#and the world is saved (it was never at risk)

[phoebe-ya]

Jayce keeps going back in time to save Viktor, not out of duty, but because he wants him. Without Viktor, they’d never create the thing that destroys their world, yet Jayce doesn’t care. He’d rather risk everything than live in a world without Viktor.

We finish this together.

[dinarosie]

James Potter and Sirius Black were better than Snape. They matured enough to sacrifice themselves to protect Harry, while Snape never grew and never moved beyond his grudges

It’s easy to admire the kind of hero who sacrifices everything to protect those they love—their family, their child, their cherished godson. That kind of bravery is noble, no doubt.

But do you know what’s even more extraordinary? What’s more selfless and heroic?

True heroism is not about protecting those who love you in return. It’s not about fighting for gratitude or recognition. It’s about standing alone, fighting for people who don’t care about you, who misunderstand you, who will never see or value your sacrifice.

It’s about a man who endures hatred, mockery, and indifference—and still chooses to protect those very same people. A man who saves lives that openly scorn him, who risks everything for a world that will never celebrate him.

His heroism isn’t adorned with glory. It isn’t written in songs or remembered in tales. It’s quiet. It’s relentless. It’s profoundly human.

He doesn’t do it for fame or reward. He does it because he knows the right thing must be done, even if no one will ever know it was him.

So tell me: is there any greater hero than the one who fights without glory, loves without reward, and sacrifices without being asked?

Because if you look closely, you’ll see him—the man who gave everything, not because he had to, but because he chose to.

This is Severus Snape.

[arceus-insanity]

Endeavor Deserves No Sympathy!

I don't understand how anyone can think Endeavor was ever a good dad. It also always comes off as incredibly victim blamie, especially towards Touya, and often Shoto too.

He literally only got married and had kids to use them. He never gave a shit about their well being, never even thought about it until he had the one thing he cared about and was still miserable. I've already gone over the math proving he gave up on achieving his dream himself at 21 at the absolute latest. (https://www.tumblr.com/arceus-insanity/763259515356512256/i-liked-endeavors-character-when-he-was?source=share)

And basic math will once again be used to prove just how little this waste of flesh actually tries.

This time the focus is on how quickly he abandoned Touya and immediately went to emotional abuse via neglect & literally replacing him, and once again risking that more children be born with self-destructive quirks.

For context we only see Endeavor doing anything with his kids that's not him literally walking through and ignoring them in two circumstances. Once when Fuyumi's a newborn and Touya is attempting to crawl (not walk) over to her. And training. Those are the only times he tries to spend with any of them, even after he starts his 'atonement'

Now comparing Touya in the scene of them training and himself as a toddler and all the child imagery this series loves to use instead of actually saving imperfect victims, Touya is at least 3 (probably closer to 4) when he's taken to the doctor and they are informed of his condition

Natsuo is 4 and a half years younger than him.

We know for a fact Natsuo (& Shoto) was conceived after they got the news, not willingly either. Pregnancy takes 40 weeks average, so Touya would still be 3 when Natsuo was conceived. So once again it took this 'man' less than a year to give up and have another child he hoped to use as a tool, and was explicitly making to hurt his existing son. And as I have said plenty of times before, risking that the new kids could be born with the same disorder, I hate how convenient it is that Shoto gets near zero negative quirk side effects.

Want to know what we never see, Endeavor doing something else with Touya and Touya demanding training, it's always him walking past/ away from Touya. Considering all of the shit they've pulled to soften Endeavor's abuse both in the manga and even more so in the anime, they wouldn't skip something like this. It's not hard to tell that Touya's 'obsession with training' is really about spending time with his dad, you know like a human child that literally needs love, proven by numerous studies and research in the real world.

He throws all parenting responsibilities onto Rei, adds more children to that load, and when Touya suffers for it (like everyone else) he does nothing, doesn't even hire a nanny

Another are you kidding me take I've seen is that somehow Touya's quirk issues are worse than Midoriya's and Yuga's. Touya managed to train his quirk to produce blue fire at 13 with zero equipment and less than no help, and only lost control of it, because of the mental abuse Endeavor had inflicted on him leading him to a mental breakdown. And/ or the theory I've only seen once of AFO using his ability to force quirk activation (seen with a passed out chapter 90 during his first confrontation with All Might)

Midoriya was breaking his bones all the way into the Shie Hassaikai arc and was only able to fight because Eri and was breaking support equipment in the following arc as well. Yuga had a support belt all the way back in the entrance exam and was still struggling with that.

Speaking of Yuga let's compare parental effort here, because as much as it backfired Yuga's parents tried a whole lot more. For starters they nearly bankrupted themselves to get him a quirk, so he could feel equal. All For One is a mythic man prior to his arrest, and those who knew of him were shown to be serious long-term villain groups, so they had gone to quite a bit of effort to find that he existed to begin with. They also got him support gear (the navel belt thing) as a kid to help him with said quirk, he literally had it in the entrance exam. Endeavor never looked into that, Endeavor is not only rich too but he's a top hero he would have direct access to support equipment companies that would jump at the opportunity and it never even occurred to him.

Endeavor's name is an irony as endeavour means to try hard to do or achieve something. He never tries hard he gives up incredibly quickly the second there's any road block, but instead of moving on he makes everyone suffer for it. He's a toxic pageant mom who'd rather force their child into a toxic world and a role they don't want than work on himself

And what finally makes him change? Getting exactly what he wanted and still being miserable, and he still expects through his actions his family to cater to him.

Not his son getting a major disability due to his actions, no, he decided to double down, mentally abusing and neglecting the son he supposedly loves, raping his wife who didn't want more kids or participate in this abuse, and again risking that Natsuo & later Shoto might have that same issue. Not when his wife breaks down and permanently scars his precious masterpiece, who proceeds to rightfully blame him, and he just thinks of it as a tantrum despite it lasting a fucking decade. Not when his eldest literally dies as the result of his selfishness. Not literally during any part of this entire process!

Dabi is 23 when Endeavor finally starts to 'try' to be better, that means that for at least 24 years he has only been caring about his fucking precious number one spot in a popularity contest that he couldn't even bother to try to be likeable for, this wasn't one bad decision, this was him constantly choosing to be so insanely selfish that he found ways that shouldn't even be possible for over two decades. And it was all him.

[chillypowder]

Timelines of love

Pairing: Ekko x Reader

Word Count: ~2,000

Genre: Angst, Tragedy

Summary: When you’re fatally caught in a Firelight raid gone wrong, Ekko uses his Z-Drive to try and save you. But no matter how many timelines he rewinds, the outcome only grows more devastating. Caught in an endless loop of grief and guilt, Ekko struggles to decide: should he let go or keep trying, knowing he might never succeed?

Warnings: Violence, repeated character death, grief, and emotional turmoil.

Ekko adjusted the dial on his Z-Drive with shaking hands, ignoring the searing pain in his ribs. The world around him shimmered like broken glass as time bent to his will. He clenched his jaw, focusing on the moment he needed—the instant before everything went wrong.

“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

The light enveloped him, the sounds of chaos fading until they were replaced by a familiar scene: the Firelights’ hideout, moments before the raid. The scent of oil and grime mixed with the faint sweetness of the flowers you kept in a chipped vase.

You were there, standing at the table, running your hands over a makeshift map of the Undercity. Your brow was furrowed in concentration, your lips moving silently as you reviewed the plan. You were always so focused, so determined, and it made his chest ache to see you like this again—alive.

“Ekko?” You looked up, startled. “You okay?”

He couldn’t stop himself. He crossed the room in two long strides and pulled you into his arms, burying his face in your shoulder. You froze, confused by the sudden embrace, but then your arms came up to wrap around him.

“Hey,” you murmured, voice tinged with worry. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he lied, his voice muffled. “Just… wanted to hold you.”

You pulled back to look at him, your hands cupping his face. “You’re a terrible liar, you know that?”

Ekko laughed softly, his heart twisting in his chest. He couldn’t tell you the truth. He couldn’t tell you how many times he’d already seen this moment play out. How many times he’d tried to save you.

It always went the same way.

The Firelights set out to intercept a Shimmer shipment. The intel seemed solid—too solid. The ambush turned into a trap, and chaos erupted. Somewhere in the middle of it all, you were caught in the crossfire. A stray bullet. A collapsing structure. A knife meant for him.

Every time, you died.

And every time, Ekko rewound the clock, trying to change the outcome.

This time, he made sure to stay close to you, never letting you out of his sight.

“Stay behind me,” he urged as the team crept through the shadows, his voice low but insistent.

You rolled your eyes. “I can handle myself, you know.”

“I mean it,” he said, grabbing your wrist. “Promise me.”

You hesitated, studying his face. There was something in his eyes—something raw and desperate.

“Okay,” you relented, your voice softening. “I promise.”

The fight erupted moments later, gunfire and shouts tearing through the night. Ekko’s staff whirred as he deflected bullets, his movements precise and calculated. He fought like a man possessed, every strike aimed at protecting you.

But no matter how hard he tried, no matter how fast he moved, it always ended the same.

This time, it was an explosion. A stray spark ignited a barrel of Shimmer, and the blast sent you flying.

When the dust settled, Ekko found you lying motionless amidst the rubble, your promise to stay behind him broken.

He rewound again.

And again.

And again.

Each attempt grew more frantic, more desperate. He changed the plan. He changed the route. He even tried convincing you to stay behind entirely, but you refused every time, your determination unwavering.

“I’m not sitting this one out,” you said firmly, crossing your arms. “You need me out there.”

“I need you alive,” he snapped, his voice sharper than he intended.

Your expression softened, and you stepped closer, placing a hand on his cheek. “Ekko, you can’t protect me from everything. We all take risks. It’s part of the fight.”

He wanted to scream, to beg you to understand, but what could he say? That he’d watched you die a dozen times? That no matter what he did, he couldn’t save you?

Instead, he nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.

In one timeline, he managed to keep you out of the fight entirely. You stayed back at the hideout, safe and sound. For a fleeting moment, he thought he’d finally won.

But the mission failed without your help. The Firelights were ambushed and outnumbered, and Ekko barely made it back alive.

When he stumbled into the hideout, bloodied and broken, the look on your face shattered him.

“You should’ve let me come,” you said, tears streaming down your face. “I could’ve helped. I could’ve—”

“I couldn’t risk losing you,” he interrupted, his voice raw.

“But you’re okay risking everyone else?” you shot back, anger and grief warring in your expression.

He didn’t have an answer.

In another timeline, he tried sending someone else in your place. But when the Firelights returned, it was with news of your capture.

He led a rescue mission, determined to bring you back, but by the time he reached you, it was too late. The sight of your lifeless body, bruised and broken, haunted him long after he rewound the clock.

No matter what he did, the timeline refused to bend. It was as if the universe itself had decided that you were meant to die.

The final attempt was the hardest.

Ekko stood in front of you, his hands trembling as he held your face.

“Promise me you’ll stay safe,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.

You frowned, confused by the intensity in his eyes. “Ekko—”

“Promise me,” he repeated, cutting you off.

“I promise,” you said softly, reaching up to brush a tear from his cheek.

It wasn’t enough.

He knew it wouldn’t be enough.

This time, he didn’t rewind.

When the fight broke out, he stayed by your side, doing everything he could to shield you. But when the explosion came, there was nothing he could do.

You were thrown to the ground, blood staining your clothes as your breathing grew ragged.

“No, no, no,” Ekko muttered, dropping to his knees beside you. He pressed his hands against the wound, desperate to stop the bleeding.

Your eyes fluttered open, and you gave him a weak smile. “Ekko…”

“Don’t talk,” he said, his voice breaking. “You’re gonna be okay. I’ll fix this.”

You shook your head slightly, your hand reaching up to cup his face. “You can’t fix everything.”

Tears streamed down his face as he clutched you tighter. “Don’t say that. Don’t you dare say that.”

“I’m glad I got to fight by your side,” you whispered, your voice growing weaker.

“No,” he choked out. “You’re supposed to stay. We’re supposed to have more time.”

But your hand fell limp, and the light faded from your eyes.

For the first time, Ekko didn’t reach for the Z-Drive.

He sat there in the aftermath, cradling your lifeless body as the reality of your loss settled over him.

No matter how many times he rewound, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t save you.

The Z-Drive hummed softly on his wrist, a cruel reminder of the power he held—and the limits of that power.

In the days that followed, Ekko carried the weight of your memory with him. Your laughter, your determination, your love—they were all etched into his heart, a painful but precious reminder of what he had lost.

He still wore the Z-Drive, but he never used it to return to that moment again.

Some things, he realized, were meant to be let go.

Masterlist

[princessshikky]

The whole "Justice became Vengeance" thing is extremely iffy, imo.

First of all, if there's anything in common between all demons we've seen in-game, it's that they're selfish. Ultimately driven by their desires. Granted, those desires range from "take over the world, mwa-ha-ha" to "avenge people I/my host cared about" to "just roam around and see the world with my own two eyes", but. We've never seen a demon in-game who'd be content just sitting in a sewer for seven years, holding a free clinic for the downtrodden and risking their host's life in order to save mages from the circle. That's not something demons do. Ever.

Second of all, Anders' and Justice's actions are almost never about vengeance. Mostly they're about the cause of mages. Not "killing everyone in the chantry for hurting mages", not "hurting every templar so that they know what it feels like", but "saving mages and giving them freedom". Anders-and-Justice very rarely care about retribution. Even the chantry boom wasn't about vengeance, but about showing to the public how unjust the current system is and how it is heavily skewed against mages.

Third of all, if you take Anders to the Fade during the Feynriel quest in act II, Torpor - an actual demon of Sloth - literally says "Ignore this tiresome little spirit". We meet someone who clearly knows a thing or two about spirits and demons, and this person takes one look at Justice and goes "Yep. Spirit through and through".

Finally, what's our primary source of information about Justice having turned into Vengeance? Anders' words. And while I love Anders with all my heart, I can't honestly call him a specialist on the subject. He's been influenced by the Chantry teachings and biases whether he wants it or not. Sorry, honey, I won't take your word for it.

I do believe there's one instance in the game where Justice comes dangerously close to being corrupted into a demon - namely, that one meeting with Sir Alric, where Anders-and-Justice/Vengeance almost kill Ella (or without "almost", depending on whether Hawke manages to talk them down). But they quickly snap out of it.

Tl;dr: there's numerous evidence that Justice wasn't corrupted and remains a spirit, and I don't believe otherwise. Sorry to hijack your post, OP.

All of the discussion about spirits and demons in DAV has really got me thinking about DA2. Solas (and the game itself) tells us that when a spirit is denied its true purpose, it becomes twisted into a demon.

I think this suggests that Justice became Vengeance not because he was poisoned by Anders’ rage/desire for revenge, but because he was denied his original purpose as a spirit of justice in Kirkwall. The mages there were so oppressed and persecuted by the templars that after years of running a clinic and working to effect change without achieving any real justice for the mages, Justice was twisted from his true purpose into Vengeance. He was literally unable to fulfill his role and promote justice in that environment, so he was forced to become vengeance instead.

Anders wasn’t the reason Justice became Vengeance. Kirkwall was.

[stillness-in-green]

why do you think Deku never tried to talk to Shigaraki? doylist reason is obvious but what's the watsonian reason?

Honestly, this one’s pretty tricky to answer.  It’s very hard to get myself into the headspace of Deku (and the people in his own headspace!)—mainly because I get extremely uncharitable, extremely quickly.  Mainly about Horikoshi, yes, but that does extend to Deku, too, as well as the broader world he lives in.

The brain goes immediately to answers like, “His world is so incredibly slanted towards retributive models of justice that the fact that he even thinks about wanting to know Shigaraki’s motivations makes him a candidate for mad sainthood to the people around him.  The fact that he doesn’t follow that impulse through all the way to actually asking is immaterial; while Villains have to be punished for their actions, for Heroes, it’s the thought that counts.”

See how I’m already drifting back towards meta-narrative analysis at the end there?  Deku brings a lot of that out in me, especially from Villain Hunt onwards.  Like the wooden doll he’s named for, he comes off to me as a vessel for the plot to happen through more than he does a consistently written, well-thought-out character.  Trying to think of him through a purely Watsonian lens—no refences made at all, period, to what I think the story was trying to express or what Horikoshi’s intentions towards that story were—I almost immediately jump the tracks into territory that is all but certainly incompatible with what I was “supposed” to take away from MHA as a story.

But, you did ask, so I’ll follow the thought experiment through.  If I were to try and set down to paper an explanation for Deku’s actions from a purely in-universe stance—say, for writing canon compliant post-series fanfic—what would be my explanation?

(Hit the jump.)

Right off the bat, from a cultural perspective, I think Deku is afraid that if he tries to make excuses for Shigaraki, it would be disrespectful to Shigaraki’s victims.  That’s why you get the heroic characters constant harping on about how they can’t forgive the Villains, even though, as adjuncts to the police, “forgiveness” is utterly immaterial to them doing their jobs.  Too much sympathy for criminals, in some peoples’ eyes, becomes indicative of a lack of proper regard for the victims of crime; this is very much a dynamic in play in Japan’s legal system.[1]  Ochaco initially has the same impulse, where she’s terrified that even thinking about Toga Himiko’s human circumstances puts her in danger of forgetting the suffering Toga and the League brought about.

1: That’s a meta consideration, yes, but one that I think the target audience would understand to be implicit in the canon as written, so I’m treating it as a Watsonian detail.

Ochaco and Deku commiserate and ultimately encourage each other to embrace their desire to understand their respective Villains, which leads to Ochaco talking to Toga at some length!  Ochaco must do this because asking Toga these questions if the only way she has to reach that understanding.  Deku does not have to ask, however, because he has a cheatmode to fall back on: the mindscape shared between All For One and One For All.  If Deku thinks too much open communication with Villains risks dishonoring Shigaraki’s victims, well, he doesn’t have to openly communicate.  He doesn’t have to talk to Shigaraki the person at all.  He just has to find that crying little boy in the mindscape again.

I also think it’s notable that Deku very much does stop talking about wanting to save Shigaraki after he talks to Gran Torino.  From that point on, everything he says about Shigaraki becomes about wanting to understand him instead.  Coupled with the idea that he insists upon not forgiving Shigaraki, I get the sense that what Deku wants is not to help Shigaraki at all, but rather to simply bear witness to his truth.  And even that much feels self-serving to me—as if Deku doesn’t care so much that Shigaraki is in pain, but rather that Shigaraki might have a point, that Shigaraki’s pain might be valid.  Shigaraki having a valid point would destabilize everything Deku believes about Heroes and Hero Society, and Deku has, by that point, seen enough that he’s too upright to look away, to “sweep things back under the rug,” so he has to find out Shigaraki’s story to judge it for himself.

The fact that he feels he has the right to judge Shigaraki’s story speaks to the arrogance of Heroes—the same arrogance that leads them to declare their lack of forgiveness as if it’s in some way relevant to doing the job in front of them—as well as a deeply rooted defensiveness: that they must have, and be perceived as having, the moral high ground over those evil Villains.  I think, for example, of the Flamin’ Sidekickers and their cringingly awkward self-justifications to Dabi about their continued association with Todoroki Enji.  Their reasoning has zero bearing on either Dabi’s pain or their own heroic responsibilities to assist in the arrest of a known murderer/terrorist/arsonist, but they feel the need to spell that reasoning out to the child abuse victim/volatile Villain anyway, seemingly for no in-character reason save to rationalize the deep discomfort that Dabi’s video accusations provoked in them.

Heroes must be seen as morally just—this is the whole basis for the authority they’ve been granted to wield their powers against other people.  Best Jeanist talks about this idea explicitly, as does Police Chief Tsuragamae.  Far more damningly, it’s what led to the HPSC using agents like Lady Nagant and Hawks to quietly dispose of anyone that would present a threat to the public image of Heroes and, by extension, the fragile peace that rests on that public image.

Heroes must be pure and righteous, and Deku is just as apt to believe that as any other Hero—maybe even more apt, given that he’s also had All Might leaning on him about the bearer of One For All being the Pillar and the Symbol of Peace.  All this baggage winds up conflicting, however, with the horror and reflexive need to help Deku feels upon seeing the small, crying child within Shigaraki.

Saving small crying children is the absolute, innermost core of Deku’s personal framing of Heroism—seriously, he says this nearly word-for-word in Chapter 1!—and so, like Shouji says of the heteromorph riot, it isn’t something he can ignore and still call himself a Hero.  He’s unprepared for that personal brand of Heroism to conflict with the demands of professional Heroism, because he never expected to face someone who was both Evil Villain and Crying Child at the same time.  This is what he wrestles with over the course of his time away from UA and why, ultimately, he decides to use the mindscape as a way of resolving the conflict.

(Note again that I'm talking about my fanfic explanation here. Deku's reasoning is much murkier in the canon because of the canon's late turn towards locking us hard out of Deku's personal feelings and thoughts when they're about anything more complex than chain OFA combo moves.)

Remember that Deku begins the Villain Hunt Arc with a tentative desire to “understand Villains” so that he can perhaps use that understanding to avert or at least deescalate conflicts with them—and then the very first Villain he falteringly tries to understand is fucking Muscular, who shuts him down cold.  Deku never tries that hard[2] to understand a Villain again—Lady Nagant dumps her backstory on him with very little prompting from him, he has nothing but ultimatums for Overhaul, he doesn’t seem to ask any of AFO’s other minions any personal questions whatsoever, and with Shigaraki, he goes straight to the mindscape instead of even attempting a dialogue.

2: Insomuch as you could call asking three invasive, judgy questions in the middle of combat and then throwing in the towel “trying hard”.

My take is that Muscular scared him off of trying to verbally uncover the backstories of Villains—even though Shigaraki is ready to all but hand the first Hero to ask an illustrated history of his grievances with Hero Society, Deku can’t trust that anything Shigaraki tells him will be the unvarnished truth.  Unlike Shouto, he has no one to corroborate the truth with, but unlike Uraraka, he doesn’t just have to make the best of it, either.  He can instead utilize the mindscape, an approach that sidesteps all of the issues that a spoken dialogue would entail:

Getting Shigaraki’s truth via the mindscape means he can trust the answers he gets, rather than having to filter those answers through Shigaraki’s warped worldview.  This allows him to honestly evaluate Shigaraki’s perspective, gauging whether Shigaraki has a real point that Deku has any responsibility to address, some injustice that needs to be corrected independently of Shigaraki being held accountable for his crimes.    

Having decided that—for reasons of justice, All Might’s Pillar mentality, and his own peace of mind—he has to know Shigaraki’s truth, Deku comes to feel self-righteously entitled to that truth.  Thus, even though Shigaraki always seemed perfectly willing to share his thoughts in their previous encounters, Deku can’t take the chance that he’ll change his mind and rebuff Deku like Muscular did.  Using the mindscape takes that agency away from Shigaraki, rendering his willingness to share moot.    

No one other than people with access to the shared mindscape can perceive the interactions happening within it.  This means that, no matter what Deku learns or how he reacts to it in the moment, he doesn’t risk being seen as disrespecting Shigaraki’s victims by prioritizing the feelings and perspective of a vicious terrorist.    

Finally, on a tactical note, the encounter Deku has with Shigaraki in the mindscape during the Jakku battle seems to happen nigh instantaneously.  If he can get his answers at the speed of thought, that means he doesn’t have to specifically draw out his battle with Shigaraki until he’s resolved things to his personal satisfaction.  This is ideal, since Shigaraki presents an incredibly dangerous threat to everything and everyone around him, and Deku’s Hero education has repeatedly emphasized the importance of ending battles quickly.

There's just one problem with all this: Deku is assuming access to Shigaraki’s mind.  And why wouldn’t he?  He got in there without even trying last time, after all!  I assume that’s also why he rolls up to the battle with zero plans of any kind: he doesn’t understand how the mechanics of the shared mindscape work and none of the prior bearers can advise him because it’s a brand-new phenomenon for him as the ninth bearer, so they’re just as clueless about it as he is. 

Lacking that knowledge, he opts to simply take it on faith that he’ll be able to access that mental space again, find the crying child in it, and uncover enough about Shigaraki’s history to render his own judgement of it.  He's the Deku who does his best, after all; if it doesn't work, at least he'll know he tried. The good faith attempt, however it turns out, will allow him to satisfy his own sense of justice while not interfering with whatever temporal justice the adult Heroes are planning for Shigaraki—to which Deku fully believes he must be subjected as punishment for his crimes!—be it arrest or an execution broadcast to the entire world.

Unfortunately for Deku, thanks to his being waylaid by Toga, he turns up late to the battle only to find Shigaraki’s psyche sealed up tighter than an All Might-themed wall safe.  Then, since he never had any kind of plan for talking to Shigaraki, and his own ability to plan things is strictly limited to combining quirk abilities on the fly, he has to wing it until Kudou is able to come up with a plan for him.  Naturally, because Kudou is Kudou, and Heroes’ solutions are tailored to Heroes’ strengths, this involves violent psychic assault.  And why not?  It’s not like Deku believes Shigaraki deserves the mercy of a gentler approach.  Just think of all those people he hurt!

Now, is this all heckin’ uncharitable?  Does it paint Deku as well-intended but blindly self-righteous and ethically timid? Oh, for sure.  And I do think there was a point at which Deku wanted to save Shigaraki in a truer sense—indeed, he’s quite plain-spoken about it in the OFA Mental Conference in the aftermath of the first war!  However, it’s absolutely within his established characterization to run into things that make him uneasy and take the first out an authority figure offers him that spares him the work of demolishing and rebuilding his entire world view. ��Look no further than the aftermath of the mall scene. You can draw a straight line from Deku taking Tsukauchi's out (that Shigaraki is just a sore loser) to him also taking Gran's (that killing Shigaraki could be a way of saving him).

That’s the mentality I would lean on to explain Deku’s anemic efforts to truly save Shigaraki in the end: an inherent desire to help people that has been hamstrung by a learned dehumanization of Villains, a repeated emphasis on swift, unthinking action as a Heroic virtue, a culture that regards sympathy for those involved in a crime as a zero sum game, and, last but not least, a psychological complex about the basic nature of Heroism rooted in his fraught childhood.

Deku says he’ll “never forget” Shigaraki. If it were me writing the sequel, “never forgetting” would look an awful lot like, “Following a particularly frustrating day of the Pro Hero grind, Midoriya Izuku opens his eyes at 4AM one cold winter night in his early-40s with the horrible, inescapable realization that what he did as a teenager to a deeply victimized young man barely older than he was himself back then was fucked up in ways he can never repair or take back.  And further that now, not only is he going to have to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for that act, it’s going to be much, much harder than it would have been back then, specifically because he did what he did back then and let the world get away with calling it heroism.”

Thanks for the ask, anon! I hope you find the answer interesting and at least somewhat believable, for all that it certainly isn't tonally in-line with the story's portrayal of its much-lauded protagonist.

   

(P.S. On top of convincing both All Might and Deku to not pursue saving Shigaraki in any concrete sense, Gran Torino also takes partial credit for Nana's decision to abandon Kotarou. Torino Sorahiko might actually be the all-time world champion of convincing OFA bearers that preserving One For All is worth abandoning children to their grim fates. Give him a hand, everyone. What a great and admirable Hero who absolutely deserved to survive all the way to the end of the story and who definitely is not a symbol of all the most jaded and cynical priorities of the old order.)

[monabee-draws]

There are too many things to say about Act 3 but one truth is that Episode 7 is the best episode in the season. And I mean in terms of a complete, narrative arc in one episode. There are plenty of absolutely perfect scenes and moments in other episodes (Isha's scene in ep 6, Jayce and Viktor's final reconcilliation) but wow was 7 the best written episode overall.

The Ekko/Heimer plot:

- Explores the beauty of a world entirely uncorrupted by the Hextech dream because this Powder chose to close the power away in a drawer.

- We watch Heimerdinger see the fruit of what his work might have done if he didn't dig his head in the sand for decades. It is blissful inaction and lack of compassion that kills. It is the maintenance of the status quo by those who benefit from it that kills. It is the entire false dream of Piltover that kills. And it can be changed, but only if those in power recognise their own hubris.

- Heimerdinger's death foreshadow's Jayce and Viktor's as well. He chooses to 'evaporate' into the Arcane so that the younger generation can try again, and make up for his mistakes. His brand of scientific omniscia did not work, and neither will jayvik's.

- The sister's tragedy persists in every universe. Vi and Jinx never get to be together no matter how perfect things could have gone. Vander warns our Vi that the kids will always follow her lead, and its on her head if things go wrong. Their Vi paid that price for them. She saved Mylo, Claggor, Vander and Powder. But there will always be a loss somewhere. There is no perfect world.

- Powder/Jinx was never going to be happy staying in Zaun and always needed to be free beyond other people's wants for her/their protectiveness/the cycle of violence. This foreshadows her imagined conversation with Silco and her flight at the end of episode 9 (she's alive I'm sorry.)

- Ekko learns to reconcile his vision of freedom with the imperfect nature of his own world (a very necessary lesson for a time traveler), a realisation that also foreshadow's future Viktor's realisation that perfection isn't good actually.

-> overall, this half teaches us Jayce's lesson about the importance and beauty of imperfection, of freedom of will, and going beyond the will of others. It's a perfect microcosm of the story as a whole, and expertly sets up every other character's choices in the end. Not to mention the literal time travel device ends up saving the world. That small imperfection - "That device cannot be" - is what sets everyone free.

For Jayce's story:

- Se see that Viktor's beautiful commune was always a lie, and all of the people he 'healed' were already dead at his hands. Hextech was never going to save anybody. The dream was tainted from the beginning.

- Jayce's resillience and agency grow and recover beyond what we see of him in season 1. He takes real accountability for his actions for the first time. The sheer spread of the consequences contradicts Jayce's insistence that they thought of every countermeasure. This entire sequence destabilises his (and Viktor's) images as gifted scientists whose intellect is equivalent to omniscience. They too are blinded by the same folly of Piltover's elite - their superiority is finally and thoroughly challenged in an indisputable way.

- His injury and leg brace level him with Viktor in a way that is crucial visual language for their later reconcilliation and Jayce's speech about accepting flaws in the finale. The fact that it is his Hextech hammer that breaks his leg is even more important - more evidence of the corruption of their dream, and of violence not being the correct solution.

- The scope of the dead world needed to be explored for us to understand how bad of an apocalypse we risk facing such that Zaun and Piltover cooperating could even be conceivable despite Caitlyn and Ambessa's fascist campaigns tearing the cities apart. The audience needs to have that disbelief suspended, and those scenes achieve that. In-story the cooperation between cities is still unbelievable, but this episode succeeds at making it understandable from a meta-perspective. We know what lies beneath the mask.

-> Overall, this half reinforces the themes of glorious imperfection, but also helps better set the stage for the audience to suspend their disbelief later on. And, it very importantly reminds us that no one character in Arcane has ever or will ever be 'correct' about the best path to move forward. It must always be a collaborative effort, and when we forget that, we forget ourselves, and we doom the world to a twisted vision.

[koalatysleep]

Mckirk is the real Mccoy for me in AOS if you'd pardon the pun 🤣 I love their chemistry together, Jim practically gives Bones his Name based on Bone's own monologue of how his life is shot to shit, Bones takes one look at Jim, recognizes a Kindred soul whose own life is similarly shit and offers him Solidarity in the form of a drink from Bone's own flask. Then of coz Bones gives Jim his Dream of making it out into the black despite the risk of losing everything he'd rebuilt over his academy years. He saw the utter devastation on Jim's face, went "fuck this shit" to himself and "Come with me" to Jim, and just like that, Jim went from the brink of metaphorical death to being gloriously Alive, Delighted and needling Bones like he's a kid again while Bones jabs him a thousand times 🤣, which goes to show the utter Trust Jim has in Bones to keep him safe and alive 🥹.

Love the dynamics of Bones saving Jim bot metaphorically and physically, then Jim saving the whole crew including Bones right back!

I would have loved to see the films develop this organic chemistry between Bones and Jim, but alas Bones got sidelined by the films a bit, though they did do Bones some justice when we see Jim scared out of his mind when Bones was in danger while disarming the torpedo and when Bones kicked ass and saved Jim repeatedly!

(And dressed near identically as Jim in the screencaps above, with a conspicuous necklace that looks suspiciously like a lover's gift, after we find out Spock's given Uhura a necklace that's basically a tracking device 🤣🤣🤣 Jim.. separation anxiety much?)

There can never be enough AOS McKirk content in the world, and there're some brilliant fics on AO3!

genuinely love how in 2009 some trekkie said no…. NO. enough is enough. spirk has had its time in the sun. it’s time for bones x jim to get their flowers!!!!!!

[fancyfeathers]

If all (or most) of the yandere!JL had darlings, do you think they’d have a system?

Like, to make sure their darlings are mentally healthy, would they set up stuff for them to meet each other? (Like pets)

When somebody has to go on a mission that takes a while, would they leave their darling with a trusted friend or just the watchtower in general?

I really think it depends, like Bruce Wayne's darling will just be kept at Wayne Manor, and probably has never met anyone from the Justice League or their darlings unless they come around to the manor. She has the boys and Alfred to keep her company when Bruce is gone.

Arthur Curry and Diana are similar to Bruce in that way, Arthur's darling is kept safe underneath the ocean's surface, keeping her safe where he knows he has control and no one will ever dare to harm her unless they wish to anger him. Then Diana's darling will be taken to Themyscira to live with her and the Amazons, but Diana will take her darling to visit other members of the Justice League and their darlings, probably Clark and his darling because of how well their darlings get along, they were probably college roommates or something, like sisters and since Clark has his darling Diana does not need to worry about hers.

Then for the others like Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, Clark Kent, they are all yanderes with delusional tendencies to different extents.

Barry is slightly lucid, but he tells himself over and over again that this is truly for the best and they can have a somewhat normal life together, he comes home from his civilian work every day as a scientist for the Central City Police Department and provides for her, it is completely normal as long as she does not try to leave the house because he set up sensors at the doors and windows to notify him whenever something is opened and he always comes running home quite literally to bring her back inside which is followed by a lecture about how he is just trying to keep her safe and...

honestly, at the two-minute mark, his darling just clocks out because it is always the same thing over again and she does not need to hear the same forty-minute speech about her behavior.

But Barry lets his darling socialize with other darlings or Justice League members, bringing her along to meetings or when they go on missions and a League member stays behind to look after their darlings, and when it is a bigger threat that requires the whole League he is an absolute mess before leaving her in the watchtower, kissing her all over and telling her how much he loves her before he had to run off to you know save the world.

Clark is purely delusional to the point where he firmly believes what he is doing is right, no way about it, he genuinely believes his darling would be dead without him, and to some extent, he is right because they probably met when he saved her life as Superman. His darling honestly won't even have time to realize something is wrong because by the time she even realizes someone is watching her, she is going to be waking up with Clark holding her in his arms, acting like they have been together for years. Similar to Barry he knows when his darling is doing something she shouldn't because of his super hearing he is always listening in to at least some extent, Sometimes it's everything, but most of the time it is just her breathing or heartbeat which can tell a lot of things like when a person is panicked.

Clark does not bring his darling along as much as Barry does, he cannot risk losing her if anything goes wrong, that being said his darling does have slightly more freedom than most, but that is because he has her in the middle of nowhere with no car and everything too far to walk on foot, especially because to be honest his darling is going to have kids and get pregnant sooner than some of the other darlings who will because Clark definitely has babyfever. So besides she'll be busy taking care of the house and or resting if she's pregnant most of the day to socialize. However, if a dangerous situation did arise that all the Justice League needed to deal with he would leave his darling at the watchtower because he would have no idea when he would be home and back with her, and at least he knows she would be safe enough there and have other company so she won't be losing her mind in loneliness. Clark being Clark would be constantly worrying about her, especially if she was pregnant or already had given birth.

Okay assuming that you are referring to this post in the ask with Hal having a Detective Darling who is on the trail of the kidnappings of the darlings of the Justice League. Hal is very protective of his darling, especially after what happened to her and the fact that he was not able to protect her then. Due to his work as a Green Lantern half of the time he has his darling staying in the watchtower because he is off-planet so often, this is pretty standard for any darling of a Green Lantern in the Justice League so those darlings are all pretty close. Then there are the lucky times when all the Lanterns are busy and or off-planet and all of them are left to speak freely without one of them reporting to the others if anything concerning was said, drinking and gossiping. Honestly, if any of the other darlings of the Justice League were around, they kinda would feel like they are intruding on the group of the Green Lanterns' darlings.

I could just imagine Clark's or Barry's darling meeting Hal's darling, the same one the Justice League worried about exposing the League. They had heard about her via listening on meetings when they were brought along, or Hal talking about her and they had a small hope that someone would still be out there looking for them until they heard of her getting paralyzed from the waist down on a different case and Hal taking her in and taking care of her and they just felt horrible for her because she just wanted to help them and other people but it ended up costing her everything and they feel like it is all their fault.

[vorpalfae]

{TW: suicide}

8 years ago my 1st love, my 1st best friend, & biggest part of my childhood died by suicide. u deserved so much better & i wanted to die when i found out u were gone. it still hurts. this world isn't the same without u. ur mom & i still talk about how amazing u were.

ur death hit me so hard. i was never the same after receiving that call. i still cry thinking about your death and the fact that ur situation was so bad that u thought u had no other choice. we both battled depression together and i remember u saving my life when i attempted suicide the first time and u spending hours talking me out of trying again and me doing the same for you. we literally had a suicide pact when we were 13. but we also helped each other. we suffered and we were happy together. we got high together and we got sober together. if it weren't for you i wouldn't even be here right now. and i wish i could've been there that night. i think about it constantly. if i had known i would've done everything i could to stop you and let you know how loved and important you were to me and everyone around you. u were and still are so loved jake.

i've dealt with death and loss a lot in my life but nothing has ever hurt me or messed me up more than knowing you ended it all, alone. i'll end this post now because i don't want to risk going back to that dark place myself. i take comfort in knowing you aren't depressed anymore. or being abused anymore. or living in the crippling hell of heroin addiction. i always feel guilty about even being alive because i ask myself why did i get to live when you were deserving of happiness too. i always feel like it should've been me. i just wish you could've lived the life you deserved. i will never forget you.

RIP jake🕯️🪽💔

[moeblob]

Rey, who is in my very biased opinion, one of the funniest "girls" I have because she's just a guy, truly. Like Rey is just short for Reynold because he was recruited by a a goddess to help the hero she selected and the hero is conveniently Reynold's younger brother. So he agrees to help under the condition that the goddess gives him a female body for the other world. She's like "really odd flex but whatever" and gives him a female form and he's like "you know. I can't really blame anyone but myself for not specifying 'please don't turn me into a Lisa Frank personification'."

[carefulfears]

txf30 day 4: favorite dynamic (besides the obvious): scully/mulder/skinner

y’all mind if i ramble for a second?? there are so many connections that are so important to this story, but i always come back to these three. i think everything does.

i say that memento mori is the most loving episode of the series, but when i think about that one, it’s not even the kiss in the hallway that stays with me. it’s skinner coming in to work, the first time scully was in the hospital, and finding mulder sitting in his office. and he’s just been sitting there. bypassed the secretary (lol), and just sat and waited. he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

and the way that skinner tells him, no. don’t do it to yourself under any circumstances. that he is not to risk himself to try to save scully. ultimately, it’s not mulder that made the deal with the devil, it’s skinner who didn’t follow his own advice. (gave up everything he has, to save them both).

and these are just two weirdos who work for him in the basement!! he doesn’t owe them anything. but he’s the one there, at the end, no matter what. he’s the one who comes to get them when they’re hurt, or lost, or need help. they’re his emergency contacts, the people who show up, the people who advocate for him. the people who know him. (the bigfoot division are a.d. skinner’s silly rabbits etc etc etc)

in iwtb, after six years away, it’s skinner who comes to get scully, on the side of the road, next to mulder’s flipped car. tells her that they will find him, that he’s okay, to breathe. it’s skinner that holds mulder on the ground, in the end.

when mulder went back to bellefleur, it's skinner that scully sent with him. that girl has never trusted a single soul to so much as breathe mulder's air, but "i won't let you go alone," is immediately followed by skinner packing the car.

like trish said last night:

i think telling scully he "lost" mulder was the hardest thing he ever did. skinner loves mulder too, but mulder is scully's entire world. and this time around, he won't let scully be alone the way mulder was.

(and the kindest thing scully ever did: squeezing his hand, saying "i already heard.")

(skinner returns the favor: he tells mulder about william, so that scully doesn't have to.)

my favorite moment in requiem is the final scene, the two of them crying together. the only two people. the only two people who know.

when she tells him that she's pregnant, he's the first to know. the only person to know, for most of her pregnancy. 18 years later, he's still the first person thinking of their baby, looking out for him.

honestly, it always comes back to sein und zeit for me. when after 7 years, after 27 years, mulder says that it's just too much, and he wants to go home. he wants time away from work. the sequence in the car: mulder in the backseat, skinner behind the wheel, scully on the passenger's side. for so many years, mulder had to be searching, so that he wouldn't be alone. but now he stands in front of two people who love him, and admits to needing a break. to wanting it to stop. he's guided, he's guarded.

skinner is a hardass. it's not easy to manage their madness. it's not easy to write the footnotes, to be the person waiting, in this particular story. but like he tells mulder, 14 years after they last worked together: not a day goes by where he doesn't just wish they were there, trying to make things better.

[lovecolibri]

.

[landonkirbyappreciation]

It’s so absurd how they had golem Landon telling Hope that she needed to worry about Landon less and everyone else more. When Landon had literally melted, been trapped in Malivore, been trapped alone in a prison world full of monsters with no help or powers, for how many weeks, all while everyone else was safely living their lives at the school. But no, don’t worry about Landon, worry about everyone else. That sort of mentality really sums up the show though, like… Landon is in grave danger, Landon is trapped in another dimension, Landon’s body has been taken over, Landon died, Landon is trapped in purgatory, Landon lost a piece of his soul, every bad thing ever is happening to Landon but let’s not worry about any of that and focus on other irrelevant things instead. And care about anyone and anything else but him while he suffers. That was basically the show in a nutshell.

[lavender-acee]

sometimes. You must watch the final episode of saiki k reawakened and just sit there like, utterly vibrating. Foaming at the mouth. Its like Cinematic to me, you understand

[antoncrane]

Random TOW question: When visiting Phineas, do you go alone or take companions with you? (I ask because I realised that I’ve always gone to see him solo. Legit’ never once dragged anyone along.) Also I know this could have been a poll, but I genuinely enjoy hearing everyone’s reasons for doing things.