#cursed.arc

[ua-monoma]

... do you ever think that you're a ghost, monoma?

...

[ua-hagakure]

Hi, Hagakure-san! I was just checking in to make sure things were alright with you. You’ve seemed a little... /off/ lately, so I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay! 💕

Oh I’m fine thanks so much for asking, Momo, I really appreciate it!! Must be so exhausting pretending to care about others all the time, so I’m honoured you would spare some energy for me!! :)

[friendly reminder tooru is cursed to be mean fjdajfksdja]

[ua-monoma]

imagine being in love with a ghost and still loving them even when you realize what they are... still wanting to be with them and wanting to make things better even when you have no clue how... does that hurt? or would you not mind that either?

Can you stop...

[ua-monoma]

imagine falling in love with a ghost.

..

[ua-monoma]

have you ever thought of how it could hurt someone? imagine getting close to someone... investing so much in them... and trying so hard for them... but they never actually let you close...

I don’t... actually think I’d mind, eh... 

[ua-monoma]

don't you think it bothers people? not even really knowing the person they're talking to... getting close to...

... Mm... wouldn’t know...

[ua-monoma]

does anyone even really know you?

...

[ua-monoma]

END.p3

@v-hawks

The hideout is... disgustingly familiar.

Monoma eases the door to it open slowly, listening to the creak. Nothing is left behind as he pulls away from it, the blood on his hands already too caked and dried to leave much of a mark.

Time has passed. He can't tell how much. It had been light when it had happened. And the hideout is dark.

It's quiet.

Monoma looks around for a few seconds. Then his breath hitches and he just sinks down where he's standing, curling up just besides the door with his dirtied hands covering his dirtied face. He doesn't move.

Hawks hears the door open from another room. It's nothing abnormal, everyone was in and out all of the time, but it still always catches his attention.

Especially now. Especially with how slow the door opens. How careful.

He slips out from where he had been, looking around the corner. Seeing Monoma sink down. It's sad, and pitiful, and just like Monoma. His head tilts to the side to rest on the wall, still watching, a relaxed smile on his face. He felt at home. He's silent and undetected for a long while, admiring the blood covering his boy. What he must have gotten up to...

That thought is what makes him push off, approaching him on light feet, sitting beside him so he can pet his hair.

"Hey."

Voice as soft as he could make it, he brushes dried blood away, revealing the beautiful color underneath.

Monoma flinches at the first touch. "Nh."

In an instant, red wings burst from his back again, thrashing violently. They settle within the second, curling up around him. Shielding him for the most part from Hawks as he curls up all the more, burying his hands in his dirtied hair next.

His mouth moves. No sound comes out.

"Ah..."

Hawks frowns as the wings bat at him and shut him out, forcing him to move away as they calm down and shield Monoma. Sighing gently, he stands, observing, only to sit back down in front of the boy and pet one of the wings carefully.

"Are you okay?"

His fingers are kind as they brush across the softer feathers, down to the longer, bigger ones at the end, toying with them gently before moving back up to start the cycle over.

Flinching again, Monoma moves to hug himself. The feathers grow stiff and sharpen under Hawks' fingers with a little ripple, unconsciously resisting the comfort.

"... You were right," he croaks out after a moment. The wings disappear, replaced by a sudden flurry of green scales that stretch over his fingers and along his hands, glittering and sharp. Without a second thought, he pierces into his own arms, blood gushing into dirtied fabric. He doesn't wince, continuing in a low whisper.

"I'm... I'm not a hero anymore..." His eyes widen and he digs the claws into himself harder. "I can't be a hero anymore. I can't be a hero anymore. I can't be-"

"Neito.." Hawks breathes, reaching forward again to hold his face when his wings have fallen away. He's leaning over him, in his space, but still trying to be non-threatening. Small. "Neito, it's okay..." His free hand moves over the one digging into Monoma's arm, trying to allow him to let go of himself.

"It's okay... you're okay," he brushes a thumb over the back of his hand as he starts pulling it free, kissing him before he could say another word.

Monoma drops his mantra to whimper a little. When Hawks kisses him, he makes another little jolt of a sound as the claws are pulled from his skin. The green vanishes with his firm touch, wings flashing back into place again, shuddering and tense and drooping low. He holds himself still, not reciprocrating, eyes only widening, body trembling like an animal trapped.

Hawks pulls away a moment later, sad to lose the taste of blood from Monoma's lips. He always enjoyed it, especially from his boy, who had practically addicted him to it.

But he isn't going to push too hard if Monoma doesn't want it. He doesn't want to scare him off. Instead, he lays his head on Monoma's shoulder. "I'm sorry," is all he says before he lets silence take over, waiting for Monoma's next move.

Monoma shivers under Hawks' weight. He feels Rin's scales rustling under his skin, begging to be released again. His whole body burns with it, this urge to force Hawks' blood to join the rest of the teeming mess on his skin. Everything itches. He feels so dirty, so dirty, so, so, so...

His breath hitches again, escaping in a little shudder before he sucks in a sharp inhale. "But you're happy-"

He wants him dead.

"You're happy I can't go back-"

He wants to die.

"I can't go back and you-" His breath hitches again. "It's all your fault. It's-" His breath hitches, he's hyperventilating. "My fault. I- I did this- I want to go back-" He starts to cry softly, tears dribbling down his cheeks. "I want to die, I don't want to be like this..."

Hawks pulls away, concern fallen on his face as Monoma starts to ramble, dragging himself down into his thoughts again. It happened so often, and all it did was sadden him more. He was such a mess. Such a mess...

He shakes his head.

"No, no..." He whispers, "No.. I've told you before, I want you to be happy..." He isn't touching Monoma anymore, sitting back, letting him have his space. "If this isn't what'll make you happy you can leave. I promise, I'm not trapping you here..." His gaze drifts to the side before it comes back to Monoma. "I love having you around, but I don't want you miserable. I just.. want you to be comfortable... If you leave I won't even tell anyone what happened."

Monoma listens, shutting off inside again as Hawks goes on. He hates how it feels, emotions suddenly damming up inside him, making the tears still sliding off his cheeks feel especially disgusting and wrong for continuing to flow nonetheless. It makes him feel crazy, all this internal back and forth. He shudders, wings curling around him all the more.

"... What happened..." he mumbles, "... is that I can't... pretend to be a good person anymore. I can't. And I tried to... " His breath shudders out of him in a sad chuckle. "I tried to fit in, be like everyone else, show I could be worthy of adding something good to the world, too. But it never mattered. Fate wouldn't have it. I've always been..."

He pauses, staring off. "I've always been doomed to this. I thought, maybe if I became a hero..." Another little laugh. "But that- that doesn't matter either, does it?" He clutches to his hair, raving again, fast and frantic. "Even those lauded as beacons of light and hope can't escape the depravity of the world. Is it just me-? Is it- all of us? Just unable to stop ruining and destroying each other, I'm so sick of it. Sick of hurting, hurting people-"

Monoma stops suddenly, relaxing.

He stares down at his hands, then brings them down to pet one of his wings, mimicking the way Hawks had caressed them earlier. "I'm trapping myself here," he murmurs, blank eyes following his fingers as they travel down and up, red moving along red. "Here, I'll get what I deserve." His hands slow, resting along a hollow bone. "I'll be the only one hurt," he concludes and grips down until he snaps the bone in two.

Hawks listens, saddened by the overwhelming thoughts Monoma was listing off. It's always hard, having to watch monoma as he seems to rapidly cycle through everything he could possibly feel. Every paranoid thought. Trying to keep up with him enough to adjust reactions properly makes Hawks sit back and listen, concerned, and quiet, waiting for Monoma to spin down and stay somewhere.

It ends up being somewhere he doesn't want him to be at all.

He gasps, reaching out to hold his hand just as it snaps the bone. "Neito-" The sound it makes has his wings fluttering, like they could feel it as well. "Hey.. hey," He tries to calm his own voice down, make it softer "...let me help you..." He tentatively repositions, hand out for his face instead, gauging the reaction, seeing how far he can go. "Let me help..."

A few soft whines leave him, like a wounded dog too scared to yelp out. Monoma tenses slightly as he's reached for, clinging harder to himself, unwilling to let go. His grip only tightens, slowly crushing the broken flesh and feathers he holds as the whines get a little louder, a little more urgent as the pain sinks and bites into his nerves, before he finally relinquishes it to grip onto him with bloodied fingers.

He looks at Hawks, a little frantically, a little blank, a memory of ripping playing once more in the back of his head, and then he leans into his touch once he's close enough with another tiny whimper.

"... kiss..." he mumbles vaguely, closing his eyes. "Can you kiss me..."

Monoma crushing the bone harder under his fingers makes Hawks frown, trying to keep his hand steady as he waits, because he knows. Knows very well that Monoma is going to reach out, hold him, desperately, if he gives him enough time.

And he does.

Desperately.

Of course.

He's beautiful.

Hawks grips his hand back, just as hard, feeling the blood smear onto his own fingers, looking into his eyes as he stares into him, and Hawks knows he's so scared, looking for answers. Looking for him.

He smiles at the request. Quickly leans in to catch his lips before he can even finish, sweet as he squeezes his hand, mumbling a soft "of course," as he moves his mouth with Monoma's, lovingly.

[ua-hagakure]

Do you think Eri is the cutest jellybean in the world?

No. In fact, I've seen actual jellybeans that are cuter.

[ua-hagakure]

May 26 | Midnight

On some level, Tooru knew that sneaking out past curfew was not going to go well for her. She would end up in trouble, regretting it. She pulled her hood tighter over her head and kept walking, anyway. It was nice to feel in control of her own fate, for once.

It had been a long two weeks since she last felt like she was really in control of her body. She’d fought it at the beginning, willing herself to say or type things that weren’t cruel, but had just ended up exhausted, still stuck in her own mind. So she gave up, allowed whatever cruelties to come out of her mouth, her body, and instead disappeared within her own head, trying to ignore it. Trying to ignore the hurt looks on her friends’ and classmates’ faces. 

She shook herself out of her thoughts and pushed forward, focusing on the present. The sky was dark and cloudy, a cool breeze floating through the air on occasion. It was a nice night for a walk to clear your head. The shops were closed due to the late hours, aside from the occasional bar she passed. Perfect for not having to talk to people, perfect for not being mean.

It was as she was nearing an alley that she heard the sound of a voice. A voice in a dark alleyway is never good news, she knew from horror stories, from experience. But she didn’t know what her body would have her do if she tried to call for help or if it would even let her help. Without allowing herself time to think of better options, she rounded the corner.  "Who's there, is everything okay?"

@ua-red

[ua-monoma]

"Still some kid'? What do you mean about not taking care of yourself?🔑

I...

I just meant I was... a clingy child... very... dependant... I have so many early memories of me clutching onto my mother’s dress and I really hate it... 

I would feel so lost without... ... someone.

... 

I don’t want to be like that anymore. I’m not. 

[ua-hagakure]

(Ua-Mirio) hey invisigirl! What you say of hitting up training? I have some tips for someone like you!

@ua-mirio

Tips for someone like me…? You mean, someone who actually has a quirk?? haha

[ua-monoma]

Mun: What would happen if Monoma WERE to copy an empathy/thought reading kind of quirk?

it would depend on the mechanics of the quirk itself!

but here’s a few options:

generally, i play monoma as someone who is simultaneously an empath and unempathetic. he is very atune to the emotions of others and can pick up on them well but also has a pretty firm ignorance about… how they work… he’ll sense the feelings of others a lot without having an understanding of them OR he’ll have a deep intellectual analysis about someone’s feelings without having the empathy to care about how they’ll be affected if those feelings got manipulated somehow. it’s like he has a wall seperating emotions from himself, or at least, he tries to have one, but those emotions seep around and through the wall a lot, and he does his best to control those emotions as he sees them

(see: everything about monoma’s approach to deku and his friendship with kacchan in the later chapters. he can surmise a GREAT deal about their dynamic, presumably only from a little information, which he uses to twist his emotions around without even a care to how deku will feel in the aftermath)

SO

an empathy quirk that forces him to feel the emotions of others would overwhelm him. it would force sympathy onto him in a way that would break his heart. it would!!! practically render him immobile because he’d be so overwhelmed with how helpless he’d feel under the assault of all this bad. if those emotions were more positive, i think he’d still similarly be crushed despite how good it would feel, because trying to experience unfettered, unrestrained emotion would be too much for him. he doesn’t LIKE his emotions, he has a VERY strict and complicated approach to how he deals with them, he LOVES to shut them away and bury them down and organize them into tiny little boxes he can compartmentalize so he can handle them later (or never)… so THAT would just completely blow his mind apart because it’s just not how he HANDLES things

an empathy quirk that forces others to feel what he feels would similarly overwhelm them. monoma has a lot of trauma that he hasn’t coped with… i think a lot of this could be seen in the hanahaki arc i did with him… and because it’s been so repressed and because it’s been allowed to fester for so long, i think the brunt of it would be brutalizing to have to suddenly experience all at once. more importantly, because monoma likes to hide his feelings, the vulnerability he would feel would CRUSH him inside. it would destroy him, the fact that not only did people know he was hurting, but that they were FEELING that hurt. he’d feel so responsible even if it wasn’t necessarily his fault…

thought reading would be pretty similar, although it would deal with another aspect of monoma that i really enjoy writing. i love to write monoma with a lack of morals and a(n un)healthy amount of darkness in him… 

… and, because of where his life has been leading, this darkness has been growing and warping as his traumas develop closer to the disorder i can see him fully having as he grows up…

which means he gets a lot of violent impulses…!!! he has a sadistic streak, he is INCREDIBLY manipulative when he wants to be, and he’s got a temper and a terrible habit of picking up grudges… not only that, but he has a lot of depressive swings, a lot of horrible memories that he thinks about, a lot weighing on his shoulders just in general (hoo)

so a quirk that projects his thoughts out into the world would just kill him. he’s already ashamed enough for a lot of what he can’t control… he doesn’t want anyone else to know this terrible side of him…. PLUS it would mean all his secrets would get out, and he has a lot of secrets…

dealing with the thoughts of others would be easier. i think, out of all the options, this would hurt him the least. i think the honesty of it could be a lot, especially any thoughts he heard about himself (or people he cares about…!!!!) but he would immediately try and use those thoughts in… whatever plot or scheme he could think of. it would immediately become something to catalog and analyze and use as a weapon later…!!!! so he’d definitely prefer this out of anything else, mhm!

thank you for the fun question!!! >:D

[ua-monoma]

So your the one being copied for once. Is it a weird feeling? 🖤

"For once”... hah. Sounding a little accusatory there... It’s not my fault this is the power I was given.

Though, maybe I’m being a little sensitive.

Anyway, it’s annoying! Whoever said ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” was obviously a plaigerizing hack who didn’t care to realize how irritating it feels to have something all your own that other people just grab at with their greedy little paws. It’s like you can’t have anything for yourself!!! What is there to even pride yourself on if it can’t be unique to you as an individual!!

... But like you’ve eloquently pointed out... Who am I to talk, ahaha. 

[ua-monoma]

... Nothing really changes, huh.

[ua-monoma]

Do you just feel Quirkless when you're not using someone else's quirk?

... What a ridiculously phrased question, no offense. Do I ‘feel Quirkless’... Like it’s a mood one experiences.

What would you say such a thing feels like, hm? Do you have words to describe this sort of existence?

Because I for one can’t imagine what you’re possibly trying to say. I don’t feel absent in any way. I don’t feel lacking. I don’t look around at everyone around me who are able to use their abilities any which way they want and feel a certain way about any of it. 

I can do everything and nothing, all at once, always. That’s what my quirk feels like. I can’t explain to you what potential feels like. I don’t know what powers and abilities I’ll end up with by the end of the day. I’m... just myself. Trying to explain what it feels to just be myself... What a ridiculous thing to ask.