#SHE GOT SCHRÖDINGER’S CAT-ED OUT OF THERE

[mintydad]

So I was making this stupid meme

Based off of this Twitter post

And. You will never believe what happened when I was in the middle of making it. LITERALLY THE FUNNIEST THING POSSIBLE.

[josephsaturn]

Danganronpa Trial 6/Epilogue thoughts

Here’s the ending! I really enjoyed this game, And’ll prob give a full review sometime later, but which game should I play next, dr2 or dr:udg?

Either way:

That’s a lotta ultimates

Nice of Komatsuzaki to shade kyoko’s patootie so we can’t see her unmentionables

Girl you should be more worried about slipping than me with those heels

Hm that’s a kinda sad backstory

My opinions on u don’t change, but I have some respect for ya

Hm

Dang Kyoko way to sell that

Bear jokes? Who are you, Teddie?

Oh dang…it really is a final showdown

Dang, she never broke a rule, eh?

Why u mentioning Junko now?

Yay! My friends! And Byakuya!

Harsh…

Miss Cleo? Am I missing something?

Ok miss pot is there anything else you wanna call black or just the kettle

I am once again asking toko fukawa to please cease

Aw hina don’t say that!

You’re more useful than Hiro at least

Honestly I can see some ship tease between our boring hope man and milk-bag swimmer girl

Ok, let’s go!

Ruins?! Hey what’s this?!

Nice swanky bathroom they have

The headmaster’s room, huh

Also quite swanky

A hidden room? We’ve reached levels of swank I don’t think exist yet

Aww his password for the computer is her name!

So sweet if u don’t remember he left her in the care of the extended family

Oh, a box?

HOLY SHIT

Aww, what a cute picture

Game are you trying to give me a seizure?

Hello eye of Horus, what are you doing here?

Oh dang, that’s mukuro?

A whole Monokuma room? Really?

Why would you not check the hatch, Makoto

CHECK THE HATCH

THE HATCHHHH

WHAT DID YOU THINK WAS IN THERE???

Is this a bio lab or a morgue?

There are 16 fridges…

Girl you have the spine of a sea cucumber, of course people won’t accept you

Aw dang, I thought it was trial time…

Strange…hiro

A photo?

It sure is nice, though

Are you not even gonna consider that Junko’s face is blocked?

I stILL can’t go in there?

Come ON!

Why’s everyone avoiding me?

At least Jill isn’t

Wow! That doesn’t sound foreshadowy at all, Jill!

Ooh a cd!

Wait…interviews? For what purpose?

Staying here forever?? Why tho??

Ok is it actually trial time????

WOOOO HOOOOO

TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME TRIAL TIME!!!!!!

Why’s everyone so mean-looking??

If byakuya’s team dad then Kyoko’s team mom

They’re both just disappointed

The localization team really had a lot of fun didn’t they?…

Too many deepers, Mako

Very…Spartan

Even Byakuya’s too disgusted for words

Holy…girl needs some moisturizer

Y’all are just now realizing it’s Junko??

Heh, Xanadu

That was a p. Cool ending frame for the closing argument

Smoke?

Ope there she is

What’s with the robo voice?

At least the game is self-aware enough to point out that the twin reveal is kinda dumb

Woah she changed

Maybe the last name thing is that Junko’s using a moniker

GAH again??

Dang a complete verbal cutdown

jeEEZ

again??? Why tho???

How could u expect that Kiri?

Geez

I find that hard to believe, Junko

“Always filled with despair,”????????

How many personas does this girl have

My thoughts exactly Hiro

That’s a bit of a stretch, Junko

Also it seems like she repeated the words Togami said in his first FTE

Her Monokuma voice is kinda nice

At least she’s cordial

A theme?

She seemed so fake when congratulating me for the second time

Ok I’ll admit this is pretty cool

Crazy Eddie??? Whomst???

Wuh-oh

Wow, that foreshadowing was important

hAH

that’s the name?

Hah, the secretary

Ooh, a fourth-wall break!

That’s…kinda sad…

2 full YEARS?

I know that amnesia is a weird thing…but that specific???

She loves us????

???????????????

What even happened during the tragedy?

Yeah it is a lil hard to believe

That’s a pretty cool splash art

Wait but when Sakura…that doesn’t make sense

That’s hypocritical of you, since u forced your despair-filled view on everyone

…sHiT

I mean she HAS a point…but still

Chunsoft really saying “fuck ur ‘abused Junko’ headcanons, she she just don’t care”

HAH

Schrödinger’s cat is very apt rn

Pfft

Ooh a new voice clip

Liar💖💖💖💖

Oh, the main theme!!

Cool!!

So he’s the…Ultimate Hope?

Didn’t expact that, eh?

A callback to Leon? In MY trial 6?

Not gonna lie…I almost died in that last BTB

Has Junko’s face always been on there?

Dang she really is crazy

First and last colossal despair?

I would say I want what she’s smoking…but I’m kinda scared to even think abt what that is

Whoa those some crazy eyes

There she is

What?

She’s going through EVERY PUNISHMENT?!

How is she surviving all of these?!

And in the end…crushed to death, but not before having a small spot of hope

(I’m putting the epilogue here as well)

Are you sure it isn’t just the lack of air, mako?

Toko. CEASE.

It took 2 hours to do that trial…

Here we go!

Aw, it just ends?!

Who’s kujira?

At least the ED is nice

WHA?!

HE’S STILL ALIVE????!

I got an eestur egggg

That’s the end, huh?

SEE YALL IN THE NEXT GAME!!

[bethesky]

Broken Bodies and Broken Minds

Ed Moustis

I wonder if other people can feel time like I do - like how I can feel how wet a single tear droplet is as it falls down my face second by second. In specific instances in life, these moments become proportionally more abundant to me. I cherish those moments that specificity and nonspecificity meet - where someone can experience everything and nothing all at once. It means that I can feel.

I felt a single tear slide down my left cheek. It wasn’t due to anything I felt. I cried on behalf of my mom. She stood ten feet in front of me and held back the sorrow of a thousand widows. I didn’t even know how to feel. I wish I did but the person I looked to for that guidance wasn’t here. I had been the odd one out my entire life. Being unique was supposed to be a good thing but I despised it. It was like I had always been a chameleon mimicking another’s reaction.

Based on her broken response, I knew what was happening. The first time that this happened, I fell into a black hole so dense that the only way to crawl out was by tooth and nail. There were battle wounds deeper than scars could show. The teeth and nails - they weren’t mine. They belonged to my friends and family that stuck by my side on the battlefield when they didn’t have to. 

This time around, hearing those dreadful words was a tank shell that shot to the depths of my soul. The fallout was too large, my psyche shattered into another million broken pieces when I hadn't even finished scrounging up the pieces from the last time. This was the beginning of the end. The cancer was back and I would soon be deployed back into a war that I am not meant for.

After my doctor finished the discussion with my mother, his sorrowful eyes turned towards me. I would hate to be in his shoes - telling a sixteen-year-old boy that he would go back into hell. The demons he fought still cursed him and his last fight were futile - dying was for nothing. The first time his heart stopped was not the end of the war. The battle rages on and he will be sent to the front lines. Again.

Time was still. I began to experience a new level again. I noticed, my medical doctor has these exceptional specs in his eyes that made me feel warm. I had always been oblivious to their pungency. His words, as if bullets which left no visible battle wounds were undetectable to my brain. I knew I was going to go through this again - my brain was filtering the painful dialogue that accompanied the truth. Would it be another few years of chemo or a year's worth of surgeries? This drug of distress that I was on, it burned through me. His lips flopped around like a fish looking for water. My attempts to decode his foreign language were unsurprisingly useless. Even if I could understand what he was saying, I don’t think I would want to hear it. I had been using all the shrapnel from the tank shell to build an impenetrable wall that even my mother couldn’t tear down.

Once the doctor concluded his script, I noticed my mom approach me. She had always been so wonderful - a personal Joan of Arc by my side. The ferocity of this woman was simply unmatched by even an Amazonian warrior. Also, her vitality was that of a dragon. To mirror that further, she was as independent as a one as well. The troubling similarity between Joan of Arc, a dragon, and my mother was their extremely troubling tendency with being caught up in flames. 

The first time I was diagnosed, my mother became a baron of light. She crafted her whole universe for me and I was the sun - that was until she fell into her own black hole. One son was crippled with cancer while the other was crippled from a car accident. Torn in two, like her life was one brilliantly, horribly crafted medieval trap, she crumbled upon the weight of two. The broken puzzle that was my family was limited to a post-war Joan of Arc, a collapsed sun, but more fittingly, a collection of black holes.

My mother grabbed my hand. I was drafted back into reality. As small of a woman as she was, I required her to use a pinch less of her strength for the sake of my hands. I made a prolonged look at her and her hand ironically tightened. A sense of relief flushed through me though. I wanted to control this twisted world and I couldn’t. I knew she thought that she was trying to comfort me. In my heart, I recognized that she needed me as much as I needed her. The equality of our relationship was comfortable enough. 

In the auditory section, my brain still seemed to be malfunctioning. Once again, I sat in anticipation to see how my mother would react. As expected, upon the conclusion of the doctor’s final remarks, she approached him and wrapped her little arms around him. He gave a gentle, half-smile to me while she hugged him. I suppose, if I was going to be diagnosed with cancer again by anyone, I would want it to be him.

The white halls of the hospital were endless. I knew every twist and turn of this maze. I recognized the faces of too many nurses as I passed by. Children my age and younger flooded the floor. Those same children were fighting the fight I did - and will again. We were the children at war. The casualty rates were always too high and friends made here were in vain. The sudden loss of a fellow soldier would be too much of a burden to carry along with the rest. As we approached the exit of this underage morgue, a light stuck through the doors. It was always sunny when I left this bleak building. I wonder if I will see a light like this when I die someday. I hope I will. I didn’t see anything last time. 

The chatter of the world came back to me and the noise pierced through my brain. It grew louder and louder until it quickly overwhelmed me. I tried to keep my reaction to a minimum to ensure that my mom didn’t attempt to cradle me. I had a subtle feeling, under my special circumstances, I wouldn’t mind that. I could never grow the strength to let that myself succumb to my feelings. Every day I want to collapse but then I’m giving in.

Like two brick walls, we walked over to the filled parking lot. It was only when in private, in the security of our personal chariot, that she began to speak to me. I wasn’t looking at her, but I could sense the movement of her eyes dart back and forth. She was searching for the right words to say - a needle in a haystack. I began to worry she might bring up what happened inside right away. I was not processing. It would make everything too real for me to handle. I knew my mother like the back of the hand and I was well aware of the conversation we were about to have; even if I desired otherwise. As anticipated she said, “Finn, how do you feel about the procedure next week?”

I slowly turned my head toward her. I usually heard vital words like “procedure” when I spaced out. How did I miss that? “The procedure?” My face looked extremely puzzled. As soon as I noticed it, she did as well. It was my grave error that I let that slip.

A despairing breath slipped out of my chemo-damaged lungs as she questioned, “Oh… you blanked out, didn’t you? I thought that you were going to work on that with Doctor Graham?” Hearing the doctor’s name zoned me back into reality. It was to no surprise she would bring up Graham. That genius of a man was an on-site engineer, my on-site medic, that would dig me out of the debris that I got lost in. He was capable of telling me of truths that seemed so far gone, yet were true, that even Schrödinger’s cat couldn’t find. My mom sought out treatment from him after my dad passed away in a car crash. It was that same car crash that made my brother into a temporary pile of jelly. She only could pick one topic to mourn for at once. She decided to choose my brother, Parker’s, injuries since I was on the final days of my tour. Due to the raging success that Doctor Graham had with my mother, my brother Parker and I see him regularly. I quickly snap out of my personal solar system and hear my mom speak to me, “Finn?”

“Yeah, yeah. We’re working on it,” I said with bated breath, “What procedure?” I felt my body now firmly planted into the seat. My skin laid on my bones - a feeling only a cancer patient could appreciate. It wasn’t crawling. The thought of a procedure kept me slightly hopeful - something I rarely was. The tank shell that was shot into me earlier began to digress. The pieces slip back into me. A year of surgeries would be much better than three years of chemo. I have had plenty of procedures that called for me being surrounded by the brightest minds in the world - the one percentile of geniuses.

“They said that the procedure… it uh… it will… “ she stopped speaking. I couldn’t tell if she was choking up but the concept frightened me. My head was screwed forward onto the road. The hope I had mustered up lied in the balance of her next words. She had never had an issue breaking grim news to me and I had never experienced a situation so dark and brutal that my mother had stumbled over her words. 

This was the woman that stumbled into her dying son’s room to tell him that while they were at chemo earlier this morning his dad and brother were t-boned by a truck that ran a red light. She spoke to me, with the stillness of a mountain to not frighten me, that my father, her husband since the age of nineteen, died on impact and my brother was in critical condition with lady luck favoring him not to make it. And, if he does, then he will never take another step in his life.

“Mom, what is it?” I asked quickly. I recognized my dimwitted curiosity. My naiveness took control while I should have been bracing. Whatever came next, I was sure I was strong enough for it. I was my mom’s sun. Nothing could be fiercer than that.

“The procedure is the only way to eliminate the remaining cancer threat in your body,” she slowly whispered.

“And? That’s wonderful! I don’t have to do any more chemo or worry about relapsing again!” I said. My words grew in strength after each breath. The debris cleared completely. 

She immediately said, “The procedure has a ten percent survival rate.” The joy that came from my words was vanquished. The world stopped spinning. I flew a million miles per hour. My speed shredded my hope down to its finest atom. I had been alive for only sixteen years and six of those prime years were taken by cancer already. Now it was destined to steal my life. Even the suns have to die but at least they get to live a real life.

Time stopped when my Earth stood still. I had reached that same moment of singularity as earlier. Every lamppost, every sign, it spoke to me. I was attuned to the universe. Everything I had experienced on this Earth told me that I had already been unlikely my entire life and that, in this case now, there would be no difference in this procedure. Signing on to do this procedure is no different than making a deal with death. I wanted to be able to write my own destiny but it was road blocked by ten-percent. I would become nothing more than a statistic.

I was still in shock by the time we arrived at the house. Our car pulled up to the driveway and my mother ushered me by the arm into the house. My face was perfectly blank. She quickly sat me on the couch. 

A life I would never have flashed in my mind. I would never get to walk arm-by-arm with my mother at my wedding. That though meant she would never get to see me get married. She would never see my children and become a grandmother. I could never give a remarkable, memorable best man’s speech to Charlie, the only girl that has ever shown interest in my brother, and Parker at their wedding.

Worst of all, I would never be able to kiss Robin. The only woman in my entire life that I am sure that I have ever loved. Leaving her will be the worst. Parker and I were supposed to marry those sisters. Robin is the fourth amigo in our broken bunch. We are all supposed to get drinks with Doctor Graham when we reach twenty-one to thank him for keeping us under his umbrella of helpful advice and correctly appointed sympathy. 

As the memories of the future came and went, my mom was telling Parker. I was so convinced that he was going to rise from his wheelchair and hug me. His wheels were still on the living room carpet. He looked at my shaking hands on my knees where fingers were tapping like machine guns - bang bang bang. My consciousness was grasping at any reality that wasn’t this one. All feeling viscously vanished. I kept questioning “Do I even breathe anymore?”. 

With all the courage that I could find, I stood up. Instantly, I stole the attention, any words that floated in the room settled in the air. My feet moved for me. I wondered if this is what robots felt. In a blink, I was in my messy, teenage room. I grabbed my alarm, set it for three hours from now, and I laid down. Doctor Graham always told me that a beneficial way to relieve stress was by sleeping. After testing so many methods, that was the one that spoke to me the most. My eyes shut. Just for an instant, I felt real peace. The image of darkness reminded me of death. I was not going to come back again. I was already undead and there is no resurrection for those who have come back once. Hopefully, it would be quick and painless. The thoughts panned to troubled and painful ones in a flash. I began questioning too much about the life that was stripped away from me. I didn’t want to go. How long until I’m not talked about? That’s when I really die.

An ethereal hand shot from the sky in my dream. I was pulled into my unwelcoming reality. The alarm blared. My hand floated over it to stop the blaring. I sat up on the bed and felt my body and the sweat that covered it. I had one week to live. For once, in many years, I felt real hope. I knew what I was going to do with my last week on this Earth. I would make a death list for my broken self to live out - a scrambled last-ditch effort to achieve the things in life I haven’t had a chance to do quite yet. I scrambled over to my notebook sitting on my desk. It flew open. I couldn’t tell if it was denial that struck me or something real. I could run away and perform all these tasks. A brave adventure awaited me.

As I wrote down my last will and testament, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. After trying so hard, I couldn’t keep fighting so reluctantly, I began to sob. I didn’t want to go! My brother heard me as soon as I hit the floor and rolled into the room. From seeing his fallen, fellow soldier down in the ditches, he used any strength he could muster to leap from his throne. He crawled through his trenches to hold me. I just cried; and he just cradled me.

For a whole hour, I was laying down there as my brother comforted me. He let me cry in his arms until all of the water in my system had been flushed out. He knew there was no point in telling me to stop. I had only one week to live. When the tears were finished, we both sat up against my wooden bed frame. We sat in silence for another hour. He was next to me and that was all that mattered - my battle buddy had my back. No words needed to be spoken because the actions were loud enough. After the time had slipped away, I helped him back into his cushioned chair. When I noticed that he was looking at my notebook, my face began to flush red. He couldn’t see that. 

“What’s that?” Parker questioned immediately. He wheeled over to the notebook before I could walk over there. He was surprisingly fast in that chair.

“Nothing! Shit! Don’t look!” I pleaded. He skimmed the page with his finger. His chair was perfect reading height, unfortunately. I was expecting a long banter with him but when he was finished, he just looked at me in shock.

“Okay. But mom would let you do this,” he nonchalantly said. His words threw me off guard.

“I know. I was thinking of…”

He quickly interrupted me. I could hear the appalled tone in his voice, “Running away? Mom will find you.”

“I know. It sounds really stupid but I need this week. I need to live for once. No chemo. No cancer. Just me.”

“There is so much that could go wrong! You want to go to a high school party and go cliff diving and…”

“I’m doing it. I’m doing all of it. Me against the world,” I said with a smile on my face. I wanted to be a warrior like my mom - braving the world one step at a time. He wasn’t going to stop me.

“No,” he bluntly said.

“You literally can’t stop me,” I chuckled.

“Us against the world,” he sighed, “someone needs to keep you safe. If something happens to you, mom will kill me.”

I was surprised but seemingly not surprised at the same time. This wasn’t a solo journey. Someone would have to tell my story. A broken body and a broken mind running off to war together. This time I would be choosing and that felt freeing. I felt free.

[soren-bleu-kun]

BnHA Fics I’ve Read This Week 2

Here are my notable stories that I found and read this week. Some of these contain manga spoilers. 

Confined By My Own Mind (I’m Not Fine) - This is a Dadzawa fic that, despite the title saying that it must be, takes place from Aizawa’s perspective and not Midoriya’s. During this fic, the homeroom teacher of 1A realizes that something is wrong with one of his students and pulls him aside during class. 

Aches and Pains - Another Dadzawa fic, this time from Midoriya’s side of things. Unable to sleep because of the old pains in his bones caused by misusing his Quirk, Midoriya heads out of his room and runs into his teacher in the dorm kitchen. 

Disowned - This is not the most realistic Shouto Todoroki fic that I’ve ever read, but I like the idea of him losing control of his power and himself after being kicked out of the Todoroki family. I wish this fic went a little more into the “why” of things, and the aftermath, but still a good little story. 

Angel’s Egg - THIS IS NOT COMPLETED YET! Usually I don’t read, much less review, incomplete stories, but this one - only at three chapters so far - is a great story so far. Basically, what if Izuku was left on All Might’s doorstep, but instead of a baby, he’s an egg that has to be incubated? It sounds weird but it’s actually really cute - and baby Izuku has little wings. Honestly, give this a read and encourage the author, it is so good. 

Day 10 - Wait No, Aww Crap, Here We Go Again - This long titled fic is the first Kaminari Centric fic that I have read, but it will not be the last. In this story, Kaminari gets upset about something that Monoma said to him, and his friends make sure that some adults takes care of it - like they should in canon but don’t. 

Pretty - This is a fic where Monoma and Shinsou are an established couple, and Monoma goes off to visit his boyfriend in the middle of the night. No smut, I don’t review any of that. Honestly, this was cute, even if I don’t really ship it. 

Spare Scares? - This is clearly going for ShinDoriya, and they really make this a cute story, but this is more or less before any relationship that they could/will have. Basically, Shinsou only came to this UA Halloween party to find Hatsume and pick up something he needs for training, and runs into Midoriya, who is here dressed as a ghost. 

The Road That Went Forever - Would you like to utter despise Hisashi Midoriya? I know that I wasn’t planning on it when I read this fic, but that is what happened. Basically, after he finds out that Izuku is Quirkless, he starts trying to find a way to get rid of him and he does. 

A Routine Affair - This is the second Huyumi fic that I’ve ever read, and I still see it as a bit of a crack ship more than anything else, but this story is cute. Basically, Hawks brings Fuyumi coffee before work every day and it takes her a very long time to realize that he likes her. 

Float - Now this is an interesting one. Basically, Midoriya is trying to unlock Float, which is Nana Shimura’s power. It turns out the only way that he can do that is to let go of the things he’s been feeling that are weighing him down and talk about them. This is very much a “fuck Bakugou” fic, which is my favorite. I love that Midoriya finally gets to feel and talk about all of the things that were done to him in this one. 

Savior - Basically, what if everyone told Bakugou to stop being an asshole to Midoriya on the first day of school instead of condoning his behavior? 

Uraraka’s Guide to Crushes - This is a TsuChako fic, which I think is a cute ship but don’t read about often. In this one, Uraraka is so sure that this will be a quick crush and then it’ll be over. The thing is, it doesn’t go away, which means she might actually have to confront her emotions... terrifying. 

The Sparkling Hero : Aoyama Yuuga - I have never seen a fic entirely dedicated to Aoyama, which made this an interesting read. Though not canon to the few things we do know about his background, it is still an interesting take on one of UA’s most sparkling future heroes. 

The Second Prince - This is a “what is AFO were Midoriya’s dad” fics, in a royal fantasy AU. Although some of the characters are OOC, this is a look at what Midoriya’s life would be like if he lived in a little castle where he can’t get hurt and still tried to help people anyways. I was surprised by how much I liked this fic. 

First Try (Not the Last) - In this fic, Midoriya has a Quirk, something that he only discovers when he tries to launch himself off of a building like Bakugou told him to. This is the first fic in the series, and I haven’t read it all the way through yet. Pretty good though. 

Like Light Through a Window - In this Aizawa and Hagakure Centric fic, the teacher finds the young hero in training after she’s been almost crushed under a building. He’s able to see her face for the first time, but only because it’s covered in blood. 

The Deaf Hero: Deku -  Basically, what if everything were the same but Midoriya was losing his hearing during it? Forty chapters, worth the read. 

I See You - In another fic where Midoriya is missing one of his senses, this blind successor of All Might wants to be able to see his mentor. The only embarrassing part is asking him if he wouldn’t mind Midoriya touching all over his face. 

Remember From Here on In - This is a fic where the author comes up with the six Quirks that Midoriya is going to get because of OFA. Although not canon, it was very good and fun. 

Remembrance - Throughout the course of these three chapters, Midoriya gets blasted back through time and lands in a world pre-All Might. Or at least, not the All Might that he knows, since he’s still at UA. 

Shout & Mute - In this EraserMic fic, the two of them are stuck in each other’s bodies throughout the course of the fic because of a villain. While staying at Hizashi’s apartment in his body, Shouta realizes just how much he loves him and knows that he’s going to end up confessing even if the feelings aren’t reciprocated. 

How Not to Enjoy the Weather, an Article by Kaminari Denki - The story toys around with the idea of this electric boy getting overpowered during thunder storms and him isolating himself so that he doesn’t end up hurting anyone that he cares about. 

A Deadman’s Gun - Throughout ten chapters, we get to see what would happen if Midoriya never got a Quirk and instead fell in league with Stain. 

See No Evil, Hear No Evil - A Bakugou and Kaminari friendship fic. Turns out that on the day that Kaminari forgot his contacts that he hasn’t told anyone about, and Bakugou forgot his hearing aids that he needs because of his Quirk. They decide to depend on each other throughout the day. 

Pictures, Posters, and Tender Beauty - During this fic, we get to see exactly what Midoriya thinks about his mentors weakened state. Dad Might fluff ahead. 

Electric Connection - This is a story where Kaminari can’t sleep - thanks ADHD - and so the entire BakuSquad comes into help. Shinsou is his boyfriend in this one, but it isn’t the focal point of the story. 

Caught Up - This is a Shinsou Centric fic where he fights through all of the not-quite-comments about his Quirk, and is thankful for having Aizawa in his corner. The last scene is Shinsou and Aizawa working together with the capture weapon. 

How To Ask Out a Guy in 2000 Words or Less - This is a ShinDoriya fic, and it features exactly what you think it does based off of the title. A very cute little story. 

Ghost - This is a story that actually features Shinsou and Shigaraki, the two of them having met at a toy store when Shinsou was just a little kid. Honestly, I wish there were multiple chapters of this because the idea is really interesting. 

Eyes On Me - Throughout three chapters, we see how Aizawa deals with his own panic attacks and the reasons why he feels the need to help his students through theirs. 

For Blood and Wine are Red (and Blood and Wine Were on His Hands) - Despite having a very long and Oscar Wilde inspired name, this is a short one-shot about Vigilante!Midoriya breaking into Aizawa’s apartment, looking for a first aid kit. 

Schrödinger’s Cat - This is a an extremely beautiful and painful story where Midoriya is found, months after going missing with a new powerful Quirk, white hair, and no memory of how he got there. This story was translated by the author from it’s native German, where is got less than five hundred hits. I think that everyone should read this fic and give the author a lot of love. 

Around and Around We Go - One of those “Five Things + One” things, this time with EraserMight and hair ties. A very cute story. I don’t get the chance to read a lot of EraserMight but I’m glad that I took the time to read this one. 

Playlists - Useless lesbians Momo and Jirou pine over each other and don’t realize that their love is requited until Jirou makes her crush known via a playlist. 

Nothing Cuts Like a Mother - In this Inko Midoriya Centric fic, we have the mother going to UA to tell Aizawa about the troubles that he has, with his Quirk. She also tells him about the bullying that Izuku Midoriya went through, and tells his teacher that these mistakes cannot be repeated. 

Team Player - This is a fic about Dabi not wanting to be redeemed from his sins. That was for Touya, an old him. He isn’t that guy anymore. 

Helping Hands - Primarily from the perspective of Kirishima, this is a fic that deals with an AU where Midoriya never got into the Hero Course, and is instead a Gen Ed course student at UA. Cue Bakugou attacking him on the second day, telling him that he doesn’t even belong at the same school as someone like himself - and then see all of Class 1A get angry for Midoriya because “Dude did you just fucking attack a dude because he’s Quirkless?” 

It’s Hurt Denki Hours - Now, I don’t really like the way that this one ends, but in this story the BakuSquad is convinced that Kaminari is the traitor and refuses to talk to him. This really hurts Kami, because he was actually really, really worried about his friends and this hurts him deeply. There is also a bit of a misunderstanding about how Shinsou’s Quirk works, but I will overlook it for the angst. 

Optimistic Friendship Association - This fic features Midoriya accidentally texting Shinsou instead of Yagi, asking how to get OFA to stop breaking his bones. When he’s asked what that is, he panics and says it’s a school group. Now he just has to find a way to explain why a group around optimism is breaking bones... 

Lichtenberg Figures - Another Kaminari Centric fic. In this one, Kaminari accidentally hurts a civilian after panicking during a villain attack. Not wanting to hurt anyone else, he starts refusing to use his Quirk, which does nothing but hurt him in the end. 

Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll - This is a fic that has nothing to do with intercourse, drugs, or music. No, this is an ADHD Kaminari fic, where his RSD makes him not want to fill out a test that he doesn’t remember any of the answers to and he draws all over it. As someone with ADHD, this hit close to home but was really good. 

Kiss Away All These Thrills - A short ShinKami fic about the two of them playing the Pocky Game. Spoilers: it ends with a kiss and a confession. 

[7r0773r]

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Dream House as World Building

Places are never just places in a piece of writing. If they are, the author has failed. Setting is not inert. It is activated by point of view.

Later, you will learn that a common feature of domestic abuse is “dislocation.” That is to say, the victim has just moved somewhere new, or she’s somewhere where she doesn’t speak the language, or has been otherwise uprooted from her support network, her friends or family, her ability to communicate. She is made vulnerable by her circumstance, her isolation. Her only ally is her abuser, which is to say she has no ally at all. And so she has to struggle against an unchangeable landscape that has been hammered into existence by nothing less than time itself; a house that is too big to dismantle by hand; a situation too complex and overwhelming to master on her own. The setting does its work.

This world might as well have been an island, surrounded by impassable waters. On one side, a golf course—owned by the university, as was the house—where drunk undergrads would stagger like zombies, silhouetted on the hill. On another, a stand of trees that suggested a forest, mysterious and laced with wildlife and darkness. Nearby, houses occupied by strangers who either never heard or didn’t want to get involved. Last, a road, but the sort of road that led to another road, a larger one. Unfriendly to pedestrians. Not meant to be traversed, really. Miles from the town’s center.

The Dream House was never just the Dream House. It was, in turn, a convent of promise (herb garden, wine, writing across the table from each other), a den of debauchery (fucking with the windows open, waking up with mouth on mouth, the low, insistent murmur of fantasy), a haunted house (none of this can really be happening), a prison (need to get out need to get out), and, finally a dungeon of memory. In dreams it sits behind a green door, for reasons you have never understood. The door was not green. (p. 72)

***

Dream House as Schrödinger’s Cat

Was it the arc of the universe? The natural result of centuries, millennia of wrongheaded politics? Was she trained to find you, or were you trained to be found? Was it the fact that you’d already been tenderized like a pork chop by: never having been properly in love, being told you should be grateful for anything you get as a fat woman, getting weird messages that relationships are about fighting and being at odds with each other? The fact that your heart had been broken that one time and you desperately wanted to feel it unbreak? That you felt complete with someone loving you? That you just straight-up loved being desired, desiring someone, coming all the time? That you got addicted to her smell, her voice, her body? That you figured this was what you deserved? The superpredictable result of a religion that pathologized sex but never talked about relationships? Terrible sex ed? Bad timing?

You feel as if there is a box you can open to find the answer, but with the lid closed the answer is all of these things, all at once. (p. 213)

***

Dream House as Ending

That there’s a real ending to anything is, I’m pretty sure, the lie of all autobiographical writing. You have to choose to stop somewhere. You have to let the reader go.

Where to stop this story? Val’s and my wedding, on a hot day in June? Some narratively satisfying confrontation between the woman from the Dream House and me? If you grasp the story by the base and pull, will the ripping sound indicate the looseness of the roots? What is left behind in the soil?

Should I loop back to a memory from the Dream House? A lovely one? Will that work, a contrast between what could have been and what was? A memory of the tow of us freshly returned from a local winery, sipping on a spicy Zinfandel and eating some kind of feta dip and telling a story?

One day the woman from the Dream House will die, and I will die, and Val will die, and John and Laura will die, and my brother will die, and my parents will die, and her parents will die, and everyone who ever knew any of us will die. Is that the end of the story? Time’s mindless, chattering advancement?

There is a Panamanian folktale that ends with: “My tale goes only to here; it ends, and the wind carries it off.” It’s the only true kind of ending.

Sometimes you have to tell a story, and somewhere, you have to stop. (p. 239)