#and I’m living in a big city - one of the biggest in the country

[just-rogi]

.

[mariacallous]

I recently watched a YouTube video of a Ukrainian performance on “America’s Got Talent.” A friend sent me the link, promising it would amaze me – and it did. You can find the video by searching “Amazing holographic 4D cube show AGT.” However, when the show’s host, Howie Mandel, said, “America’s got love for the Ukraine,” I cringed. The phrase “the Ukraine” implies it’s a territory, not a sovereign country. It’s just Ukraine – the largest country in Europe, an important nation in its own right, and sadly, a place the world still knows too little about.

Ukraine is often branded as a place of corruption and gangsters, and Hollywood doesn’t help when it makes the villains Ukrainian. After living in Kyiv for years, I’ve experienced something very different. The country I know is filled with talented, hardworking, and warm people who possess an incredible sense of humor. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, too many people think Ukraine is nothing but a war zone.

I recently heard Mstyslav Chernov, the director of the Oscar-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol,” say that Americans often ask, “Is there more to Ukraine than the war?” I’ve had similar frustrating conversations abroad, with people asking, “Is that war still going on?”

Before the pandemic, I hosted many foreigners visiting Kyiv, often to explore IT opportunities. Questions like “Is it safe there?” or “Do they have the internet?” were common. Even more surprising are comments from the Ukrainian diaspora. In Canada, home to the largest Ukrainian community outside of Ukraine, some people who left decades ago have no idea how their country has advanced. “They have shopping malls in Kyiv?” or “Do they have electric cars?”

Yes, Ukraine faces challenges, and many people live on modest salaries. But there is a growing middle class, and the big cities capture imaginations. Every guest I hosted in Kyiv was blown away.

One misconception that always made me giggle is when people ask, “What will we eat there?” The food scene in Kyiv is incredible. There’s been an explosion of amazing restaurants, and dining out here can compete with New York or London any day. Even during the war, new places are opening, and the food is phenomenal. If you want to have a laugh,  stand-up comedy clubs are popular – even in English. Where there’s laughter, there’s hope.

I had a friend from California visit twice, and when he returned to Los Angeles, people teased him, asking if he’d visited the land of Borat. He said Ukrainians are just like people in California – trying to build businesses, raise families, and live their lives. That’s the thing: Ukraine is not some backward nation that craves war.

Before the full-scale invasion, Kyiv was on track to become Europe’s next hotspot, and I’d have bet anything on that happening. This brutal war has set everything back. Ukraine is not about war. It’s about modernity, freedom, and new culture. It’s a country brimming with energy.

Ukraine has suffered from a poor reputation for as long as I can remember. I first discovered Kyiv nearly 17 years ago, and I’ve been saying ever since that Ukraine needs to work on its brand. Of course, now that we’re in the third year of the full-scale invasion, things are different. Air raid sirens can go off at any time, and it can be scary when Ukrainian air defenses shoot down drones and missiles. During those moments, you head to the bomb shelter. But life continues.

One of the biggest misconceptions about Ukraine is that everyone here is poor and miserable. Most people don’t have easy lives, and yes, poverty exists, but that’s true in many places. I’m originally from South Africa, where poverty exists on a different scale. In Ukraine, no one lives in shantytowns. When millions of Ukrainians fled across the borders, the European host nations were often surprised to see modern cars, fashionable clothes, and the latest smartphones. It’s a high-tech nation, and the level of online convenience here would surprise any foreigner.

There’s also a wave of innovation happening. Ukraine is poised to become a global leader in military drone technology. Artists are creating, entrepreneurs are developing cool tech, new restaurants are opening, and foreign investors are exploring opportunities. Ukraine is a miracle. Even as hypersonic missiles and kamikaze drones rain down across the country, many have decided to stay, continuing their lives, albeit in a very different way. The economy needs to keep running. Life needs to go on to keep the wheels turning.

Many passionate, dedicated people are working on projects to benefit and support Ukraine. Some have been involved long before the full-scale invasion, driven by a deep belief in the country and its people. Since 2018, I’ve been part of a team of artists — Ukrainian and international — creating a storytelling film project that captures life in modern Kyiv. “We Are Ukraine” is a story about extraordinary people in an extraordinary time — people who have chosen to continue to work, live, get married, have children, and laugh, against all odds. It’s not a war story, a story about death and demise. It’s a story about life, a love letter to Kyiv, which shows us what the world would miss out on if Kyiv would cease to exist.

Freedom, independence, and identity are the culmination of modern humanity, forged over centuries through struggle, creativity, and resilience. Everything else in civil society flows from these values. Russia’s war in Ukraine is a global wake-up call – a reminder that these values must be nurtured and protected. Ukrainians are showing that not only can they defend these values, but by continuing to live, laugh, and love, they are defying those who seek to destroy them.

[unhappy-day-in-hell]

The Dissection of Hazbin Hotel, Episode One: part 1

Hazbin Hotel is finally coming out and I want to talk about it!

Seems unreal, doesn’t it!? After four years it’s here, and it’s one of the biggest train wrecks I've ever seen with my own two eyes!

Like many people, I used to be a fan. I got into Hazbin at the end of 2021, and stayed with it until mid-2023, when I woke up to the series’ flaws and saw how horrible Vivziepop was as a person. But for that time, Hazbin gave me something to look forward to during a dark time in my life. I was excited for it. I liked the idea it would be a complex, dark, and nuanced look into some dark topics. I was convinced Angel’s trauma would be handled with care, because Addict handled it with care. I was convinced Hazbin would be a show that said “no one is beyond becoming a better person if they just make the decision to try, no matter how much bad they’ve done.” Being set in Hell, where the UNIVERSE ITSELF has given up on the souls damned there (the furthest extreme you can possibly get to), was a good way to exaggerate this conflict.  

Spoilers: It wasn’t that! Apparently it was never meant to be that in the first place!

Vivziepop threw out the original premise that everyone loved in favor of a Heaven war! She ripped off the “Rose Quartz = Pink Diamond” reveal with Rosie-Lilith-Eve. By extension, they de-clawed Alastor by making him Rosie’s pawn. (I loved Alastor. I wanted to see more of his deranged self; I wanted to see what he would do when he was proven wrong when redemption was possible.)

When I watched Episode One, I started writing my thoughts down. Then I tripped and wrote 13,000 words.

So I’m gonna post them here as a review! It’s long, so I’m going to break it into four parts.

I can be very forgiving of flawed projects, but in regards to Hazbin, I’m petty. No nitpick is too small. I will compare it to the pilot (because it’s in that Viv-canon-limbo where you need to have seen it but she pretends it’s not canon), and I’ll have tangents and rewrite ideas.

The story-crafting for this show is one of the more important elements to me, so I give a lot of attention to that.

And there will be SPOILERS, including all leaks! So just be careful if you don’t want spoilers or leaks! 

Let’s go!

Part 1: //

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

--Hazbin Hotel opens with a huge exposition dump about the supposed creation of Hell.

And IMMEDIATELY, we’ve run into a problem.

Sometimes, stories will open with lore dumps like this. They can be useful in giving the audience important knowledge, or setting the stage for the world. However, this lore dump provides us with neither of those things.

Even for people who aren’t religious (me), the story of Eden is really well known (even just the pop culture version of it.)  That means you don’t need to tell us the creation story at this moment-- What we NEED right now is to understand what this version of Hell is like.

What info do we need in order to understand the setting of Hell that Charlie lives in?

Important stuff like this: Hell functions like a big city with laws, and isn’t like the pop-culture fire and brimstone image we might have; dead sinners manifest with new bodies and are exclusively in the Pride Ring, which makes them the property of Lucifer, and they’re immortal unless killed by angels; angels come down once a year to erase them to keep them from becoming too numerous. Emphasize that it’s like a shitty country, with shitty jobs and leaders, Lucifer at the tippy-top. Emphasize the Sinners’ fear of the annual exterminations -- emphasize that Charlie feels helpless but wants to save them.

Your job as a storyteller is to tell us what we need to know, when we need to know it.

Right now, we don’t need to know why Hell was created – we need to know how Hell WORKS in the present. That’s your goal, to bring us into the world.

The only necessary information this narration gives us is that “exterminations exist." Everything else about the deeper lore can be shown to us later, after we’ve had some time to get to know the world.

(Have this be a fairytale Charlie tells during an emotional, quiet moment; or in a flashback, Lilith tells this to a baby Charlie. Or it can be a musical number Lilith or Lucifer sings for her, trying to make themselves look better than they actually were.)

--“Angels are beings made of pure light who worshipped good and shielded all from evil.” WE’RE FIVE SECONDS INTO THIS AND ALREADY WE HAVE A HUGE THING TO UNPACK. Buckle up.

So Hazbin's lore goes like this: the Angels already exist, and they worship a vague figure of “Good” (who isn’t God), and defend people from “Evil” (who isn’t the devil, because Lucifer hasn’t rebelled yet.) Since Lucifer hasn’t rebelled yet, evil really shouldn’t exist yet. Where is this evil coming from?

(I have a bad feeling it’s Roo -- the Root of Evil, that character Viv drew years ago and said is a looming presence in the distance. Is Roo some kind of “eldritch abomination”, who existed before the angels? Sadly, I think that’s very likely, at this point.)

Either way: Good and Evil are forces that already existed at the start of creation, before Adam and Eve and everything else, and Lucifer and the Fallen Angels had nothing to do with it. Which just doesn’t mesh, if you’re going to have a Christian base for the lore.

Also: It says the angels defend people from Evil. But who are the angels defending? They explicitly show that humanity hasn’t been created at this point, because we see the birth of Adam in a few moments; so who the heck needed defending during this period of time!?

…

Alright, to get this out of the way: Hazbin Hotel won’t use God as a character, apparently because they don’t want to offend anyone, or so I heard. It’s something to debate; was this a good idea on their part, or is it cowardice? For me, I personally feel like it’s the latter. The show has already taken many other incredibly sacred figures and stories, and jumbled them up and tweaked them for the show’s awful lore -- and Viv has never cared about offending anyone before so why would she care now -- which is why it feels spineless to me, for them to NOT go all the way and just use the Capital G himself. Plenty of other stories have used the Christian God as a character just fine.

If they’re worried about doing it tactfully, the solution is to just… NOT write God as an asshole? Maybe try for some genuine sincerity in the writing for once? Make him the single character in the cast who is never played for a joke, and whose personality has no stupid quirks. Have him be very distant, maybe even locked in Heaven’s Palace, that way you don’t have to show him more than a handful of times, but the audience will know he exists; and use his limited screentime to make him display wisdom and warmth.

Maybe he acts like a distant observer of the Universe, and he clearly knows something we don’t; he tut-tuts at the bad things, but “This, You See, is how it Must Be. And by the end of the show he’s right because everything works out for the good. Or... something.

My point is, they already used all this other sacred stuff from the bible, they might as well go all the way. (Viv certainly didn’t have a problem using Lilith or vodou symbols, did she?)

--Lucifer was a dreamer who was deemed dangerous to the order of Heaven. Then he fell in love with Lilith for her fierce independence and they wanted to share free will with humanity.

This story. This rewriting of the usual biblical tale to make Lucifer sympathetic.

It just doesn’t work.

It also ties back to their refusal to use God as a character. The character of God was an INTEGRAL piece of this mythological story, and God and Lucifer were inseparably intertwined figures in it. Lucifer’s entire rebellion and “Pride” sin was against God. You could say... Lucifer has major fucking "Daddy Issues." (That's a phrase Alastor will say later!) To take away his Daddy Issues is just so lame.

Even worse, this story is trying to paint Lucifer as a misunderstood artist who cared about creation. (He's so different from the actual mythological figure, it makes you wonder what the point of even using these figures as characters is.)

…There are two possibilities.

Possibility One: I wonder if this is a “sanitized” version of the story that Lucifer tells Charlie to make himself look better. (This feels very much like one of those “history lessons” that a fantasy world will introduce to the characters early on, only for that history lesson to be shown as a lie later on.) But if that’s the case, it’s WEIRD for Hazbin Hotel to do that with the story of the Garden of Eden?? Everyone/most everyone in the audience will already know the gist of how the Eden story goes, so they'll know this retelling isn’t right -- so what, are we expected to wait for Charlie to gormlessly stumble into the truth, ~as a twist~ that GASP D:> her father INTENTIONALLY fucked humanity over!?!?!? HE DID IT ON PURPOSE AND ALL THE SUFFERING OF HELL WAS HIS GOAL!?!?!? DAD HOW COULD YOU. That’ll be a shitty twist. The audience already knows this, so it’ll just be pounding our heads into the wall waiting for Charlie to get there.

(And also, it’s very suspicious they don’t actually SAY what Lucifer’s “ideas and dreams” were for creation. So that could be a lie by omission that he uses for his fairytale. In reality, he might have had awful, shitty, malicious ideas, which Heaven stopped him from doing, and Lucifer’s been a big baby about it ever since.)

Possibility two: This is legitimately the retelling of the Eden story in the Hazbin Universe. Which just suuuuuuucks! If Lucifer was a kind, caring individual, why would he let his Hell Kingdom become a total SHITHOLE of suffering? Wouldn’t he be a kind ruler? Wouldn’t he try to run the ship better?

And it’s a horrible decision to woobify him in general. You’re seriously going to de-claw THE DEVIL? You’re gonna rip out his teeth and make him soggy!? You’re gonna make the King Of Evil, The Father of All Lies, LUCIFER, EMBODIMENT OF PRIDE, a wet meow-meow sadboy who did nothing wrong?? COME ON!! What makes Lucifer an interesting character IS THAT HE MADE THE CHOICE to fuck everything up on purpose! He’s interesting BECAUSE of how he, to this day, wants to ruin the Earth to stick it to God! You can’t just take that away from him!

It’s incredible that these two possibilities are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but both are unsalvageable. There is NO winning with this backstory. They fucked up.

--Ah wait there it is. The apple is the same color as the Vague Evil’s eye from above.

Yep….

Man, making Eve the twist villain of the story (before or after Roo shows up? Is Roo inside of Eve controlling her? It doesn’t matter). You couldn’t write a worst twist.

I ask you: Why is it Eve, and not Adam who is the secret twist villain? Or, why isn’t it Adam+Eve TOGETHER who are the twist villains?

If this were the only instance of female characters being demonized, I wouldn’t think anything of it -- but there is a clear pattern across all of Viv’s writing. Viv is a known misogynist, and this feels like an extension of her misogyny. Of course the twist villain is female. Of course Roo The Secret Eldritch Abomination is female. The male characters get sympathy, or stuff handed to them. Lucifer is a good lad who did nothing wrong! Alastor isn’t evil, he was hired to protect the Hotel and is a father figure to Charlie! ADAM got to go to Heaven and Eve didn’t!

I have absolutely no doubt that the blame will be put on Eve, and Adam will be given a pass because Eve tricked him to eat the fruit of knowledge, or something.

--Yep, this thing is animated like a Root. It’s totally Roo.

--Eyes… just like Roo’s root tongue. Yep.

--Heaven only allowed Lucifer to see the bad of humanity, never the good.

They really ARE trying to woobify him, aren’t they? At this point, the only way they could salvage any of this is by making this a sanitized bedtime story (which again wouldn’t work in itself.)

This is the fucking DEVIL we’re talking about.

He is the King of Hell, and therefore, he is the ruler of the Princes of Sin, the Ars Goetia, and the legions of Hell that are trying to corrupt the Earth! We see in Helluva Boss that demons do actually go to make Earth worse. If Lucifer is King and didn’t want this to happen, he has the power to stop at.

Plus: there are portals to go to Earth, and magic to watch the Earth as seen on Helluva Boss. So Lucifer has every means to look at the Earth any way he wants, and could see the good the Earth has to offer…… and it's because he’s the one bringing evil to the Earth in the first place in order to destroy good (technically to fight against God, but God ain't here, so "Good" it is.) That’s still Hell’s MO in this world. We’ve seen this on Helluva Boss, which is canon to this universe. And you cannot convince me that the King of Hell was “oblivious to it” or "the other royal demons have their own power and Lucy can't stop them" or some excuse like that, as if the Princes of Sin and the Ars Goetia are doing it secretly under Lucifer’s nose and Lucifer doesn’t know it’s going on. You cannot convince me of this.

Plus even then -- if Lucifer were still a sadboy who WANTS to see the good of the Earth (even if all he sees is the bad), that means… in theory, he has a “good heart”. So why isn’t he a kinder King?

Because this is either a fake fairytale or Viv is a bad writer who doesn’t think anything through. (It’s both.)

--Lucifer lost his spark, huh? What does that actually mean? Does it mean his title as King is only symbolic and he doesn’t do any ruling? (This can’t be right – we see later in the episode Lucifer still has some authority over various things, like meeting with Adam but foisting that responsibility on Charlie.) Does losing his spark just mean he gave up trying to be good, and now just revels in evil?

And, as the embodiment of Pride, shouldn’t Lucifer of all people be the most stubborn, unshakable person in existence? Instead of losing his SPARK, he should just grow jaded and bitter but still have that fire to prove he's better than everyone. He’s the King of Hell for a reason.

(And if Lilith thrives, why isn’t she the ruling Queen of Hell?)

--So Lilith uses her powers to Empower Demons…

This wording is VERY suspicious, and once again, feels like a sanitized bedtime story for Charlie.

What does empowering demons actually MEAN? Huh? It sounds very good in this fairytale, but look at the evidence presented to us. We see what Hell is like (...eventually.) It’s a shithole where everyone is suffering and constantly beating and killing each other. For all we know, her “empowering demons” actually means she encourages everyone’s worst behavior, gives sinners powers and weapons that they can use against each other, and is the reason why Hell is so awful.

…Oh god, if LILITH is the cause of Hell being bad, and Lucifer is a Good Boy who sits back and doesn’t do anything, then it’s another female character being written to fuck everything up!

(We don’t know when Eve takes Lilith’s spot, but I don’t think it’s quite at this point in history. So Eve doesn’t get the blame here just yet. Hopefully?)  

--Overpopulation was always a bad motivation for Hazbin Hotel. I thought that even when I was a fan. Because: if Hell is a finite space where you can run out of room… then so is Heaven? If you start redeeming sinners for the sake of giving Hell more room… theeeeeen eventually HEAVEN is going to get overpopulated and run out of room. What then?

Hell also has other Rings the sinners are not allowed to go to. Are we going to mention the other Rings’ existence at any point? Will the idea of opening the other Rings up to sinners even be presented as an option at any point?

How much of Hazbin’s lore is going to be locked in Helluva Boss, unable to be shown in the series proper? Will the Princes of Sins, the Hellborn demons, the Ars Goetia ever make an appearance, or are they not allowed to? Will Charlie ever have to deal with the fact there is an entire slave caste in Hell, the Hellhounds? Is she going to free the Hellhounds? Imps are also oppressed, will the show ever explicitly TALK about that? Will the worldbuilding show us how imps, hellhounds, and Sinners intermingle in Pentagram City?

CAN HELLBORN DEMONS BE REDEEMED AND GO TO HEAVEN?

So many questions. And knowing Viv’s style, I highly doubt we’ll ever get any answers.

--So Charlie inherited her mother’s dream. But they completely neglected to mention what Lilith’s dream actually was. Do they mean she wants Charlie to “empowering sinners,” in general? Or did Lilith, specifically, want the exterminations to end?

They use such vague words, when this is one moment they should just give us a clear answer. This whole backstory was a mistake and a waste of time, but if you are going to use it to set up Charlie inheriting something from Lilith, you have to make it clear what she’s inheriting.

And also, while it’s not ENTIRELY a Chosen One scenario, in the pilot we got the sense that Charlie was the one who made the choice to try and help sinners, on her own. Now though, Charlie was GIVEN this dream by someone else, because she can’t have agency. It would be one thing if Lilith just taught Charlie to feel compassion (that would be fine, parents teach their kids morals all the time), but Charlie still came to the redemption conclusion on her own – it’s another for her to be said to have “inherited this from Lilith” or is carrying on Lilith’s legacy.

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

With the opening monologue over, the only thing we know is that the lore is very messy. It has a Christian basis, but it's been fucked up so badly that it makes you wonder what the point even is.

Good and Evil are living eldritch forces that existed before creation and have nothing to do with God, Lucifer, or anything else like that.

There is no God, (who is the ENTIRE CENTRAL POINT for the biblical-inspired stuff in Hazbin); instead a whole Council of Elder Angels rules the universe.

Roo has no basis in anything.

I think in some tellings, Lucifer was the first Angel? Even if not, he was one of the highest. So Lucifer should be one of the ruling angels. They have to severely weaken him as a figure in order to make him under the control of the other angels. (After all, in Christian mythology, it's God who made Lucifer fall. Another way his absence fucks the story.)

And my final takeaway from combing over this lore is: why didn't Viv just make her own fantasy world? Everything in this show is only passingly similar to the stuff it's based on. If you're gonna take these aspects from religions and fuck with them so much, just make your own fantasy world where you can do whatever you want.

That was only the opening monologue. This is gonna be a long ride guys!

[elminx]

Witch Tips: 8 Ways To Advance Your Kitchen Witchery

Note here: as always, not all of these tips will work for everyone. Take what resonates with you and leave the rest. Where you are in life (how old you are, your budget, and where you live) will influence which of these are available. That’s okay.

One of my biggest frustrations with Kitchen Witch spaces online is that they are (almost always) simply a list of recipes or general kitchen correspondences. Sure, these are parts of kitchen witchery, but there’s more to it than that. I’ve decided to compile a list of things you can do to up the practical side of your craft. You’ll notice that these are not magical tips, per se, but tips on how to deepen your connection to the food you eat and craft with.

Join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) Farmshare

I’m starting with the big guns here. A CSA is a way to buy a share of a local farm. You give the farmer money ahead of the season (often in the fall, but you can sometimes sign up year-round), and then you get weekly or monthly pickups of their produce all season long. There are so many ways this supports kitchen craft: you are supporting a local farm in your community, you are guaranteeing yourself local seasonal produce, and it’s a great way to save money.

CSAs tend to be a big investment up front, but the payoff is great – pound for pound, you don’t get those prices in a store. With some CSAs, you can go directly to the farm and choose some or all of what you take home, while others give you a premade box. Some deliver or have pickup points in major cities all over the country. Some come with pick-your-own herbs, tomatoes, and flowers. This is a better choice for an adventurous eater – you will encounter things you’ve never eaten! (If you’re a pickier eater, the next tip might be more your style) Some places have CSAs that include more than just vegs, too. In my area, I could sign up for a meat share, a fruit share, an egg share, and even a flower share!

Visit Your Local Farmer’s Markets

If you like complete control over what you eat but also like the idea of supporting local agriculture, farmer’s markets are a great place to start. You will find anything from in-season fresh-picked produce to eggs, meat, local honey, and more! They are also a great place to find fruit seconds during canning season. When you buy directly from a farm, the money goes into the farmer’s pockets, and the food is often cheaper without the grocer’s markup. Plus, you may get to talk to the people who grow your food, which is a big win in my book. This option is great because it does not involve a big investment like a CSA, and you can buy only what you will use.

Grow Your Own

If the above two options aren’t available to you, or you want to try out your green thumb, why not grow your own herbs, fruit, or veggies this season? I’m not suggesting starting a whole-scale garden if that’s not something you have ever done before – start small and manageable. Pick one thing you KNOW you will eat and grow that. This takes more planning because you must consider your space and time constraints. All plants need soil, light, and nutrients, but each has different needs. Most herbs, tomatoes, and peppers can be grown in containers in smaller spaces, while other plants need a lot of room to grow. A lack of outdoor space can be remedied with a few grow lights. If you’re starting for the first time, this is a list of herbs that are very easy to grow for beginners so long as you give them enough light to thrive: basil, cilantro/coriander, garden sage, lemon balm, mint, lavender, oregano, parsley, rosemary, and thyme.

This can be a really budget-friendly option, too! Many areas have active plant groups with friendly people who are very willing to donate an old grow pot and a start to a newbie gardener. Plus, if you’re growing it yourself, you don’t need to purchase it in a store.

Can, Freeze, Dry, Dehydrate, and Save

If you end up with a CSA or grow your own, there will likely be a point in the season when you have a bounty too large to consume. When we have enough, we share or save for later. This isn’t a manual on the best ways to preserve your harvest, but you definitely can preserve it for a later date. And, I promise you, nothing is more rewarding in the dead of winter than pulling out something you preserved in the height of summer. Your preservation methods will change depending on what you have an excess of. If you want to get into water bath canning, I suggest picking up any version of the Ball Blue Book, which gives you directions on safe canning methods. If you live in a dry climate, you can dry your herbs by hanging them, but if you’re like me and live in a humid zone, a dehydrator is a safe way to avoid pesky mold issues. Many fruits and vegetables can be frozen, cut up, or whole. Do some research here – you’ll be surprised by what you find.

Use Those Scraps

If you want to be frugal and more environmentally friendly, start keeping your kitchen scraps. Bones and leftover vegetable ends can be frozen and later turned into broth. Citrus peels can candied, dried, or infused into vinegar or vodka. Apple peels can be turned into pectin for jam or jelly making. The ends of tender herbs like cilantro, basil, and parsley can be pulsed into pestos and sauces. The rinds on parmesan cheese can be saved to add to soups or sauces for some extra umami. I could go on, and I’m sure there are a million uses for kitchen scraps I’ve never heard of. If you are interested in this, there are many folk magic resources about using what you already have, and that would be a good place to start. Being frugal saves money and keeps unnecessary waste out of landfills.

Compost

Speaking of landfills, how about keeping your vegetable scraps out of them altogether? Many improvements in composting have allowed it to be done in much smaller spaces. I have a postage stamp-sized backyard, but I have two large compost bins that I rotate using yearly so that one is always curing while the other is being filled up with new produce. Plus, I have natural fertilizer for my garden that came from my kitchen! If you don’t have outdoor space, devices on the market now can compost your kitchen scraps in a few hours. Some seem to be rated for bones, which is pretty cool. They still seem to be pricy, but it’s an option if you can afford it.

Make Your Own

Are you into baking? Did you know you can make your own vanilla extract by putting a vanilla bean into some vodka? It’s virtually eternally reusable because you simply refill the bottle every time you use it. (Sidenote: for a deeper flavor, sub in your favorite dark liquor for the vodka here) Now, you have vanilla extract, which is also vanilla vodka. This also works for other extracts (mint, coffee, and almonds come to mind), but you should research how long to infuse them. Do you love pies? You can make and can your own pie filling while the fruit is in season. Do you love tacos? Make your own salsa. This can really level up your witching because it gives you an extra chance to infuse your magic into your food – once while you prepare the base ingredients and again when you cook them into your meal.

Pick-Your-Own

There is nothing quite like making a strawberry shortcake from start to finish. For me, that starts in the strawberry fields. Picking the berries myself guarantees the best and freshest berries! And it creates a great link between me and the plant where it was growing. In my area, I can pick herbs, flowers, salad, tomatoes, and beans at my local farm share, but depending on the season, I can also find you-pick strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and apples. I try to take advantage of every one. This weekend, I’ll be staying near a you-pick lavender farm and will definitely be visiting there, too! Since you do the work to pick your own, the produce prices tend to be lower, too. This is a great way to get outdoors and connect with what you are cooking with where it is growing.

Wild Harvesting

This comes with several caveats: You ABSOLUTELY need to do your own research and be 100% sure of your plant identification before you eat anything you harvest from the wild. A mistake can literally kill you! If you have known food allergies, this is not the tip for you—trying any food you haven’t had before is a risk of an allergic reaction, so don’t risk it. Additionally, some wild foods are protected or endangered. Know before you harvest. Take only what you’ll use and leave some for the animals. Practice safe wild harvesting, too – avoid taking from places near major roads, cemeteries, or known hazardous waste dumping grounds for your own safety. On the other hand – harvest invasives to your heart’s content!

*************************

There are, of course, a million ways to kitchen witch and this is simply some of the ways that I like to connect more deeply with my food in all stages of its journey. How do YOU kitchen witch? I'd love to hear more about it - feel free to send me asks telling me what you like to do.

Do you like my work? You can tip me over on Kofi, commission me to write an astrological report for you, or signs up to be a monthly supporter of my writing.

[fiannalover]

bweirdOCtober Day 9 - Relationships

Post-College Medeia - Thread

“You are lost.”

“Mayhaps. But the journey is what matters most, no?”

“It is. Though less so when your destination has a strict time window.”

Once upon a time, there was a witch. Although, that wasn’t the profession she’d use to describe herself. Her long black hair, color that combined with her conversation partner’s attire, was slightly messed up by the wind passing by.

Hearing his answer, she frowned and returned to alternating between staring at her map and her cellphone that held the bare minimum of data, in hopes they made any sense whatsoever. In fact, all her travels carried a time limit, which, thematically, was very appropriate.

“I don’t suppose you could give me some hint regarding where I should go? It is your cult, after all.” She argued.

“I could. But this is your lead and your hunt, Medeia. And in my defense, it was more of a cult to dethrone me than to assist me.” The man accompanying her answered, floating a short answer behind her while wearing a tailor-made suit adorned by punctual, but valuable, rings, watch and jewels. “Of course, you have other tools that you can use at any moment.”

The suggestion was received and immediately thrown away. At the same moment, the spark of realization came to her face, showing she found the desired thread. “No problems, I located myself. Onwards!”

“Right behind you.”

Once upon a time, there was a girl, the kind you'd find anywhere. And her travel companion, Death.

A little village in the middle of nowhere.

Medeia had stopped by many of them on her odyssey,

“Your people really like this kind of place, don’t they?” She asked, while typing away in her notebook, the soundtrack of a tween musical playing softly as she worked.

“They are death cults. You do not think most of them would try to hide away in the midst of the biggest metropolis, do you?” He answered, filing his nails.

“Wouldn’t be impossible. Both of us have already lived in one of the biggest cities of the country. We know very well it’s super easy to hide stuff there.” She ceased typing for a second, pondering over some possibilities. “There likely are a bunch of rich guys plotting stuff right under our noses on some capital. I should go to one after exhausting my current clues.“

“Who knows. I but request you to remember, all business I realized in the world of the living was completely legal and according to the law. Including precious jewels that, officially, I found by pure luck. You cannot blame my own golden touch.“

“Don’t worry, Pluto, I know. You’re my favorite capitalist.“ She said, using the name few mortals were aware belonged to him. Closing her notebook and getting up from the chair, she declared. “Alright, let’s see what we’ll find here.“

-----

“You know, you probably would find the right path more easily if you used magic.“ He suggested, making use of his incorporeality to randomly go through the ruins’ walls.

Writing down all she saw on a notepad, she replied. “I remain only a potion maker and journalist. I clearly have no sanity and am addicted to adrenaline, but I won’t use free magic to make this worse.”

She kept patting around the walls and furniture of the place, eventually making an unnoticed mirror fall to the floor and shatter in a thousand pieces. Welp, just another relic of incalculable historical value.

One of the shards made a small cut on her leg, though, creating a thin thread of blood that would go all the way to her heel. Annoying, but no big problem. Still, she made a mental note to exchange her shoes for bigger boots.

“You know, I don’t think this partnership of ours is very equal.” She said, repeating an argument they made every other week, almost a little inside joke.

“Because it isn’t. I can destroy these magical artifacts and cults at any moment. But I grant you the opportunity to do so yourself, to further your own goals.”

“And for that not quite bare minimum, I’m eternally ungrateful.” After that jest, she finally found a place that looked slightly weird. Taking a small vial from her pockets, she spilled its liquid on the floor, making a stairway show itself. Great. At last, progress.

-----

A salvo of shotguns ringed through the air above the strategically located waist high half-wall Medea was protecting herself with.

“You REALLY can’t help me right now?” She shouted, her cover vibrating from the impact of the guns.

“In your age’s terms, nope. Work your magic, alchemist.” He replied, noticeable only to her.

She needed no magic. All that mattered was resources, ingenuity…

And many wiles!

At a spot, the noise surrounding her faded ever so slightly. Realizing her assailants were reloading, she quickly grabbed a potion bottle and threw it towards them as strongly as possible. With the cracking sound of impact and their surprised noises, she knew she hit her target.

Alright. Let's face the music!

-----

"Food poisoning. All considered, you suffer from that very rarely, for someone who is always traveling." Death pointed out.

"Hahaha. Very… urgh." Medeia remained on her knees, holding back nausea while facing the lunch she just finished throwing on the side of the road. "Very funny, Plu-"

The girl couldn't finish the sentence, instead returning to throwing out her own stomach. Truly, a lesson to never trust divine-looking beef.

Throughout the entire experience, her travel companion used one of his hands to hold her long black hair, keeping it from dirtying itself, while the other hand calmly pet her head or back, soft, calm words comforting her all the while.

It was a parental care she long didn't feel.

-----

In an almost desert, with no visible reference points, Medeia evaluated her maps and information. She could keep riding down the road with her bike, no problems, but having some idea of how long it would be before she got anywhere would be handy.

She somewhat asked herself how it would be like to be made of the same material as clouds or have the same wings birds use to fly. And in doing so, she noticed she was really, really bored.

"Why do you follow me?" She asked.

"We have known each other for a very long time. Old friends, practically." He answered.

"You can say that to a lot of people, not just me. Even within the occult means, I'm sure I'm not the only one."

"You are not. But you're also dedicated to solving terrible incidents being built with me in mind, be it in homage or against me."

"I am. But you're Death. You don't need my help to fix these."

"No, I do not. However, your motives are unique enough for me to consider them worthy of my support." He explained, putting an end to their little back-and-forth with a more in-depth explanation. "Mages are creatures of extremes. Many, as you know within your own blood, aim to deny me, destroying the natural order of our world. Others still seek to wreak great destruction, thus ignoring the equilibrium of life. You, not being a mage, are a very sensible person, Medeia. And your reasons for seeking passageways to my kingdom are approved."

And so, he vanished, leaving her with her own thoughts for a while. But she knew he was close by, as always. He was many things, but not a hunter unbeknownst to his prey.

Looking at her map again, she noticed she should go east. As she prepared to put it all back inside her bag, she found a piece of obsidian, which would easily finance her next hotel.

"Thank you, Pluto." Closing her baggage, she kept on going.

-----

Entering the new set of ruins, defeating the local cult with a sleep potion, a wool scarf and a high jump kick from really sturdy boots and finding the relevant magical artifact was, all considered, rather easy, with the maze she traversed to get there having unraveled in front of her experienced gaze.

Incense and liquids she brought now adorned an altar surrounding a curious mirror that, soonly, would cease having a connection to a world beyond.

"Alright, I think I neutralized the portal enough. How long can I make use of it?" She asked.

"Roughly ten minutes. Unfortunately, I cannot allow it to remain open any longer than that." Death informed her.

"Less than I got last time. Welp, it's enough. The cops are getting in eighteen or so to pick them up anyway." She reasoned. Picking up a brush and a hand mirror from her pockets, she looked at her own appearance for a bit, before deciding she was satisfied. "Let's do this."

The potion maker put down a feather and a golden coin in front of her, then lightly cut her own hand, letting blood fall on the proper place. Then, holding on to the mirror, she let her magic activate its restrained power.

Her reflection quickly vanished as the portal activated. In its place, were plains in eternal spring and, within them, a girl with the purest tranquility in her face.

It couldn't be traversed. It was but a camera, microphone and audio system, traversing the greatest of distances between two people.

Noticing the portal, the girl turned around and greeted the person standing on the other side with the greatest possible smile on her face.

From the deathly catacombs where she found herself at, Medeia theatrically bowed and proclaimed. "Fair maiden! Many dangers and journeys I faced to see thy lovely face once again!" With the overkill court provoking the desired laughter, she stood up straight and affirmed. "You're as beautiful as ever, Ariadne."

Carrying that special smile, from within her peaceful eternal rest, she answered. "And you're as courageous and smart as the last time we saw one another, my Medeia."

At the end of day, there is only one that truly makes life worth living.

And so, each and every day, she would search for her love's thread.

[wroteclassicaly]

i’m here dw <3 i’ve been thinking of the idea of him fucking you and interrogating you hehe. “you wanna cum? you better answer my fuckin’ questions first.” taking total and complete control over you when you’re being difficult is sooooo 💫🫶🏻 He -han

Mr. Tillman loves him some bondage. 🥵

Also… I’m sorry that this took on a mind of its own, and I gave some Headcanons/backstory, that we don’t have yet. I do know Roy is most likely Gator’s dad, because his name is listed as Roy Tillman, so I’m assuming? 😭

Warnings: Language, bondage, edging, possessive Gator, vaginal sex, and use of a sex toy!

~*~

If you told yourself that you never thought about what Gator would, or could do to you with the plethora of binds he kept on him (or in that rust bucket he called a pick-up) — you’d be the biggest liar in the whole entire Midwest. Asking didn’t seem like an option to you, and you weren’t sure if Gator would a) use those specific things on you, or b) think you could handle them. You weren’t the type of girl that he usually took home to bed and be rid of. When you started sleeping together it surprised everyone in town, because let’s face it, word travels when a Tillman is involved in even a spill on aisle twelve. The whispers were more aimed at you, the quiet little mouse that ran the town’s one and only library, and resided on the edge of poverty.

Your grandparent’s lived and died in a trailer, and your dad left with his high-school sweetheart. Your mom had scurried out of town and went further into the country, residing on a farm with her flavor of the last few years. You’d known the Tillman’s since you were born, school mates with Gator, your grandfather working for the city with Roy’s father. It was a weird cycle, things often happening that you didn’t want involved in. So you opted to stay in town in your upstairs studio — charmed by it’s exposed pipes and original hardwood floors — rough, but yours.

Your work was a flight of stairs and down the street — away. You’d pass your favorite diner and the station, both of which Gator always routined in the morning, similar to your own schedule. More often than not, you’d see him clambering from his merlot colored 1948 Ford pickup. He never shut up about restoring the thing, much to Roy’s constant dismay.

“Buy a new one, boy. Waste of time.”

Gator added that to his many blissful defiances towards his father. Ones that could be overlooked. He knew better than to tow the line on the bigger things, even if he was ‘Sheriff’. Still, Gator Tillman did whatever job he was presented with, and he did it well. It followed on the spurs of a roughened elegance, like a soft spicy cologne, the leather of his combat boots, that thick gel he laid his chestnut tresses back with, or the beard burns he decorated along your thighs.

The morning that started it all, is when you’d had some continuous issues with idiot kids breaking into the return box and busting it into dents. Was it a big deal? Not really. But you weren’t about to lose your shitty minimum wage job for childish theatrics, all because your manager was a tight wad, and the town hall was in Roy’s back pocket, unwilling to let funds go for things that weren’t firearms. You hadn’t unlocked the box for returns, and you heard the kids throwing rocks, ramming it with the tires of their bikes —sheer boredom on a summer morning.

Gator was already out there, leaned over the top of a neon green set of handlebars, palm clasped on the pre-teen’s shoulder, shaking his head. The kid was pale, holding up his hands in apology, and turning towards you with glossy eyes. A quiet ‘M’ sorry, M’am.” Had tumbled off his lips. If they hadn’t continuously caused so much damage, you would’ve felt bad for him.

As he rode off into that crisp morning air, you’d turned, only to find the sun illuminating Gator’s enriching chocolate eyes, irises scattered with shards of mossy green and embers of golden flecks, his caramel colored hair slicked back until it looked darker than its natural shade — shining, freckles splattered all over his face and neck, a glimpse of his gold chain peeking out from his navy blue t-shirt, his vest tossed over his loose jean jacket, with his look completed by his thigh holster and weapon — strapped to his gray and black camouflage cargo pants. He drank in your reaction like a man dying of thirst. And the rest became one for the small town history books.

~*~

“Gator, just… fucking… PLEASE —“

A hand that is tainted with the musk of your own arousal, it lays flat over your mouth, his chain dipping between the valley of your perspired-drenched breasts, a brutal thrust delivered. His stubble formed beard, it scratches at your earlobe, his lips whispering out in a tone of mocking. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk unless you have answers for me?”

You mumble against his hand and he reaches back over with a free set of digits, snatching your wand off the table and pressing it back onto your clit. “What’s that, sweetheart? Was that a confession or another mouthy mistake?”

Tears soak your lash line, your cunt dousing him with new waves of cream each time he gives another push. He smirks, eyes blown and receptive, features a lit with mirth. He loves you not giving it up as much as he’s giving it to you. This… interrogation became more than his jealousy. A fun little game that he knew would also test his sanity not to claim you outwardly.

His spit-slick hand leaves your mouth, the vibrator being pulled off as you start to buck into his pelvis. You whine loudly, panting, his hand slapping above up into your bed frame, caging you in beside your cuffed wrists. You’re dripping down his balls and your ass, out of your fucking mind with raw need. You’ll say anything he wants, at this point. His calloused thumb-pad hovers over your clit, lips puffing out another questioning demand. “I asked you who he was and why he thought it was okay to act like your little hero, huh? He sniffin’ around you, wanting to hike up his leg for a piece of territory?”

“I need you, Gator! I want —“

His thumb grazes your clit and presses down… hard, leaving a painful ache snapping inside of your belly, but not enough to give you what you need, simply just encourage its flames. You tighten around him and he pulls out some, shaking his head. “Don’t care what you want. He’s playin’ on my turf, with my bitch. And she’s already been claimed.”

You attempt to twist your hips, but he rises onto his knees, hairy thighs pressed into the underside of your own. He’s in your face again, clicking his tongue to the roof of his mouth. “You wanna cum? You better answer my fuckin’ questions first!”

[avenirdelight]

Making An Effort (Fix This)

Son Heungmin

She flies to London to surprise Sonny. They haven't been talking after an argument that they had, where he says that she doesn't make any efforts for their long-distance relationship. [Requested]

The busy streets of London looked merry like always. People were out in the evening and the city lights were beautiful. On a normal occasion, looking at this view through the car window would usually make her feel calm and warm. But it wasn’t the case tonight, knowing that with every passing second, she was getting closer to reuniting with Sonny.

This was an impulsive decision. Very impulsive of her. But when it comes to love, sometimes you need to do things that your normal-self would call crazy. Especially when you know that you could only pull back your relationship from the brink of its ending only if you do something.

She had taken a leave from work and had booked the earliest flight she could find to London. She had travelled far and flown hundreds of miles—she’d only had restless sleep on the plane—but she was still very determined to go straight to Spurs’ stadium. She wanted to see Sonny play. She was making an effort.

They were on halftime break when she arrived. Emily, Ben’s wife, welcomed her in the family lounge with a big hug. The first thing she said to Emily was expressions of gratitude for willing to help her tonight.

“You sure you don’t want to go back to our place before dinner? We can go now and still make it in time,” Emily asked her, looking worried because she actually did look like a total mess right now. She had tried to freshen up earlier but not even her best concealer could hide those tired eyes.

“No, I’m okay. I want to see him play,” she answered. “I probably should make sure that our reservation at the restaurant is really secured.”

“Okay. Do you want some tea? Let me make you a cup of tea, yeah?”

She smiled and nodded. “That would be lovely, Emily, thank you.” She felt Emily giving her shoulder a light squeeze as she left, leaving her to make a call and run over her plan for the surprise dinner tonight.

—

She and Sonny had had an argument before the world cup. But somehow they’d just put it aside because he needed to be focused for the big tournament. They had been barely talking since. Even after the tournament had ended, she hadn’t heard anything from him at all and she had been hesitant to reach out.

“If you still want this relationship, then you must understand that I can’t be the only one making efforts.”

She remembered his words from the argument. The long distance between them was always the biggest issue. Not long after their first anniversary, she’d accepted a job abroad so for the past year they’d been living in different countries, different time-zones.

At first it was fine. But after some miscommunications, unhonesty, and lack of communication that they’d never really resolve and sometimes not even acknowledge, it became not fine. The problems had all mounted up and both of them had ended up hurting each other.

But she had had more than enough time for herself to think—to figure out where and why the downfall happened, to understand herself, and try to put herself in Sonny's shoes. She had realised that he wasn’t wrong when he said she wasn’t really making an effort. She had found the courage to admit that she hadn’t been the best partner for him.

She still loved him. And this relationship was worth fighting for. Those were the conclusions she’d gotten from her sleepless nights where she pondered about everything. With the hope that he felt the same way, she went the extra mile to fly out to where he was and try to save their relationship, reminding her that she’d used to do these extra miles to win his heart, when things had been so much simpler between them.

A couple of days ago, she’d reached out to Emily and Ben to ask for a favour. To invite Sonny to eat out and she would surprise him there. The couple, being the kind people and good friends that they were—saying that they believed that every relationship would have rough bumps and that she and Sonny deserved a chance to fix everything up—agreed to help.

She arrived at the restaurant before Sonny and the couple. She waited in the private VIP room that she’d booked. She kept shifting uncomfortably in her chair and checking her watch once every two or three minutes. She was only going to meet her own boyfriend, yet she felt ridiculously uneasy and nervous. Mostly because she knew this could either go very right or very wrong.

After what felt like forever, her phone suddenly buzzed on the table, making her heart jump. It was a message from Emily.

We’re here

She quickly stood up and went over to the mirror, making sure she looked decent. She’d had time to change into a better pair of clothes and put on more makeup; she wanted to look pretty for Sonny. It reminded her of the old days, where she would do anything to look at least presentable, because she knew that Sonny was always in public’s eyes and she wanted to look like a good pair for him.

She sat back down just in time before the door opened. Emily and Ben entered the room. She put on a smile on her face, eyes searching for the figure she was dying to see, who entered the room last.

“Surprise!” She said when Sonny finally saw her.

He stopped in his tracks, mouth agape as he realised that he wasn’t hallucinating. She was, in fact, there. Ben was making some comments, but she couldn’t hear any of them because her heart was pounding in her ears. She just stared at her boyfriend that she hadn’t seen for months.

Sonny didn’t take his eyes off her as he approached her. His face was blank, she couldn’t really tell whether he was glad to see her or not. But when she stood up, he wasted no time in pulling her into a hug.

She let out the biggest sigh of relief when he wrapped his arms around her. His hug still felt so warm, so welcoming. And truly, there was no better feeling than being embraced by the person you long for the most.

—

The four of them sat down together for a while, catching up a bit about their lives. But then the couple decided to leave despite her insisting that they should stay. They said that she and Sonny should have the time and the room all for themselves, making up for the lost times.

“What’s… What’s all this?” Sonny asked a moment after Ben and Emily left them.

“It’s just me making an effort,” she answered. “I missed you and I really wanted to see you, so… Here I am. Are you mad?”

“No, it’s just a little bit confusing. Why– Why didn’t you just call me? Tell me that you’re coming here? Thank you for the surprise, it’s nice, but– I’m just confused…”

“I’m sorry,” she said with a timid voice. “I was just scared to see you. Our last fight was… Bad. I was worried if you were still mad at me. I didn’t even know if you wanted to see me...”

“You could just call me and ask.”

She shrugged. “I was scared to even ask.”

“I’m your boyfriend…” Sonny shook his head and ran his hand through his hair frustratingly. “I feel disappointed in myself now. I couldn’t make my own girlfriend comfortable enough to talk to me... It shouldn’t be that way, innit?”

She slightly shook her head as she dropped her gaze. “But it’s on me too. I shouldn’t be scared but I do, because… I was afraid that I’d ruin our relationship even more.”

She heard Sonny letting out a heavy sigh. The next thing he did was reach out for her hand—he held it and gave it light strokes with his thumb. She just stared at their linked hands. The corners of her lips perked up ever so slightly without her even realising, as she felt a bit of relief washing down on her.

“It’s my fault too… I’m sorry for every hurtful word that I said to you,” Sonny started. “Babe, look at me.” She raised her head up and met his gaze. Her heart clenched when she noticed the regret written all over his face. “I’m sorry for saying you don’t care about us anymore, that you don’t make any efforts for us. I was selfish. I asked you for attention and I blamed you because you didn’t give me the attention that I wanted. But I didn't try to understand that you’re struggling too.”

She nodded. “It’s understandable. When we weren’t speaking, I had enough time to reflect on everything,” she said, shifting her gaze between his eyes and their linked hands. “I got to live my dream, I got to be independent like I’ve always wanted, but I got too comfortable. I detached myself from you… And I’ve realised that it’s not right. It’s not what I want.”

“It’s okay…”

“It’s not okay, babe, I– I lied and hid things from you. I tried to make things easier for us, maybe mostly for me. I got tired and felt like it’s okay for you not to know some things. It was wrong. I’m sorry.”

Sonny let go of her hand and her heart dropped for a second. She watched on as he got up from his chair and walked around the table. When she realised what he was going to do, she got up too and a second later, she was wrapped around his arms.

She couldn’t hold back her sudden tears, they rolled down her cheeks, and eventually fell onto his shirt dampening it. It seemed like Sonny realised that she was crying because he started stroking her back and her head, also planting small kisses on the side of her head. He let her cry and she honestly appreciated it. All this time she’d been crying alone, it felt nice to be able to cry whilst being embraced by him again—just like how it used to be—and she could just finally let everything out.

After a while, Sonny loosened his arms and he searched for her face. He held her face and erased her tears with his fingers before he leaned down to place a gentle kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you for coming here, yeah? I really appreciate your effort. I love you, baby,” Sonny said with all sincerity. She couldn’t help to let out a sob, more tears fell from her eyes. “I’m sorry that our relationship became a mess but I know that I love you. Now let’s fix this. Me and you.”

“Together?”

“Yes. Together. I promise I will always be there for you this time.”

She softly nodded. “I love you too,” she whispered.

Sonny smiled as they gazed into each other’s eyes. She slowly felt like her chest was getting less and less heavy. They definitely still have so many things to talk about and obviously look for the solutions to fix their mess, but for now, she just wanted to be held by him and stare deep into his beautiful eyes.

They just needed to stay like that, reminding themselves why they loved each other, why this relationship was worth fighting for. This was just another hardship that they could overcome, because they believed that their love was stronger than they knew.

—

finally a sonny angst!! i revamped this fic THRICE, took longer than it should (i feel so bad😭). i made it too complicated, so i got very stressed out, but i think this is the best that i could come up with. i hope you liked it!

[son heungmin tag list: @smileytaa @delicateearthquakellama @luvelyxp @chicken-fifi @alotofrandomfangirling @natsuzoku @muglermami @landosmilkjug @koufaxx @charlesxavierenthusiast]

if you want to be on my tag list, please fill in this form.

My Masterlist🤍

[delgado-master]

One of the funniest things about living in a big city is I’m like “I tried to hook up with someone at the local dr who convention, which is actually the second biggest dr who convention in the country.” I failed. Everyone was too old to be interested in little old me. Ant with a bindle. Although I did romance a couple girls for tickets. But I only won from my own ticket lmao

[katelynnwrites]

Hopefully BNG bid for the next WWC it’s way more reasonable than USA and Mexico or USA Mexico and Canada. I’m American and living on the east coast most of the games they would host would be on the west coast and in areas where everything is far too expensive. We also don’t have the transportation really to go from country to country or even state to state in a reasonable time. But then again it’s FIFA anything that is logical and would bring more money and eyes to the sport is always overlooked simply because of the bids made one countries federation. It’s truly dumb especially when looking at the bigger picture and how much he likes to tell the women to prove themselves. Like dude host it in places and countries where transportation won’t be the biggest issue or where Idk human rights are being violated and taken away left and right. This is why I don’t understand men they think small and don’t look at the big overall picture. While I’m happy it’s in Brazil (Brazil needs the boost) I just think it would have been bigger and better in BNG and would have brought more attention and a different atmosphere to the games. I bet the one after will be hosted by the US and Mexico (unfortunately because again FIFA will look at the bid but not the logical money maker)

i agree with you, safe, reliable and affordable transportation definitely plays a big part. not only for the players and staff but for the travelling fans as well. the public transport available definitely needs to be efficient because it contributes significantly to the overall experience the fans get.

take this most recent wwc for example. idk about the rest of the hosting cities but when i was in melbourne, it took only 20 minutes to get from the city centre to the stadium via public transport. it was the same for the reverse trip and that definitely made it a good experience for me because i didn't have to worry unnecessarily about the travelling logistics. there were also plenty of staff who did the directing so that the whole process went smoothly for everyone.

now i come from singapore which has extensive public transportations. you can literally get to anywhere within the country in under an hour, an hour and a half at a stretch, via the public transport. the government prides itself on it and has invested millions if not billions over the years. my point is that i'm not easy to impress and i was impressed with how melbourne worked the transportation out.

now that they're confirmed as the host, hopefully brazil are prepared to work their transportation out too and develop it sufficiently if necessary. the rest of the infrastructure, eg. stadiums and training facilities for the players as well. given how much the women's game is growing, it's only right that they do so.

i'm really glad that south america finally gets a chance to host a wwc because they completely deserve to. it will be great for their tourism and will definitely help showcase their players on a whole, not just legends like marta.

but as you said, fifa definitely ignores important issues like human rights and lgbtq+ rights in favour of money. the 2022 men's world cup in qatar clearly showed that.

however, unfortunately or fortunately, at the end of the day, fifa's decision has already been made and all we can do as fans now is simply hope that brazil and fifa invests properly in the 2027 wwc to make it a brilliant experience for all. it's what the players and fans deserve.

[nanaosaki3940]

Touya [The Crimson Butterfly]

Synopsis: It wasn’t until he met her for the first time that their encounter made him believe that the world is just as beautiful as her. She was brighter than the summer sun, prettier than the spring flowers, kinder than the winter moon & warmer than his blue flames. She was his first and only love, his life, his biggest fan, his supporter, his playmate, his healer, his everything... Even after his supposed ‘death’.

|| My Hero Academia ft. Tokyo Ghoul || (Follows the canon storyline of MHA & is up-to-date with the manga.) 

Pairing: Touya Todoroki X OC/Reader X Shoto Todoroki

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Angst. 

Note: Shoto and my OC are of the same age (16 yrs old) and Dabi/Touya is 8 yrs older than them (24 yrs old) - Just like how it is in the manga.

(A snippet of my MHA fanfic "The Crimson Butterfly". I know this is an xOC fic, but you can read it as a self-insert if you like.)

Nana’s POV (The fateful day: The beginning of the 2nd War)

Around 10 AM this morning, Midoriya and I made our way towards an abandoned city outside UA to meet up with Aoyama. When we finally reached the designated spot, we found our blonde friend standing alone in the middle of a huge parking lot in front of a shopping mall. 

"Thank you for coming..." Aoyama greeted us in a quiet yet monotone voice with a dull look in his eyes as Midoriya and I flew down from the sky and landed just a few feet away from him on the ground. 

"Why are you out here, Aoyama? Weren’t you being detained?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. 

"My parents’ lawyer got me released..." Aoyama replied and this brought a big smile to Midoriya's face. 

"We gotta tell everyone!" Midoriya stated in relief, turning around to leave. "We can rejoin the search effort and-"

"Wait..." Aoyama spoke up again, causing Midoriya to halt on his spot while I stared at the blonde boy with a skeptical look. "I’d like to speak to you two. It’s almost funny… That courts and the illegal system still exist despite Japan being in ruins. With society as it is now, would the old ways of living really get you anywhere?"

"What do you mean Aoyama?" I asked with furrowed eyebrows, crossing my arms over my chest. 

"Let me tell you All For One’s real goal..." Aoyama continued and this got our full attention. "With the state Japan's in... do you know what’s become of the rest of the world? The sudden crash in the value of the Yen… forced Japanese corporations into bankruptcy. That, plus the coordinated uprisings of villains caused the damage to spread worldwide. Now the world faces a crisis much like the Great Depression or the period around the advent of quirks. Record unemployment, loss of faith in currencies… an era of total chaos."

"What are you talking about, Aoyama?" Midoriya asked, getting a bit uncomfortable with this talk. 

"Lacking the strength to implement long-term policies, Japan's society devolves into one scrambling for short-term safety. While the nations who have abandoned Japan prioritize their own stability. In such a world imagine a country lacking potable water. Imagine if a quirk capable of producing that water were to suddenly appear. Or electricity or gas. Or strength. As the world is plunged into this state of chaotic decline, we suddenly have an arena ripe for a certain remarkable individual to take the initiative. he would become the world's arbiter; its very own Demon Lord. He only had to rock that balance somewhere. It didn’t matter how." Aoyama added. 

AFO's ultimate plan is... Capitalism... To become a World Bank?!

Like seriously?! You gotta be fucking kidding me!!

"I don’t think so… The world would never go along with that." I countered back in a strong tone. 

"Nana-chan's right. Besides the world still has us!" Midoriya added. 

"True. Which is why it all has to end here." Aoyama stated with a saddened face and teary eyes, his voice cracking in the end as a certain someone emerged from behind him. "I’m sorry. Alas, I had to protect Mama and Papa." 

"All For One!!" Midoriya and I gasped out in unison, shocked, our eyes widened in the process. 

"Splendidly done, Yuga Aoyama." AFO stated, clapping his hands who was in formal attire with a black skull mask covering his whole head. "How terrifying it must have been to turn on your friends like this. How heartrending, to betray someone who put their faith in you. But you overcame the fear and pain! And that speech about my ultimate goal? Wonderful! Wrong in some of the details but that's fine. Did your parents explain it all to you?" 

"Yes..." Aoyama replied in a trembling tone with tears rolling down his cheeks as he held a remorseful look on his face. "They said you promised us a blessed existence in your new world." 

"Aoyama, did you really betray us again?!" I yelled out through my gritted teeth, clenching my fists in anger and frustration. "How could you?!"

"We believed in you dammit!!" Midoriya cried out, panicking. 

"My pain cannot be measured…" Aoyama trailed off before suddenly he turned around and blasted AFO with his Navel Laser. "By that singular word 'uncle'!!" 

And right on cue, Midoriya immediately let out a large amount of his smokescreen to block AFO's view, and taking the chance, Aoyama quickly moved away from his previous spot and hid behind me for protection. AFO was caught off guard by the sudden attack before he figured out what just happened. It was just all a fake play to lure out the Demon Lord from his hideout. 

"Ungrateful little…" AFO grumbled out through his gritted teeth. 

"That was such a believable performance, Aoyama!" Midoriya praised the blonde boy. 

"Yeah, excellent job!" I added with a wide smirk on my face, coming out from my previous facade as I stood protectively in front of him. "You're gonna win an Oscar for this Aoyama!"

"I had no choice! Otherwise, we could not have lured him here!" Aoyama cried out from behind me, still trembling in fear. "And I must say, both of your actings were tour-de-force as well!"

"We couldn’t help it once your tears started flowing." Midoriya chuckled out as he and I got into our fighting stance once the smokescreen started to dissipate away. 

"The tears are real! I truly am scared! In fact, I think I may have wet myself!" Aoyama cried again. 

"You did great, Aoyama!" I reassured him once again, my eyes now locked on the floating form of AFO. 

"This is for Mama and Papa! For all of my friends and for myself! I shall fight AFO!" Aoyama declared with all his determination. 

"Disappointing." AFO sighed in annoyance before taking off his coat and just then using his Warping quirk, he began to summon the League of Villains, Paranormal Liberation Front, and Nomus all at the same time which included Touya, Tenko, and Toga. "Trap or not, Ghoul and One for all is here within reach. The Search quirk tells the user the location and weaknesses of those they see. And heroes Tomura saw in the previous conflict are deployed and dispersed across the country. They will not make it in time to assist you. They didn’t happen to notice that my people were drawing near! And now I’m afraid they are entirely too late!!" 

My heart skipped a beat when I locked my eyes with Touya who just walked out of the gooey warp gate and landed on the ground. 

He's here... Touya's here... He's finally here... 

His beautiful bluish-turquoise eyes went wide open a bit upon noticing my presence while his instant sorrowful expression didn't go overlooked by me when we gazed at each other from afar before he decided to turn his head away from me and break the eye contact. As I continued to stare at Touya with hope and yearning, I noticed the new outfit he was wearing at that moment; a tattered overcoat, boots, and pants all colored white, with bracers on the sleeves and a belt on his waist. His new outfit also lacked a shirt underneath which caused him to expose his chest. 

"What act of sluttery is he wearing?" I mumbled to myself, a small blush appearing on my cheeks as I scanned Touya from head to toe, trying hard not to facepalm. "Did he seriously decide to walk into this war like a whore?" 

Although my words didn't go unheard by Midoriya and the poor green-haired boy tried his best not to burst out into a fit of laughter. I also noticed Tenko looking the same, not to mention even worse; completely topless, in a pair of black pants, his traditional red shoes, and a long ragged-looking cape hanging on his shoulders.

What the hell is up with these villains and their fashion sense these days...?

"Mama and Papa told me something else…" Aoyama spoke up again, causing me to snap out of my trance. "They told me what it is you fear most, AFO. You fear the world learning that Japan isn’t finished yet. You feel the light and hope that will come with recovery. And you fear Japan inspiring the world to unite once more. So today is the day and this is the place where you fall!!" 

And just then AFO got alerted when he suddenly noticed a black mist appearing behind Midoriya which happened to be Kurogiri's quirk, confusing the Demon Lord to no end and soon realized who it actually was; it was none other than Monoma from Class 1-B who copied the misty warping gate quirk and now using it to bring out the heroes from our side. 

"Didn't see that coming, huh AFO?! Suck, doesn't it?!" I taunted him as Endeavor, Mirko, Fat Gum, Edgeshot, Tamaki senpai, Nejire senpai, Gang Orca and the others appeared by our side. 

And so the rumbling begins!!!

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!! The man behind the curtain!!" Monoma laughed hysterically, being all full of himself like always, as he brought out more and more heroes from the warp gate. 

"Just as expected, he's brought his army along!" Detective Tsukauchi stated out through the comms from the headquarters (The Central Hospital). "All squads, take action!" 

"If he steals Ghoul and OFA, he'll have no need to run and hide ever again! They'll attempt to bring it all to an end right now!" All Might pointed out from beside Tsukauchi. 

As we the Heroes and Villains all charged toward each other, Tenko touched the ground, only to notice something peculiar, so commanded Touya to attack.

"Dabi..." Tenko called out.

"You ain’t the boss of me, leader!" Touya shouted back before he dashed straight toward Endeavor, his hands already ignited with his blue flames. "Fancy running into you here, dear old dad!! Come to watch your pals get cremated?!"

Touya was prepared to burn everyone with his fire and as soon as he shot out a huge gush of his flames toward the heroes, a large explosion of ice appeared from the misty warp gate and canceled out his fire; emerging from another warp gate, Shoto and our whole Class 1-A just joined the battle. 

"Not on my watch, Baka Aniki!!" Shoto yelled out. 

"Shoto!!" Touya yelled back in excitement, getting all pumped up. 

"Like cockroaches…" AFO groaned out in annoyance and just then, among the sea of villains, I noticed the ones I needed to go up against; Shuu Tsukiyama and Rize Kamishiro, all decked up and ready to fight like always. 

"It's been a while, Nana-kun!!" Tsukiyama shouted out with a huge grin on his face as he and Rize dashed their way toward me. 

"How many years now?! Almost 3 years, right?!" Rize added, unleashing her Rinkaku kagune from her back. 

"Oh, how I've been itching all these many years just to finish you guys off!" I taunted back and immediately unleashed both of my Rinkaku and Ukaku kagune while bringing out my scythe. "Time for payback for what you guys did to me 3 years back!!" 

"Operation Troy-Tempt and Trap!! Activate!!" All Might commanded through the comms.  

Upon his commands, suddenly, the ground beneath us started to shake violently before cages emerged from beneath the battlefield, surrounding all the villains in individual metal containers and as soon as the villains were being trapped in those metal cages, Monoma began to summon several more warp gates around the cages while we the Heroes prepared ourselves to shove them all in, to split up the villains.

"Cages? They can’t be serious!" Touya commented before getting trapped into one of the cages. 

"I’m pulling these strings!! Everyone now! Shove them in!!" Monoma ordered us before looking over at me. "Osaki!! Use your repulsive force now!!" 

"Roger!!" I replied and started to use the Repulsive force technique of my Gravity Manipulation quirk to push the metal cages into their respective warp gates. 

"This cage is moving?! They really think this tin can is gonna hold us?!" one of the villains cried out. 

"Break it open! Quickly!" Toga screamed out from inside her cage. 

As I continued to push the cages into the warp gates, Touya suddenly used his flames to melt down the metallic container he was trapped in before trying to get out from there. 

"Your pathetic cages didn’t even last three whole seconds!" Touya mocked and just then Shoto and his gang appeared in front of him to push him into their respective warp gate. 

"3 seconds is all we needed!" Shoto countered back as the two brothers began to attack each other with their flames while submerging into the gate. 

"Lock them down for an instant! Break them into smaller groups! Seize the slightest advantage! All of this to shove you into those warp gates all at once and split you up without fail!!" All Might continued through the comms once again. 

"Deku!" Bakugo called out to Midoriya as he headed towards Tenko. 

"Yep!" Midoriya responded and began to follow the explosive blonde. 

"Ahahahahaha! I’m the mover and shaker!!" Monoma continued to laugh while still keeping Kurogiri's quirk activated.

Among us heroes, Uraraka and Tsuyu headed towards Toga's direction while Kaneki and Ayato joined by my side a few seconds later to go after Rize and Tsukiyama. Just as we all were about to enter our respective warp gates, an unusual occurrence happened. From two different warp gates, two whips came out and grabbed me and Midoriya individually by our wrists. And before we could even realize what was happening, we were being pulled away from our respective comrades. 

"What the?!" I gasped out in shock. 

"Huh?!" Midoriya gasped out as well in confusion. 

"Nana!!" Kaneki called out in worry as he tried to reach out and grab me but failed. 

"Nana-Nee!!" Ayato called out as well in concern. 

"Huh?! Oi, Deku!!" Bakugo called out to the green-haired boy but it was already too late. 

Both Midoriya and I were pulled into two separate warp gates which we weren't supposed to enter. After entering the unknown scene, I immediately landed on the ground as soon as I passed through the gate and began to look around to see where I actually was; Ground Zero in Kamino Ward. 

What?! Ground Zero?! Why am I here?! Shit!!

I was supposed to be on the other side of the Kamino City with Ken and Ayato, facing off against Rize and Tsukiyama!! 

"They are divided! Now we shift to phase two!" All Might commanded through the comms again. 

"Nana?!" familiar voices called out my name in shock, causing me to turn around and face them; it was Shoto, Iida, and Endeavor's sidekicks (Burnin, Kido, and Onima). 

"What are you doing here?" Shoto asked in surprise. "Weren't you suppose to be with Kaneki and Ayato?" 

"I was, but..." I trailed off in confusion before looking down at the wrist where the whip was still wrapped around. 

"Sorry, Babydoll." a familiar deep masculine voice spoke up from just a few feet away from us and we all looked over at the man himself; Touya, smirking down at me while firmly holding the other end of the whip. "Couldn't let you go so easily, you know... You're just too precious." 

"Touya... but how?" I asked in confusion, furrowing my eyebrows a bit. 

"That crazy woman gave it to me, said it might come in handy. Hate to admit it, but she was right." Touya replied, referring to Toga as 'the crazy woman', causing me to click my tongue in frustration as I unwrapped my wrist from his whip before the news was sent to us by Tsukauchi through the comms that Midoriya was warped to an aquarium, alongside Gang Orca, Uraraka and Tsuyu by Toga using her whip. 

"So, Izuku isn't with Katsuki and Jeanist at the UA High right now, huh? That sucks." I stated in a calming tone though I was kinda panicking from the inside before I looked back at Touya and locked gazes with him. "Looks like I'm stuck here with you, for now, Touya."  

This wasn't supposed to happen...

I wasn't supposed to fight Touya...

What should I do now?!

"Indeed, Doll-face..." Touya agreed in a mocking tone as he climbed up on the All Might victory statue before unleashing his blue flames around us, causing us to get into our fighting stance at once. "So, now... where were we?"

Fuck!! This is bad!! This is really, really bad!! 

Right now, Shoto, Iida, and I were at Ground Zero in Kamino Ward, where Touya was completely burning everyone down in a fire tornado while being accompanied by a spiky Near High-End Nomu, dwindling down our accompanying heroes.

"There are already so few heroes left and you are losing more by the minute..." Touya stated in a calming tone, glancing around with a bored look in his eyes while hanging onto the All Might victory statue as he began to reminiscence on the current event being similar to the Hosu Incident. "Let’s see, we have got a Nomu in a raging sea of fire. This is really bringing back memories even if it wasn't that long ago. Seeing that battle in Hosu spurred me to take action, you know?" 

"Nana! Shoto!" Iida yelled out in concern from outside the ring of Touya's fire tornado as he couldn't get any closer to us or else the fire would damage his engines. 

While Shoto and the others could resist the fire and the heat, I, on the other hand, was using the Repulsive Force of my Gravity Manipulation quirk to push back the flames away from me. Using this repulsive force as a defense, I could repel nearby opponents or attacks without breaking a sweat like for example I could use this force to disperse flame attacks which could also strike the user back. But in this case, I wasn't doing that because my intention was not to attack or hurt Touya. It was just to protect myself from his flames. 

"The sheer heat! It's extraordinary!" I commented in surprise yet amazement while Endeavor's sidekicks used their quirks to absorb Touya's hot flames as much as they could for now. 

"Oops, sorry. Just yapping away to myself." Touya stated, letting out a sigh as he propelled himself up into the air by shooting out flames from under his feet. "Once again, he won't pay me any attention. It really bums me out that all I get is his third son and his three merry helpers. Is that really his answer to me?"

"You keep back, Kido. Your body's got no way to withstand the heat." Onima stated, looking back at his comrade. 

"I’m good. You know I can alter the trajectory of anything so I have just gotta make all that heat air swerve around me. Nothing new for me. Keep a cool head and go about it logically. That’s how I have done it for a whole decade. Just like always. I’m here to follow our main man’s orders because I want to." Kido replied while doing his job. 

"His family drama may be a can of worms, but Endeavor shows up and gets the job done, even if he does stink like an old fart!" Burnin commented, frowning up at Touya before looking back at me and Shoto. "And that includes today! And now he has handed off us three junior stinkers to you! So you have got our full support, kid! You too, Nana-chan!"

"Thanks for that Burnin." Shoto responded back, his gaze locked onto Touya. 

"No thanks needed! Save your energy!" Burnin joked with her signature laugh. 

"Touya… Dabi…" Shoto carefully called out, furrowing his eyebrows in the process. "You have got it all wrong. I’m not here on anyone’s orders. I’m standing here now because I made the decision to stop you."

"Stellar job, being the perfect little pawn Dad always dreamed of." Touya mocked his little brother as smoke came out of his mouth. 

And this caused me to get worried even more. Months ago, back at our fight in Jaku City, Touya wasn't covered with as many burns marks as he was covered right now. As I carefully observed his new scars and burn marks in concern, I realized that his body was burning away even more as he continued to use his quirk wildly. My chest tightened and my heart hammered hard against my chest in concern. In concern for his wellbeing. 

"If I ignored you and kept trying to be a hero anyway that just might be true..." Shoto replied in a strong tone. 

"Hey, fair enough…" Touya stated casually with a shrug. "This war is all about the people involved. It’s not the mindless soldiers following orders who are the real movers and shakers. This is what happens when everyone's got feelings and urges that start firing off. Some wanna change the world they live in. Or destroy… The warped imbalances built up over time that we all just came to accept. Behold, the limitations of a superpowered society. That's me. That’s all of us." 

"Touya..." I called out in a soft tone with small tears forming in the corner of my eyes, causing him to look over at me. "Please stop this. You're burning yourself alive." 

"I don't care anymore, Babydoll. I just really don't care..." he replied in a monotone voice with no trace of emotion in his voice, aching my heart even more and this frustrated me to no end.  

"Why are you being so stubborn like this, huh? Though, to be fair, you had always been a stubborn guy. But, that raises my question... You survived back then… So, why didn’t you come back home?" I asked, frowning at him and Touya let out a chuckle in amusement. 

"You really wanna know, Doll? Fine. Happy to share. Rotten or not, I’m still your Touya." Touya replied with a grin as his already burned flesh around the right side of his face began to crumble and fall off, leaving him horribly disfigured while a portion of his jaw and teeth, as well as muscles and tendons, were now visible and his burns continued to spread around his face, leaving me shocked and concerned. "Here is the story of how I became Dabi…  and the reason I’m still alive and kicking to tell the tale… Even when I never stopped burning hotter than you, Shoto, his masterpiece!" 

~~~~~

Flashback (11 years earlier, at Sekoto peak)

'Hot! It’s so hot!!' a 13-year-old Touya thought to himself in pain and agony as he continued to burn himself to a crisp on top of Mt. Sekoto while burning everything else around him to ashes. 'No, no, no! I don’t wanna die!! I still haven’t… I still haven’t shown him anything! And Nana-chan?! Oh, Nana-chan! I can't leave her behind just like this!! I wanna live a long life with her!!' 

Desperate while on the verge of death, Touya frantically began to run around in the midst of the ocean of his own flames to find any source of water to extinguish the fire on his body before finding a lake nearby and jumping into it to quell the flames. And soon after when Touya lost consciousness and laid there in the water all burned and crisped, almost turned into charcoal, his charred body was later discovered on the very spot by the Demon Lord himself, AFO. 

After this, three whole years passed by before the white-haired Todoroki boy finally woke up from his long comatose. A 16-year-old Touya let out a gasp before snapping his eyes wide open and the first thing that came to his view was a white ceiling. Shocked and confused, he immediately sat up and looked around at his surrounding while trying to figure out what was happening right now. He found himself laying on a bed and with all these childish decorations around him, he realized that he was in a nursery school. 

'Where am I? I’m alive…?' he thought to himself as he walked down the hallway before entering a room full of kids younger than him. 

"Oh! he’s awake!" A young girl with short hair stated gleefully, causing the others to shift their attention towards him while Touya stared at them in pure confusion. 

"Sleepyhead is awake!" another little girl with long hair added with a bright smile on her face.

"Where are we?" Touya finally spoke up before halting himself from speaking any further. 

'Was that really my voice?' he thought in shock, realizing how deep and manly he sounded just now. 

"This is where we live, silly!" the short-haired girl replied with a giggle while the long-haired girl rushed towards the other room to fetch their sensei. "It’s um… three years, sleepyhead! You were asleep for three whole years! At least that’s what sensei told me… since I haven’t been here all that long!" 

Touya immediately went rigid on the spot upon hearing those words, his eyes went wide open in shock and disbelief.  

'Three years? How? What happened? What’s going on? I was on Sekoto peak and then… I burned up and… I have to get home!'

"We can’t have that now can we, sunny?" the sensei (creepy-looking dude with a sunflower head and a buffed body) stated with a bright smile as he and Touya were now in an office room, talking about the situation. 

"Why not?!" Touya asked in confusion. 

"From now on you live here with everyone!" the sensei replied, still with a smiling face. "Your very own place under the sun! They're your new family! You'll come to love it, as sure as the sun does rise!"

"Huh? That can't be!" Touya argued back in desperation, tears forming in his eyes as his voice began to tremble. "I gotta get home! I bet that Dad… was just too busy with work to come see me, right? Probably? Yeah, he must be really worried! Those were some awful things I did and said. I should apologize to Mom and everyone. And Dad still needs to see what I can do. And above all, Nana-chan is waiting for me! I need to go and see Nana-chan!" 

And just then a very deep yet eerie masculine voice spoke up from a computer on a table beside them. It was AFO. 

"Sadly your hope is in vain." AFO stated and Touya looked at the screen of the computer in confusion. "Restoring your burnt and broken body was a monumental task. Your missing pieces had to be replaced via regenerative tissue. You’re a changed man with that burnt rictus look on your face and yet you survived."

"I’m changed? I don't get… what you're saying…" Touya trailed off as he put a hand on his throat, suddenly getting worried. 

"You’ll never exhibit the power you once did. Every organ was damaged. Your senses, your ability to feel pain, all dulled. Your body is debilitated. And you will never be the same again." AFO replied, causing Touya to put a hand over his own mouth, horrified. "But alas, despite our best efforts, we wanted to welcome you in at your full strength… We failed." 

And the word 'failure' caused Touya to fall into even more despair, breaking and crumbling his soul and spirit into pieces as he began to recall what Enji used to call him back then over and over again; a failure. 

"You must be suffering, you poor thing." AFO continued, using his sympathetic voice to lure Touya. "But, I must just be able to restore your flames at their full glory! Well, what do you say? Will you join our family and allow me to raise you?" 

"Shut up…" Touya hissed out through his gritted teeth, looking down at the ground while covering his face with a hand as he viciously denied the Demon Lord. 

"Hmm?" AFO hummed out in confusion before the white-haired Todoroki boy looked up at the computer with fury and hatred in his eyes. 

"No way am I getting trained by anyone else." Touya added with finality in his voice, showcasing his unhealthy obsession with his father Enji Todoroki aka Endeavor. 

And with that Touya somehow managed to escape from the nursery school after burning the whole place down with his own blue flames. Later he did go back home, and even though his body was weaker and he didn't have anything to look forward to anymore, he wanted to see if anything changed. However, seeing his butsudan (funeral altar) in his old bedroom, and Endeavor's continued abuse toward Shoto, reminded him of his purpose as a failed creation, and his family had already left him behind.

Flashback ended 

~~~~~

3rd Person's POV (At a prison)

"I suppose, the big day has begun then?" Dr. Kyudai Garaki (aka Dr. Ujiko) spoke up in a tired tone from inside his cell causing a gorilla police officer who was standing down the hallway to frown at his words. 

"Be quiet." the cop ordered. 

"You are light on guards today. So it’s pretty obvious." Garaki pointed out. "All to prepare for today. That's why we sought out twisted raw material born into this world. Warped seeds that could serve as his vessel. That one too was born with some cracks in him. No, maybe, from the very start, it wasn’t just cracks... Maybe that boy was born with everything." 

And with that, the doctor began to tell the exact same story of Touya Todoroki to the police officer. 

"He had already been too molded by his upbringing for us to lead him astray. He was already festering away inside. Even the man who had known absolute control far and wide couldn't exploit the boy’s obsession with his father. Those kids were our spares, in case anything happened to Tomura Shigaraki. A seedbed of ferocity and hatred. One full of vessels for the demon king. Dabi as one of those spares was a failed experiment." Garaki went on.

"How despicable!" The cop grumbled in disgust. "No, never mind! What are you even trying to say?! More crap about how AFO had everything planned out from the start?"

"I’m saying they'd better watch out. ‘Cause that one boy never did buy what we were selling. Nah, we gave up on Dabi and let him run loose cause after his body came back to life and he was up and about, he wasn't supposed to live for more than a month. What a surprise, when the broker Giran brought him back to our doorstep. Why had he come back? How was he still alive? I had to know what Dabi was really thinking, so I arranged a moment when we would be alone just the two of us..." Garaki continued as he referred to their meeting where he and Touya went to meet the Near High-End Nomu, Hood in one of their hideouts; the same Nomu that was taken down by Nana, Endeavor, and Hawks back at Kyushu. 

"Ujiko-san, you're the one who kept me alive right?" Touya asked as he stared down at Hood in front of him. 

"Why I’m tickled pink that you realized!" Garaki chuckled. "Now tell me, what's been keeping you kicking?"

"Seeing this walking corpse here gives me a decent idea of what you people were planning to do with me. And I’m back now… because this seemed like the perfect place for my funeral." Touya stated before looking back at Garaki over his shoulder with a murderous glare in his eyes, sending a strong shiver down the doctor's spine. 

"That one glimpse told me everything. He had kept his dying body tethered to this world through a pure blazing grudge." Garaki stated. "Heat is energy born of living things as they move and thrive. AFO who seeks to live forever had no use for that mad heat, rushing headlong toward death. The Demon Lord himself had to abandon that frenzied flame of death." 

Nana's POV (Back at Ground Zero)

I stared at Touya with wide eyes and a dropped jaw upon hearing the story from him. 

AFO saved Touya and recovered him to almost full health?! 

Touya was in a coma for three years?! 

Touya was a replacement in case Tenko couldn't become the next successor of AFO?! 

But they saw him as a failure because of his quirk and his body, so they wanted to use him in their Nomu program instead?! 

Thank God Touya ran away from there before anything bad happened to him...

'Cause for sure that the potato-headed bastard would've used him and turned him into a Nomu...

"Nana, Shoto, I did come home actually..." Touya spoke up again as his fire started to grow even more in comparison to size, strength, and temperature. "Even though I was weaker than ever and there was no way that what I was hoping for was there. I still just wanted to be seen… but then… but I was sure something must have changed… that’s all I wanted to see. Instead, I was shown once more… after three years away, I witnessed that old familiar scene. The reason I was born. The fact is, as a failed creation, my life had been pointless. this family had left me behind in their past."

Touya started to fly higher and higher into the sky and began to emit larger flames from his whole arms, burning his skin even more. 

"When you surpass your limits… it’s like everything you have built up is flipped around upside down. I focused on honing my flames so I won’t be so weak when next we met. This body of mine kept peeling away and falling to pieces but I never felt a thing. You want battle moves? I have seen them all, over and over." Touya went on and my eyes widened in concern, seeing him burning himself up even more. 

"Kids! Listen, I think-" Onima shouted out worriedly.  

"Yeah, he has been prepared to die from the start!" Shoto added with a frowned face through his gritted teeth, getting ready to counterattack. 

"Touya!! Please just stop already!!" I cried out in desperation, but all my words fell deaf in his ears. 

"Every time that thing saved the city, every time that thing got a boost in popularity, my heart kept pounding away!! Ever since the day that Touya died and Dabi was born!!" Touya continued, getting ready to launch an attack called 'Flashfire Heatfist' as he stomped over All Might's statue, melting it down in the process. "Once I have burned away all that that thing holds near and dear, that will be the mark I have left on this world!!" 

"Like I said, Baka Aniki, not on my watch!!" Shoto responded back, putting his hands together to create an attack. 

Ultimate move, Flash Firefist; it builds up internal heat to the maximum threshold before unleashing it as an attack. It’s the peak manifestation of fire achieved by a young Endeavor. When Endeavor mastered this move in his quest for power, he came to understand his own limitations and that fire produced a shimmering heat haze that warped and distorted all that he gazed upon.

"All right! That little chat has got me pumped for this! Thanks for listening to my tale!" Touya yelled out, getting all pumped up before looking over at me for a split second. "Now Babydoll, step aside! This battle here is between me and my little brother!" 

Touya doesn't wanna fight me...? 

Also, he’s faster than Shoto at raising his temperature! There is no hint of hesitation!

A huge ocean of blue flames surrounded us while Touya standing on top of a melting All Might statue was looking like a walking, talking inferno.

"Now that I’m thinking about it with a cool head, even if Dad ain’t here, you’ll make for some prime kindling all the same, little brother!" Touya stated as he continued to shoot more and more fire around us, trapping us inside a firey tsunami. 

"I’m the one who'll stop you!" Shoto yelled back, still controlling his fire and ice sides. 

"Hey, now, don't get the wrong idea! I’ve got some legit thoughts about you too, Shoto!" Touya countered back, ready to finally launch his attack. "It began when I worked on boosting weakened flames. Turning up the firepower was all I knew. 'Your potential surpasses my own'; that's what he had said. That encouraged me. The numbing of my body stripped away my limitations which was ideal, following his lead with max output." 

"Nana, get away from here!!" Shoto and Burning shouted out, pushing me behind them. 

"Flashfire Fist: Hell Spider!!" Touya unleashed his attack, sending a wide array of fire spirals all outside the tornado. "Are you a fan of All Might, Shoto?!" 

Touya's Hell Spider attack was similar to what Endeavor once used on the Nomu called Hood back at Kyushu, but his flames were rawer and more intense. Touya's firepower and the heat were so strong, just the sheer strength of his quirk overwhelmed me to no end, leaving me completely stunned and speechless. I always knew Touya had the potential to surpass his own father, but I had never imagined that he would grow this powerful and strong, and that amazed yet scared me all at the same time. 

"Incoming!!" Burnin and the others announced, getting ready to stop Touya's attack. 

"Hot! Hot! Is that Endeavor's move?!" heroes who were fighting that big spiky Nomu yelled out. 

"So much thicker though… and so haphazard!" someone else added. 

"Ready yet, Shoto?!" Burnin asked. 

"I am!" Shoto replied, ready to launch his attack. 

But just then with the help of my Ghoul quirk sensing ability, I sensed Touya's speed blitzing and slid behind Shoto with the help of his flames in a matter of seconds, almost melting the ground with his fire in the process, before the bi-color-haired boy could even do anything as a counterattack. 

So fast! The Hell Spider was a smokescreen!!

"Shoto, behind you!! Watch out!!" I shouted out as a warning but it was already too late. 

"One thing I just gotta ask, Shoto. What was the look on your face..." Touya yelled out before launching a firey punch on Shoto and hitting him right on the face, causing Shoto to fly way back from where he originally was. "While you were holed up at UA with all those scared little civilians?!" 

Touya then immediately dashed forward and continued his assault on Shoto by throwing a series of fiery punches and kicks at his little brother with no sign or intention of stopping or whatsoever. 

"Son of Endeavor, brother of Dabi… Calamity incarnate, concentrated down into a boy-sized package!! A worthless mix of fire and ice!! Awful brazen of ya, Shoto!! Have you no shame at all?!" Touya asked as blue flames started to come out of his mouth like a dragon while he continued to mock Shoto even more. 

"Shoto!!" Burnin yelled out in concern. "That’s more firepower than even Endeavor can boast! But if he keeps the heat dialed up like that…"

"Blessed with the ideal body and ushered into a place where you could shine bright, but still, you depend on everyone else!! The boy born with everything! But you sure don't capitalize on it!! Can't even man enough to own it!! No one's willing to say it to your face, so allow me!! You're a feckless, half-baked puppet!! You’ll never make a damn thing of yourself!!" Touya continued as he unleashed a beam-looking Jet Burn attack like a strong fiery punch that blasted Shoto up in the air and launched him directly into a building; an attack so strong that the whole building shook and slightly bend back after Shoto crashed into it. 

"Oh my god, Shoto!" I cried out in concern. 

At that moment, I was amazed and scared all at once. It was a very weird feeling, something that I couldn't explain to myself. Amazed because Touya had grown really strong and I was proud of his improvement. Scared because of the fight that was going on right now in front of my eyes and how Touya was beating up Shoto while burning himself up with his own flames even more. 

If Touya doesn't stop, he's gonna burn himself to death!!

"You're not wrong about me…" Shoto finally spoke up from the building he crashed into with scratches, small burn marks, and blood all over his body but didn't look like Touya's attack damaged him that much. "I took a long way around… A half-baked dummy. That’s me. And was full of doubts all the while…"

He neutralized Touya's heat?!

"Here I thought you were only focusing on Dad! But, no, you were nice enough to take a close look at me too. Glad to know it." Shoto stated and Touya frowned at him in fury and hatred. "I stumbled onto this… while working on that old move in the hope of keeping pace with the others. I turned Flashfire into something more. Now it’s a move made to stop you. I may be your half-baked little brother, but let me say this… Dad was a madman! Our family was screwed up! But when you burned all those people to death, that was your choice! You're not taking any more innocent lives!!" 

And with that Shoto jumped off that building and headed straight towards Touya to launch his new ultimate attack. 

"You damn golden boy!!" Touya snarled out vigorously, also dashing towards Shoto to fight back.

"Just aim all your rage at us!! Flashfire fist: Phosphor!!" Shoto added before unleashing his ultimate Super Move, Flashfire Fist: Phosphor on Touya. 

Phosphor allowed Shoto to channel both halves of his quirk throughout his body via his circulatory system, using his heart as a generator to circulate the chilled and hot blood around his entire body, merging the two halves of his Quirk into a single ability. The move granted Shoto an incredible defensive and offensive advantage against most opponents, especially those wielding pyrokinetic quirks. The flames created by the technique were described as being a 'Cold Fire' of sorts, allowing him to both burn and freeze his opponents. This move was first developed during a training session between members of Class 1-A in the UA courtyard before this war started. It was described by Shoto as his body coming together 'as one', as well as creating 'a body even Touya can't burn'. The move usually took a certain amount of concentration and focus to build up, so if he lost control, he had to build it back up again, and thus because of that, it took Shoto this much of a time to launch the attack on Touya. 

"Icebound crash: Coldflame's Pale Blade!!" Shoto launched another firey-icy attack on Touya as soon as Phosphor hit his older brother, sending the white-haired older Todoroki flying back. "Maybe this is the way to cool your head!!"

So he's got himself a body that can withstand Touya's scorching heat and he found the power to chill Touya's inferno…

"Aren't you the perfect man for this job, huh?!" Touya taunted him, recovering from the attack by using his own fire as he jumped backward and landed on the ground. "What a wonderful sense of morality you have, brother! You go on and on about right and wrong choices. But I knew it! We might share the same blood, but we ended up real different!! Once you stray from the right path, there’s no turning back! A warped rail can never mingle with a straight and narrow one! The limitations of a super-powered society! That's us! You hear me?! Running in parallel but forever apart!!"

Shoto ended up losing control of his Phosphor and needed to switch it back on. But just then, right an instant, Touya touched the ground beneath him and pushed his fire into it, unleashing gigantic volcanic eruptions all over the battlefield. The whole ground of the battlefield shook violently beneath us and was now breaking apart with enormous splashes of bluish magma and lava gushing out from it, shooting high up in the air and smoldering anything and everything it touched within its vicinity. 

"Now burn to ash! Die for our sake!!" Touya shouted out as he continued to burn himself up even more than before which was ultimately leading him to lose his already burned skin and flesh as both of his arms began to burn to the bones, skin melting off his face; his whole body was now engulfed with his own blue flames, making him almost look like a character called Johnny Blaze from the Ghost Rider movie. 

"Touya, please stop!!" I cried out in concern and desperation, immediately using my Gravity Manipulation quirk on us before lifting myself and the others (excluding Touya) high up into the air to avoid Touya's volcanic eruption that was coming out from the ground before looking over at Shoto with a pleading look, my anxiety level had already crossed its limiting point. "Shoto, please do something!! Stop him from killing himself!! Please!!"  

"Shoto… you couldn't be more right!" Burnin groaned out in pain as she and the others already took the brunt of the damage to protect me and Shoto. 

"I’m sorry, you guys!" Shoto cried out, getting ready to unleash another attack. 

"Quit it. Save your energy!" Burning chuckled out.  

"Thank you!" Shoto added and looked over at me once again, getting all ready with his new attack. "Nana! Put me back down on the ground! I'm ready!" 

"Promise me you'll stop him?!" I asked him with tears forming in my eyes, causing Shoto to soften his gaze on me. 

"I promise!!" he reassured me in a gentle yet firm tone. 

Right on cue, I immediately put Shoto back on the ground who using his quirk split blitzed, and went up in front of Touya before putting a hand on Touya's chest. He was so fast that Touya couldn't even realize what just happened to respond back immediately to the situation.  

"There is always turning back, even if it is by force..." Shoto stated and Touya's eyes went wide open upon hearing those words. "We're gonna mingle, whether you like it or not. So please, just stop already, at least for Nana's sake..." 

And with that Shoto unleashed his final ultimate move on Touya, Great Glacial Aegir: Arctic Tsunami, a gigantic wave of cold fire that shot directly through his older brother's chest, and the fire all over Kamino were later immediately frozen over by his ice as he grabbed ahold of an unconscious and alive Touya in his arms. The intensity of the fiery battle between the two Todoroki brothers overwhelmed me so much that my heart stopped beating for a few seconds and I was trying to register the situation in front of me right now. 

Shoto Todoroki had won the fight and stood as the final victor on the battlefield. 

It took me a moment to finally realize that Touya was really taken down and was also unconscious before I put down myself and the others back on the now icy ground. As soon as my feet touched the ground, I immediately dashed forward at lightning-fast speed toward the Todoroki brothers and pulled both of them into a warm bear hug. Proper words wouldn't come out of my mouth in joy and relief as I held the brothers dearly into my chest with tears continued to roll down my cheeks like a waterfall and I couldn't just stop sobbing. The fight was over and both of the Todoroki brothers were alive in my arms, breathing. I was happy, I was relieved. That was enough for me. 

"I-I kept my promise, Nana..." Shoto coughed out, moving a bit away from me, all beaten and bruised up as he kneeled down on the ground beside me, his lips curled up into a small smile. "I promised you that I'll bring Touya-Nii back into your arms..." 

I couldn't help but smile back at Shoto as I slightly nodded my head in response and wrapped both of my arms around Touya's unconscious body, pulling him even closer to my chest before burying my face into his spiky yet soft snow-white hair; his body was burning, sizzling hot and he smelled like smoke, dust, and burned flesh, but I didn't care any of that. I was so happy and relieved that I didn't care about anything anymore at this very moment. I was just simply happy by the fact that I could touch Touya again, I could feel him, sense him and inhale his scent like the old times once again. Finally, Touya was back in my arms and this time I won't let him go ever again. 

"Thank you, Shoto..." I sobbed out, tightening my grip around Touya even more. "Thank you..." 

After Shoto’s overwhelming victory followed by Touya’s defeat and arrest, I carefully handed over Touya’s unconscious body to Onima (one of Endeavor’s side-kicks) before making my way back to Shoto and Iida to see how the former was doing. Iida had Shoto by his side kneeling on the ground, just a few feet away from Touya and Onima, as the bi-color-haired boy huffed and puffed from exhaustion, bruises and burn marks were evident on his body.

“Your engines stalled, right? Sorry…” Shoto apologized to Iida in a soft yet gruff tone.

“You have nothing to apologize for!” Iida immediately assured the injured boy, draping an arm around his shoulders.

This interaction caused me to smile at them before I spoke up.

“Shoto…” I called out softly, causing the said boy to look up at me. “Thank you…”

Shoto’s bi-colored eyes widened in shock in response while I continue to speak up.

“Thank you for everything, Shoto… I know I asked a lot from you and I have been selfish-“ I blabbered out before Shoto immediately cut me off.

“It was nothing, Nana, really.” He stated with a smile that warmed my heart. “Compared to whatever you have done for me and my family up until now, this was nothing… also, Touya-Nii is my brother, there’s no way I can ignore him. This is something I have to do and I’m glad it’s over now…”

Hearing that, I smiled back at Shoto in response. Shoto did everything he could do to stop his older brother and I hoped his words really did reach Touya at some level. I really hoped Touya had calmed down now. And just when I was thinking about Touya and Shoto’s earlier interactions, I heard Onima suddenly speak up to himself and his mumbling voice reached my ears.

“How is he still alive in this state…?” Onima mumbled while holding an unconscious Touya captive.

At that moment, I noticed something strange about Touya. I looked closely from where I was standing with the boys and noticed a spark igniting in Touya’s stomach. And seeing this, my eyes widened a bit in confusion.

“Shoto… what’s that?” I asked, pointing at Touya, and in response, Shoto looked over at his older brother. “That spark in Touya’s stomach…”

Both Shoto and Iida also looked at the older Todoroki in confusion and for some reason, I didn’t know why, I started to feel anxious again.

“Shoto, this isn’t good. Something’s happening to Touya.” I stated in concern, furrowing my eyebrows as I sensed Touya’s breathing was getting heavier with the passage of every second. “Touya’s regaining his consciousness again…”

Onima and Kido also might have noticed the change in Touya and they were about to do something about it when suddenly, something horrific happened right in front of our eyes. Within mere seconds, large spirals of blue flames erupted out of Touya’s charred body and the said boy immediately attacked the two side-kicks with his flames. Touya was quick with his moves and attacks which threw Onima and Kido off guard in shock and his blue flames were so hot and so destructive that it was too much for the other two to handle. 

Shoto, Iida, and I watched the whole scene in shock and horror when Touya finally regained his consciousness, watching him burn off Onima and Kido with a devilish grin on his face. At that moment, Touya looked nothing like how he did before. He looked like a walking, talking mummy in an inferno now and his facial expression was so demonic that it literally scared me. Touya wasn't looking human anymore at that point. 

“Touya, what the fuck?! Stop this already!!” I screamed out in concern and frustration but unfortunately, the said boy didn’t pay any attention to my words. 

“Given how this worked out… it’s actually great that I fought you first…” Touya stated to Shoto with a grin before he started laughing while holding a burning Onima by the neck with his left hand. “Ha, ha! Experiencing something yourself just hits differently! Intuition helps when getting the idea of how it works… Right before you put me on ice, I took a chance and mimicked your big move!!”

“Run, Nana, Shoto!!” Burnin yelled at us.

“Am I doing it right, Shoto?!” Touya asked as we noticed a crossed blue flame in the middle of his chest. 

“Touya copied Shoto’s Phosphor move?!” I gasped in shock. 

I always knew Touya was smart and intellectual…

But I never thought that he was this smart…!!

“Onima-san, no!!!” Shoto screamed out in concern as Touya tossed a burned-up Onima away from him.

“It isn’t just sheer firepower, Shoto. This whole time, Touya has studied and trained his quirk on his own! Your brother’s honed instincts are bolstered by his hard work and obsession!” I pointed out, frowning at Touya who was now creating a huge sea of blue flames around us.

“You’re right…” Shoto agreed with me through gritted teeth, frowning as well.

Touya's inferno started to endlessly increase and consume the city once again and against all odds, he was still standing in front of us. It felt as if we weren’t standing on the hard ground anymore; it was as if we were standing on an ocean of raging blue flames. The flames literally consumed the ground beneath us, causing me to levitate myself and the others a few feet up from the ground with the help of my Gravity Manipulation quirk. Touya’s flames were so hot and ferocious that it was preventing us from even going near him. I then started using my Repulsive force as a defense around me and the boys to protect ourselves from the wild wrathful flames of Touya.

“Skeptic!!” Touya suddenly yelled out at the High-End Nomu which was going up against the other heroes in Kamino.

“Ahem, I’m busy! Don’t pester me, Mr. Daddy Issues!!” Skeptic’s voice yelled back at Touya from a micro-device that was on the back of the Nomu. “You want Endeavor? He is trading blows with AFO at the Gunga Villa ruins!!”

“Talk about firepower!!” Burnin gasped at Touya who was erupting even more of his blue flames from wherever he could.

“Touya, please stop this nonsense!” I yelled out again, frustrated, as tears started to roll down my cheeks and I was about to walk towards Touya.

“Nana, wait!” Shoto called, immediately grabbing my wrist to prevent me from moving any further.

“Even you were burned by that, Todoroki-kun! You must not engage him again!” Iida stated in concern, all of our eyes were locked on Touya who was now using the flames from his feet as jets to fly high up in the sky. “You have already hit your limit with your phosphor move!”

“We have all hit our limits and then some!” Shoto snapped, his frown deepening even more. “We gave it everything! And yet he is the only one still standing! He's trying to fly over to our father!”

“This goes way beyond powering through with that sheer will he has inherited! It does not make sense! I thought his body was not made for heat?! How the hell is he not falling to pieces?!” I added in confusion but also in concern.

“Get back here, Touya-Nii!! I’m still on my feet!!” Shoto yelled out at his older brother. “You wanna kill me right?! Looks like you are the half-baked one now!!”

But just then Skeptic’s voice spoke up again through that device on the Nomu.

“Ahem, Mr. Daddy Issues! I know I said no pestering, But I have fantastic news! Apparently, you’ll get to travel free of charge!” Skeptic informed.

And right on cue, all of a sudden out of nowhere, Kurogiri’s misty portal appeared before Touya and immediately sucked him in, teleporting him to the Gunga Villa Ruins. 

“Touya!” I gasped, calling out to him in desperation but he had already left without even looking back at me once.  

Touya seriously left… he left to fight Enji-san… And he didn’t even look back at me for once… Also, I didn't do anything to stop him... Did I seriously just stand there and watch Touya leave? 

And with that, Touya left for Gunga Villa Ruins and as soon as he left, the blue flames got extinguished from the scene on its own.

“Not yet! It's not over yet!” Shoto gritted out through his teeth in pain, frustrated as well while Iida tried to help him stand up from the ground.

“You’re still feeling the blowback from your phosphor move, Todoroki-kun!” Iida pointed out, extremely worried.

“I said I’m fine! They are saying AFO will reach Midoriya! But I’m still on my feet! I must do whatever I can…” Shoto stated.

“The thoughts of your brother must weigh heavily on you…” Iida added, softening his facial expression. “I can only imagine the feelings that drove you to stand against him like that. The suffering you have borne… You’re the kind of soul who made me to never forget who I want to become. Why is this your emotional burden to bear?”

I also started to worry about how to stop Touya. Not only we needed to stop Touya from burning himself alive, potentially killing himself as well, but also I needed to go and stop AFO and Tenko. I needed to face and go up against AFO and get my own revenge for my parent’s death. But here I was, wasting my time like this. At that point in time, I was getting frustrated at myself. 

This isn’t who I am!! This isn’t someone I want to become!! Why am I wasting my time like this, standing here and doing nothing?! I need to go to AFO as quickly as possible and fight him!! I need to confront Tenko as well!!

“Ah, ah… there!! I got through!! You three!! You're still with us, right?!” a familiar masculine voice spoke up from the comms in our ears and we immediately realized who it was – All Might.

“Toshi-chan?!” I gasped out in surprise upon hearing his voice through the comms.

“Every moment counts, so I’ll make this quick!” he started, addressing me, Shoto, and Iida. “You need to run over to Gunga right now! Dabi is on the verge of exploding and a stalled evacuation block is in the blast radius! Endeavor is keeping an eye on Dabi right now. But his quirk can't do a thing to stop the explosion!”

My eyes widened in shock when I heard those words. My heart dropped and it felt like my pulse died down for a moment. The whole world around me went completely silent, deadly silent which was literally suffocating me now.  

Touya’s gonna explode…?!?! Did Toshi-chan say Touya’s gonna explode like a nuclear bomb?!?!

“Nana-chan, you know how to fly fast, right?” All Might asked me, pulling me out of my trance. “And Todoroki, kid… The body and mind are two halves of the whole. You know that better than anyone, with the inner turmoil you have carried.”

“But All Might… AFO, he is…” Shoto was about to say something but All Might cut him off. 

“Fear not!” All Might replied in a gleeful tone and I could feel him smiling on the other side of the comms. “You have still got a mighty ally waiting in your wings! Battling on won’t bring you victory if you carry doubts. But I have got the utmost respect for youngsters full of doubt who nonetheless honor whatever it is that drives them. Put a stop to Touya-kun! Make everyone feel safe again, so you can be your best self. Now if anyone can do a darn thing about the impending crisis at Gunga, it would be a dynamic duo… with Ghoul, Gravity Manipulation, and half-cold-half-hot. You’re their only hope! You’ve got this!”

And with that, All Might cut off the line, saying his farewell, and the other side of the line went silent again.

“He wants you to fly fast like a jet plane?” Shoto asked in confusion, looking over at me with furrowed eyebrows. “I know you can fly fast, Nana, but the distance… Does he realize how far it is Gunga Ruins?”

“Tch! Doesn’t matter, Shoto.” I stated, clicking my tongue in frustration before grabbing Shoto by his wrist. “We need to stop Touya from killing himself as quickly as possible. And after that, I need to go and confront AFO and Tenko. I wasted enough of my time here already!” 

And wasting no time, I immediately flew up into the sky while holding onto Shoto before we zoomed through the air like a fighter jet plane, making our way towards the Gunga Villa Ruins to stop Touya from exploding while leaving Iida, Burnin, and the others all behind at the Kamino Ward. 

3rd Person’s POV (Back at the Gunga Villa Ruins)

Right at that moment, before Endeavor, Hawks, and the other heroes who were all now injured and battered, a young healthy AFO was standing there on the ground with a gleeful smile on his face, satisfied with the outcome of what went down with Skeptic and the heroes at the Central Hospital where Kurogiri was kept locked up.

“You kept Kurogiri in the dark, so to help him take immediate action, I planted a micro-device in one of Nana Shimura’s hands. Yes, Iguchi-kun played his part!” AFO stated calmly to the tired injured heroes in front of him, referring to Skeptic’s actions. “What’s more…”

AFO then trailed off when suddenly a number of Kurogiri’s misty portals appeared and opened up behind Endeavor and Hawks. Endeavor looked back and noticed Touya coming out from one of those portals.

“Heya, Dad!!” Touya greeted him with a grin and Endeavor’s eyes widened a bit in shock upon his son’s current burned skeletal appearance.

And just beside Touya, a number of Twice clones started to appear from the other portals, indicating that Toga had used Twice’s blood, which Touya gave her a few days ago. And seeing those Twice clones left Hawks in utter shock. 

“Oh, Hawwwwks!!” the Twice clones greeted the man as they were coming out of the portal and Hawks was left stunned at the sight.

“The death of that sad, sad man gave rise to rancor in a young woman’s heart. The man who would overrun the world to make good on his grudges gave that femme fatale just the tool she needed to bring ruin to all.” AFO stated, referring to Touya giving Twice’s blood to Toga. “Now you have got a front-row seat, Takami-kun. Time to learn how it might have turned out if you had not made his death your top priority back then.”

And hearing that, Hawks immediately yelled out an order to his fellow heroes at the battleground.

“Kill them!! Right now!!” Hawks yelled, referring to the Twice clones before them.

Through those portals, Uraraka and Asui also suddenly arrived at the scene as they both followed Toga there and then started to help Jiro and Tokoyami to fight back the Twice clones. Hawks was now facing off against AFO who was trying to escape from the scene to reunite with Tomura, bickering and taunting back and forth to each other, and meanwhile, on the other hand, Endeavor was getting himself ready to confront Touya.

“Those flames on his chest… Is that the phosphor move Shoto mentioned…?” Endeavor mumbled to himself before speaking up loud at Touya. “Touya… what would you do to Shoto?”

“I was hoping to bring you his head, but he was a tough cookie…” Touya replied, flying up in the air above his father while looking down at him with raging turquoise eyes. “Now my grand dream will never come true… but at the very least I will take as much as I can. Whatever you hold dear! Whatever you try to protect!”

“Endeavor-san!” Hawks yelled out while facing off AFO, stopping the Demon Lord from leaving the scene. “The divide-and-conquer plan is a bust! Our allies can't battle in this nasty heat! And if we fall here, the villains are gonna converge on Deku, Nana-chan, and Tomura!! Please, put a stop to Touya-kun!!”

Hearing that, Endeavor looked back at his son with determination who was now dashing toward him at full speed.

Duties… This time around… I’m really seeing you, Touya…

Another big fight then suddenly broke out between AFO and the remaining heroes as more and more help from the hero’s side (Inasa, Camie, the Pussy Cats, etc.) started to appear in the scene. Gigantomachia also later arrived there after a minute or two with Mt. Lady, Shinso, Kirishima, Mina, and Mineta following his trail from the Jaku Hospital Ruins to the Gunga Villa Ruins. While this was all happening, Endeavor was running away from the said battlefield with Touya following him from behind so that he could confront and talk to his son without any hindrance or anyone disturbing them.

Meanwhile, on the other side, the Counter-Force continued to report on the evacuation blocks' movement and AFO's location. Detective Tsukauchi asked if there was anyone left to stop him, but the officers said that almost all the remaining heroes from each of the battlefields were out of commission. Another officer freaked out when he recognized Touya's heat signature in Gunga, telling them that ever since his initial defeat, he had been internally compressing thermal energy and that in about ten minutes, his body would explode and cremate everything within 5 kilometers. Tsukauchi and former criminal La Brava realized that while most were back online, some of the evacuation blocks that stopped in between UA and Shiketsu were still underneath Gunga, meaning that they would be directly within the estimated blast zone. Meanwhile said civilians, including the rest of the Todoroki Family, proceeded to quickly evacuate to the surface as the shelter continued to crumble apart. Another officer reported that AFO was speeding up and was almost in range of Tomura to use his Warping Quirk, knowing that if they reunited, they were done for.

Meanwhile, in one of the prison lockups, prisoner Geten was speaking to his neighbor, prisoner Mr. Compress, about how the Himura blood ran thick within their blood vessels. He explained how in the past, the Himuras were village leaders that maintained their wealth and pride by creating branch families, however, the rise of Meta Abilities led to their downfall, as they didn't want to dilute their bloodline. Compress then remarked on what Spinner would say hearing about a "snobbish bloodline prejudiced against heteromorphs". Geten continued that this resulted in many marriages between the branch families and their distant relatives, however by insulating themselves it led to the Himura clan dwindling over time. Once the head of the family started selling off the children into marriages, it marked the end of the line, resulting in the remaining families scattering, with Geten revealing he was one of them until Re-Destro recruited him. He stated how Meta Abilities would grow more complex with each generation, with new powers lying dormant in the user's body, while people's hearts never managed to evolve, wondering what changes they would witness. Geten then concluded his speech with a smile asking Compress if he heard anything from the police force or heroes since there was nothing left to do but kill time until the final war was over.

Back to Endeavor’s situation, he was now facing Touya, far away from AFO and the others, and through the comms, he learned from the Counter-Force about Touya’s impending explosion.

“An explosion you say?!” Endeavor exclaimed in shock and concern after hearing this.

Touya was now literally like the burning sun, cremating away the trees and almost everything within and beyond his reach.

“It’s not just the evacuation block that’s in danger… but also Pixie Bob’s group which is fighting back against Toga's doubles!!” Endeavor said to himself, huffing and puffing, as he kept luring Touya away. “Dammit! Fighting AFO did a number on my legs! I’m not sure how much longer I can keep luring Touya away…”

“D… Da… D-Dad!!” Touya yelled out in a cracked tone, charging at his father again, engaging in a combat with Endeavor. “Watch me!! Watch meee!!!”

As the combusting Touya manically screamed out for his dad to watch him, Endeavor began to see the young Touya in his eyes before the current adult Touya unleashed a devastating Vanishing Fist, even bigger and more powerful than Endeavor’s, that completely enveloped the older man while decimating the ground he was standing on. Losing his right arm after unleashing that attack, Touya then grabbed ahold of him as Endeavor desperately tried to convince his son to put out his flames, and that he didn't want to watch him die, but Touya continued to repeat the same things over and over with his mind long gone.

“Come on, Touya!! Put out those flames!!” Endeavor yelled, holding onto Touya. “I don’t want to watch you die!!”

“Watch meee!!!” Touya screamed out again with an incoherent mind. “Natsu-kun! Let's play?!?!”

And hearing that, Endeavor’s eyes went wide open in shock.

His mind is gone long! This fire is hot enough to burn even me… So how is it possible that he can still hold himself together?! Touya, what is it about you?!

Endeavor then reached out to Touya’s chest when suddenly he realized something absolutely shocking and baffling.

That visceral sense of danger, when facing death, sometimes a near-death experience can trigger a quirk to awaken. On the other hand, people can also summon absurd power in a crisis when it's do-or-die. That's different from a quirk awakening. That power only manifests as the Reaper draws near…

As Endeavor thought about how when someone had a near-death experience, it might cause their quirk to awaken or summon an absurd power in a crisis, and unlike a quirk awakening, this latter power only manifested when they were truly at death's door, he then slowly realized that within Touya's Phosphor, he recognized Rei's ice quirk which was indicating that Touya had manifested the ice power within his flame quirk, meaning he always had that ice quick within himself all along, this entire time. 

While envisioning a hellish dance with his son in hell, Endeavor’s life began to flash before his own eyes and he started to wonder what he had done in his life. He envied All Might and produced these designer children to surpass the former No.1 hero, he did everything he could to have a child like Shoto when in reality Touya had always been that prodigy child he truly wanted and craved, someone who would inherit his fire quirk stronger than him while also would inherit his wife’s ice quirk at the same time. It was like a slap on Endeavor’s face when he realized what he had done to Touya and the rest of his family.

Endeavor then began to recall back the words he said to AFO earlier.

I’ll win today and keep my eyes on Touya!!

“I take full responsibility… I swore to bear that burden and live my life atoning for it all. However, you have been watching me all this time. While I couldn’t be there to watch you… You were someone I especially needed to do right by…” Endeavor said to himself before hugging a combusting Touya in his arms and starting to fly up in the sky.

It’s always the same dream…

My whole family is there but not me…

“No, I can’t let you meet your end alone!!” Endeavor yelled out. “But I won’t let anyone else get caught up in our tragedy!!”

Endeavor grabbed ahold of his son, and was preparing to use his son’s blue firepower to propel the both of them into the sky, to explode together but however before he could get too far, as Touya’s body continued to crack, Rei suddenly appeared before the two of them out of nowhere and started using her ice to stop them.

“Rei?!?!” Endeavor exclaimed in shock and confusion.

The reason why and how Rei even got there was when after the heroes managed to take out AFO's subordinates within the evacuation center, Kendo of Class 1-B called out to the civilians that the foundations of the system were sabotaged, ordering a retreat to the surface. They made their way out, with the U.A. robots being there to let the civilians evacuate to wherever they wanted to go. However, just outside, they all had to witness the immense heat and destruction caused by Touya's Blue flames, noticing the gigantic sphere of a fireball that literally looked like the sun was about to explode like a nuclear bomb anytime soon. Seeing this, Rei rushed away from her children toward a robot, telling it to take her to the center of the storm, to which the robot responded they exist to serve humans' desires. 

And now Rei was there and was using her ice quirk to attempt to shield herself from the heat, while also trying to cool Touya off, calling out to him.

“Touya!!!” Rei screamed out at her son.

“No!! Why are you here, Rei?!” Endeavor yelled back, burning away with Touya in his arms.

Are you trying to cool him down, Rei?! You must have coated yourself with a layer of ice to get even this close…

“Get away now!! Or you will burn to death!!” Endeavor added.

“You mean the way… You and Touya are about to die?!” Rei snapped back and that’s when Touya turned his attention to his mother.

“M-M-Mom…?!” he called out and that broke Rei’s heart.

“Oh, Touya…!! I’m so sorry!!!” Rei screamed out.

“Natsu-kun…!! Fuyumi-chan…!!” Touya added and Rei looked behind her, realizing that her other children had followed her, using their ice quirks to protect themselves from the heat. 

“No, don’t!!” Rei warned, shaking her head.

“I can’t!! I can’t take any more loss!!” Fuyumi cried out before looking over at her older brother. “Touya-Nii, please!! Don't take everyone down with you!! I can’t bear to lose anyone else!!”

Natsuo then started to think about the old times from their childhood and wondered if he just had listened to his older brother’s ranting and complaints about their father like how Nana did instead of turning away and ignoring him. Unlike him, Nana was always there for Touya and listened to his words and complaints. She selflessly shared her moments and time with Touya giving him the attention he needed which Natsuo couldn’t do despite him being his younger brother.

“Cut it out already, man!!” Natsuo screamed out with a frowning face. “Quit causing trouble, Baka Aniki!!!”

As the Todorokis continued shooting their ice toward Touya, Endeavor could only beg his son to not let anyone else die and he should be enough. In response, all Touya could let out was a couple of muffled laughs, while having a vision of him and his family being happy again. 

Meanwhile, at the Counter-Force center, they reported on how the rising temperature of Touya's inferno was slowing down, thanks to the intervention of the Todoroki Family. However, despite this, the temperature was not dropping, meaning the explosion was inevitable.

Back at the center of the impending blast, Rei, Fuyumi, and Natuso, now all burned and bruised up, continued to unleash their Frost quirks to try and cool Touya down. While he cackled to himself, Touya thought about how everyone was finally watching him, and looking at Endeavor, realized this was what it was like, thinking about if it was so simple, why it didn't happen sooner.

‘Everyone is watching me…’ Touya thought to himself while on the verge of exploding any time soon. ‘So this is what it's like…? If it was so simple a thing, then why…? Why not sooner…? It’s like everything is flipped around upside down. My origin as Touya and Dabi… if it was so simple a thing… if only we had butted heads like this sooner… there are still arguments I wanna have and things I still wanna say!!’

And just then something unexpected happened. When everything seemed lost, when it felt like there was no hope, two familiar individuals zoomed in and appeared on the scene like the heroes they were meant to be – they were none other than Nana Osaki and Shoto Todoroki. 

Nana’s POV (Now at the Gunga Villa Ruins)

Zooming into the vicinity of the Todoroki family where Touya was about to explode, Shoto and I just flew there, dashing at the speed of light with the help of my combined quirks (Ghoul and Gravity Manipulation), while Shoto began to prepare his attack which he would unleash on Touya to extinguish those raging blue flames.

“You ready, Shoto?!” I called out, tightening my grip on him.

“Ready when you are, Nana!!” Shoto yelled back.

And right on cue, just within mere seconds of anything bad happening, Shoto released all of his power and unleashed Great Glacial Aegir once again on Touya, completely consuming the inferno in his ice, as the fire began to dissipate and burn out. The collision of Touya’s fire and Shoto’s ice move had a huge impact on the area which caused me and Shoto to wait for a bit before I noticed Touya and Endeavor who got hit by that ice move were now falling towards the ground from the sky. I immediately let go of Shoto and quickly dashed forward, eventually catching the injured father-son duo in my arms in mid-air. I slowly landed on the ground and safely placed Endeavor by the side while still holding Touya in my arms, close to my chest.

I looked down at a crisped, partially frozen Touya and noticed how he was looking way worse than just a few minutes ago. He had lost his right arm, similar to his father, and his whole body was now charred with no skin left. There was even a crack across his face which was an indication of his previous impending explosion. Then my eyes traveled down to his scorched chest where I finally noticed ice coming out from it, leaving me in shock and confusion.  

Wait, what…?! Ice on Touya’s chest…? It doesn’t seem like Shoto’s ice… Don’t tell me this is Touya’s ice…? Touya had ice power?! Since when?!

I then looked over at the other Todorokis and noticed that almost everyone was burned and scarred, but their situation wasn’t as bad as Touya’s. Endeavor also lost his right arm and was all burned up too, but he was somehow still alive. Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo were also injured and burned but nothing major or serious. Shoto had a few burns and scars from his previous fight with Touya at Kamino but other than that, there wasn’t anything much on his body as I kept him protected from the other attacks with the help of my Repulsive Force.

I then looked back at Touya once again and my eyes started to tear up at the sight of his charred body while my heart ached for his well-being. At least he was still alive and breathing and that mattered to me the most at that moment.  

“T-Touya… you fucking idiot…” I let out a muffled cry, holding him close to me so gently as if he was this delicate precious being and would shatter into millions of pieces if I didn’t handle him well and carefully.

“Our whole family… is here…?” Shoto huffed and puffed, letting out heavy sighs in exhaustion as he stood a few feet away from us, just beside his mother and his other siblings. “Well, not great… But… Maybe it's for the best… Cause my Great Glacial Aegis alone might not have been enough to stop this… Ever since round one back there, Touya-Nii’s fire just kept growing… He reached uncharted territory where I can’t tread. Maybe I was never actually the masterpiece creation…”

My face softened at Shoto’s words. While Endeavor chased after All Might his whole life, engaging in a quirk marriage with Rei and creating designed children to surpass All Might, eventually having Shoto while thinking that he could be that masterpiece Endeavor always wanted and there was Shoto, who was standing in front of his whole family now, acknowledging the power and strength of Touya that he could never have or even reach to that level, the same Touya whom Endeavor thought as a failure years ago. What a pitiful situation it was really.

“You all… die already…” Touya suddenly spoke up as I kept on holding him in my arms, his voice sounded hoarse and cracked as if he was crying at that moment, and hearing the sound of his voice broke my heart once again for him. “Dad, you scum… Just die… You all and me too… Drop dead…”

“Please, don’t say such bad things, Touya… Please…” I sobbed alongside him, noticing how he was freezing from the inside out.

“N-Nana…” Touya mumbled in a shaky tone and in response, I leaned down and pressed a soft kiss on his burned forehead.

“I’m here with you, Touya. Don’t worry.” I reassured him, sniffling a bit while tightening my grip on him in a secure way.

“Well? What now? All that awaits us is pure hell…” Natsuo spoke up with a frowning face from beside his mother and his sister.

“Touya!!” Endeavor suddenly spoke up from where I placed him on the ground and crawled up to us before placing his left hand on Touya’s frozen chest. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry I never made it to Sekoto Peak!!”

And that threw Touya completely off guard. He never expected an apology from his whole family nonetheless from his once abusive father. I noticed the shocked look on his face as Touya’s body quivered a bit in my hold. At first, I got a bit concerned for a second but then realized that Touya was trying to hold himself back from breaking down in front of his whole family.

“Hate you all…” Touya sobbed out again, his voice choked as he spoke, and seeing him like this made my eyes teary once again. “Hate you, Dad!! The whole family too!!”

“Go on… Really. Let me have it! Keep it coming!” Endeavor stated as he also started sobbing. “Rei, I’m sorry for pushing you to the breaking point. Fuyumi, I’m sorry for leaving you to pick up the pieces! Natsuo, I’m sorry for neglecting you like I did! And Shoto… I’m sorry!”

The whole situation was overwhelming for me. Despite not being a part of their family, I was still close to the Todorokis simply because of their connection with my parents. Touya, Shoto, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Rei, all of them were dear to me and I cared about them as if they were my own family. Even Endeavor as well, though my relationship with him wasn’t as smooth after Touya’s disappearance 11 years ago.

But right now, the concerning matter for me was, had Touya finally calmed down after getting the apologies from his family which he truly deserved? Had Endeavor’s apologies and Shoto’s acknowledgment finally reached him? 

Read the entire fanfic on Quotev and Wattpad.

Links for other MHA fanfic snippets - Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

[altschmerzes]

I do follow hockey, but definitely not enough for this thing with Thierry because all I’m coming up with is Fleury and I don’t think he’s from Montreal and I don’t think he played there either so can you explain? Google informed me that Carey Price exists which like yes thank you google I am aware

LOREAUX. YES. WHEEZE. THANK YOU.

just- okay. bear with me for a moment here where i wax on a bit about the huge potential for A Big Interesting Internal Landscape in thierry zoreaux, a canadian goalie from montréal. (if i get anything wrong in the process forgive me, this is all off the dome based on My Personal Experience And Perspective as a longtime sports fan. also it got.... long lmaooo sorry for that. i simply think goalies are fascinating and thierry specifically has such an interesting context for Being A Goalie. also no season 3 spoilers in here!.)

you're correct that fleury isn't from mtl, no! he's from another city in the province, and he never played for the habs. and you're also right, carey price does exist sldkfjs and he's CONSTANTLY on my mind when i think about thierry and about the role of goalies in sports that have them - whenever there's a team sport that has One person who is uniquely different and has a radically different role (goalie, pitcher) compared to the rest of the team (whose roles are pretty similar even if they're first baseman, outfielder, midfielder, fullback) there's gonna be a Lot going on there. goalies have a reputation for being Really Fucking Weird. like. those guys are Odd and everyone knows it. (pitchers are the same way. known for superstitions, habits, Generally Being An Absolute Oddball.) they have a different kind of attention, a different kind of pressure. at the end of the day it always is going to come down to them on their own, in one way or another. goalie characters in sports fiction obsess me because of all the Baggage and all of the Stuff that goes into Being A Goalie and man. that was enough to make thierry really compelling to me, as the goalie we see the most of. and then specifically being a goalie From Montréal? ohohohohoho.

i watch football/soccer a lot these days and have for a couple years but i've been a hockey fan for much longer and i can't help see things through that pov sometimes, and as soon as they intro'd a character from mtl, my background as a habs fan perked right up. a goalie from mtl. that was the first hockey team i ever followed and boy does it have mountains of history that make it a fascinating team to follow/learn about/think about especially as a narrative background/parallel/foil/whatever.

obviously thierry's a soccer player, he's a soccer goalie, but in the words of someone i spoke to yesterday, "hockey suffocates every other sport in this country." it's always around, always present. your average torontonian can probably name the last year the leafs won the cup even if they hate sports. the canadian viewership numbers during playoffs is nuts. i've seen a few percentages come up - in the 70s-80s. i also have had some fun daydream thoughts about thierry being a multi-sport player growing up. there's a hockey player i can think of who pretty much got all the way to the point of draft eligibility before deciding whether he was gonna play hockey or baseball. that's a headcanon i have about thierry too, that he spent a while playing hockey when he was younger and was pretty damn good at it, probably could've gone pro, but decided to stick with soccer in the long term because he liked it more.

anyways, so. the sport is huge, it's unavoidable, and one of the biggest teams is the canadiens. especially if you live in mtl. it's hard to overstate the extent to which they are an institution, practically a religion. and one of the things that's important to understand about the context of thierry specifically rather than if like- if any other player had grown up in québéc, is that the habs have an...... intense history with goalies. like a VERY specifically intense history with goalies. they've had some of the biggest names in hockey goaltending history in their nets and the combination of the team's history, the goalies who've been there, and the media market of montréal means that being the habs goalie is one of the most heavily scrutinized, highly public roles in the sport.

the whole...... sports fabric of montréal is steeped in goalies. jaques plante, patrick roy, carey price. so many more enormous names, names everyone who's into hockey knows immediately, names that left permanent marks on not only the habs and mtl but on the sport as a whole. every year the league awards the best goalie of the regular season the vezina trophy, named for georges vézina, who played his entire career for the canadiens. (these days, the likes of sam montembeault. québéc born and raised goalie who now plays in the habs organization, heir apparent to carey price's net. monty, with goalie masks depicting jaques plante and the torch that is literally passed every year at the beginning of the habs season at their first home game, that is mentioned in the motto in their dressing room, inside the collars of their jerseys. it's a quote from a poem about the first world war - to you from falling hands we throw the torch be yours to hold it high.)

for thierry this would've been just.... all around him. when i think of him i think of him growing up in a habs watching household, because most families are in one way or another in that region, and having this idea of like. the role of a goalie. the pressure of being a goalie, watching particularly the way that carey price, one of the best goalies who's ever played, was completely wasted by the catastrophic mismanagement of the habs during his prime. i think all the time of this screencap from either the behind the scenes videos the habs produced for PR stuff or some feature on tv or documentary thing, a shot of carey price with his iconic thousand yard stare, the subtitles from the voiceover saying if he could score, he would play alone. i have to think that'd do something to a person, you know. seeing how important the goalie is, how revered and respected they can be, and that it can still not make a difference in the end. not enough of one. there will still be people who hate you because you're not the guy who came before you, because you can't just do it all yourself. and then choosing to be one anyway.

so you know. you're thierry zoreaux. you grow up in montréal. you can't avoid the habs if you tried, it's baked into the city. it's in the air. and you're a goalie. it doesn't matter whether you play hockey or soccer, the role of a goalie is a different thing, a unique experience. you are involved in everything, and you are alone. you are so, so visible, and so, so overlooked. you never appear on the goal sheets, but some media outlet will blame you for every loss. you're a little weird, a little wired. a little in your head, a little in another world. your teammates adore you but everyone knows there's something about you that's different, that sets you apart. every one of them sees it as their job to protect you, but at the end of the day, none of them can help you do what you do.

also, as an aside, i checked his wiki page real quick, and have learned the actor is jewish and sees his character that way too to which i say: ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US. also i am about to write fic about this IMMEDIATELY. thierry zoreaux, quebecois goalie and jewish king. i've always been a little extra attached to him - minor character enjoyer that i am and enthralled by the potential in him, and also just finding him. very funny, and his actor a delight in his scenes. i love him and i need to write way more about him Right Now. it just occurred to me earlier, when i made that first post about him, and realized the line i'd jotted down wasn't half as good if you didn't have the story that exists around him in my mind, around his role and his experiences and cultural context about his role. and well! here we are now.

[sing-me-under]

I’ve probably said this before but I genuinely can’t imagine c!Quackity living in Kinoko or c!Karl living in Las Nevadas. The countries are like polar opposites on everything from aesthetic to morality and society, matching only in their sheer scale of opulence and grandeur.

c!Karl just wouldn’t be up to the mind games of Las Nevadas. That’s not to say he wouldn’t be able to keep up. If anything, he may be too good. He’d get tired. After the initial fun, it would just be tedious to keep up with, and he’d want to try something new somewhere else. He was flighty like that. Hell, he barely even stays in Kinoko for all that he adores it as his stable anchor home.

But say, if Las Nevadas remained an extension of El Rapids, a place to vacation every now and again, c!Karl would totally be down for it.

On the other hand, c!Quackity dreams too big for the peaceful quiet of Kinoko. He is L’Manbergian through and through, no matter what anyone says. He is chaos and crime and love all balled up in feathery indignation. Kinoko Kinoko is an art museum the size of a city-state, dynamic but pristine. It doesn’t pulse and writhe at the seams with the will to fights gods. Not like L’Manberg, like Snowchester, like Las Nevadas— (like c!Tommy, like c!Tubbo, like c!Wilbur).

He’d probably be unnerved by Kinoko Kingdom. I’m pretty sure he is unnerved by Kinoko Kingdom in canon because yes, it’s pretty, but what else is there? It’s the city of dreams, perfect in every way, static like words on the pages of a storybook. It’s a city of dreams because it’s always asleep.

Meanwhile, c!Sapnap. He moves through Kinoko Kingdom as the silent sentinel of a nation that has no enemies. Its biggest danger is himself, combustible and dangerous in a place that’s far too flammable with all its plants and paper. He would know. He helped build it after all. The glistening statues and grandiose tower were Foolish’s work, but he paved every road and lit every lantern as designed by Karl and George (never him, he was never as artistically inclined as the people around him. It was c!Dream and c!George who laid out the blueprints for the Community House and the paths that would web out from it. It was Quackity and George who painted the billboards of El Rapids. Once again, it’s Karl and George pulling paintings into reality.) He loved Kinoko, really, he does. But he feels like a ghost in a city with nothing but ghosts. Not the nostalgic kinds, but the empty ghosts armed only with vapid smiles and polite words and nothing behind their blank eyes.

Sometimes he thinks about Quackity’s Las Nevadas. He doesn’t know enough about Las Nevadas to know what would have happened. What if he’d chosen to stick to his estranged fiancé’s side? He wouldn’t have, knowing himself. Loyalty was always his curse to bear, even if it was just loyalty to a ghostly nation, a sleeping friend, or a wanderlust, time-lost lover.

If Kinoko Kingdom smothered him, then Quackity’s Las Nevadas would have fanned the flames. All the worst parts about himself, and all his best, dialed up to 100. Just as intended. Except unlike the other fools swindled out of their pockets, c!Sapnap’s flaws and faults would be protected fiercely by the nation’s founder. And Sapnap would guard Quackity just the same. In the end, Sapnap would find himself a burning inferno of a protector against all of Las Nevadas’s many enemies rather than the silent one of the passive Kinoko Kingdom. Two sides of the same spectrum.

[reliabledragon]

Hi! I’m genuinely curious, why is Seattle a bad place to live? I’ve thought about moving there at one point, until I realized I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Ah, well, I should probably clarify that I don't think it's, like, an inherently bad place or anything. It was just a really bad fit for me, so being stuck there for several years really sucked. Basically, it boiled down to a few things:

Making Friends: Seattle is so notoriously unfriendly that the "Seattle Freeze" even has its own Wikipedia page. People will be plenty nice to you, but most have no interest in actually becoming friends, and it takes ages to build a social network there.

Lack of Diversity: In this case meaning the cultural sense, not the racial one. (It is racially homogenous as well, but I'm not really qualified to open that can of worms.) Seattle basically does like, three things: extreme outdoor activities, substances, and computer stuff. ("Substances" here meaning things like weed, but also beer, coffee, etc.) So if you want to go skiing every day, climb mountains, smoke weed, drink artisanal beer, play video games, or found a startup, it's a good place for that. However, if you want to do anything else then you are going to be fighting against Seattle every inch of the way.

The Dating Scene: Again, Seattle does some things very well here — it's probably the best dating market in the country if you're poly! But again, the monoculture means that if you're Seattle's kind of person then you're going to have the time of your life, but if you aren't, then you will simply be screwed. And I wasn't, so I spent three years basically unable to find anyone to seriously date. (I will grant that part of this could have been a me problem, but I certainly had far less difficulty both in SF before and NYC after.)

Urban Design: Maybe this is a personal one, but Seattle is in this really awkward middle ground, where it absolutely sucks to have a car in the city, but it also absolutely sucks not to have one. It's my least favorite city in the US that I've ever driven in, but it's also a pretty rotten experience trying to get around town on the bus or (very limited) light rail system. I'd much rather live somewhere with functional public transit, but if that's not possible then I'd at least like my mandatory car usage not to feel like I'm turning the ignition key in a Saw trap.

Distance: Unless your friends and family are in the PNW, you're probably going to want to leave occasionally to see other people, and Seattle is really very far away from everything other than Portland and Vancouver. Perhaps this isn't the biggest issue on this list, but combined with the Seattle Freeze, it can make the city intensely lonely. And combined with the weather, it makes it even harder to get away when the sky starts feeling oppressive in the winter. And speaking of winter...

Climate: This is a big one, and one that I think you can't really understand until you live there. Or at least, I certainly didn't grasp the implications beforehand. Everyone knows Seattle as a "rainy city", but it's one thing to hear about it and another to live it. The thing about Seattle is that it's both accurate to say that it always rains, or to say that it never rains. It's not like most of the country, where you have rainstorms and then times when it isn't raining. No, not in Seattle. In Seattle is drizzles, constantly. From September until June, every time you step outside, it's just... Damp. And cloudy. Once the clouds come in the Fall, you will not see the sun for nine months. The sky is just a bright gray mass hovering oppressively overhead, not dim enough be properly melancholy, not bright enough to be cheerful. It just looms, vaguely too bright to look at, no matter which direction you look. For most of your life in Seattle, you live in hollow light and hollow rain.

Despite all that, I really do think Seattle is a great fit for a lot of people, but it's hard to know if you're one of those people before you move there, and the penalty if you're wrong can be a pretty terrible living experience. My response on that poll was playing along with the "city hate group" thing they were asking about a little bit, but I really did have a very bad time there. It might well be a great fit for you, I know it is for a lot of my friends who live there! I would just advise anyone thinking of moving there to make sure they understand what they're signing up for, because it's easy to get taken in by the aesthetic and not realize what sort of place it is, and what sort of person you need to be to enjoy it.

Thanks for the ask! I'm always happy to talk about cities. :)

[daenerysoftarth]

what are you favourite and least favourite aspects of living in japan? also, are you in tokyo or a different city? i visited japan once with my family years and years ago and i loved the food so much. i do remember a guy pissing on the street though and i always remember that when westerners get all weird and orientalist about how special and perfect and clean japan is

Ok so like I’m not living in Tokyo anymore rn tho I do plan to return eventually

My feelings about moving to japan are extremely complex because it was such a volatile, traumatic event for me personally. And while I simultaneously acknowledge and adore a lot of aspects of japan, it will never change those very hard and violent feeling first emotions I associated with the country

Which is part of the reason I’m back in the US now. When I come back to japan, it needs to be on my own terms. Not forced into it, like every time before

But I digress. One of my favorite parts about Tokyo is ofc the trains. The general city layout. The safety. I almost always felt safe, which is remarkable for the biggest city in the world. Meanwhile I live in a city 1/40th the size rn and it’s 1000x more violent, because that’s the US for ya. The lack of gun violence is honestly tbqh to be real the biggest difference between growing up in the US vs moving to japan. It’s hard to express how universal gun violence is in america, but it really is everywhere. I was shot at by my best friend’s dad when I was 11. I remember ducking from bullets in our apartment growing up with my mom. SWAT regularly was sent to various schools in the city, and once raided a house down the street from us. Urban america is a lot different from what’s shown on the movies. It’s violent. It’s harsh. It’s desperate. I look back on my childhood and am shocked by what I considered menial and normal back then. It’s not normal. And I think I always knew that on some level, but moving to another country provided that proof that it didn’t have ti be that way. I didn’t have to grow up like that. It was all unnecessary. It could’ve been avoided. We could’ve had our dreams.

One of the reasons I always felt discontented in japan, though, was the gaijin factor. Japan is extremely extremely homogenous and you will stick out if you’re not Japanese (some other nationalities can pass as Japanese but even then certain fashion styles or behaviors can mark you as Not Japanese, and thus mean you’re treated differently). Being a foreigner honestly made me agoraphobic for a long time. I had struggled with that in the US due to gun violence in my neighborhood, and japan almost exacerbated it simply for the social anxiety factor of sticking out like a sore thumb as a non-Japanese person. That’s something I do not miss at all. I described it to my mom as feeling like Big Bird whenever you enter a room. People won’t necessarily be mean to you or treat you unkindly, but it is very much a Factor that people Notice even if they don’t comment on it.

[gutwrenchflowerbomb]

This post is just me sort of rambling about the thoughts surrounding my new job so feel free to scroll past.

New workspace. This machine was installed a few weeks ago and a few of use were trained in it but I am the primary operator. They haven’t installed my work table yet so I’ve been using that cart. I’m two months into the drastic change in careers and it’s been strange - not just the obvious difference in what I’m actually doing but the shift as well. I don’t have weird start and ends times that change daily. But my set shift begins at 5am, meaning that I’m waking up at 3:30am. That’s the middle of the witching hour. I keep expecting to sit up and see some kind of demon ghost thing looking shocked like “the fuck you doing awake?”

But I’m less stressed, I think. I miss my clients dearly but now I no longer have to be responsible for the lives of 12 people. I can actually focus on myself. And the fact that I can do this job while wearing headphones has allowed me to catch up on podcasts and shit I’d long abandoned due to lack of time/energy. I’ve even made it a goal to listen to at least one new album a day from an artist I like but only know a song or two. I have 10 hours a day to fill so it’s not that hard to do. (I’m open to suggestions btw so if you have a fav band/album you think more people should hear, let me know! I don’t really *hate* any genre, except 90% of the new bro country shit)

My medical insurance kicks in on July 1st, so I can finally go to the doctor and dentist. They’ve had some overtime available that I’ve taken advantage of, and will continue to do so as long as it’s there. Mostly because I need all the money I can get and also - I don’t mind the work. It feels good to be physically doing stuff. I’m not like, building houses or anything but there I’m for sure getting more movement than I was previously. The ONLY downside so far of this job is that it’s very hard to regulate the temperature. I’ve had to buy my own fan to bring in and honestly I’m about to get a second one so I can have it blowing on my from both sides. Ya girl STAYS hot.

I’ve been staying with my mom and it’s been rough. We don’t have the most loving relationship, she gets on my goddamn nerves but I try not to get to frustrated with her because it will only make things worse. Maybe one day I’ll write some essays about it, as my upbringing with her was anything but “normal” but I digress.

The most challenging thing has been the lack of *silence* in the house. Before, I had my roommates. Ut they were hardly home when I was and then they had their room upstairs. We never really got in each others space. Here, that’s not possible. I’m literally sleeping on a twin bed that’s been set up in the dining room since it’s a tiny 750sq ft one bedroom house. And my mom nor Mo work, so they NEVER LEAVE. And neither of them have much variety in the food they eat so I’ve had to adapt to eating much of the same bland poor southern shit I grew up with. Which is good occasionally but man. I can’t wait to have my own kitchen again and cook some Indian food. Or Mediterranean.

My goal is to have my own place by the first of August. Thats plenty of time to have the money for the first few months plus deposit. The biggest issue is not knowing what’s gonna be on the market. Rent, while not nearly as high as places like Chicago and Austin and huge cities like that, it’s still unreasonable for a single income person. Especially when that income is just under 40k a year, pre tax.

Anyway, my hope is that once I get moved into my own place I can finally have the energy and focus to do more creative shit. I have TONS of ideas written down but with no space to do any of them, it’s been depressing. I’ve got buttons and magnets and silly shit all in my big ass head. And not all of it is wrestling related.

Alright I’m gonna stop now. But yeah if anyone read all this I apologize haha. It’s not my usual shit of making jokes about AEW and posting too many pics of Chuck Taylor and Orange Cassidy.

[cloud-navi]

So I finally finished Transformers EarthSpark, lowkey love it. (Plot and human Malto’s)

⚠️ SPOILERS ⚠️

Overall Plot

- I think they did pretty good with the plot overall, I think the biggest plot hole is what happened to Ravage when Soundwave let them out in the cell block. I think it would have been interesting and explained better if they kept what they had planned from the story board instead of cutting it.

I like that they moved the antagonist from the Decepticons themselves to GHOST but I still feel like that left loose ends after the show. Like what happened to the Decepticons vs Autobots war or how did they’re treatment change after defeating Mandriod.

From what I know theres not much information about why the war in this iteration really started except that its tied to G1 through comics and ‘history’. Regardless of how it started I feel like Transformers as a whole is kind if an allegory for real life in many ways, example: Decepticon movement and revolution was (at least that I know in prime) was because the Council forced them as slaves and entertainment which makes their struggle a fictional parallel to events like the Civil Rights movement and revolutionary wars (happened/happening/might happen sometime in many countries).

I just find the idea that I’m supposed to root for the Autobots that want to protect humans after bringing their war to our planet over the Decepticons and their very understandable movement regardless of what their leader is doing at the moment is just kind of weird. Megatron, while is their leader has on multiple occasions changed what the movement has been kinda been about like in TFP he shifted focus from equal rights and changing out of a caste system to wanting to Offline Optimus Prime.

A leader can start a movement but its the people that drive it, if the leader is tainted and no one can/chooses to stand up for the actual cause then the cause is doomed. At the same time the people may not see the change in corse or understand the difference how it isn’t what they were fighting for if the leader words it in ways that makes it sound like the opponent is standing in the way of their success.

In TFP Megatron really wants to offline Optimus Prime, besides the fact that most of the crew on the nemesis is currently drones, the crew that the drones were clones of actively chose to follow him regardless. The crew, regardless if any spoke out, believed that Optimus Prime would be an obstacle in their way of creating a ‘better’ world. So at the end its mostly just manipulation from Megatron to get what he wants and the crew can’t really tell or are not strong enough to do anything about it.

ANYWAY, Characters,

Malto Family (human)

- Robby

I like Robbie, I think he has good character, especially growth. That being said I hate how he acted in the first episode. As a kid that was moved around a lot I understand its hard when you move away from some where that you grew up and know a lot of people to a new place, except the way he handled it was completely just no. He was 13 and came from a big city, understandable that he would miss home and the country would be a big change. But the selfishness in the idea that the only reason he stopped trying to run away from Witwicky wasn’t for his sister, but for giant robots. Just the way he treated Mo in the first episode is un called for and he should have had a sit down talk with their parents about how he felt and what comprises could be made for him to like it out there too. Like idk plan days to go hangout with friends in the city? Clearly you live close enough to bike there if you thought your friends parents wouldn’t send you back home if you actually managed to abandon Mo and get to the city.

- Mo

I love Mo and as a younger sibling completely understands how she sees things throughout the show. Episode one is like a double ended blade, Robby has no obligation to put other peoples feelings above his own about any situation <within reason of topic> however if you’re that close to your younger sibling its not only rude but concerning to push your family away over a move. Yes its a big move but Robby chose not to lean on family. Also the fact that he was so willing to run away and abandon his sister and yell at her for following him is disgusting. I’m sorry, yes a big move sucks, not being with all your friends sucks, but its not like he was too far to visit them and the way he treated Mo was unacceptable. Mo is his younger sister and is not the reason for the move, as an older sibling it shouldn’t have taken a cybersleeve for Robby to understand that Mo was affected by the move too. As a younger sibling, we see it all, we hear it all, we internalize everything. Robby leaving would have left Mo with the mentality that she was easy to leave behind because her own brother valued city life and his friends more then her being there. Theres no way in reality that she would have forgive him so easily for trying to leave after the Terrans were born. The only reason Robby didn’t keep running away was because something ‘interesting’ happened (the Terrans), the idea that two new friends/family members being the largest reason for him deciding to stay wouldn’t impact her mental is crazy.

- Dorothy and Alex

Cute couple, love their love and support for each other. Alex is a silly guy but clearly is a great sad just like Dot is a great mom.

The whole issue of moving to Witwicky was blamed on Dot which isn’t completely wrong but its not like they moved out of state or too far away for the kids to visit the city every so often. Yes its important to want your kids to want/like the move but sometimes its better that you do or theres outside factors that play in it and you have to move regardless. Dorothy didn’t have to have them move but she (very reasonably) wanted a change of pace and scene, they stayed within reasonable range of the city (clearly) so its not a giant problem especially if half the 2/3 other family members think its fair to let her finally have something she’s wanted for a while, a change of scene. Dorothy does so much for her kids and the lack of empathy from Robby to think he can’t possibly live without texting or seeing his friends 24/7 is crazy. Oh you have friends? Okay cool, maybe work on your communication skills with mom and find a schedule that lets you sit in the dining room and talk to your friends and make plans to visit every so often. Also clearly thats a fucking lie because instead of doing his family tradition with dad he stayed home and entered a game tournament IN HIS ROOM, so OBVIOUSLY HE HAS WIFI or connection to the internet and is able to play/connect with friends.

I feel very strongly on how Robby acted in the first episode and can’t see anyway for Mo to not be affected.