’t see how much of an effect he had on you. “Thanks, Osamu-san.”

A/N: make way for ushiwaka everyone. and yes, osamu loves to just sit back and watch all the chaos unfold

taglist: @dinablossom​

[satsuki2406]

Dear Aomi Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

"I've seen you in a dream before, you are the warm and bright presence that embraced me on Cape Kamui a long time ago on a June afternoon."

Shinohara (Y/N) is a normal girl who had everything she could ask for, a loving family, a beautiful home, friends, and a fluffy cat. For a long time, she gave her life and happiness for granted, never imagining that she'll face one of the worst and crueler facades of society so closely, destroying what once was a happy, harmonious and normal family. One day, in hopes to recover what they lost, the Shinohara family took one of the more difficult decisions of their lives; leave behind their home back in Hokkaido and travel hundreds of miles south until Musutafu, the place that could grant them a solution and help close the yet fresh wound and scare away the ghosts of the past. Hardheaded, passionate, and ambitious (Y/N) is forced to confront the incarnated face of the superhuman society that she hated the most; Bakugou Katsuki.

PAIRING: (Bakugou Katsuki x Reader)

GENRE/WARNINGS: Romance, Fluff, Angst, Dark Themes, My poor attempt of humor, Strong language (Courtesy of King Lord Explosion Murder God *********💥), Manga Spoilers.

STATUS: On going

Chapter 1: School is a Great Place to Make Enemies

Chapter 2: My Stupid Classmate, The Angry Dandelion

Chapter 3: In Conclusion, This Day Was...

Chapter 4: Welcome to the Neighborhood 

Masterlist \(￣︶￣*\))

✒A/N:

OH-EM-GEE-

It's really been a while since I updated this story, I really thought it was a couple of months ago, I’ve been very busy lately and just kept pushing writing for later, and later transformed into 8 months! I had to admit that I also had a huge block with this story, but recently I got a lot of inspiration and energy, chapter 6 is almost ready but editing needs to be done after all. Hopefully this would be a good one! There’s more details coming in future chapters and also new characters! I got a thing for OCs recently, I feel they add more personality to the story!

Enjoy!

o(*°▽°*)o

5: Aldera Chronicles

‘Just a good day’ That was what you prayed, asked for last night, and what you tried to repeat to yourself to keep calm and serene while you looked desperately for your earphones. As soon as you did, you connected them to your phone and searched for the loudest song you kept in your collection.

“Oi! I’m talking to you dumbface!”  

The loudest one of all.

After the whole ‘neighbors fiasco’ you got stuck with Bakugou on your way to school, both of your mothers insisted that you should go to school together at least today, so you could ‘amend your differences and get closer’ you almost gag at the suggestion, but your mom looked so ecstatic about the idea of you making new friends, after all she hasn’t looked that excited in a while, so you could not find yourself saying no to her.

Although you ‘accepted’, that didn’t mean that you will stay with him all the way to school, right now you were still in their field of vision, so if you left him behind, they will notice. You were just waiting for the perfect moment, as soon as you made it to the end of the street and turned to the left, you will take that as a cue to hop on your bike and leave him behind eating your dust.

“What a shity morning, stuck with this idiot. That friking hag threaten me to change the wifi password if I didn’t come and to top it off, she had the fucking nerve to take my phone, fan-fucking-tastic…” Bakugou was right in front of you grumbling angrily and throwing profanities left and right. His anger was more than evident; he was more hunched over than normal; his hands were way deeper in his pockets to the point you thought he could rip them open and his feet were stomping on the ground with such intensity that you could almost feel it vibrate under your own.

Despite the fact that you could not see his face, you could bet your (F/C) post-its that there was an extra deep scowl and curled pouty lips ‘decorating’ his face right now. You tried to distract yourself with your phone and avoid Bakugou as much as possible, it was bad enough to spend more time with him than you already did in school, not to mention that unwanted encounters may become commonplace being next-door neighbors.

You sighted dejected at the thought, you really were kind of excited about moving to a new city, Musutafu was way bigger than Sapporo was, with bigger malls, parks, shops, restaurants and more fun things to do. But sadly for you, Bakugou manage to crush your hopes and expectations as soon as he opened his mouth, hell, even by existing actually.

Your attention was snaped back to reality when the sound of cars passing by and other students came to you. You got on your bike again, getting in front of Bakugou so you could reach the avenue faster, “Oi! Don’t go in ahead of me dumbshit!” You ignored him as he yelled at you, his words more and more inaudible as you got farther.

After a few minutes you had lost him completely, he probably went the opposite direction to the bus stop or the train station, Aldera was close, but not enough to go walking, you did it there in twenty five minutes with your bike if you took your time, fifteen if you were in a rush, you made sure to verify how long it would take you to get there the days prior that you had to actually go back to school.

You decided to relax and enjoy the view of the city and listen to your favorite songs like the day before. Luckily the Tatooine Station was open, safe and working at its fullest.

“Not a single villain in sight, phew, how good that they managed to clear the area otherwise I would have had to…” Suddenly memories of your crossing trough Dump Beach™ came to you, that was an experience you were so willing to don’t repeat ever again. “I wonder who else from my school had to make a detour like me yesterday, or if someone was involved in the incident… those ladies said it was a middle schooler, but it’s quite ambiguous data to make any conclusive statements, there are hundreds of middle schools in Musutafu and the commercial district is in the center, so it could be anyone.”

You stopped in front of a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change. ‘I’ll ask Midoriya if he knows something else, he probably passed by or something’. You had to admit that you were kind of excited about the idea of befriending the green head, even with his nervous, anxious, jumpy and shy personality he gave you a kind and sweet vibe. His insecurity gave away his true nature; his clumsiness, the nervousness, overanalyze everything, the mutter, for some they could be annoying but you found it rather and oddly fascinating, it made him feel real, genuine and honest.

‘He’s almost like…’

The chirping sound of the traffic light snapped you out of your rampant thoughts announcing that the light had finally turned green. You started off with your bike along the rest of the pedestrians and continued on your way to the school.

The rest of the way to Aldera passed without any hitch, you left your bike locked and took your stuff to walk to the shoe lockers like yesterday, just a few feet ahead you distinguish a very familiar mop of green curly hair. He seemed slightly hunched and deep in thought, probably way too deep in thought to the point that you could see a colorful smeared aura surrounding him and the word mutter coming out of his mouth. And you were not the only one, as you could see the people around walking away, with slightly perturbed expression on their faces. You just took it as a cue to let your presence being known.

“Good morning Midoriya!” You hopped by his side and greeted him enthusiastically. The poor thing almost had a heart attack and jumped out of his own skin as you just scared the shit out of him. He released a muffled scream and seem to calm down a tiny bit to immediately turn the shade of a tomato and babble a greeting.

“G-G-G-G-G-Good mo-morning Shinohara-san! You-You-You caught me by su-surprise.” He squeaked as he covered his face with his arms and his eyes moved erratically to look everywhere but you.

“Did I scare you? I’m sorry! I guess I let myself go a little bit.” You trailed, resting a palm against your nape.

“Oh nonono! Please don’t apologize! Y-Y-You were been courteous after all. He whispered breathlessly at the end fidgeting his fingers nervously. “I…nobody ever greets me or says good morning, I didn't expect it and that's why I got a little nervous. T-That’s all, so don’t worry.” His little confession shocked you for a moment, it was really depressing to be honest but it motivated you at the same time.

You beamed confidently at him, “Well Midoriya, I recommend that you get used to it then, because I intend to greet and say goodbye to you every day without fail from now on.”

He looked up at you with a surprised and somewhat puzzled expression, his fingers started to twitch nervously, his countenance became even redder if that was even possible.

“B-B-B-B-B-But Shi-Shinohara-san-!”

“Shush, shush, shush! I am not going to put it up for discussion this is how it’ll be from now on and it's over.” You placed your hands on your hips, a slight scowl adorning your face to accentuate your mock annoyance. “Besides, who will run away from Bakugou with me after I tell him how much of an asshole he is for the umpteenth time in a row?”

You relaxed your demeanor again, offering him a goofy smile, so he could notice that you weren't even mad to begin with. The poor greenette thought for a smidgen that he made you angry and that worried him profusely. But one glance at you told him that you were being sincere, he was scared that you could be trying to play a prank just to make fun of him as it has already happened to him so many times. that alien feeling of relief and tranquility invaded his chest, apparently the chance encounter he had with his childhood hero had been a good omen and brought him more good things that he could imagine.

His eyes teared up with hope and a squiggly smile adorned his face, he dried his tears with his gakuran sleeve and clenched his fists excitedly.

“So, what do you think?” you asked eagerly.

“I look forward for it!”

.

.

“Did you see what happened yesterday at the commercial district? It seemed pretty rough” You commented to Midoriya absentmindedly while you took your uwabaki from your locker. He visibly flinched as he heard your question almost dropping his shoes in the process.

“Ye-Yeah, they said that the pro heroes could hardly put up a fight because of the villain’s quirk.”

“Right? Hopefully All Might was nearby, otherwise who knows what would have happen. I wonder if the hostage is ok, I didn’t watch the news last night so I’m not pretty sure what exactly happened. Do you know how it was?

He flinched again and turned his head to you rigidly as you raised an eyebrow at his sudden odd behavior.

“I do-don’t know a lot but I read that everything was ok afterwards, the hostage walked out with just a couple of scratches, so there’s nothing to be concerned about Shinohara-san, it’s pretty nice of you to worry so much, especially since the hostage…” Midoriya looked down and tapped his trembling indexes together; he wanted to tell you something, but didn’t know how.

“Come on Midoriya, you already told me the hostage is ok, what can be so bad that you are hesitant to tell me?” You inquired him softly.

“Is nothing bad per se, well, you’ll see the hostage…” He paused and looked in all directions to check if anybody was listening. Ok, weird. He got a little closer to you and cupped his mouth with his left hand.

“The pe-person captured yesterday was-”

Your little hush-hush conversation was interrupted when the metallic sound of a locker being abruptly opened echoed in the sudden silent space. Your ears located the unexpected noise behind you and instinctively you turned to see what had caused such a ruckus.

A couple of lockers from you, a really angry and really frustrated Bakugou appeared right in front of your eyes. You observed how out of the blue everything and everybody seemed to freeze in time, and all eyes were on him. The atmosphere turned tense, every person there watched attentively his every movement, talking with just a glance, some people were whispering among themselves no even taking their eyes off him.

‘What the hell is happening?’

He took his uwabaki and slammed them on the floor, removed his shoes and buried them unceremoniously in the locker, slamming the door shut. He grumbled, trying fruitlessly to put his uwabaki, cursing that he couldn't put them on as smoothly as he would’ve liked. He suddenly stopped his movements, acknowledging the unwanted attention he was receiving.

“The hell are you looking at you fucking losers?! Why don’t you mind your own damn business, huh?!”

His voice echoed with fury at the school entrance, despite their obvious fear, nobody moved an inch, all the eyes glued on him. He finished to put on his shoes and stomped further inside. At the corner of his eye he noticed your presence and immediately stared at you, he seemed even more infuriated than before, this clearly soured his mood even further, if that was even possible.

You returned it with one of your own, as intense or more as his, the attention seemed to turn your way as your little staring contest became longer, Midoriya nervously looked between you and him, probably waiting for another showdown to break out, just like yesterday. Everybody’s breath hitched by the minute, but you didn’t back down, your (E/C) eyes met the fiery inferno of his crimson ones, after a couple more seconds he just tsked and stomped away with his hands buried way deep in his pockets.

After he left, the clock started ticking again, everyone took a breath of relief, averted their eyes from his retracting back and continued their lives like always. Midoriya’s shoulders relaxed significantly at the time that his soul slowly returned to his body. When you noticed him more calmed and focused, decided to address the elephant in the room.

“What. The. Heck. Just. Happened?” You whispered bewildered. “Who peed on his cereal? If this is something usual here, I’ll be more than glad to take my bike and go all the way back to Sapporo.” You crossed your arms over your chest and stared irritated at his retracting back.

“Well, now that Captain McTantrum™ left, what was that you wanted to tell me about yesterday’s incident?” You asked relaxing your demeanor to something more gentle and friendly. Midoriya flinched slightly and his poise appear suddenly uneasy.

“Um, well, the person-the-the person th-th-that got trapped by the mud villain, tha-tha-that person…” Midoriya tried over and over but it was useless, he couldn’t complete a single sentence without stumbling over his own words. Noticing that using his words would be useless, he looked at you in the eyes to then wander his gaze, pointing to something behind him. You started at him completely lost while he kept repeating the same cycle of looking at you and then looking away, urging you to get what he was trying to say, not moving his head once, like he was unsure to look back.

You exanimated what was at his back; just a couple of students walking to their respective classrooms, friends greeting each other, and Bakugou turning to the right at the end of the corridor to go upstairs-

‘Wait, Bakugou?’

Then it hit you, the awkward silence when he arrived, the unwanted starring, the murmuring, his more than usual foul mood, the outburst, Midoriya’s reluctance to tell you, he probably though he would get into trouble with him if it reached his ears that stupid Deku was talking shit of him to thief bitch. Everything made sense now. You broke out of your trance and looked at Midoriya “Was Bakugou?-” He eagerly nodded his head, satisfied that you finally understood him.

“Oh, I see…”

“Y-Yes…”

“…”

“…”

“HOLLY SHIT-”

.

.

With the issue clarified and only five minutes left before the class started you two proceeded to go upstairs as well. Midoriya and you made small talk with some intervals of comfortable silence here and there, soon enough you both reached your classroom, people chatting lively when you opened the door. Midoriya walked in just behind you as you made it to your designated seats.

‘If I’m not wrong, Math is our first class of the day’ your mind wandered to other school related topics while you seated at your desk, just as you did the bell ringed and your teacher entered the classroom and started his lesson of the day.

.

.

Midday finally came, which mean it was finally lunch time, you invited Midoriya beforehand to eat with you, he timidly accepted, after a lot of nervous quacking but you could tell he seem excited about the idea. As soon as the bell that announced the so waited lunch break ringed, you proceeded to pack your books and stationery into your bag and take out your bento when your desk was crowded by what it looked like to be all the girls in your class. One of them, a girl with short brown hair and blue eyes was the first to approach you.

“Hey Shinohara! Do you want to have lunch with us? We didn’t actually have the chance to talk yesterday and we thought it would be nice to know you better.” She spoke.

“Yuki-chan is right! Is refreshing to have another girl in the class after almost three years since we are very few, with you we are eight now!” Said another one of them visibly thrilled.

“You looked so cool yesterday when you confronted Bakugou!”

“I think nobody has managed to do that and live after it, or actually do it”

“Right?!”

“So awesome!”

They gave you a really kind and chill vibe, chatting and praising you animatedly. Although they seemed to really enjoy Bakugou’s antics against your green head classmate, well, nobody's perfect, noted. You can’t judge the book by its cover, but when you looked at them, it’s impossible to not think about…

The offer is almost irresistible.

Almost.

“That sounds lovely! But Midoriya and I agreed to have lunch together today, so I’m afraid we’ll have to leave it to another time.” You almost cringed at how cutesy and honeyed your voice sounded but they seemed to buy it, until their expressions made a 180. Their faces were shocked and almost offended at the thought of you putting him over their proposal. It was a ‘are you for real?’ reaction over all. You kept smiling at them to emphasize that you were serious, when the girl that talked first tried to dissuade you.

“B-But why don’t you eat with us today and leave your lunch with him for tomorrow? I’m sure Midoriya won’t have a problem, right?” She turned and looked at him just as the rest of the girls did after she, Midoriya flinched nervously holding his bento at the unexpected attention he was receiving.  

“Eh…! I…! Well… Um…”

“You see! He’s ok with it!”

‘He hasn’t even said a thing!’ You thought trying to conceal your disbelief. ‘Let’s put all the beef on the grill then’

“Oh, I got an idea!” You chimed. “Midoriya! Why don’t you join us for lunch too? That way nobody eats alone and we get to know better! It’s a win-win plan! What do you think?” You were not dumb, although it was true you can’t judge anybody by a simple glance, you had a somewhat firm idea of why they were so eager to mingle with you, so you just did what you thought it was necessary to make sure it was not that, and what a better way than with your nerve-wreck of a friend.

‘What a better way to know someone’s character than by the way they treat others?’  

The poor guy looked like he was about to have a seizure and your classmates were not any better; they looked at you even more astonished than before, and you could swear that they started to sweat. Suddenly they look to be hesitant, even the more insistent one. They looked at you, at each other and then at Midoriya.

“I-I think you are right, it wasn’t very nice to insist after you already had plans with…Midoriya, I guess we can leave it for another day.” The others seem to agree, a bit crestfallen but relieved nonetheless.

‘I knew it…’

They shortly left after that; you kept your friendly smile until they finally disappeared behind the door, when they were out of your view completely you let your smile fall and collected your lunch from your desk. You marched to the door, but stopped midway when you noticed that certain someone was still standing lost in his own world, mumbling nonsense as usual.

“Midoriya” You called him, he seemed to have got out of his trance and looked at you eyewided, confused and bewildered.

“Huh?”

“Are you coming or what?” You said smiling.

He stared at you genuinely surprised, but he swiftly shook his head and walked towards you.

“Yes!”

“A-Are we going to eat outside?” he asked curiously.

“I mean, it’s a beautiful day the temperature is perfect and this would actually be the first time ever that I had the chance to be outside in early April without freezing my butt. Do you have any place in mind?”

“No, I-I always eat by myself, so I prefer to stay in the classroom” He answered somewhat ashamed.

“Its ok, I know the perfect place.”

[empty-dream]

So I read 86 LN vol 1

S1 anime covers the entire Vol 1 except for the latter's epilogue, so full anime spoiler here.

And as of this writing, I'm still on Vol 2 so the things I mention here are solely those that happen in Vol 1. Idk if a thing happens in the latter volume, gotta dodge spoiler so I don't browse about it.

There was an interview with a person inside the anime industry that basically said "The point of an anime adaptation is not to be an exact replica of the original material, but to shine as its own medium for a story." I forgot who it was and I can't find the interview anywhere for the life of me, but that statement opened my eyes. I agree with it, that's why I can appreciate the differences between LN/manga and anime, especially if they turn out good and/or interesting.

And that's exactly what happens in 86. I'll start with this: I watched the anime first, and after I read the Vol1 novel, I actually like the anime more. Because there are a lot of meaningful original scenes in it

And because the Vol1 novel turns out exactly what I fear when I first watched the anime: that I won't care much about the squadron aside from the main 5. (Look, the anime promotional materials mostly only have Lena and those 5 only. As shocked as I was in the anime, I did have an idea where the story would go from those alone). The rest are barely mentioned. Not even the girls are named in the novel, even though they do talk and Lecca is even prominent in anime.

For example, the second half of the first episode, the one that shows Spearhead squadron's daily life right before Lena contacts them, is anime original scenes. Kujo already dies the moment the novel starts focusing on the squadron. Simply put, a lot of the squadron members that aren't the main 5 or Kaie get a *lot* more focus in the anime, like Daiya, Haruto (For characters who appear on the introduction page, their novel screen time is less than I'd expect), Kujo and Lecca. While the other members often appear in the background and actually behave like equal members instead of glue-them-on figurines.

(Idk if those other members are named and/or designed in the light novel before the anime is a thing or when the anime becomes a thing.)

The anime also adds relevant information in the Raiden's talk with Lena in EP7, like Kaie receiving racial abuse from 86 (in fact in both versions, she is the first one to get highlighted about this) and Haruto also having prominent Giadian Empire blood like Anju and Shin. These weren't in the novel.

I might be just nitpicking here because I love Kaie and Haruto, but see, this scene is amazing on its own. This is where Raiden and the squad reveal the weight of their motivation all along, that they *each* have different backgrounds and different kinds of sufferings, yet they are all sentenced to die, and they all choose to fight because they know no side is saintly but some things are still worth fighting for.

The prominent characters' deaths (besides Kaie's) are often mentioned with only one or two dry lines. I expected at least Daiya's to be detailed more, but it's just that so matter-of-fact-ly. Well I came from the anime, so I guess it's normal if I expected something as heartbreaking.

I broke down HARD at the last half of EP10 and that is nowhere in the Vol 1 novel. (Having Hands Up to the Sky playing in the background is also an advantage for being an anime. Fuck that song, I now play it 24/7 in despair)

Having a lot of original anime scenes really complement the story's nature. That there are two different sides of life here, it's not just Lena's or 86's only. And those couldn't have intertwined if not for their willingness to listen and communicate.

I know I mentioned this some days ago but really, I can't get over how many of the merch are Lena (and Annette) being cute doing cute stuff while the story itself is actually depressing. Merch staffs know the market lol.

- Novel side -

That said, the novel does have an advantage that the anime/visual media doesn't: Internal explorations and explanations.

It's obvious from the get-go, but Asato confirms that the inspiration of Republic of San Magnolia and its racial discrimination and genocide is taken from Nazi Germany in WW2. The Republic who favors the white/silver haired-eyed Alba drives Colorata out of the 85 sectors, overtakes their properties, and forcibly sends the now-called-86 to either fight their war and die, or work on the wall and die.

The life inside the Republic is also elaborated on. Class always exists, even inside one race only. The center of the republic is for the elites, Lena and Annette's families included. The farther a sector is from the center, the lower the education and economy there is. Most of the military come from these areas, which explains why Lena herself is in difficult situation. Since no one in the military is either capable or willing to bring change.

It's *insane* how easily the Republic could create such vile lies, and how easily the majority of the citizens go along with it.

Gotta admit, Asato does a good job at foreshadowing the fate of the 86, the truth that we can only see after Ep7 of anime. It is mentioned that supposedly, 86 soldiers will be welcomed back once their 5-years term is up. Lena once wonders about it, but ultimately she buys it thinking that surely they must have come back to another sector. She only realizes it's utter bullshit after Annette points out how, 9 years later, they have never seen even one Colorata inside the Republic when they should have seen at least some. This also shows that Lena has never ventured to the other sectors to find out more, probably due to work or maybe she's still a sheltered noblewoman in the end.

And the mentality of the majority of Alba is shown differently. Whereas the anime uses the academy classroom to show how deeply rooted the racism against 86 is, the novel uses Lena's mother who a) more or less does the same as the classroom, and b) presses Lena to get married and preserve their pure noble bloodline. This, when the nobility doesn't actually mean anything anymore. This version shows not only Alba's racism but also Lena's strained family life.

There is a scene of an Alba high school valedictorian who, during his graduating speech, says “My friends died fighting the Legion.” I’m not sure this will make it to the anime, and it’s just a minor scene in the novel, but the weight of that scene is heavy.

The science of Para-Raid is explained, which has something to do with tapping the collective consciousness of humanity and connecting it to one another. A bit far-etched but I guess that works, science fiction and all. But I like the part where despite (or maybe because?) of connecting via hearing only, the other senses are faintly receptive as well. For example, one can sense that the other side is biting their lips in frustration, something like that. Of course, actual real life things like sensing the hidden bitterness or elation in a talking partner's words are present, this being a story where listening matters.

The novel elaborates on Raiden's stay with the Alba old woman. He calls her Old Hag, but it's clear he greatly respects her. The part where she screams and curses in the middle of the road at the Republic soldiers who take Raiden and the other children away stays in Raiden's mind forever, and so it does to me. Ngl it is quite a chilling scene.

Same with the story of the previous Laughing Fox, Theo's Alba commander. It turns out, the entirety of Theo's first squadron didn't like him at all and bet on how fast he'd tuck tail and run back to the Republic. When he faced his death the way Theo explained, he sent a message to Theo revealing he knew about it and knew his place to not ask for acknowledgment or forgiveness. This made Theo regret why he didn't try to talk more with his commander and he keeps thinking about it forever. Now it makes even more sense why Theo, blunt as he is, is willing to listen to Lena and when he snaps, he wonders if his late commander would do the same.

What actually happens in Kurena's backstory is also touched upon. While in the anime some viewers could think "Man, I get where you're coming from but chill out." The novel graphically shows her parents being toyed on by the Alba soldiers while her sister protected her, the two could only watch, and then the same sister got sent to the battlefield to die. Now at that, anyone would think "Man, no wonder she can't chill out. Not with all that trauma."

I also like the addition that Lena can sense Kurena is the one who dislikes her the most.

The novel describes greatly that it isn't just Alba and Non-Alba. Essentially speaking, Non-Alba is called Colorata, and they consist of different race groups as well. Just as Alba is associated with the color silver/white, the other race have their associated colors as well. Asato assigns races to the named members in Vol1 and what their distinguished color features are. This also explains why Anju is exiled despite looking like an Alba.

It's a question that I pondered on when I first saw Shin's armor plates, and that I pondered harder on when Chise died: What happens if there is no armor plate to carve its processor's name's on? So it turns out Shin would substitute it with anything; piece of wood or some random piece of metal. For Chise's case, Raiden, Chise's leader, suggested using the wing of Chise's in-progress airplane model. Which did my heart so bad because I'm strangely fond of Chise and finding out that in his spare time in his limited lifespan, he was working on an airplane model made me sob.

I'm not particularly into mecha, and could care less about how it moves. But Asato did a good job describing the fight between a glorified suicide car and a line of brand-new solid A-grade tanks. Special mention to I-IV because wow the concept arts for all the mechas are so cool, even though I don't really understand. (Asato even said to I-IV "Go draw a tank so horrible it's stupid for the Juggernaut" and I-IV came up with the current Juggernaut)

You know how the Republic greeting is "Glory to San Magnolia and the five-colored flag"? I won't disclose who says this in what situation, but there is someone of Colorata saying "If you hate colors so much, you should have just colored your flag white" AND OOOH THE BURN SO HOT HOT HOT

Tl;dr: Bottom line is, I personally enjoy Vol 1 because I already watched the anime and got attached to it. If I were to read the vol 1 first, most likely I wouldn't fall this hard for the series. Hell, maybe I wouldn't even pick it up in the first place because I knew it'd be depressing. But this is not to say that the LN is bad. It’s very good, it just does not really touch the lives of other soldiers whereas that’s the very thing that I love from the anime.

[just-mirko]

lavender petals - part 1

MASTERLIST

Mirko x Reader

Angst, Slow-ish burn, fluff, 

WC: 4.1K

MANGA SPOILERS  IN LATER PARTS

  A steady and constant roll of tapping continued outside

where the rain poured down in fleets of cold water. The little drops all

together sounded like thousands of typewriters; the tiny stamps pressing fresh

ink stains into parchment. The storm did not only darken the sky but slowly,

the concrete was dampened into a charcoal shade and the glass windows collected condensation. The scent of petrichor had not reached where I was, but the

second I stepped outside I could already feel it overtaking my senses. have caused me to be

upset, and make me curse the heavens, but today, the rain started just as the

the shop was about to close, only 30 minutes till I would lock the doors and turn

around the little double-sided sign; switching it to “welcome” to “come back

later. I could not anticipate any customers would actively rush to my store in

the terrible weather, so I accepted it as an easy break where I could stay inside

and relax with warm herbal tea. 

            My shoes squeaked beneath me when I turned back to the

service counter. Aromas and floral notes were everywhere I stepped. Even if you

stood still, they still changed. orchids, roses, daisies, and violets all

dancing together in harmony. 

            Once I reached behind the counter, I could see every

corner of the shop in its array of colors that seemed duller than usual from

the lack of sunlight. Nonetheless, they still stood out against the dull pots

and glass vases.  

            ‘I should be done for the day’ I thought to

myself, already having swept the floor, put out the new flowers, and clipped

the old ones before the storm arrived. An overdramatized sigh passed my lips

when I went to sit at the stool next to the register. 

            Sitting behind the register was always slightly

inconvenient, because blocking my view of the entrance to the store was a

large, and I mean large, bouquet of fresh lavender sprigs. They were normally

used as filler plants but had just come in today and I still could not decide

what to do with them. Additionally, I lacked a new arrangement to add them too,

so they were left out to stand alone.

            By far they were the most prominent in the store. Their

sized rivaled all the large wedding table pieces we had. And the smell, though

calming, gave me a headache after being with them all day. 

            It is not like anyone would buy them either. They were not

as easy on the eye as a rose, three times as expensive, and once again,

typically used as filler flowers. 

            I settled on scrolling on my phone to distract myself

from thinking about what to do with them. I did not want to wait too long to

sell them lest they wilt.  

            ‘Oh look, my webtoons updated.’

            Fifteen-minutes passed quickly and mindlessly. Only 15

minutes till I could lock up and go home. The storm still had not relented, and

now, the rain was accompanied by large clashes of thunder and lightning. 

            These days life was quite simple. It was not exceptional

nor terrible, but a mediocre and peaceful existence that brought me the chance

to do what I loved. I had friends I visited occasionally, a small business that

was doing well with the white day just around the corner (an eastern type of

valentine’s day).  But no matter how many

flowers I had, it wouldn’t quell the little part of my heart longing for

something more. 

            “CLASH”

            The lightning what getting closer outside. It got louder

and louder, making me jump in my seat a little. 

            “CLASH”

            The rain slammed into the ground, but something else was

happening as well. Something in the background of sorts. 

            “CRASH”

            A resonating bang that sounded nothing like lightning

erupted nearby. A car alarm blared as well. 

            ‘Could it be a villain?’ I asked myself as I look

over the purple blossoms to see if I could see what was going on from outside

my window. Alas, it must have been a street down. 

            ‘Why would they fight in this type of weather though?’

Villain activity has spiked rapidly in the last few weeks as the League of

Villains had risen to power than out of nowhere disappeared without a trace. Not

to mention the capture of stain had encouraged many of the morally grey

antagonists to step out of the shadows in pursuit of their own type of justice.

Everyone had their own definition. 

            I tried to stay up to date on villain activity but so

much was constantly happening. Three times a week we got a new story. In the

beginning, the attacks seemed petty and selfish. Things like; “3 criminals rob a

local bank” or “Enraged fire-type quirk user burns down workplace” but today,

they were more organized, harder to stop. All the villains were working towards

a greater goal that was easier to see. 

            A little bit ago, one of the most popular quirks inclusive

department’s CEO joined the LOV after an all-out fight. Many were injured. It

was practically a bloodbath. Citizens remember seeing ice and blue fire merge

in giant tornados in the sky. The entire building disintegrated without a

trace. A witness with still in shock commented that she saw a UA student emerging

from the rubble, but that claim was shut down instantly by that student’s very

own teacher. 

            Unease was everywhere. People even began to stop trusting

figures of authority out of fear they might not be who they said. I was not a

target to any kind of villain myself, but who knows if I could become just

another statistic on the news.

            Police sirens came into earshot. 

            I guess it was a criminal after all. Soon enough I would

be able to find a nice little article online detailing everything that happened

with a cover image of an unscathed hero smiling at the camera as if all were

well. How they tried to convince us that all was wel-

            The chime of bells interrupted my thoughts when someone

came through the store door, very close to closing time. 

            When I looked up at them, I completely froze, unknowing

of what to do say, even think. 

            Before me stood… Mirko? Mirko. Mirko the Rabbit Hero. The

number #4 hero. The best female hero. And she was- Injured? 

            She stood with her shoulders rolled back but she was

panting heavily. Her platinum hair dripped water onto the pristine checkerboard

floors I just mopped. Across her, the skin on one of her shoulders was a crimson

slash. The blood that came from it dripped partially into her hair, staining it

slightly; and partially mixed with the water she was absolutely drenched in. She

looked cold in the light hero gear. 

            In her weak state, she still held an air of strength. When

I looked up in obvious shock at her condition, I was met with piercing red eyes

and a smile I would describe as manic on anyone else. 

            “C-can I help you—are you okay?” I stumble out when I

started to panic, realizing that she just fought the cause of all the racket

down the street.         

            My response only looked to entertain her, and she smiled

wider chuckled then pulled her hair over one shoulder: twisting it to ring out

the excess water (and blood).

            “Yea, you do sell flowers, right?” She said. We were

obviously on different pages. She seemed completely relaxed as she was still

bleeding a watered-down red puddle onto the floor. Meanwhile, I was seriously

concerned about her health. Online, I simply assumed that every pro-hero held a

façade. That they were not as cocky, brave, or positive as they seemed once the

cameras were cut. This though was a spitting image of every picture of her I

had seen. Despite that, nothing could have prepared me for this in person-encounter.

            “Y-yes I sell flowers” 

            I frantically scanned across the store for something for

my eyes to latch onto. My fingertips pressed hard against the side of the

resister to the point where my fingertips were turning white and my knuckles

began to cramp. 

            Mirko walked forward. Despite her injuries, she did not

have any limp and strolled casually over to some of the display stands

near the front window. I fidgeted with my finger while I stumbled over to where

she was. Her gaze we currently focused on some white lilies, though she soon

switched to some yellow roses. 

            “What is the, um, the occasion- For the flowers?” The

words tumbled out of my mouth. They felt out of order and out of place. Seeing a

hero in public is a strange thing. As amazing as they are, you always suspect

that there is an underlying threat of danger. You are both drawn to them yet

repelled by the hint. It's always ‘Why would a hero be here.” That wasn’t

the occasion now though. She was just- here for flowers? She was definitely just

off from work and needed a few band-aids; at most, stitches. My mind still had a

rough time thinking over why she so casual. I hoped this doesn’t happen often

for her. 

            Mirko’s fingers paused when she traced the outline of an

imported lily. 

            “A friend of mine got his ass beat up by a walking flamethrower”

The way she said that, so lightheartedly, with a slight smirk on her face, but

sadness in her eyes confused me. 

            “Is he a hero too?” I inquired; taken aback by the lack

of filter.  It had nothing to do with the

flowers, but my curiosity got the best of me. 

            “Hawks.” She shortly stated before turning back towards

me.

            A look of recognition must have crossed my face as she did

not explain any further and just continued. 

            “So…” She crossed her hands over her chest and looked up

towards me (we using Mirko’s canon height today cause she short short lol).  

            “What flowers would be best for ‘get better idiot’” Her

hair was still disheveled and soaking wet but the ethereal glow the rain seemed

to give her face made me want anything but eye contact. I shouldn’t really get

flustered so easily, but when a celebrity built like a Greek goddess steps into

your shop looking like she’s straight out of war…  

            “Well, I wouldn’t be able to make any custom arrangements

today because I’m closing-“I looked down at my watch for the time. “5 minutes

ago, but we have many premade sets and custom vases if you’re interested?”

            I tried to seem chipper and avert my gaze from her hair,

bleeding shoulder, and foot that was insistently tapping on the wet floor, but

in between each word I stole a glace that did not go unnoticed. 

            “That’s okay, I’m fine with a pre-made bouquet.” I

fiddled with my thumbs once more. She was really giving me nothing to work

with. 

            “Any flowers in specific you like?” I asked, grasping for

straws. Mirko’s expression was perfectly neutral and ambiguous. Even if she

gave me a color, I could work off that, but all I had was a name and extra

mopping to do. 

            ‘I wonder if blood will stain my tile’

            What she said next seemed to fit with the personality I

was slowly assembling her. 

            “You guess.” And with that, she turned to look at more

bouquets and potted plants that lined the shelves. 

            The lavender! I thought, finally thinking I had found a

way to get rid of them but realized that may not be well suited as a get well

soon gift. 

            Hawks. Hawks. Hawks. The bird hero. The bird men. Red

feathers, right? 

            Because of the hero’s color pallet, per

se, I was drawn to red roses and yellow daisies, maybe some red and white

lilies. I found an arrangement I thought fit on one of the shelves next to a

window, where it was still raining outside. I carefully picked the flowers up;

their silky petals caressed my hand. Two petals floated down onto the floor as

I relocated them back to the assembly station. 

            “Would you like a vase with this?” I questioned. Her ears

perked towards me, shocking me in the slightest. Of course, it was not unusual,

but with how she seemed to hear me from across the room without turning her

head made me fear that she would hear my heartbeat racing in my chest. This was

a hero. A real-life hero. God, I hope I do not mess this up. 

            “Mmmhnn,” She said, inflecting that meant yes. I walked

near a shelf where we stored them and looked at the variety of glass, plastic,

and even porcelain vases reserved for special occasions. My eye was stuck on a

red one that caught the soft lighting of the store beautifully. I reached up to

grab it and held the cool glass in my hand. With the sleeve of my jacket, I

began to brush off some of the dust, ignoring the mark it left.

            “Ooh, I like that one” I heard from behind me. Quite

startled I jumped, and the vase left my hand, seconds from crashing into the

floor. Before I could blink, Mirko had caught it agilely. 

            “The color is nice,” She said as she turned it over in her

hands, clearly pleased with having shaken me. 

            Honestly, the banter was a nice break from today. I guess

it would not hurt to lighten up a little. 

            “Yea,” I said with a gentle smile. 

            I had almost finished totaling her order and was putting

the flowers in the box to protect from the rain when I looked over at Mirko and

saw her quite intrigued by the lavender practically overtaking my desk. 

            “We just got that lavender in! It's fresh and quite relaxing.”

I hummed to myself, pleased with the wrapping I did on Hawk’s bouquet.

            “How much for them?” She asked turning to me inquisitively.

            “Well lavender isn’t normally sold alone but that’s about

10 arrangements worth” I said pointing to the sheer number of flowers. Upon

the counter, they were more than two feet tall. 

            “So?” She said, resting her elbows upon the table and leaning

in to smell the lavender even more. The ivory ears atop her head sloped

downwards a little more reminding me of a little puppy when they got pet. An

obvious show of their aromatic effects. 

            “Two-hundred, though I could definitely get you a smaller

amount if you would like, they’re sold twenty per bundle just because of how

hard they are to transport and a how delicate they te-“

            “I’ll take them all,” She said with an aggressive smile

and firm shake of her head. There was a switch in her tone like she suddenly

decided she revealed too much of herself to the general public. I did not like

thinking that though. That she saw me as the public. Everyone wants to be

special sometimes.  

            “How was errr- work today?” I asked, clearly insinuating

my concern for her condition.

            A small shadow passed over her face. Her eyes got a

little darker and the corners of her mouth turned down before her typical passionately

a confident smile came back.

            “Nothing I can’t handle” Those smug words were

accompanied by a flourished wink that was embellished her white eyelashes.

            “I heard a crash nearby. Was there a villain?” This time

she did not hesitate to answer. 

            She finished paying and gave me an address to deliver

them to tomorrow. One to a hospital, and one to a home address. I expected a

PO box and assumed her address was not something she just gave away, but that was

not the only thing I was warmly excited about. Instead of signing “Mirko” her

formal hero title on the receipt, She signed her real name, Rumi Usagiyama.

             ---

            The weather was much more considerate this morning. When I

awoke, golden rays filtered light through my lashes into my eyes. The faint

sound of birds chirping and bustling people in the city below faintly reached my

ears. 

            I lived right above my flower shop, making my commute to work

 conveniently. I chose to dress a little bit nicer today, opting for a cream-colored

turtleneck and dark washed jeans instead of my normal gardening attire. Spring

was right around the corner in Musutafu Japan. Winter was leaving and the city

was in the awkward middle state where it's too cold to wear spring clothes but

too sunny to stay in jackets. 

            Since yesterday was Saturday, I had today off, kinda. I

just had a few flower deliveries to complete before I could go back home and lay

on the couch eating watermelon sour patch kids (ichor itself) and reading

terribly done 9k fanfics online. (Wow! Our reader!! Is super!!! Self!!!!

Aware!!!!!) 

            My brain had completely blocked out everything that

happened last night, so when I checked my order list and saw Rumi

written in neat handwriting, my confusion was immense. 

            ‘So, It wasn’t a dream then…’’ huh.”

            I walked downstairs into my store. I saw a few

schoolchildren peeking in the dark windows since there were no lights on to look

at the flowers. I waved to them and then chuckled to myself when they left tiny

little handprints on the glass. Tall buildings could be seen across. A café, a

tattoo shop, a little library, and many small businesses that were nestled right

in the center of town where they got lots of attention. Around the back exist to

the stores were where most of the employees parked. My friend and co-worker had

called in sick this weekend, so it meant I had to do all the deliveries myself.

            I went over to the storage room. A wave of cold rushed

over me and sent tingles down my entire body. This was always kept cold to keep

the flowers alive longer, but always hated retrieving boxes from there. 

            I steadily grabbed the lavender-filled box and stacked

Hawk’s arrangement box on top of it. The white cardboard stood so tall in front

of me when I held them I could barely see when I walked out the back door and

over to my car where I nearly dropped them loading them into my car’s trunk. 

            I clumsily got into the driver’s seat and started the

engine to head to the first address. Hawk’s hospital. Right in the center of

town, it was only 10 minutes when you accounted for traffic.             

            The hospital was the nicest in Mafatsu, with white pillars

and balconies on some patient's rooms. Only the best for heroes. When I got out

of my car and drew near, the building felt like it was swallowing me whole in

its large size. 

            My soft footsteps appeared insignificant with prestigious

doctors and nurses bustling around in choreographed chaos. When I got to the reception

area, a pink-haired nurse with a kind smile greeted me cheerfully. 

            “Hello! How can I help you today?” She began typing before

I even said anything. Maybe a prediction quirk. 

            “Hey, I’m here to drop off flowers from Mirko for Hawks?”

            She nodded in understanding and scanned her eyes over my

body, then the box I was holding, all while typing fluidly into a computer. Finally,

her gaze broke and she looked down at a small printer that made a small sticker

with the words visitor pass in bolded font. 

            “He will be on the top floor, level 60 in room 219. If he

isn’t in his room, just call a nurse with the pager in there, he’s been getting

out a lot recently.” She rolled her eyes in annoyance. 

            “He really just wants to get back to work but whenever he

flies he leaves a trail of blood and feather in his path”

 Her hair swished when she leaned over to give

me the papery sticker. Her fingertips brushed against my palm for a second

longer than platonic before she went back and waved goodbye to me. Her cheeks were tinted slightly pink.

            The encounter made my heart rush but that might just because

it’s the first romantic-ish thing that has happened to me in a while. I mean

she was pretty- but we scarcely talked. My palm still tingled where our hands

touched though. I was so distracted I did not notice when I found myself in Hawk’s

room. 

            I had never delivered anything to a hero before. Should I

just drop them in and leave? My hand rested atop the doorknob questioning how

to do this. The fluorescent hospital lights desaturated everything including my

ability to make cohesive thoughts. 

            Just as I opened the door, I heard a shattering sound,

something collapsing, and then 

            “Wait no shit-“Another thing fell to the ground. “-fuck” I

carefully opened the door. To see Hawk’s the pro hero, clutching his side with

one hand, and holding a sideways IV drip in one hand, but the fluid bag itself

was on the floor, along with some kind of glass and a medical device I couldn’t

identify from the various dents and scratches on it. It did not look like he

noticed me yet, he was much too preoccupied. 

            “Hey should-“ 

            “AH!” He yelled turning towards me. I couldn’t flinch

fast enough before three-foot-long red feathers with murderous intent came

spearing towards my head. Within that instant in closed my eyes prepared to be

dead but when I opened them up, the feathers were hovering just centimeters

away from my skull.

            I shocked me that I was still holding the flower box when

I checked. My eyes were wide as I stood still, jaw open, not a single breath

leaving my mouth. 

            “Are you a new nurse or something?” The feathers remained

there. I gulped before answering, my body felt light, flight, or fight already taking

place. 

            “I’m a- a florist.” I gestured down at the box with my

logo on it, and he seemed to relax a little bit. 

            “Oh.” He replied and the feathers returned to beside him.

He tried to make the IV drip stand back up again, but in a futile attempt he

gave up, just letting it fall to the group beside the other tools. He turned away

from me.

            ‘He is obviously in pain right now’ He faced away just

to hide the scowl and how much he was now clutching his side. 

            He looked over his shoulder “Who sent you?”

            “Mirko” I responded relieve that he was no longer about

to kill me. 

            “Where should I leave the flowers?” 

            “The table next to my bed” I stepped over there. An

assortment of papers where there is messy handwriting that I had no place in

reading. Nonetheless, I caught the words “Touya.” Too bad I didn’t know any Touyas.

I sat the box down and opened it up.

            Luckily with everything that went on, I didn’t destroy any

of the blooms. 

            “Did Mirko say anything about me?” He questioned quickly.

As much as he tried to seem tough, he valued her opinion very much. 

            “Get well soon and all of that, nothing much, she was too

busy teasing me, you know?”

            “Mirko was? Teasing you?” His eyebrows furrowed in confusion

before settling into a knowing look. 

            “Ohhhh” He winked. 

            “No no, it's nothing like this I promise I just met her.” 

            “Mmmn k” He didn’t believe me in the slightest. 

            “Just watch out she packs a punch” 

            Hawks walked over to where the flowers were and observed

the arrangement. He had a particular fondness for the red lilies, the same ones

that Mirko liked. He talks about her punch though reminded me of the crashes

and villain attack last night.

            “I hope she’s okay, she seemed pretty beat up last night

after the battle.” 

            “Eh, she recovers inhumanly quick. Something to do with the

rabbit in her.”

            He looks over to me and paused. 

            “What’s your name?”

            “(Y/N)” 

            “(Y/N Hmmm) He mumbled to himself like he was getting

used to the way it sounded. 

            “I can’t imagine this will be our last encounter (Y/N),

It was nice to meet you.”

            I smiled graciously and sighed. 

            “Nice to meet you too.”

[aromantic-romance-writer]

Kyojuro Rengoku x Fem! Reader

[Rekindle the Flame Inside Your Heart]

U M A I

That's basically the only word to explain why I wanted to make this for Rengobro-

I don't really have much info of when he was young, or just don't remember some details so uhhh a headcanon-?

Either way, I hope you enjoy!

WARNING: Very slight manga spoilers ahead!

How many times have he seen you on the same bed, in the same room already?

Kyojuro just came back from a mission. He was injured, but nothing really big. Just sprained his hand a little. But he knew injuries would be in the way of his missions if he doesn't treat them immediately.

But this was the fifth time he sees you at the Butterfly Estate already. And he doesn't even come here that often.

You never changed since the first time he saw you. You were sitting on the bed, head wrapped in a bandage, and staring at the wall. He decides to finally ask Shinobu about this.

"Oh, her." She says, her tone sounding pitiful. She finishes wrapping the bandage around his wrist and starts cleaning up. "She's never left. It's been 5 months since her last mission. It was horrible, really."

"A demon was able to wipe out her comrades with a blood demon art. She was able to kill him, but she was badly injured. She couldn't stop crying for a week. The poor thing..." She's finally finished cleaning up and faces him. It was kind of obvious in her tone that she wanted you leave already, but she doesn't have the heart to ask you. "You have to rest your hand for at least 48 hours, and you have to take this medicine after--"

"Kocho." Kyojuro cuts her off, but his smile doesn't waver. "May I spend those hours here?"

° ° °

At this point, why are you even alive?

It's been 5 months. Why are you being pathetic? You must be a really big burden to Kocho-san already. Stop being weak. Stop mourning over te past. You've killed the demon, right? Shouldn't you be happy? He wasn't gonna terrorize anyone anymore. No more people will be killed. You saved everyone. You also saved the demon from himself.

But your comrades. You couldn't save them.

The memory was still so vivid and horrifying. The memory turned into a nightmare, it was refusing to let you sleep.

It was refusing to let you rest.

You were so deep in your thoughts, you didn't even notice someone sitting beside your bed.

The person snapped his fingers in front of you. You snap your head around to see -

"R-Rengoku-san?!" you quickly bow down to show respect to the Flame Pillar. "W-what are you doing here?"

He gave a hearty laugh. "I would just like to have a little chat!" he says cheerfully. You sweat, you'll go blind from his radiant smile. "I've seen you many many times already, so I thought that I introduce myself if we'll ve seeing each other that often."

"But I know who you are already..."

"Nope!" you were startled at his exuberant response. "You only know my name, but not who I am."

You blink. Well, he's right. But what exactly is the reason for a pillar to talk to a low-ranking demon slayer such as yourself?

"Speak to me like I'm just a friend, and not a pillar!" his eyes sparkled with an unusual determination. You were sure none of your friends are as eccentric as him. "I'm Rengoku Kyojuro! You can call me by my first name!"

You stare down at your hands in diffidence. Are you not allowed to just run away? But you don't leave your bed unless necessary. Maybe you should just go with it, he is a pillar after all. But he said to treat him as a friend. Wait, what friend exactly?

You cut off your thoughts and raise your head, pink hues covering your cheeks. "N-nice to meet you, Kyojuro-kun! I-I'm [Y/N]!" you stutter in exclaim, your eyes glinting with clear confusion. But you admit that this is quite fun.

Kyojuro seemed to smile wider. "Okay, [Y/N]! What do you like to eat?"

° ° °

Kyojuro-kun.

Kyojuro-kun.

The name kept repeating in his head. He talked with you for hours. You've been calling him that name in those hours and he can't help but feel something warm inside him other than his flaring passion as a demon slayer.

He also learned a lot of interests that didn't suit the you when he first saw you. He realized that you were just this bubbly person who likes to get into trouble sometimes, but you're very compassionate about demons.

That's why you only blame yourself for their deaths and not the demon.

You were depressed. You couldn't save them. Kyojuro knew the feeling. But he wants to make you realize that it wasn't your fault. That whenever the sun would set, it would rise again the next day.

Your sun hasn't risen for such a long time, but he'll make it rise, he thought as passion flared his heart.

° ° °

Even after Kyojuro left the Butterfly Estate as his hand has completely healed, a day won't go by without him visiting you. He claims that he was free, so it was alright.

You still have no idea what and why he talked to you in the first place that day, but you were glad he did.

His smile was so infectious that you'd forget how sadness feels like. His bright and lively personality reminded you how to be happy.

Everyday, he would eat beside you and tell you how his day went. If he went on a mission the previous day, he always makes sure he finishes it as early as he can so he can visit you the next day and tell you all about it. You honestly missed going outside in your demon slayer uniform, but Kyojuro makes that feeling go away.

You couldn't leave yet, even thought you knew you would have to, eventually. But you're rooted here for some reason, and once you remember that, all the happiness would go away because once the moon rises, all of it will come back washing over you.

The nightmares. The tears. The regret. The guilt.

The blood.

Why won't it go away? Why is it still haunting your dreams? Why can't you move on?

You woke, sweating and gasping and crying as usual. The same thing would happen every morning; it's like a part of your day-to-day routine now.

You forget that someone is part of that routine as well.

That day, Kyojuro visited early and caught you in that state. You widen your eyes in horror to meet the eyes of the Flame Pillar.

Why is he here so early? You didn't want him to see you in that state.

He rushes over to you, eyes that were used to be so energetic now full of worry.

"[Y/N]! Are you alright? Did you have a nightmare?" He throws his questions at you like daggers you can't dodge. All you could do was cover your face with your hands and cry.

Why are you like this? Why are you crying in front of him? Why aren't you saying anything?

The questions quickly vanished from your mind as you can feel broad arms wrap around you into a hug. Your head was resting on his chest. You feel your face grow warm. His steady heartbeat was audible as it calmed you.

After a while, both of you were outside and sitting on the engawa. You have washed your face and decided to tell him what happened 5 months ago.

It was weird to you. You're actually saying what happened and it was your mouth. But your features were calm. Not even a single tear. Did you finally run out tears? Are you finally numb?

When you finished, you felt as if something that was crushing your chest disappeared. Like it was never there. It's like you can breathe properly again.

The silence goes on for a few minutes, before Kyojuro speaks. "[Y/N]."

You turn to him. He was looking at you with such a fierce look. You admit he looked kind of scary.

"It's not your fault. It's never your fault. I'm sure you're comrades always wanted to say that to you." he finally turns his whole body towards you. "You're strong and human, and you can only do so much. You saved a lot of people from that demon. You also saved the demon from himself."

"Relight the flame of your heart - the heart of a demon slayer! Stand back up like how the burning sun would rise every morning. Even without you, your comrades are putting their hands on your back - putting their faith in you! For their sake, draw your sword and protect the weak from the evil by my side!"

You blink. The passionate speech moved you. He has a point. You're a demon slayer. You can't back down. You have to protect loads more of people. You have to save loads more of demons.

Your dull world was suddenly scorched in fire. Such beautiful colors flooded your vision, but for some reason, all you see was Kyojuro.

Then you realized that your flame has been relit already. It was just a tiny flame, so you didn't notice.

But that day, along with his loud introduction, barged into your heart to light a match.

"I mean...!" you snap out of your thoughts to see Kyojuro red in the face, but he was still smiling. "You don't have to do all the beside me! You can do it on your own! You don't need me! You're strong by yourself, so--"

You started laughing. At first, ut was a small snort until you bursted unto tears while laughing. "Oh, Kyo!" you finally calm down, wiping the tears from your face. You smile at a very red and confused Kyojuro. "Thank you. I would like to fight by your side as well."

~

You were dreading that your uniform might not fit anymore, since you haven't worn it for 5 months. But you gave a big sigh of relief when you were able to slip into it without ripping any if its sides.

"Kyo-kun!" the brazen haired pillar turned to see you. His eyes sparkled with adoration. It was an endearing sight for him. "I'm ready to train!"

He stares at you for a while, before crouching to move a stray hair from your face and tucked it behind your ear. "Don't let any of your hair in the way! It'll be difficult to train that way." his smile widens as he walks away, leaving you paralyzed and flustered. "And make sure to show your pretty face all the time!"

You run after him as you try to calm your heart down. What the hell was that?

And so, you trained under his supervision. You've changed and it was all thanks to Kyojuro. You were back to your usual self, but with more determination to go on missions.

Kyojuro has changed as well. You weren't sure if it was a good change or a bad change, but surely it must be bad since the outcome would always be you getting flustered?

But because of this change, you can't help but grow romantic feelings for the guy. Everything he's doing, you have no clue why he does it.

"Hah!" you pointed the wooden sword at him as he fell on the ground. "What happened? I don't think I actually beat you."

He grabs the other end of the wooden sword. "My aplogies! I got distracted. You're unusually pretty today." Your eyes widen. Another flirt? Again? You turn away in attempt to avoid his stare at your very red face. And because of this, you accidentally let your guard down. He notices and pulls the sword, making you fall on top of him.

Your face was inches from his. You swear, he can feel your heart beating out of your chest too fast. His radiant smile turned into a cocky one, only making your temperature rise. "Or maybe you should be the one apologizing for that?" he says in a low tone.

Fuck.

Fuck.

You quickly try to move away, but he doesn't let you. In fact, he only draws you closer to him by the waist. "Why are you escaping? You did this to me, [Y/N], how can you expect me to just let it go?"

"K-kyo, what's the meaning of this?" you timidly ask. The tone in your voice was obvious that you were begging him to stop.

He finally lets you go and sits in an indian position. He gives you time to cool off and calm yourself before he speaks. "[Y/N]." he says in a serious tone, making you snap towards him and sit with a perfect posture. Despite these little mishaps, you never forget where you're place is.

He breathes deeply, feeling his own heart beating out of his chest. "I like you."

"I'm sorry, what?"

Kyojuro just sits there, smiling again. "I'm afraid I can't say it again."

You heard it clearly the first time, you were just making sure you weren't deluding yourself or hearing things. You weren't sure whether to jump in joy or drown yourself in the river. "Am I in any position to hit you as of this moment?"

His smile widens. "You have a position in my heart. Is that okay?"

"Kyo!"

He laughs. "I'm really sorry, [Y/N]. I can't help myself. I just really like you."

You play with your hair as you avert your gaze, your cheeks covered in pink blush. It sent weird sparks to his heart to see such an adorable sight. "I-I like you too, Kyo..."

He was still smiling, but his eyes widen in shock. "You do?"

"Don't make me repeat what I said! It's embarassing enough as it is."

He holds your hand, making you look at him. He wore his warmest of smiles. "That makes me really really happy, [Y/N]."

~

So you did fight side-by-side when you're asked to go on a joint mission, but he mostly tried to protect you and wouldn't let you fight. You were happy together and had this amazing chemistry everyone admired, even on the battlefield. You were both very happy together and supported each other to this very day.

Even when he was gone.

° ° °

The boy sitting in front of you sniffled, wiping his tears with his green and black checkered haori. His demon sister patted his back as she also felt emotional herself.

"Er, should I get you some water?" you chuckle lightly.

They both shake their heads as they finished wiping their tears away. "Your love story is so touching, [L/N]-san! I'm sorry I couldn't protect him..." he lowers his head, gripping his uniform's trousers very tightly.

You notice this and wrap his hand around yours. He looks up to you just in time before he cries again.

"Tanjiro," You say with the warmest tone you can give him. "Do me a favor and smile."

He blinks cluelessly. "R-right now?"

You laugh lightly. "If you feel like it. Remember to smile even if it seems all hope is lost. Even in your darkest days, never forget to smile again. The sun sets, but it also rises. Be like the sun, Tanjiro, and give the weak the hope and light that they need.

"Be the match that will rekindle the flame inside their hearts, and until then, smile once more. Set your heart ablaze, Tanjiro, Nezuko."

He and Nezuko stares at you, but you trust that they understand.

By the entrance of your home, the kind boy bows. "I almost forgot! Rengoku-san wanted me to give this to you." he hands you a letter with your name written with his familiar hand-writing. "Thank you for everything, [L/N]-san!"

You wave at him as he walks away. You waited until his figure was as small as an ant before going back inside.

You sit on the engawa and open the letter.

"Be the happiest as you can be, [Y/N]. When I pass, find someone else. Make sure that person can protect you. You'll always be my flame."

A single tear streamed accross your face.

"I am the happiest that I can be, Kyo. And it's all because of that day when you revived the fire in my heart." you say, hugging the letter close to your chest.

Right where the fire is flickering.

Never realized how much Rengobro's death affected me when I started reasearching about him for this.

[thevoidable]

How and why Dabi is still alive - a theory

Now, assuming the Dabi is a Todoroki theory is correct, there’s always been one big, persisting question since we got a certain confirmation several chapters ago in the manga: just how is Dabi still alive?

That’s the question I’m hoping to answer or at least provide some more insight on by the end of this post, and what I’ll be doing is going in-depth about the cremation process and digging into context clues within the manga, so, major manga spoilers and TWs ahead.

Before we look into how Dabi is still alive, we must first answer how Toya himself actually “died”. As I previously mentioned, chapter 249 gave us confirmation that the Todorokis all firmly believe that Toya is dead, but it was still left unclear on just what was the cause, and most of us had the idea that Endeavour had possibly killed Toya during training.

But then, chapter 252 gave us another vague yet crucial detail:

Endeavour was not directly responsible for his death, but the way this is worded still implies that he is somewhat part of the reason. So, if Endeavour didn’t kill him, what did? Previously in chapter 250, Fuyumi mentions the following:

So, we know that whatever happened to Toya was after the kettle incident. Now, given all the build-up of him being the eldest (therefore him seeing and experiencing the most), suffering through Endeavour’s abuse, and then his mother snapping and becoming potentially just as dangerous, the most likely cause of death for Toya is, unfortunately, suicide. Everything was just too much for him at that point and he, too, snapped. It’s likely that he hid away in an empty room and burned himself alive, and by the time Endeavour (or possibly any of his siblings) found him, it was too late.

So now that we know how Toya died, we can finally start getting to the juicy part, but before we do, I would just like to quickly bring up Dabi’s Quirk and how compatible it is with his body, because that’s going to be important later.

During Dabi’s fight with Geten, we got confirmation that his flames are indeed detrimental to his own body.

Paired with Endeavour’s words said to Shoto during training, and Natuso, Rei, and Fuyumi’s conversation in chapter 187,

it’s easy to put together that Toya inherited a body more suited for an ice Quirk. Given that, it’s still very impressive that Dabi is getting away with the burns that he has and isn’t just straight up dead, so just how hot are his flames? With a quick Google search, blue fire burns at a whopping 1400 - 1650 degrees Celsius (2600 - 3000 degrees Fahrenheit), which means that despite his disadvantage, he still has an amazingly strong resistance to extremely high temperatures. Not only that, but his body is also very likely to survive extreme cold temperatures too, so in a way, Toya essentially has a very flawed version of Shoto’s body and Quirk.

Alright, back to our regularly scehduled programming.  So, Toya burned himself alive, and now Endeavour has to deal with the aftermath. What does he do? Something that I’ve noticed which is incredibly strange is that none of the authorities have been able to figure out Dabi’s identity at all - as of right now, every single core League member has been revealed except for Dabi. If Dabi is Toya, why has no one been able to get DNA tests, fingerprints, etc.? If the other members can be figured out, then Dabi should be too. ...Unless Endeavour had wanted to erase Toya from public existence entirely.  It’s entirely possible that Endeavour contacted the Safety Commission to help him cover up his son’s death and make it as if he had never existed in the first place. Back then, Toya was seen as nothing but a mistake, a failure, so with him dead, it was easy for Endeavour to just sweep him under the rug and move on with his successful son. The Safety Commission would have handled erasing any and all data on Toya, which would explain why investigations regarding Dabi’s identity are coming up dry (oh the irony). So, with his digital existence erased, what about his actual physical one? Considering that around 99% of deceased in Japan are cremated, and Dabi’s name itself means “cremation”, the choice is blatantly obvious. What we have next to look at to figure out how Dabi survived is the cremation process. It consists of a few basic steps: - The body is transported to the crematory and kept in cold storage until the time of cremation - The body must be identified before the cremation process can begin - The body is cleaned and dressed (optional) - The body is placed into a cardboard box or casket and is cremated in the cremation chamber for 2 - 3 hours - Lastly, the remains are then ground up into “ashes” and given back to the family. First of all, in order for this theory to check out, we must address the elephant in the room: Toya is presumed dead.  So how would he even be alive at this point anyway? Well, there’s actually a pretty good explanation for that. Turns out, people waking up in morgues can happen every so often. (As a side note, I’m no medical expert, so if I get anything wrong or get the information confused, then please let me know.)

A reduction in temperature you say? Like...being kept in cold storage? When Toya burned himself alive, he would have burned until he lost consciousness due to the fire eating away at his oxygen, which could have prompted his heart to stop or reduce its pulse greatly. Thus, as the above article suggests, when he was placed into cold storage, he was kept alive and given time to recover. The fact that his body is more suited to the cold is even better in this case, meaning that there’s no way the cold would harm him either.

With the elephant removed, we can now move on to the next steps: body identification and cremation preparation. Assuming that the Safety Commission is taking all measures to make sure that no one knows this is Endeavour’s eldest son, this part of the process suddenly becomes extra shady.  What the body identification means is that the body is labelled with a unique number so that the remains can be identified after the cremation. However, there is also paperwork involved - yet another thing that the Commission would have to keep confidential, or perhaps even alter, giving fake names and the like.  As mentioned earlier, the body being cleaned and dressed is optional, so that is clearly off the table too in order to keep Toya’s identity hidden from whoever works at the crematory.

And finally, we now get to the best part: the cremation itself. I doubt that Endeavour would have a casket prepared for Toya, so he would just be placed in a sturdy cardboard box, and then he’d be slid on into the cremation chamber, which is basically a human-sized brick oven. Now, this is where Toya’s body compatibility really comes into play. Remember how I said that blue fire burns at 1400 - 1650 degrees Celsius (2600 - 3000 degrees Fahrenheit), and that regardless of his burns he still has a crazy high temperature tolerance because of it? If he is able to withstand a decent amount of his own flames, then a measly cremation temperature of 1000 - 1300 degrees Celsius (1400 - 1800 degrees Fahrenheit) will do almost nothing to him besides make his already existing burns a little worse. So, it’s at this point that we now have to ditch science and research and start letting our imaginations run wild, because everything that happens next is all plot-based. It’s worth mentioning that I have never worked in a crematory before, so I’m not sure if the bodies are watched constantly while they burn (I know that families can watch their desceased be cremated if they so choose, but as far as general monitoring goes, I’m not sure), mostly because the process takes 2 - 3 hours, but if they’re not watched, then it’s my personal belief that Toya wakes up as he’s being cremated and busts his way out of the cardboard box in a fit of panic. Once out of the chamber, he realises what’s going on due to another body that could be cremating at the same time.  I’d imagine that what’s going through Toya’s head right now is that people think he’s dead when he’s actually not, and he’d perfer it if it stayed that way. He has the perfect opportunity to get away from Endeavour and start anew elsewhere - this is his second chance. To avoid being found out, he braves the flames again to switch out the ID labels so that the other body’s ashes will be mistaken for his, and he makes his escape out of the crematory to face the streets for the first time. As for what happens during the ten year gap between then and now, I have no idea of what Dabi does or goes through, so that’s all for Hori to know and us to find out.

And so, that concludes my theory! 

I hope you all enjoyed reading it - I did as much research as I could and tried to come up with the most logical scenario possible, and this was the result. I’ve been working on it since midnight and it is now 3AM, so I am going to go the fuck to bed and get some sleep lmao. Let me know your thoughts and if you have anything to add!

[missypawz]

Injury

⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️Manga spoilers ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️

"LEVI!" Petra cried out while running over to the injured man that was lying limp against Hange's back, his uniform and cape was covered in blood and was torn in places, his face was just as bad, it was covered in just as much blood as his uniform and there was a large gash that travelled from his forehead, through his eye and all the way down to his jawline, there were also a number of other cuts and scratches that she could see on his other cheek. There were a few splints of wood and other rubble stuck in his face and a slightly bigger one that was lodged into his shoulder, it would be awfully painful if he was awake, maybe he could feel all of this, she really hoped he couldn't, she even prayed in her head, not sure if it would do anything for her husband that was in such a weak and vulnerable state.

Hange needed to get Levi somewhere safe before trying to remove any splints or fix him up, they wouldn't get anywhere if they only found a place that was infiltrated with enemies trying to kill them at any moment, that way both Hange and Levi would end up dead.

His hair was covered in blood aswell making parts stick together and cling onto to his forehead, she also hadn't noticed the two missing fingers until she looked down a little, they were covered in blood that made her cringe and look away back At Hange.

"It was zeke..he set off a thunder spear in close proximity to Levi, I don't have all the details right now but something went wrong while watching him in the forest..I'm assuming he transformed but we'll have to ask Levi., I also don't know what his injuries are like, and if any vital organs have been damaged it isn't good at all., but..Petra, can you please take Levi inside while I go and set everything up and get what I need?" She began walking over to Petra who quickly nodded, worry still plastered on her face. She would do anything she could to help. "He's quite heavy for a small guy.." she managed to heave Levi onto Petra's back who immediately held onto him best she could, she could feel his breath against her neck which filled her with hope, please be okay.

As she began to carry Levi into the small house that had been found to treat any of their injured soldiers during the war, Hange began grabbing some needles and thread, some bandages and some antiseptic that would no doubt sting quite a lot, she still doubted it would make Levi wake up in his current state.

After a moment or so Petra had managed to get Levi inside and into one of the bedrooms, placing him down as carefully and well that she could, and now all she could do was helplessly wait and hope Hange could work her magic and stitch him up, she knew she could, it was Hange after all.

Petra stood silently while watching Hange re enter the room with some things in their arms, her eyes averted off of Levi and out of the window, keep staring at his battered face wasn't going to make anything better.

Hange unbuttoned Levi's shirt and put it on the side, it was still folded nicely, she knew he would hate it if it was thrown into a pile on the floor. While she examined him further Petra sat down in the arm chair in the corner of the room, leaning her head on her hand, her brows were furrowed and there was a prominent frown on the woman's face, she couldn't be alone, Levi couldn't die now, she loved him too much, she needed him for the rest of her life, he was too important and there was so much they still needed to do.

There were some injuries on his chest but nothing that Hange seemed to be horrified by, hopefully no damage had been done to any vital parts of his body and they would just leave some scars, as much as Levi wouldn't like them, petra still would, always, it reminded her what he'd fought through and how he was still here with her, alive.

Hange began to get to work, wiping the wounds with antiseptic and then stitching them up carefully and efficiently, she took an average amount of time doing them, if she did them too quickly they could end up looking terrible or could even come out which she didn't want as that would mean they had to do them all over again.

When Hange was stitching the largest wound on his face the red head noticed his ring finger twitched towards her. His golden wedding band shone when the sun hit it at a certain angle, making her eyes start to water, forcing her to cover her face with her brown sleeve.

She wasn't sure if he was feeling any of this since he was unconscious, but what if he was? She couldn't even do anything to save him until he pulled through himself, he was trapped until he could wake up, this was all horrible, why did he have to get injured? He was such a strong man, he was like an entire army and he was worth so much to the scouts,even more he was worth so much to her, he was her husband and she couldn't let this be how it ended for him, but for now, her trust was in the brunette who was still stitching and bandaging him up, she had to just wait, even though the waiting felt like hours.

Hange had took notice of his hand twitching and took it as a good sign, she let out a sigh and grabbed the bandages, beginning to wrap it around Levi's face, only leaving the unscathed eye on show for when he woke up, he would be able to see them and his surroundings, she didn't want him to panic if he couldn't see anything.

"I think.. he'll be okay, we need to monitor him closely from here, I already know you'll do well with that job - Petra."

"I'll be here all the time - I think it would just be better if I stayed here with him..I'm not trying to get out all of the shit that's happening right now its just-"

"Its okay, I understand, you watch over Levi, make sure to send one of the soldiers to me if anything happens or his condition worsens." A gentle hand was put on her shoulder, reminder that it really was okay, it was going to be fine.

"Thank you Hange, for saving him."

"I had to..he's a wonderful friend and Captain, also your husband, you're both very important to me."

She nodded at Hange's words and gave her a thumbs up with a sad smile, it was a sad smile, but it was sincere, she was moved by Hange's words, she had always been such a wonderful friend.

After some time had past Hange had left Petra with a little bit of advice and had got going, she was needed, Petra was just glad she was here otherwise she wasn't sure who would of looked after him. Really she should've been joining the others to help them fight, but right now she couldn't focus on anything other than her husband, and going into battle with something clouding your mind would only get you killed.

"You're gonna be okay.. I just know you are." Petra pulled the arm chair up closer to his bed and held onto his hand, before carefully bringing it up to her lips and kissing his knuckles.

It stayed like this all the way until the next day, Petra stayed right next to him and held onto his hand, sometimes she would lie her head against him to feel the beating of his heart and the slow rising and falling of his cheat.

It was around 6pm the next day when she had felt his hand twitching again, then a low groan followed. "Levi!" She sat up suddenly in relief and also some anxiety she was hurting him with her head resting on him.

She noticed him try to prop himself up on his elbow and then shook her head, guiding him back down. "Don't try to sit up right now..just rest."

"Where is he..beast titan piece of shit." His voice came out in a coarse whisper, most likely from the lack of water he'd drunk over the last couple of days.

"He's gone now..Hange brought you here and fixed you up."

He didn't say anything, he just moved his head slightly and looked at his hand, seeing the missing fingers he sighed and forced his eyes back up to meet with Petra's.

"How bad is it?"

The question took her off guard for a moment before she once again interlocked her hand with his. "You have some injuries on your face which will turn into scars..some on your chest and your legs might be a little weak at the moment..but luckily no damage to them, you'll be able to walk in time, there's also a possibility you'll be blind in the one eye." Her words were a little shakey, she was so relieved he was awake, so happy that he would be okay, she didn't mean for it but her emotions were taking her again, she wished she could just stop and smile, but she couldn't, the tears wouldn't stop forming seeing that his eyes were open and he was really going to be okay.

He brought his other arm towards her and put his hand on her cheek before moving his thumb up and under her eye where a few tears had fallen."don't cry.." he murmured, gently caressing her skin. "I'm okay."

"I know..I was just scared you weren't going to be..and I'm so relieved."

"I'm surprised you hadn't realised that I'm not going anywhere yet, so many things I still need to do."

"Once we're out of this shit..I need to take you to that place I said I would with the beautiful view, I need to take you on more dates, I need to open that tea shop with you, maybe one day we could have a brat or two."

"I'd like all of that.." Petra whispered and let a smile spread across her face as Levi continued to wipe away her tears.

He moved his hand to her chin and brought her closer to him, he than went on and kissed her on the lips, softly yet passionately, showing his love in that kiss, the kiss Petra was worried she would never get again if she lost him.

"Now stop crying..I love you."

"I love you too..never scare me like that again."

.........................................................................................

Here was the request for Petra's reaction seeing Levi in his injured state in the manga, I really hope you like it <3

[saltyaro]

[Image description: The cover of the 5th book of Aromantic (love) Story. It features a drawn woman in a red tank top, a white skirt that hides her heels, and red high heels shoes. She has her hands on her hips and looks confident.]

You know what I forgot to do? That review on the 5th and last tome of aromantic (love) story. For those who weren’t aware yet, I’m not going to keep the suspense going on any longer: yes, it is safe, no, the heroine doesn’t end up as a straight woman. That’s already a victory in itself, so now all of you can go ahead and buy it if it’s available in your country ;) 

The actual review is under the read more, it’s not spoiler free so!

So, Futaba (the main character) tried dating to see if she’s able to develop romance, or not. The person she chose to do so with of course knows about it, and they’re actually both trying it to see if they can understand romance. Futaba still can’t imagine romantic attraction outside of sexual attraction, which frustrates her, because she *knows* allo aces are a thing so obviously, sexual desire isn’t necessarily linked! The viewpoint of her (straight dude) partner-in-crime is...well, not surprising at all, actually. His opinion is that romantic feelings are born of, on one hand, wanting the other person’s happiness, while also wanting to possess them and keep them all to yourself. 

This is, well. A very Straight Man™ way of seeing things, but, on the other hand, this point of view isn’t limited to them. (I promise, I’m not going to ramble about how it’s scary that society puts such a violent feeling as the most beautiful and important. Not on this post at least)

Fun note, at least for me, you have the classical “guy is sick, girl brings him medicine” except...Futaba gives him the medicine and just. Leaves. I love her. Well, she ends up going to his apartment, but that’s where her being aro really stands out. Usually, in a basic romcom, everyone’s flushed, and it’s annoying. But Futaba is aro, so she isn’t embarrassed, she just sees someone she cares about being sick and wants to help. She’s very natural and stoic about the whole situation. It may seem like a detail, but honestly I find that so important!

She explains that, when she was a teenager, she avoided men as much as possible (to avoid romance) and I relate. So fucking much. I don’t know if any of you did the same, but with my parents bugging me about boys, I just avoided them as much as possible (with a few exceptions). I didn’t feel unsafe around men yet back then, so I know that’s not what it was. 

She explains she was afraid of creating misunderstandings, and ended up not using the world “love” at all because of that. I relate to that so much too, I’m trying to heal from that, and I think it’s important, really important, for us as a community, to learn to separate love from romance. Anyway, this kind of struggle that just...hinders your vocabulary options is really a shame, and I’m glad to see a character mention it (and not be shamed for it!).

Are you ready for some Hetero Bashing™? Because Futaba reunites with her friends and they talk a bit. The Straight dude (Kyosuke) asked Futaba to think about marrying him, and she’s a bit “huuuuuh” so she talks about it to her friends. Friend 1 is like “well, you don’t need to be *in romance* to get married. I have friends, a straight dude and a lesbian, who got married by necessity” and Futaba expresses that she never thought such a thing would happen to her, she never thought of marriage being an option for her. Friend 2 they says that it’s the contrary for her, impossible to avoid the idea of marriage and children, despite not wanting either, because it’s been so ingrained in her head. “you know, the “to perpetuate the specie” argument, like having descendance is every human’s mission...”

And the friend 1 says “ah...the perfect exemple of a notion made by straight people to validate their point of view!” and I love that?? I mean, in general, even in the larger queer community, we’re dancing around the argument, finding proof that there are non-straight animals in all species, and all. She then adds “If reproductions is *that* important...then rich single people could have a ton of kids using articifial fertilization and bingo, they’d have contributed to society’s well-being!” Friend 2 is like “uuuuh, that would raise ethical issues” to what friend 2 answers: “Personally, I kinda reaaally don’t care for lessons of morality from a society that considers sexual minorities and childfree people as useless. If we consider that humanity will necessarily go extinct one day, then mating to reproduce is nothing but a useless cycle”. I really like that take which’s why I *had* to share it despite it being so long to read haha. 

Futaba is surprised by her words, so friend 2 explains that friend 1 is worried that a straight guy is going to steal Futaba from them, and she doesn’t want to be abandoned. Friend 1 is bi but that’s a very aro sentiment here tbh. 

(Straight bashing, over)

You have the usual meeting with the family...god, how realistic is that, you see your aunt and uncle you haven’t seen in maybe years and the only thing they’re interested in, is whether or not you’ve found a romantic partner. I swear, I got annoyed for the character cause it’s so true. She’s bothered (and I am too) by her grandma’s affirmation that everyones gets married someday. I hate that, it really, really annoys me that I supposedly can’t be free to make my own decisions! But she also knows that it would be useless to explain to her grandma that her words are paternalism, so she lets her be. Because she means well, and maybe that’s the worst thing about amatonormativity and its assumptions...that the people upholding those mean well. 

The manga also touches (rapidly) on Futaba feeling of guilt for not being sincere with her family. Her parents aren’t pressuring her to get married, but she knows that seeing their only child, still single, and over 30, is sure to make them worried (especially given she’s not exactly wealthy). I can’t express how much I love seeing a character like that, she knows what she wants, but there’s still this lingering feeling that keeps you from feeling totally at ease, regardless of how much confidence you’ve got. It’s only natural and nothing to be ashamed of. 

I think one of my favourite moments of this book - maybe of all the serie? is after Kyosuke’s friends remotivates Futaba by, basically, telling her to do what she always did, fight out of spite, even if that means to accept to sometimes take hits (this happens throught the phone). Kyosuke says to his friend, that he would never have neeb able to say such things to him, and his friend answers that love blinds him, and prevents him from seeing what she really needs. To that, Kyosuke doesn’t answer, and his friend understands immediately and says “That look...maybe you actually nurture this self-deception.” 

And I love this moment because, for Futaba to be happy, she needs to be single, and free. From him, and his expectations of romance, because even though he knows, rationally speaking, that she won’t ever feel the same, he still wants her, and still wants to be the one at her side - when no one should be. Not in a partnership way anyway. He’s actually choosing to ignore the rational part of him because he still hopes for her to make the difficult choice, and stay at his side, because it’s not really that he wants her to be happy but rather, that he wants to be the one to make her happy, which is of course, extremely selfish and possessive. I love that it’s just laid here, without ambiguity. What’s great also, is that the straight dude in romo realizes what he’s doing, even if he tries to ignore that. Later in the manga, Kyosuke thinks to himself that he couldn’t help but hope that she would concecede, yield, and accept him, despite knowing that’s not what she needs, and knowing that’s not the way you build a positive relationship. I...don’t know if alloro usually know they’re doing such things? I don’t know what’s worse, to be confident you’re not doing that shit when you’re doing it, or to keep on doing it even though you’re aware. 

On a sidenote, I really, really like that she got boosted by the least expected person? They don’t like each other, they’re more or less at each other’s throat most of the time cause he’s sexist and unsentitive, but in the end, he was touched by the anger in the beginnings of her work, and it built a sort of...professional trust between the two of them. Like, those characters won’t ever be friends, but there’s still that little place of trust between them, it’s a delicate portrayal of ambiguous relationships. 

Basically, what ends the manga, if the end of Futaba’s own manga (the romantic comedy). And I really like the outlook she has on it, at the end of her 2 years and a half of work. Even though she didn’t want to write such a thing, in the end, she met a lot of people thanks to it, and, through challenging her own vision of relationships and romance, she finally managed to complete her certitude in herself and who she is. I think that’s a lovely parallel. 

It also ends her questions, and she rejects Kyosuke (I usually can’t help but laugh when a Straight man gets rejected in fiction I’m an asshole I know). Their conversation is really lovely after that, and challenged the expectations of partnership. Kyosuke asks her if she would have accepted his proposal if, like one year ago, he didn’t feel anything towards her. And her answer is no. She did think about it, imagining their marriage as a fake straight couple, and how she knew that, while it would have asked concessions and sacrifices from both of them, they could have been happy.  But what she needs isn’t some stability based on renunciations, but ton confront reality, so she can live in agreement with herself. 

Also, the moment after her choice, loneliness and worry strike her, and she acknowledges that feeling, because it’s okay, it doesn’t mean she made the wrong choice. It will pass. 

The younger guy who’s also in romance with her, interestingly enough, resolves the situation in a very mature way. He asks her if she’s found her answer, when they’re about to part ways (he’s no longer her assistant), and she says that, yes, she doesn’t feel romance - and he thanks her, for having endured his weirdness all this time, and bids her farewell. And we then have his thoughts - while his decisions, to act that way, was difficult for him, he did so because it was the right thing to do and he realized that insisting would have bothered her. That was nice. The situation is weird for Futaba too, because, as his senior, she kinda felt responsible for him, protective maybe? And she’s a bit overwhelmed by how much this kid’s grown. 

There’s an epilogue of sorts, and we can see that Futaba decided to entirely live while being true to herself, which also means making some changes. 

To conclude: I really liked this serie! It’s nice to see a woman over 30, finally embracing herself - despite having gone through doubts, even at her age - after making sure she was right about her feelings. She’s, well, asexual I think, but it’s the aro part that matters to her, and really has an influence on her life, the ace part is more of an afterthought. It’s also nice to see a nonamorous aromantic woman! Aro women are already hard to grasp in our amatonormative and migogynistic society, so a nonamorous one probably even more so. 

It was overall a really nice experience, I’m not going to say everything was perfect, and her aromanticism is the topic of the story, but Futaba is also her own person and this is never downplayed in favour of talking about her identity. Definitely something too rare and, as such, very enjoyable. 

[snkpolls]

SnK S3E13 Poll Results (Manga Reader Version)

The poll closed with 539 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results of the manga reader poll. Anime only watchers are suggested not to read if you do not wish to be spoiled about certain events! Anime only viewers, click here to view your poll results!

RATE THE EPISODE 534 Responses

WIT kicked off the arc fantastically according to the viewers! This episode got overall positive reviews, with 95% of respondents giving it a 4 or 5 rating.

An ideal opening episode in my opinion!

Incredible start for possible the best season yet ♥

Awesome opening episode to set the stage for the arc to come. Pacing was just right, imo.

HYPE MY SOLDIERS

I think it was a great ep and did pretty well with the chapters it adapted. The dialogue was there and so were the scenes, the ending hyped what is coming so much so I'm already in love!

Lack of creavity when it come to the OP and ED visuals, but the ep overall was good.

The soundtrack slaps, voice acting is on point, and the animation proves to be very promising. Overall, it's a great episode to start off the second cour!

Awesome episode with awesome soundtrack.

One of the best episodes of the whole series, which was surprising.

RATE THE OP 533 Responses

Overall respondents liked the new Linked Horizon opening, which was a great summary of the current arc, but overall it fell flat as a song that most would be willing to label as their favorite.

OP depicts the upcoming battle well!

Great adaptation, just wish the opening was a little more original

It is the worst OP of all. The song is disappointing; it sounds like typical, boring song from random shonen series.

The opening definitely had some parts to it that felt recycled from previous openings, but I guess it's just Linked Horizon's way of linking them all together.

SPACE OPERATION RAINBOW!!!

To me it looks like they ran out of time to make an OP so they slapped a green filter on what they had done already.

RATE THE ED 530 Responses

The 104th-centered still-frame ED has some mixed reviews with most of the fandom sitting somewhere in the middle between loving and hating it. Respondents overall are leaning more toward the positive, however.

ED is perfect with the time skip just over the horizon

WE GOT A FEW NEW SAWANO TRACKS. HOW ARE YOU FEELING ABOUT THEM? 530 Responses

Well over half the fandom are already pumped for new music from the series’ composer Sawano Hiroyuki! A whopping 76% already feel that he’s killing it. 22% need more time to decide how they feel. A small sliver of respondents don’t really care for the OST. Who hurt you?

ost perfect as usual

It was good but at this point everything sounds like it's been reused a bunch of times. Hopefully we get some new great tracks later on..

Hyeh

The bassline in the new rendition of "Attack on Titan" (or however Sawano spells it) is amazing. I cannot wait for the S3 soundtrack to be released.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING WAS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT? 532 Responses

The scene with the Beast Titan appearing with his army of titans took 30% of the vote, with Levi attacking Reiner as a close second with 22% of the vote. 10% overall liked the entire episode, and 7% favorited the cliffhanger staredown. We can all agree the battle to come has us all hyped!

I repeated the scene where Reiner appears until the end of the episode tons of times already

Did they really had to skip Levi's frustrated expression after he failed to kill Reiner? It was my favorite moment…

Levi attacking Reiner and everything after that has become one of my favorite scenes in the series. Damn!

Nice Erwin Screentime, nice Levi nyooming behind Eren

Best girl makes her appearance

the last three minutes of the episode where the warriors show up was fucking amazing

ON SCALE OF ARMIN TO ERWIN, HOW GOOD ARE YOU AT GIVING ORDERS? 526 Responses

The majority of respondents relate to Armin’s timid nature a bit more when it comes to overall confidence in giving orders. Just a small 6.3% of you guys feel you have the charismatic swag that Erwin brings to the table.

I loved Armin giving orders politely.

How was Armin overcoming social anxiety a billion times cooler then eren flying over a 60m wall, becoming a titan and basically saving humanity.

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW MUCH DO YOU WANT TO GO HORSEBACK SURFING? 528 Responses

This was in no way a serious question. But at an almost even split, 35.8% of voters would totally try their hand at horseback surfing, while 35.2% would never risk their life doing such a dangerous activity!

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ANIMATION QUALITY IN PART TWO SO FAR? 529 Responses

Overall respondents are pleased with the animation in the first episode of the RtS arc, with 54% stating that it’s the best animation they’ve seen from the series yet. 42% feel it could be better, but is also not the worst. A small percentage don’t find the animation all that impressive.

I can’t believe how clean all of the animation is looking. SUPER impressed with the difference in art-style compared to season 1 as well.

The animation is on the highest level.

i miss the thick lines the show used to have

i really love the colour palette of this season and the op especially.

IMO the color tones on this episode could've been handled better, it was too gloomy on some scenes :(

The animation & art style was almost as good as season 2’s (which is one of my favorite pieces of animation of all time) but still lacked in some areas.

Looks like they went all out with budget on this season and I'm loving it

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CG COLOSSAL TITAN IN THE OPENING? 532 Responses

57% of respondents aren’t too upset about the GCI Colossal Titan in the opening and say they don’t mind either way. 35% aren’t happy at all with the decision to make the Colossal CGI, while a few actually find the effect super cool.

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW EXCITED ARE YOU TO FINALLY SEE THIS ARC ANIMATED? 533 Responses

The overwhelming majority are extremely excited to see this arc animated after all these years. With its high levels of action and drama, it’s no surprise to us to see that the fandom is looking forward to getting this arc in an animated form!

IVE WAITED MORE THAN 2 YEARS FOR THIS IM NEVER BEEN SO FUCKING HYPED IN MY WHOLE LIFE

I've waited so many years that I'm satisfied and ready to pass now that my favorite arc is being animated

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ADAPTATION OF RTS SO FAR? 532 Responses

67% of respondents are feeling very satisfied with the way the arc is unraveling in the anime, finding that it’s a very close adaptation of the original source material. 23% feel that it’s still too early to judge the adaptation properly, and a few less feel that the adaptation so far is somewhere between good and bad.

Fantastic adaptation.

Good pacing jumping right into the action, while staying faithful to the manga.

Overall very good, but could be a TAD better

I think the adaptation so far has been great, but I need to see how the action is handled before I say for sure whether it's well adapted or not.

It was ok.

It was very well-adapted! All the important details were there and nothing important seemed to be missing, which was something I was sad about in the last arc. It seems like everything I want will get covered.

How do we come back from there without breaking my heart?

PART 2 IS SLATED FOR 10 EPISODES. DO YOU THINK THIS WILL BE ENOUGH TO ADAPT THE ARC WELL? 531 Responses

Voters are confident that WIT knows what they’re doing by shortening the amount of episodes that will air for this action-heavy arc, with only ¼ of respondents feeling that they haven’t given themselves enough screen time to cover every last detail. 10% don’t want to say either way.

i was disappointed in knowing it was a 10 episode arc, but seeing the quality and taking into account that this is an action-heavy arc, i'm bouncing off of the walls to see what wit has underneath their sleeve. hopefully they don't ruin the best arc

one advantage of the short season is that they cant draw out the serum bowl for too long. God, that was a painful wait when the manga was dropping those chapters.

Really well done, the pacing in particular was great. After seeing it I was convinced 10 episodes was perfect for this arc. A 6-4 split is perfect.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE VERY SPOILERY OPENING? 532 Responses

61% of respondents agree that the opening, while spoilery, is a great summary and teaser of what is to come for those who only watch the anime. Without context, they can’t know what every last symbolic image in the opening means, after all! 23% of voters expressed distaste at how much WIT is spoiling the viewers, however. 9% aren’t even concerned about it.

The whole opening was just one big “fuck you” to people who don’t read the manga.

it only becomes obvious b/c manga readers keep pointing stuff out. Yes, the intros have always hinted at things but it goes so fast that I don’t think every person will know exactly what something means if they’re anime only.

The Opening is good representation of this phase of the story ending.

I don't get why people are making a big deal over the "spoilers" in the opening when they're not even anime-onlies themselves in the first place.

Man, it only seems spoilery for those of us who know what's coming. Anime onlies don't understand the context of the images, so they can't recognise them as spoilers unless it's directly identified as such! We gotta stop judging this stuff from the perspective of someone who already knows what's coming.

It's definitely not holding back on the indications that'll happen in the arc

HOW DID THE NEW ED MAKE YOU FEEL? 527 Responses

61% of manga readers felt nostalgic seeing the images of the 104th during their trainee days coupled with a somber song. 20% felt sad about the ending, and 15% were just disappointed with the entire thing.

Lazy ending.

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE RED EYES ON THE TITANS? 533 Responses

Just over half of the fandom feel that the red-eyed pure titans was a cool aesthetic to add to show that they are under some form of control by a shifter. 33% feel it’s a cool addition, but not really necessary. 11% don’t care.

I was on board with the red eyes until the cart titan also had them. No longer made any sense.

I don't get why Pieck's eyes are red when she's not a mindless being controlled by Zeke…

Like the red eyes but why does Pieck have them too.

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 530 Responses

Perhaps unsurprisingly, over half of the fandom is most hyped to see the Eren vs. Reiner showdown in Shiganshina. Although not far behind, 28% of respondents are excited about Erwin’s badass unhooding moment as he challenges Reiner.

THUNDER SPEARS FOR NEXT CHAPTER!!!!!!!!!!

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Even though I totally know what will happen, the episode is written and directed in a way I still get goosebumps and forget I actually know what will happen. And the music, oh god. That's amazing. These two together have a really good effect.

I need the next one RIGHT NOW.

AAAAAHH!!!!

It was an introduction episode, so imo, it's just there to put the basis for the rest of the season. There was a good balance between the "emotionally charged" scenes and the more quiet ones, all this accompanied with an increasing tension in the background.

I wish theyd reanimated the scene of armin talking to eren about the opening instead of just reusing the animation from season 1.

that Zeke smile is like : hey there, i am here to euthanize you all. Love it !

I'm buying tickets into denial islaaand, bye, bye!

Airpipes. AIRPIPES. p.s. cracking soundtrack

Reiner has been enjoying himself some Marley protein, he extra swole now.

Armin was the MVP

PIECK!!!

I don't like the fact that WiT decided to spoil a lot. Some anime onlies already have guessed that Armin is going to be burned and then will become the next CT. So the serumbowl won't be as emotional and exciting for them anymore. I don't understand why WiT decided to do such thing. Don't they want anime-onlies to enjoy the show?

Exactly as expected you'll find a strange titan next to the beasty

I love Mikasa’s improved design and hope they show more of her working in a team like the manga. Focusing on the mission ect without pandering

RIP nameless soldier killed by Reiner.

Very happy to get a glimpse at best girl Pieck

Really no questions about our exactly right girl in this poll ? I am dissapointed :/

Watching this episode is bringing back all the suspense and awe I felt when I read this part in the manga. What a treat to be able to relive it!

They did a great job at keeping the tension and the "well shit everything's about to go wrong" from chapters 73 and 74, and managed to make the explosion at the end worth it, despite the fact I still think Reiner's continued survival throughout the arc is stupid and wish the anime had changed it so it'd be more believable, but here we are.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 514 Responses

Thank you to everyone who participated! We’ll see you again in a few days!

[out-of-this-dimension]

The Star Fox Adventures Game Manual -- Analysis

So, you may remember a few months back, I received a lot of hate mail on AO3 and FF.net for a fic that I posted that I’ve since taken down in hopes of redoing someday.  The hate was largely from people who don’t like Panther (the fic was Krystal x Panther) but a lot of their arguments were attempts to debunk how “canon” my fic is.  With a lot of my fics, I don’t stray too far from canon, but I do fill in “gaps” with my own headcanons.  I feel like the SF series is a comfortable enough blank slate to do that.  Mild spoilers for future fics, but one of these headcanons is that Panther is Cerinian.  I’ve actually covered this headcanon previously on my blog but I’m too lazy to look up the link.  

One of the arguments my “secret admirer” tried to make about how my fic “contradicts canon” is that “Well, Panther can’t be Cerinian because the Star Fox Adventures manual says that Krystal is the sole survivor.” (and then they made a hate fic about how my headcanon of Panther being Cerinian couldn’t possibly work, but that’s a story for another time).

Admittingly, I hadn’t looked at the manual in most of a decade, so that little tidbit escaped my memory.  But honestly, with Cerinian OCs flying around left and right in the fandom, I thought it was an odd piece of info to nitpick about.  Regardless, it sparked some intrigue, so I decided to poke around the internet and lo and behold, I found a PDF copy of the manual.  Since it’s been a long while since the last time I read the manual, I decided to do an analysis on it.  Analysis with pictures under the cut!

This is the “prologue” of Star Fox Adventures and while it’s all good and dandy, I want to point out three very important things-- 1. Peppy retired at this point, not after Krystal showed up. I mean, this is relatively minor but I thought it was noteworthy that our Barrel-Roll Loving Team Dad was already going to be retired before the “next SF game”-- whatever that would have been, though I’m fairly certain Assault’s development launched right at the heels of Adventures, if not while Adventures was in late development still. 2. Slippy apparently traded in his pilot’s wings to become a mechanic, which is... blatantly ignored in both Assault and Command because while he does mechanic-like stuff (playing off of his role as the “team smartie pants”), he still very much is a pilot. 3. Falco left because he was bored is only a rumor.  I know “Farewell Beloved Falco” tackles this to a degree. I want to also note that this inspired me to re-read Farewell Beloved Falco on Monday and there’s no real point in the manga that says Falco left because he was bored (I have my own speculation as to why he left but I’ll save that for later).  I find it really odd that the manual says Falco “simply disappeared”, when he very clearly left with great bravado at the end of the manga.  He didn’t vanish into the night or anything, like this would imply.  He said he was going to go solo for a bit and flew off after the Titania Incident.  It... feels like maybe there was a miscommunication here between who was giving the person writing the manual details.

This is the Character Bio page, which, to my secret admirer’s glee, does contain the info that Krystal is the only survivor of Cerinia.  It also name drops Cornerian Weapons R&D, which has also never been heard of before or since this manual. I actually searched excessively for more mentions about this and yielded no results.  Curious.  I had never noticed that and assumed Slippy had just been tinkering on stuff for fun.  Also oof, my heart at ROB being considered a full-fledged SF member.

I’m going to skip over the parts I don’t have any commentary on.  

So it’s pretty clear from the final product that Rareware had no idea what they were doing with the SpellStones.  They clearly absorb magic from the planet to keep the planet from falling apart (which says to me that this is not the planet’s natural state but I’ve talked about that before so I’ll spare you the ramble).  But what was going on with them is really unclear.  I understand that Dinosaur Planet gives a better explanation of the SpellStones but that purpose does not seem to be canon any longer.

The text here implies that Scales has every single SpellStone in his possession (the Queen EarthWalker ALSO states he removed the SpellStones himself).  Yet, when you make it into the game...

(Special note: I found this pic on Google and the file was called “Asshole”, which, tbh isn’t inaccurate but it gave me a chuckle so I thought I’d share it.)

Scales doesn’t possess all of the SpellStones.  Drakor, a mutant in Scales’s army, guards the one at Dragon Rock-- we can assume Scales is responsible for that.  The King RedEye has been fitted with one in his head-- we can assume Scales is responsible for that.  But past that? We find Scales in the CloudRunner Fortress treasury with the first Ocean SpellStone, which he has clearly just found.  And the entire point of DarkIce Mines, the entire reason the SnowHorn are enslaved, is because Scales is looking for the SpellStone.  Which says to me that the SpellStone wasn’t even removed by him.  He wouldn’t have had to enslave the entire tribe to go digging for it otherwise.  He wouldn’t have had to lay siege to CloudRunner Fortress either.

So this entire plot point is absolutely inconsistent to what’s in the manual and even... in the game. What is the reasoning behind this?  Probably the innumerable plot changes during SFAdv’s development.

With the fortunate release of the Dinosaur Planet ROM and the creation of the Warlock Engine by Hugo Peters, a lot has been uncovered in terms of how Dinosaur Planet would have originally looked like.  Dark Ice Mines, for instance, was actually meant to connect via the SnowHorn Wastes (or, Northern Wastes) via a small cave entrance on the other side of the river near where one finds Garunda Te.  The cave still exists in the finalized version of the game but leads to no where.  

However, with Star Fox being added in, I think Rare felt the need to add in things that made the game feel a bit more in line with the Star Fox series.  The planet pieces being torn apart was a way to shove in Arwing sections of the game.  And the devs needed a reason for the change in the planet’s state... and what’s a better throwaway reason than “it’s just magic, bruh”?  So the SpellStones, being focal points in the game’s story, were changed to being part of the reason for the planet falling to pieces. That led to DarkIce Mines, despite having a basically completed map, getting yoinked from the planet’s surface and tossed into space, meaning the entrance was sealed.  The reason for all of this was handwaved into “Oh, Scales did this because he removed the stones” without... the game actually reflecting much of that at all because most of it had been made with a different story in mind.

I think Rare did this hoping that no one would look at the plot too closely but uh oh, that didn’t happen.  And if you need further proof that this was all a bit of an “oopsie” on Rare’s part, you need not look much further than DarkIce Mines once more.  Belina Te has a small throwaway line about how her father hid the SpellStone in the mines.  She says something to the effect of “He didn’t say where he hid it, only that it was somewhere safe” which is code for “Yeah lol I stuck this important object crafted by the gods into the claws of a giant monstrosity but it’s w/e”.  Maybe he was hoping that Galdon would protect it from Scales.  I mean, it’s not a bad thought, really...

But the fact that the game seems to imply Scales has all the stones is still technically wrong.  Now, because I think about these things a little TOO much, here’s my theory as to how this could have technically worked: All the SpellStones are placed in the same spot, you just traverse different routes (The Force Point Temples) to reach that spot. The only way I could see Scales making out with 2 out of 4 SpellStones is that there was a battle between the SharpClaw and the other dinosaurs at the central point where the SpellStones are located and General Scales was only partially successful.  Which could very well be the case, but, unfortunately, the manual and game seem to not act as though this is the case...

tl;dr for that section: This literally makes no sense no matter how you slice it and sure, you can come up for reasons that things ended up this way but ultimately, the game is conflicting with itself about its own story.  But let’s move on.

Apparently atmospheric conditions are so powerful on Sauria that it can interrupt communications, which I thought was a neat lore tidbit.  

So I got 2 things from this tidbit about Saurian.

1. This language is called “relatively new”, even though it’s existed for thousands of years, which feels like a contradiction?  A quick Google search estimates English has been around for 1400 years, to put that into perspective and I think English is considered to be fairly new compared to other languages, but I’m honestly not too terribly learned on that.  Of course, that’s only viewing this through the lens of someone who lives on Earth.  Having a language around in the Lylat System only for “a few thousand years” makes me wonder how long the older languages have existed?  It’s quite possible that a few thousand years isn’t a long lifespan for a language in this universe.  

2. Who were these off-worlders?  And boy do I have theories.

Theory 1. The Krazoa.  They are seemingly the gods to the dinosaurs and speak the same language.  This could mean that they taught the dinosaurs this new language.  It would fit the bill for their portrayal in this game. They are godlike entities, the dinosaurs do revere them... it makes sense.  

Theory 2. The ones who taught the dinosaurs how to talk were the Cerinians. There is mild evidence for this with Krystal understanding Dino Speak without a translator despite being new to the planet (evidenced by the fact the CloudRunner had to explain the Krazoa to her/some dialogue bits about her learning of General Scales/the brief exposition we get about her searching the Lylat System for answers).  You could argue this is due to her telepathy - she could just simply be talking in a way that the dinosaurs can understand but I don’t think Krystal’s telepathy had been firmly established as part of her character at this point (she had the ability to leave telepathic messages onto her staff and she could channel magic into Andross, but her true telepathy powers weren’t really shown until Assault).  Krystal’s staff also seems strangely in-tune with Sauria, which I’ve theorized about previously.  I’m mostly thinking on the Magic Caves that are conveniently scattered on Sauria.  It could be that Cerinians had built the shrines within the Magic Caves to help their descendants out if they ever showed up to Sauria.  So, I guess the tl;dr version is “Maybe the Cerinians had previously been on Sauria and had established the Magic Caves and had taught the dinosaurs their native language?” 

To summarize my thoughts, the manual is a reflection of SFAdv itself- riddled with weird plot inconsistencies that you can almost fudge reasons/logic to cover but some of it feels like stretches for the sake of making plot make sense.  There’s some contradictions in the lore/story but despite that, there’s still interesting tidbits to be found.  

If anything, this booklet kind of validates my feelings from the post I made about canon awhile back.  Not all of the canon makes sense when you nitpick it to death.  When the source material conflicts with itself, you’re not going to win a “this is canon because x and y, etc” because... well... the story itself doesn’t even seem to know what’s canon.

Additionally, canon is something derived partially from people’s own experiences.  Two people can consume the same media and come to different conclusions and that’s fine.  We don’t need to have these tired debates about whose interpretation of canon is better.  We just need people to understand that while their interpretation may fit them but it may not fit everyone.  And that’s why, as I have begun doing Fanon Hot Take posts, I keep that disclaimer up.  I don’t wanna say “My opinion of how to interpret canon/fanon is the best opinion” because that’s stupid. There is no definitive “best” because it’s all subjective.  But people get into their own feelings so much about their interpretations and that’s when we have these debates of “well, my idea is better than yours”.  Then people try to dismantle each other instead of just appreciating the different ideas being brought to the table.  And it’s exhausting.

Frankly, I don’t ever think Panther being Cerinian will be canon.  But Nintendo has not, as of this date, said he’s not.  But that’s my interpretation of his character until Nintendo gives us more to go off of.  And if my interpretation bothers someone enough that they decide to send me harassment over it, then that’s on them.  I will not be apologizing for my interpretations, even if they do go against the grain.  It’s a pity people like that exist, that would rather tear at others than try to just enjoy the content that appeals directly to him but alas, they are not the first person to be like that and they will not be the last.

On a lighter note, while I am still bothered by this person going out of their way to be so spiteful, I want to thank them for inspiring me to look at the text.  It validated my feelings further and it made me realize how stupid the canon debate is.  I actually had a blast going back over this book and re-reading everything.  I hadn’t gotten to lay eyes on this booklet in years!  I really hope I get to do this for other SF games because a lot of these manuals have such hidden gems.

Thank you for reading this ramble/analysis!

[echodrops]

So, given Dabi's perceived incompetence, you think his scars are self inflicted? I figured that, if Dabi is indeed Touya, he must have tried to impress Endeavor and show him that he is "worth it". So he probably tried to train himself in seclusion. But with a body meant for ice, he was not able to handle the flames and ended up burning himself and running away, traumatized or something along those lines. Admittedly, it could be a stretch, since we have no details on what exactly happened.

Post is NOT spoiler free, watch out anime-only fans~!

Had a bunch of asks about Dabi in my inbox after my Dabi post but I got distracted thinking about ships… I’m back now and gonna answer a few that are all about that Dabi is a Todoroki theory~

Look man, if he’s not Touya, I will officially be the S H O O K E S T. At this point, the real plot twist would be if he wasn’t! I really think there are just so many signs at this point that I can’t make myself believe it won’t happen. I mean the fact that Horikoshi deliberately drew Endeavor’s eyesight being damaged before his confrontation with Dabi so that Endeavor wouldn’t be able to see him clearly??? COME ON.

But man we’re all going to look so stupid if he isn’t Touya…

Rest under the read more to save people’s dashes:

As for how Dabi got his scars… I don’t have any answers, of course, just my own theories and conjectures based on vague statements and panels in the manga…

I guess first I’d point out that while we don’t know really much about Touya at all, we do know a couple things:

1) He physically took after Rei way more than Natsuo or Fuyumi did. Despite being Natsuo’s confirmed older brother, Touya was a tiny kid. Given that he would have to very close to Fuyumi in age or older than her, the fact that he was shorter than his sister just makes this all the more noticeable. This kind of tininess is usually (although of course not always) a deliberate visual indicator that there was something wrong with the child’s health. Looking at the only two panels he appears in definitely gives the impression that he was a pretty fragile-looking kid who I would not be surprised to hear had health problems (bad fevers from an overpowered fire quirk, anyone?).

2) His posture in this frame is also pretty telling. They all look nervous–it’s obvious they’re being looked at by Endeavor and are uncomfortable with it–but while Natsuo looks a little shame-faced and Fuyumi a little confused, Touya is clutching his hands together in a classic “timid child” pose. It seems likely to me that he wasn’t an especially assertive kid.

3) Then there’s the whole hair issue–is his hair red like the anime or white like the manga? The only reason I could see for not coloring his hair dark in the manga is that Horikoshi specifically uses black ink for the red color of the Todoroki family’s hair–coloring Touya’s hair completely black would make it beyond obvious that he’s Dabi. But still, couldn’t he have used tone like he does for Kirishima’s hair? We know that white hair = ice quirk, so I am very interested to find out whether the anime has it right in using red, or whether the white used in the manga is plot relevant, and we’re going to find that Touya really did have a body meant for an ice quirk…

4) We also have Natsuo’s ominous comment:

To me at least, this statement seems somehow… specific? Like there was some Big Deal™ that immediately caused Touya not to be in their lives anymore, and Endeavor was directly involved in it. Natsuo definitely strikes me as the type who would blame Endeavor for a training accident, even if Touya was training of his own free will, but I can’t personally shake the feeling that Endeavor was right there whenever the Bad Thing with Touya happened and that Endeavor, Fuyumi, and Natsuo all know more about Touya’s fate than they’re willing to talk about. I think it’s important that we’ve never seen a scene of Natsuo and Fuyumi getting any close looks at Dabi either.

6) The kids’ ages are important I think. Shouto is about five years old when he sees his siblings playing soccer, and they all looked about the same age there as in this second screen cap, although I wouldn’t put Fuyumi at 12 in the screen cap above, so maybe not… In any case, we know that Shouto was already in training (~5 years old) and Touya had no major visible scars. So Touya made it to at least 12 years old without doing major damage to his body (although of course it could be under the clothes). Based on that, personally I would doubt a bit that he was training and burning himself in secret, at least not for any extended amount of time.

6) The one piece of evidence we have for figuring out what actually happened to cause the scars is the burn pattern itself, especially on Dabi’s face. One thing that people have often pointed out is that Dabi’s facial burns line up fairly well with the places fire also settles on Endeavor’s face:

Also I’m pretty sure Dabi officially qualifies as BNHA’s biggest glow up. If you compare chapter 67 to chapter 190 it’s like looking at two totally different characters lol

But, more importantly than this, I think, is the fact that we never see Dabi’s fire take this shape in the manga. Although in a couple of scenes his flames have covered parts of his face, we’ve never–not even one time–seen fire specifically come from below his eyes or around his mouth like Endeavor. This is not something that normally happens with his quirk–which could mean that he was copying Endeavor when the injuries occurred.

So what did happen?

I don’t know, but if you ask me for a personal headcanon about it:

In a desperate attempt to protect his mother from being taken away and forced into the mental institution, Touya Todoroki challenged his father to a fight he could never win and pushed his own body so far beyond its limits that he nearly died.

I mean, if sweet baby Shouto had a reaction this intense:

Just imagine the reaction of the children who would have been conscious to see their mother ripped away from their home, possibly violently, possibly forever? With Rei having snapped hard enough to attack Shouto, I can’t imagine that she would have taken well to Endeavor physically confronting and restraining her to force her away… It could have been quite a horrific scene in the house after Shouto passed out from the pain, and what better way to cover up damage to one kid then to blame Rei, who had already damaged the other? This would help lend greater credence to Rei still being in the mental institution too: if the doctors have her on the record for causing or at least provoking the injuries of not one son but two…

Obviously such a fragile-looking child as Touya, who we know was never formally trained, would have stood no chance against an absolutely enraged Endeavor, but if we know one thing about the Todoroki family, it’s that they’re stubborn beyond belief. Endeavor probably batted aside his failure of an eldest son like it was nothing… but Touya refused to stay down. I think, overwhelmed by hatred and resentment, he put everything he had into trying to fight back against his father, bursting with flames too hot for his ill-suited body, heedless of his own pain.

That break in Dabi’s bottom lip is from the unprotected skin splitting as he screamed in rage and agony while on fire. Just sayin’!!

And even after going beyond his limits in every way, to still inevitably be crushed beneath his father’s heel… I can’t imagine the degree of loathing such a miserable defeat would make a child feel for heroes and all of hero society who let down the Todoroki siblings so badly…

If Touya ran from the hospital afterward, we could even be looking at a situation in which Dabi has been raising himself all alone since he was 12 or 13. Hell, he might even have caught the tail-end of Stain’s soapbox speeches about the revival of heroics while living out on streets…

BUT, YOU KNOW, that’s just my imagination running wild. XDD

I’m sure that my headcanon is too exaggerated to be true, but I do think the scars are self-inflicted and that Touya did fight with Endeavor at some point before abruptly leaving the Todoroki household.

Or… he’s not even a Todoroki and he totally gave himself those scars just to look cool or something lolol.

It’s SYMBOLICCCCC.

Okay, being a little more serious, I think it’s mostly being used the same way as that one scene of Itachi in the rain in Naruto:

Holy shit I never thought I’d be looking at a page of the Naruto manga again…

It’s basically a scene used to humanize and show a tiny glimpse of a “villain” character’s hidden depths–is Dabi all evil, or is there some softness underneath?

The blood is definitely supposed to symbolically represent tears, which actively tells the reader “Something about the idea of families hurts Dabi.” Coupled with the fact that he’s also smiling in a way that does not suit the moment at all and talking about how thinking about what Snatch said actually drove Dabi crazy, I think we’re also supposed to be getting the feeling that Dabi is not quite as calm and collected as he seems to be on the surface. We all love to call him the “sane man” in the League of Villains’ sea of crazy, but it’s entirely possible that Dabi is experiencing or has, at some point, experienced a psychotic break and that the almost lazy, unaffected behavior we see from him most of the time is little more than a thin veneer on top of a much less stable inner-mind…

What interests me is how many people (even the BNHA wiki) seem to suggest that these symbolic blood tears indicate that Dabi feels remorse for the families of all his victims… But I wonder if that’s really the case at all.

Does he feel remorse regarding his victims’ families… or only his own? While I think it’s tempting to imply that Dabi feels bad about all the families he’s hurt in general (which would be a good redemption arc flag), I’m actually inclined to think that Dabi is a little more self-centered character than that, and it’s his own family that’s on his mind here, not guilt over strangers he’s never met and never will meet.

I lol’d. Even more than that–by saying this to Endeavor, he’s almost certainly ensured another Dabi vs. Endeavor clash in the future, so like… he basically gave his dad impenetrable plot armor for another 50-100 chapters. XDDD

Dabi, my dear heart, why are you such a dumpster fire???