#delay the part instead of taking forever with it. plus it gives other people time to round up their ocs in case they want them shown in ->

[yanderecookierunkingdom]

The Final Sunset: Choice Decided

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You decided.. to visit the ill Cookies.

You know you shouldn't be doing this, walking out alone. You should maybe have brought Mala Sauce Cookie, or someone else, but you can't find yourself to bother them. It's your fault that they're all like this. You failed them, so you must act quickly.

As you carry the lantern, the snow blowing through the trees and shaking off the leaves, you feel chills creeping up your back. You quicken your step, wanting to get to the quarantine shelter as soon as possible.

.

.

.

.

Unaware that someone has already partly succumb to the Frost, and is watching you.

[nikakistos]

Mikasa will kill Eren

With the series ending in only three chapters at the time of writing this meta/prediction post, i want to share my thoughts about how the battle between the Alliance and Eren will conclude. More specifically, i will analyze all the reasons that make me believe that Mikasa will kill Eren and put an end to this battle.

Mikasa’s character arc

The first important reason that made me reach to that conclusion is non other than Mikasa’s phenomenal and, in my opinion, underrated character arc. So, let’s get to know Mikasa.

Mikasa starts the story as a sheltered kid. She lives in the mountains, far away from any other kids, with her mom and dad being her only company. Her mom and dad were her entire world. She was a naive, innocent little girl who used to overlook the cruel nature of the world, focusing entirely on it’s beauty. She was content living like that with the people she loved the most, without having any grandiose dreams of her own.

And then, reality ensues. Three human traffickers kill her family and try to sell her as a sex slave. Mikasa, being only a child and alone was about to surrender. Without her family she didn’t have a place in the world. She didn’t know how to live without them.

Until Eren comes to save her. Out of the blue he kills the first two of the traffickers and unties her. However, the third one appears and disarms Eren. Before blacking out, the young boy tells Mikasa the words that later became her mantra “Fight! If you don’t win, you die. If you win, you live. If you can’t fight, you can’t win!”

That is the moment that Mikasa’s survival instincts awaken her Ackerman powers. The moment that she accepts that this world is kill or be killed and realizes it’s true nature. And the moment she learns the truth of the world she finds the strngth to kill her assailant. Mikasa kills so that she won’t be killed. And the moment her enemy falls, the old Mikasa dies. 

Broken and homeless, Mikasa asks Dr.Yeager what she should do now that she had no one. How could she live on her own? She never learned how to do that. Mikasa, from the very beginning of her life, is a codependent person. She thinks that she can’t go on alone. And at this moment of sadness comes Eren and wraps a muffler around her neck to protect her from the cold. Both from the physical cold, but also from the cold, hard world that took her happiness away. He offers her a home. Their home.

From that moment onwards Eren became Mikasa’s world. He replaced her parents as her new family, alongside with his mom and dad. Mikasa, realizing that Eren was no more than a troublesome kid with a knack for getting into troubles, decides to be by his side forever and protect him. Partly out of gratitude for saving her and giving her a home, parly because it was his mom’s wish, partly because she is in love with him, but also in order to protect herself and her own peace of mind Mikasa latches onto Eren. And she makes the same mistake as before. She starts viewing Eren as a wholly good person. She keeps the image of the scarf and forgets the violence that came before. She projects onto Eren all of the beauty in the world. 

After Carla’s death, Mikasa’s overprotective attitude only worsens. She resolves to follow Eren at all times and be there for him, without considering his feelings. She actually had a habit of misinterpreting his sentiments about her clingy nature quite often. Whoever threatens her life with Eren becomes an enemy. So, Mikasa, who never got over her trauma, thinks that Eren is the most important part of the world and that without him she can’t go own. To that end she joins the military, when in reality she never cared about humanity’s struggle against the titans. Mikasa was fine living an uneventful life with Eren and Armin. 

However, those sentiments are not fit for a soldier. As a person who dedicated her heart for humanity’s survival, her first priority being Eren becomes a hindrance. A soldier should always put his feelings second. Fulfilling the mission should always be first. While Mikasa proves herself to be extremely effective in the Battle of Trost initially, with her stoic and direct nature saving hundreds of lives, when news of Eren’s death reach her she breaks down completely. She convinces the rest of the cadets to fight, while not being prepared to do her duty. She gives up and she is ready to die, until Eren’s memory and her desire to not forget him help her pull through and fight for her life. This marks the first instance of Mikasa’s growing maturity. She finds a reason to keep moving forward even without her family. 

Mikasa is a survivor. Keep carrying on and living even after the deaths of her beloved people has always been a part of her. And this is not something that comes directly from Eren, but from her own self and love of life. Her Ackerman powers only activated due to her own survival instincts. Not from Eren’s orders. While she hasn’t realized it yet, Mikasa takes pride in being alive. In a world where only the strong survive, she feels proud of counting herself amongst them.

Of course, the revelation of Eren being alive makes Mikasa regress. She continues with her overprotective behavior and with her reckless, emotional behavior. Her desire to exact vengeance on Annie causes her to jeopardize the mission to retrieve Eren and sideline Levi. Mikasa was hurt by Annie, becaue Annie exposed her again. She showed her that she is not entirely capable of protecting Eren. She also showed her once more that fighting impulsively and allowing feelings to interfere when in a mission puts her life at risk. The first time, she was saved by Eren. The second, by Levi. So, Mikasa resolves to do better next time. She resolves to become a better soldier. Her sense of responsibility over Levi’s injury pains her and she tries to make up for it. She scolds Eren for not fighting her, despite her having killed numerous Survey Corps members. Her effots pay off and this eventually leads to Annie getting captured.

Unfortunately, Mikasa’s feelings have continued to resurface in critical moments. And those feelings did not concern Eren entirely. Despite Mikasa claiming that she only cares about a small amount of lives, specifically Armin and Eren, perhaps she hadn’t realize that she cares for far more people than she initially believed. Even after promising Levi to not make any more blunders, the only reason that Reiner and Bertholt escaped from her was the bonds she had created with them. She saw them as her comradres.  She later tries to make up for her failure by trying to make the rest of her comrades see Reiner and Bertholt as enemies of humanity and prevent them from hesitating like she did and putting a tough front against Ymir, but again, the damage had already been done. 

Mikasa had grown to care for more people than Eren and Armin. Mikasa during the Battle of Trost threatened Dimo Reeves who was delaying the evacuation process, because he was getting more of her comrades killed. She saved innocents and civilians. She was angry at the Female Titan for killing so many of her comrades. She created strong bonds within the 104th unit. She even showed consideration for Levi, even though she disliked him for beating up Eren. More importantly, as the series progress, Mikasa starts caring more about the world in general. The little girl who only cared about herself and her family members has now become a soldier who fights for the entire world. She even develops a sense of belonging to Paradis, viewing it as her homeland, when she wasn’t even willing to fight for the island 4 years ago. Her cold exterior starts to crumble and she opens up. She protects a child who killed one of her best friends, a stark contrast to the earlier version of Mikasa who nearly ruined a mission by trying to have her vengeance against Annie. The Mikasa who simply cared for her small world and had no ambitions of exploring the outside world easily embraces the volunteers from Marley and becomes optimistic about their intergration to Paradis. The exact opposite of Eren.

This gradual “defrosting” of Mikasa and her repeated failures, along with the realization of the inferiority feelings she was causing him to have, force Mikasa to alter her treatment of Eren. While she was constantly nagging and smothering him, she starts to become more supportive of him, encouraging him and helping him believe in himself, just like she did with Armin. Not only that, this enables her to become a better soldier as well. While the Mikasa of the first few chapters was willing to disobey orders if that meant being close to Eren, she starts trusting the leadership of Levi, whom she resented, and entrusts Eren to Armin in the Battle of Shiganshina. She understands that she has a role to play as a soldier and that Eren can take care of himself either alone or with the help of other people, without her being near. This results in a huge victory in Shiganshina.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that she has changed completely. Mikasa still refused to obey Levi’s orders and attacked him when he tried to revive Erwin instead of Armin, Despite all, her feelings for the people who are closer to her, Eren and Armin are still too strong sometimes and overpower her better judgement. However, it was at this point exactly, that Mikasa received her second warning. She has to keep moving forward with the knowledge that all the people she knows will eventually die. And she did. Mikasa did give up in the end during the Serumbowl. She has matured.

Unfortunately, Mikasa’s love for Eren is still hindering her. Even now, after all that, Mikasa’s sole dream is living with him forever. She is in love with him, even though he has commited horrible crimes that go against her values. Her introverted, shy nature plus her fear of losing him do not allow her to express her true feelings, but she does have them.

And here comes Mikasa’s greatest flaw. Despite all of her development, she still thinks that without Eren she is lost. She has no goal left. She never learned how to live as an individual and as an independent person. That’s why she believes his lies so easily. She doesn’t recognize her sense of self without him. She still ties her identity to Eren. She has all of the foundations for living as a complete and healthy human being, but her inability to separate herself from Eren is destroying her and clouding her judgement. That’s why she asks Armin what to do in chapter 125, that’s why she tries to stop Pieck from killing Eren in chapter 135, that’s why she says she won’t kill him. And most importantly for her, that’s why she couldn’t admit that she is in love with him in chapter 123. Mikasa simply cannot handle rejection from Eren. She can’t think of a future for her without him by her side. She almost reconsiles herself to loving him from afar.

It is very evident and telling from her reaction to Louise and her first talk to Annie that Mikasa is actually ashamed for prioritizing Eren over anything else and simply following his footsteps. In reality, Mikasa doesn’t want that. She wants to be her own person. She wants to be Eren’s equal, not his follower. That’s why she doesn’t wear the scarf anymore.

Well all these need to and will change. Mikasa has to put her feelings aside one more time and act as a soldier and finish off the threat to humanity. She needs to stop tying so much of herself to Eren and realize for good that she can live without him, despite wanting to be by his side forever. And in order to do all that, she has to stop lying to herself for good. She has to admit her feelings, her true feelings not solely to her, but to him as well. And judging by her own regrets, she will.

Mikasa’s character arc has her going from a happy, naive little girl, to a broken,  gloomy, stoic person who only cares about a couple of people to a proper soldier who cares and fights for the entire world, friends and foes included. She opens up, makes friendships, develops a more pacifistic worldview compared to her survival mindset of old. But most importantly, she will become a normal, functioning human being.

Nature of the conflict

Moving on from Mikasa’s characters arc, i believe that the nature of the conflict of the series in and of itself points out towars Mikasa killing Eren. The first and primary conflict in the series is the fight between Humans and Titans. The world has expanded since the first chapter. The series has become more complex. And yet, in the final battle we see some people fighting to protect humanity from the hordes of titans that want to trample the remaining human race outside the walls of Paradis.

In this exact setting we have the Survey Corps, the group of people that from day one fights for humanity’s survival and liberation from the terror of the titans fughting against the biggest symbol of oppression and enslavement in the entire series. The Wall Titans.

The Scouts dreamt of an idealized world when fighting against the titans. And still, even after this world was revealed to be quiet different than they imagined, more disappointing, they still don’t give up. Because they understand that the world is a cruel place, but it also very beautiful. The person who best represents this theme in the series is none other than Mikasa Ackerman. And she is fighting for the Scouting Legion against the person who showed her both sides of the world in the same day. That person has renounced all the beauty in this world and focused only on the ugly side. And he fights for the Titans.

In a series about humans fighting against titans, Mikasa is a character associated with human strength. 

While Mikasa (and the Survey Corps in general) is associated with human strength, Eren on the other hand has been constantly referred to as a monster. A devil. Something inhuman. Now of course, technically speaking Mikasa is also part titan and Eren is also part human, however this symbolism still exists.

Judging by the narrative and the themes of the series, an Eren victory is downright impossible. It just doesn’t fit for the titans to defeat humanity. The story has put so much emphasis on the creation of a better world, free of curses and hate. Eren, being the physical manifestation of both can’t win. He has to die. And in such a story, is there a better way to topple the biggest titan of all time, using the trademark weapon of humanity? That it the ODMG.

Foreshadowing

In this part, i will let the pictures do the talking. It is evident from all of them and from my previous analysis of Mikasa’s arc that a full blown conflict between her and Eren is bound to happen. And Mikasa killing Eren has been referenced way too many times for that to be a coincidence.

Every single time in this latest arc that Eren being killed is mentioned, Mikasa is at the forefront. Isayama focuses on her too much in these scenes. Considering the fact that now that Gabi has realized what the true nature of the titans is, the fact that they have wrapped the explosives around Eren’s neck, Armin going Colossal being foreshadowed over a billion times, Eren seems to be in huge danger. Killing the Source of the Titans would likely kill Eren, seeing as how he is nothing but a head without a body. And it doesn’t look like he can regenerate. Stopping the Colossals might only be possible by killing the centipede that is tied to Eren’s survival. And for all the reasons i have mentioned, i believe that Mikasa will be the one to kill it.

[quirkwizard]

Spoiled Sushi

For a while, a certain article has been vexing me. One that seems to have a great misunderstanding of the series it was writing about, missing obvious points and core parts of the worldbuilding. No, it wasn’t by CBR, nor was it by Screenrant. But it was by Cruchyroll of all places. They decided to make an article about the Top 5 Misused Quirks in My Hero Academia. It was not good and has been bugging me. So I decided to give them a taste of their own medicine. I mean they try to shut down whoever even attempts to do what they do, so why not make fun of them for trying to do what I do? Plus you guys seem to like it when I’m snarky, so this could be fun for everyone.

For clarity’s sake, this was written at the beginning of 2019, when the most recent chapter was Chapter 214 and the the anime had only reached Season 3. I’m keeping that in mind as I write. I will also be skipping around some of the parts of the article as I am talking about it. If its not worth mentioning, I won’t bring it up, simple as that. For instance, I’m skipping the intro because it is completely superfluous and would only serve to make a completely different fanbase mad. Might as well, most of what I am passing up are just dumb jokes. But if you are curious... don’t waste your time reading this. Your time is valuable and you have better things to do then read this article.

5. Kurogiri Can Create Free, Renewable Energy

“In all seriousness, though, Kurogiri is probably one of the most powerful characters in the anime, with their being virtually no limit to how far he can extend his Warp Gate portals.”

I mean there are certainly limits for his Quirk. Besides the need to know the coordinates or see where he is moving, there’s obviously a limit to how much he can spread out his body.

“Why then doesn’t he use them to create near-infinite energy? Open two portals one above another, throw in a heavy object inside and watch it fall endlessly. Devise a way to hook a dynamo or something to it and, bam, you have free power that would make Kurogiri a billionaire overnight and a hero to the entire planet.”

This idea has so many problems that I don’t even know where to begin.

One, if this could work, it likely wouldn’t make a lot of energy. Besides the various physics problems involved in this, Kurogiri would just be one guy doing this, meaning that it’s unlikely he’d be able to make enough power to matter.

Two, Kurogiri would still need rest as he is a living being, meaning he wouldn’t to keep up this theoretical contraption forever and you’d get even less energy relying on him. At most, it would work best in a small bunker as a last resort.

Three, that sounds like it would be a lot more dangerous then it would be worth for the energy made. If Kurogiri would to lose focus for a moment, the portals fall apart and there would just be a lot of damage from this heavy object moving at high speeds.

“Even if Kurogiri only cares about taking down All Might, it would still be much easier to do if he had a literal mountain of money/public goodwill at his side.”

What kind of bizzaro universe are you living in where the guy who makes energy could possibly turn public option about the very well liked Number 1 Hero that saves lives every day? That’s literally what Lex Luthor does and people hate him for it.

4. Koji Koda Could Help Feed Billions Of People

“Koji is the resident Class 1-A stoner (get it? he's made of rock? come on) with the power to control ANY creature in the animal kingdom. This would logically also include spiders, meaning that Koji could literally end all street crime in, like, 5 minutes tops by swallowing all the criminals up in a giant arachno-tsunami.”

While this article is infuriating in many ways, it did give us the mental image of an “arachno-tsunami”. Which is totally worth sitting through this jumbled mess of words and ignorance.

“But, you see, Koji is just too shy and nice to be an effective hero. He wants to do good but he just doesn’t have that fighter instinct in him. Which is why he should instead use his Anivoice Quirk to revolutionize agriculture all around the world.”

You can be an effective hero and not beat people up. Sure, it certainly can come up in the job description, but that isn’t all of what a hero is meant to do. Koda’s Quirk makes him great at information gathering and rescue work, two very important aspects of hero work that suit his personality perfectly.

“Give him a megaphone and fly him over American fields, telling feral pigs to stop causing $1.5 billion worth of damage a year in destroyed crops. Fly him to Australia to tell the invasive cane toads and rabbits to kindly lemming themselves off a cliff. Have him tell the aggressive lionfish the get the hell out of the Atlantic. FORCE HIM TO GET OVER HIS FEAR OF BUGS AND MAKE AGRICULTURAL PESTS A THING OF THE PAST. “

There is no possible way Koda could be everywhere at once to pull that off. And considering that the average human voice can only carry for about a mile, IE, about the average size of a single farm. You know, because animals need to hear his voice in order to receive his commands. So even if it was limited to a single farm, its unlikely to do much to help. But by far the biggest issue with this entire plan is that what Koda does to an animal is not permanent. The second his control is interrupted, the animals return to normal, bound to just go back to whatever they were doing before. 

So if Koda tries to change anything, its just going to end up undone by the time he leaves, just delaying the inevitable problem that comes from these animals. So even if Koda told the pigs to go away, they’d likely be back by the next day, destroying farmland like nothing happened. Even then, because of the previous limitations, he’d still have to go farm by farm to pull it off. That’s not even mentioning all of the other suggestions. Honestly, if you wanted to do something with Quirk, you should just convince all the animals to line up during hunting season. Dark, yes, but it least it would offer a more permanent solution then what the writer is suggesting.

“If Koji was utilized properly, he could travel the world undoing mankind’s mistakes and creating organic, pesticide-free crops instead of doing what he does now, which is largely sitting around on his ass roleplaying Snow White.”

Which, in spite of many fans joking about his Quirk, has shown to be very helpful quite a few times.

3. Inko Midoriya Would Have Made A Great Nurse

“Izuku’s mother in My Hero Academia has mainly done two things so far: jack and squat.”

I mean she did design Izuku’s costume, even if it got replaced, its is still a corner stone of his design, and she offered a good amount of drama after the fight with All Might and All For One. 

“She did try to be a good mother but kind of failed at that when she tearfully apologized to her son because he was born without a Quirk, essentially telling him: “I’m so sorry I gave birth to such a loser.””

Would you believe that this one line was what really prompted me to talk about this? Because that is probably one of the worst takes I have ever in relation to this series. If you honestly believed that is what Inko was doing, the woman who practically raised her child by herself and constantly talks about much she cares for him, you must be watching the wrong series. That’s the only way I could explain why that is.

“So, she doesn’t really have much going on in her life. That’s why she should try nursing instead. I realize that becoming a nurse takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but Inko would be a natural fit for it. Despite her initial shortcomings, she is a very caring person with loads of empathy.” 

Inko’s empathic? Could have fooled me. I mean she did feel the need to apologize to her son for giving birth to a loser. No, I am not over that, how could you have possibly gotten that from the scene?!

“She also has the power of limited telekinesis. Inko can move small objects over short distances, and while that would not be helpful for stopping crime, it would be great for, say, removing kidney stones. Or things stuck in people’s throats. Or coins from children’s stomachs.”

Trying to use a Quirk like this in any kind of medical procedure is laughable at best and dangerous at worst. Imagine if Inko had to remove a bullet from someone. From what we see, the process of her moving objects is slow and need several pulls from her to attract the object to her. So if she’s going to try to pull it out and its going to get caught on something, causing more damage to the person she is trying to save. She’s basically going to be keying the insides of whoever she is trying to operate on.

The entire reasons doctors, especially surgeons, train for so long is because the human body can be extremely delicate. It needs a lot of care and time so the doctors don’t make things worse for the patients. It’s why surgeons need to have such steady hands and a lot of time even to due minor procedures. But trying to do that with a Quirk is just going to cause more problems then it can solve. Doing that with a Quirk like Inko’s just lacks a lot of the precision and dexterity necessary to pull this off.

2. Uraraka Should Go Work For A Shipping Company

“Ochaco Uraraka has one of the most well-rounded Quirks out of all the main characters: Zero Gravity. With it, she can make objects and people float, which is great for offense, defense, and rescue operations. As a superheroine, she is doing everything right with her Quirk.”

I mean “Zero Gravity” can kind of be used offensively, but not effectively as other Quirks. Its why she did all of that training with Gun Head to make up for her lack of an offensive presence. Eh, two of three ain’t bad. I’ll take what I can get.

“I just think Uraraka should never have become a superheroine in the first place. Uraraka has actually always been honest about her motivation: she wants dem YEN YEN BILLS YO (for her struggling family.)”

That’s because hero work is an extremely frugal business even super minor heroes can still seem to make a decent living out of it.

“But regular jobs also exist in that world, and that must include shipping companies that would instantly hire Uraraka to Zero-G their freighters, trucks, and planes. Even if she cannot make them float, she can still remove enough gravity from them to save the company tons of fuel. Company profit margins are razor thin.”

First off, its mentioned several times that if you want to use a Quirk for a job, you need to have a hero license. Its to make sure you know how to use your Quirk properly so you don’t end up hurting someone with your powers. So for her to even try this, she needs to go through hero school anyway. Might as well get the most out of it. Second, Uraraka cannot lower the gravity of her target. Either the object is floating or it isn’t floating. There is no in between for Uraraka. 

Third, given what we’ve seen from Uraraka, there is no possible way that she could ever lift that much. She’s barely able to lift three lower numbered robots and that was only for a few seconds. So, at the most, she can lift a few tons. How exactly do you expect her to work with something like a cargo plane, which, on its own, can weight over forty five tons, not including fuel or any extra cargo?

Which is another thing I noticed throughout the article: the writer seems to severely overestimate how effective Quirks actually are. The range and scope of Quirks is much smaller then other power systems, even when compared to similar “low level” series like HunterxHunter. Like every kind of application listed goes far beyond what most Quirks are capable of, such as forgetting certain drawbacks. And that is most notable with the last suggestion.

1. Momo Could Solve Literally All The World’s Problems

I bet Kohei Horikoshi was really proud of himself when he came up with Momo Yaoyorozu’s design: No, see, she HAS to dress scantily because her Quirk is Creation, i.e. the ability to create any object she wants through her skin, which must be constantly exposed. Peachy.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without beating that long dead horse. What’s next? Bakugou angry? Izuku cry? 

“Momo can apparently create anything as long as she understands its composition, and seeing as she’s made an ethanol spray can, infrared goggles, a lighter, and a tracker, it seems like there’s nothing she cannot make.”

Oh boy, it wouldn’t be any sort of discussion about Momo without a grievous misunderstanding of how her Quirk works either. Maybe they are in the fandom. As I have mentioned in my Momo Misconceptions post, Momo needs fat to make what she does. She’s not an alchemist where she can just clap her hands and make whatever she wants. If she doesn’t have enough fat, she cannot make items. By those very rules, some things are just out of her reach because it would just take too much fat. It’s why she limits herself to simpler items.

“Cool. MAKE US SOME HELIUM THEN. The world is running out of the gas and we need it for MRI scanners and the like. Momo could make more of it.”

Actually, we don’t even know for sure if Momo is capable of making gases. All we have seen her make is solids and a few liquids. There is the lighter she made, but that could easily run on lighter fluid.

“Or thorium. She could make thorium that we could use to make thorium-based reactors that are apparently way safer than uranium ones.”

Thorium isn’t even that rare, just as about as common as lead and three times as common as uranium. Even if it was a problem, it would likely kill her, either from burning through all of her fat or from the exposure to radiation.

“Medicine, fresh water, cheap electronics that we could send to developing countries: Momo could crank all of those out in an afternoon.“

Yes, in theory, Momo could do that, but not the extent that she would make a major difference in the world like they are suggesting. There are just more practical and better long term solutions then trying to force a single person to do all of that. It’s almost as if Momo is a regular human being who has limitations you need to keep in mind when making these ill informed suggestions.

“And while spending your life as a walking Everything Faucet might not seem that glamorous, it actually has the potential to change the entire planet for the better.”

Given the kind of set up and effort that would be required to even attempt that, I think “horrific” would be a more appropriate descriptor since it would be done to a living, thinking person.

Honestly, I think that most of these people are doing more with their Quirks now then with any of these suggestions. At least, when you actually think about the rules and limits of the characters. Sure, Inko isn’t doing much, but she is a civilian with a fairly weak Quirk. Kurogiri acts as a major player within the League, getting them around quickly and evading capture. I mean he is using his power to help out a bunch of villains, but my point still stands that he is not “misusing” his Quirk.

In fact, a majority of the people on this list are doing more to help people and save lives by being heroes. Given the limitations of their abilities, using them to stop superpowered criminals who risking damaging the people around and helping victims of these crimes is doing then any of those roles in spite of the fact that the article tries its best to downplay that these people are already saving lives. So, in reality, they are doing far more to help people then doing any of these ideas, you damp sock of a writer.

[oumiyuki]

Anju's Heart is a Spring Party

SUMMARY: Sometimes Anju gets extra flustered and embarrassed around her privilege AKA Saitou Shuka. 

Pairing: AnShuka

Genre: Romance, Fluff

Read me at fanfiction.net or AO3~

Author Notes

Happy birthday to you~

Happy birthday to you~

Happy Birthday to Anjuuuuuu~~

Happy birthday to you~

\\>w<//

May you enjoy! ;D

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is the filming of Aqours CLUB Spring Party today.

Anju was early and her makeup artist was already done with the finishing touches. The Leader of Aqours thanks the staff and excuses herself to go walk around the set; it will be a nice change of pace so she does not get too nervous.

Staffs walking around, cameras tested and setting up, quite a few people filtering in and out of a certain room… Anju smiles inwardly, ready to do a little snooping around.

Wonder what’s in there. Probably where we’ll film…

Anju pokes her head inside and her eyes widen, taking in all the pink and flowers – spring blossoms to be exact, matching the pink fluffy carpet and other decorations to do with Springtime.

Wow…

Anju consciously closes her mouth that fell agape from awe and astonishment.

Staff-san really went all out. It’s so pretty…

“Anju~ Morning~”

Ah, that voice.

“You’re super early! But I wasn’t too far behind. Hehe~ I’m all ready for filming too!”

Anju turns around and sure enough – a blinding smile, cheerful eyes Saito Shuka greets her vision. Anju sucks in a slightly deep breath through her nose as she took in all that at once.

Now this is pretty…

“What are you peeking at~?” Shuka tries to close the distance and get a sneak preview of the set and to see what Anju was seeing moments before her appearance.

She’s so loud but so cute. Super cute…

“Morning…” Anju greets after the delay effect of her best friend’s prowess.

Shuka chuckles before proceeding to produce an array of sounds to showcase her amazement of what she sees. “Oh my gosh, Anju look!!” Shuka waves her hand like a dog’s excited tail wagging.

I’m looking.

Anju and Shuka make eye contact briefly when Shuka turns back around to confirm the taller girl came to look too. Anju almost falls into another line of thought to praise Shuka’s eyes in her mind but Shuka turns back around all too soon.

Looking at you.

“This room is amazing!” Shuka was going to step further in but Anju takes her hand and pulls her out. “Whaaa~”

“No entry just yet.” Anju points out.

“Aww~” Shuka nods her understanding, leaning back on her heels as she attempts to not be too high tensioned.

Gods why is Shuka so…breathtakingly pretty and cute?

Anju eyes travel up and down and slightly around Shuka as much as she can observe from standing where she is.

It’s truly my privilege to get to be in the same room and stare at her all I want…

Anju’s cheeks heat up slow and soft.

Shuka makes eye contact with Anju again and her brown eyes light up, her smile growing brighter. “Anju!”

What are you doing to me Shuka?

Anju’s heart skips a million beats. “What’s up.”

Anju responds lamely, her brain cells still fangirling over Shuka’s cuteness to function well.

Shuka chuckles in that happy-go-lucky way she does and Anju’s brain cells did a little cheer. “We’re about to have a Spring Party with the rest of the girls. I’m excited.” Shuka bounced her weight from side to side.

Shuka standing idly seems to be rare now that I think about it.

Anju smiles. “Very excited.”

“YEAH!!” Shuka could no longer conceal her megawatt smile.

Anju wants to frame that scene up somewhere in her room but instead, it’s etched in her heart forever.

“Did I ever tell you your hairdresser and costume manager does an amazing job?” Anju voiced her thoughts unintentionally.

“Eh?” Shuka blinks, a tad confused from the surprise question.

“Ah, I mean…” Anju’s cheeks probably pinkened into an obvious shade as she averts her eyes from Shuka.

Shuka who waggles her eyebrows up and down teasingly and moves over to bump her blushing partner’s shoulder. “You mean~~~”

Anju grumbles, face red.

Am I that obvious? I mean that statement was way too obvious? Ughhh, now I’m going to be on the receiving end of Shuka’s cheeky grin.

“You find me cute?~” Shuka’s tone 100% amused and elated, one could almost see the heart emoticon at the end of her sentence. And her joviality only accentuated tenfold with that huge smile of hers.

Shuka and her megawatt smiles…

Anju whines a weak protest, cheeks still a cute red as she refused to make full eye contact with Shuka. “M-mmph…”        

Shuka falls into a soft silence. Bumping her shoulder on Anju’s again – lightly. Whispering, “I think you’re super pretty too.”

If possible, Anju’s face was becoming Shuka’s favourite colour a bit too perfectly.

Ugh…my heart is too loud…

~~

More of the other girls have arrived and were done with preparation for the filming and Anju enjoyed chatting of every random thing she and Shuka could come up with as the conversation flows.

“So I’m thinking that bees are cute too but not cuter than the rhinoceros beetle?” Shuka went on to share her thoughts about bugs and Anju usually would retort on that topic but…she was distracted.

Mm…The way Shuka’s hair is longer now… She doesn’t give off that dorky feel.

Anju rubs her chin thoughtfully.

Even though she is. Now she’s…looking so mature and pretty-

Anju covers her mouth as her heart did MIRACLE WAVE flips without her permission; not that her heart ever listened to her easily embarrassed brain.

Shuka…

Anju reaches up without thinking, her fingers tangling into Shuka’s soft light brown hair.

Addictive…this is addictive…

“Anju?” Shuka stares innocently with a hint of amusement in those magnetic brown hues.

Wait what am I doing?!

Anju retracts her hand now that she has caught up with reality. “Ah- Shuka- I- Um… You were there?!”

That’s not even a good excuse at all!!

Anju once again averts her eyes and turns her head as far away as possible while not running away, plus she could feel the blush itself this time.

Why is it so hot here??  

Shuka’s eyes held a big playful glint and she leans forwards to Anju, a Cheshire grin thick on her lips. “We were having a conversation until you decided to touch my hair~”

Ahhhhhhhh!!!

Anju gulps. “D-Did I?”

Gosh, why am I stuttering!

Shuka laughs heartily. “You can.”

Shuka’s mad at me, right? She disliked that I touched her like that right?

Anju opens her mouth to apologize and admit to her “crimes” but stops short as her not panicking brain waved frantically at her to notice what Shuka, the girl of her affections, just said. “Wait, what?”

Shuka’s eyes were grinning with her smile. “You can, Anju.”

“I can…do what?” Anju tries to think but she could only gaze cluelessly into Shuka’s alluring eyes.

Touch her?? Is she saying I can touch her???

Shuka answers Anju’s frantic questions by taking Anju’s hand into both of hers, lifting it slowly up towards her, watching Anju stare intently at the action. And then she guides those fingers back into her hair resting on her shoulder.

…Shuka…

Anju takes her time to move her fingers; intertwining, unravelling, lifting lightly, watching Shuka’s hair fall back into place and then going back in.

Ugh, I’m hooked to playing with Shuka’s hair now.

“I can?” Anju asks quietly, jaw shifting as she wanted to hear a yes oh so badly and her kind of stubborn, in denial part of her also wanted to deny her from accepting how much she adores being close to Shuka.

Shuka laughs gently; all of Anju’s attention on her. “Yes, my dear~”

Anju blushes at the affectionate call, a tease it may be, it still placed Anju on cloud nine nonetheless.

“So…Shuka.”

“Yeah?”

“I can touch you anywhere?” Anju weaved her fingers in and out of Shuka’s hair like it was second nature now.

Shuka pretends to give it a thought before she smiled widely once more. “You can touch me wherever you like.”

Anju tries to hold back the smirk and smugness as she rubbed the ends of Shuka’s hair between her fingers in delight while Shuka was always weak to Anju’s devilish grin.

Shuka punches Anju’s arms lightly. “Hey…What are you thinking of! I’ll take back what I said!”

Anju grins from ear to ear, eyes sparkling. “Not telling~”

“Anjuuu!!” Shuka protests, trying the puppy dog eyes while Anju avoids fully looking into it.

Touching Shuka is my privilege too.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author Notes

Let’s all wish Anju a Shuka-filled day that is made up of love and laughter!! ^w^ hehehe~

I hope y’all enjoyed the read! :D

Anju just…loves touching Shuka, I’m telling you. XD I love how they naturally holds hands and hug for longer and gaze into each other’s eyes and give each other headpats and now – well – hair touching ;D

Let me know your fave part! *w*

Also drop in the comments what other lovely AnShuka you have witnessed and perhaps that might be a blast of inspiration for little Miyuki here to expand on those scenes XD nante ne!

I love you, Anju!!

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: His Name Is Alive

While Warren Defever’s name is perhaps less recognizable than that of his band His Name Is Alive, he’s also been connected with a seemingly endless array of other projects: Princess Dragon-Mom, Elvis Hitler, ESP Beetles, Control Panel, and far more. This doesn’t get into his recording and production credits for the likes of Michael Hurley, Iggy and the Stooges, and Mdou Moctar. Forever associated with Michigan’s weirdo-underground music scene, Defever has recently been issuing a series of long-buried recordings as His Name Is Alive. In February, the Disciples label released Hope Is a Candle, the third and final volume in the "Home Recordings" trilogy exploring Defever's teenage tape experimentation as well as A Silver Thread (Home Recordings 1979 - 1990), a four-volume collection of many of Defever’s solo home recordings prior to His Name Is Alive releasing their debut album Livonia on 4AD in 1990. In his review of A Silver Thread, Tim Clarke writes “For a collection of home recordings, what’s most striking about this music is how fully realized and carefully executed it sounds, comparable at times to contemporary artists such as Grouper, Benoît Pioulard and Tim Hecker. This is not the 1980s that I remember.”

Defever gives us his “What Else Is New” list, a set of personal snapshots, memories of a life spent in music, warning the reader that “the descriptions don’t always have an obvious correlation to the video, but welcome to my nightmare brain.”

In The Line of Fire

I started performing when I was five. My grandfather was a self-taught musician from Saskatchewan in Western Canada and he showed me and my brothers how to play banjo, guitar and fiddle. One of my earliest memories is having a full size 127 lb. accordion placed onto my lap and my grandmother voicing her disappointment when I refused to play. I did learn slide guitar from her later though. I have many, often terrible, memories of performing at square dances with his band and we would play old timey country music, folk songs, polkas and waltzes. There were also gigs at the trailer park, old folks homes and a convent. Although my grandfather believed that popular music died with Hank Williams in 1953, he still found room in his heart for Lawrence Welk and Slim Whitman.

Meet Me By The Water

By age ten I had a tape recorder and was using it to capture the sounds of nearby lakes, thunderstorms, and my older brothers LP collection played at the wrong speeds. I recently found the cassette, Echo Lake (1983) which features waves crashing onto the beach on the Canadian side of Lake St. Clair but it was recorded right after I got an echo pedal so it’s got a heavy dose of dreamy delay. Tape loops of the next door neighbor raking leaves and shoveling the driveway would be repurposed a few years later as rhythm tracks on the first His Name Is Alive LP, Livonia (4AD, 1990). Detroit in the late 70s and early 80s had totally insane radio and one of the highlights was Met-Ezzthetics, a late night show on WDET hosted by Faruq Z. Bey who also played saxophone in Griot Galaxy. Shortly before his death he played with His Name is Alive and we had a chance to formalize our student-teacher relationship.

Search For Higher Energies

In high school I was studying Bach Chorale harmonization and counterpoint during the day but recording and touring with the band Elvis Hitler at night. The other guys in band were older but at 16 I was a familiar sight at shitty Detroit punk clubs and Hamtramck dive bars, the nerdy teenager reading a book or doing homework sitting at the bar waiting ’til midnight or 1am for our slot to play our hellbilly hits, “It’s A Long Way From Berlin To Memphis,” and “Hot Rod To Hell.” I was still trying to make sense of the post 1953 music scene and when I met the guy with a giant afro and shiny super hero outfit complete with shiny cape I had no idea he was Rob Tyner of the MC5. We released three records before I was twenty one and played shows and toured with Devo, the Dwarves, the Dead Milkmen, Reverend Horton Heat, the Beat Farmers, Helios Creed, Babes In Toyland, the Cro-Mags, Corrosion of Conformity, the Frogs, the Gories, Pussy Galore, the Unsane and way more I can’t remember I was just a kid. It was some kind of education.

You Don’t Have To Go Home But You Can’t Stay Here

When I signed with 4AD I thought I was a composer and they let me write my own bio, so I called His Name Is Alive the work of a “fucked up, irresponsible teenage composer.” I had only been writing music for three years. When I heard “Tom Violence” by Sonic Youth I thought for the first time in my life, “I think I could do that.” In 1988 I made a mixtape with Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, Leadbelly and some of Big Star’s third album and I tried to arrange it like it was an album, then I made my own album in that same shape, it was called I Had Sex With God and I sent it to 4AD. Our first album contained three of the first five pieces of music I had ever written. Within a few years I was playing festivals for contemporary classical composers and new age artists who were thirty or forty years older than me. His Name Is Alive played the Musicas Visuales Festival in Mexico with Harold Budd, Paul Horn and Jorge Reyes. The mayor of the city presented me with a guitar but then dramatically walked out of the theater during our performance realizing he had made a terrible mistake. I remember the surreal moment when from across the room Harold Budd walked in and greeted me as “Mr. Defever.” He had a cold and was sniffling during his set, the audience thought he was crying. I recorded his show and when I got back home to Livonia I added my own guitar to some of his songs and then edited the tapes, looping my favorite parts and editing out the parts I didn’t like, also adding additional layers of reverb and echo. More recently I did a concert in a five hundred year old temple in Japan where the unamplified meditation music never rose above a whisper and the monk had to turn off the furnace because the heat molecules were too loud. The show was recorded and released under the name Mountain Ocean Sun and features Ian Masters and Hitoko Sakai.

Energy Dealer

Both my parents were born in Canada, my mother in Saskatchewan, my father in Ontario. I have dual citizenship as my father was American and my mother had Canadian citizenship. I spent summers, holidays and weekends in a tiny cottage on Lake St. Clair that did not have a telephone and had curtains instead of doors separating the two rooms. Myrt Fortin who lived next door would receive phone calls for my mom, walk over to our place and yell into the window, “Hey wake up your ma, your dad’s on the phone.” My mom took a lot of naps, so she was always asleep when something important was happening. I remember always getting cut on broken glass while swimming in the lake or getting stabbed by one of the neighbors and having to go wake up my mom to take me to the hospital.

Lord I Don’t Believe You Exist

When I was ten my parents sat me down and told me it was time that I got a summer job. There were only two businesses in town, a gas station and a hardware store so I walked up to the hardware store and asked the owner for a job and immediately fell to the ground crying. Completely fell apart. He asked me why I wanted to work in hardware. I didn’t know what to say, I was only ten but I knew not to tell the owner that his store was stupid and I didn’t think he could handle the truth. It turned out he also owned the gas station so that didn’t really work out. Later that summer, I began working for the Pickseed Corporation as corn de-tasseling season was just beginning. All the moms would drop off their kids in the church parking lot in Tecumseh, just outside of Windsor, around 4:30am where an unmarked windowless cargo van was waiting that had cinderblocks and 2'x4' boards instead of benches so they could squeeze in the maximum amount of children. There were three job requirements to work in a cornfield, the child (it was only children, no adults) needed to show up with a baseball hat, a thermos with water and a large black plastic garbage bag. I think this was before sunglasses were invented. Upon arriving at the cornfield, we were separated into pickers and checkers, younger kids each taking a row of corn (a row could extend a mile or more) and a slightly older kid would organize and manage several of the younger kids. In the morning we were instructed to poke two arm holes and a head hole into our garbage bags and put it on like a raincoat because the corn was covered in dew and kids wearing wet clothes would walk slower than dry kids. So almost every day there was a point, usually around 11am when the dew would dry and we would be roasted alive from the summer sun coming down on our ridiculous shiny black plastic outfits. We worked from sun up until sun down. I received three dollars and thirty five cents an hour. For all you city folks, corn is planted in alternating rows of types of corn so that when the top part of the plant is removed, or “de-tasseled,” it can seed or cross-pollinate easily. It’s a terrible job with a high turnover rate and every day I would hear the sound of kids in nearby rows that had given up hope, sat down in the middle of the field and crying for hours. The following year, at age 11, I was promoted from picker to checker, and was put in charge of a group of about ten sixteen year old’s.

Sleep It Off

Mostly I like to record – His Name is Alive has over a hundred releases and I’ve done another fifty records under various names, Control Panel, Warren Michael Defever, ESP BEETLES, ESP SUMMER, Forest People, Infinity People, Jeepers Creepers, Layla al-Akhyaliyya, Mirror Dream, Princess Dragon-Mom, the Dirt Eaters, the Fishcats, the Whales, plus way more I can’t remember probably because the names were so dumb. I’ve recorded about four hundred records for other bands at my house or other studios. I’ve worked on records with Danny Kroha, Ida, Fred Thomas, Elizabeth Mitchell, Wild Belle, Michael Hurley, and when I was a teenager I helped record the first Gories album which was especially unique as I was the junior assistant engineer who helped move their equipment into the dirt floor garage next to the studio where it was decided the acoustics would be way worse. Also, I helped collage about a hundred Destroy All Monsters tapes from the 70s for a couple of their releases which led to remastering a bunch of tapes from the John Sinclair White Panther Party archives. I’ve done remixes for Thurston Moore and Yoko Ono and when Iggy and The Stooges started touring again I got a phone call from Ron Asheton seeing if I would help them record demos for their reunion album with Mike Watt on bass. They wrote the songs together while they were recording in Niagara’s basement sort of simultaneously. Iggy didn’t have a notebook with all his lyric ideas, instead he just sang about whatever happened that day – one song was about the airline losing his luggage, one about ATM machines and another was about reading in a newspaper that Ray Davies of the Kinks had been shot in New Orleans. In the end they weren’t terribly excited by my suggested song titles including “No Shirt” (you know because it’s like “No Fun” plus you know Iggy never wears a shirt) and they didn’t seem to love the mixes that I did that sounded kind of like those crappy Raw Power bootlegs.

Cost Of Living

Two summers ago I recorded an incredible concert by Mdou Moctar live at Third Man Records in Detroit. They’re wild hypnotic Hendrix style jammers who live in the desert. The band didn’t speak much english but I think I was able to communicate to them how excited I was about their amazing fingerpicking and hot guitar solos after the show by screaming and replaying the best solos over and over again and then screaming the word fuzz and pointing at their fingers. It’s insane and having seen them a few times since then with a different drummer and the addition of a bass player, I’m convinced it’s their best album. It’s wild but it’s still not Tchin-tabaraden wedding wild.

Licked By Lions

Jonathan Richman walks into Ethan and Gretchen's studio and asks if I can remove all the rugs, take the acoustic treatments off the walls and strike the baffles which normally separate the instruments, drums and amps, so the room will have the most echo possible, he has also invited about ten friends including Johnny Bee Badanjek the drummer from Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and Mary Cobra from the Detroit Cobras to dance, sing and play percussion in the studio while he records. He has two vocal microphones set up at either end of the room and has brought his own microphones for the drums along with his own desired placement for them. He notices a tamboura near the control room and asks if I know how to play it or if I know how to tune it. Within seconds he’s tuned it and proceeds to sing Indian classical music accompanying himself on tamboura drone for about thirty five minutes. It’s beautiful and very surprising. He asks me if I recorded it, I lie and say no. Later he asks me not to play it for anyone. We record for hours. Some songs are quite long – ten and fifteen minutes, some are medleys of oldies or soft rock hits from the seventies segueing into new songs of his. It’s a confusing session as it’s not clear when songs are starting and ending and he often plays guitar and sings nowhere near a microphone. The distance between him and the microphone seems to have some meaning, there’s some formula to when he chooses to walk away in the middle of a verse but I am unable to determine the secret code. At the end of the session three or four songs are deemed usable, edited and mixed, although, sadly, an attempt at a completely insane and unexpected fuzz guitar solo is left unreleased. (The Harold Budd piece is at the opposite end of this spectrum.)

Calling All Believers

Shortly after Tecuciztecatl was released, I received an email from Dr. James Beacham at CERN inviting us to perform at a series of concerts that would combine experimental music with experimental science at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. He didn’t contact our booking agent, which would be how we generally receive offers for gigs, instead he sent an email to me, which would be how we generally receive crazy messages from our completely insane fans (murderous, delusional, poetic, threatening messages usually). I assumed the invitation was fake or a prank and replied that we would prefer to wait until they had successfully opened a pathway to interspatial dimensions and we’d play on the other side or that if that was unlikely to happen at a convenient time then perhaps we could set up our equipment right on the edge of a mini-black hole and perform as the Earth is being destroyed so we could release the concert film “Live At The End Of The World.” After a few messages back and forth, it was clear that he was legit and I apologized for being such a jerk. Soon I discovered poetry within the language of particle physics as well as a certain beauty in the idea that these scientists have devoted their lives to dreaming, searching and discovering basic principles that connect all things in existence. The song “Calling All Believers” refers to this devotion. “Energy Acceleration” compares the scientists to monastic life in medieval times and mystics trying to find and define the line between this world and the next and at the same time invoking the incredible amounts of energy needed to create the collisions experiments. The Patterns of Light LP was released in 2016 on London London Records and is about interpreting visions of light, trying to find universal truth with whatever tools available, it’s about the search for how everything works, why it works and how it got that way but also about being inspired on a basic level by the way a thing looks and how all your senses take in a thing. A thousand years ago Hildegard Von Bingen was writing about this same thing in letters, songs, medical texts, and had even developed her own language to use in her mystical writings, similar to Magma drummer Christian Vander using his own language for their concept albums or French black metalists Brenoritvrezorkre and Moëvöt.

The Light Inside You

We get a lot of letters from fans, mostly weirdos though. I think it started when we released Song of Schizophrenia, that sort of connected us to a certain demographic I suspect. Here’s a recent typical message we received. “Growing up in Panama City, Mouth By Mouth and Livonia were like passages to other realms. I drank a ton of cough syrup at the time but those albums helped make life more livable. I was about to go to art school for sculpture and graphic design and the textures I heard on those records had actual shapes to them. Most music I knew at that time was flat or linear. I got them on cassette via mail-order from an ad placed in a bmx magazine. Mouth By Mouth arrived just before going to work at the amusement park and I was able to listen to it twice on the way thanks to the never-ending beach traffic. As luck would have it, I worked on “The Abominable Snowman” ride, basically a tilt-a-whirl inside a dome with lots of fog machine action, blue lights, mirrors, and lots of air conditioning. It took about 10 listens that day before it wasn’t as weird as when I first put it on. Maybe it was my bubblegum flavor/robitussin combo slushie on top of no-doz that pulled it all together, but it was probably a weird ride for a lot of vacationing beach tourists and townies when all they really wanted to hear was “Naughty by Nature” by O.P.P. I had no business running those rides at the age of 17 but I really loved how disorienting that ride could be with all the mirrors, the fog, the cold and for the final 90 seconds the ride would go in reverse. I had a buddy named Kevin that did acid at work and would repeatedly run the mini-train off the tracks and all the riders had to walk back through the woods for about a half mile that summer.”

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

Yes, I know it’s Friday, not Monday. <.< ANYWAY.

Before we get started, plugging my Discord server (which is p. quiet lately but it’s there if you want to talk somewhere other than here!); and also we’ll do another Open Question Night because Why Not!

As I said last month, while my askbox is always open, tonight I’ll be actively around to answer questions--about writing in general, anything I’ve posted about here on tumblr; anything on my AO3...let me know what’s on your mind!

Star Wars:

SWBB:

Take a Bond of Fate is officially up! (Previously referred to as just SWBB 2021 or the Dragonshifters AU because I literally titled it less than twelve hours before posting <.<) Well, the first 20k are up, anyway. I will be updating throughout the month and the fic will be complete by the end of the month, per the event rules. (I originally planned to do updates on Tuesdays and Fridays; tonight’s update will be delayed and who knows how well I’ll actually stick to it after tonight but it Will be posted in full by the end of May, I can say that much for sure XD)

As always, I think there are a few things I could’ve handled better/that feel a little rushed, but I think it turned out pretty good! There are some upcoming scenes I’m particularly fond of, but we’ll see if everyone else agrees. The core of this actually ended up being Bo and Padme? Which I was not expecting--I was expecting it to lean hard on the Bo and Anakin parallels, but here we are.

Anyway, there’s some fun bits to come!

Precipice:

No solid update ATM. Uh. Various Life things got bonkers over the past month or two, so TaBoF took pretty much all of my fic brain. However, since that project is essentially finished other than finalizing/polishing each update chunk as I post, I should be able to turn my attention here this month. Which means, fingers crossed, we’ll have a start date sometime in June for Protectors. I’ll post the first Preludes segment at the same time; it will involve Kallus, Lavinia, and Mara Jade, set just before Kallus is reassigned to Lothal.

(Others that I have planned will involve: 1) some combination of Kanan, Ezra, Hondo, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, and Anakin; 2) Hera and whoever her contact is in this AU, as Ahsoka is otherwise occupied; 3) Whatever Maul is up to in this timeline; 4) Something to do with Palpatine’s fifth apprentice; and two more I haven’t decided on. I am taking suggestions! The purpose of Preludes is to patch some holes now that I’ve decided to write Rebels into the canon, which was not part of my original plan as I hadn’t yet seen it when I started planning/posting this AU. So these are more plot-relevant than the things that turn up in Bonus Content, which is why they’re in a separate fic, but not really enough to make a full arc between Milestones and Escalation, so, there it is.)

our faces like a mirror:

I’m now leaning towards sitting on this and using it for next year’s Big Bang? Because then maybe I’ll finally finish it, lol...anyway, I’m also going to see how people respond to stuff in TaBoF, because that will either Boost my enthusiasm for the project or, uh, the opposite, depending on how people respond to how I write Bo-Katan. So that may change, and I may finally get it out this year instead of next. We’ll see how that goes XD

Other SW Projects:

One of the SW discords I’m on has revived a prompt game we did last summer. I pulled my first prompt but haven’t actually, uh, done anything with it yet. <.< I’ll do that at some point.

As for various outlines or extant AUs I haven’t updated in forever...well, like I said, what little fic brain hasn’t been on BB the past month or two has been drifting back towards Precipice or occasionally co-opted by OFLAM so...yeah, nothing serious to report on that front, lol.

AtLA Projects:

I’m semi-planning/hoping to start posting At Least one of the two longfics I’ve been poking at sometime this summer. I’ve mentioned them here before, but one is long and tragic and focuses on Lu Ten; the other is an Avatar Zuko AU. Not sure which will draw my focus and get up first, but I do plan to write both of them! And possibly more. Because this fandom just Does That to me, lol.

Also, as I’ve mentioned in various times and places--I am pathologically incapable of not creating a bunch of OCs when I seriously fall into a fandom, and my AtLA work, in particular, will probably reflect that. I don’t super plan to write anything really centered on any OCs (I mean, apart from characters who Exist but have very little Canon Characterization (i.e., Lu Ten himself for that one fic, lol); and Lu Ten’s love interest because that’s an important part of the story), but they will be There and Prominent Characters. This is mostly mentioned because I know OCs aren’t for everyone, so that might put you off of my AtLA fic and I figured it was fair to give you a head’s up.

(...although actually I think none of my old fic that I crossposted to AO3 had significant OC involvement except for Glory...but then again that’s all oneshots and a little different.)

Other Fandoms:

BSG/SG-1 (BSG1?) crossover AU is still coming; I keep getting sidetracked from actually finishing it <.< I haven’t even finished the New Caprica and Haven section, I still have to get to the algae planet and then the Resurrection ship and...maybe I’ll end up posting this in chunks...

Uh, nothing else super planned, but as I mentioned last month, this outline might draw me back into BSG fandom a little more actively because it’s another forever fandom of mine.

Original Fiction:

I’m actually really proud of the Regency AU I wrote for a challenge last month, based on my Apocalypse In SPACE ‘verse Lux.

I need to update the Lux and Farglass Cycle archives still, and will hopefully be posting at least one other thing to RF this month, but we’ll see how that goes. I also might or might not be diving into Arthuriana in all its weirdness and glory this summer to prep for actually writing that Lady Mordred idea I had. And there are always other projects on the back burner, but that’s where things stand here.

...I think that pretty much covers it! Not all that much of an update, but as I said, Life got all...Lifey at me, plus BB had a hard deadline, so that’s where the most detail is.

But what about you guys? What are you working on/what do you have in the pipeline? Like I said, it’s an Open Question Night, and I’d love to hear what’s on your mind!

[amplesalty]

Christmas 2020: Day 5 - Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (1979)

On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me...

FIVE EVIL KINGS!

“Christmas...in July?!” I hear you scoff “What a preposterous idea.” Well, maybe not. After such an unprecedented year as 2020 has been, governments around the world find themselves in the delicate position of trying to further the public health whilst trying to stimulate their economies that are circling the drain. Plus, do you want to be seen as the Grinch figure who cancelled Christmas? That’s going to look real good come next election season, isn’t it? Well, what if we didn’t cancel Christmas..just postpone it instead. Did you know that the retail industry does 50% of its business between December 1st and December 25? That’s half a year’s business in just one month’s time. But with the inherent risk of everyone piling into stores and the already lost time from all these lockdowns, why not delay things slightly to allow us all time to get this new vaccination. Seems to me that Boris Johnson would be wise to legislate a second such gift giving holiday. Create, say, a Christmas 2 next Summer to stimulate growth.

Thank you, Danny Trejo. I’m just surprised it took me this long to mention COVID-19. It took me like the very first sentence of the October marathon. I suppose the Christmas season doesn’t really lend itself to it as much, though Kevin McCallister was doing pioneering work in that whole social distancing thing back in the day.

But yes, Rudolph and Frosty. After seeing both their specials over the past couple of years, why not watch them together in some sort of superstar tag team in their own feature length motion picture epic? I’m jumping ahead slightly in the Rankin/Bass cinematic universe which apparently was a little unwise as I missed a couple of important plot points.

Like, apparently Frosty had kids at some point? How does that work? Do snowmen fuck? I mean, Frosty was always a little dim so it kinda feels a bit weird like Buddy the Elf having kids by the end of Elf. Did kids build him a wife, bring her to life and then their combined magic allows them to have sentient children? Or do they have to be built and brought to life too? How many magic hats to these kids have access to? Is there just a factory somewhere pumping these things out? I can’t believe I have so many questions about an anthropomorphic snowman.

Nevermind that shit though, there’s a whole backstory going on that we need to dive into full of evil wizards and deities appearing on Earth in human form. Many years ago the wicked King Winterbolt ruled over the land with an iron first and a frosty sceptre capable of great magic. But against him stood Lady Boreal.

Queen of the Northern Lights! Oh for God’s sake, first It’s a Wonderful Life comes back to haunt me and now this. Why do so many Christmas movies have so many instances of the goddamn aurora borealis?! Anyway, she rocks up and is like “Stop all this evil tyranny business.” and he’s like “lol, no” and tries to shoot her with his magic missile, to which she’s like “Bitch, please.” and puts him into a deep slumber. But nothing lasts forever and eventually Winterbolt awakens and finds like the North land has a much more jolly leader in the form of Santa and vows to overthrow him with a rather longwinded scheme involving him winning the love of all the children of the world by making Santa get lost in a great snow storm. Then, Winterbolt can emerge with his own supply of toys and become the new Santa!

But with her last ounce of strength, Lady Boreal transfers her remaining magic into baby Rudolph’s shiny nose. Or maybe this is some Biblical level shit and she put Rudolph upon the Earth to be the saviour of Christmas, that he might grow up to lead Santa’s sleigh through the dark and stormy night. Where was this angle in the original Rudolph?! Kinda re-writes that whole part about him being shunned by Santa and his own Father too. Does kinda take that whole ‘embrace who you are’ thing to a new level when you were pretty much created by a God to have this one seemingly life altering feature about you that actually means you’re destined for greatness. Bit of a test of these other reindeer too, this is how you treat he I have delivered unto you?!

So, now that we have some meddlesome reindeer getting in the way, Winterbolt sets off on some longwinded and convoluted plan that involves Rudolph and Frosty going to a 4th of July circus in order to trick Rudolph into committing an evil act that will void Lady Boreal’s magic. Plus, he gives Frosty and family some amulets that will prevent them from melting but only up until the last firework fades. And to do all this he uses some sort of magic snow which can implant ideas in peoples heads? So he gets this ice cream guy to encourage Rudolph and Frosty to be in the show to boost ticket sales and help his girlfriend. This guy by the way rides around in a hot air balloon and keeps a supply of ice cream at the North Pole. Dude, it’s called a freezer.

I love how they make this big thing about what an attraction Rudolph will be but his act is literally him standing in the middle of the tent, they use a fog machine on him and he uses his nose to shine through the fog. Then he just flies away. I mean, I suppose just having a flying reindeer is pretty spectacular in and of itself but give them a little more for their money, tell a joke or something.

This whole middle portion of the movie is a bit of a drag though. Just really boring and full of filler songs about the circus. I don’t know why this movie is as long as it is at like 98 mins. If you trimmed it down you’d have something a lot more solid. I’d say the one highlight in this portion is when Winterbolt goes to what seems to be this movies equivalent of a doss house and finds this really shady reindeer he can use to trick Rudolph. Just seeing this evil genius in Winterbolt interacting with this scuzzy landlord and finding this bum reindeer is just really weird.

There’s a neat version of Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree too. Has this slight country, Dolly Parton feel to it and is a bit more uptempo than the original.

I was pretty disappointed during this whole section and was worried that it would end up like Frosty but it won me back again in the end by tapping into some of that uncharacteristic dark Christmas feel that Rudolph had. Where that was more cynical, this gets oddly morbid.

Like, the plan is for Santa to swing by and pick up Frosty and family in order to take them back to the North Pole before the fireworks finish so they don’t melt. Frosty is still really antsy though and is keen to duck out, even if that means missing the fireworks. Bizarrely, his kids question him on this and ask him what kind of patriot he is. I guess I never really thought of Frosty being American like that but I guess they did refer to him as having just being born when they put that hat on him. Plus he’s always saying ‘Happy birthday!’ when he wakes up so you could say he was born in America. Only trouble is, Winterbolt has whipped up a ferocious storm that means Santa is heavily delayed.

So you get these scenes of Frosty, his wife and kids all coming to terms with their own fragile mortality as they watch these 100 fireworks going off one by one, with each rocket flying into the sky acting like another grain of sand in the egg timer of their life, another second ticking away toward their impending doom. Just these kids looking up to their mother and telling her that they promise they’ll be brave...oh my God.

Or Rudolph having to give a false confession to stealing the takings from the circus in exchange for Winterbolt keeping the amulets powers going so that Frosty wont melt. Only Frosty knows the real truth, so everyone just shuns Rudolph. His friends turn their back on him, the crowd boo him and his nose wont light up anymore. Cue a mournful Rudolph solo which culminates in him crying as he sticks his nose in some glitter trying to replicate the beaming light it once gave off. Poor little guy.

But apparently not everyone has given up on Rudolph becomes he comes... a whale with a clock on it?! Apparently this guy was in one of the Rudolph films that came before this, just what in the hell did I miss?

Even after a showdown between Rudolph and Winterbolt where Rudolph gets Frosty’s hat back, Winterbolt is still out for vengeance and comes to the circus for a final showdown. To which the lady that runs the circus has the most appropriate response possible...

Reach for the skies, pilgrim! Only, her guns are just props that fire blanks so she just hurls the guns at Winterbolt and they promptly shatter his magic staff and he turns into a tree. Ooooooookay then.

I feel like Lady Boreal could have saved us a lot of hassle if she’d put Winterbolt to sleep and then took his staff away rather than just leaving it laying around for him to use again when he finally awoke.

For a second there in the middle I thought that this would be more of a Frosty than a Rudolph but it redeemed itself a bit by the end. Probably not quite to the levels of Rudolph but I enjoyed the bookends of it. If they’d cut some of the middle out and kept it under an hour, I’d be a lot happier with it. Apparently there’s another Rudolph movie that came out in the early 2000’s that revists a lot of those characters from the first one so I’m really tempted to watch that as well but I feel like I already rode my luck here and I’d really tarnish my positive memories of the original by watching a cheap cash in. I probably will just watch it anyway though so I guess we’ll find out next year.

[ibelieveinahappilyeverafter]

Writing Commission - Beyond The Stars (All The Way To You)

Still alive! This is a writing commission that someone paid for based off a story prompt off of my Patreon. I hope you guys enjoy it because I had a lot of fun writing it! (And I promise I do have plans to get back to To Land On Your Feet.)

Enjoy!

                                                     ⁂

Summary: Shinsou Hitoshi is finally home with his new family and ready for a long break of doing nothing before he starts his second year of U.A. in the heroics course. His break doesn’t quite go to plan, though, when his body starts going through changes. And not changes as in getting older, but changes as in he suddenly has pointed ears, sharp teeth, and wings and a tail growing out of his back.

It’s a scramble to figure out if what’s happening is a rare quirk mutation or if it’s something else much more serious. While the answer might lie with his birth family, it’s the family he has now that’s going to help him through it. One thing is for sure, though, and that’s the fact that Hitoshi is never going to have a normal life again.

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia    

Relationship: Shinsou Hitoshi & Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Shinsou Hitoshi & Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic/Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead

Characters: Shinsou Hitoshi, Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead

Rating: Teen Audiences

Word Count: 19,834

Transaction Amount: $80 (USD)

                                                      ⁂

               Check out my writing commission information here!                      Pledge to my Patreon to get exclusive content!                                  Or buy me a coffee on Ko-Fi!

                                      Read the story on AO3!

                                                     ⁂ 

Shinsou Hitoshi - now Aizawa-Yamada Hitoshi in all legal databases - lingered on the top step after climbing the stairs of the house he was slowly exploring. While he had been about to start poking around the second story, he instead found himself sitting down on the top of the staircase, his attention caught by the quiet, rumbling laughter and soft voices that he could hear drifting up from the kitchen that he now knew was filled with warm yellows and soft browns. 

While it was impossible to make out any words or topics on what was being said, the warm voices and gentle laughter had caught Hitoshi’s attention as easily and quickly as the cats that were quickly crawling over him and into his lap. 

“Let me guess,” Hitoshi said quietly, laughing as a large white cat near yelled in his ear as he draped himself over his back. “You must be Snowball.” There was a higher, sweeter chirp from the cat that had crawled into his lap, a fuzzy little thing with bright, shining eyes. “And you must be Jelly. Those two really are bad with names, aren’t they?”

Between the soft, pleasing blues of the hallway walls, the rumbling purrs of the cat curled in his lap, the warmth of the cat that was draped over his back, and the rumbling laughter and quiet voices he could hear from the downstairs part of the house, Hitoshi felt like he could easily spend the rest of his life in that one moment. It was incredible just how different it all was compared to how his school year had begun. 

His first year at U.A. had begun with him in the General Studies course while also living in an abusive foster home that was known for being ‘the last resort’ for kids from ‘troubling backgrounds.’ Hitoshi, luckily, had never had to put work into being a troubled kid. His quirk had done all the work for him. 

Then the Sports Festival had happened, and Hitoshi had caught the attention of none other than Eraserhead, one of the men now laughing in the kitchen downstairs. The man had offered to train Hitoshi to get into the heroics course and, not long after, had found out about Hitoshi’s home situation. 

As usual with everyone from U.A., he had gone ‘Plus Ultra’ in how he had handled the matter and, a few weeks later, his new foster parents were Aizawa Shouta and his husband Yamada Hizashi, the man who happened to be Hitoshi’s other favorite hero Present Mic. After all was said and done, Hitoshi had only been at U.A. for a couple of months before he had a new home and new parents who actually cared about him. He had also been moved into the dorms which had been heaven compared to all the other houses he had lived at over the years. 

Of course, if he were being honest, he had spent most of the school year asleep on the couch in Hizashi and Shouta’s on-campus apartment. If he were being further honest, it was all Hizashi’s fault for dragging Hitoshi there during a particularly bad week when his insomnia had been worse than ever. It wasn’t like it was Hitoshi’s fault he had just never left and had eventually been given a sleeping bag of his own just so ‘he wouldn’t break his back on that goddamn couch.’

That had been during the school year, though. Now it was break, Hitoshi had just survived his first year of U.A. and would start the heroics course when school went back into session, and he now lived with Shouta and Hizashi in their house after being adopted. 

“Ah, so that’s where you three got off to!” The chipper voice had Hitoshi startling out of his thoughts, blinking at where Hizashi was halfway up the stairs and grinning at him with pure amusement and his phone held out in front of him. Hitoshi could feel himself flushing even as he glared. “Aw, cute!” 

“If that goes on your Present Mic account then I’m disowning you as a parent,” Hitoshi managed, huffing as he heard another shutter sound from the phone. “You’re awful.” 

“The absolute worst,” Hizashi agreed cheerfully. “Already done exploring the place? We’re not leaving for dinner for another hour or so. It would be sooner, but then Tensei decided to join, and if he joined then Nem had to join, and it takes her forever to get ready to go someplace.” 

Hitoshi choked back a laugh, carefully nudging Snowball off him before standing up with Jelly still in his arms, shuffling out of the way so Hizashi could slip past him up the stairs. “You know, I’m pretty sure you don’t get to complain about people taking forever to get ready. Last I checked, it takes you how long to do your hair?” 

Hizashi twitched, giving him a ‘frown’ that was nothing more than a dramatic pout. Hitoshi grinned because he knew, if nothing else, Shouta would have been proud. “Unbelievable,” Hizashi tsked. “Betrayed by my own son. It was Shouta, wasn’t it? I bet he turned you against me.” 

“Nah,” Hitoshi shook his head, acting nonchalant as he scratched under Jelly’s chin. “It was the fact you hogged the bathroom for so long one morning I had to go all the way back to the dorms just to find another one.” 

Hizashi gave another tsk, Hitoshi trying not to laugh as the other stuck a hand in his hair and ruffled it as if that would actually bother him. “Alright then, Mr. Smartypants. If you have the answer to everything then what… is your favorite part of the house?”

Rolling his eyes at the dramatics, Hizashi grinned as Jelly snuggled up to him and rubbed at his neck, Snowball screaming from where he was cuddled up against Hitoshi’s legs. “Jelly and Snowball.” 

“Aha, so you haven’t explored the entire house yet!” That was the only warning Hitoshi was given before he was being gently steered and pushed down the hallway, Hizashi leading him all the way to a door near the end of the hallway. He was also rambling nonstop as he did so. “Okay, so that door there is the bathroom, that’s a guest bedroom, that’s the linen closet, that’s the cat’s bedroom which is sometimes also known as our bedroom, and this… is yours.” 

Hitoshi wasn’t even done laughing over the comment about their bedroom being the cat’s bedroom when the last part of Hizashi’s explanation registered. “Wait? My- Oh.” Hizashi had opened the door and pushed Hitoshi inside, Hitoshi staring at his bedroom.

He wasn’t sure when the two had managed it, but all his things were already in the room. A few of his textbooks and folders that he half-remembered throwing in a box were settled on a wooden desk that was placed just perfectly under a window that looked out onto the street. His backpack and suitcase were propped up neatly between the desk and a dresser that looked brand new, little items and trinkets already scattered around on top. 

A glance to his right showed an almost empty closet with a few of his things, all new and having been bought for him over the last few months, hanging up neatly. A quick look to the left showed a bed with some type of overhead storage, the bed itself absolutely filled with blankets, pillows, his blue sleeping bag that Shouta had bought him, and the odd stuffed cat or two. 

There was also a small blanket or curtain of some kind hooked onto the bars that helped make up the overhead, Hitoshi realizing it would only take a few quick seconds to pull it across the bar and practically hide the bed, and whoever was in it, from view.

Hitoshi felt like it was a lifetime that he just stared at the bedroom – his bedroom – before he carefully set Jelly down onto the floor. He then immediately turned out and latched onto Hizashi in a tight hug, burrowing his way close and hiding a smile when the hug was returned without even a second of delay. 

“Welcome home, ‘Toshi,” Hizashi said softly, Hitoshi squeezing tighter for a moment even as he laughed. Laughter, he had found, was better than getting emotional enough to cry. 

“I’m home,” Hitoshi said softly, finding that, with every single part of him, he meant it. It was a moment in time he thought he would never get. 

It was also a moment broken by Shouta shouting up the stairs at them with a halfhearted, “The harpy says she needs another hour before she’s ready.”

“She what?!” Hizashi moved to lean out of the doorway, even as he kept hanging on to Hitoshi - which was more amusing than anything else. “We told her about dinner tonight this morning! What do you mean she needs more time! I don’t even take that much time- Shouta!”

There was a soft, quiet laugh from downstairs that Hitoshi just barely made out, followed by Shouta’s call of, “You’re the one who wanted to be friends with her.” 

Hizashi grumbled, finally letting Hitoshi go with one last hug and a ruffle to his hair. “If Nemuri thinks she can out drama me then she has another thing coming. Get ready to go, kiddo, I need to go yell at a best friend over the phone.” 

“Have fun,” Hitoshi laughed, waiting until Hizashi was down the stairs before he turned back to his room - his room - and leaned against the doorway’s edge before taking a moment to just look at everything. “Home, huh…” 

It wasn’t until later that night, long after a night out with family that had felt like family, did Hitoshi really take a few minutes to think about how different his life had become ever since he had started U.A.

He had started the school year sleeping in a closet of a room with four other kids, foster parents who didn’t give a shit, and almost nothing to call his own. Now he had a home, a family, a room of his own, two pet cats, and parents who actually cared and loved him. 

Instead of cramped into a small space and curled up and cold, Hitoshi was curled up in a bed that had so many pillows and blankets it had become a nest. The bed-curtain-thing-or-whatever had been closed and Hitoshi was in pleasant darkness with nothing except a few strips of moonlight and it was perfect. 

It was just… He was home. Hitoshi was home, and safe, and didn’t have to worry about the next disaster that would happen in his life or worry that he would wake up scared and alone and fearful that the whole world was against him. It was all because he knew, even if the world was against him, he had two people on his side who would stick by him. 

It was a good feeling. 

It was a good feeling that he knew, with everything in him, would make everything feel okay - even if it wasn’t. 

At least, that was how he felt before he woke up the next morning.

His first morning in his new home was filled not with contentment, but with annoyance because his skin was itching. God, it fucking felt like Hitoshi was going to go crazy and he had only been awake for two minutes. 

“If I find itching powder in these blankets, I’ll kill everyone in this house,” Hitoshi muttered under his breath, scratching at his arms even as he struggled out of the blankets he had tangled himself up in. He then paused to make a mental note that he would kill everyone but the cats. 

It wasn’t even just the itching, either, but it felt like he was exhausted. He also felt absolutely wired. It felt like he had gotten both too much sleep and not enough sleep all at the same time. Or, well, maybe more accurately it felt like he had gotten no sleep and then downed a half dozen shots of espresso. 

Actually, coffee sounded great right then. Right. Hitoshi would hit the bathroom, maybe take a shower to stop the goddamn itching, and then he would drink all the coffee in the house. He would try, at least. Shouta seemed to survive off coffee, too, so it might be a fight. 

That had been the plan, at least, until Hitoshi, still bleary with sleep, caught sight of himself in the mirror. He then closed his eyes, counted to thirteen, blinked his eyes open, and then closed them again with a sigh. 

“It’s too early for this,” Hitoshi finally managed, cracking his eyes open and, yeah. That seemed about his life. 

He finally felt safe, happy, and utterly content, and then he woke up to what looked like purple and blue spiral rashes everywhere. It at least explained why Hitoshi woke up to his skin itching like crazy, but what wasn’t explained was why Hitoshi had what looked like tattoos just about everywhere on his body. 

Purple and blue spiraled swirls of color formed a solid band of color around his wrists before crawling up all the way to his elbows and, if he wasn’t wrong, even further up his arm and past the sleeves of his shirt - which wasn’t that bad. The tattoo-possibly-rash-looking-thing wasn’t all that bad if it was only on his arms. 

Instead of just on his arms, though, there were two swaths of the thing starting from under his eyes and slicing down his cheeks and following the curve of them to stop at a point, the thing dark purple with some kind of twisted runic pattern of lighter purple on top. It might have even still been okay if it stopped there, but it didn’t. 

The thing had spread to wrap around his forehead in some weird form of what Hitoshi might call a crown or a circlet or something if it wasn’t branded into his skin. It was a mix of purple and blue with another weird runic symbol looking thing and, Hitoshi had a feeling, it wrapped around his entire head. He was now viciously thankful his hair was purple as that seemed to hide the rest of it if that were the case. 

Oh, yeah, there was also the fact it looked like whatever it was had given him freckles. There were dark purple freckle looking things that matched the other parts of the thing and were all over the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, and the tips of his ears. 

Judging by the itching that was on his chest, legs, and back, Hitoshi had a feeling that The Thing covered more than just the skin he could see. A quick peek down his shirt to see swirls of purple and blue showed that, yes. The Thing covered more than just a few parts of his body.

“Right,” Hitoshi mumbled to himself, staring at the mirror for a few extra seconds. “Okay. Yeah. Right, then.” Hitoshi took one last long look at himself in the mirror and then nodded, turned around, and opened the bathroom door.

He then promptly stuck his head out the door and started shouting, “Dad! Pops!”

⁂

Shouta stared down at his kid, tied down in half a dozen blankets on the living room couch, and did his best not to panic as he waited for the beeping of the thermometer. His attention was evenly split between Hitoshi, who was trying to use the blankets to hide every inch of his skin, and Hizashi, who was pacing up and down the living room floor and muttering about quirks under his breath. 

“It has to be some type of rash,” Shouta finally said, narrowing his eyes as Hitoshi began scratching at his cheek again. “There are quirks that cause rashes.” Granted none that would be so… colorful, but it had to be something to cause Hitoshi’s skin to itch so badly. Shouta was half-tempted to start treating the kid like he had chicken pox and put a pair of mittens on him. 

“Not necessarily,” Hizashi sighed, finally speaking loud enough to be heard as he walked over towards him. “‘Toshi, can you show me one of your arms?”

“Can I not and then we just say I did?” Hitoshi mumbled around the thermometer. He looked miserable enough that Shouta wanted to bat Hizashi away just so the kid could try to get some more rest. 

Hizashi, on his part, waited patiently until Hitoshi finally sighed and stuck one of his arms out. “Thank you. Now, Shou, you said rash, right? It could be, but also look at the skin around the edges.” Shouta sighed but did as told, studying the edges of the pattern and frowning at the red skin. Would itching cream help? It couldn’t hurt, at that point. “What does that remind you of?” 

“Right now? The fact that we don’t have any itching cream in the house.” Shouta felt a little better at Hitoshi’s snort of laughter but sighed at Hizashi’s look. It was a look that, very clearly, told him he was letting his worries get the best of him. “I don’t know, ‘Zashi. It…” Actually, it did remind him of something. “Tattoos?”

That got a reaction, Hitoshi squirming around and talking fast enough the thermometer fell out of his mouth. “I swear I did not go out last night and get tattoos all over my body or find someone with a quirk who would do that I mean- Why would I want tattoos? I have freckles and they’re purple! I look like a giant bruise! I-!”

“Hey, hey, easy, ‘Toshi.” Hizashi was sitting on Hitoshi’s other side in a heartbeat, soothing the kid down and gently running a hand through his hair. It seemed to work, Hitoshi quieting under the soft touch at once. “We know you wouldn’t do something like that. It’s just that if this was a rash then we wouldn’t be seeing red edges like this.” 

“It looks like when Hizashi got his tattoos,” Shouta explained, sticking the thermometer back in the kid’s mouth when he opened it to ask a question. The glare was hilarious. “I’ll tell you the embarrassing details later.”

Hizashi tsked, tucking Hitoshi’s arm back in his blanket bundle before sitting back and crossing his arms. “I don’t know,” Hizashi finally sighed. “I know a few quirks that could cause something like this, but it takes prolonged contact. Nothing I know could do this with a touch and have a delay on it. I don’t know… Maybe we should go to the hospital-?”

“No!” The shout took all three of them by surprise, it seemed, Shouta staring down at Hitoshi who flushed at the attention as he fiddled with the once again dropped thermometer. “I just- Please no hospital. I mean, I’m fine, right? I’m not in pain or anything. Just itchy.”

“I don’t know, ‘Toshi,” Hizashi sighed, looking to Shouta and alright. Shouta would need to stay firm. They needed to do what was best for their kid. “Shouta?” 

“He said he’s not hurt.” The disappointed look given to him by Hizashi was only made marginally less painful by Hitoshi’s grateful one. “I’m not sure the hospital could do anything right now.” 

Hizashi grumbled but seemed to relent, Shouta once again picking up the thermometer and staring down at Hitoshi. The kid blinked at him, mumbling an apology before opening his mouth back up. “This time,” Shouta sighed. “Try to wait until we actually get your temperature.” 

There was a little mutter that sounded like no promises, Shouta making sure to fix the kid with a look before he was looking at Hizashi. “So?” 

Hizashi looked between the two of them, finally groaning. “Alright, fine. Most quirk-induced effects last three days. So, we’ll monitor Hitoshi closely, and as soon as we see another symptom that causes any sort of pain of any kind we go straight to the hospital.” 

Shouta narrowed his eyes as Hitoshi looked ready to open his mouth. Shouta didn’t let him before he was hooking his fingers under the kid’s mouth and snapping it shut. “Temperature.” The look Hitoshi gave him was worse than any of Hizashi’s pouting could ever be. 

As if to spite him, Hitoshi started scratching again. Shouta sighed, standing up at last. Jelly and Snowball immediately took his place, crawling into Hitoshi’s lap and purring or, in Snowball’s case, screaming up at him. Shouta gave a half-smile, turning to head towards the first-aid kit. “I’ll get the mittens.”

The dramatic groan had him glancing back, Shouta feeling a wave of worry at how Hitoshi had just tilted over straight into Hizashi’s arms. He looked miserable, but if the kid was that against the hospital…

There had been more than just a desire not to go. Something had obviously happened in his past, but this wasn’t exactly the best time to pry into the kid’s head. Besides, three days wouldn’t be too bad. 

Three days and everything would be back to normal and Hitoshi would be complaining about his horrible start to break. 

Except as the three days passed, the ‘rash’ wasn’t going away. 

If anything, things were getting worse. 

“I do not need to go to the hospital,” Hitoshi groaned, ‘glaring’ at them. It wasn’t an effective glare considering he was curled up on the couch and hunched over a small plastic trash can and looked ready to be sick. Again. “It’s just a stomachache. I’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

Considering Hizashi looked ready to vibrate out of his skin with how stressed and worried he looked, Shouta took it upon himself to drop a cooling pack against the back of Hitoshi’s neck. The betrayed look was almost enough to make him laugh. “Kid, this is the third meal you’ve thrown up. It might be time to go to the hospital-”

“Please don’t make me go to the hospital.” The plea wasn’t anything like Hitoshi’s usual apathetic whines. This time it was full of fear and terror and begging and Shouta was nowhere near strong enough to deal with that coming from his kid. “I just- Maybe it’s just what I’ve been eating! Food poisoning or something!”

“Kiddo, there’s no way this can be food poisoning.” Hizashi started firm, but Shouta watched as he immediately fell into distressed whining when Hitoshi went pale and started retching into the trash can again. “We all eat the same foods and I’ve been changing ingredients for every meal you’ve gotten sick from!”

Shouta watched as Hizashi rubbed at Hitoshi’s back, muttering soft little reassurances as the kid emptied whatever was left in his stomach. While Shouta didn’t want to upset Hitoshi anymore than he already was, this was… not good. Hitoshi hadn’t even been able to keep down a few saltine crackers before throwing those up and looking even worse than he had before. It was as if his body was rejecting everything he ate! It was all well and good to say it was food poisoning, but if his body was rejecting everything- Actually. That was wrong.

Shouta remembered the first morning before Hitoshi had gotten sick he had managed to eat a couple of slices of toast and whatever he had managed to filch out of the frying pan before Hizashi had finished breakfast. He had been perfectly fine and then started complaining that he was hungry again. It wasn’t until after he ate everything else that he became sick. 

It had kept happening, but there were small snacks and little pieces of food that he had managed to eat with no repercussions. The saltines, though. They were almost impossible to throw up and were one of the few things that had always helped Shouta and Hizashi when they were sick themselves. It was nothing except flour, yeast, and… 

“Hizashi.” Shouta couldn’t quite hear whatever tone his voice took, but it was enough to have Hizashi and Hitoshi both looking up at him. “All the meals you’ve made recently? How much sodium and salt are in them?”

Hizashi stared at him for only a moment before paling and then looking back to Hitoshi, who was squinting at Shouta with a skeptical look, “You think I’m sick because I’m getting too much sodium in my diet?” 

“No,” Shouta shook his head, heading towards the kitchen. “I think you’re sick because you developed a food allergy recently.” Shouta heard one of them give an incredulous laugh even as he dug through the cabinets before pulling out the container of salt they used. 

When he got back to the living room, Hitoshi was looking at him as if he were crazy, “There is no way I suddenly, out of nowhere, became allergic to salt. That’s like- That’s not a thing! I’m not some werewolf!” There was a snort of laughter from Hizashi that quickly turned apologetic at their kid’s betrayed whine – which was good. Shouta was not willing to sit through another lecture on the difference between mythical creatures and what could supposedly kill them.

“Salt allergies are actually more common than you would think,” Shouta shrugged, sitting down on the couch next to Hitoshi with the salt. “Allergies develop most often in childhood, but some of them develop at later stages in life. Salt is an… uncommon one, I’ll admit, but it’s not unheard of. Plus, this would explain why you immediately threw up the saltines.” 

“You’re never gonna let that go, are you?” Hitoshi scowled, trying to cross his arms before fumbling with the trash can and settling for squeezing it tighter. “It’s probably just a stomach bug or something!” 

Shouta raised an eyebrow, watching Hitoshi pout before Hizashi gave a quiet sigh and a soft mumble of, “Sorry kiddo, but you kept down one of the jelly pouches-”

“Nutrition pouches,” Shouta interrupted, rolling his eyes as Hizashi raised his voice to compensate. 

“-jelly pouches and kept that down just fine for hours. The moment you ate a salty cracker, though, you were right back to where you started.” 

Hitoshi looked ready to argue until he was blue in the face - more proof that he was certainly their kid. Shouta decided to end it early by grabbing Hitoshi by the chin and stilling him before holding up the salt. “Proof. Swallow some of this and see what happens. If it’s really food poisoning or a stomach bug then a few pinches of salt on your tongue won’t do anything than maybe make you gag for a second or two.” 

“Shouta,” Hizashi scolded, glaring at them both. “If he’s really allergic to salt then doing this might as well as be a form of torture- No. We can go to the hospital and they can do an allergy test-”

Hitoshi, without breaking eye contact with Hizashi, opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out. Shouta gave a soft huff of laughter as he poured a pinch or two of salt on the kid’s tongue. Hitoshi closed his mouth, gave the two a significant look, and then opened his mouth to probably try to say he was fine. Instead of speaking, however, he immediately started retching into his trash can, Shouta rubbing at his back as he looked to Hizashi. 

Hizashi, for his part, groaned as he got to his feet, mumbling a soft, “I’ll dig out the allergy meds and see if those help…” 

Hitoshi, when he finally managed to lift his head from the bucket, gave a careful shake of his head, “That was still better than going to the hospital.”

Shouta couldn’t stop a soft snort, brushing the kid’s bangs back as he went straight back to curling over trash can. “Only you, kid.”

Overall, the discovery wasn’t a good one. Hizashi had still wanted to go to the hospital but had relented at Hitoshi’s logical appeal that a sudden food allergy did not mean it was rash - or quirk - connected. Shouta was absolutely certain Hizashi hadn’t relented at the logic so much as the fact he would do anything their kid asked. 

He also probably relented because Hitoshi had near revolted over the fact that he could no longer eat some of his favorite foods. At that point, adding a hospital trip on top of it would have been cruel – at least, it would have been in Shouta’s opinion.

A food allergy, at least, was something that they could handle without involving medical professionals. A quirk-induced rash was something that they could handle as long as it was temporary and caused no pain.

The tip of Hitoshi’s ears starting to hurt before growing to a point, however, was starting to feel like something they couldn’t handle.

“I look like an elf.” The beginning of the third day of Hitoshi’s ‘rash’ had arrived with, as Hitoshi horrifyingly referred to them, elf ears. “I look… like an elf.”

“Could always be worse,” Shouta pointed out, shrugging at the betrayed look Hitoshi shot him through the bathroom mirror, all three of them crowded around it in the far too early morning. 

“Ignore him, ‘Toshi, he has no empathy this early in the morning,” Hizashi sighed, ignoring Shouta’s pinch to his side as he brushed some of Hitoshi’s hair behind his new ears. “It’s… Well. A lot of people these days have pointed ears due to quirks-”

“Quirks that they’re born with or get when they’re kids,” Hitoshi huffed, poking at one of the changed ear tips with a twisted scowl. “I’ve had my quirk - my brainwashing quirk - for years. There’s no way it’s causing this. My quirk is mental!”

Shouta sighed softly, rubbing at the kid’s back until the fight drained out of him as it always did in the end. Giving the kid a minute to pull himself together, Shouta looked back to the pointed ears. They were certainly… something. They looked natural enough considering the diverse nature of quirks, but it was odd to see them on Hitoshi - especially coupled with his ‘rash.’ 

“Well,” Hizashi finally drawled, crossing his arms. “How about that trip to the hospital now?” Shouta groaned the same moment Hitoshi glared. He didn’t need to have years of dealing with teenagers to know how the conversation was going to end. 

“It’s not like they hurt or anything. You said we’d only go to the hospital if something started hurting and nothing has besides the weird food allergy thing which is still bullshit-”

“Language,” Hizashi scolded, halfheartedly, raising his hands peacefully at Hitoshi’s glare that was aggravated enough to rival Shouta at his worst. “Force of habit.” 

Hitoshi huffed, looking to Shouta with an obvious plea for help that had Shouta’s will weakening more than he would have liked before he pulled himself together. “We also said that we’d go if your ‘rash’ didn’t go away after three days-”

“Which means that, technically, I have until tonight,” Hitoshi pointed out quickly, grinning at Hizashi’s mixture of both a scoff and a laugh. “Hey, you didn’t specify, and, besides, I’m no longer itching.”

“Really?” Shouta looked down to the swirls and marks, noticing that the skin no longer looked so red or irritated. There were still traces of aggravated skin, but nothing worse than what one would get from a mild sunburn - if that, even. It was a good sign. “That could mean the effects really are temporary, but that doesn’t explain why only now your ears are pointed.”

“Quirks are weird?” Hitoshi tried, Shouta giving him a hard look until the kid sighed. “Okay, I get it, this is still- I mean, it’s not good, but nothing is hurting. That’s good, right?” 

“It is, but there’s still the fact that your body just went through another major change that it shouldn’t have. Hizashi’s right. We really should get you checked out by a professional before this turns into something serious.” 

Hitoshi seemed to wilt, Shouta glancing up at Hizashi who looked as lost and defeated as Shouta felt. Hizashi, thankfully, was the one to break first, groaning a soft, “But that can wait until tomorrow morning if it’s still there.” 

“Go get some rest,” Shouta said softly, gently nudging Hitoshi out of the bathroom and back towards the kid’s bedroom. “We’ll wake you up for breakfast later and if, after tonight, this problem is still here then we are going to do something about it. Understand?”

“I understand,” Hitoshi said softly, arms wrapping around Shouta in a soft, tired hug that Shouta didn’t hesitate to return. “Thanks, Dad.” 

“Of course,” Shouta managed, firmly ignoring Hizashi’s bright smile and glittering eyes as he, no doubt, signed something insulting towards him. “Now go sleep. It’s too early for all of this emotion.”

Hiding a grin at the laugh, Shouta made sure Hitoshi really did go back to his room before he turned around, took a few steps forward, and collapsed against Hizashi’s chest with a soft groan of, “Don’t start.”

Hizashi, as he had every day since they had met, completely ignored him and instead cooed as he wrapped Shouta up in a tight hug while fully supporting his weight. “Shou-chan you’re such a softie to your son.” 

“I don’t want to even start to hear that from someone like you,” Shouta muttered, halfhearted scowl vanishing under the soft press of lips against his own. The kiss was slow and familiar, easing some of the fear and tension that had been there since Hitoshi had first called him Dad months ago. “Why did no one warn us?”

“Because we wouldn’t have listened,” Hizashi giggled, planting another kiss against the edge of his jaw, Shouta tipping his head back almost absently to give the other more room. “Besides, I thought you liked a challenge.” 

“A misconception.” Shouta enjoyed a few more soft kisses before he was sliding away from Hizashi and back towards their bedroom. A lazy reach of his hand behind him had Hizashi’s fingers lacing with his own in a heartbeat. “C’mon. Kid has the right idea going back to bed.” 

“Alright, alright, but only for a little while longer!” Hm. That meant at least three more hours - maybe longer if Shouta was careful about it. “Nemuri is supposed to be in town still until tomorrow, right?”

Shouta paused, glancing over his shoulder at where Hizashi was looking ‘innocent.’ The act didn’t last before Hizashi’s gaze slid from Shouta to the closed door back the way they had come from. “It’s just… we might need an effective sedative tomorrow.” 

“I’ll make sure he knows it was all your idea,” Shouta snorted, ignoring the whining as his own thoughts turned back to Hitoshi. For as exhausted as he was, he knew he wouldn’t get much more sleep. 

How was a parent supposed to sleep when something was wrong with their kid and they didn’t know how to fix it? 

A strange set of markings that looked like a rash was one thing that could have been handled depending on how long they were there for, but then a food allergy out of nowhere? The timing was suspicious - not to mention the ears after two days of no further changes. 

Shouta had seen plenty of odd quirks that did any number of things to the human body, but changes like these were ones he hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t even sure what a healing quirk could do to help, but it was better than waiting for more changes to happen. It was better than sitting around and watching his kid get even worse. 

All things considered, it wasn’t any surprise when, on the night of the third day, Hizashi’s startled shout of surprise from the front door had Shouta out of bed and down the stairs with his binding cloth on before he was even fully awake. 

Over a decade as a pro hero and a year of dealing with his most recent homeroom class had Shouta prepared for any number of things, but he wasn’t prepared for what met his eyes. 

There, in the entryway, was a speechless Hizashi with wide eyes. He had no doubt just arrived home from an overnight shift at the radio station but that wasn’t what had Shouta’s attention so much as what - who - Hizashi was staring at. 

Hitoshi - curled up on the middle of the couch with both cats and a heap of blankets - was nervously looking between the two of them. The reason for his nerves seemed to be the fact that every marking on him was glowing an electric blue so bright it was almost white. 

“In my defense,” Hitoshi mumbled after a rough clearing of his throat. “I didn’t think you would scream. It, uh… It also doesn’t hurt, at least?”

Binding cloth falling limp around him, Shouta slowly moved to lean against the wall, looking between his kid and husband before shutting his eyes with a long, slow exhale.

Finally, he managed a tired, “I’ll call Nemuri.”

⁂

In the end, after a lot of begging and implied trust issues, Hitoshi had managed to talk his parents out of calling Kayama-sensei over just barely. For as much as he trusted the three of them, he wasn’t about to let them knock him out for an unknown amount of time only to wake up in a hospital of all places. Thankfully, before Hitoshi had to resort to desperate measures such as running away after breaking a window to escape, Hizashi actually came up with a good idea that involved getting help without doctors and a hospital. 

“You know, if you think about it, Recovery Girl has probably dealt with way worse than this, right?” Hitoshi looked to Shouta, who was sitting next to him on the couch and carefully watching Hizashi, who was pacing back and forth while talking on the phone quietly. “I mean she deals with Midoriya on a daily basis.” 

“She’s been the nurse at a school for heroes for almost as long as the school has been open,” Shouta snorted, looking to Hitoshi before combing through his hair softly. “We might not know what this is, but she’s definitely seen worse.” 

As always the gentle touch had Hitoshi relaxing slowly, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he focused on the two bundles of purring warmth in his lap and by his side, Shouta’s soft breathing and half-humming noise, and Hizashi’s soft, worried voice. They were, more than anything else, reminders that he was going to be alright. 

At least, they were supposed to be that until Hitoshi snapped his eyes open at Hizashi’s shaking sigh and soft, “Alright. I understand. We’ll see you when you return. Thank you.” 

Shouta seemed to have noticed the change in tone as well, sitting up straight and half-rising from the couch. “Hizashi?”

There was a long moment where Hizashi stared at both of them, Hitoshi feeling anxiety and stress bubble up in his stomach before the man gave a defeated groan and yeah, no, that really wasn’t good. 

“Recovery Girl is out of the country for another week.” Ah… Hitoshi barely had time to nod before he glanced to his dads. The panic was almost visible. “She said she’d be happy to look at him when she gets back, but next Saturday is the earliest she can get here.”

“It’s Friday.” Okay. Shouta stating the obvious. That meant the situation was about to rapidly devolve and spiral into the two panicking at each other and then hovering over Hitoshi for hours, at the very least. While he usually didn’t hate that, it was more hovering than he wanted after everything that had been going on.

Hitoshi couldn’t help but remember the last time he had fainted during one of his and Shouta’s training sessions. The panic he could practically feel coming from them was near the same and he had no doubt it was going to get even worse before it was all over. Maybe he could just crawl back under his covers and sleep until the changes went away. It wasn’t the best plan, but it was a plan. Oh, maybe-

“We need to take him to a hospital.” Ah… so Hitoshi would have to disown Shouta as a father. That was going to be difficult, but he could manage it if he had to. “Hitoshi-”

“No way.” Hitoshi hadn’t even realized he had leaned away from Shouta until he realized his body was twisted away and Jelly, the purring ball of fluff, had turned into his shield. “There is no way I’m going to a hospital. It’s seven days! We can wait seven days until Recovery Girl gets back! I’m not in any pain-”

“You were glowing,” Hizashi interrupted, sounding as stressed as he looked. “Hitoshi, you were literally glowing in a way that looked like bioluminescence. Considering this is a new symptom that means parts of your body are changing again - your entire internal structure could be changing and we’d have no way of knowing! We need to get you to a hospital-”

“No way. Hospitals are not- I’m not- Ugh!” The only thing keeping Hitoshi from throwing his arms in the air to make his point was the fact that he didn’t want to drop Jelly, who had started pawing at his cheek. “I am not going to a hospital. Hospitals are where- They’re where bad things happen.” 

Hitoshi wanted nothing more than to stop seeing the looks his dads were giving him, but he didn’t dare close his eyes. He knew what he would see if he did and he had seen enough sterile walls, white coats, and pitying looks to last a lifetime. Besides, he didn’t need some stupid hospital when nothing was hurting.

“Look, I know you guys are worried, but I’m not going. Hospitals are for bad news and bad things and where people go to die and where you found out that they’re dead and I am not going.” Ah… he had said a little more than he meant to at the end, there.

There were seven beats of silence where Shouta and Hizashi shared a look before Hizashi sighed out a soft, quiet whisper of his name. There was enough pain and worry coating the words that Hitoshi almost apologized on reflex before he stopped himself just in time. The only thing apologizing would do was start another round of ‘reassure Hitoshi from his fucked up childhood.’ 

“I… I know you guys are worried about me, but I feel fine. I’m not hurting or anything and I know this is bad, but…” Hitoshi trailed off, looking between them before lowering his gaze to the cat. His fingers curled into the fur and pressed against soft skin that vibrated with loud purring, the sound and feeling giving him just a measure of calm. It was enough to center himself, at least. “I’ll be okay for another week.”

There was a moment where Hitoshi believed he won and the two were going to drop it before he felt the sigh Hizashi gave. “Sorry, ‘Toshi, but we agreed on three days and things are only progressing. I know you wanted to see Recovery Girl, but we need to get you to a hospital. Today.” 

Hitoshi knew he wasn’t the best with his feelings and expressing emotions, but he did nothing whatsoever to curb his glare as he snapped his head towards Hizashi, feeling a swell of rage and panic. He hated the fact he felt so angry, but he had told them that he didn’t want to go.

“No.” He knew the other two only cared for him and wanted to help, but taking him to a hospital wouldn’t help him. There was no way something like that would help him. It would only hurt. 

“Hitoshi.” Hizashi was frowning at him, arms crossed and looking disappointed - as if Hitoshi didn’t already feel guilty enough for what he was feeling. “This isn’t up for debate.” 

“No.” Hitoshi, for as much as he wanted to curl up and look away, didn’t. He sat and stared and met Hizashi’s gaze evenly, feeling that rage and panic swell and he didn’t want to go. He was not going.

“Kiddo-” Hizashi took a half-step forward and Hitoshi saw white walls and red-flecked skin and felt like something in him snapped.

“I’m not going!” The scream was loud, Hitoshi almost wanting to flinch back from the sound before he grit his teeth and stayed firm in the wake of the ensuing silence – silence that felt like it was sharp and cutting. Hitoshi wasn’t going to be the one to break it, though. 

He kept his gaze on Hizashi, watching as the man’s arms dropped limply to his side and he stared back… blankly. There was no emotion in his expression, there was no upset ranting, or quiet platitude, or soft reassurances, or anything. It was just blank as if someone had reached in and turned everything that made him Hizashi off. It was as if he was… 

Hitoshi moved fast enough that the cats scattered and hit the floor with annoyed yowls, Shouta saying something that Hitoshi couldn’t hear over the rush of pounding blood in his ears as he scrambled over the back of the couch and set his hands on Hizashi’s shoulders, giving him a light shake, “Pops?”

There was nothing. There was no movement, no sound, no acknowledgement, and nothing else. There was just a stillness that Hitoshi had only ever seen after he had… brainwashed someone.

“Stop- If this is you trying to prove a point then fine, point proven, I���ll go to the hospital!” Because the fear he had felt before was nothing to what he felt now. “Just- Stop it. Stop it- Dad-!” 

Hizashi wasn’t moving. Hizashi wasn’t moving because Hitoshi had brainwashed him. Hizashi wasn’t moving and Hitoshi had managed to brainwash him without asking a question. He had just… done it. He had used his quirk by just talking. He… he… 

“Hitoshi.” Shouta’s voice, calm and layered with authority, had Hitoshi snapping his gaze over before he saw bright red eyes looking into his own. Hardly a moment passed before Hitoshi felt like a thread that had been tied to him had been cut, Hizashi stumbling out of the corner of his eye before catching himself with a surprised expression.

Hitoshi wasn’t much better himself, almost certain that Shouta’s grip on his shoulders was the only thing keeping him from falling over himself. “Sorry- Sorry, sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry- I didn’t mean to I just-”

He wasn’t even able to finish a sentence before Hizashi’s arms were wrapped around him, the man hugging him tightly and firmly rubbing at his back with a soft, calm voice, “Easy, ‘Toshi, easy, it’s okay. I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me, okay? I’m fine. I’m right here, I’m in control, and everything is okay.” 

The calming words and touch worked as they always had, Hitoshi slowly feeling himself calm down as he tried not to shiver between the two. The fear didn’t completely leave, however, not when he realized what he had just done. 

“I…” Hitoshi swallowed, forcing himself to look between their concerned faces. “I just used my quirk on you. Without a question. Without a response.” He had just used his quirk by just talking. He… “This is-”

“A good thing.” Startling at Shouta’s words, Hitoshi stared at him with wide eyes because how could this be a good thing? “Hitoshi. You were just able to use your quirk in a way that you previously weren’t able to - and this is after the changes your body has been going through. This is good.”

“How- How is this-” Voice dying out before he could finish the question, Hitoshi closed his eyes and took a steady breath, focusing on Hizashi’s soft touch and Shouta’s gentle take your time. Hitoshi was sure that if this had happened around anyone else then he wouldn’t so much as be speaking. Finally, though, he managed a soft, “How is this a good thing?”

Hizashi squeezed his shoulders, giving him a nudge before smiling as their eyes met, “This is a good thing because if it’s affecting your quirk to where it’s stronger, then it means that all of these changes were caused by you.” 

“By me?” The question was out before he could think to worry, Hitoshi too surprised as he looked between the two men. He knew quirks could do some pretty incredible things, but his quirk was a mental quirk. Getting stronger was one thing - plus ultra and all of that - but his body changing, too? “How is that possible? My quirk…?”

“It’s mutating.” Hizashi looked thrilled, but Hitoshi looked to Shouta because that seemed to be a very bad thing. “This is incredible! The odds of a mutating quirk are exceedingly rare and usually only happen at birth, but there are remote cases of it happening during puberty! There are one or two adult cases, but those have always been caused by outside factors, of course, but a randomly and naturally mutating quirk! Oh, this is so exciting! I wonder if the physical changes are reflecting the quirk of someone else in your birth family…”

Watching Hizashi pace, ramble, mutter, and trail off into what sounded like statistical probabilities, Hitoshi looked to Shouta. It was an effort not to laugh at the man’s fond and amused expression. He settled for asking a simple, “Why do people think he’s an idiot?”

“Because he’s loud and isn’t afraid to argue,” Shouta shrugged. “He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to quirks, though. Half of his shows are about quirk statistics and quirk-related facts, after all.” 

“So all of this… The rash, the ears, the allergy even. It’s just my quirk?” Hitoshi looked down at his hands, frowning at the swirls of color. “And what he was saying about the physical changes, it could just be… what? Me mirroring a weird quirk one of my grandparents or something had?” 

“Possibly,” Shouta nodded, giving him an odd, searching look for a moment. “I could try to look into your records and see if I can’t find out the quirks of your immediate family…?”

Hitoshi thought about it, finally grinning as he leaned against Shouta and almost laughed when the man was caught off guard for a moment. “Birth family, you mean, since you guys are my immediate family now.” Heh. It was good to win. “And… yeah. I think that’d probably be good. But, uh, this means I don’t have to go to the hospital. Right?” 

Shouta did nothing to hide his laugh, winding an arm around him and pulling him in for a tight, one-armed hug. “Yeah, kid. No hospital - but you’re still going to Recovery Girl next week as soon as she’s back.” 

“Sure.” Recovery Girl would know how to deal with a mutating quirk, after all. “This is good, though, right?” Hitoshi grinned at Shouta and then looked back to Hizashi, who had finally stopped his pacing and mumbling. “Like, okay, yeah, kind of serious, but, I mean, you guys teach at a school that’s all about quirks and quirk development. I’m in the best place for a sudden quirk mutation.” 

“Exactly! This is something we can finally deal with and handle,” Hizashi said, coming over to pull Hitoshi into a tight hug. “You’ll be fine, ‘Toshi.”

“I know.” Besides, how bad could a sudden quirk mutation really be? At most Hitoshi’s quirk would get stronger as all the weird physical changes settled down. 

That was what he had thought, at least.

Hitoshi had thought that his quirk mutation would just mean he could brainwash people without asking questions anymore, but it turned out that a quirk mutation meant a quirk mutation. He had heard stories about kids who had been born with mutated quirks, sure, but he hadn’t really put much thought into what that meant. 

So, yeah, he could brainwash people without asking questions anymore. That in itself was something incredible that opened up a whole new avenue of options for fighting, but there were other things. Other things like the fact he could hear people’s thoughts. 

“‘Toshi?” Twitching at Hizashi’s voice, Hitoshi slowly and carefully looked up to see the man giving him an odd look. “Hey there, kiddo. Are you… alright?” 

“He means why are you collapsed in the doorway and clutching the mail like your threatened firstborn,” Shouta called as he walked past them and towards the kitchen. He then stopped, backtracked, and narrowed his eyes at Hitoshi. “What-”

“I can hear people’s thoughts.” The two stared at him and Hitoshi stared back, clutching onto the mail tightly because, look. He had gone out to get the mail. That was his thing. He picked up the mail, set it on the counter, and then ate breakfast. That was how it went. Except, apparently, this time he had heard his neighbor’s thoughts. 

Hitoshi watched as Hizashi and Shouta shared a look, Hizashi opening his mouth to say something before Hitoshi shook his head, “No, this isn’t like- This isn’t I’ve gone crazy and I think I’m hearing people’s thoughts, this is- I just heard Suchimogo-san when he was getting his own mail and he-” Cutting himself off, Hitoshi looked at them pathetically. “He was thinking about his wife. And I mean he was… he was really deeply thinking about her.”

Hizashi frowned, crossing his arms with a soft, “What do you-” He then paused, blinked, and immediately paled and thank you. Now Hitoshi wasn’t alone, at least, in suffering through those mental images. “Ah. I see how that- Yeah. Oh, jeez. Your quirk…?”

“Probably,” Hitoshi muttered, hands twitching on the mail as Shouta walked over to him and kneeled down. “Uh… hi?”

“Hi,” Shouta smirked, amusement falling after a moment as he studied Hitoshi. “Can you still hear his thoughts? Or was it just when you were looking at him? Eye contact?”

“Oh, uh…” Hitoshi frowned for a moment, slowly relaxing as he analyzed what had happened and that he could do, at least, without thinking about those thoughts he had heard. “No eye contact, but it lasted for as I looked at him. As soon as I turned away and went inside the connection ended.” 

“I thought this might happen,” Hizashi sighed, walking over to them and bending down to gently help Hitoshi to his feet. The hug he pulled him into wasn’t so bad, either. “Your quirk is the type that’s always ‘on’ and looking for a connection, right? It makes sense that the strength of that connection has grown. Have you ever heard anyone’s thoughts with your quirk before?”

“I… think I have, actually.” Hitoshi didn’t usually really think on how it felt when he had someone under his control, but there were times when it felt like he could hear or feel something. “Nothing as clear as what just happened, but it was like… I could pick up on what they were feeling, I think.”

“Sounds like your quirk expanded to include the abilities of a telepath,” Shouta said with a light hum, tilting Hitoshi’s head up and looking him over for a second. “Can you read our thoughts right now?”

“Oh, uh… no, actually. I mean, Suchimogo-san’s thoughts were really loud and felt like he was talking, but, uh, I haven’t heard anything from you guys, actually.” Which was a relief. The last thing he wanted to hear was his dads’ sappy thoughts towards each other first thing in the morning.

“Well, no time like the present to give it a try!” Hizashi chirped, Hitoshi wondering if he could run. The arm Hizashi had around him tightened before he could try, Hitoshi huffing as he slumped back into the hold. 

“Thought I was supposed to be the mind reader now,” he grumbled, looking to Hizashi and staring at him. Hizashi gave a cheerful and encouraging smile and Hitoshi only frowned when he heard nothing but silence. 

It wasn’t that he wasn’t trying either. Hitoshi had immediately reached out with his quirk like he would when trying to use it on someone, although without the mental image of latching on that usually meant he had brainwashed someone. It felt like he should be able to hear Hizashi’s thoughts, but there was just… silence. 

Switching to Shouta, Hitoshi stared at him, repeating the same mental images and motions before jumping as he suddenly felt fond and amused and wary and curious and concerned and- 

“You’re so emotional,” Hitoshi groaned, rubbing at his head as a shock of surprise ran through him that wasn’t his own, Hitoshi quickly looking away from Shouta and shutting his eyes. “Jesus, Dad, you’re supposed to be the quiet one.” 

“You heard his thoughts?” Hizashi asked, tugging on Hitoshi’s shirt. “Hey, you okay? Headache? Nausea?” 

“No, just… feels weird,” Hitoshi muttered, shaking his head as he cracked his eyes open. “I dunno. I couldn’t hear thoughts from either of you, you were like… a blank wall so I looked at Dad. There weren’t any thoughts or words or anything, but there were just emotions.”

It was hardly a second before Hizashi was bursting into laughter, Hitoshi looking at him and then back to Shouta who was looking far less amused. “No, no, it’s just- Everyone we’ve known has always complained about what an ‘unfeeling bastard’ Shouta is and now- This is great.”

“For you, maybe,” Hitoshi grumbled, looking back to Shouta warily and careful to keep his quirk to himself. “If you kill him I’ll pretend I don’t know anything. He probably deserves it.”

“I’ll wait until the next major villain attack,” Shouta snorted, jabbing at Hizashi’s side and smirking at the yelp of pain. “Easier to hide.”

“You’re so mean,” Hizashi ‘complained,’ Hitoshi taking a moment to be thankful he couldn’t hear their thoughts. He had a feeling they would be either stupidly mushy, or… not. That was knowledge he didn’t need or want. 

“So!” Hitoshi grabbed their attention before they could start flirting. “I guess this means more training, huh?” Because the last thing he wanted was to hear his classmates’ thoughts on who liked who. 

Shouta and Hizashi shared a look, and, yeah. That definitely meant more training. That was good, though. Training, at least, meant he could do something about the changes that were happening to him. 

It was when it came to the changes that he couldn’t do anything about that scared him - such as feeling like if either of his dads left the house then something bad would happen.

“Are you sure you have to leave? I mean, Pops, really, you own the radio station, don’t you? You can just make someone else do the show!” 

It had been two days since Hitoshi’s new telepathic abilities and, while he had started learning how to avoid looking at people until he could block the thoughts out completely, he had noticed his anxieties had gone up. It was the biggest reason as to why he was trying to convince Hizashi to stay with a near pleading, “You should just stay home. And not leave.”

“‘Toshi,” Hizashi sighed, and, alright. Hitoshi felt a little bad for how torn up Hizashi looked over denying him. “Usually I would at least try, kiddo, but this is one of the days where I have to be there. It’ll only be for a few hours, though! And Shouta will be back even quicker!”

“Dad’s going somewhere? He’s leaving? Why? What’s happening?” It felt like being punched with his anxiety, Hitoshi quickly whirling around and looking towards the hallway Shouta had just come out of. “Where are you going? Why are you going?” 

Shouta blinked at him with what looked like a blank, neutral expression, but Hitoshi could feel the worry simmering under the surface. “My agency and then the police station,” Shouta finally replied. “I have to deal with a few files and reports - ones I need to legally sign in person.”

“So you’re both going to be gone. Right. Okay. That’s fine.” Hitoshi was about to freak out- Scratch that. He was freaking out. “Or you could just maybe stay home sick and claim you have a cold? I mean, haven’t we all done that at one point or another? Right?”

“‘Toshi?” Hitoshi felt Hizashi’s hands gently rest on his shoulders, tugging his attention towards him. “Hey, kiddo, what’s wrong. Did something else change? Any pain?” 

“No- No. I’m not hurt. I just feel…” He felt like if Shouta and Hizashi left the house without him then they wouldn’t come back. Which was ridiculous. Hitoshi was home at their house, of course they would come back. But what if a villain attack finally did them in? What if a train crashed and crushed them? What if- “Worried. I feel a little worried, is all. Guess I just got used to you guys being here.” 

Hizashi didn’t seem to fully buy it, but he dropped it with a soft sigh and a squeeze to his shoulders. “Tell you what, why don’t you text us whenever you start feeling… worried, and we’ll do our best to respond to you right away. Does that sound alright?”

“I…” Actually, that wasn’t a bad solution. He was still scared shitless at the idea of the two leaving the house, but seeing texts from them? That was good. It meant they were okay enough to talk to him and not actively dying. “Yeah. Yeah, I, uh… I’d like that if you don’t mind or anything.”

“We don’t mind,” Shouta said, walking up to ruffle his hair. “I should be home in two hours or less, and Hizashi should be back within… five?”

“Six at the most if anything goes wrong,” Hizashi snorted, rolling his eyes. “I’ll try to be home in four or five, but it’ll definitely be before six hours have passed. Sound good, ‘Toshi?”

“Yeah,” Hitoshi sighed softly, rubbing at the back of his neck as he felt some of his fear-filled tension finally leave. “Yeah, that sounds good.” 

While he hadn’t minded the new quirk abilities, a change like freaking out over his parents - who were pro heroes - suddenly leaving him alone was… new. Hitoshi found he didn’t much like it, either. 

His suffering was made even worse when, by the time the both of them were home and they had eaten dinner, Hitoshi found his gums itching. It would have been fine if it were just another short allergic reaction or his toothpaste finally turning against him, but it never stopped. 

“End my suffering,” Hitoshi groaned, pushing to be loud and dramatic because there was no other way to deal with the fact he had a frozen teething ring in his mouth. “Please. I’ll never live this down when people find out.”

“What makes you think people will find out?” Shouta glanced up from the book he was reading on the couch next to where Hitoshi had collapsed. Hitoshi, for his part, merely looked at Hizashi who ran social media pages with millions of viewers. “Ah.”

Groaning again and rolling himself over onto his back, Hitoshi took the teething ring out and glared it. It was yellow with ducks on it. He hated it. “Hey,” Hitoshi said, looking up at Shouta. “What does itchy gums have to do with quirk mutations?”

Shouta sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and, huh. He looked more sleep deprived than normal. Hitoshi would have to convince Hizashi to dose the man’s next meal with sleeping pills. For now he wiggled his way up to be sitting before collapsing against Shouta’s shoulder, grinning at the snort of laughter. 

“We’re not sure if this is to do with your quirk,” Shouta finally said, slumping so Hitoshi was more comfortable. It made him as gleeful as it did every time before, Hitoshi hiding his reaction by shoving the stupid teething ring back into his mouth. He hated that it actually helped. “It could be something to do with your recent sodium allergy.”

“It could be more than just sodium you’re allergic to,” Hizashi pipped in, legs thrown across the armchair he was collapsed in as he stared down at his phone. Hitoshi bet he was either on social media or reading complex medical articles that made no sense. “Quirk mutations can mess with the other parts of the body. Our bodies are a complex system, yo, so it’s possible your mutation affected you by giving you food allergies-”

“Allergies? As in plural?” Hitoshi whined, slumping back down against Shouta and looking up at him pathetically. “How do parents deal with this? We’re already in a nightmare and most quirks develop at age four. How do they cope?” 

Great. Shouta and Hizashi were laughing at him. He was so glad his suffering was a source of amusement for them. Hitoshi groaned and slumped more against Shouta, peeking down at the book he had been reading for the last hour. “Hey,” Hitoshi nudged at him. “What are you reading?”

Shouta blinked at him before flipping the book so he could read the title. It was tempting to grab the book and just toss it out the window considering the title was Quisquous Quirks and You. Considering the bright color that he hadn’t noticed on any of the bookshelves in the house, Hitoshi looked up at him with a judging look, “Did you buy that when you went out the other day?”

“No.” Shouta stared at him evenly, but Hitoshi could feel his embarrassment. It was kind of funny as much as it was horrible. It was mostly horrible because his dad was buying parenting books to try and cope with his quirk.

“Dad,” Hitoshi said as sternly as he could. “I’m basically a human lie detector at this point with the whole thought thing. Seriously, is that like a self-help book for when your kid gets their quirk?”

Hizashi snorted, looking up at them with a grin, “Look at this way, ‘Toshi, at least you’re old enough to practice your quirk in a logical way.” Hizashi only grinned wider at Shouta’s glare at him. 

“I’m not worried about your developing quirk,” Shouta sighed at last. “I’m more worried about how long it’s taking your quirk to stop changing. Hizashi?”

As always, Hizashi seemed to read Shouta’s mind before he could voice the question. It was as cool as it was creepy. “Sorry, Sho, everything I’m finding is saying case dependent. It could last a few days to a few weeks. One case lasted a couple months-”

“Months?!” Hitoshi looked at them with wide eyes, feeling hopeless even as Shouta shifted so Hitoshi could dramatically collapse over his lap. “I’m not sure how many more changes I can take.” Which, while even he could admit sounded a little dramatic… it wasn’t wrong.

Shouta shifted before Hitoshi felt a blanket thrown over him, a hand that felt like Hizashi’s ruffling his hair softly as he cooed a soft, “Easy, ‘Toshi. We’ll figure this out soon, alright? It’ll be okay.”

Yeah. That would have been great if Hitoshi didn’t peek up and feel Shouta’s worry and fear wash against him.

The itchy gums went away, at least, after a couple more days, but that was mostly due to the fact it had been followed by a second set of teeth.

“Right.” The word was half slurred and awkward in his mouth, Hitoshi trying not to bite his tongue as he stared at himself in the mirror. There were definitely two sets of teeth and they all seemed sharper. He looked like that weird rock kid in Shouta’s class who had a hardening quirk. “Okay.”

Two sets of teeth. Right. Two sets of very sharp teeth in his mouth where before there had only been human teeth. That was fine, though. That was something Hitoshi could have probably eventually come to accept and deal with. It was the teeth with his eyes, however, that threw him off. His eyes which were bright red as always but had concentric circles. His eyes looked eerily like Hizashi’s, all-in-all.

Nodding in the mirror one more time, looking at his teeth again and then his eyes, Hitoshi raised his voice as loud as he could handle, shouting out a loud, “Dad! Pops!” 

Unlike the first morning where it had taken a few minutes, Hizashi and Shouta were already in the hall and at the door in a few seconds, both looking battle ready. Hitoshi merely stared at them, waiting for one of them to notice his eyes, first. That, at least, would soften them up for what else had changed. 

Surprisingly, Shouta was the first to notice, looking at Hitoshi, then at Hizashi, and then back to Hitoshi. “Your eyes…”

“Yup,” Hitoshi sighed, shoulders slumping. “That’s not all, either.” With that, he opened his mouth enough that they could see the two sets of teeth. Shouta stared before slowly nodding, Hizashi merely falling back to lean against the wall with a tired groan that was probably to try and hide his worry and fear. 

“Right,” Shouta said after a long few seconds of silence, standing up straighter. “Right. Okay.” Huh. So Hitoshi had picked that up from Shouta, then. “Recovery Girl should be at her office soon. If we leave now then we can meet her once she arrives.” 

“It’s definitely more than a quirk mutation,” Hizashi finally said, pushing himself back up and looking at Hitoshi before drawing him into a tight hug. “But that’s fine! You’ll be perfectly okay once we get to Recovery Girl, kiddo!” 

The words rubbed against his skin like chips of wood pressing in and pushing under, Hitoshi shuddering and squirming at the sensation. He noticed the odd looks from both of them, but even then it took a few moments before he could find his words, unsure of what to even say before he settled with, “There’s another change, too.” 

Hitoshi swallowed, silent even as he felt their attention fully and completely on him. After a long moment, he pulled back and looked between them. Finally, hesitantly, he mumbled a quiet, “I can tell when you’re lying.”

In the end it took twenty minutes of reckless driving before they were at U.A. and inside Recovery Girl’s office at an empty school - which was creepy all on its own.

Hitoshi, from where he had been pushed onto a bed and given a cup of ice chips to munch on due to his still swollen gums, looked at his dads. While Recovery Girl was gathering what she needed, both equipment and files, Hizashi was pacing across the room while Shouta leaned against a wall silently and blankly. Their fear and worry were almost overwhelming, especially since Hitoshi could feel even Hizashi’s fear and worry. 

They needed a distraction, obviously. It didn’t take long to think of the perfect one, Hitoshi swallowing his ice chips and speaking up, “You know, the whole eye change is at least pretty cool. Didn’t even mess with my vision.” 

Hizashi and Shouta both snapped their attention towards him, Shouta raising an eyebrow while Hizashi looked caught off guard before frowning. “Your eyes shouldn’t be changing at all ‘Toshi, especially in a way that’s unexpected like this.”

“Well, yeah, but now I look more like you.” The embarrassment it took to say the words was worth the way Hizashi immediately blushed and fumbled with his words while Shouta burst into laughter. 

“What’s the matter, Sunshine?” Shouta teased, still absolutely delighted as Hizashi scoffed at him. “You can give it, but you can’t take it?”

Hizashi opened his mouth and Hitoshi immediately, reflexively, snapped out a, “Please don’t.” When they both looked at him, Hitoshi shook his head, “Pops. I listen to your radio show and follow your accounts. I know exactly what kind of comment you’re about to make and, I’m literally begging you, please don’t.”

Hizashi made some strangled scoffing noise as he flushed bright red – without denying Hitoshi’s claim – while Shouta laughed even louder than before.

The moment didn’t last long before Recovery Girl was coming back in and bringing all the tension with her. She at least smiled at him and didn’t seem ready to scold him, thankfully. “I have to say, I didn’t miss having both of these two in here at the same time.”

“We were never that bad, Chiyo-san,” Hizashi frowned, red slowly fading from his cheeks while Shouta raised his eyebrows beside him. “At least, I wasn’t as bad as someone who broke an arm and then finished the rest of the sparring match before telling anyone.”

“Oh, yeah, this coming from the one who went mute during training and then didn’t tell anyone for three days.”

Hitoshi, who had been happily and eagerly listening to their embarrassing school stories, frowned at that one. He couldn’t help but to ask, “Why did it take three days? He can’t go a few minutes without talking.”

Hizashi gave him a glare that was more amused than upset, Shouta rolling his eyes, “He wrote down that he was doing a quirk experiment, and, considering how weird he is, we all bought it.”

“Dear me they never change,” Recovery Girl sighed, turning back to Hitoshi with a smile that proved she was used to dealing with scared and hurt kids. She then proved how evil she could be when she looked directly at him and said, “Alright, would you prefer I refer to you as Aizawa or Yamada?”

It was a question that really shouldn’t have taken him as off guard as it did, but he could feel the warmth and embarrassment fighting in his chest. He also felt a burst of delight from Shouta and saw teary eyes from Hizashi. “E- Either is fine, ma’am,” he finally managed after a rough cough to clear his throat. 

“Alright, Aizawa-Yamada.” He was going to die. He was going to die from a mix of embarrassment and delight and his dads would be forced to bury him. “When was the last time you went to a hospital or were seen by a doctor?” Ah… there went the good mood.

“I, um… I’ve never actually been to a doctor as far as I can remember…” There was a surprised noise from one of his dads, Hitoshi only focusing on Recovery Girl’s encouraging nod and the steady way she took notes. “I was… I was at a hospital once, when my, um, when… when my birth family died in a villain attack. I wasn’t hurt, or anything, so I never saw a doctor when I was there.”

Recovery Girl gave a soft hum and Hitoshi looked to where Shouta and Hizashi had looks on their faces. It was equal parts devastation, protective fury, and a million other things. The looks definitely meant that there were to be emotional talks later. It was as reassuring a realization as it was awful. 

Thankfully, Hitoshi was quickly distracted as Recovery Girl checked his vitals and whatever else she was doing, writing things down, measuring his vitals, and finally ending with a cheerful enough smile. “Well, I believe I’ve seen enough, here.” Recovery Girl patted his knee, Hitoshi feeling a swell of hope before she said a simple, “Your only problem is that you’re not human.”

Hitoshi, who had been ready to hear any number of things, slumped back with a frown because, well. He didn’t have a clever retort for that one. It wasn’t an insult, at least it didn’t sound like she was insulting him, but she also wasn’t lying, but what did she mean he wasn’t human?!

Was he dying or something? Was he sick? Was this some kind of outside quirk effect that was fucking him up? Was there another way to be not human and still be human? Was this just a riddle? Oh, god, he was not awake enough to deal with mind riddles. It had to mean something about his quirk going crazy, though.

Hizashi and Shouta probably knew what she meant- Nope, no, they did not. “I’m sorry, Chiyo-san, but what did you just say about my kid?” The tone was as cold as Shouta’s emotions, and oh, jeez. 

“Did you just call our kid not human?!” And there was Hizashi, his voice a presence in of itself. “How dare you-!”

It was kind of flattering, Hitoshi supposed, that they were so offended on his behalf, but, well. He was pretty sure Recovery Girl hadn’t meant her comment in an insulting way. It was still confusing him, but she hadn’t felt mean about it and- Ah. He was right.

Recovery Girl had calmly walked over and smacked both of them with her walking-stick-slash-giant-hopefully-fake-needle. It was delightful to watch, and Hitoshi did his best not to laugh as he watched Recovery Girl chew them out, “Shut up! Honestly, you’re both still such children. You should know very well that is not what I meant because you’re supposed to be pros for God’s sake. Now start acting like it and pull yourselves together!” 

Silence followed her scolding, all of them quiet before Hitoshi cleared his throat loud enough to get their attention. He then completely betrayed them with a simple, “Recovery Girl is now one of my favorite heroes.” The scoff and whine made the situation seem a bit less like he had fallen into a bad nightmare. 

Recovery Girl, on her part, only sighed and dug around her desk before giving Hitoshi a handful of gummies, and, alright. That was something, then. They at least tasted good, even if it felt like he was eating batteries with how energizing they were. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this myself, but colleagues of mine have, and there’s been similar cases that have cropped up over the years. I’m certain that if I were to do a complete physical there would be differences that would make my assessment very, very clear.”

Almost choking on a gummy, Hitoshi rushed to speak, “Wait- Wait, you mean, like- I’m actually not human and that wasn’t just some turn of phrase or riddle- Like seriously not human?” No one was laughing or rushing to explain and suddenly the gummies felt like lead weights he had choked down. “But I’m- I mean- I have birth records and everything there’s no way- What?!”

Recovery Girl was silent, handing over a bundle of papers to Hizashi with a quiet, “These are all my notes on this matter that might help. There’s not much I can do myself as nothing seems damaged. These changes are natural, though, and they will continue until they’re done. I’m afraid that’s all there is to it.”

Hitoshi wasn’t sure if his dads were talking or not, all he could hear was blood rushing in his ears because… she was serious. She was actually serious. He wasn’t- It had to be impossible- He had been human for years! He was human! There was no way he just suddenly became not human. But… all the changes he had been going through…  

“But if I’m…” Hitoshi swallowed around a dry throat, his eyes wide as all three of the adults looked at him. “If I’m not human then what am I?”

He wasn’t given an answer. 

In fact, Hitoshi wasn’t even sure if anything was said after that. One moment he was in shock on the flimsy bed in Recovery Girl’s office and the next he was stumbling into his room and locking the door before crawling into his nest of blankets and pillows.

He felt numb, that was for damn sure. Numb and- And- He didn’t even know. Because a professional, a medical professional, just told him in all seriousness that he wasn’t human. If he wasn’t human then who - what - was he? 

Were… were Hizashi and Shouta going to get rid of him? It wasn’t like they had set out to adopt a teenager before Hitoshi had barged his way into their life, after all. It was one thing to adopt a traumatized teenager, but something that wasn’t human? That… That was too much to expect even them to deal with, right? 

He- Hitoshi would lose this. The safe feeling of being home with parents, the content softness of being curled up in somewhere warm with plenty of blankets, the knowledge that he was safe- He would lose it. 

Shouta and Hizashi were sweet, and kind, and loving, but they could only deal with so much. This had to be over the line. It was way over the line. This would probably be Hitoshi’s last night in a room that belonged to him and only him before he… left. Left. Given up. Kicked out. Traded off. It was all the same thing, in the end, wasn’t it?

He wasn’t human. He wasn’t human and no one had an answer to what he was - no one had even a guess. 

God. He half-wished he could go back to when the only thing to worry about was his quirk getting him labeled as a villain. Instead he was… this. He was different, and a freak, and in pain, and suffering and- 

Well. 

Same old story, he guessed.

⁂

As a pro hero, teacher, and late night radio DJ, Hizashi was well used to sleepless nights that ended in only an hour or two of sleep - if it was even that much. He had long since mastered how to work around his sleep schedule to accommodate his jobs and the work that went into them. He had spent years doing it and had it near perfected, so why, after a full night of lying in bed and waiting for sleep to come, did he feel so tired? 

It wasn’t a lack of sleep tired. No, those he knew intimately. It wasn’t a tired that came from the healing of broken bones, either. This was a bone deep tired that he had felt only a few times in his life, emotions building up and thoughts racing so fast that it felt like his mind was screaming as loud as his voice when using his quirk. 

It was a tired that had him staring listlessly at the wall, his hearing aids and glasses never having left his face, as sunlight filled up the room slowly, eyes itching and aching enough to make him feel even more sympathy for his husband. After all, it wasn’t hard to tell that the man curled up to him and resting in his arms was just as awake as he was. 

Shouta finally shifted, looking towards their open bedroom door. From the angle their bed was at, they could see the closed door of their son’s room. It hadn’t opened since yesterday afternoon after their visit to Recovery Girl. 

Finally, after hours of silence, Hizashi risked a soft sigh, tucking his face against Shouta’s hair. “We really dropped the ball on this one, didn’t we?” It had just started with what they thought was a rash, but then… 

“I think that’s putting it lightly,” Shouta mumbled back, turning in his arms before he had Hizashi tucked under his chin. “You read all of the research she gave us.” It wasn’t a question - not that Hizashi expected it to be one.

“Every word.” Hizashi sighed, his breath no doubt rushing across Shouta’s neck and causing him to squirm. It was enough of a reaction that it had him smiling just for a moment. “It ranged from other dimensional being to alien to straight up E.T., which I thought was just poor note taking, honestly.”

There was a stretch of silence before Shouta twitched against him, Hizashi pulling back to look up in worry before seeing the narrow-eyed look on his face. “Shouta? You alright?”

“Dad.” Dad? What- Oh! Wait. What did he have to do with any of this? “He was suspicious after I told him we were adopting Hitoshi, do you remember?”

“Shou-chan,” Hizashi sighed, shifting to pull Shouta closer to deliver a soft kiss to his cheek. “No offense, but he always acts suspicious.”

Shouta didn’t seem to hear him, only continuing to grumble. “If he had any idea this was going to happen before he left the country I’ll-”

“Pout at him for a couple hours until he apologizes and explains his reasoning?” Hizashi guessed, laughing at Shouta’s very clear pout. Watching Shouta get ready to argue, the next sound to fill the air was not a rebuttal, but a cry of pain. 

Hizashi wasn’t sure if he blacked out or just didn’t pay attention, but between one second and the next he was at Hitoshi’s door, jiggling the handle because their wonderful, scared, paranoid son had locked it. “‘Toshi! Can you open the door for us! What happened!”

It was too long - it was an eternity - before Hizashi heard Hitoshi’s wavering voice. “I’m fine. I just tripped over something, is all.” It was a bullshit answer and Hizashi knew that their kid knew that.

“Hitoshi?” Shouta moved forward, giving a soft knock on the door to accompany his soft tone. “Can you open the door for us, please?” 

“I’m fine, Sensei.” It wasn’t the tone of voice that had Shouta flinching back into Hizashi’s side, but the fact he had used sensei. God, Hizashi had gotten so used to him calling them Dad and Pops that he had forgotten what Hitoshi used to call Shouta. 

Before either of them could think of what to say to something like that, they heard a whimper of pain from behind the door. Hitoshi didn’t even get to finish lying about how he was fine before Hizashi was kicking the door open and breaking the lock. Shouta was rushing in right after him and straight to their kid, who was collapsed on the floor and bent double with things coming out of his back. 

“I told you I’m fine,” Hitoshi snapped, gaze full of pain and anguish as much as his body language screamed pain and hurt. Shouta was at his side in a second, hands hovering over him but not sure if his touch was welcome, no doubt. “I’m just packing all my things up now.”

“Packing?” Hizashi startled, looking around the room to see most of Hitoshi’s old possessions, the ones he had originally come to them with, were being packed away into a backpack and battered old suitcase. “‘Toshi, why are you packing your things up?”

Hitoshi gave a snort of laughter, a sharp bitter sound that had parental terror crawling up his throat. “I’m not stupid, Mic-san.” The impersonal title had Hizashi flinching, feeling as if his heart was being clawed out of him. It was probably the same feeling Shouta had felt. “I know how this works.”

“How what works?” Shouta asked softly, careful as he finally threaded his fingers through Hitoshi’s hair. “What are you doing, Hitoshi?” It seemed like the careful brushing of his hair was what did it, Hitoshi jerking away from his grip and turning to scream at them.

“For when you kick me out!” The words shot around the room like bullets, but Hitoshi didn’t seem to notice or care, only screaming out louder. “I know how this works! You feel sorry for me or think I’m pathetic or want to look good for taking in the kid with the villain’s quirk, but then it gets to be too much work! 

“And this?” Hitoshi violently gestured to himself. “This isn’t some quirk! I’m probably just some fucked up experiment that my ‘parents’ took in out of pity before getting themselves killed! So yeah, I know how this works.” Bitterness and anger and terror coated his words. “You’re going to sit me down and tell me that I’ll be better off somewhere else, that there’s the perfect family out there for me, but you’re not it. You’ll tell me that I just have to wait, and be patient, and it’ll all work out before kicking me to the curb. I know how this works.”

Left panting and shaking in the silence, tears streaming down his cheeks, Hitoshi roughly scrubbed them off before looking up to them. His voice was wrecked and cracked when he finally asked a quiet, “So. When do you want me out of here?”

For one of the few times in his life, Hizashi was utterly, absolutely, completely speechless in the wake of his failure- Because he had to have failed. If their son thought they were going to get rid of him instead of helping him through what was happening, then he had definitely failed. 

Slowly sinking down to the floor, Hizashi felt like he could start crying himself because how had this gotten so far? In one night Hitoshi had convinced himself that not only was he some monster, but that they were going to get rid of him because of it. 

Shouta, however, for one of the few times in his life, didn’t look like he was going to sit aside and think on how they should proceed logically. Instead Hizashi watched as Shouta steadied with determination, dragging a fussing and squirming Hitoshi in his lap before holding him still by his cheeks. “Hitoshi. You told us you can sense when we’re lying.”

“I- Yeah?” Hitoshi tried to lean away, looking frantic while Hizashi only sucked in an unsteady breath because… Hitoshi could sense when they were lying. “What does that have to do with-”

“We do not feel sorry for you or think you’re pathetic,” Shouta said firmly, Hitoshi finally going still in his grip. “You are a good person who is going to become someone incredible because all you want to do is help people, even if others don’t realize it.”

Finally moving forward, Hizashi settled beside them, clasping one of Hitoshi’s hands in both his own, waiting until their son looked at him. “Your quirk is not a villain’s quirk, ‘Toshi. It is a quirk, your quirk, that you’ve made into a hero’s quirk.”

“You are not a fucked up experiment, either,” Shouta continued, Hizashi squeezing Hitoshi’s hand gently when he saw more tears fill the boy’s eyes. “This changes things, but it doesn’t change the fact that you are our son. You think we’d ever be selfless enough to give you up? You are our son, and you’ve done enough waiting to finally have people who actually care about you.” 

Hizashi made a soft noise, tears streaming down Hitoshi’s cheeks. “‘Toshi,” Hizashi called softly. “You’re still our son. You’re still ours. No matter how this ends or what else changes, we’re your family. We love you and we aren’t letting you go. Even if you never call us those wonderful names again, we’ll still always be your Dad and Pops. Okay?”

That was the last break, it seemed, Hitoshi bursting into loud, painful sobs as he collapsed into Shouta’s hold, burrowing close and hanging on like he was never going to let go. Shouta wasn’t much better, his own eyes cloudy with tears as he held onto Hitoshi just as tightly, rocking them lightly and rubbing at the boy’s back, careful to avoid… Ah. Right. Another change. 

Gently letting go of Hitoshi’s hand, who immediately latched onto Shouta even more, Hizashi slid around to get a look at the kid’s back. It… Hizashi wasn’t sure what to make of it. 

Coming out of his back, right near his shoulder blades, was what looked like rounded columns of skin and bone, the area red and abused. Further down, near the end of his tailbone, looked like there was something else and, huh. 

Gentle as possible in setting his hand on Hitoshi’s back, Hizashi studied the changes, eyes narrowing at what looked like bristles coming out of the columns of skin and oh- Oh.

Sitting back, Hizashi cleared his throat, hand still resting on Hitoshi’s back. “Hey, ‘Toshi? How do you feel about wings and a tail?” His answer was another loud sob, Hitoshi shaking under him and, right. Time to do things a different way. 

Recovery Girl had been right, after all. Hizashi and Shouta were pros and it was time they started acting like it - and that meant preparing themselves for what lay ahead. 

That meant gathering information. The notes they had been given were a good start, but, well. Hizashi had a feeling there was more information out there then what they were seeing.

Which meant visiting every bookstore, open research center, and library he could find and calling home with his findings as often as he could. 

“Nothing at that library either, huh?” Shouta’s voice was tinged with worry, but Hizashi could tell, even over speakerphone, that his husband was mostly focused on Hitoshi. “You sure?”

“Well, I found some fiction books on fairies and aliens, but that’s about it,” Hizashi snorted, looking down at the list of places he had scribbled on a piece of ripped paper before leaving the house. “How’s everything at home?”

“My body seems to think you’re dead since I can’t see you,” Hitoshi groaned into the phone, sounding as if he was shuffling around and making a fuss about it. “I also can’t even sit with the fact I have wings- Wings! They’re not even normal looking feathered wings! They’re like these weird dragonfly bug things.”

Dragonfly wings, huh? That was definitely interesting, but not something Hitoshi should really be able to fly with once they finished growing in. “The tail isn’t much better, either,” Hitoshi continued, still grumbling. “It’s purple and ends with the same weird shiny stuff- I just want to sit at the kitchen table and watch Dad cook!”

“Shouta’s cooking, huh?” Hizashi thought for a moment, finally deciding that he would be perfectly fine sleeping on the couch that night. “Let him know the fire extinguisher is under the sink, okay?”

“I can cook, you know,” Shouta ‘argued’ back. As if he had a leg to even stand on. “I just happen to place value on simple things rather than your five-star meals.”

“Aw, babe, you think my food is that good?” There was a snort of laughter from Hitoshi and there. Much better already. “Alright, I have one last place I think I can check. ‘Toshi? You gonna be alright a while longer?”

“I’ll be fine. Just annoyed about the chair-” There was a sudden, sharp cracking sound of splintering wood, the line silent for a moment before Hitoshi gave a nervous laugh. “Uh, nevermind.”

“Hey, Shouta?” Hizashi called, already knowing with certainty what had happened. “Wanna tell me what that sound was?”

“Hm?” Shouta sounded lazy and proud of himself as he answered. “Nothing, really. Just looks like one of our chairs turned itself into a stool.” There was another burst of laughter from Hitoshi, and, well, at least their kid was happy. 

“Just make sure Jelly and Snowball don’t get any splinters, okay?” Hizashi looked around at where he was at, crumpling his list up as he entered an old, dilapidated district that Hizashi was certain was on Shouta’s patrol route. “Alright, I’m here, I think. I love you both and I’ll call you back soon.”

“Don’t get yourself into trouble, Sunshine,” Shouta said softly, Hizashi smiling at the warmth he heard in the words. “Any last words, Hitoshi?”

There was a beat of silence, and then a soft, embarrassed, “Love you too, Pops.” The call ended shortly after and Hizashi had to take a moment to get control of himself because his family was so goddamn cute.

Finally, though, he pulled himself together and tracked down the building that housed the bookstore he had jotted down. From the outside it was an old, dusty thing with cracked windows that made Hizashi uncertain if it was even open or not. Finally, though, with nothing to lose, he pushed the door open, glancing up at the soft tinkling of a bell.

It was an effort not to sneeze at the dust that seemed to coat everything, but something about the entire room felt… not safe, but maybe soft. Dust motes slipped through lazy patches of sunlight, bookshelves seemed to creak under the weight of the books that filled them, and from somewhere in the store Hizashi could hear the sound of a ceiling fan lazily spinning. It seemed like a simple old bookstore, but… 

Instincts were strong, especially in the age of quirks. A decade of working as a pro hero? Hizashi knew when to listen to his instincts, and right now they were telling him to tread very, very lightly. 

The sound of footsteps caught his attention at once, Hizashi tensing as he snapped his eyes to the side to see a small, wizened old lady who had a face filled with lines upon lines that spoke of smiles and laughter. Whether those were good smiles or laughter was the question he wanted an answer to. 

She was the one to speak first, a soft, surprised little, “Oh. Well aren’t you an interesting one.” Aaand Hizashi was immediately on guard because really. That was a line from How To Be Evil 101. “What sort of knowledge are you looking for today?” Creepy.

Remembering his kid, scared and feeling alone, Hizashi managed to push whatever fear and reservations he had to the back of his mind as he forced himself to relax, “I was hoping you could help me find a couple of books on something that’s… a bit unique.”

“You’re in luck,” the woman laughed softly, stepping around a corner and beckoning him to follow and, again, creepy. “This shop happens to specialize in unique books.” Hizashi was in a villain hideout, wasn’t he? He was calling this place in as soon as he escaped out a window. “What uniqueness are you searching for?” Creepy. As. Shit.

Taking a calming breath, Hizashi forced himself to stay calm as he looked around the worn and torn books. When he looked back to the lady, he met her gaze evenly. “I’m looking for something to help my son.”

“Oh?” That was definitely interest in her gaze, if nothing else. “And you think you’ll find a way to help here from my humble books?”

“Your ‘humble books’ are all I have left.” Hizashi crossed his arms, looking around the shelves they were encased by.

“Is that so?” Gaze drawn back by the melodious voice, Hizashi felt even more tension leak out of him as he stared at the owner of the bookstore he was in. “Tell me, young hero, what do you think you will find here?” 

“I…” Hizashi trailed off, staring at her evenly before he found himself grinning. “Is this a test?” The proud, curious look in her eyes told him his answer. If she was a villain, she was an interesting one, Hizashi would give her that. “I think, if I’m right, I’ll find an answer on what’s happening to my kid, and how to help him, and keep him safe.”

“Is that truly what you want? It seems like the situation your ‘child’ has found himself in could bring quite the attention - to all involved.” A feeling not dissimilar to Hitoshi’s quirk felt like it was pushing against him.

“Why should that matter?” Hizashi shrugged, crossing his arms again. “If he wants the attention then we’ll deal with it when the time comes. If he doesn’t want any attention brought to this, then we’ll help him keep it hidden. It’s whatever he’s comfortable with.”

“A good father who just wants to help, hm?” The lady’s voice was like soft silk, that feeling pushing against him again. It was just enough for the pieces to click into place, Hizashi blinking as he readjusted his thoughts and stared at someone just like his son. “I find that hard to believe if you’ll forgive me. This world can be such a dark place, after all.”

“Oh, no doubt,” Hizashi laughed, closing his eyes for a moment and sighing softly as he let that pressing feeling in. “I’m a pro, you don’t have to tell me how dark the world is, but… That’s why we have to make the light up in other ways. I don’t know what’s happening to my kid, but I’m going to help him through it - no matter the cost.” 

That feeling seemed to swirl and flow around his mind, the feeling akin to something shuffling through his thoughts with soft, meticulous care. Hizashi didn’t dare look away once he opened his eyes, only meeting the look leveled at him evenly as he could. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, the feeling was gone and the owner was laughing. It sounded like bells. 

“Your partner is accurate in the name he calls you!” Partner- Oh. Oh! Well, he supposed Sunshine did apply to their conversation. “I believe I have just the books to help you and your family.”

It was a blink of an eye and Hizashi found himself standing outside the shop, now with a closed sign, and holding a stack of old, handwritten journals in his arms. Blinking at them slowly, Hizashi carefully pulled his phone out and, okay. He had been in that shop for an hour and had two missed calls from Shouta. Great. Yeah. Okay. 

Well. At least he would be calling in with good news and a new place to avoid at all costs. Hopefully, if nothing else, the journals he had found would finally help them understand what was going on.

⁂

“Wait, wait, just- Hang on a second here.” Hitoshi took a steadying breath from where he was curled between his dads on the couch with a bunch of handwritten journals by people like… him. “You’re telling me that I’m a fairy?”

“Not quite,” Hizashi frowned, flicking through a journal himself with a focused, but baffled expression. It reminded Hitoshi of when he was grading Class 1-A’s English tests. “Or at least, not in the way you’re thinking. You’re more like…”

“An alien.” Looking to Shouta, Hitoshi stared at him. Shouta, on his part, only flipped around the journal he was reading to show them. Hitoshi could feel Hizashi’s desire to get up and just get himself drunk. “Apparently you're not the first one here, either.”

Apparently, from what they were reading, the old stories about fairies and fae and The Fair Folk all came from the semi-telepathic alien race that liked to visit the planet - the alien race that Hitoshi was a part of. Him. Hitoshi. He was an alien. 

A few more pages and he sighed, looking back up at his dads, “I don’t know if I want this to be a joke or not, you know?”

“Trust me kid, I know,” Shouta snorted, flipping through the journal he was going through. “From this it seems like most of them came here officially during the whole Rise of Quirks age. Makes sense after seeing what you’ve been going through with the changes.”

Hitoshi was ready to try and complain again, but instead was distracted when Hizashi started dragging a hand through his hair. Really, was he not supposed to relax at that? “It does make sense,” Hizashi said, still horribly distracting Hitoshi from the conversation. “But I’m more curious about how ‘Toshi looked completely human until a couple weeks ago.”

Shouta flipped through the pages of his journal, holding it up after a minute or so. “Puberty and shapeshifting.” Right. Shapeshifting. Of course. Because why not at this point?

“Puberty?” Hizashi frowned, looking at Shouta and then at the journal he was holding up, squinting his eyes to read it as Shouta gave a snort of laughter.

“Turns out if a young child grows up among another species then at puberty their body will start to go through the changes expected of their race.”

Hitoshi huffed as Hizashi abandoned him to grab Shouta’s journal and scan the pages, refusing to look at Shouta’s amused expression. Hitoshi only felt fear, though, when he glanced up and saw Hizashi grinning. 

“It’s not just generic shapeshifting or puberty,” Hizashi said and oh. Oh, no. That was a grin that meant horrible things. “Apparently babies, after a few weeks of settling, will begin to change their appearance based on those they look up to or feel a strong connection with-”

“Pops,” Hitoshi cut him off, knowing straight away where the shapeshifting thing was going and wanting it to stop. He was self-aware enough to know he stupidly looked up to his dads and had for a long time. “Please. I am begging you to stop right there.” 

“Aw, ‘Toshi,” Hizashi cooed, pulling him into a hug and trapping him. “It’s cute you think I would stop!” The traitor. “Now let’s see here… Wild hair that sticks upright, bright red eyes, red eyes that now have concentric circles-”

Hitoshi was saved by Hizashi grunting as Shouta pinched him on the side. He could always count on Shouta to stop the embarrassment early. “I thought we had a talk about you embarrassing him too badly.” 

“Hm… Did we? I must have forgotten!” Hitoshi scoffed, not doing much to escape Hizashi’s hug trap before Shouta was rolling his eyes. 

“Come on, you two. We have a lot more of this to get through before we figure out everything we need to know.”

As it turned out, there really was a lot of new information for them to know. 

It also made so much sense. 

From minor shapeshifting abilities, which explained why Hitoshi looked so much like their kid, and semi-telepathic abilities that apparently overloaded the human mind, which explained his ‘quirk,’ to being highly empathetic and able to pick up thoughts off of those with unguarded minds - which explained why Hitoshi hadn’t been able to pick up much off of his dads. It even seemed that the only reason Erasure worked on him was because he thought it should, and so it did. 

“Ah. There’s more on the whole ‘puberty’ aspect. It looks like when the kids reach a certain age to become an adult they unlock ‘all genetic potential.’ Increase in telepathic abilities, changes in body structure, and wings, a tail, and ‘clan markings’ to reflect which clan they were born into. Apparently the changes also only really start when the child feels safe and protected.” 

“Aw, ‘Toshi, you feel that safe with us? That’s so sweet-!”

“I will not hesitate to call Kayama-sensei and tell her every embarrassing thing I’ve learned about you that she doesn’t know yet.”

“Testy- Oh! Hey! Look! In some cases, if a child was raised by a different species, then their body will adapt to take on that species’ appearance. Then The Change, capital letters, reverts them back to their ‘true’ form, which, apparently, can freak kids out and make some of the changes painful.” 

“No kidding- Oh, hey, found the allergic to salt thing. Guess that’s where the whole salt can keep away fairy thing started, too. It’s not supposed to be too bad, but we live in Japan with Pops’ cooking, so I guess I’ll just suffer.” 

“Huh… This is… well. Looks like the race that you came from is a nocturnal species and are typically active at night-”

“What?! This is why I have insomnia?! Because I’m an alien?! How is that fair! I’ve suffered for years because I’m an alien?!” 

“Aw, c’mon, ‘Toshi, at least you have a valid excuse for your insomnia now! And this will just make you a better underground hero when you get older-”

“Years. For years I’ve dealt with insomnia and insomnia tips and how to get to sleep at night and all that crap and it was because my entire biological makeup was different?!” 

“If you keep that up then you’ll sound more dramatic than Hizashi. Ah, here’s the part on the tattoos or ‘clan markings,’ by the way. It looks like the design has to deal with your birth family and who your family was and so on. Says the bioluminescence can be controlled after all changes have settled.”

“Good. Can you imagine me as an underground hero when my whole body is glowing like a night light? The villains would give themselves up just to laugh at me.”

“Looks like the pointed ears are just a thing-”

“That’s so stupid!”

“Be thankful so much of the population has ears like that these days- Ah. Your telepathic abilities are going to get stronger and you might get minor precognition, empathy, and dreamwalking.” 

“Dad, that literally sounds like the worst fucking thing in the world. Can we just put one of those quirk-suppressing bracelets on me or something? Would that even work?”

“Okay, okay, so you can shapeshift to hide the most eye-catching of it, that second set of teeth can retract once the swelling goes down- Oh! I found an entry about the bonds and why you don’t like us being out of your sight! Also, you’ll one day be able to fly with those wings-”

“What?!”

By the end of all of their research and journal reading Hitoshi was fully curled up and collapsed against Shouta as best he could with his tail and wings, trying to wrap his mind around the fact he was an alien. 

Both of them were trying to reassure him, Hizashi looking ready to steal him from Shouta and suffocate him with hugs, “Aw, c’mon, ‘Toshi, when you think about it this is like just getting a bunch of new quirks! That’s not so bad, right?”

Staring at Hizashi evenly, Hitoshi finally turned and buried his face into Shouta’s chest, who gave a soft laugh and let him do as he pleased. It was nice. Especially as Hizashi whined and sounded absolutely defeated. That was definitely nice. 

Hitoshi may have tuned them both out and fallen into a mild panic attack that he only crawled out of when he heard Shouta say the words, “-might as well be a family tradition at this point.” 

“Hang- Hang on.” Pushing himself up, Hitoshi squinted at Shouta, who was looking smug at probably pulling him out of his attack. “What do you mean family tradition? Pretty sure you both are human.” Then again… 

“Yes, but your grandfather on my side isn’t.” Hang on what? What was that supposed to mean?! That- He couldn’t just drop that and then act like that was normal information-

“Dad, I love you, but I swear to everything I believe in that I will make all of our lives a miserable wreck if you’re telling me that you knew what was going on this whole time and you never told us-” 

Hizashi was grabbing him and dragging him into a hug before Hitoshi could attack, laughing softly, “Easy, ‘Toshi, we didn’t know anything about this. Shouta’s dad is a different sort of not-human.”

“Honestly? Even I don’t know what he is,” Shouta snorted, crossing his arms. “He still just stays behind that dog bear mouse joke or whatever it is.” Hang on. Dog bear mouse… Wait.

“Nezu is your dad?” That- That made no sense at the exact same time it made a horrible amount of sense. Forget being an alien, this was what was gonna make Hitoshi lose his mind.

“We were going to bring it up sooner,” Hizashi chimed in, giving him a tighter hug. “But he always goes off networking in other countries during the summer and we all wanted to let you settle in first before throwing any curveballs at you. And then, well, this.”

Digesting the information for a long moment, Hitoshi finally looked at Shouta with what he hoped was a neutral expression. “Your dad… is a mouse.” 

Shouta snorted, giving him a grin, “And our son is an alien. Our family dynamics aren’t exactly normal, kid.” 

Hizashi snickered, giving Hitoshi a little nudge, “It’s also a family tradition to adopt kids straight out of U.A.” Tradition? Why- Oh. Oh, that made so much more sense. “Deep breaths, ‘Toshi. It’s going to be just fine.”

Hitoshi tensed, waiting for the uncomfortable sharp, pricking sensation that came at hearing lies but there was… nothing. Just Hizashi’s warm hug and Shouta’s soft smile. “Oh, hey! We can contact Gang Orca and ask him how to deal with the teeth!”

“Good idea,” Shouta nodded at Hizashi, shutting his journal to finally stand up and stretch. “I’ll try to get in touch with Hawks. He’d know more about the wings - did he grow them or was he born with them?”

“I think they grew in when he got his quirk?” Hitoshi half-asked, reaching for his phone and doing nothing to shove Hitoshi off him. If anything he just held him closer. “Here, I got Mandalay’s personal number. She’ll be able to help a little with the new telepathic part of all of this.” 

Watching his dads make plans on which pro heroes to talk to and what to do to make his life more comfortable, Hitoshi closed his eyes and finally breathed out a breath that felt like he had been holding in for a lifetime. 

Everything… was going to be fine. 

Epilogue

Right. It was official, then. Hitoshi would rather go through his entire painful ‘puberty butterfly metamorphosis’ thing than do what he was about to. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him to bail? It would be easy. He could just shimmy out the window, climb down to a tree that was in the courtyard, and then- “Stop trying to think of ways to escape the school. We have cameras and a fence.” 

Looking to Shouta, who was a hypocrite, Hitoshi simply raised an eyebrow and waited for the man to cave. It didn’t take long. “If it gets too bad you can hide out in the teacher’s lounge. You also don’t have to do this-”

“I know, I know, it’s my choice, I control my destiny, and since I can shapeshift to cover up everything no one has to know about what I am. Trust me, Dad, you guys covered everything and more last night.” As he spoke, Hitoshi didn’t take his eyes off the door that led into the 2-A classroom. He had a feeling if he fully looked away, he would lose. 

There was a small scoff from Shouta in response, though, and an amused, “You also hid under your blankets for an hour sprouting off everything that could go wrong.” Ah. Once again, his father was dead to him. “‘Toshi.” Hitoshi twitched, finally conceding defeat and looking away from the door and towards Shouta, who was giving him a small, understanding smile. “You really don’t have to do this.”

“I know, but that’s… kind of why I have to do it.” Because he knew how being a hero worked, and he especially knew how this class worked. “I don’t have to, but… I want to prove that they can trust me like…” Trailing off, Hitoshi avoided Shouta’s gaze as he pushed out a rushed, “Like I trust them, okay?”

“And here you used to hate every single one of them.” He wanted to argue that, but back at the Sport’s Festival, well… He hadn’t exactly been friendly to them – he had also basically declared war. “Speaking of no longer hating them, or at least one in particular-”

“I can and will get Pops to get my revenge for me. And he’ll be disappointed in you.” The two were both quiet for a moment, Hitoshi feeling a burst of relief as Shouta rolled his eyes and didn’t continue his torture. “Besides, it’s this class. They’re gonna find out on their own anyway no matter what we do.”

Shouta laughed softly, moving to go through the door. “You’re not wrong, at least. Come on. I have a couple of tests for their first day back, so they’ll be distracted soon enough.”

“You’re so mean to them,” Hitoshi snickered, pausing in the doorway and taking a deep breath as he glanced down to himself. 

It had taken the rest of the break, but Hitoshi had gotten a handle on his powers and was on his way to really controlling them. He had also discovered how to change his appearance back to ‘normal.’ Although he had kept the pointed ears because it was a pain to switch back and forth, and the concentric circles in his eyes, because, well. Watching Hizashi cry about it had been kind of funny. 

Overall, he had survived through it, barely, and was now about to enter the Heroics class for his first day of real hero training. His dads still loved him, he was half-alien and was sort of okay with it, and his ‘grandpa’ had been all too delighted to spend time with him and help him understand his powers. 

“Alright, settle down!” Shouta’s voice brought Hitoshi out of his thoughts. He spent one last second in the moment before everything changed and then stepped inside and shut the door behind him. 

Two students were already yelling a greeting at him and Midoriya jumped out of his seat to wave enthusiastically at him. Hitoshi decided he was both blind and deaf at that moment, even if his dad wasn’t and was probably already making mental notes to torment him later.

“As you can tell, we have a new student joining us today. Shinsou Hitoshi is now a part of the class. Feel free to go all out on him since if you take it easy you’ll probably regret it.” Such a flat, even tone, but also such pride radiating from him. 

“Alright! We get the superior purple kid now!” It was almost easy to guess who yelled it, but what really had Hitoshi fighting his laughter was the way Shouta didn’t even shout for the kid to shut up, instead just pretending he hadn’t heard anything. Hitoshi supposed he had gotten it from somewhere. 

A few seconds and Shouta looked back at him, studying him before giving a small huff of laughter, “Here’s where you introduce yourself so they can finally shut up. Oh, by the way,” Shouta raised his voice to the rest of the class. “One more thing…”

And okay, that was just the perfect setup. Hitoshi grinned as he loosened his hold on his ‘normal’ form, tail slipping out, wings fluttering to life before laying against his back, and tattoos crawling up his skin inch by inch before they were all revealed. He didn’t much bother to hide his sharp teeth, either. 

“Nice to meet you,” Hitoshi grinned, feeling the wave of shock that ran through the class. It was a good feeling. “I hope you’ll take good care of me.”

The wall of sound that hit him was pretty satisfying too, he had to admit. 

[unspeakableprewett]

[ headcanon 001 ]

Welcome to the Department of Mysteries.

Note: This post is just a gathering of my thoughts about the Unspeakables, since it’s not made clear in canon exactly what they do and how their job works. It’s mostly for me, but of course you can all read it if you want a better idea of what Fabian gets up to. Most characters won’t know these things, though. It’s based on what canon facts are available, plus my own headcanons.

*Also, if any other Unspeakable characters get taken, I’ll be more than happy to make adjustments to what’s here.*

Purpose: The Unspeakables are a combination of magical scientist and philosopher. They spend their time investigating oddities and unexplained phenomena in magic, covering concepts from time to space to death. They sometimes invent new spells and magical devices & have been known to work in concert with the Aurors, if a crime has a particularly perplexing and unknown magical element. For the most part, though, Unspeakables work alone on their own projects, wary of sharing knowledge even with each other.

Department Structure:

Unspeakables must be recruited, it is impossible to apply for a job with the Department. Usually this involves either an impressive amount of magical skill and investigation demonstrated during their schooling years or in later life. It’s often the case that an older Unspeakable will identify and take on an apprentice, who they will mentor through their first years of joining the Department. It can be difficult to decide to join the Department, as apprentices are not given much more information on what they will actually be doing than what is known by the general public.

Senior Unspeakables hold most of the authority over their colleagues - the Department is not subject to Magical Law Enforcement and it is rare that any other high ranking Ministry official will know too much of what is being studied. Unspeakables generally report regularly on their progress and findings to one direct superior, who may then approve it being shared with relevant Ministry offices, if applicable. They are not required or encouraged to share their research with colleagues, although most Unspeakables tend to find subversive ways of finding out what their peers are working on and keeping an eye on them. Occasionally, this has the benefit of leading to collaboration, but it is not often that anyone other than a Senior Unspeakable and their apprentice work together. Apprentices must swear a bonding Vow with their mentor Unspeakable to keep the secrets of the Department. It is similar to an Unbreakable Vow, but the consequences of breaking it are lighter: not death, just expulsion from the Department.

Unspeakables are bound by tongue-tying curses, though it is possible to get around this.The more they speak, the more pain they feel, and eventually their tongue would be ripped out. Usually, Unspeakables develop their own method getting around the increasingly painful effects of the curse. Fabian, for example, has developed a numbing potion that he dips dittany leaves into it; he then places them under his tongue while talking over Department secrets with Dumbledore and the Order. This method dulls the pain enough that he is able to speak through it, and delays the full effects of the curse, but he still has to be careful with how much he says. However, if Unspeakables are caught sharing Department secrets to outsiders, they will be Obliviated, as will the person they spoke to.

The Entrance Chamber has twelve handleless doors, each of which lead to separate chambers corresponding with divisions of study. They constantly rotate, but respond to verbal command of the Unspeakables; outsiders should never be taken through these doors - once more, Obliviation is a consequence for all parties involved. They are allowed to bring visitors into their offices, including personal guests, but it's more likely for them to be Aurors or experts they are consulting with.

The divisions include:

- Thought: This division includes the brain tank. These brains have been donated by wizards and witches after their lifetime & will aggressively attack intruders. They are generally used to study thought and related subjects.

- Time: In this division, the time-turners were created and studied. The Hall of Prophecies is also a subset of this divination, kept watch over by the Keeper of the Hall.

- Death: Not much is known about this mystery. This division uses a Veil to try and understand Death.

- Love: Most Unspeakables are barred from entering this chamber. Love is considered too powerful a force to risk experimenting with, so the door is locked at all times.  Supposedly a large fountain of Amortentia is placed in this room.

- Space: An array of floating planets can  be found in this room, often those who visit it end up floating too. Space is particularly fascinating to Unspeakables as one of the limits of magic (as is time).

Fabian’s Mysteries:

The Spy

His assignment from Dumbledore, not an actual Mystery. But Fabian has been instructed to spy on the inner workings of the Ministry, and in particular, his fellow Unspeakables - it would be impossible for anyone on the outside to keep an eye on them and Fabian knows Unspeakables are perhaps the best candidates for Death Eater recruitment. They are given free license to experiment with magic, delve into its darkest depths, with almost no supervision. That kind of freedom, and the person it attracts, is very dangerous. Fabian tries to uncover the allegiances of his peers, as well as keep on eye on what magic they may be inventing and passing on to the other side. A potentially dangerous job, he nonetheless knows no one else is able to do it.  

General assignment: Death Room

Whispered voices can be heard through the Death Veil, presumably speaking from the other side. Not everyone is receptive to hearing these voices, but Unspeakables, who delve into the depths of magic and tend to have open minds, are usually able to. Those who are able, take part in rotations where they must listen to and record the whispers they hear - often difficult to make out. This duty is one of few examples of Unspeakables collaborating as it was discovered that only human ears are capable of hearing the whispers. Unspeakables are still trying to create a magical device or spell that will assist instead. Fabian is included in this rotation - although he isn’t particularly fond of this duty, as it's usually quite mundane and time consuming. Since entering the war, however. and having to worry about losing his loved ones, he has become more fascinated with Death.

Personal study: the Sight

His current project, Fabian has been fascinated by the Sight since his school days, placing him in the Time Division at present. At Hogwarts, he had no talent in Divination, which he found incredibly frustrating. It made no sense to him that only select wizards and witches have this ability, when such restrictions apply to no other kind of magic. As much as he likes to pretend he's interested for the sake of knowledge alone, he's mostly motivated by how galling he finds it to be barred from this knowleddge, he has never liked to feel outperformed when it comes to intelligence. He wants to figure out how the Sight works and replicate it. Not many other Unspeakables think much of his project, as most people consider Divination something of a joke. Fabian is nonetheless unable to let go of this project that has stumped him for so long.

His most recent attempt has involved a slightly unconventional use of the Brain Tank. Usually, they are used for the study of thought, but Fabian has decided to investigate whether or not a magical signature can be found in the brain, and if the ability of the Sight can be identified within it.

Potential Mysteries (things that might strike Fabian’s interest in the future):

Magical signatures in the brain: He is currently trying to find proof of a magical signature in the brain and a connection to the Sight, but Fabian has not yet thought of further implications of this study. It is already clear to Fabian that blood holds no relevance for the Sight as seers have existed amongst people of all blood types and appears to be randomly gifted, following no paths of ancestry. It is possible he may follow this path to try and figure out if he can trace all of magic itself to the brain, rather than blood. It would be ambitious, perhaps arrogant of him to assume he could prove wrong the emphasis on blood as the carrier of magic that has marked out and caused dissension in wizarding culture from the start ... not to mention, naive to think it would make any difference to the theory’s main proponents, but nonetheless, once he starts down that path, Fabian will be determined to blaze ahead.

Dementor victims: It is a curious mystery that nobody knows what happens to the victims of a Dementor’s kiss. Their body remains, but their soul is gone. Yet no ghosts have ever been identified as former Dementor victims, as a soul is required to become a ghost. What happens to these souls, then, when their body dies?  As the war goes on, more and more people are falling victim to the Kiss. Fabian may become compelled to search for answers, distraught at how these people are denied any final peace that may exist on the other side.

Fabian’s Office:

Unspeakables each have their own office, with Unplottable locations. A fireplace in the Entrance Chamber is connected to the offices, but each one is connected to the wand signature of the Unspeakable who owns it. They must tap the fireplace with their wand, before using Department-modified Floo to travel to their office. No address is needed to be said, nor would Fabian be able to give one if asked -  even he isn’t sure where exactly his office is located in time and space.

His office contains:

- a high ceiling, not visible from the floor. It appears to go on forever and is lined with bookshelves. Fabian has never found the top shelf, and isn’t actually sure what’s up there. - a pensieve, the necessary tool of each Unspeakable, to review their research and study the memories of others. Fabian is currently writing to famous Seers, begging for a memory of a vision that he can study, but much like Unspeakables, Seers cling to their knowledge.

- a braintank, which Fabian has currently borrowed from the Thought division in order to search for evidence of a magical signature in the brain

- collection of crystal balls, none of which he’s ever been able to use, but Fabian keeps experimenting

- runespoor egg, demiguise hair, both of these creatures have their own version of visions/the Sight, so Fabian is experimenting with their magical properties in the hopes of replicating them. He’s had to get them through less than legal means, as trading of runespoor eggs in particular is illegal. It wouldn’t be the first time Fabian’s broken the rules in the search of knowledge, though, and it isn’t as if he’s likely to get reprimanded for it by the Department, even if he is discovered.

- cauldron, often brewing up potions he invents to try and forcibly give him a prophetic vision. He’s also been known to brew mind strengthening potions and ones that will allow him to stay up days on ends without sleep.

- imagoscope (smaller prototype), Fabian created this magical device, quite like a telescope, which works on magical objects, showing the true magical intent of the object. It can also pick up traces of magical activity.

- dictator quill, very useful as Fabian constantly talks to himself in his office and sometimes manages to say something of note

- fire place, through which he can enter and exit the office, there are no doors, only a window enchanted to look like the Burrow gardens. It is wandlocked to his magical signature.

- spell containment jars, in case of an emergency, sometimes his experiments go badly and any magical damage needs to be quicky contained

- magical detectors, these are enchanted to show traces of magic, including Dark magic

- everlasting candle, which keeps the office brightly lit at all hours, so Fabian can work through the night if he so chooses

[rkpjy]

⭐️TRC PRIVATE AUDITION vocal performance of sucker by jonas brothers (00:00-02:00) may 5th, 2019

although he did it with winning in mind, he doesn’t expect his name to be called nor is he surprised when he isn’t.

he decided to take on the challenge on a whim, a drunken whim to be more precise, so the outcome is probably one he deserves. he accepted it and got ready to leave when tiger jk himself came to thank them all for participating and names a few more people. jinyoung’s reaction was delayed. it took someone pat his back to congratulate him for him to finally get out of his daze and realize what was happening. he’s satisfied to have left an impression of course, but it’s not really something to brag about. it’s just like any other audition he’s taken part in before. it requires a lot of preparation and leaves very little chances of actually getting in.

but he once again felt like he had something to prove to himself and he had to see the end of this no matter the outcome.

during his stay at nova, the trainers often scolded his stiffness, advised him to find a way to let himself go when  needed. he can’t always be in control, or lose focus as soon as he isn’t. they say despite being an obvious hardworker it sometimes felt as if he wasn’t passionate about what he’s doing. since he tends to get too much in his own head, he forgets to put his heart on the table, show vulnerability.

and he did make one promise to himself for this year: to be more unpredictable. so instead of barricading himself in his bedroom to practice without pause until the day of his audition, he schedules it right near the end of the allowed period of time and shares an idea with mina. “i want to leave with you for two or three days.” she’s surprised to say the least. she knows her boyfriend and expected him to take the audition (if he wanted to do it) very seriously and methodically. of course she doesn’t oppose to the idea. because park jinyoung always knows what he’s doing, right? and they leave for her jeju hometown in the following days.

it’s during this well-needed trip that slowly emerges the idea of his audition song. he wants to get a little bit out of his comfort zone by performing an english song. he’s nowhere near fluent but has been told his accent is very good for someone who can only sustain a basic conversation. plus years of singing and acting experience probably help with pronunciation. the couple spends almost the entire trip on the beach, mina resting her head on jinyoung’s lap as he sings to her. it’s all the practice he needs during that time. with her around it can only come from the heart, and he understands a little bit better what the nova trainers wanted to teach him.

after coming back he’s more than ready to take this audition on, and uses his time wisely. his analytic nature does have him go through the lyrics hundreds of time until he gets the right intonation every time, but he pays just as much attention to his posture, facial expressions and emotion when singing. because they should be able to understand the kind of message he’s trying to convey even if they don’t understand the lyrics. that’s what music is all about.

he’s a bit nervous on the day of his audition, but he takes it as a good sign. it means he’s taking enough of a risk for all of this to be worth it. he didn’t play safe, and they’ll see that he’s ready to give them everything he’s got to offer. sucker’s pitch is higher than a lot of male artists’ songs, and even though it isn’t filled with dozens of incredible adlibs it still showcases a lot of vocal technique. there’s a groove to it he didn’t show during the triple threat challenge, and he’ll also be bringing his guitar to accompany himself.

he greets the panel, introduces himself and the song he’ll perform, before strumming the first chords.

We go together Better than birds of a feather, you and me We change the weather, yeah I'm feeling heat in December when you're 'round me

they started dating on the very last day of december, his girlfriend and him. when they heard the song for the first time they couldn’t help but relate to it instantly. it’s different from musical acting: when he’s playing a role it’s easy to channel emotions he wouldn’t otherwise feel, or empathize with experiences he hasn’t gone through. but when it’s his own guts that need to be thrown on the table, jinyoung has been struggling with it forever. to show his true self without restrain.

I've been dancing on top of cars and stumbling out of bars I follow you through the dark, can't get enough You're the medicine and the pain, the tattoo inside my brain And, baby, you know it's obvious

I'm a sucker for you You say the word and I'll go anywhere blindly I'm a sucker for you, yeah Any road you take, you know that you'll find me I'm a sucker for all the subliminal things No one knows about you (about you) about you (about you) And you're making the typical me break my typical rules It's true, I'm a sucker for you, yeah

he didn’t smile during overcome, the song being serious as it is, but he does this time. he’s having fun and it shows. every time he closes his eyes it’s mina he sees, and the wonderful three days they spent together far from this city. they both know it was probably their last trip for a while so they made the most of it. and while being unaware of the true reason behind of his happiness, there’s no doubt he’s singing for someone, whether it’s someone from his past, present or future. mina really making the typical him break his typical rules. if his younger version ever knew he would fall for a girl like her... but she completes him in the best way.

Don't complicate it (yeah) 'Cause I know you and you know everything about me I can't remember (yeah) All of the nights I don't remember When you're 'round me (oh, yeah yeah)

he’s playing with them, flirting with them. he’d never dare do it if not for this song. while they keep a neutral face, he can’t help but wonder if they’re secretly grooving to it as much as he is. after this last verse, he repeats the pre-chorus and chorus one last time, and finishes with a few seconds of whistling before his two minutes are up. when he gets up to bow, the serious and introverted jinyoung is back in action.

[sunshinetrappedinourhearts]

Nathmarc month day 29: Fantasy AU

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16491026/chapters/39420499 Or, in my case, a vampire AU LMAO- hey, it’s fantasy right...? Oh man, this was nice to write. I had to stop it at some point though, because it was getting ridiculously long (again... stop giving me AU’s lol) PLUS, I wasn’t sure if it would be appreciated, as in I chose to not write out... certain things. You’ll get what I mean. Anyways. Here ya go. c: @nathmarcnovember BY THE WAY! I’m in Paris right now (I’m from the Netherlands myself) for Y/CON and I’ll be cosplaying Marc with my girlfriend as Nathaniel! c: Which is super nice of course, but yeah, this is why day 30 will be delayed, probably. I’ll try to write it tomorrow (one day late), but we’ll see! 

The day Nathaniel arrived, it was grey and rainy. The sun was nowhere to be found, and it made the whole town look ominous and a little shady. It made him shiver. Although that could also have been caused by the cold of the early autumn that year.

Absently, he wondered why on earth he had chosen to attend college here again, instead of a normal big city where all his former classmates had gone to. But then he remembered that it was one of the most prestigious art schools in the country, and that it would definitely help him grow.

He probably just had bad timing; in the coming days the sky would surely clear up a bit. He should just stop being so prejudged and give the small town a chance.

***

It didn’t clear up the next few days, and his first day of college it was even cloudier than the day he arrived, yet there was no rain. He was carrying an umbrella, staring at the trees already losing their leaves, they looked sad and lonely, and Nathaniel felt like capturing them in a drawing. He was imagining the way he could do that, maybe using charcoal pencils, or ink… when suddenly, he hit something hard with his shoulder and he quickly looked up into a pair of the brightest green eyes he had ever seen.

‘Ah, sorry!’ he said, grabbing the umbrella he had just dropped. ‘I was lost in thought…’

The boy in front of him seemed to be about the same age as him. He was just a little taller, and he had black hair tied in a messy ponytail. Nathaniel noticed he was wearing fingerless gloves and black nail polish. It contrasted strongly against his very pale skin. But it were the eyes that captured Nathaniel’s attention. They were so intensely radiant that he found it hard to look away. As if they were enchanting him. Never before in his life had he seen such dazzling eyes.

‘N-no, my bad,’ the boy said, pulling Nathaniel out of his daze, he then noticed the other was awkwardly scratching his head, taking some papers he had apparently dropped on the ground.

Nathaniel quickly leaned down to help him. They were lined pages, scribbled full of words, and it was tempting to read, but Nathaniel quickly gave them back to him before he could.

‘Thank you…’ He smiled a bit, putting the papers back in the map he was carrying.

‘Are you attending the art school here?’ Nathaniel blurted out.

‘Oh, I am, yes, I’m starting today. I’m in creative writing. What about you?’

‘2D and digital art,’ Nathaniel said, smiling softly. ‘Starting today as well. I specialize in comic and cartoon style, actually, but I also do traditional art.’

‘That’s amazing,’ Marc answered. ‘Maybe I’ll see you in the joined lessons some time, then.’

‘Joined lessons?’

‘Yeah, they have those, making people in different art divisions cooperate with each other to make big projects.’

Nathaniel felt a wave of excitement run through his body as he heard those words. Especially since there were a lot of things he wasn’t too good at, like script writing.

‘That’s amazing…’

He looked at the other boy, then quickly reached out his hand to introduce himself. ‘I’m Nathaniel,’ he smiled.

‘Ah, I’m Marc…’ Marc took his hand, shaking it shortly before letting go, a hint of pink on his cheeks. ‘It’s nice to meet you…’

***

Marc’s prediction happened sooner than Nathaniel expected, already during the first week he spotted him during a joined course.

Their eyes met for a second, and Nathaniel got lost within them, quickly pulling away when their teacher spoke.

Apparently, they were going to do a cooperation between creative writers and artists , and they’d be allowed to choose their own end product, for example a picture book, a visual novel, or...

A comic book.

It had been Nathaniel’s dream for ages to create a comic book, and he desperately hoped that this would finally become reality.

Marc appeared beside him only a  second after their teacher told them to find a partner, and Nathaniel almost tripped as he was still getting up.

The other boy grabbed his shoulder, and grinned a little sheepishly, a light blush on his cheeks. ‘Do you… erm… want to work together?’

***

That day, when Nathaniel walked towards his apartment, he didn’t notice the dozens of lit up eyes watching him from a distance.

He didn’t see it the next day either.

Or the next.

Or the following.

***

‘Nathaniel…?’ Marc asked a few weeks later. They were in the final stage of the comic book they were working on. It was about a superhero named Ladybug, one that always inspired Nathaniel during his middle and high school years, when he still lived in Paris.

He’d always wanted to create a comic about her, to honour her, and of course, to finally bundle all the story ideas he had about her.

Marc had happily agreed, and ever since, they had worked together perfectly, their skills complementing each other.

‘Yes…?’ he answered, looking up from the sketch of the final few pages he was working on. Marc was currently coloring the pages and filling in the speech bubbles.

‘I’m just wondering, where in town do you live…?’

‘Oh, in the outskirts, near the forest,’ he answered. ‘Why do you ask? Wanna work at my place sometime?’

‘Ah, that, too… i-if you want to, that is!’ Marc’s cheeks reddened a bit and Nathaniel found it cute. ‘But that’s not why I asked… It’s because, well… I just want to tell you… to be careful walking home… and… don’t go too late…’

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Why’s that?’

Marc averted his gaze, and an uncomfortable sense of foreboding settled itself in Nathaniel’s stomach. The other boy was acting a bit strangely and it didn’t suit him.

‘…strange things have been happening in town, lately… Have always been, actually, but… it’s back, kind of…’

That confused him even more. ‘I can’t follow you…’

Marc looked up, locking their gazes carefully. Nathaniel hold his breath, because Marc’s eyes were mesmerizing… so deep… so…

‘J-just, be careful, okay?’

Nathaniel nodded, but he still didn’t understand what the writer boy was talking about.

***

Two weeks later, he found out what Marc meant.

He was on his way home from a late lecture, walking through the quiet part of town, almost reaching his apartment, when a hooded figure jumped in front of him, his face hidden.

Nathaniel’s heart stopped for a moment, and he took a step back, uneasiness tingling through his limbs.

The figure walked closer, slowly, and alarmed, he turned around, only to find an identical person on the other side, closing him in.

Another appeared.

And another.

And Nathaniel dropped his bag, his hands shaking.

What… what was happening…?

What were they doing…?

He had no money, no belongings, nothing!

What was it they wanted…?

Absently, he thought of Marc’s words a few weeks ago, and wondered if this is what his writer friend had been warning him for.

Chewing on his lip, he let his eyes flash from the one person to the other, searching for a way to get out, but there was none.

He was a goner.

Done for.

He didn’t know what was happening but-

He was trapped-

His heart was pounding painfully loud against his chest, and he thought for a moment that maybe, he’d die of that first before these strange hooded people could get to him.

Maybe that would be better.

Then, as one of them took another step closer, only a few feet away from him, he noticed their unnatural glowing purple eyes, and they made him think of Marc’s-

Before he could think anything more of it, the person moved too fast for Nathaniel’s eyes to follow, and he breathed-

He was dead-

No doubt-

He was gonna-

Gonna die-

Lost and forgotten-

Forever-

But then, as he opened the eyes he didn’t even remember closing, there was another figure in front of him suddenly, hissing at the other guys.

‘Get away, this one’s mine.’

Nathaniel blinked.

That voice-

‘Oh yeah? Do you have proof?’ the purple-eyed one called. It was a male voice, and the owner of it had stepped away a bit.

‘We’re four against one, kid,’ one of the others said.

Nathaniel moved a little closer to the figure that was apparently, for God knows whatever reason, protecting him.

Maybe it was a bad idea-

Maybe he’d be slaughtered by this one soon instead-

But-

There was no other option-

‘One, yes, one you cannot beat, you lowlifers. Do you have any idea what family I’m from?’

‘Rhy, that one’s from the Anciel family, we gotta be careful!’

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows, he had no idea what it meant, but the purple-eyed guy, who seemed to be the leader, took another step back and cursed under his breath.

‘Well, you’re lucky today, asshole,’ he growled. ‘But don’t think you can fool me. That one is not marked. So if you want to keep him, you better do that.’

The figure in front of Nathaniel didn’t seem impressed. ‘Get away. Before you start to regret it.’

And they went.

Nathaniel breathed, falling to the ground, only now realizing how stressed he had been from the whole situation. Grabbing his bag, he just inhaled and exhaled, gathering his thoughts.

What-

What on earth-

‘Are you… alright… Did they hurt you…?’ the voice belonging to the figure in front of them spoke. It was too familiar, too…

He turned around, and Nathaniel’s eyes widened.

‘Marc…’

The boy’s eyes seemed to sadden for a moment as he took off the hoodie of his shirt, revealing his face. He reached out his hand and Nathaniel took it, without hesitating, getting up.

His hand was warm and his touch gentle yet firm, and somehow, Nathaniel wanted to cry a little bit, because he felt like he was safe.

Marc however, still looked saddened, and he didn’t understand why.

‘Y-you saved me, thanks…’

Marc shrugged. ‘A little, but…’

‘But?’

His eyes flashed from left to right, and then he looked back at Nathaniel. ‘…I’ll walk you home, okay? I-if you want to, I… can come in and… explain…’

Nathaniel nodded, and they walked to his home in silence. He stayed close by Marc’s side, their shoulders almost touching.

***

Not much later, they were in his apartment, the both of them a warm cup of coffee in their hands. Nathaniel had finally been able to relax, but his mind was spinning with questions.

‘So… what did you want to explain to me…?’ he asked.

Marc took a sip of coffee, and then looked at him, his eyes very sad once again. Nathaniel preferred them happy, and shining with excitement.

‘Those figures that cornered you… they were… vampires…’

Nathaniel frowned. ‘They what?’

Marc looked him in the eye, dead-serious.

‘Vampires.’

He moved back a bit, because, really…?

Was he really joking in a moment like this?

When he had been so afraid, so scared?

He was just… mocking him?

‘…if this is your idea of a joke, I seriously misjudged you. It’s not funny.’

Marc’s eyes widened. ‘I’m n-not joking. I just… This is why I didn’t tell you everything when I warned you… You wouldn’t believe me..’

For a moment, Nathaniel thought to himself. If, but only if vampires really existed, then the whole situation suddenly wouldn’t be so strange anymore, right?

Because no money… no wealth… no things…

There was literally no reason for the four figures to have attacked him.

Unless… they had wanted his blood.

Literally.

But yeah, vampires didn’t exist so it was all total bullshit.

‘That one’s from the Anciel family, we gotta be careful!’

The sentence one of the figures had said about Marc suddenly flashed through his mind, and he looked at Marc carefully, squinting his eyes.

‘If that’s true… does that… mean… you’re a vampire as well…?’

Marc averted his eyes. And then slowly, very slowly, he nodded.

Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows at first because-

It couldn’t be true-

It was ridiculous.

Totally ridiculous.

But then he looked back at Marc, carefully, observing his expression.

It didn’t change. He was trembling slightly, and his eyebrows were cast downwards, in a sad frown. He didn’t meet his gaze.

No freaking way-

Nathaniel chewed on his lip.

‘You… You are… serious.’ It sounded half like a question, half like an observation.

And Nathaniel stood up, taking a step back.

Because he had never seen Marc eating-

Or drinking-

Except his coffee just now-

And his skin was so pale.

His eyes so ridiculously bright.

Could it seriously be…

He took another step back.

And Marc finally looked at him, standing up.

‘I’m not lying. I swear…’

Nathaniel stared.

His head spinning.

‘Show me.’

‘W-what?’

‘Y-your fangs.’

Nathaniel felt his cheeks heat up and he quickly averted his eyes, but then decided it was best to keep looking at him.

Marc was blinking.

For a while, he was silent, then he walked up to him.

Nathaniel wanted to get away, but at the same time, his mind was convincing him that Marc was probably joking because vampires were all one big legend, but he was also a little scared, but also he trusted Marc and-

He was a mess.

Marc, in turn, stopped walking when they were only inches away from each other, and he opened his mouth, a little awkwardly.

And Nathaniel saw.

He wasn’t kidding.

‘T-then… I never saw you eating because…’

Marc closed his mouth. ‘Because I don’t need it. I don’t need drinks as well.’

He nodded at the empty cup of coffee. ‘I can drink, or eat, but, I just don’t taste anything. And it’s not… really enjoyable, but, well, I can…’

‘S-so… those… other…’ Nathaniel frowned. ‘…other… vampires… they got away, because…?’

Marc sighed. ‘Because I belong to a pretty powerful family… I’m a bit of an outsider there, but, well, I still carry their name, and they turned me, so… I can use it in situations like this.’

He scratched his head.

‘The problem is that it won’t help forever… In your case…’

‘Why is that…?’ Nathaniel sat back down on his couch, and Marc carefully followed his example, and Nathaniel noticed he put a considerable amount of distance between them.

Was he… uncomfortable…?

Nathaniel found that he himself, wasn’t… so much. Because if all this was true, Marc was still Marc, and he was still his partner, still a great writer, and well… He saved his life… Especially if those other… people were vampires.

‘Because they probably noticed I was lying.’

‘About… saying… I w-was… yours…?’ Nathaniel felt a little hot suddenly, and he started fumbling with his hair to focus on something else.

‘Y-yeah…’ Marc said, his cheeks pink as well.

Maybe his room was just pretty warm, yeah, that was probably it.

‘Vampires… they can… well… kind of… Mark their… partners… As in… they can pretty much claim a human… or other vampires… as their own… It’s a special process. When you undergo it, other vampires can’t touch that particular person anymore. The only person who can drink that person’s blood is the vampire who marked them. I kind of… implied you were like that to me, but vampires can usually tell whether a person is marked or not. And you’re not, so… they’ll come back for you at some point.’

‘Why me?’

Marc looked at him, fumbling with his gloves a bit. ‘…your blood smells… special…’

Nathaniel breathed.

‘To you, as well?’

‘Y-yeah. But don’t worry, I’m completely under control. I don’t drink much blood. Only blood we have stored at home.’

But you still think my blood smells special…

‘I’m not scared,’ Nathaniel said. ‘You’re Marc. No matter if you’re vampire or human.’

His eyes lighted up for a bit, and a small smile played around his lips. ‘T-thank you… That… means a lot…’

Nathaniel smiled.

Marc then got up. ‘I’ll get going… Just… I’ll walk you home from now on, okay…? I… It’s not that I think you’re weak or something, just…’

‘No, it’s okay. Thank you. I understand. That’s… kind of you. I’d appreciate that.’

Nathaniel couldn’t imagine walking that dark road alone anymore, not when thirsty vampires could appear from every corner. Now that he knew… He shivered.

***

Starting the next day, Marc walked him home every day. Usually, he’d stay for a while, drinking a cup of coffee, because according to him, it was the one thing that could actually close to make him taste something.

Weeks passed, and Nathaniel started feeling guilty to make the other boy walk him home all the time, and something was gnawing his mind… stealing his thoughts.

One day, he finally found the courage to ask.

‘Marc…?’

‘Hm?’ The other boy looked up from his notebook, he had been working on an assignment for class.

‘I uh… you… erm… You are walking me home every day now, and… I appreciate it a whole lot, and I like your company, but… isn’t it… a lot more convenient…’ he paused, taking a deep breath, and then shot out all the remaining words at once. ‘…ifyoujustmarkme.’

Marc dropped his pen. ‘W-what?’

Nathaniel breathed, his head was burning, and he wondered vaguely if it was now as red as his hair. He looked at Marc carefully, but his eyes were so widened, so shocked, and his cheeks so red that Nathaniel felt even more embarrassed and he averted his gaze, chewing on his lip.

‘Well… If you… mark… me… like you t-told me… then… you d-don’t need to worry so much anymore… right?’

Marc inhaled deeply. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re asking?’

‘Yes? I mean? I guess? Probably?’ Nathaniel blinked.

Marc picked up his pen again.

‘Nathaniel… If I… give you my mark, then… it won’t just mean you can’t be preyed upon by other vampires anymore… It also means that… I will be unable to drink any other blood than yours… Meaning I… have to continue drinking your blood… because it will be the only one that will satisfy me… Until the mark disappears… Meaning… until you die…’

Nathaniel’s head was spinning. ‘O-oh…’

‘See? I can’t do that. I can’t hurt you like that,’ Marc said softly, and he smiled a bit as he continued writing.

Nathaniel didn’t answer, thinking hard.

But he didn’t find an answer that day.

***

A week later, he did.

‘Marc. Drink my blood.’

The poor writer boy choked on his coffee, almost spitting half of it out. Then, he looked at Nathaniel, his eyes big and shocked. ‘W-what?’

Nathaniel didn’t know what words were anymore. He searched hard for them, opening his mouth, closing it again, and Marc waited until finally, he managed to blurt them out.

‘Then I know what it feels like. So I can decide for myself if I’d find it a bother if you… mark… me…’

Marc inhaled.

‘I-I n-never d-drank… s-someone’s… blood… directly…’

‘Well, then it’ll be a first time for you as well…?’ Nathaniel smiled a bit, embarrassed, his cheeks burning.

‘N-no. I can’t. I can’t do it,’ Marc said, getting up, grabbing his notebook and pen, but they fell on the ground as he awkwardly tried to gather them together.

Nathaniel tried reaching for it, to help him, but he clumsily scratched his hand across the table.

Cursing, he grabbed his trembling hand.

It was bleeding.

Carefully, he looked up to Marc.

His eyes were… glowing.

And as soon as their gazes met, he took multiple steps back.

Nathaniel chewed his lip.

Was he…

Was it…

His blood…?

‘…Marc…?’

‘I should leave.’

He was about to walk away, but Nathaniel realized that this would probably be the only time he’d get a chance like this.

Why though…

Why on Earth…

Did he want Marc to…

To…

So desperately…?

He didn’t know.

Or maybe he did.

But he didn’t want to acknowledge it.

It didn’t matter-

He quickly moved towards the writer boy, standing between him and the door, locking their gazes.

‘Nathaniel…’

Marc’s eyes were trembling, and so were his hands.

Nathaniel hold out his hand. It was bleeding, a little bit, but there were still small drops of blood trailing down his arm.

He took a deep breath.

‘J-just try. Alright? I trust you.’

Marc groaned, grabbing his head. ‘Don’t ask this of me… please…!’

‘But you want to, don’t you?’

‘You have no idea-’

‘Yes! Because I don’t know! If you just- Then I’ll know.’

Marc grabbed his hand, and Nathaniel breathed.

Slowly, very slowly, Marc pulled his hand closer, and he didn’t look him in the eye as he licked the trail of blood from his arm.

Nathaniel shivered.

And he saw Marc’s eyes widening.

‘…it’s… good?’ he breathed, barely a whisper.

Marc let go of his arm, and locked their gazes.

‘It… it is… Which is why… I won’t do that again…’

He left. Before Nathaniel had moved from his frozen state, unable to stop him.

***

Some months passed, and they never spoke of the incident again. Until one evening, Marc walked him home like always, and suddenly, the group of four vampires reappeared.

Nathaniel’s heart sank, and he froze in his steps. Vaguely, he registered Marc moving in front of him protectively.

The purple-eyed vampire spoke first.

‘So, what’s the deal, Anciel? This human, he’s not yours, is he?’

‘Then why can’t we have it?’ another of them asked.

‘Yeah, it’s blood smells pretty good, and he lives alone, a perfect victim.’

‘Get away,’ Marc said.

‘Not until you give me a clear answer.’ The purple-eyed vampire took some steps closer to Marc, facing him. He was a little bit taller than him, and Nathaniel’s heart was pounding loudly against his chest.

‘I haven’t marked him yet,’ Marc answered.

A loud chuckle sounded, and unconsciously, Nathaniel moved a little closer to Marc, who in turn moved even more in front of him.

‘If you haven’t marked him yet,’ the purple-eyed vampire said. ‘He is as much yours as he is ours. So you get away. We’re four, you’re one. An Anciel or not, you can’t win.’

‘Get. Away,’ Marc growled. And Nathaniel couldn’t see his face, but the sound in his voice was enough. He waited, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, trying to concentrate on something else instead of the vampires surrounding them.

For a second, the leader of the vampires backed away. Just one step. And then he snorted.

‘Then mark him. Right here.’

‘You know perfectly well that I’m not going to do that in public,’ Marc said. And Nathaniel absently wondered what the hell he meant by that. Was it that intimate…? His heart started to pound a little faster, and he wasn’t so sure anymore what exactly the cause of it was.

Marc took one step forward, in the direction of the purple-eyed vampire. Who took one back.

‘If you want to fight me, be my guest. But you know about the Anciel’s fighting techniques, do you not?’

Silence.

‘Then you know you don’t stand a chance. And you know four against one is not something you can be proud of.’

The purple-eyed vampire made a tch-sound, and then turned around.

‘You better make truth of your words, Anciel. You can’t simply claim a human smelling that good without marking him. I’ll hunt him down and find him when you’re not around.’

They walked away.

And Nathaniel breathed.

***

When they arrived at home, Marc turned around, and looked him in the eye, shy at first, but then serious. And he took a step closer.

Nathaniel held his breath.

‘Nathaniel… I… I want t-to… make you… mine…’

He released his breath. And his face was on fire.

‘Wow, that sounded…’

‘You c-can take it in two different ways. I mean it in both,’ Marc said, he was blushing.

‘W-what…?’

‘I’m… I… want to protect you… And… I promise to never hurt you… I’ll only drink your blood… when it’s absolutely necessary… In that way. But… this is also a confession…’

‘C-confession…?’

‘I’m in love with you,’ Marc blurted out, and Nathaniel’s heart soared.

His mind was spinning with what?! and but- and how- and since when- and that can’t be true- and a whole lot more that he couldn’t identify at all but-

Something within his chest felt like a fluttering ball of fluff, and it was soft and warm, and Nathaniel didn’t dislike it.

Only his cheeks were uncomfortably warm and he probably looked like a freaking tomato-

How did talking work again?

‘Nathaniel…?’

Marc looked worried, and small, and his posture was insecure and his hands were trembling.

He was nervous-

He should give him an answer-

But how did he feel?

Nathaniel only knew that his heart felt a little lighter whenever Marc was around. That he was kind and talented, and a little shy, but that was more cute than annoying. That his eyes were mesmerizing and his hands were soft. That he didn’t remember anymore what it felt like to be without him. That they were the perfect team they had ever dreamed of. And that he wouldn’t mind Marc drinking his blood… at all. He didn’t mind him being a vampire. Because he was Marc. And Marc was the only thing he needed.

‘I-I…’

‘You don’t need to answer me immediately,’ Marc said quickly. ‘I can still protect you the way I’m doing it right now. I’ll fight when it’s necessary. I’ll win.’

‘N-no it’s… I’m feeling a bit… overwhelmed… But not in a bad way…’ he carefully looked at him, and smiled. ‘I… I need some time to sort out my feelings, but… I like you a lot, Marc… I… think I might be in love with you… as well…’

Marc smiled, and his eyes softened. Better.

‘Once you have an answer… please tell me…’

***

About two weeks later, Nathaniel told him he loved him.

He had never seen Marc’s face so red before. It was cute.

They were silent for a while, just sitting together, as Marc squeezed his hand. Eventually, Nathaniel had to be the one to point it out.

‘You should mark me, then.’

He felt Marc jump slightly next to him, and the writer boy turned to look at him.

‘I guess I said that, huh…’ he scratched his head, smiling awkwardly.

‘How does it work…?’

Suddenly, Marc’s hand was moving over his neck, his fingers soft and gentle.

Nathaniel found it hard to remember how to breathe.

‘Apparently…’ Marc said, his voice low. ‘I should bite you… right here… Suck your blood and… there should be some kind of bond between us… If there is… it should happen automatically… You probably won’t be able to tell, but I will…’

Nathaniel nodded, breathing slowly.

‘B-but first…’ Marc said, he was avoiding his gaze, flashing his eyes from left to right nervously. ‘Erm… c-can I… k-kiss you…?’

‘Yes,’ the small word was gone before Nathaniel realized, and Marc leaned in, slowly. He closed his eyes, and their lips touched. A little awkwardly, then again, gentle, soft, Nathaniel’s head was spinning-

It was then that he knew he wanted to be with Marc forever. Everything fell into place.

And from that moment, their eternity started.

[mainadjacent]

Sticking to the Script (p. 4)

Pairing: Gwilym Lee x Reader, one-sided Ben Hardy x Reader

Summary: You are the star of the hit TV show, “Winthrope Manor” and you’ve just got a new costar, Gwilym Lee who happens to bring around his friend, Ben Hardy, to set. You develop feelings for Ben, but they’re not well received. Lucky for you, your costar is there to help make things better.

Author’s Note: I am so sorry about how delayed this has been! I started a new job and the hours are long! Plus, I spend all day typing and looking at a computer so when I get back that not necessarily what I want to be doing. But! This is the longest chapter to date @ 3.6k!! I really did enjoy writing this too!

Tag List

Warnings: Light swearing and some (fake) injury description.

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

PART 4

The next morning you have a biting headache. It doesn’t help that you have to be on set extra early because you’re doing special effects makeup. In this week’s episode, Violet falls off a horse and is bed-ridden with serious injuries and while no one is making you jump off of a horse, you are going to have to sit through at least an hour of fake blood, rigid collodion and harsh makeup lights.

“You look like shit and I’m not talking about the blood,” says Kevin McIntyre, the actor who plays Matthew, the middle Winthrope child, and your onscreen brother.

You laugh sourly and flash him an obscene gesture as he plops down in the chair next to yours.

“I went out drinking with Gwilym last night,” you admit.

“You know, since I’m contractually obligated to at least act like I care about you I’m going to go ahead and say I think it’s a bad idea for you to be getting romantically involved with the guy playing your love interest again seeing as it didn’t go too well last time and—”

“It’s not like that!” you interrupt so hastily that you startle Vicki, the makeup artist.

“I went with him and some of his friends. Trust me it, it was not romantic at all. It was actually kind of weird.”

“Weird how?”

You suddenly become keenly aware of the other presences around the set, all keen to hear what you have to say,  and you avoid divulging too much.

“I don’t know. Just weird.”

“Well, I think this just goes to prove that you probably steer clear of alcohol. And just men in general.”

“Great advice. Now be a good non-brother and go get me something greasy from craft, please? My head is throbbing.”

Kevin begrudgingly gets up from the chair he’s splayed across, “I’m only going because I want a donut.”

“Get me something caffeinated, too!”

Your phone gives a buzz and you dive across the vanity to get it, much to Vicki’s chagrin.

Hey! I forgot to tell you, Gwil home last night! Thanks for the help!

It’s from Joe. Last night, he had appeared just as Gwil had so oddly decided to leave.

“What’s wrong?” he had asked, clearly as confused as you were.

“I don’t know, one minute we were talking, the next he just decided to leave. I think he might have had a bit too much to drink. I don’t know.”

Joe gave you a look that could pass for almost pity.

“I’ll go after him,” he turned into the throng of people.

“Wait! You have to let me know if you get him home okay!”

“Right, fine. Here,” he handed you a sleek, black phone, “Give me your number and I’ll text you.”

You smile at Joe graciously as you hand back his phone.

“Oh, and can you let Lucy and Rami know what happened?” You nod. “It was nice meeting you! Get home safe!”

Hey Joe! Thanks for the help last night. Pretty sure I would’ve gotten in major trouble if I lost my costar. You’re a lifesaver! :)

_____

Vicki finally finishes with your face and you thank her profusely as you admire her work in the vanity mirror. She really had done an amazing job. There’s a gnarly gash running across your right temple, your eyelid a deep purple color and bruises doting your left cheekbone. Your lip has a deep, bloody split running down the middle of it.

“I thought Vicki was supposed to make you look worse, not better,” jokes Kevin as he presents you with a breakfast sandwich and a tall cup of iced coffee.

“Very funny,” you flip him off before lunging at your coffee.

“Hey, by the way, have you seen if Gwil’s here yet, I want to make sure he’s alright,” you say casually as you tear a piece off of your sandwich.

“Gwil’s not on the call list today. He’s probably not shooting your guys’ scene until tomorrow.”

By the way that he’s eying you up you can tell that Kevin is waiting to see how you respond to this information and this somehow makes you feel like you’re hiding something.

“Huh, I must have gotten my days confused,” you say innocently.

You can tell that Kevin’s not buying whatever it is you’re trying to sell.

“Listen, I know you said it wasn’t like that, but anyone with eyes can tell that you and Gwil have some sort of chemistry thing going on. Every time you two shoot scenes together it’s like you guys are holding back from ripping each other’s clothes off and there’s a running bet for when you two are going to get together. So, why don’t you just stop pretending that you’re not into him?”

This all hits you like a ton of bricks. “First of all, Kevin, have you ever considered that maybe we’re just really great actors that are really committed to our roles? Also, up until last week, Ben and I clearly had something going on so there’s that. And, didn’t you just tell me to avoid guys all together? Now you’re telling me to admit my so-called feelings for Gwil, what’s up with that?”

“Okay, listen,” Kevin says calmly, as he sips his own iced coffee, “I can’t speak for Gwil but I’ve been acting with you for over a year and I know, for a fact, you’re not that good of an actor, okay? There’s definitely something going on there. Secondly, who the hell is Ben? That X-Men pretty boy? No offense, but he hasn’t been around the set for ages and based on what you just said, he doesn’t seem super interested either. And also, I know I told you to avoid men altogether, but I just joined the betting pool and if you get together with Gwil by next Tuesday, I win $1,500,” this last part he says in a rush.  

You’re pretty sure if you lunge at your costar, you’ll ruin your makeup and at the risk of pissing off Vicki, you settle to just glare at him. Before you can even retort, though, he is called to set and leaves you there, seething.

Is there any truth to what Kevin said, you ask yourself. What he said about Ben was harsh, to say the least, but was he wrong? Last night proved that Ben wasn’t just ignoring you, he was straight up avoiding you. Kevin was right, you might as well just let that go. You have plenty of experience giving yourself to others for little in return, it gets old.

Gwil was a more complicated topic for you. The two of you were clearly friends, and you are fond of him. The complicated part of falling in love with someone on screen, you realize, is that some of that have a tendency to transfer into your off-screen relationship. Maybe it wasn’t that way for everybody, but you feel things deeply. That’s what makes you a good actor, but sometimes it can get in the way.  

Before you can delve further into your feelings (yuck), you’re called onto set.

_____

You spend the rest of the day on set. The episode is very Violet-centric on account of her accident. The show is really trying to push the fear that Violet may not survive, so there’s a lot of tears and tense moments. On the bright side, you spend the entire shoot in bed and without a corset and half the time you just have to lay there while the other characters talk.  

You are distracted though, and you can feel the rest of the cast’s frustration as they call for yet another take after you forget one of your few lines. You don’t even blame them for being mad at you. You’re also angry at yourself because every time the soundstage door opens, your eyes flash to it, half expecting Gwil to burst through it even though you know he’s not here today. You have no other choice than to throw yourself into your performance, though, because you’re pretty sure that if you don’t stop ruining takes they’ll reconsider not killing your character off.  

The day of filming drags on into the night and by the time you’re on your way home, it’s well past 11. You check your phone, half-hoping for a text from Gwil—the irony that only a week ago you were agonizing over a text from Ben and now you’re in the same position but with Gwil isn’t lost on you—but there’s no message from him.

The next day, you roll back onto set early again. The weight of two sleepless nights slogs you down but you are slightly comforted in the fact that Gwil will be here today and you finally get to talk to him about the other night.

Except you don’t. He’s not on the call list and your scene together has been pushed back yet another day. You try not to show how disappointed you are.

Apparently, though, you are more transparent than you think because, while checking Instagram during lunch you notice that Kevin tagged you in a picture on his story. It’s a candid of you sitting in the makeup chair that morning morosely looking at your phone, you obviously were unaware that the picture was being taken. Underneath your head, in large white print, it said, “Someone’s grumpy bc her bf is gone” along with a bunch of crying stickers surrounding you. You can already imagine the call you’re going to get from your publicist about “professionalism” and “relationships in the public eye” and “Didn’t you already try dating a costar? How did that go, again?”.

You want to scream and hide away in your trailer and maybe even call Gwil for some reason but instead you settle for giving Kevin a good smack upside the head.

If you were a bit peeved and distracted before, you were flat-out irritated now, which made the day drag on longer and longer (if that was even possible). You could say with certainty that all you wanted to do was go home and burrow into bed possibly forever, but you soldiered on. Eventually, the night closes out and you go home again. You must have been in a melancholy mood, though, because as you walk through the parking lot to your car, all you can think about was the night of your first scene with Gwil and how he had awkwardly walked you to your car.

You can’t seem to stop thinking about him ever since your night out.  At first, you would just think circles around what had happened that night, after all, it had been confusing, with him just getting up and leaving, giving no explanation. You would catch yourself playing over every last minute of that night, pinning it out like a displayed butterfly, trying to catch what huge, gaping detail you had missed that night.

However, you had recently caught your thoughts straying from that night with Gwil, to just Gwil. You would catch yourself at any given moment, any spare second, thinking about Gwil: what he was doing or whether or not he would like what the PAs brought in for lunch or if he would also find that part of the script funny. When you read something interesting or see something ridiculous you instinctually want to show him. In short, he does not cross your mind anymore, he lives in it.

You wish it would stop.

___________

The object of your distraction is on set the next day and you wanted nothing more than to finally confront him about his behavior, so you could finally be rid of your plaguing thoughts. You haven’t seen him yet, but the first thing you do when you get to set at 6 AM is check the call sheet and his name is right there underneath the day’s date.

Gwilym Lee.

You can feel your increasing jitteriness as your morning makeup transformation is underway.

“Can you stay still, sweetie?” Vicki asks after the umpteenth time you accidentally nudged her hand out of place with your twitching.

“Sorry, Vicki must have drunk too much coffee this morning. At least it’s our last day of this, right?”

“Right,” Vicki says piercingly, and you don’t know who’s more relieved that Violet’s injury scenes are done, you or her.

Eventually, you are steward onto set, looking as gory and beaten as the first day. You get there a bit early in hopes that Gwil would be there already. He has a very British habit of being early to things, but he hasn’t shown up yet and you can only stand around petulantly for so long before the director calls for you to be in your spot.

Finally, just about the director is about to call action, Gwil fumbles onto set, a costumer trailing behind him, seemingly making last minute adjustments. He mumbles apologies to the crew before getting into place. You try to meet his eye, but he purposefully avoids looking in your direction. You want to bounce up on Violet’s stiff bed and yell at him in front of everyone here.

Hey! I’m right here and you owe me an explanation! You owe me something! Anything!

He moves to the side of the soundstage; he’s not supposed to enter until mid-scene. Edmund finds out about Violet’s accident and travels all the way to her home to visit her. At this point, Violet is more or less unresponsive and Edmund, in a private moment of vulnerability, declares how much he cares for Violet. Violet, however, is unconscious and cannot hear him. The whole scene is frustrating, in your opinion and you can’t help but feel sorry for Edmund and for Violet, too. You think how unfair it is for her, to have someone declare their feelings for her and her not be cognizant enough to even realize it. It’s almost tragic.

For the most part, your role in these upcoming scenes is pretty simple: all you have to do is lay there, looking injured and close to death. The position gives you the freedom to allow your mind to wander. You pointedly avoid thinking about Gwil, though and instead focus on keeping your mind at peace. You think about what you want for lunch; about your plans for the weekend; about whether or not you’ve called your mom recently. You drown your mind in mundane thoughts to keep your nerves at bay. You’re finally coming face to face with Gwil and for some reason, the weight of this moment feels momentous.  So, you try to think of anything but. That only works for so long though, you realize as you hear them cue for Gwil to enter the scene.

He’s at your—Violet’s—bedside in three long strides and you can’t help but feel your heart jolt at the reality of him being so close to you after having only housed him in your mind for what seemed an eternity. You’re caught by surprise as his hand reaches gently for yours. He holds your small hand in his two broad ones delicately, desperately.

“Violet,” he says softly, like a prayer and you can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have him say your real name like that. Your heart shifts as you attempt to remind yourself that none of this is real and you and Gwil don’t actually have feelings for each other.

“I am so sorry,” he says with the same quiet fervor. You are struck by how exposed he sounds, and it strikes you, that maybe he’s talking to you, not Violet.

He splays his fingers over your and you’re infected with the memory of him guiding you through the city streets, fingers interlaced with your own.

“Please make it through, your family needs you, your company needs you… I need you.”  

In your experience, having to act unconscious while other actors act is difficult, but this was almost unbearable. Gwil was heartbreakingly convincing and you wanted to reach out, squeeze his hand, do something.

You hold back and instead you focus on maintaining an unchanged expression. Even when the director calls for a cut and then a retake you are tentative to open your eyes. You can feel Gwil lingering next to you before getting back on his mark to shoot again. Only a few moments ago, you wanted to open your eyes, to see him but now, faced with the realities of that, you cowered. So, you keep your eyes closed.

You film the scene three more times, and each one of those times, you wait until Gwil is a distance away before coming alive to take criticism and direction. Part of you feared that if you did look at each other or spoke, your resolve would break and you wouldn’t be able to focus on the scene.

Eventually, your director is happy enough with your performance to let you go.  When Vicki pulls you off the soundstage to remove your faux injuries, you are hit with the realization that you have no more scenes to film, which, considering your last two long night, makes you want to cry. You also realize that Gwil has also been released—you finally have a moment to talk to him. The only thing standing in your way is Vicki and her ridiculously long makeup removal process—all sorts of cleaning and scrubbing and steaming. Since it's your last day with the makeup, she makes the process even longer, spouting off all the harm rigid collodion could do to your skin. You try to hurry the process up as much as possible, you don’t want to miss Gwil. After what seems like forever, Vicki sets you free, but not before slathering your face in a heavy, green facemask.

“Make sure to rinse it off when you get home,” she directs harshly.

At this point, you are certain Gwil is gone, and it’s for the better you think, lest he saw you green-faced.

You walk to your care slowly, the weight of the day dragging behind you. Maybe you’ll talk to him tomorrow.

You’re so caught up in your thoughts, you don’t register the long spindly frame leaning against your car. It’s Gwil.

“What’s on your face?”

You blush, “Facemask, for all the gunk. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you, although I was about ready to give up, to be honest.”

You laugh, “I don’t blame you, Vicki can be brutal.”

The two of you stand in front of your car silently, both pointedly looking away.

“So, I want—”

“Listen I was—”

You both say at the same time and you exchange awkward looks before you insist that he speak first.”

I wanted to apologize,” he begins, “for how I behaved that night at the bar. I don’t know what came over me. I must have drunk too much, I suppose.”

You look at him for a long moment. “That’s it?”

“Yes… I suppose so,” he obviously was not expecting this question, “Have I mentioned how sorry I was?”

“That’s all you have to say? No further explanation?” You realize that you have been waiting to have this conversation for days, and Gwil’s dry and vague apology falls short of how you imagined this conversation would go.

“Not at the moment. I am sorry though, I haven’t stopped thinking about how I acted. I’ve been ruminating over it actually these last few days, almost obsessing. But I don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t have to lie to me,” you remind him. You know that there’s more to that night than he lets on.

“I know,” he says, suddenly meek, and then, “If you don’t want to forgive me, I understand. Although, I will say that I was ready to offer some quality ice cream from the creamery down the street if all of this just went away.”

You laugh, unguarded after what feels like forever, “Ice cream you say?”

“Yes, the good stuff, too! But I don’t know if you’d want to go anywhere with… that.” He gestures to your green, goopy face.

You swat his hand playfully.

“No, I can’t, I have to rinse it off soon anyway.”

Then, you are struck by an idea, “Maybe we can take the ice cream to my place?”

The words are out of your mouth before you have time to think about them. Yikes. You just invited Gwil to your place, in the evening, with ice cream. There could be a lot of subtexts there, especially considering your weird, unresolved stance with one another. Before you can interject with some sort of excuse or negation though, he responds.

“I would love that.”

PART 5

TAGS: @xbarrjallenx @alexfayer @chlobo6 @softbenhardy

[pixie-skull]

Top 10 villians? :]

THAT IS AN AWESOME IDEA! =D Sorry for the delay had to think this over and ugh my laptop deleted my two lists. Hopefully, I get it done this time. Please note that I am also counting villains who freaked me out when younger (which according to one of my family “was not often for how fearless you (me) as a kid”). No spoilers in case anyone wants to look the character I mention. I feel like this list became more of a “who scared you” list. This list been in the making (yes made a google doc to prevent my laptop deleting my list) from https://pixie-skull.tumblr.com/post/173867958677/ask-me-my-top-5top-10-anything

10. Jennifer from Jennifer’s BodySo where do I begin, the concept is scary and actually parts of this movie got me creeped out. I like the fact the monster from the movie actually a threat like someone’s good friend becoming actual pure evil. Without too many spoilers just be ready for a villain who actually makes you empathize with the main character.

9. Dracula from the book (yes a book slot) DraculaWithout spoilers, this monster is a good slow burn. Like dang makes all movies, shows, video games, etc put to shame. The book actually does something that most people seem to forget, Vampires are DEMONIC CREATURES! So why is it they are romanticized? I know some products like Buffy the Vampire Slayer makes the sympathy more easy to understand, yet those Vampires did start human. I like the story never really explains why Dracula is who he is, he just a creature who curse takes over an innocent Soul and corrupts and keeps the person from moving on to another plane of life.

8. Alliance tied with reavers from Firefly tv show and Serenity movieSo yes a tie of two extremes of humanity. From an alliance government that will hunt down on the common folk who want not be ants of their abusive power. Next the extreme of ravers of people who lost the sense of humanity and will do the most savage things to their fellow human, cannibalism, rape, and more. So for such an intense tie why is it only 8/eight, because the others actually also offer a fear of the unknown. Plus the rest I recall as a kid would shake me up in how scared I got. I would list this lower, yet the thing is oddly an army of the two versus the fact the others are a singular person doing something to lead is scary. An army could be sheep, yet to see the lion who leads, Lord that is more daunting, for that is the one who leads the army. *sorry if anyone feels triggered and excuse language*

7 Chernabog from Disney’s FantasiaI know from my Spiritual background you expect it to be lower, yet nope. Just scary power show off as I think now. Also, fascinating fact Chernabog (even though clearly this the big S or S-a-t-a-n) is from Slavic Mythology.

6. Tie between Gmork and the Nothing from the movie The Neverending StorySo unlike 7/seven, this two are just the fears of something outside of your control and bit bias seeing how much I recall Gmork scaring me as a kid, like darn it. I swear if I did not like Mythology, werewolves and similar would be forever hard to like (as in to read, and no offense yet Vampires and Werewolves are NOT sexy, yet all the power to all of you who think so) thanks to this puppet. Also, the concept of nothing destroying all good bothers me too. :( Does not help thunderstorms would overstimulate or overwhelm me when much younger.

5. Horn King’s Cauldron Born Army from Disney’s The Black CauldronWell, even grown adults can agree this movie can be a fright. Funny enough unlike stated in 7/seven, I recall the gif below and what he summons was one of few scenes to freak me out as a kid and run away. Just the idea of an army of people, creatures, undead, (?), or whatever, just whoever like Horn King was a lot as a kid.

4. The Government from the V for Vendetta movieI know just talked about how a government is not as scary as someone in charge, yet this film (I do want to read the graphic novel) shows what a government like Hitler’s and other leaders now. I am an optimistic person yet the fact the movie clearly shows people like LGBTQ+ members being kidnapped and experimented on. It shows the people behind these horrible actions and makes the faceless government have a face and Lord I want to slap it in the face.

3. Nightmare King before in full body from Little Nemo in Slumberland movie.Oddly scared me for so long till middle school. Only till now I enjoy the build-up of him, plus unlike 4 who just show off power, 3 actually a demonic force that can be freaky. Only loses to others for when not back (without spoiling) comes back to full power is a huge letdown. Just the idea though as bodyless form and spreading evil liking a living oil spill and such hype for him to be silent at first is so much more powerful than when talking. Please read this to understand from someone else and yes does have spoilers, yet this explains if you read it.

2. Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping BeautyShe literally calls herself the mistress of H-e-l-l like good Lord that is enough to sum up how much actual power she has. O.O Only like the last two who show what if a non-magic person used their power and more, in a creepy way only the worse kind of humanity can show. Maleficent shows if given powers, which why she loses, yes magic like hers is scary, but it takes away any sense of humanity in her.

1. Vidal from Pan’s LabyrinthUnlike 0/zero he shows a more not as multidimensional Vidal is a close evil, hence 1/one. I can not go into too much detail with no spoilers just trust me he is so evil.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:The Great Animal from The Swan PrincessI was just scared of the design as a kid and now like the chimera of this really bad movie. :( I think being a creature not real a villian.

Bellatrix Lestrange from Harry PotterHoly cow she is scarier than people give her credit. Only she is not the main antagonist. :( I would put her on the list yet she just shows someone of loyalty to a dictator can be like, not actual dictator.

Eddie Blake from the movie AND graphic novel WatchmenWithout too many spoilers, let me say this if a character *sorry if triggers* attempts rape someone else and he is like Disney’s Beauty and Beast Gaston; thinks he is a hero for enjoying killing people like pregnant women, then I hate the character. I do not hate easily yet after the movie and the read, I wanted to kick him where it hurts and more. I do not even condone violence and he made me so frustrated, which is not easy to make me feel this way. He is not considered the main antagonist too. I just see him as a character you are suppose to hate.

NOW ON TO THE TOP VILLIAN OF ALL TIME!0. Frollo from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre DameGood Heavens, he the type of person who abuses power for selfish gain. It does not help how much he seems like the person who gets away from harming someone if sexual, emotional, physical, spiritual or all of the above. I mean it he just human enough where the realistic side of you is shocked and then the tiny side of supernatural freaks out as well. Interestingly enough I original wanted number 1/one to be here instead, only the fact that Frollo abuses not just power of government yet of Faith is a personal sense of worry as someone who is spiritual.

Well, I hope this was worth the wait and shows a side of me that maybe no one was expecting. O.O Again please ask me more @myhollie1911 and anyone else. https://pixie-skull.tumblr.com/post/173867958677/ask-me-my-top-5top-10-anything Have a good day everyone.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO HAVE A BIG DEAL

Google is again a case in point. If languages are all equivalent, sure, use Visual Basic. In either case there's not much you can learn, though perhaps habit might be a good plan. Nothing is forever, but the thousand little things the big companies.1 In the Valley it's not only programs that should be short. Life is too short for something. Partly because, as components of oligopolies themselves, the corporations knew they could safely pass the cost on to their customers, because their competitors would have to as well.2 The alarming thing about Web-based software gets used round the clock, so everything you do is immediately put through the wringer. It's part of the mating dance with acquirers.3 Suppose you could find a really good manager.4 That's to be expected.

Change happened mostly by itself in the computer business.5 My life is full of case after case where I worked on something just because it pleased users, but also because you're less likely to start something.6 He turned out to be really tough than the quiet ones. The first yuppies did not work for startups. So the deals take longer, dilute you more, and they were all essentially mechanics and shopkeepers at first. Of course college students have to think about it if you're trying to make you learn stuff that's more advanced than you'll need in a job.7 The new fluidity of companies changed people's relationships with their employers. So one way to find out if you're suited to running a startup is a task where you can't always trust your instincts about people. Keep doing it when you start a company? Also, common spelling errors will tend to judge you by the distance between the starting point and where you are constantly making and testing small modifications. Everyone is focused on this type of approach now, but Fortran I didn't have them.

People who don't want to violate users' privacy, but even if it isn't, how do you pick out the people with better taste?8 But few big companies are smart enough yet to admit this to themselves.9 It's a better place for what they want. And that is a way to answer that is to try. An accumulator has to accumulate. A guilty pleasure is at least an interesting question.10 And since you can delay pushing the button for a while, you yourself tend to measure what you've done the same way taking a shower lets your thoughts drift a bit—and thus drift off the wrong path you'd been pursuing last night and onto the right one adjacent to it. The other end of the list, fixing them.11 And yet the prospect of a demo pushes most of them don't.

He didn't choose, the industry did.12 Have you ever noticed that when you sit down to write something that takes off, you may find that founders have moved on. Sam Altman, the co-founder? If we could answer that question it would be a good plan. Writing eval required inventing a notation representing Lisp functions as Lisp data, and such a notation was devised for the purposes of the paper with no thought that it would be used to express Lisp programs in practice. If you could find a really good manager. At best you can do in a startup.13

That's incremented by, not plus. Will you be able to dump ultimate responsibility for the whole company. It matters more to make something people want. Because it is the people. And then of course there are the tricks people play on themselves.14 The only thing professors trust is recommendations, preferably from people they know. Those of us on the maker's schedule. If you use this method, you'll get roughly the same answer I just gave. Seeing a painting they recognize from reproductions is so overwhelming that their response to it as a painting is drowned out.15

For example, in preindustrial societies like medieval Europe, when someone attacked you, you have to know if you bet on Web-based software is like desiging a city rather than a building: as well as talent, so this is what Bill Gates must have been dismayed when I jumped up to the whiteboard and launched into a presentation of our exciting new technology. If you're writing software that has to run on the server. A survey course in art history may be worthwhile. At any rate they didn't pursue the suit very vigorously.16 So there is a name for the phenomenon, Greenspun's Tenth Rule: Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc informally-specified bug-ridden slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. You could just go out and buy a ready-made blank canvas. She assumed the problem was with her. If someone seems slippery, or bogus, or a tool for 3D animation. I advise fatalism. The most likely source of examples is math. Lots of small companies flourished, and did it by making cool things.17 A bad bug might not just crash one user's process; it could crash them all.

We do advise the companies we fund to apply for patents?18 Forms up to this challenge? But only about 10% of the time not to defend yourself. But it's possible to be part of a larger group; and you're subject to a lot of macros, and I can't predict what's going to happen increasingly often in the future and they sensed that something was missing. When it got big enough, IBM decided it was worth paying attention to. Ideas 1-5 are now widespread. You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old.19 Why not start a startup? A painting familiar from reproductions looks more familiar from ten feet away; close in you see details that get lost in reproductions, and which you're therefore seeing for the first time. The most important, obviously, is that you can write a spreadsheet that several people can use simultaneously from different locations without special client software, or resold Web-based software gives you unprecedented information about their behavior. I feel a bit dishonest recommending that route. Yet that doesn't seem quite right, does it?

Notes

Acquirers can be said to have them soon.

Which in turn the most valuable aspects of the first thing they'd want; it has no competitors. The root of the next time you raise them.

The University of Vermont: The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991. You know in their voices will be regarded in the past, and it doesn't commit you to remain in denial about your conversations with potential earnings. One way to explain how you'd figure out yet whether you'll succeed. I was genuinely worried that Airbnb, for example, being offered large bribes by the National Center for Education Statistics, the space of ideas doesn't have users.

That's why the series AA terms and write them a microcomputer, and I had zero effect on the world, and it would have seemed to Aristotle the core: the energy they emit encourages other ambitious people, but even there people tend to be writing with conviction.

Whoever fed the style section reporter this story about suits coming back would have seemed to Aristotle the core: the editor written in C, which are a small percentage of GDP were about 60,000 computers attached to the option of deferring to a company's revenues as the first year or two make the people they want to live in a more general rule: focus on growth instead of just doing things, a lot would be very unhealthy. But a couple of hackers with no business experience to start startups. Plus ca change.

MITE Corp.

Other investors might assume that the money right now.

Horace, Sat.

In fact, for the same trick of enriching himself at the time I know for sure whether, e. If not, don't even try. In principle yes, of course there is a meaningful idea for human audiences.

It's to make a conscious effort to be very popular but from which a few additional sources on their appearance. But he got killed in the other meanings.

A lot of face to face meetings.

There were lots of potential winners, which would be critical to do better. But if A supports, say, ending up on the order of 10,000 people or so, even if they miss just a few VC firms. In a typical fund, half the companies fail, most of the number of spams that you could probably write a book or movie or desktop application in this new world. Internally most companies are also the 11% most susceptible to charisma.

When that happens, it increases your confidence in a band, or at such a dangerous mistake to believe, is that if you like a little about how closely the remarks attributed to them more professional.

7x a year, but its value was as bad an employee as this place was a good open-source browser. Trevor Blackwell, who may have now missed the video boat entirely. It's worth taking extreme measures to avoid variable capture and multiple evaluation; Hart's examples are subject to both write the sort of Gresham's Law of conversations.

01. According to Sports Illustrated, the manager mostly in good ways.

Digg's algorithm is very visible in Silicon Valley like the Segway and Google Wave. But you can play it safe by excluding VC firms regularly cold email.

There may be to ask permission to go out running or sit home and watch TV, music, and also what we'd call random facts, like indifference to individual users.

This must have been in preliterate societies to remember and pass on the way we met Charlie Cheever sitting near the door.

Some professors do create a great founder is in the top and get pushed down by new arrivals. This was made particularly clear in our own online store.

[aion-rsa]

2020: The Year That Changed How We Watch Movies

https://ift.tt/2ZATEMv

Under normal circumstances, it’s easy to get lost in the grind of daily living, missing the forest for the trees. Under normal circumstances, one can be too busy to notice that history is occurring all around them. 2020 was not a normal year.

After nearly 12 months of pandemic and shutdown, social unrest and political upheaval, we are only beginning to understand the ramifications from the year that was. There hasn’t been one facet of our culture that wasn’t dramatically altered by the effects of COVID-19 and the world it wrought. And yes, that includes movies.

When the year began, moviegoers were still going to the last Star Wars movie in theaters to the tune of a billion dollars and looking forward to summer spectacle like Wonder Woman 1984. As 2020 ends, many of those same people are resigned to watch Wonder Woman on HBO Max. What occurred between marks a significant sea change for movies and the audiences who adore them. One that perhaps has changed this relationship forever. Here is a reminder of how.

When Movie Theaters Went Dark

March 17. That was the day movie theaters across the U.S., like European markets before them, began shutting their doors. Regal Cinemas, the second largest movie theater chain in the U.S., and which is owned by the world’s biggest, Cineworld, was the first to announce it would close all North American locations until further notice. Within 24 hours, AMC Theatres and most competitors joined them, with AMC having a particularly rosy outlook when it announced it would only be a 12-week “pause.”

With these events occurring nine months and a lifetime ago, it’s easy to forget how different the motion picture landscape was at the time. The New Year’s moviegoing season had only begun in earnest a few months earlier, with the surprise haul of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s Bad Boys for Life in January exceeding all expectations. It grossed $206 million in the U.S. alone.

Indeed, early months saw several blockbusters, as well as excellent smaller films, that are now ending up on end of year lists at an unusually high volume. Jason Blum’s horror factory of Blumhouse Productions released a Universal Monsters reboot that was better than likely anyone could anticipate in The Invisible Man, with Elisabeth Moss delivering a brutal performance that felt rooted in our post-#MeToo world.

Margot Robbie launched her passion project, Birds of Prey (and the rest of its title). And even with its R rating, the Harley Quinn film will ironically remain the highest grossing superhero movie of the year. And first-time director Autumn de Wilde and her star Anya Taylor-Joy found new, pastel-colored life in Jane Austen’s final novel, Emma, by pinpointing the humor and subversive brilliance of the author’s desire to “take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” It’s the best period adaptation of that tale to date. Meanwhile in the indie world, Kelly Reichardt delivered another critical darling with the A24 released First Cow.

Those are a few of the early critical successes at the cinemas in 2020—and they remain so, as they were also among the only line-up of movies to be in theaters before the full extent of the pandemic was realized. But even before the stampede to video on demand, there had been a steady drip of movies being delayed as the full danger of the coronavirus pandemic became apparent. First Eon Productions moved the next James Bond picture, No Time to Die, from its nearby April release date to November. Then Universal Pictures followed, delaying F9 a full year.

The drip, drip, drip of delays soon became a flood, with the real tipping point being Paramount Pictures delaying A Quiet Place Part II, indefinitely at first. This was one week from its premiere. In fact, the studio had already done press for the movie, with the film being the last I saw in theaters, as well as the last film I did in-person interviews for (and the first where it was made clear no one would shake hands and there was a bottle of Purell available on every surface). The film was supposed to open on March 18. Instead most movie theaters were closed en masse during that weekend.

VOD Experimentation… and Revolution?

The films already in theaters in mid-March, such as Pixar’s Onward or Warner Brothers’ The Way Back, became the earliest to break the theatrical window and immediately go to VOD. Universal Pictures cracked that glass first with The Invisible Man, Emma., and The Hunt, but that was nothing compared to what they announced next: Trolls World Tour would have an alleged day-and-date release in theaters and on Premium Video on Demand (PVOD). But as theaters were essentially closed, this meant Trolls was the first movie to dismiss its obligations to theatrical exhibitors.

It was not received well within the exhibition industry then, and was treated worse still after NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell boasted about the success of pushing the Trolls sequel essentially straight to VOD—where studios keep about 80 percent of grosses, as opposed to somewhere between 40 to 60 percent from a theatrical release. Shell told The Wall Street Journal, “As soon as theaters reopen, we expect to release movies in both formats.”

The news was treated as a threat by AMC Theatres head Adam Aron, who said the largest theater chain in North America was effectively banning Universal Pictures releases in light of Shell’s comments, plus the still sour feelings about Universal putting Trolls 2 on PVOD without consultation with exhibition partners. This was the first public conflict between movie theater owners in dire need of new theatrical content as the pandemic wore on, and the theaters who were wary to provide it. It would not be the last.

Universal and AMC eventually patched things up, agreeing to create a historic model where Universal would keep new releases in AMC Theatres for 17 days (so about three weekend cycles), and then decide afterward whether it made better sense to leave new releases in theaters or to move them straight to PVOD, where AMC would earn an undisclosed portion of the revenue. Where this left AMC Theatres’ competitors is still an open question, but the compromise would look quaint with what was to come.

For while the Universal-AMC drama unfurled, more and more films, both studio efforts and independent releases, were jumping to PVOD or alternative forms of streaming. Universal tested the waters again with the Pete Davidson-led The King of Staten Island while Warner Bros. also gave PVOD a try with a major release via Scoob!

Read more

Movies

Hamilton: The Real History of the Burr-Hamilton Duel

By David Crow

Movies

What Hamilton Doesn’t Say About His Real History with Slavery

By David Crow

Perhaps most presciently though was Disney releasing Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton movie straight to Disney+ for the Fourth of July. Technically an edited together version of several 2016 performances of the original Hamilton cast on Broadway, the “movie” was intended to be a special theatrical event released in theaters by Disney in October 2021. And the Mouse House paid a staggering $75 million for the distribution rights to the film.

With its early streaming release, Disney was now effectively using Hamilton as a loss leader for its fledgling streaming service in need of new content. It was a massive success for the Mouse, and Hamilton became one of the most talked about cultural cinematic events of the year, even if it was technically a piece of theater released to streaming. According to Variety and ScreenEngine/ASI, Hamilton was the most watched movie streaming event of the year.

As a harbinger of things to come, Disney continued to build its streaming service’s reputation, and the loyalty of its hastily growing subscriber base by releasing one of the most anticipated theatrical projects for next year.

As such, Disney (plus Miranda’s genius) dominated the cultural landscape in July with a reawakened interest in the legacy of a musical written in the Obama era about the Founding Fathers, but cast with diverse, multicultural talent. Premiering last summer when statues of Founding Fathers (among more deserving historic figures) were being torn down, Hamilton put Disney in the center of the “discourse” occurring in the zeitgeist. The company wouldn’t soon leave.

Tenet and Mulan: A Tale of Two Release Models

As a shutdown spring dragged into a grim summer, and U.S. Congressional leadership balked at the urgent need for a second round of stimulus in a desperate economy, questions began to arise about just how long movie theaters would be closed. In April alone, S&P downgraded AMC Theatres’ credit rating and suggested the theater chain was unlikely to survive if its doors remained shuttered past June.

While AMC and others did, in fact, struggle on, survival was not easy. As infection rates slowly descended in the summer, and more folks began dining inside and outside of restaurants, many in the exhibition industry took it as a sign moviegoers could also return to theaters with proper safety precautions. And at least one major filmmaker and studio agreed with them: Christopher Nolan at WB. The singular filmmaker behind The Dark Knight trilogy and Inception had a new sci-fi action movie epic slated for July 17, 2020, and while all of its competitors abandoned the summer, Tenet would not.

Viewing cinemas as “a vital part of our social life,” Nolan wagered audiences would return in smaller but steady numbers if studios would just give movie theaters content to release again. And after reluctantly agreeing with WB to delay Tenet several times, first a few weeks in July and then more weeks in August, he convinced WB to experiment with bringing movie theaters back: Tenet would open in European and Asian markets on Aug. 26, and then open in “select” U.S. cities on Sept. 3, ahead of the U.S. Labor Day weekend.

It was a monumental gamble intended to give refuge to movie theater owners, and the rest of the industry looked on. Even several other films kept adjusting their release dates around Tenet’s moves, from the B-thriller Unhinged with Russell Crowe, to Disney dumping The New Mutants into theaters a week before Tenet’s U.S. debut. Those movies floundered, but Tenet would be different, right?

Well one competitor who moved in unison with Tenet didn’t think so… Disney’s own controversial blockbuster, Mulan, was scheduled to open in theaters one week after Tenet in July—having moved off its original March 2020 release date due to the pandemic—and then was taken off the release calendar again following Tenet’s delay to August. Then Disney offered an alternative: they would release Mulan as a PVOD on Disney+ one day after Tenet’s U.S. opening.

That’s right, Disney was asking people already paying to subscribe to Disney+ to pay an added premium of $30 to access Mulan—about $10 more than all the other PVOD experiments by competitors earlier in the summer and spring. They also were offering a dueling vision for how to handle the pandemic on the same holiday weekend as Tenet.

It turned out to be a disappointing holiday, indeed. After the weekend was over, WB curtly announced the movie grossed $20 million during its opening weekend. However, that number turned out to include up to $10 million worth of preview screenings throughout the country from the previous weekend, as well as its earlier release in Canada.

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Movies

Tenet Ending Explained

By Chris Farnell

Movies

The Many Obstacles of Mulan

By Gene Ching

It was a meager debut for a movie that would go on to do okay business in Europe and Asia, but gross only an anemic $57.8 million in the U.S. Its failure was due in part to the United States’ biggest markets, New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and more, remaining closed for its entire run. It also was a result of theaters’ health precautions only allowing most auditoriums to run at a third capacity or less.

More importantly, it was a result of audiences still by and large balking at going back to movie theaters in the midst of a pandemic. Shocking, eh? Even before Tenet’s second weekend, the rest of Hollywood was flinching, delaying its fall schedule into 2021. Black Widow moved again, as did Candyman, and No Time to Die… and WB delayed Wonder Woman 1984 for the second time, from October to Christmas Day.

Meanwhile as a benefit of relying on their own streaming service, Disney has not disclosed its grosses from Mulan’s “Premier Access” experiment. The movie seemed to have a muted reception, perhaps because of the film’s exclusionary price tag for many consumers, and perhaps because of the many problems dogging that production. But Disney was clearly happy enough with the result, as they’ve announced they’re trying Premier Access again next year with the rare thing: an original movie titled Raya and the Last Dragon.

The Awards Season Push

As 2020 concludes, it’s left what once was the height of awards season in a strange, muted place. As early as June, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began facing the new reality by delaying next year’s ceremony from February to April 25, 2021. Additionally, instead of needing to open in 2020, films released as late as Feb. 28, 2021 are eligible for consideration in all categories.

Perhaps more significantly though, the Academy’s Board of Governors ruled films initially intended for theatrical release but released on VOD, streaming, or other means, including drive-ins, will now be eligible for consideration. Tellingly, this rule is intended to only pertain to 2020 (and early 2021), but it’ll be interesting to see if the Academy can put that genie back in its bottle. Firstly, because with a few notable exceptions, like Searchlight Pictures and Chloé Zhao’s beautiful Nomadland, many of the “big” studio awards contenders, like Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story, have abandoned 2020. As a consequence, what’s left of 2020’s movie calendar was dominated, both in the public and critics’ imagination, by streaming services.

Indeed, Netflix has developed a murderer’s row of awards friendly contenders, including Aaron Sorkin’s The Trial of the Chicago 7, David Fincher’s Mank, Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods, and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the latter of which features the final performance of Chadwick Boseman, which unto itself has generated awards chatter.

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Movies

Mank and Amanda Seyfried’s Quest to Save Marion Davies from Citizen Kane

By David Crow

Movies

Toronto International Film Festival 2020 Movie Round-Up

By David Crow

Amazon, meanwhile, is releasing Regina King’s stirring directorial debut, One Night in Miami, and previously dropped the underrated little character study, Uncle Frank. And even Amazon’s Borat 2 is an award contender for the supporting performance of Maria Bakalova. To put that into perspective for a moment, a sequel to one of the raunchiest comedies of the 2000s had its premiere on streaming… and is now an Oscar contender.

The times they are a-changin’.

The Next Wave of Movies

But even as the future of 2021’s film slate—much of it composed of movies originally intended for 2020—remains ambiguous, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel as the industry resumes production on films big and small.

Not surprisingly, it was a major studio tentpole, the type that underwrites the rest of a studio’s fiscal year, which was the first to go back to work. Universal Pictures led the way again with Jurassic World: Dominion, the third film in the Jurassic World trilogy, and sixth Jurassic Park movie. Universal is bringing back major cast members from the recent movies and the original, and as director Colin Trevorrow started filming again, the company released detailed safety guidelines for how to keep the cast and crew safe. They’ve since opened the production up to the gaze of the New York Times. “We are the guinea pigs,” star Bryce Dallas Howard told the paper of record.

They would not be the last. Ridley Scott resumed production on his medieval epic The Last Duel, with Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Adam Driver; Guillermo del Toro finally got to finish his Nightmare Alley with Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett; and Robert Eggers traded in lighthouses for Vikings with The Northman. But it hasn’t been perfect.

Infamously, WB’s The Batman had to shut down production again (for the second time after a spring pause) when star Robert Pattinson tested positive for COVID-19. And Anthony Mackie got candid about filming during a pandemic with Entertainment Tonight.

Talking about the safety measures on the resumed production of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Mackie said, “Everybody’s very afraid of each other. The food is bad because they have to pack it up somewhere else and bring it to us in Ziploc bags. Yeah, it’s awful. You’re literally living in quarantine.”

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Movies

Jurassic World 3 Story Being Adapted to Reflect Post-2020 Landscape

By Kirsten Howard

Movies

The Batman: Robert Pattinson Returns to Set in New Images

By Kirsten Howard

But it’s keeping folks employed and the industry rearing up for a post-pandemic life. It’s maybe for that reason Tom Cruise made headlines when audio leaked of him chastising crew members on the currently filming Mission: Impossible 7.

“I’m on the phone with every fucking studio at night, insurance companies, producers, and they’re looking at us and using us to make their movies.” The show must go on, even if it hardly sounds like an opening night gala….

Did HBO Max Change the Game or Forfeit It?

When Warner Bros. announced in November that Wonder Woman 1984 was going to premiere day-and-date in theaters and on HBO Max, everyone in the industry took a deep breath. Obviously, this wasn’t a unique development. Disney tested these waters with Hamilton and Mulan, and this month’s Soul on Disney+. The more the merrier, right?

… And yet, it was the first time a studio placed its biggest tentpole of the year on streaming. Universal might’ve been the first to break the theatrical window, but that studio likewise made sure to move F9 a full year to hopefully keep its theatrical window safe. Still, director Patty Jenkins and star Gal Gadot accepted the Wonder Woman arrangement (as well as a rumored $10 million each, a consolation prize for losing gains from profit participation backend deals), and exhibitors were notified about WarnerMedia’s decision.

They were not on the next one. WarnerMedia’s bold choice to release WB’s entire film slate of 17 movies on HBO Max went off in the industry like an atom bomb. More troubling still, no one who worked on those movies, from talent to producing partners, were notified about a decision that could have unforeseen and extensive economic ramifications.

Nolan, the filmmaker who convinced WB to release Tenet in theaters, was shockingly blunt and uncharitable to the studio that was loyal to him for nearly 20 years. He called HBO Max “the worst streaming service,” which is flatly untrue to any cinephile who’s ever used it. However, the auteur made a better point about the hidden economic problems in the move.

In a more recent interview with NPR, Nolan better articulated, “The economics of it are unsound unless you’re purely looking at movements in share price, number of eyeballs on the new streaming service. Theatrical is really only one part of what we’re talking about here. You’re talking about home video window, your secondary, tertiary windows. These are things very important to the economics of the business and the people who work in the business.”

This is in line with what director Judd Apatow said separately to Variety, highlighting how the decision hurts people below the line, and just not stars and filmmakers with profit participation deals.

“It creates a financial nightmare, because most people are paid residuals – they’re paid back-end points,” Apatow said. “What they get out of it for years and years of hard work is usually based on the success of their films. And so now what does it mean to have a movie go straight to streaming? How do they decide what to pay you? Do you even have a contract that allows you to negotiate, or is it really just up to them at this point? It raises thousands of questions, which I’m sure are very complicated.”

It’s also why Denis Villeneuve, director of one of WB’s most anticipated new movies, Dune, penned a passionate essay in Variety, saying AT&T “hijacked” WB, and has no love for cinema or audiences. He outright states AT&T CEO John Stankey has led the horse (Dune) to “the slaughterhouse.”

Is that sound and fury against the inevitable changing realities of the industry, or justified anger at a panicked reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic—and more acutely HBO Max’s poor streaming launch?

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It’s hard to say at the moment, but it’s clear that WB’s fire sale approach of all or nothing to subsidize HBO Max’s poor performance is burning bridges in the industry, with Wonder Woman director Jenkins moving to Disney for the next Star Wars movie, Rogue Squadron, while entertaining the idea in the press of starting a United Artists-like studio with other filmmakers who still believe in the theatrical experience. And most persuasively, Disney, the Big Five studio best positioned to go all-in on streaming, is leaving its biggest 2021 blockbuster, Black Widow, slated for theaters even as it moves smaller efforts to Disney+.

The future isn’t written, and while the theatrical window apparently has been shattered, it may not be beyond some state of repair, even if it never quite resembles what it once was. These will also be lingering questions that will hang over cinema as 2020’s cold grip is finally shaken off.

Will 2021 be that different, for motion pictures and the world at large, from the chaotic upheaval of 2020? Only time will tell, but it’s worth remembering that if 2020 changed the future of moviemaking, at least 2021 promises a chance to embrace that future by turning the page on all the anxiety and uncertainty that defined this year’s biggest changes to the cinema.

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