#at the Japan Festival this weekend

[maximura]

HEESEUNG | ROCK IN JAPAN FES. AUGUST 2024.

[reunitedinterlude]

lofi phantasy: the album

tracks 1-4 (x)

[kaiyonohime]

Cherry blossoms have started blossoming!

So I wandered down to the local shrine and took some pictures.  And conveniently walked the baby to sleep.  

[karin0punx]

マンウィズのライブに行きました！🎉✨😆✨🎊

Yap, finally MAN WITH A MISSION came to Jakarta, Indonesia Live in WOKE UP FEST 2023!!! 🐺🇮🇩✨️

About more than a year ago, they sent me a letter along with the setlist competition prize, said that MWAM would be coming to Indonesia soon. And it really happened!!! 🥰✨️

I was so excited to see the wolves again after almost 5 years of waiting~ ☺️🔥

Last time, I watched their shows in Bangkok with my sister and a Japanese acquaintance on the venue. But now, we had more people joining! 🙌🙌

The show began with introduction videos from COWCOW, a famous comedy group from Japan in Indonesia. They had funny introduction of MWAM! 😆🤣

MWAM played 11 songs including FLY AGAIN -Hero's Anthem-, Seven Deadly Sins, and Emotions as the closing song. I was so emo when "Emotions" started to play so I cried myself while singalong to the song. So happy because I was able to meet the wolves again!! 🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺💕

We were on the front row of barricades so we got to see them closely thanks to some OneRepublic's fans! They agreed to swap place while MWAM was performing on stage. After that, we swapped back~

Because of that, I could see the wolves clearly! Their smiles, especially Tanapai's was so cute!!! and even when Boy-san nodded when I shouted "Omedetou!" while showing him "MWAM Happy 13 Anniversary!" board I made. OMG, I just can't... 😭💕

Ah yes! I also made some uchiwas with Batik pattern on the wolves' shirts. Tried to make it as similar as the ones I made for the coloring page competition, but I guess it wasn't the same lol 😂

But I glad that many fans are like it (Japanese & International fans). One of them even asked me where did I get those uchiwas, are those going to be sold in Japan? hahaha.. I hope the wolves also love it! 🥰💙🩷🧡❤️💚

After the show, we met with some fans from Surabaya and took a group photo together. I love to meet new friends while watching a show! 😁🎶

Here's the complete setlist:

Between fiction and friction I

database

Get Off of My Way

INTO THE DEEP

Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana cover)

FLY AGAIN -Hero’s Anthem-

Seven Deadly Sins

Hey Now

Raise your flag

Merry-Go-Round

Emotions.

Well, MWAM's live shows always wonderful! Can't get enough of it~ Need to see them again someday! Please come again to Indonesia~ We will wait for your one man show here in Jakarta! 🇮🇩🐺🐺🐺🐺🐺🙌💙🩷🧡❤️💚🙌

Saturday, 25 February 2023.

[deasbanker]

Weekend treat: try to have a tour of Toyosu Market and revisit the place where I stayed before my study abroad at age 16 on our way to the temple and an aquarium shop in Tsukiji!

4/5/2024（Day3 during the Golden Week）

Having walked from the subway station to Toyosu Fish Market in the blazing sun despite May, my parents and I were already exhausted even before we arrived. However, I found the sky this area grander for some reason and felt refreshed myself. Even though I've lived in Japan since I was born, I had never been to Tsukiji nor Toyosu Fish Markets, which I had been feeling sort of inferior to. That was why I came here. Yet, unfortunately, the market was being closed on the day; I should have confirmed its opening time beforehand. Collecting myself, I decided to explore a newer facility next to the market called Senkyakubanrai（千客万来）, a seafood and hot-spring complex themed Edo period, instead.

After we split up for their lunch at a certain restaurant, I hung around the facility for an hour alone. It was really packed to the brim with people from around the world inside, and every single restaurant including a food court had a huge line; I speculated that most of the people lining up in there had to wait more than an hour. The proximity in terms of space and relationship between customers and shopkeepers did bring about a lively atmosphere like I expected the fish market to throughout this complex. I totally enjoyed that although I didn't eat there.

No sooner had I met up with my parents around noon than we headed over to an area which I had been keen to revisit. This waterfront relies on many bridges, which I regard as one of the charms. Dad and I were pleased with the view from Toyosu Bridge and had fun waving people on deck.

The accommodation above is mostly for training sessions and little known; but I still do remember the few days when I stayed here for the pre-departure orientation in my high school days（almost a decade ago）although that turned out a nightmare. At any rate, it was so satisfactory that I could recall how hard I would exert myself to pursue my dream then and feel the days glorious enough to make me energetic again.

In addition, I asked my folks to accompany me there. This place is a mere mall next to the accommodation, yet also one of my retrospective spots in Tokyo regarding my study abroad. Before heading to the hotel for the orientation, I said farewell to mom at the mall. Once I entered the building, all my fragmented memories as to this were put together, and feelings that I couldn't name were evoked. Compared to the touristy spot I mentioned first, this local shopping place wasn't that prosperous, but I took to the quietness, a mix of a metropolis and a suburb, and its European design including a garden, which I could see a strong commitment by everyone involved through.

Next up, I went to Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple, a Buddhist temple belonging to the Jodo Shinshu, founded by the monk Shinran, located in the heart of Tokyo since 1679, because I was curious about its famous architecture. At the time, the event featuring Tibet was being held.

In place of Toyosu Fish Market, I managed to feel a certain atmosphere and make the best out of a fish market through Tsukiji Outer Market. There seemed chaos in a good way, and all my senses were vigorously activated like catching fishy smell while passing through the streets to the point where I felt like I wasn't in Japan anymore.

After that, we bumped into a kind of religious parade/festival and its participants carrying a mikoshi, a portable mini shrine that houses a god, on our way to an aquarium shop in the neighborhood. Actually, that was my very first time to see a mikoshi in person（side note: according to the official website, the festival was held by Teppozu Inari Shrine）.

Last but not least, I finally arrived at Paupau Aqua Garden（パウパウアクアガーデン）, a large-scale aquarium shop in Ginza. I've been fond of goldfish since I was in high school somehow and tend to be more excited at tropical fish than penguins of some kind in aquariums. Then, I learned several species through its display, such as celestial eye goldfish and humpback grouper. Overall, I think I did experience Toyosu area to the fullest by walking across bridges, looking out to the ocean, feeling the light breeze, smelling fish or monja, and encountering the so-called matsuri.

[bibxrbie]

Guess who's going to Japan?

That's right! ME!

Because my application was awesome and my interview was great. I am great and awesome and deserve this opportunity because I worked hard for this.

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

It's the biggest, baddest Splatfest of them all! The Grand Festival has been announced!

This special 72-hour Splatfest, taking place between September 13th to September 16 (time zones pending) will take us to a new area featuring the Squid Sisters, Off the Hook, and Deep Cut all performing together, with new outfits just for the occasion!

And the theme for this very special Splatfest? Well, it's only a matter of time. It's Past vs Present vs Future!

Like with a couple of previous Splatfests, real-life merchandise in the form of T-shirts and an armband, available only through the My Nintendo Store, will also be available. These have only been confirmed for Japan at the moment, but I am certain they'll be available in the Americas and Europe, too.

Additionally, there's some new amiibo on the way, featuring the Squid Sisters in their Alterna outfits and Off the Hook in their Side Order outfits!

These will go on sale starting September 5th!

With all the actual information out of the way, something I just wanna point out is that so far neither the official SplatoonJP account or Nintendo of Europe, the only official account to have reshared these posts at the moment, are calling this the final Splatfest. This could mean all sorts of things, whether that be new actual content or just that they're planning to do reruns in the future, but the point is that this is not explicitly the final Splatfest at the moment, as some people have been sharing around.

Also, hey. this is taking place on the second weekend of September. Big Run announcement on the way, maybe?

[kentoxo]

friction | reader (f) x crush!nanami pt.4

pairing: reader (f) x crush!nanami

synopsis: [AU] you have always had a crush on nanami. since the day you were hired as his personal assistant, you've been right at his side combating numbers and making money within the finance department for the company you two worked for. but, things take a turn when nanami catches wind of your feelings, and rejects you. little did he know the weight of his mistake.

warnings: angst, heartbreak, sexual tension, jealousy (future smut)

a/n: i apologize as ill be working through this weekend so the next chapter might take a day or so. thank you for your patience <3

all parts: pt.1, pt.2, pt.3,

December | Tokyo, Japan | Friday

It still felt fresh, despite a whole day having passed. 

Unlike the day prior, you moved slower than usual. You got not a wink of sleep, and that reflected in the death of your eyes. Sluggish hands prepare your cup of coffee, but you forgot to add sugar so your first sip made you regret everything. Everything was suddenly out of tune, and you were losing your inner rhythm. The worst part: it was reflecting your work. 

Nanami noticed when you forgot to email an important document that you specifically got sealed by the board a few days prior. 

He also noticed that you forgot almost every meeting you had planned for him today. Luckily you had it synced to the cloud calendar, and Nanami had his alerts on for them. 

He finally realized you were off your game when you couldn’t recite the numbers from last year around festive time. Those numbers usually remained right behind your hand at all times. 

“Y/N, are you well?” Nanami asked in the video call you both were in. Despite working remotely, Nanami preferred having the two of you on video call at all times unless there were meetings to attend to, or independent work that didn’t require one another's presence. “You don’t seem 100%.”

One again, Nanami was in what looked like a comfortable sweatshirt. His light pink lips were straight, with a dew of coffee hanging from the right side of his bottom lip. His eyes were imbued with exhaustion, but it seems he had a fine rest last night. Those blond locks were now completely dry, and looked like it was styled by just flipping his hair to the side with his fingers. Slightly dented lines define his collarbones, jaw, and cheekbones. 

Fuck. 

“m’okay,��� you lie casually, leaning back into your couch. You, in contrast, have your video off. You made no effort to beat your face with makeup, nor did you even run fingers through your hair to fix it up a bit. Your heart was wounded, and your mind was disinterested in everything. “I didn’t sleep too well, that’s all.” 

“Mm,” Nanami hums. His eyes dart towards something, and you hear his click clacks of his keyboard. “Since you let me into your home yesterday, why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I’ll pay you for the remaining hours.” 

You quickly sit up and put your hands back on the keyboard, “no, that’s not right. It wouldn’t be fair to everyone else if I left early with pay just because I was a little restless last night.” 

“You do the work of 5 of your coworkers,” Nanami jokes lightly. “I’m confident nobody will say a thing regarding you taking a bit of time to rest more.” 

They were willing to spread true rumors about your crush, though. 

“You might need me,” you persist, “I don’t want to risk my absence when something important arises.” 

“I’m glad you know your worth, but I insist that you sit this one out and just rest. Consider this a head start on your weekend,” Nanami insists curtly. “Before I let you rest however, I do have something to make you aware of.” 

“Yes?” You slouch a bit, but your ears remain sharp and attentive. 

“I’ll be returning to my actual office next week, just for the 3 days that we are in-office,” Nanami begins. He stops his typing and weaves his hands together before resting his chin on them. “We have a few important clients coming in, thanks to Haibara’s persistence. So, I’ll need to be back in my office for just a bit. For that time, you will be working more independently.” 

“I understand,” you concur. “But, will you not need me during these meetings?” 

“Confidentiality,” Nanami reasons, to your dismay. It’s never a big deal, but you always liked to join Nanami’s meetings. Not only to document important points for him, but to remind him to bring things up during these conversations that he might forget to do otherwise. “These clients are a bit… different than what we’re used to. But we need their company’s marketing in order to resume flourishing here.” 

“Understood,” you reply. 

“For the time being, please refer to Haibara for anything I might need from you. From how it’s looking,” Nanami hums. He brings a hand down to his mouse and starts to share his screen. You watch intently as he opens a calendar of his work schedule for the mentioned Monday-to-Wednesday. “I’ll be booked from morning until punch out. Haibara will be joining me for a good chunk of these meetings, so I’ll be sure to have him give you the download on what I’ll need from you.”

You nod to nobody, “copy. I’ll be sure to continue doing my best.” 

“Anything less is impossible from you, Y/N,” Nanami says sweetly. There’s something stale about his flattery now. “Go ahead and rest, Y/N. You deserve it. Thank you for your work today.” 

“Thank you, and I’m sorry,” you murmur. An aggressive yawn escapes your lips, and you rub your face a bit to try and waive the exhaustion. 

“Nothing to apologize for– I’m the one sending you away,” the hazel-eyed man hums, slightly amused at your mannerisms. “I’ll put your time in right now, so just approve it upon receiving the notification.” 

“I will, thank you.” You were itching to end the call and decay in your bed. “Have a fruitful rest of your day, Nanami kacho.” 

To your surprise, Nanami held a sudden distasteful expression on his face. You watch as his face softens, but his hazel eyes seem… perplexed. As though you said something wrong, or rather; offensive. He casually tugs at his right ear before clearing his throat through a scratchy cough. 

“Thank you, Y/N,” Nanami lets out, his voice slightly less monotone. “Rest well.” 

With that, you hang up the call, slam your laptop shut, and rush under the covers of your bed. You find solace in the softness of the cotton, and the weight of the quilt itself. You rub your face once more, but this time feeling the burning of over-cried eyes. Your eyes were tissue-abused, as the tears felt endless yesterday after Nanami left. It was scary how upset you were about this. 

Fishing your phone from the sea of sheets, you quickly dial Haibara’s number and wait with the phone against your ear. After a few rings, he answers, “Y/N?” 

“Hi, Yu,” you say quietly, your head melting into your pillow. “How are you?” 

“I’m well,” Haibara begins, “but you sound horrible, what happened now? Did he say something mean again?"

“m just tired,” you say simply. And it was true, you were. But Haibara already knew the reason why, and ensured that he would avoid mentioning it. “Nanami let me clock out early. I wasn’t really myself today.” 

“Ah, Y/N, please,” Haibara urged with worry on his tongue. He knew it was inevitable. He didn’t warn you because he didn’t want you to date his closest friend. But rather, he knew his close friend so well that you would end up heartbroken no matter how it went. “I’m glad he noticed and sent you off to rest. But please… don’t let yourself fall like this. We just went through this yesterday."

You could feel the tears working their way up again. “Yu, I just… I’m just so upset, and I can’t do anything about it.” Your words slur, your voice being altered by your emotion. Tears well up in your eyes, spilling out and splotching your pillow case. “You were right, I know you were right, I just… it was completely out of my hands after a while.” 

“It isn’t just you, Y/N,” Haibara says in a soft voice, “Kento has always been like this. He’s not interested in anything but work. He’s a novice in that regard, so don’t cry so hard for a dork.” 

“I understand,” you croak, “but I didn’t even get to properly confess. He didn’t get to hear my piece, but was actually happy in believing it was a lie. He sighed like the weight of the world was now off his shoulders!” You brought a hand to your chest, feeling your breathing go unsteady. 

A desperate sigh comes through the phone. “Kento has been like this since we were younger. He has never been interested in anything else but getting good grades and working,” Haibara says quietly. You could hear him typing away on his computer. “But… honestly, you are the first person to ever get something different from Kento.” 

“Hm?” Tears began drying from curiosity. 

“This isn’t to get your hopes high or nothin’, but he has never had a woman as an assistant,” Haibara notes. “Before you, it was me until I got promoted. Then, it was just a few of the other guys within our department helping out upon Kento’s request. He continuously rejected female assistants in the past. So that’s when Takada shacho decided to force an assistant on him: you.” 

“R-right,” you hum, “that’s when I was transferred from Sales to Finance.” 

“Correct. Kento wasn’t… super happy about it, but Takada sang your praise,” Haibara continues. “And I guess whatever you did truly changed something. Kento would never let anybody drop honorifics on him. The most I’ve ever seen him smile is with you. He’s noticeably more patient and willing with you than anybody else in our department– not even me!” 

You giggle weakly at his playful envy, “I think you’re giving me too much credit. We work closely together, so of course he’s going to be nice to me.” 

“Sure, but he’s never been open to being addressed casually,” Haibara argues, “he also always used to prefer eating by himself during his lunch time. He would have never let me leave early today. I could be on the floor dying, and he’d just tell me to suck it up and calculate numbers.” 

“It’s because you suck at your job, Yu,” you joke. 

“I do not!” 

“You totally do.” 

“Anyways!” He huffs. “Point is, you’re definitely different. He may not share the same feelings as you, but you’ve definitely left an impact on him.”

You let out a sigh. Haibara was right from the start, and truly, it wasn’t even Nanami’s fault. You broke your own heart the day you decided to pursue your crush on him. He’s infamous for being disinterested in anything besides work, and you’ve witnessed the proof since your transfer. Perhaps you looked beyond his consideration, seeing it through rose colored lenses. 

But if Haibara has noticed these changes in Nanami, then maybe you weren't just an assistant to him.

Don't bring your hopes up, though, chimed Haibara's voice in your head.

You lay on your back, an arm covering your eyes in embarrassment, “I’m so lame.” 

Haibara chuckles, “you’re not lame, don’t start with that–” 

You eye around your ceiling upon Haibara’s sudden silence. “Yu?” You chime. “Are you there?” 

“Let me call you back,” Haibara says before the call ends. You let the phone slide from your hold, your body melting deeper into your bed. It didn't fix your broken heart, but Haibara's words definitely lifted your spirits a bit.

Haibara's mischievous smile took center stage of his face. He pulled back his dark locks, leaning comfortably into the back of his seat. With both earbuds on, he accepted the video call coming from the man himself.

"Haibara," Nanami begins quietly. Haibara could tell he seemed a bit off, as he wasn't exactly looking at him but rather something else on the lower right of his screen. "I have a question."

"I may have an answer," Haibara replied, "what's up?"

"Has... Y/N recently addressed you differently?" Haibara's eyes widen from Nanami's hesitance in his question. His mind was quickly trying to put 2 and 2 together.

"Differently how?"

"As in, using your name with honorifics," Nanami spewed out, his voice still quite reticent.

"Man, Y/N hasn't used any honorifics since we met honestly," Haibara recounts, "so if recently means ages ago, then sure. What, did she address you as 'kacho'?"

"Yes, she did," Nanami immediately lets out, almost with a touch of torment in his tone. "This morning, before I let her take the rest of the day off, she called me kacho."

Haibara pressed his hand against his lips, trying desperately not to laugh. This is new. "I mean, she used to call you by that for a while when she first became your assistant, no? It's not shocking if she occasionally says it."

"She hasn't said it since her first month as my assistant," Nanami informs. "Why would she start saying it again after we've stopped?"

Haibara shrugs, with a grin threatening to dance at his lips, "who's to say? Did anything happen when you went over to her place yesterday?" Haibara knew, but he enjoyed toying with Nanami's aloofness.

"Nothing noteworthy, I'd say," Nanami begins, genuinely mindless. But his face then expresses a moment of pensiveness. "Well, we worked but she was surprisingly much more quieter than usual. She also didn't finish her breakfast, and went on the rest of the day without eating anything else. I even offered to buy her something."

"That's not like Y/N at all," Haibara comments in a murmur, "if it was me, she'd make me buy her breakfast, post-breakfast, pre-lunch, lunch, and dinner."

"What is post-breakfast?" Nanami asks with confusion in his furrowed brows. He was also curious about the depth of your relationship with Haibara, but that was for another time.

"I'm making a joke," Haibara whisks back to the conversation. "Did she address you as kacho yesterday?"

"No," Nanami quickly recalls, "in fact, she didn't really say my name much since I got to her house."

This is getting too good. Messing with Nanami like this is rare, and Haibara lives for it. "Does it bother you that she's been calling you kacho?" Haibara found himself sitting up straight when he noticed the uncomfortable look on Nanami's face. His question made Nanami feel unsettled for some reason.

"I don't think it bothers me per say," Nanami begins, his eyes still distantly looking elsewhere. "It's just a bit weird that she's been addressing me as such again. It came out of nowhere."

"You're literally her boss," Haibara pointed out dully, "just because you two are more casual doesn't eliminate the fact that you're the one who signs off her payroll."

"W-well, yes, but we've long established that we can be casual within our platonic work relationship," Nanami says in his matter-of-fact voice. "It feels as though our work relationship has changed a bit. It makes me wonder if it was a good idea to go to her house."

"Did you make a mess of her house?"

"No."

"Did you offend her?"

"I don't believe so."

"So why does it feel like it changed?" Haibara inquired strategically. He knew the answer, of course, as he was the first person you confided in. But fishing it out of Nanami would be more insightful, and more hilarious.

"Well, I..." Nanami begins, bringing a hand to the back of his head. "I may have mentioned something that I shouldn't have heard, nor repeated to anyone-- less so, to her."

"Hm?" Haibara hums for him to continue.

Nanami hesitates, but remembers that it's Haibara he was speaking to. His long time, childhood friend turned most trusted coworker. "I overheard two of our colleagues talk about Y/N... having certain feelings for me."

"What, like a crush?" Haibara helped him. Nanami finally meets Haibara's eyes and nods slowly. "Well, what did she say?"

"Well she concurred that it was just a silly rumor," Nanami coos, "it was extremely relieving to know that those rumors were not true at all. After that, we both got swept with work."

"Kento, you are the weirdest man I know," Haibara leans back in his seat again, resting his face in his hand. "Anyhow, better that she doesn't have feelings for you, right? Maybe they meant to say that she has a crush on someone else?"

"Oh no, they were very specific on the fact that she is my assistant, which would explain why she could have developed feelings for me," Nanami quickly defends. "Even then, who else would she have a crush on?"

"O-hoh! Cocky, are we?" Haibara blurts out. "Y'know, you're not the only bachelor in our department."

"Of course not," Nanami quickly remedies, "but I do believe that Y/N and I are very similar. We're both single and dedicate ourselves to work. I'm sure we both have the same view on dating coworkers, too."

"You two aren't the same person, though," Haibara points out. "You think she's like you, but you don't know that for certain. It's like accepting nobody's home without even trying to knock the front door."

"Quite the analogy," Nanami responds dully, "very profound."

"Listen, my point is you're accepting something as fact before you ask," Haibara urges, "what if she doesn't mind dating a coworker?"

"Then I'd be severely disappointed," Nanami puts simply, "she's bright. It would be a shame if she risks her career by pursuing love in our office."

"Who's to say?" Haibara mutters, giving up on the conversation. To argue with Nanami this early is to lose a few years in ones lifespan. "Lets not talk about this anymore, yeah? What was the reason for your call?" Haibara didn't want to admit it, but he was actually a bit annoyed by his friend.

"A-ah, right," Nanami exclaims, falling back into his usual sharp, calm demeanor. "It's to discuss our game plan for Monday, if you have the time to pencil this conversation in."

"Go on," Haibara sighs, giving him the green light. He didn't get everything he wanted to within this conversation, but it definitely gave him some insight in his dear friends mind. It was clear that you weren't just some person to Nanami. But to what extent was the mystery that Haibara was more than happy to figure out.

Taglist:

@blossomedfloweroflove @numblytemporary @everyoneandtheirmothers @animechick555 @inthedarkshadows000

@m-arj-1 @julk4e @hadassery @swoozleee @angxlsatvrn

@v1x3n @s-witch-bitch @furgusonn @watyousayin @thechaoticarchivist

@simp-manhwa @5sos-wdw @ffyona1214 @phantombaby @evangel44xxcds

@ukiyodestiny @jasminelee324 @eurydxceorphxus

[five-rivers]

green is for envy, black is for trigger

A long BNHA oneshot!

.

So, they didn't realize at first what it meant when the teachers announced that Deku was going to UA.  Hell, they didn't really get what it meant when it was just Bakugou that was going.  Not that any of them, least of all Hideo, actually thought Bakugou would get in.  The whole thing was a pipe dream.  Only forty kids from the whole of Japan got into the hero course every year, and even if Bakugou was great at a lot of stuff, those were still long odds.

But Deku?

Deku, who had to have how his own name could be pronounced literally spelled out for him?  Who broke down into tears whenever someone made a joke?  That noodle-armed wimp with a death wish?  Useless, quirkless Deku?

Not a goddamn chance.  Not even with a miracle.

But Deku did get decent grades.  Not as good as Bakugou, but the fact that a genetic throwback got passing grades at all was kind of freakish on its own.  Shinozaki used to joke that it was because he was having special ‘tutoring sessions’ with the teachers, but both the teachers and Bakugou were so uptight about stuff like that.  It was a joke.  A kind of creepy joke, and Hideo was sort of glad when Shinozaki knocked it off, but still. 

Anyway, inasmuch as Hideo thought about it at all, he assumed Deku got into one of the other courses.  Although he only really knew about those because of the sports festival and Bakugou nerding out.  Support and business or something like that.  They probably only took Deku because they needed to meet some kind of pity quota.  Hideo's dad was always talking about stuff like that at dinner.  Mostly about mutant quirks, but Hideo figured it applied to deals like Deku, too.

But life went on, and no matter how ticked off Bakugou was about his glory being snatched or whatever, everyone else had entrance exams too.  There would be time to complain about it later, or not.  Hideo kinda figured Bakugou would eventually appreciate the stress relief beating up Deku would bring even through high school.  He'd heard the hero course was tough.  He certainly took advantage of it now.  Enough that Hideo felt sort of bad about it, now and again.  

The swan dive dare had been a little messed up.  Sure, quirkless people usually killed themselves eventually, but let them do it at their own pace.  

Hideo sort of envisioned him, Bakugou, Shinozaki, and Kanemaru hanging out together on weekends, dragging along whatever new friends they'd managed to make at their new schools.  It'd be fun, hearing about Bakugou's glamorous life as a hero student, and Kanemaru's adventures at the local rich kid school.  

What happened was Kanemaru drifting away, and Bakugou dropping all three of them like a hot potato. 

It was–  Well, for the first few weeks, he'd been mad.  They hadn't been best friends or any sappy crap like that, but it was annoying to realize you'd been tolerated rather than appreciated.  But then he'd heard that UA had been attacked, he'd gotten some new friends, and Kanemaru started hanging out again when he figured out all the cigarette hookups at his fancy school were trash.  

And he was sort of looking forward to seeing people try to beat Bakugou up on national television.  

So there was that.  

But what he'd seen instead–

There was no way.  There was just no way.  

But there it was, on national television.  

Deku.

Useless, quirkless Deku.  In the sports festival.  In the third event.  

With a quirk.  

It had to be some kind of trick.  That's what he thought at first.  But it'd have to be one hell of a trick to fake a whole quirk like thag out of nowhere, and there was no way Deku was that smart.  

Maybe he'd been replaced or something.  Hideo had heard of people with body snatching quirks.  But, then, that'd be two quirks, and whatever urban legends said, Hideo wasn't dumb enough to believe in the quirk boogieman.  

Could he have been faking being quirkless?  The very thought made Hideo nauseous.  No.  No way.  Not a chance.  No one with power would tolerate that.  

There had to be another explanation.  

His phone was buzzing.  The group chat was going wild.  

He scanned through the messages.  Shinozaki was disgusting, but he had good ideas, sometimes, and Kanemaru got rumors from his rich kid friends that took much longer to reach Gungan High, and their other friends were more of the same, but maybe one of them could see what Hideo himself was missing.  

His eyes stopped on one of Shinozaki's texts.  

i bet its trigger

where would deku eve  get trigger, Hideo typed.  

idk but its not like you can but a quirk on the street

Theres a guy in my class whose quirk makez every1 atoung him sing in tune, wrote Kanemaru, maybe its like that

with strength like tgat?  r u serious rn noone like that ia gonna work for a quirkless deku unless he has more money than god its trigger ffs

But whered he get it?? asked Hideo.  And would it even worj on a omeone Quiklessm?m

u cab get trigger cheap if yu know where to look

And how the hell did Shinozaki know that?  He and Hideo weren't exactly squeaky clean, with the cigarettes and all, but trigger was something else.  Like heroin was before the dawn of quirks.  

deku prolly just has some bs weak asf quirk that hes juicing

That nauseous feeling came back, and this time, Hideo was able to identify the emotion fueling it as mostly anger.  Red, hot, roiling anger.  

It wasn't enough that Deku stole a spot at UA from someone who'd live past twenty, but he'd taken a hero spot?  And he'd done it with drugs like the cheater he was?

If Hideo had been allowed to take trigger during his entrance exams, he'd have gotten into a hero school, too!  Hell, maybe even UA, if Deku could do it.  Hideo, after all, had a quirk that could be used even without trigger!

weve dot tobdon somethin

*got to do

It only took a minute for Shinozaki to reply lik what??

idk tellthe police if it's a druf thing right? Or just tell ua

He flicked away from the chat and, hands still shaking with rage, started looking up how to file a police report.  

.

“And you think your former classmate is using trigger because…?”

“Because he didn't have a quirk like that before!” said Hideo, frustrated.  No one was listening to them.  

“UA's got a pretty great training program,” said the police officer at the desk, a bored-looking woman with fish scales around her eyes and ears.  She reached over to a small spray bottle and spritzed herself.  “Pick any one of those hero kids and you'll probably hear the same thing.”

“You don't get it,” said Hideo.  “We all thought he was quirkless.”

“Well, clearly not,” said the woman.

“Yeah, but don't you think that's a little suspicious, that he never used his quirk at all before, and now he comes out with that?”

“Yeah,” said Kanemaru, who was ridiculously intimidated by the police station for a rich guy.  Shinozaki hadn't even come, claiming he was too high to be anywhere near a police station.  “What he said.  Deku never used his quirk at school or anything.”

The woman raised a scaly eyebrow.  “Did it occur to you that your classmate was simply following the law against public quirk use?  Or that he didn't want to use a quirk that broke his bones.  Quirk counselor probably told him not to use it.”

“He never went to the quirk counselor at our school.”

“You know private counselors are a thing right?  I'd be seeing a specialist for a quirk like that.”  She leaned back in her chair and looked up at them.  “Do you really think a school full of heroes wouldn't notice something like that?  Save yourselves some stress and go home.”

“But–”

“Seriously.  Go home.”

.

“Any luck?” asked Shinozaki, whose eyes were indeed bloodshot.  

“No,” said Hideo.  

“And we haven't heard back from the school, either,” said Kanemaru mournfully.

“Figures,” said Shinozaki.  “The police suck.”  He twirled a blunt between his fingers, then lengthened them to offer it to Hideo.  “Want a hit.”

“No,” said Hideo, wrinkling his nose against the rancid smell.  

“Yes,” said Kanemaru, snatching it.  “God, that sucked.  What do we do now?”

“I don't know,” said Hideo.  “We've got to get some kind of proof, otherwise the police won't take us seriously.”

“We could follow him,” suggested Kanemaru.  

“Hell, no,” said Shinozaki.  “You remember what chasing him was like in middle school.”

“We caught him whenever we wanted to,” said Kanemaru.  

“Hell, yeah, we did.  But he always knew when we were following him, and if he's pulling this off, he's not using where anyone can see.”

“What then?” demanded Hideo, frustrated.  “Break into his house?  Find his stash?”

Shinozaki snorted.  “When his mom works from home?  Putting Deku in jail isn't much good if we're there, too.”

“How the hell do you know Deku's mom works from home?” asked Hideo.

“Unlike you, I listened to Bakugou's ranting.  She's a programmer or something dumb like that.”

Kanemaru perked up.  “Maybe we could ask Bakugou!” 

“After he ditched us?  If he hasn't done anything yet, he's not gonna.  Give me back my weed already, Kanemaru.”

Reluctantly, Kanemaru returned the blunt.  

“There is one way, though,” said Shinozaki as he took another hit.  “It'd be real risky, though, and it'd cost ya.”

“Yeah?” asked Hideo.  “What's that?”

“Well,” said Shinozaki, “someone with a habit has a different reaction to someone taking trigger for the first time.  We get that on camera, and it's all over for him.”

“I thought we couldn't follow him,” said Kanemaru. 

“I'm not talking about following him, moron.  I'm talking about an ambush.  The freak still has to go home sometime, doesn't he?”

“Wait,” said Hideo.  “You want us to, what, pin down someone high on trigger, shoot him up with even more, and then just stand around filming him?  Who's the moron here, exactly?  Where would we even get trigger?  It's not like weed or tobacco.  We can't bribe a college student to go into a trigger dispensary.”

“The trigger's the easy part,” said Shinozaki.  “So long as Kanemaru can cough up the money.  I know a guy.”

“I'm not fighting a guy on trigger!” said Kanemaru, shaking his head.  “That's worse than roids!  And he's got to be doing those, too, right?  And he's got combat training or whatever, right?”

“Freaking chill already.  Quirk or not, it's still crybaby Deku.  No one's asking you to fight him, anyway.  What’re you going to do?  Pop out your eyes at him?”

“It's not like your quirk is much better,” said Hideo, trying to channel the police officer's cool skepticism.  “I'm not fighting anyone alone.”  According to his dad, that was the height of stupidity.  You always brought backup.  

“How is it that I'm the highest one here and the only one that can think?  We aren't fighting anyone.”

“You know someone who takes hits or something, too?”

“No, idiot.  I'm talking about your after school book club.  How'd you think they'll react to someone who's basically quirkless putting one over on people with natural talent?”

Hideo's spine had gone as stiff as a board.  “How the hell do you know about that?”  Even his parents didn't know about that!  Not that his parents knew anything.  

“I listen, duh.  To spell it all out, my proposal is that moneybags here gives me cash to get the trigger, then our literature lover can get his meta friends riled up and ready to do the delivery, and we stand well clear with cameras rolling.”

“I don't know…” said Hideo.  He was totally behind liberation philosophy, people should be allowed to use their quirks to their fullest extent, but he was pretty sure that the people most likely to help with this kind of thing were the radical hierarchists, and they skeeved Hideo out.   

“You never know anything,” complained Shinozaki.  “And you say that I'm not civic-minded.  Whatever.  Something awful's going to happen, and neandertoe there will be right in the middle of it and you'll come crawling back to me and my plan.”

.

Hosu was burning.  

Hosu was burning, and Stain had almost killed another hero.

Hosu was burning, Stain had almost killed another hero, and right in the middle of Stain's insane motive rant video was Deku.  

Hideo picked up his phone and called Shinozaki.  

.

Izuku wasn't so far removed from who he'd been in junior high that he couldn't tell when he was being followed.  However, unlike when he'd been in junior high, there was more than one reason to follow him.  In junior high, the only people that followed him were bullies, teenaged and otherwise, looking for a soft target.  

But now?  It could be anything from sports festival enthusiasts to the police (he had just broken a bunch of quirk use laws) to one of the villains he'd whirlpooled at the USJ, out for revenge.  

The only people he was sure weren't following him were Kacchan and All Might.  Kacchan, because stealth was one of the few things he was definitively bad at, and All Might, because being stalked by the number one hero had a very distinctive feeling, and this wasn't it.  Besides, the figures he saw ducking out of his line of sight didn't have All Might's proportions, and he was almost a hundred percent sure that All Might only came in two shapes.

But they hadn't done any units on stealth or counterespionage in class, yet, so all Izuku had to draw on in terms of solution to his problems were his hit-and-miss strategies from junior high.  He couldn't even call for help, because the fight with Stain had trashed his phone.  He was hoping he could convince his mom to replace it with a mid-range hero model, but he hadn't quite managed yet. 

So, his plan was as follows:

Play dumb as long as possible.  If he started running, so would they.  The closer he got to home before they closed in, the better.  

Keep an eye out for patrolling heroes, policemen, or even convenience stores with sufficiently intimidating cashiers.  He didn't think there were any suitable ones at the moment.  The conbini closest to Izuku's house was staffed by a jerk who always tried to steal Izuku's change from now until midnight, but he might still come across one. 

In case of being cut off, don't run randomly if there's another choice.  Running randomly let the pursuers pick the route.  Izuku knew paths, shortcuts, and hazards only people familiar with the area would know.  He should take advantage of that. 

Get home and call for help.  Failing that, get to Kacchan's.  If it was just bullies, they'd give up.  If it was a more sinister group…

An unusually large group of older teens turned onto the road in front of Izuku, all wearing hoodies and oversized medical masks.  Izuku promptly turned off the road, jogging through an alley and briskly striding onward.  

If he wasn't already in trouble over the fight with Stain, he might have decided to use Full Cowl to jump his way home… except, what would he do if he accidentally ran into a person and hurt them, or broke someone's windows or something like that?  

Maybe, if he went to the park, then cut through the thrift store in that one basement…  No, if there were as many people following him as he thought, they'd be able to cover all the exits, even there.   On the other hand, if the nicer person was at the counter, he might let Izuku use his phone. 

He wished there was somewhere he could just hide until the people following him gave up, some building or business he could duck into, but that would require people who were actually willing to intervene in a beating, and most of the people around here… weren't.  Some of them would call the police or hero hotline, but (with a few notable exceptions, none of whom lived or worked in Musutafu or its suburbs) even the best heroes couldn't just appear as soon as they were called.  That's why they patrolled. 

Speaking of patrols, finding one of those would also be good.  But Izuku's mental timetable put the nearest one a mile east, if Kamui Woods was his usual amount late and not extra late, which was also possible.  Kamui Woods was pretty popular, so he got stopped by fans regularly.  He didn't usually come this way, anyway.  The main villain hotspot in the area was the train station.  

Mount Lady sometimes did surprise patrols, to boost her image, but Izuku hadn't figured out the pattern of those yet, if there was one, and he didn't have his phone to check if she was doing one today. 

Although, if he had his phone, he could just call…  Who would he call?  Not his mom, most people who were okay with beating Izuku up wouldn't hesitate to beat uo his mom, too.  Kacchan was still at his internship for another day, and wouldn't have picked up the phone for Izuku, anyway.  He wasn’t sure where most of his other classmates lived.  All Might would come get him if he called, and All Might wasn't busy as All Might - he had a car - but Izuku really didn't want to bother him.  Calling the police, well, they wouldn't do anything unless he was actively getting beaten up, which looped right back around to the time thing.  

Izuku had always thought it was remarkable, how fast you could get the crap kicked out of you if enough feet were willing to do the kicking.  

At this point, Izuku had counted six sets of willing feet.  Or two, if they both had shapeshifting quirks.  He shouldn't rule something like that out.  

But he had the sinking feeling that there were more than two.  Or six, for that matter.  A lot more.  

He cut through the ground floor of an apartment building, ignoring how the doorman swore at him.  He went out the service entrance.  He wasn't too far from home, now.  

But before he'd gone another street, he'd picked up another tail.  Or regained one.  He wasn’t sure.  

Whoever or whatever was behind this was much more organized than the bullies and muggers who went after him in high school.  He was- well, he'd already been scared, but now he was concerned, too, and that was a different kind of emotion entirely.  Sort of.  Probably.  

When he got home, he'd call All Might.  All of the really bad organizations who'd want to target Izuku would be connected to All Might anyway.  

After this next corner, he just had to go one more block, and then–

Oh.  

Somehow, Izuku hadn’t considered that the people following him might already know where he lived, and be waiting there.  

He hesitated for only a minute as his brain registered a group too large for him to take on even with One for All.  

There wasn't anyone for him to protect here but himself.  

He ran.  

New plan: Evade capture.  Acquire a phone.  Call the emergency line.  Use One for All only if he was backed into a corner; he didn't think the police would be amused by a second quirk use incident less than a week after the first.  

Hands reached out towards him.  He ducked away from several, and almost ran into another, tipped with sharp claws.  They raked over his arm, barely avoiding drawing blood.  The owner of the hand laughed, and another person kicked at Izuku's ankles.  

Izuku jumped over the feet, and he flipped the next person who tried to grab him.  He could hear the crowd - and it was a big enough group to call it a crowd - jeering and calling out to him.  It was nothing really identifying, unfortunately.  They were calling him Deku, quirkless, and a fake, but the groups of people who would know to call him those things included both former classmates and incredibly serious villains.  

The sidewalk underneath Izuku's feet crumbled, and his heart leapt into his throat - Shigaraki?  No.  Both the pattern of destruction and its products were different.  Shigaraki powdered things.  The concrete here was still in recognizable chunks.  

He caught himself with his other foot, adjusted for the new terrain, and kept running.  A volley of dark beams forced him to swerve and duck and turn onto another street.  He thought there was a conbini up ahead– no, that was the next street down, but that apartment building left its ground floor open–

The broken concrete under his feet started to twitch and levitate.  He changed direction again, now running on the street itself.  There were hardly any cars here, even on a normal day.  Today, the streets were dead, otherwise he'd try waving one down.  How had they managed that?  Bribery?  Stolen construction and detour signs?  He used his backpack to shield himself when the levitating chunks of concrete pelted him, then dropped it as he was strafed by a spurt of fire.  

He hissed as he patted out his sleeves, then reflexively punched the next masked face that appeared in his vision.  His muscles and tendons in that arm pulsed with pain, still not entirely recovered from their ordeals in both the sports festival and the fight with Stain.  He switched tactics for the next person who tried to grab him, sweeping their feet.

There were some really cool quirks on display here, but they all felt rather… unpolished.  Unpracticed.  It kind of pointed away from these people being career villains.  But then, so did their ages.  Some of these people were adults, but not many. 

That didn't mean they weren't working for worse villains. 

A pop of compressed air went off to his left, and a pair of wires went shooting after him.  They had tasers, too?  

Something slammed into the ground around him, creating deep circular indentations.  Telekinesis?  An invisible giant?  No, gravity manipulation.  Izuku stumbled and was forced to use One for All just to get back up, and then he was hit over the back of the head with something.  

He lashed out, caught flesh, and struggled away from the grip.  But he'd lost what little lead he'd had on the main body of the pack.  They were circling, now, cutting off escape routes.  Could he use One for All and Full Cowling to get up on a roof?  Not without fighting people with wall-crawling quirks.  Still, that was fewer people than he was dealing with now.  He tensed, getting ready to jump, and was suddenly hit with extreme vertigo, intense enough to drop him to his knees. 

When it passed, he looked up to see a foot coming towards his face.  He wasn't able to dodge.  

The only good thing about the next few minutes was that One for All kept them from pinning him.  He was hit with dozens of quirks and dozens of feet.  He pushed them off, but he didn't have a good idea of how much of One for All was too much for a person to handle without serious injury. 

But then someone - someone with at least a mild strength quirk - got hold of his right arm and twisted. 

The world went wobbly, and the next thing Izuku knew, he was on the ground, restrained by a truly painful submission hold and multiple quirks, including the vertigo and gravity quirks. 

“Come on, bring it over!”  The movement in the crowd became more purposeful.  

Left hand, pinky finger.  Letting it heal naturally if Recovery Girl wouldn't help would suck, but not as much as letting these people do what they wanted to him, he was sure.  He flicked his finger and the wind pressure pushed back the nearest members of the crowd, sending them toppling into one another.  Izuku staggered to his feet, still dizzy.  Up was the only way out, but he wasn't sure he could aim–

Something sharp sunk into his right bicep, and he punched the person holding it.  Which, ow, his pinky.  

He pulled the sharp thing out of his arm, which wasn't the best first aid decision he could have made but he was still learning.  A hypodermic needle? 

A minute later, the needle fell from Izuku's nerveless fingers.  It didn't fall far.  When had he fallen down again?  

There was a burning sensation spreading down his arm and across his shoulders.  It started as a surface-level itch, but then it went more and deeper, and–

Izuku had thought he knew pain.  Shattering three of his four limbs in one go at the entrance exam, breaking his legs at the USJ, repeatedly breaking his fingers at the sports festival– He hadn’t done those things for fun.  He thought he knew burning, too, from ten years as Kacchan's punching bag.

This was different.  This wasn't just his skin burning, melting, his blood was on fire, his bones.  He was cracking open with every beat of his too-fast heart, something terrible trying to get out.  

This was agony, all the way down to his soul.  

.

Hideo was feeling pretty good about things, actually.  Elated, almost, like on a good roller coaster ride.  Yeah, there were risks, but this was kind of like hero work, wasn't it?  Giving the bad guy a beatdown and exposing him for the whole world to see.  

As soon as they got the needle in him, everyone stepped off, giving Deku room for his freak out and Hideo and the others a clear shot at the action with their phones.  

“Crap,” said Shinozaki.  “Crap, crap, crap.”

“What?” asked Hideo, distracted by how Deku was writhing on the ground.  It almost looked like he was fighting himself.  Freak.

“It's not like I got him the good stuff that goes down smooth, but that's not–  If he's a user, he shouldn't–  That's not what he should be acting like!”

Hideo's good mood vanished fast.  “Wait, you mean he wasn't on trigger…?”

“It's fine, it's fine, we just can't post this anywhere, we've got to stay quiet, it's not like he'll be able to identify us–  We didn't touch him.”

But that wasn't the imminent problem, was it, if Deku had a quirk like that?  If he had a quirk like that, and they'd just given him a shot of trigger?  A quirk booster?  

“Uh, um, guys?” said Kanemaru.  “When you say don't post it…”

“Yeah,” said Shinozaki, backing away, “I mean don't post it anywhere, forget that it happened.  Never speak of it again.  All that good stuff.”

“But I, um, I sort of… livestreaming.  I'm livestreaming.”

“You idiot–”

“Hey!  Hey!  Get away from my friend, you creeps!”

.

Ochako flopped down on her bed, doing her best impression of bonelessness.  Her internship with Gunhead had gone great, but she was so frickin’ tired.  She was glad it ended half a day before everyone else's - except for those guys who got caught up in Hosu, she guessed.  Iida was still in the hospital, but apparently Deku had gone home last night. 

She sighed.  She'd text him, but he'd emailed everyone saying his phone broke, so that was out.  So… she'd probably just scroll through the internet… it was a peanut butter and crackers for dinner sort of night…

Her phone rang.  She frowned at the number, but answered.  

“Uraraka!  Dieu merci, I was not sure you would answer!”

Ochako sat up.  “Aoyama?  What's wrong?”

“It is Midoriya!  I have found this, this livestream, of a bunch of gangsters chasing him through the streets.  And I call the police, but they do not get there so fast, and all our classmates, they are on their internships, and he must be near home–”

“Send me the link,” said Ochako, slamming her feet into her shoes and grabbing the can of pepper spray her mom had gotten her when she first started to live alone.  “Jiro and Mineta should still be in town, too, they got internships with local heroes.”  Who else was still around?  Ochako knew about Jiro, because she'd considered interning with Death Arms, too, and she remembered where Mineta was going, because he'd been gross about it, but there had to be others still around.  “You call them, okay?”

“Oui, Uraraka, I am sorry I cannot help more–”

“It's fine, it's fine,” said Ochako, jogging down the stairs outside her apartment.  She didn't remember where Aoyama was having his internship.  “The police, they're sending a hero, right?”

“I do not know.  They did not say, only that it would take time, that they have to confirm, that they do not know where this is, this video.”

She reached the bottom of the stairs.  “Okay, okay, I've got to go now, but you'll send the link to the video?”

“Oui, it is sent.  Be careful, Uraraka.”

“I will.  Bye.”

She hung up, then, and quickly navigated to the link Aoyama had sent her.  She swallowed back the anger she felt when she saw masked and hooded adults grappling a clearly-injured Deku, and started scanning the video for landmarks and street signs.  There had to be something. 

She rewound slowly, slowly.  The street signs were too small and blurry in the video, she couldn't read them.  

Wait.  

She scrolled forward.  That apartment building had its name on the front in huge kana.  She plugged the name into her maps app.  It wasn't too far from here.  If she ran– 

She was moving before she finished the thought.  She knew where it was, where Deku was.  

What she'd do when she got there… she wasn't sure.  There were at least thirty guys in the video.  But people who did stuff like this were ultimately cowards.  Sometimes, if they knew someone was watching them, if they knew someone saw what they were doing, they'd stop.  That's how Ochako's parents stopped a yakuza beating, once.  They'd just gone out with a broom, a baseball bat, and a phone connected to the police. 

… there had been a lot fewer of them, too, though, if she remembered correctly.  

It didn't matter.  If she had to use her quirk, she'd use it.  It'd be her first public quirk use citation, and if that meant she was suspended or expelled… it didn't matter.  What kind of hero would she be, if she didn't do her best to help a friend? 

She turned the last corner and saw the knot of villains.  She couldn't see Izuku from here, but he was visible on the livestream clearly enough.  

She dialed the emergency line.  “I'm on Obi Street, near the Millenium Building,” she said, once the operator had answered.  “There's a group of thirty villains beating up a student.”

“How do you know they're villains, ma'am?”

“They're using their quirks.” 

“Understood, I'm sending your location to the nearest hero.  Please find a place to shelter until they arrive.  Do not approach the villains, and stay on the line.”

Normally, Ochako would have followed instructions.  Honest.  But the villains moved strangely, and it was Deku.  He was basically her best friend, especially since Sakura back home stopped talking to her for stupid reasons.  

“Hey!  Hey!  Get away from my friend, you creeps!”

“Ma'am--" said the operator, but Ochako wasn't interested.  

Some of the villains turned towards her.  Others, apparently, hadn't heard her.  

“Who the hell're you?” demanded one of them, who was clearly used to using his mass to loom.  Joke was on him.  It didn't matter how much mass he had when she could use her quirk to negate it.  “Some kind of pervert slut who gets off taking it from subhuman freaks?”

Ochako didn't know how to respond to that, so she didn't.  “I have the police on the phone, so you'd better get lost!”

“Ma'am, please–”

“You think those fascist pigs scare us?  We're part of the new revolution, the–”

The big man stumbled and looked back.  The other villains jostled into each other, disorganized, and for the first time since looking at the livestream, Ochako saw Deku.  

He looked terrible.  Of course he looked terrible.  He was being beaten by a small mob.  He was bruised and bloodied and panting.  

His tongue was black.  

There was something else black, too.  Something like a gnarled, black root, growing from Deku's tattered sleeve and wrapping around the villain's ankle. 

“No,” said Deku, except it didn't sound very much like him at all.  

A thick, opaque fog exploded into being.  And then the screaming started.  

.

Hands gathered Izuku up.  Not gentle, exactly, but careful.  Not hurting.  They pulled him through the dark where lights flickered, uncertainly, like memories.  He opened his eyes and saw their faces, glowing, like fires that refused to be extinguished.  He knew them, but he didn't.  They could have been his, but they weren’t. 

“Ninth,” theh said, they whispered, they chanted.  There was power, there, burning and immense, and behind that power was purpose, but it was distorted, warped and shredded around the edges.  

This was not how this moment was supposed to go.  

There should have been triumph.  This should have been sacred.  A sharing of memories, a meeting of minds, a point of convergence, of singularity.  

How dare they?

How dare they–

–trap them - poison this - forget history - throw away this peace - hurt the boy - call them useless - touch Toshi's child - young Midoriya - say those things to Uraraka?

Uraraka was here?

Hush.  

Or–

Listen.  

Feel this.  Every strength they ever had.  Every memory that could aid their task.  Every skill, every scrap of knowledge, every quirk, every second of every year spent running-hiding-fighting.  All of it, brought together and finally expressed.  

They knew about trigger.  They had seen it, in all its gruesome forms.  Its purpose was to strengthen quirks, but the side effects - bodies twisted, quirks out of control, brains working at a fraction of their normal capacity.

One for All was a quirk.  A strange quirk, a difficult to understand quirk, but still a quirk, and everything within it was part of a quirk, and every thought they had happened in the brains of their Eighth and Ninth.  

At the moment, they were insane.  And they knew it.  And they didn't care.  

The purpose of One for All was to stop All for One, but that kind of specificity was a human foible, not something so easily encoded in the core of a quirk.  The end to which it put itself was the very destruction of evil and the eternal rebirth of hope.  Its favorite means was violence.  

“What are you talking about?”

Izuku tilted his head to one side.  Had he been talking?  Mumbling?  Muttering?  He should probably work on that.  But it didn't seem to matter so much when Blackwhip and Fifth were whispering to him the secrets of how to use rage to rip an enemy limb from limb, and Danger Sense hovered around him like a protective halo, Hikage watching his back.  

They were so, so, angry that it had spilled back over into serenity, like an overflow error on a computer.  

A fist came flying for him out of the swirling vapors of Smokescreen.  As soon as it brushed his cheek, Gear Shift grudgingly reversed its momentum.  Second did not approve of their current stronghold, but that did not mean he would permit an attack.

There was a snap, and then a scream, the man– no, the boy.  He couldn't be more than a year out of high school, if that.  The boy grasped at his broken wrist, howling.  

Izuku hadn't even done anything.  It was his own fault.  

Smokescreen whispered of an attempted escape, and Blackwhip dragged her back.  They weren't done with them yet.  

He didn't want to kill them or anything.  They just wanted to hurt them a little.  Ten years of quirklessness… twice.  And four lifetimes on the other side, running from people who thought meta powers were curses, or a symptom of a disease.   It was the same kind of bigotry, just reversed.  

There was just so much pain.  It hurt so much.  In his chest, in their head, in their hearts.  

Maybe if these little monsters felt some of it, they wouldn't do it again.  Maybe some of it would go away.  

.

Hideo stumbled through fog bank after fog bank, and started to wonder if he should call his mom.  He didn't always get on with his parents, but, if he was going to die…

There was a sort of scraping sound.  Then, footsteps.  They had to be close, close enough to touch.  The heavy fog dampened sound eerily.  Hideo froze, hardly daring to breathe. 

“Stop it!  Stay back!  How are you still moving?”

“Your vertigo quirk has its weaknesses, although it's useful for combat otherwise.  I'd ask you why you aren't trying to be a hero, but it's clear the problem is temperament.  Or, well, your entire personality, to be quite honest.”

There was a thump, a cracking sound and a shriek.  

“Stop!  Stop!  What do you want?  I can– my family has money.  Connections.  We can get you anything you want!  Just stop!”

“There is nothing we want more than you never doing anything like this again.”

The voice sounded like Deku's, but the cadence was all wrong.  Deku was a meek, shivering, stuttering nerd, and Hideo would have sworn that he'd stay that way, no matter what drugs they gave him.  

“I won't!  I won't!”

“It's nice of you to offer, but the only way people like you stop is of they're forced to stop, or if they're made to regret what they've done.  A lot.  All the time.”

“No, no, please!  No!”

There was an ugly cracking noise, and then a wet thump.

“Pathetic.”

Oh, god.  Oh, god, what kind of quirk was this, even?  There was no way Deku had a quirk like this all this time. 

A horrible thought came to him then.  What if it wasn't Deku?  Body-snatching quirks were a thing.  Hell, Bakugou had been targeted by one of those guys just last year.  And Deku had no friends, basically no family.  Who would notice when he started acting different?  Other than them, apparently. 

That was actually kind of sad.  Hideo would probably have had more pity to spare for Deku, though, if he wasn't using it all on himself. 

There hadn't been any sounds over there for a while, now.  Maybe it was safe to move again? 

“Hello, Hidaka Hideo,” said Deku's voice, right in his ear.  “It's been a long time.”

.

Kyoka wasn't entirely sure what was going on.  She had only been on the phone with Aoyama for a few confused seconds before the large-scale villain attack alarm went off, and what Death Arms said to her just after hadn't helped matters.  

Midoriya?  Taking trigger?  That didn't make any sense at all.  He was friends with Iida.  Totally straightedge.  

But apparently, he'd been given trigger.  As in, drugged, by a gang trying to beat him up.   Which, honestly, made even less sense.  Giving trigger to a guy you were fighting with…  It was like throwing a pair of brass knuckles to a guy you just hit, and daring them to do one better.  It was stupid. 

It was also on video, so Kyoka had to admit that some people were just that dumb, as unbelievable as that sounded. 

Whatever the Mensa squad's original goal had been, the result was… this.  A fat, billowing cloud that occasionally sprouted writhing black tentacles and faint but disturbing screams.  She didn't know what kind of quirks could combine to make something like this, and she didn't care.  She wasn't Midoriya.  The villains must have gotten spooked by Midoriya's quirk or something.  She just had to hope that they hadn't gotten spooked because Midoriya had broken all the bones in his body.  

What had happened at the sports festival had been… hard to watch.  

“Alright,” said Death Arms, “before we go in there, let's get some things down.  Earphone Jack, this Midoriya is your classmate?”

“Yeah,” said Kyoka.  

“He's not going to be himself, jumped up on trigger.  Don't try to get near him, or any of these villains.  He won't listen to reason, and I'll bet that these guys've been taking trigger, too, for a quirk effect like this. You're going to be flanked the whole time by these two,” he said, nodding towards a pair of sidekicks.  “The only reason we're bringing you with us is because we need someone who can navigate in all that crap, not for fighting.  Understood?”

Kyoka nodded.  “Understood.”

“Everyone else, go for restraint over injury, where possible.  We don't know if there are civilians other than Midoriya caught up in this.”

He spent another couple of seconds arranging the marching order, but then he finally gave them the order to move in.  

Inside the cloud, the air was cool, and drier than Kyoka had expected.  Not like fog, more like smoke.  Somehow, the screaming she'd heard on the outside was quieter in here as well.  Must be some quirk…  

“Group of three, that way,” she said, pointing.  

They took care of the villains quickly.  They didn't seem much older than Kyoka, and their quirk control was much worse.  They were tied up in class-C restraints in seconds.  

“We're going to have to carry them back out,” said Death Arms with a grimace.  “We can't just leave them here.”

“Oh, thank god,” said one of the villains.  “You guys are actual heroes!”

“As opposed to what?” asked Death Arms, gruffly.  

“The punk is probably talking about me.”

Kyoka jumped and turned.  Whoever that was, they'd managed to sneak up on them while making no sound at all.  Not even breathing.

The man was bald, wearing leather, and the same sort of rugged as Death Arms.  He also sort of… faded into the smoky clouds around him, almost as if he were made of them.  Even accounting for mutations, his smile was a bit too wide, his eyes a little too blank. 

The black, lashing tentacles around him, however, looked very real, especially when they scraped along the already-battered asphalt near his cloudy feet.  

“And who're you?” asked Death Arms, readying his fists.”

“They should have stayed away from our kid,” said the man without moving his mouth.  Then, in Midoriya's voice,  “It hurts! “

“Where-” started Death Arms, but the man was opening his mouth, wrist and wider.  Too wide.  Inside was a perfectly black hole. 

A faint rushing noise was the only warning before a dozen of those black tentacles came pouring out of the man's mouth.  They jostled and grabbed and wrapped around, and by the time Kyoka got her wits about her again, she and the rest of the heroes had been deposited outside the cloud. 

Death Arms looked shaken.  “I think we might need backup for this one.”

.

Ochako caught another glimpse of yellow gloves and a fluttering cape.  It was a hero.  It had to be, even if Ochako didn't recognize her.  Now, if only Ochako could get her attention…

She pushed through another bank of smoke.  The smoke was… weird.  When it first appeared, it looked like it was coming from Deku, but that couldn't be right.  He had a strength enhancement.  Like All Might.  But then, those black root things weren't a normal part of Deku's quirk, either.  

Maybe it was like Tsuyu's quirk.  She had a lot of different things she could do, and you normally wouldn't describe it as a jumping quirk instead of a frog mutation, but it did let her jump high.  She just… wasn't sure why Deku would do that.  Unless he didn't know?  

Ugh, all these things could wait until later, when her friend wasn't in trouble. 

“Miss Hero!” she tried again.  “Please wait!”

And this time, to Ochako's surprise, she did.  

She was tall - but not as tall as Ochako first thought.  She was floating above the ground, and the way the smoke clung to her…

“It's yours, then, the smoke?” asked Ochako, a little out of breath.  

“Not exactly,” she said, in a voice as thin as the smoke. 

A partner, then?  “The person they were beating up was my friend, do you know where he is?  Is he safe?”

The hero inclined her head, and then dissolved, the smoke that made up her body tearing away from itself.  The clouds behind her patted as well, revealing a large crater, and–

“Deku!”

She hopped down into the crater, avoiding broken electrical cables and gushing pipes.  

Deku looked even worse than he had minutes ago.  Red and green sparks danced over his body, and his skin was a ghostly gray.  He was shaking, and clutching at the ground, raw fingertips digging deep grooves into the remaining concrete.  

But before she could get to him, smoke swirled out of his body, and two more figures coalesced out of it.  A slender white-haired man in a t-shirt and loose pants, and a shorter, younger man in a long, high-collared coat that reminded Ochako of Best Jeanist's costume. 

“Wait a moment,” said the white-haired one.  

“Why?” demanded Ochako.  “Who are you people?”

“It's people like this that give my brother so much power,” said the man, which answered nothing. “They could use their abilities to help, but instead they act out of jealousy and envy.”

“Unless there's been a big change recently,” said the other man, “that dosage of Japanese trigger lasts for three minutes, maximum.”

Ochako looked down at her dead phone.  How long had it been?

“Wait a moment,” repeated the white-haired man.  “There is still justice to be done, there are still things to be made right.”

“I'm sure you're tough.  Are you tougher than concrete?” asked the other man.  “We don't remember that.”

“Wait a moment.  I wish my brother were here, so I could pound his stupid face in.”

“We really, really don't.”

“Uh,” said Ochako.  Were these guys, like, all there?  “There are villains here who tried to hurt him, so–”

“Wait a moment,” said the white-haired man.  He sounded frustrated.  “Wait a moment.  They are being discouraged.”

“Vehemently.”

“Wait a moment.  He won't remember this.  Tell him we will speak again.”

“We'll try, anyway.”

Ochako looked between the two of them.  Maybe she could run by them… Were their bodies even solid? 

Deku shuddered, and the force behind the movement sent more cracks through the concrete, deepened the crater.  Ochako threw up her arm to protect her eyes from dust. 

When she lowered her arms again, the figures of the two men were dissipating back into smoke, and the smoke itself was wisping away.  Deku was lying still, now, eyes closed, breathing heavily.  Ochako checked him carefully for quirk effects, but didn't see any, and approached. 

“Deku?”

He didn't respond.  According to the first aid course she'd taken to boost her chances of being accepted at UA, she shouldn't move him unless there was imminent danger, in case of broken bones or neck injuries.  The pipes and wires… that situation would probably hold for a while longer.  The villains…

She climbed back out of the crater and looked around.  She could see both sides of the street, now, even if it was hazy.  The glass in most of the nearby windows was broken.  The street itself and the sidewalks were gravel.  One streetlight had been knocked over.  

And scattered all over were the prone forms of the villains.  They didn't look like they were moving.  Ochako stared at the nearest one, frightened, until she saw that they were still breathing.  So she should stay with Deku until first responders got there.  Hopefully, that would be soon.

Her phone chirped as it came back to life, whatever quirk effect keeping it inoperable disappearing with the smoke. She looked down at it, briefly.  It was an older model, and usually took a minute or longer to turn back on all the way. 

She scanned the street again, squinting to see through the thinning smoke, and, oh thank goodness.  That was Death Arms, wasn't it?  And Jiro!  She waved frantically.  

This whole thing had lasted only a few minutes, but it had felt like forever. 

.

In other news, the large-scale disruption in residential Musutafu today occurred when a group of thirty-two villains chased down and injected a UA student with trigger.  The villains were mostly high school and college students with otherwise clean records.  According to Musutafu PD, the villains believed the student was somehow using trigger to fake having a quirk.  A statement released by UA with the permission of the student's guardian not only refutes those claims, but includes select medical data from the student's most recent hospital visit, only days before.  These records show no evidence of the student having ever taken any form of performance enhancing drug.  The student was the only civilian injured in the event, and is recovering at an undisclosed location.  The police are investigating the possibility of classifying the incident as a hate crime.  Now, Ms. Long with the weather–

.

Izuku pried his eyes open blearily.  His head was pounding, his bones ached,  and his mouth tasted like he'd licked Dagobah Beach.  Before he'd cleaned it up.  Where was he and what was he doing there?  

He blinked a few times.  Actually, that ceiling looked familiar…

“Ah!” said Recovery Girl, who was suddenly in his field of vision.  “You're awake.”

Before Izuku could ask what had happened, she was running through a cognitive test.  Despite his confusion, he answered her questions as best he could, and she didn't seem disappointed, so he must have gotten a good grade.  Was that something you could get on a cognitive test?

“What is the last thing you remember before waking up here?” she asked, finally.  

“Uh, um,” said Izuku.  “I used one of the gyms at the school… here, I mean… for physical therapy stuff.  Then sat in on one of the support classes - that was really cool - then, um, the train… and I was walking home…  Was I hit by a car?” he guessed.  

Recovery Girl sighed.  “You were attacked by villains and injected with trigger.  Trigger heavily cut with other drugs, no less.”

“What?!” said Izuku trying to sit up.  Recovery Girl pushed him back down.  

“The villains were all captured.  They won't be doing anything like that again.”  She set a bowl of broth down on the table attached to Izuku's bed.  

“But did I– What did I–?”  Even if he didn't remember anything, trigger made people do all sorts of weird stuff.  And One for All wasn't an ordinary quirk.

“Don’t worry about that,” said Recovery Girl.  “You focus on recovering your stamina, so we can do something about all those microfractures you have.”

“I thought– I thought you said you wouldn't treat me anymore,” said Izuku, bewildered.  

“I never–” Recovery Girl stopped, pressed her lips together.  “What I meant to say, at the end of the sports festival, is that I won't be able to heal you with my quirk if you keep getting injuries like that.  There's a limit to what can be healed, even with quirks, as you well know.”

Izuku thought back to All Might's wound, and shuddered.  Which.  Ow.  

“If you can keep that down,” said Recovery Girl, nodding to the broth, “I'll see about letting some of your visitors in.”

“Like Mom?  And, um, All Might?” guessed Izuku.

“Your mother is here already,” said Recovery Girl, nodding at the green-haired lump in the neighboring bed.  “Just got her to take a nap herself, after she spent all night fretting.  But, yes, All Might isn’t above using his position to get to the top of your visitor list.  Although he isn't the only one on it.  All your classmates called in from their internships, and I had to ban that girl from the support course.  I won’t have untested support equipment around my patients, no matter what the medical applications are.  Uraraka and Jiro from your class were also here earlier…”

Izuku listened as she bustled around the medical wing and continued to chatter about his visitors and well-wishers, and felt… warm.  Later, he was sure there would be consequences beyond missing memories, sore muscles, and broken bones, but for now… it was nice to know he had people who cared.  He didn't think he'd ever get tired of that. 

With a shaky hand, he picked up the soup spoon and started on the broth. 

.

“Mr. Hidaka,” said the lawyer, more to Hideo's father than Hideo, even if the lawyer was technically representing Hideo, “I'm afraid to say that the government's case is ironclad.  Between the livestream video, the messages to the other defendants, being found at the scene of the crime, the evidence of quirk use…  The best we can hope for is the young villain diversion program, but that's only possible if you plead guilty and implicate any other co-conspirators.  Otherwise, you're old enough to be charged as an adult, and even if they don't do that, juvenile villain facilities aren't great places to be.”

“But Deku–” started Hideo.  

“Hideo,” growled his father.  

“I was attacked–”

“Hideo, shut up.  You'll take the guilty plea and hope you get it in before any of rhe cretins you call friends.  And if you say anything about this Midoriya boy again…”

Hideo swallowed and nodded.  Goddamned Deku.  How come he got everything good, and Hideo was in here?  It wasn't fair.  It wasn't fair.  Goddamned Deku.  

But what was he supposed to do?  He wasn't an actual villain.  He just wanted things to be right. 

“Fine,” he said.  “I'll do it.”

“Great!” said the lawyer, gathering his papers.  “I just have to talk to the prosecuter.”

Goddamn Deku.  Why couldn't Hideo have his life?

[tokyo-fashion]

Tokyo Rainbow Pride Street Styles in Harajuku

Last weekend was the Tokyo Pride Festival and Tokyo Rainbow Pride Parade in Shibuya and Harajuku. We ran into this group in Harajuku after the Pride Parade. Harajuku is a neighborhood that attracts creative people from all over Japan, and the LGBTQ community here has been strong and supportive for decades. We've personally been attending the Tokyo Pride Parades since 2005!

Everyone in the video is tagged on Instagram. Happy Pride!

[lizzy06]

Sakusa Kiyoomi x Reader Fic Recs!! (Tumblr/AO3/Wattpad)

Haikyuu! Fic Rec Masterlist

Itachiyama Fic Rec Masterlist

THE BLIND DATING SHOW: Slide to Unlock Love ✨by liillyliilly (oneshot, fluff, comedy)She given the chance to appear on a blind dating show, but the catch here is… she'll be blind dating 10 guys based solely on their phones. Who will she end up with? Who does she eliminate first? Will she regret making an elimination too hastily?

Green or Gold  ✨✨💖by @seokiloquy (oneshot, royalty au, butler! sakusa, princess! reader) A birthday, a ball, a prince and courting. [COMPLETED]

Home ✨✨💖by @amjustagirl (oneshot, hurt to comfort, angst, fluff) Kiyoomi’s concept of home doesn’t include you. Atleast, he thought that it didn't.[COMPLETED]

Envy /Ao3✨by @watevermelon (oneshot, domestic fluff, smut) Childhood friends with Sakusa Kiyoomi, you were sure that your unrequited desires would simply stay that way. From play-dates in his backyard to being the manager to the Itachiyama volleyball team, you were content with watching your friend pursue his dream. [COMPLETED]

The video call accident✨✨ by @reverie-starlight (onehot, humor, fluff, secret relationship)[COMPLETED]

sakusa x reader ✨by @augustinewrites (oneshot, humor, fluff) Sakusa likes you, the physiotherapist of MSBY jackals. or Sakusa Kiyoomi likes to think he’s a decently smart man.[COMPLETED]

I hear you- you can hear your soulmate’s thoughts. by @box-of-roses

➥ Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 |

Soulmate!Sakusa x Reader ✨by @watevermelon (oneshot, soulmate au) You are Karasuno’s manager and, unfortunately for the both of you, very popular among those in your year.[COMPLETED]

Counting Down To You ✨by @kouomi (oneshot, soulmate au)When meeting your soulmate is a matter of life or death, is it possible to beat the clock and find them in time?[COMPLETED]

change of heart by heart condemned Falling in love wasn't part of the plan. Kiyoomi never considered it; didn't deem it important enough to factor into his life. Until, he meets you and undergoes a change of heart he never believed possible. [ONGOING]

Quiet Sort of Love by @watevermelon (oneshot, fluff, angst, mutual pinning) Manager to the Fukurōdani volleyball club, there was no doubt that Itachiyama’s Sakusa Kiyoomi was a strong ace. He brought your team to their knees on multiple occasions, but what you were not expecting was getting to know the nationally acclaimed spiker beyond just the titles and labels.[COMPLETED]

COMPRESSION by @teamatsumu (oneshot, fluff, humor, manager!reader) atsumu is the perfect person to feed your obsession with kiyoomi’s arms.[COMPLETED]

Not So Ridiculous ✨by @mimi-cee-hq (fluff)When Sakusa comes back to visit his parents for a weekend to surprise his beloved mom for her birthday, he freezes, seeing you in his old room. You were an exchange student. He missed the memo. A cute and wholesome one-shot about Sakusa’s first impressions of you.  [COMPLETED] Not So Ridiculous Part-2 ✨by @mimi-cee-hq (fluff) Sakusa has a crush on you, so he helps you navigate Tokyo during Tsukimi, Japan’s harvest moon festival. He gets a little jealous when he learns you’re there to support one of your classmates – so he may have suggested going up the cramp and crowded Skytree elevator with you.[COMPLETED]

Infectious Love✨ by LittleDeer22(fluff, eventual smut) Sakusa is always worried about what germs may be in his world, so on occasion he does the obviously very rational thing of calling the health department to see if there are any outbreaks in his area he should be wary of. What he didn't expect from these calls was to meet a cute Epidemiology graduate student with her own neuroses to tackle.[COMPLETED]

no secrets here by bunnytime (fluff, secret relationship, humor)in which his teammates realize they don't know anything about sakusa kiyoomi.[COMPLETED]

i don't wanna be just friends. ✨by azuriri (fluff, crush, developing relationship, angst)You move to Tokyo and are enrolled at Itachiyama Academy. There you managed to become the manager of the boys volleyball team and develop a crush on their ace, Sakusa Kiyoomi.[COMPLETED]

and they were roommates✨ by sakusas_personal_hole (mutual pinning, smut, roommates)Being roommates with Sakusa Kiyoomi is easy. Nothing happens between you two besides occasional dinner chats, but when Sakusa needs to tell you about a particularly hard practice, his day gets even harder.[COMPLETED]

Public Transit by kaientai (oneshot, humor, enemies? to lovers)There are only ever two types of people on the subway at five in the morning: those gearing up early for what the day has in store and those dragging themselves home in their drunken stupor. You just had to be the latter, didn't you?[COMPLETED]

freedomscapes by panini1995(post timekip, fluff) In which Sakusa Kiyoomi befriends [Reader] in his college days, for better or for worse. In the roar of live games, in the stillness of cheap coffee places in the morning, in the chaos that is college hallways at the sound of the bell--these are the quiet lulls in-between.[COMPLETED]

Fever Dreams by kaientai (oneshot, established relationship)A visit to your sick boyfriend ends up more heated than intended.[COMPLETED]

Drawing Our Moments by EdenxWrites(oneshot, love confession, High school)Sakusa falls in love like a thundering storm; slowly, and then all at once.[COMPLETED]

Behind a Germaphobe's Mask ✨by sakusasbiggestsimp (first relationship, fluff, humor, smut)Sakusa doesn’t know how he is supposed to go about the physical intimacy involved in dating, but he’ll try for you.[COMPLETED]

love again by enchantingoats (friends with benifts, angst and romance)In which Sakusa breaks your heart in high school, and being a Div 1 libero doesn't get any easier when you meet again as adults. [ONGOING]

be careful what you wish for by alicemitch09 (royalty au, labyrinth au, unrequited love)He wished you away. Your first love, Prince Kiyoomi actually wished you away. And now, here you were: forever stuck in this maze-like dungeon, guarded by a hulking beast for all of eternity.[COMPLETED]

Next year, everything would stay the same by secondhand_trash (friends to lovers, fluff, drunken confession)You and Sakusa had been best friends for years and he had always thought things would stay the exact same no matter what year it was. But as the end of yet another year approached, it seemed he was forced to acknowledge that some things had to change.[COMPLETED]

Touch Starved by sofa_and_stuff (oneshot, fluff, angst)Things had been going well with your boyfriend until you kissed him. Now, your dear Kiyoomi was acting strange. Had you gone too far too fast? Why was Sakusa acting so weird?[COMPLETED]

jungle by heartification (oneshot, post war, fluff, mutual pinning, smut, historical au) kiyoomi seeks serenity after coming home from war.[COMPLETED]

Fleeting Glances by @yourstarvic (series, suggestive)He doesn’t know you and you don’t know him. Sakusa is someone who stays in the same place, doesn’t like exploring thing or try new things. But when he starts something, he won’t stop until its completely perfect, pouring his heart and soul into it. When (y/n) loves to explore, she never stays in the same place for too long. She loves to try new things and going to different places. But Sakusa doesn’t like secrets so what happens when she has a big secret?[COMPLETED]

[kajira-kreations]

It's Obon (Japan's version of Mexico's Day of the 💀) weekend here in Japan.

Have a doodle of Miko and human!Arcee.

Miko teaches Arcee how to do a dance for the Obon festival to honor Tailgate and Cliffjumper.

[csuitebitches]

Skiing - a beginner’s guide

I first went skiing in Switzerland with my friends nearly 10 years ago and I loved it. The feeling of the wind on my face, the speed, the adrenaline- it was exhilarating.

I’ve compiled a basic list of ski events, a semi-scandalous article and some of the best destinations in the world as well as some budget friendly ones.

Socialite ski events:

Snowboxx:

Since it launched in 2013, winter festival Snowboxx has been growing in popularity - and it involves flying out to the Alps for a week-long ski party.  It takes place in Avoriaz ski resort, Morzine, France each March, and this year saw a superstar lineup of artists performing in the mountains, including ex-Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac, Becky Hill, Jax Jones, Sonny Fodera and Andy C. 

The combination of partying to some of the world's best DJs, with the unusual day-activites of skiing and snowboarding, are making many turn away from the summer festival circuit in favour of the winter one. 

Hahnenkamm, Kitzbühel , Austria:

The Hahenekamm ski race weekend in Kitzbühel is arguably the biggest alpine ski event in the world. The world’s best take on the iconic Streif downhill track, which is historically the toughest ski race track on the World Cup circuit. A lot of the speed skiers consider winning races here as a bigger honour than the Olympics. As a spectator, the atmosphere is electric with fans around the world admiring some breathtaking ski racing.

X Games, Aspen, USA:

The world’s best freestyle skiers and snowboarders compete annually in Aspen. The event is a prestigious honour to win amongst action sports athletes and has propelled careers. Spectating the event is excellent because you can see most of the action from the viewing areas. The halfpipe events in particular are excellent to watch for this reason.

European Snow Pride, Tignes, France:

Tignes is home to Europe’s biggest gay ski week, with the European Snow Pride. Each day has a theme with nights of brit-pop to superhero days. Many international DJs are invited to play each evening party in the resort’s local clubs and bars.

Slightly scandalous tales: Things I Never Knew About Skiing Until I Was a Private Instructor in Aspen

Really interesting read. I was thoroughly entertained.

Popular ski destinations:

1. Whistler Blackcomb, Canada

Whistler makes it onto pretty much every ‘World Top 10’ list when it comes to ski resorts

2. Niseko, Japan

Located on the northern island of Hokkaido, this Japanese skiing destination is a snow-covered paradise. With a huge 15 metres of average snowfall, it’s no wonder that Niseko is the country’s premier ski resort.

3. Zermatt, Switzerland

As the highest resort in the Alps, it’s got the views. The incredible peak of the Matterhorn can be seen from just about anywhere on the slopes! It also boasts the greatest vertical drop in Switzerland, and there’s all year round skiing at the Matterhorn Glacier.

4. Courchevel, France

The resort is a part of the world’s largest alpine ski area, offering more than 600 kilometres of terrain and interconnected ski runs across 10 summits. The snow here is well-groomed, and there’s a legendary black run that’s considered to be one of the trickiest in the world.

5. Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy

Known only to the most dedicated, well-travelled skiers prior to the 1956 Winter Olympics, Cortina is a hidden gem in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.

6. Baqueira-Beret, Spain

It may be a surprising destination for skiing, but Baqueira-Beret in Spain is one of the best places in Europe where you’ll find value for money for a ski holiday. You’ll be able to find affordable accommodation as well as some of the finest tapas restaurants in the country.

7. Ylläs, Finland

The arctic landscapes of Lapland are perfect for skiing. If you dream of snow-dusted trees, the magic of the Northern Lights, or the glow of the midnight sun, Ylläs is a unique winter resort that you won’t want to miss. As Finland’s largest ski resort, it’s got everything you need.

Budget friendly destinations

1. Vogel, Slovenia

An ideal spot for couples or families, this Slovenian spot is a truly beautiful and peaceful ski area. Overlooking Lake Bohinj, Vogel is part of the Triglav national park.

2. Livigno, Italy

Duty-free zone Livigno offers excellent slopes for intermediate skiers. But advanced skiers and snowboarders will be kept busy too – especially if they’re keen to explore off piste.

3. Poiana-Brasov, Romania

Poiana Brasov is Romania’s biggest mountain resort and certainly one of the nicest. The fairytale slopes, flanked by pine trees, are the perfect place to take your skis. With more than 24km of ski runs, there’s plenty to explore.

4. South Korea -Muju Deogyusan Resort

Muju Deogyusan Resort in Jeolla province is only 3 hours away from Seoul. So, if you want to spend your holiday skiing and still enjoy the city of Seoul, this is the place to go.

5. Niseko Ski Resort

Located in Hokkaido, Japan, Niseko Ski Resort boasts a total of four different resorts but with linked ski area. A single pass would give you access to all four resorts. One of the resorts, Mt. Resort Grand Hirafu has been officially named as Japan’s number one snow resort due to the wide array of activities offered.

6. India - Gulmarg

Gulmarg is a rare gem in the Himalayans that will undoubtedly take your breath away with its picturesque beauty. However, skiing in Gulmarg, Kashmir is not for the weak-hearted as the terrains are not suitable for beginners - to add to that, the ski lifts carry you to the highest point in the Himalaya at 13, 780 feet!

7. China - Nanshan Ski Resort

80km away from Beijing, Nanshan Ski Resort is perfect for skiing and snowboarding as the snow are neither too hard nor too soft.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (January 21-27, 2024)

Godzilla Minus One made awards show history in both Japan and the U.S. this week. Its Oscar nomination for best Visual Effects is the first of the series (Godzilla [1998], Godzilla [2014] and Godzilla vs. Kong were previously shortlisted) and the first for any Japanese film. Small wonder Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, and their team went berserk when the nomination was announced. The other nominees are The Creator, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Napoleon, and Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One. According to IndieWire, The Creator has the edge, but Minus One could very well win. And while it naturally made less headlines in the Anglosphere, Minus One also picked up a whopping 12 Japan Academy Film Prize nominations, exceeding Shin Godzilla's 10.

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color is now in North American theaters. I was intrigued enough to make it my fourth theatrical viewing of this movie, but in the end it did basically strike me as a gimmick. Godzilla Minus One was shot digitally with sets designed for color, so making it actually look like a film from the 40s was always going to be an uphill battle. Even with the regrade, there wasn’t a ton of contrast in most shots, and some of the scenes taking place at night were quite hard to see. Still, apart from the Odo Island massacre, I found the Godzilla scenes as gripping as ever.

Thanks to Minus Color, Minus One made $2.6 million this weekend, crawling back into the box office top 10. Its total in the U.S. and Canada now stands at $55 million, third among all foreign-language films released in the U.S.

Brush of the God, Keizo Murase's directorial debut after a lifetime in movies, is finally complete. It'll play at the Osaka Asian Film Festival in March (link contains more images), and hopefully travel overseas very soon. Murase will also receive an Association Special Award at the Japan Academy Film Prize.

Clover Press shipped out copies of Godzilla & Kong: The Cinematic Storyboard Art of Richard Bennett to Kickstarter backers, myself included. It's an excellent art book, and there are plenty of deleted and altered scenes mixed in with more familiar sequences. Believe it or not, Bennett drew the panel above for Kong: Skull Island—they considered having James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston) flash back to an encounter with King Ghidorah in Vietnam. Not sure how that would've worked, as Ghidorah is generally not one to lie low for a few decades, but it's the first I've ever heard of it being considered. I'm hoping to post some more scans soon. Here's the order link.

Minecraft social media accounts teased a crossover with the Monsterverse, in what's likely to be the most high-profile of the Godzilla x Kong video game collaborations. The Mobzilla mod was created over 10 years ago, so this is long overdue.

The big toy news this week was Titanic Creations revealing the digital sculpt for its Yongary figure. This guy's had even less figures than Gorgo - I can only think of one, and very few of them were made - so expect massive demand. New Godzilla toys were also on display at London Toy Fair, both at the Playmates booth and among the plushies made by an unknown company.

[tokidokitokyo]

埼玉県

Japanese Prefectures: Kantō - Saitama

都道府県 (とどうふけん) - Prefectures of Japan

Learning the kanji and a little bit about each of Japan’s 47 prefectures!

Kanji・漢字

埼　さき、さい、みさき、キ　cape, spit, promontory

玉　たま、～だま、ギョク　jewel, jade; ball

県　ケン　prefecture

関東　かんとう　Kanto, region consisting of Tokyo and surrounding prefectures

Prefectural Capital (県庁所在地) : Saitama City (さいた��市)

Saitama is Tokyo's neighbor to the north. Much of southeastern Saitama is considered a suburb of Tokyo, but the western parts are mostly rural with mountainous forested areas, and include a castle town and the Chichibu-Tama-Kai National Park. Saitama has historically been a fertile agricultural region and is currently the major food supplier for the metropolitan area of Greater Tokyo. Some of the first currency in Japan came from copper discovered in the Chichibu area in the 8th century. Saitama's central location has made it a historical hub for transportation to all parts of Eastern Japan, and the modern radial roads and railroad system are designed for ease of transportation to all parts of Japan. Saitama is also the backdrop to the famous Miyazaki Hayao (Studio Ghibli) film "My Neighbor Totoro."

Recommended Tourist Spot・おすすめ観光スポット Kawagoe - 川越

Kawagoe

The Edo-period castle town of Kawagoe is also known as Ko-edo (小江戸 or "Little Edo") because of its many traditional buildings dating from the Edo period. The streets have been maintained as-is since the Edo period (1603-1867). The weekends are the most popular times for visitors to gather here and experience the atmosphere, shops, and popular seasonal events. In the third week of October, the Kawagoe Festival is held with a parade of traditional ornate floats and a musical competition.

The Warehouse District is lined with old earthen storehouses, which are unique two-story buildings that have remained unchanged since the days when the city was a major transportation and commerce hub for Eastern Japan. The Toki no Kane, or "Bell of Time," has marked time for the town for centuries, and continues to ring four times daily. Candy Street is a street lined with stores where traditional Japanese sweets are made in the old-fashioned way.

For more recent history, the Taisho-Roman Street has old, retro western-style buildings from the Taisho and Showa areas. There are also no overhead power lines, which makes this a popular spot to shoot many Japanese period films set in these eras.

There are severable notable temples and shrines in Kawagoe, especially Kitain Temple, which was built over 1,000 years ago. This temple has 538 stone statues of Buddha, each with its own face and unique posture. No two statues look alike, and the popular belief is that there is a statue to resemble any visitor to the temple. Kawagoe Hikawa-jinja Shrine is a Shinto shrine dating back to the 6th century that boasts a torii shrine gate that is 15 metres tall. Kawagoe Kumano-jinja Shrine has fortunes, lucky charms, and also boasts the "stepping health road," which is a path to walk barefoot to stimulate the acupuncture points on the soles of your feet for health benefits.

Regional Cuisine - 郷土料理 Miso Potato - 味噌ポテト

Miso Potato (source)

Famous in the Chichibu region of Saitama, miso potatoes are a well-known winter treat in the area. This dish is similar to a baked potato covered in sweet miso sauce and is traditionally from the rural areas in the mountainous part of the prefecture. It is now a popular street stall snack that combines the sweet and savoury miso flavours with the earthy baked potato texture.

Saitama Dialect・Saitama-ben・埼玉弁

1. むじっけー　mujikkee　cute

むじっけー猫だね。 (mujikkee neko da ne)

Standard Japanese: かわいい猫だね。 (kawaii neko da ne)

English: What a cute cat.

2. ああみぃ　aahmii　no good, can't do it (also, ああみ, aahmi)

ごめん、明日ああみぃ。 (gomen, ashita aahmii)

Standard Japanese: ごめん、明日行けない。 (gomen, ashita ikenai) or ごめん、明日はダメ。 (gomen, ashita wa dame)

English: Sorry, I can't go tomorrow. or Sorry, tomorrow is no good.

3. かみぎっちょ　gamigiccho　lizard

庭のすみっこにかまぎっちょがいたで。 (niwa no sumikko ni kamagiccho ga itade)

Standard Japanese: 庭の隅にとかげがいたよ。 (niwa no sumi ni tokage ga ita yo)

English: There was a lizard in the corner of the garden.

4. うちゃる　ucharu　to throw away

そこにうちゃるなよ。 (soko ni ucharu na yo)

Standard Japanese: そこに捨てるなよ。 (soko ni suteru na yo)

English: Don't throw that away there.

5. こわい　～kowai　hard

このおせんべいこわい。 (kono osenbei kowai)

Standard Japanese: このおせんべい硬い。 (kono senbei katai)

English: This senbei is hard.

*Note: senbei is a Japanese rice cracker

6. えらい　erai　a lot

今日はえらい食べるな。 (kyou wa erai taberu na)

Standard Japanese: 今日はたくさん食べるな。 (kyou wa takusan taberu na)

English: Don't eat a lot today.

[alouiadina]

Would love to see a Hangster married fic where they’ve been celebrating their wedding anniversary on the wrong day for the past five years. Happy writing!

I briefly considered making them idiots (like anon probably wanted) but I felt like Ice wouldn't let them forget after one year. So, I changed it to a 5 + 1 thing

Title: Five Times Jake and Bradley Celebrated their Anniversary on the Wrong day, and the one time they didn't

Word count: 787

The first time it happened, it was an accident. In the midst of their mission, it was easy for the date to slip through the cracks. The hours blurred into days and before they knew it, their anniversary had come and gone without notice. It wasn't until Mav approached them with apologies that they realized their mistake. Feeling guilty, they made a promise to each other to make up for it.

That weekend, they escaped to a luxurious hotel room as if it were their own private sanctuary. As soon as the door clicked shut behind them, they shed their clothes falling onto the plush king-sized bed in a frenzy of lust and desire. They savored each other's bodies for three whole days, only pausing occasionally to order room service. They left the room only once, to stroll through the nearby park hand in hand.

Their meticulously planned anniversary festivities, filled with romantic dinners and a luxurious hotel stay, were abruptly derailed for the second time. This time, it was an extended military training exercise abroad that forced them to put their celebrations on hold. Disappointment hung thick in the air as they both resigned themselves to another delayed anniversary. But after three exhausting days apart, they finally returned home, determined to make up for lost time.

With their suitcases still packed and forgotten in the hallway, they locked themselves in their bedroom for a much-needed week of uninterrupted intimacy.

For the third time, their anniversary approached, tantalizingly close. But this year, they were only separated by a mere twenty-four hours. Jake was stationed in Japan, while Bradley remained stateside. The best they could do was FaceTime and promise to celebrate as soon as Jake returned.

On the fourth year without celebrating their anniversary properly, Bradley had become a TOPGUN teacher and was in a training accident the day before, leaving coma for a month. Jake spent every day by his bedside, praying and hoping for his partner's recovery.

And when Jake finally saw Bradley awake, he couldn't hold back his emotions any longer. Tears streamed down his face as he embraced Bradley tightly, crying about how he couldn't bear to lose him like that.

The days that followed were a blur of intense physical and emotional recovery, leaving no room for Bradley or Jake to dwell on missed anniversaries. They were both consumed with healing and getting back to their normal routines. It wasn't until they were both back home that Bradley's heart sank as he realized they had missed their anniversary. 

With determination blazing in his eyes, Bradley rushed around the kitchen, frantically gathering ingredients and creating a chaotic symphony of sizzling meat and bubbling pots. The tantalizing scent of savory herbs and spices filled the air, mingling with the heat radiating from the stove.

Despite his best efforts, the end result was a charred and unappetizing mess. But Jake couldn't help but laugh at Bradley's frantic attempts, his dimples deepening as he reassured him that it was okay.

"Don't fret, my love," he teased, pulling Bradley into a warm embrace. "We have countless anniversaries ahead of us to perfect our cooking skills. Let's just enjoy this moment together, alright?"

Bradley's disappointment melted away as he beamed at Jake, nodding in agreement before leaning in to kiss Jake deeply. The taste of his lips was sweeter than any dish they could have cooked up.

This was the fifth time they had planned to celebrate their anniversary, and both of them had gone out of their way to ensure that nothing would get in the way. A luxurious hotel in the heart of the city had been booked for a few days, a romantic date night had been meticulously planned, and they had even bought each other presents. But, a day before the big day, everything fell apart. Jake received a last-minute assignment that sent him on a mission to a remote and desolate location with no guarantee of when he would return.

Bradley was consumed by a sense of frustration and defeat, like an utter fool who had been duped into thinking that things would go smoothly for once. This was just how it always seemed to be for them - no matter how hard they tried, nothing ever fell into place perfectly.

After years of bad luck, fate finally smiled upon them on their sixth anniversary. The night before, Bradley was a bundle of nerves, his fingers tapping impatiently as he waited for the dreaded phone call that always seemed to ruin their special day. But this time, the call never arrived. Instead, they were able to revel in each other's company all day long - indulging in passionate love and treasuring every second spent together.

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