#either you shake the puppet's whole world or you traumatize him. there is no in between apparently

[gonguji]

❛    what's 'it'?   ...   what's 'it'????   ❜

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 291: The Endeavor Pamphlet

Previously on BnHA: Dabi showed up atop Gigantomachia’s back and was all “you’ll never guess who I really am!” and the readers humored him and were all “who?” and he was all “TODOROKI TOUYA” and we were all “WOW └(・。・)┘ OH MY GOSH I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED”, except for Shouto and Enji who were GENUINELY SHOCKED. Anyway so Touya was all “and guess what I’m doing right now!” and before anyone could even try, he was all, “STREAMING MY EMMY-NOMINATED MINISERIES ‘HELLO, I’M EVIL BUT ALSO TRAGIC AND SEXY, NOW LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY DAD WHO SUCKS’’, THAT’S WHAT.” And everyone was all “oh my god” and Touya was all “ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪” for basically the rest of the chapter, and that’s pretty much it! Oh, wait, except for the part where he also doused himself in bleach in a fit of pure theatrics, which is actually pretty much the main takeaway from the entire chapter really because it was just wild af. ANYWAYS.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi introduces Baby Touya, the world’s most enchantingly sweet character, and is immediately all, “I sure can’t wait to tell you guys all about how his fucking jaw burnt off.” Thankfully he doesn’t (YET), and we cut back to the present pretty quickly, where Dabi explains how he took all of his brain cells that should have been used to stop him from pouring bleach over his head, and instead put them all toward his big brain plot of releasing an elaborate video detailing Endeavor’s various abuses and crimes, and even throwing Hawks under the bus as well because WHY NOT. He then leaps off of Gigantomachia’s back (like I said, no brain cells) all set to blast them with a Prominence Burn, only to be stopped by none other than THE LEGEND HIMSELF, MOTHERFUCKING BEST, PRETTIEST, NICEST, MOST OUTSTANDING MOTHERFUCKING JEANIST. Who’s no doubt outraged by the crime against hair he witnessed only moments earlier. GO GETTIM JEANY BOI.

so I haven’t had time to answer any of them because this has been the stupidest week, but I just wanted to tell you guys that I received no fewer than nine asks about Dabi’s hair. which, in a week filled with election memes and tumblr’s most cursed fandom briefly rising back up from the dead, is a pretty impressive feat for him if you ask me. like, I know I was making fun of it basically nonstop, but it sure did generate a lot of discussion so maybe I should rethink my opinions on Dabi’s PR strategies now, idk

anyway. it’s Saturday. time to catch up on this shit. let’s see how fucked the Todorokis are

OH NO HE’S CUTE

HOLY SHIT THIS IS TOO MUCH TO FUCKING PROCESS. I’M JUST TRYING TO ENJOY MY DAY HORIKOSHI, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TRAUMATIZE THIS POOR CHILD RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD

“thanks for being all right” the fuck

who allowed this child to be so cute. I’m serious. who signed off on this

how could a child this adorable possibly want to murder his equally adorable baby brother. please, your honor. there must be some mistake here

guess how prepared I am to read all about Touya’s tragic past. mm. that’s right. zero ready. none ready

anyway. TWO THOUSAND DEGREES LOLOLOL. NO TRACE OF A CORPSE HOW CONVENIENT. A PIECE OF HIS LOWER JAW BONE FFFFMSGHKLSh. LOVELY. LOVELY

LMAOOOOO

listen you guys. I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Horikoshi Kouhei did one of two things here. either (1) he planned it out FROM THE VERY START that Touya would be born with red hair Because Fire Powers, but would then have his hair turn white due to trauma, thus making the Dabi/Touya connection very slightly less obvious, although Let’s Be Real Who Are We Kidding. OR, (2) the anime got it wrong and gave him red hair, and rather than allowing this plot hole to continue to exist, Horikoshi took it upon himself to concoct this elaborate storyline and pretend it was never a plot hole at all! in which case I sure hope someone at Bones is sending him a VERY nice Christmas card this year. got this man sweeping up all your messes for you. you’re just lucky he has some sort of wild compulsion to address these things

anyways!!

FATHER AND SON. how sweet. :| still zero percent ready for any of this btw

STOP BEING CUTE

THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW. HE IS THE SINGLE CUTEST CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE SERIES, and do you even know how many other baby characters I’m betraying in order to say that?! baby Kacchan, baby Deku, baby Ochako, baby Shouto, Eri, baby Hawks. I’M LOOKING YOU DEAD IN THE EYE RIGHT NOW AND TELLING YOU THAT BABY TOUYA IS CUTER THAN ALL OF THOSE PLEBS. AND YOU’RE LOOKING BACK AT ME RIGHT NOW ALL “YEAH IT SURE IS A PITY ABOUT HIS JAW MELTING OFF THOUGH.” THAT’S IT, I QUIT THE SERIES

and Enji’s smiling at him. he’s so proud of him. but then Touya won’t be able to do it, and Enji’s gonna stop training him, and Touya’s gonna feel like a failure and keep pushing himself in order to try and win his dad’s affections back, because that’s all kids fucking want, all they want is just love, that’s fucking it, you couldn’t just give him that?? and then he’s gonna immolate himself fflkdlskfh THERE YOU SEE HORIKOSHI, I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY ALREADY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THE WHOLE “SHOW THEM THE DEAD DOG” THING YET AGAIN YOU PIECE OF SHIT

OH SNAP THERE GOES THE TWIN THEORY. R.I.P.

BABY FUYUMI. PRETTY CUTE. NOT AS CUTE AS TOUYA THOUGH. HEY LOOK, NO REASON TO GET MAD AT ME I’M JUST STATING A FACT HERE

YEAH THIS IS GONNA GO REAL WELL OH BOY

I keep pressing the emergency stop button but this industrial tragedy machine just keeps on chugging along anyway, I’m pretty sure this thing is not up to code

:| I am so sorry sweet boy, Horikoshi is only getting started with you

FUCKING HELL WITH THIS NARRATION

but he wasn’t actually a child to you, he was just a little puppet child for you to live vicariously through!! and then you went and did the same fucking thing with Shouto afterwards and never learned your lesson until just six months ago!! fucking hell, Enji

so now he’s all “Touya is dead, that’s an unforgivable lie” fflkdhflk motherfucker does he look dead to you. if you really think that, tumblr and twitter have got a little over five years’ worth of archived theory posts to show you

oh shit Touya’s countering with “it’s an unforgivable truth”, which, damn. I actually think Horikoshi’s dialogue is one of his weaker points as a writer a lot of the time, but that comeback was snappy as fuck

actually guys, now that I’ve seen how ridiculously fucking cute baby!Touya was, I can almost understand why Shouto and Enji never put the pieces together before lol. any passing similarities would have easily been dismissed on account of he’d need to be at least 10x more adorable in order to get the full resemblance

OH MY GOD

NOW YOU SLEEP??? SO YOU POINT BLANK REFUSED TO PASS OUT WHILE YOU WERE BUSY MAIMING ALL OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS, BUT NOW THAT THERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE YOUR REACTION TO THE “YOUR LIEUTENANT WAS SECRETLY RELATED TO ONE OF YOUR WORST ENEMIES THE WHOLE TIME” BOMBSHELL, YOU FINALLY DECIDE TO GET YOUR FORTY WINKS. I SEE

WOW DABI

I’M SURPRISED YOU DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE YOUR ANCESTRY.COM RESULTS PRINTOUT READY TO FOLD INTO A PAPER AIRPLANE AND ZOOM ON DOWN TO HIM

LOL NEVERMIND

gotta say, so far The Endeavor Pamphlet is just about as spicy as I could have hoped

(ETA: Natsuo’s face as he watches his beloved dead brother come back to life only to literally and metaphorically set everything on fire in one fell swoop is :/. why must you do this to me Natsu. can’t you see I’m trying to throw a Welcome Back Jeanist party here.)

HAVE YOU READ THIS?! TODOROKI ENJI ABUSED HIS OWN HEIR, AND DABI WROTE IT DOWN RIGHT THERE

WELL HE’S NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT

btw I neglected to mention this last week, but yes I do recognize and appreciate that this is Can’t Ya See-kun himself whom Horikoshi has chosen to be the face of this existential crisis which the general public is about to experience. rip CYS-kun

OOF

excuse me. putting aside the implications of Dabi sharing this context-less murder video of Hawks with the entire world for a moment, I just have to pause for a sec here, because when exactly did he get a chance to edit this all in?? complete with voiceover that seamlessly ties in with the prerecorded footage of him with DNA test results sans shirt?? you’re telling me this motherfucker, with all the smoke that was in the room thanks to his own quirk, somehow got a PERFECT SHOT of the PRECISE MOMENT when Hawks drove his feather knife into Jin’s back, using his MAGIC CAMERA THAT HE I GUESS HAD THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE POUCH RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BLEACH BOTTLE, and then immediately somehow got this very next shot as well FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANGLE

ALL THE WHILE IMMEDIATELY RUNNING THROUGH SCRIPT REVISIONS IN HIS HEAD, WHICH HE THEN PROCEEDED TO RECORD... WHERE, EXACTLY?? WITH SKEPTIC, WHILST RIDING ON MACHIA’S BACK??

AND THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF???

and this after I just wrote that whole long paragraph positively GLOWING about this man’s ability to plug up a plot hole. jfc. just scratch out every damn word I said lol. just forget all of it

are you fucking kidding me, the footage was from the cameras Skeptic planted on Hawks??

that’s... actually... okay you know what, it still doesn’t make any sense in the slightest, but the determination to address it nonetheless... just, dammit... I feel like I’m constantly at war with myself over whether or not I want to shake this man’s hand or slap him lmao. whatever, then!!

anyway, since Shouto and Enji can’t actually see the damage that Touya is dealing to the hero industry even as they speak, Touya is taking it upon himself to give them the highlights

I think it’s a testament to how much Endeavor cares about Hawks that he managed to zero in on that comment even amidst all the craziness of his eldest son returning from the dead to announce how he’s been carefully plotting their destruction for years and years. like, he heard “Hawks” and his face immediately went like that. you think he’s worried that Dabi did something to him? because he’d be right to worry lol

so the Endeavor Pamphlet narration is now explaining all about how Hawks totally killed the Number 3 Hero Best Jeanist as well! yep... he sure did... totally...

OH MY GOD WE’RE CUTTING TO HIM AHHHHH

Hawks, that is. lol. not Jeanist. NO, JUST MY POOR HALF-DEAD WINGLESS BABY SON

NOOOOO HIS LITTLE WING STUMPS. BUT SOMEHOW HIS FACIAL HAIR IS STILL INTACT. OH TO BE AN ANIME PRETTY BOY BEING SET ON FIRE. “HEY, TAKE IT EASY, WATCH THE FACE��

EXCUSE ME WHAT

interesting! we suspected as much, I think, with the clues that Ending dropped, and the little flashback right after the name reveal. still not clear how Dabi found out about it though!

looooool okay here we go, breaking out the heavy-handed holier-than-thou shit now

you know, I do find it interesting how trying to model themselves after All Might’s noble Symbol of Peace image has kind of ended up being the heroes’ undoing here. like, I could write a whole essay on this, but what it basically boils down to is that they were all trying too hard to be perfect. All Might went out there and did his thing and was amazing, and so the powers-that-be built an entire system centered around this seemingly-infallible person, and they acted like the system was infallible as well. and so most of the population ended up becoming complacent over the years, and meanwhile the people who were unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks understandably wound up disillusioned and perceiving the heroes as these false idols

anyway, but I think one positive takeaway from this is that the new up-and-coming generation of heroes represent a breakaway from that system. like, imo what we’re witnessing is the downfall of the Perfect Hero, and the rise of the imperfect hero. and this new generation doesn’t shy away from their failures or pretend like they never happened. they pretty much can’t pretend, because their failures are all right out there in the open for everyone to see. Bakugou Katsuki, just to name one example off the top of my very biased head, has had his own personal character journey basically play out right in front of the media’s eyes. his humiliation at the sports festival, his kidnapping by the League, and all of the fallout afterward. this isn’t someone who can ever go out there and convince the world that he’s perfect. but what he can do, instead, is show the world that he’s trying. that he’s trying with everything he has to do his best, to be the best. rather than this untouchable godlike image, it’s instead the image of someone painfully human who is nonetheless striving with everything he’s got to keep moving forward, flaws and all, and work his way to the top

and ultimately I think that’s going to be a much more positive image to send out to the world when all’s said and done. because rather than merely inspiring awe, heroes like that inspire people to take action themselves. or at least that’s what I hope! and not just Bakugou, but the others as well. we’ve got Shouto, whose own personal trauma is being aired in front of the whole nation even as I sit here ranting. we’ve got Deku, who cries at the drop of a hat, and who fought to become a hero despite being quirkless (and I think it’s only a matter of time before that eventually becomes public knowledge as well). tl;dr because I’m getting way too long-winded here, but these kids have effectively been humanized in a way that the old generation never was, and I think that’ll go a long way towards building trust between them and the people they’ll someday be protecting, and inspiring the next generation in hopefully a much healthier way

anyway so where were we. ...oh yes, Dabi was explaining that heroes only protect themselves, and is presumably building up to his grand conclusion of “therefore you should all just let the villains take over and burn down the world”

omfg. YOU GUYS

DOES CAN’T YA SEE-KUN’S SHARK FRIEND ACTUALLY CALL HIM “CAN’T YA SEE-KUN.” HE HAS A NAME YOU KNOW!! UNLESS HE LEGALLY GOT HIS NAME CHANGED TO CAN’T YA SEE-KUN. OH MY GOD

ALSO, IS THAT CAN’T YA SEE-KUN CRYING IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT THERE OMG. GIVE THIS CHILD A HUG. EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND HUG HIM

BAKUGOU IS BARELY HANGING ON THERE LOL. GOTTA STAY CONSCIOUS... SO MUCH TEA BEING SPILLED... FOCUS... CONCENTRATE

IIDA’S ANGLING HIS HEAD IN A WEIRD WAY, LIKE DUDE. LOOKING SUSPICIOUSLY SNUGGLY THERE. MMM THESE IIDABAKU CRUMBS

HADOU IS ALL “WHAT EVEN IS ACTUALLY GOING ON” LMAO

LASTLY, POOR SHOUTO OMFG. WHEN YOU��RE ALL FINISHED HUGGING CYS-KUN THIS CHILD NEEDS YOUR ATTENTION!!

so now Dabi’s leaping off of this ninety-foot-tall gargoyle man like that’s a normal, smart thing to do. unless he can fly too now? saw his dad doing it back at Fukuoka and was all “hmm”

OH MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT WORD SHOUTO IS USING TO ADDRESS ENJI, THESE TRANSLATIONS LOVE TO MESS WITH MY HEAD

ENJI GET MOVING DO YOU NOT SEE THOSE TEARS!!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU BIG TREE

AHHHHH

OH KACCHAN YOU WOKE UP A LITTLE MORE THERE, HUH

lol he and Deku both look so determined but they’re basically sitting ducks. their “oh shit” faces do look remarkably like their “TIME TO SWING INTO ACTION” faces but don’t be fooled, they have one good arm and about six pints of blood left between the two of them. looks like this one’s all on you Shouto

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH --

BAH GOD... WHAT’S GOING ON HERE... THAT’S BEST JEANIST’S MUSIC

y’all. can’t even talk right now, my brain has completely shut down lol. just. ...

  °˖✧◝(￣▿￣)◜✧˖°

[twelvemonkeyswere]

very intrigued by hermione/jaime crack 😳😳

thank you both @halfagod​ and @forbiddenfantasies1​ for asking about this! and sorry it's so long okay so - right off the bat, this isn’t anything romantic or anything, but it is crack.

you’ll likely remember there was some fanfic grrm was writing about his own characters fighting other characters. one of the first ones was Jaime Lannister vs Hermione Granger, and since he hates JK Rownling his descriptions of what a showdown between them would be were very uncharitable to the characters to say the fucking least, especially Hermione.

the whole thing is quite a bad read and it sent me thinking that there were a LOT of variables that would play into it if taken seriously, starting with their personalities, ages at the time of the match, reason why they’re fighting in the first place, etc.

and since I like world building and whatnot, I began thinking how to make their showdown realistic and feasable obeying the laws of their respective narratives, and then I decided it would be even more fun (hah) to make as many scenarios with those variables as possible, because that’s the sort of person i am. and then I realized... well. asoiaf began to be published in the 90s.... 1996, to be precise, when hermione was 17, and facing a war against a madman. and the parallels were right there, and thus I made a timeline to see how things would fit, and then some other ideas sprang up from that.

so now the main idea is that it all starts the year after the war, when Hermione comes back to Hogwarts to finish her studies while everyone else goes on with their lives. she’s alone, she has to deal with everything she saw and everything she had to do, and with everyone else in Hogwarts being traumatized too... so she’s depressed, and trying to get better. and in my idea, one of the things she tries is to get back to the things that made her happy before it all went wrong, reading among them.

particularly, reading muggle books. because since she knows real magic now, well, regular fantasy books must lose some of their charm, right? but what if that was what she loved as a kid, and she’s desperate enough to get away from what reality is now, in real-magic world? so maybe she tries new stories, see what she’s missed in the last couple of years.

and maybe she is afraid of being judged for having some of those books or she just wants some peace and quiet, so she sneaks into the room of requirements and foolishly and naively asks for a room where she can “immerse” herself in the book she’s trying to read that night.

and that’s how she meets Jaime, by going into the world of the book. and the idea was then that she would periodically travel into the books and see Jaime at different ages, and as she gets older and processes what happened during the war, her perspective of the events and her life shifts and changes, not unlike Jaime’s story changes through the books.

anyways i wrote some 2k words about grief and healing and it’s been sitting there, looking at me and threatening to become too long.

here’s the bit where she first meets Jaime in case you’re interested

(be warned, I never read HP in English and I haven’t consumed any media about it in YEARS. also i suck at actions scenes)

come ask stuff about my WIPs if you want!

“Who are you?” The white knight demanded.

Hermione frowned and ignored the question, inspecting the trees behind the man, the grass of the meadow under her feet. She had clearly been portkeyed somewhere, where was the artifact? 

“Answer me!” the man demanded. He shifted on his feet, his armor creaking and clinking. “Who sent you?” 

“He said,” a second voice drawled behind her. “Where did you come from?” 

Jumping to one side, Hermione noticed another knight, much closer to her, but also much younger. He was tall, but had a leaner frame even with the white armor, same as his companion. He didn’t have his helm on either, and she spotted it on the ground, likely dropped so the boy could hold his sword with both hands, the point of which was angled at her throat, even at a distance. His curly hair, golden and sticky with sweat, enveloped two emerald green eyes that moved with the murderous intent of a cat. 

Hermione swallowed.

If velas were male, she blinked in confusion, this is what they would look like.

It was stupid to realize that at a moment like this, given the fact her life was being threatened, but no human being was ever that beautiful. It had to be magic. 

She looked around, trying to remember what had been next to her in the Room of Requirements. Where’s the bloody thing?

“Accio portkey,” she swished her wand in a circle above her head, but nothing happened.

“Get her!” the man ordered the boy, and both stepped forward, closing in. Their swords drew up, the man holding it above his head, the boy raising the pommel to his cheek.

“Whoa!” Hermione reached instinctively into her robes and got her wand out. Her mind raced, trying to recall everything she knew about metal charming, but when the knights were upon her, she disapparated with a faint pop. 

She apparated a couple of meters away, shaking her head off the unpleasant feeling of being vaccumed through space. As she opened her eyes, there was a loud clank from the swords that met where she should have been. The boy trembled below the man’s strength, holding his ground with some difficulty.

“Oi, please!” she called to them, holding a hand out in a placating gesture. “Where am I? Who are you?”

As one, the man turned with fury towards her, and the boy frowned in angry confusion. She had a second to recall Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, and, not without failing to see the irony, felt grateful she had learned forgetfulness spells from the best.

“Witchcraft,” the older knight muttered, and the boy only glanced at him for a moment, returning his eyes to her. “Cut her throat!” 

The boy hesitated a second, but when the older man charged towards her, so did he. 

“Wingardium leviosa!” she yelled at the armors, to no effect. “Shit.” She disapparated again, just before they reached her. She apparated by a tree this time, to their right. She aimed at the clothes they hopefully had below their armors and forced herself to speak through the haze. “Wingardium leviosa!” 

Both knights lifted into the air like they weighed less than feathers. 

“Seven hells!” the older knight screamed, anger and fear mixing as he balanced unceremoniously on his spot. 

Iron, Hermione breathed with relief to herself. It was the iron.

She didn’t know what to expect, she had never tried to charm uncharmed metalwork before. Unless you counted locks. Then again maybe that charmed the air around the metal, or maybe there was more magic in this particular iron, she didn’t have the time to--

“What is this?” the young man demanded, as he waved his sword around, testing if he was being held on the spot like a puppet.

Hermione walked towards them with caution. 

“Gentlemen, please!” she called to them through their grunts and curses. “Where am I? Who are you?” 

“Silence, witch!” the older man ordered, trying to stick his sword to the ground in an attempt to descend.

“I’ll let you down as soon as you answer my questions,” she swallowed, reminding herself of the many times she had fought against enemies bigger than her. “I just want to get home.” 

The boy bore his eyes into hers. “Where is that?” 

“None of your bloody business,” she replied instinctively. 

“She’s not from here, ser,” the boy said to the older knight. “She wears odd clothes, speaks strange words.” 

“Shut up, Ser Jaime, get to--”

But Hermione didn’t get to hear what the man wanted the boy to do.

“Ser Jaime?” the name was out of her mouth before she knew it. She squinted at the boy’s armor, saw the seven swords engraved on the plate, and realization hit her. She looked at the boy, then at the man. I’ll be fucking damned. 

“Jaime.” she repeated, bringing the boy’s attention back to her. “Jaime… Lannister?”

[goteamwin]

He is standing on a doorstep in...where is he? Westview. Oh right, he’s on a doorstep in Westview, the best little small town in the world! When you’re here, you’re home, so why would anyone want to be anywhere else?

He is standing on a doorstep in Westview, ringing a doorbell at a house he has never been to. How did he get here? Where was he before? A woman is opening the door to the house and it’s...it’s...

It’s Wanda!

He has never met this woman.

It’s your sister Wanda!

He does have a sister. Her name is Wanda. This is not Wanda.

Hey, don’t you remember Wanda?

He does not know this woman’s face.

C’mon, you know Wanda!

The voice in his head is friendly and it’s telling him all sorts of Fun Facts™ about him and his life and his family. It confirms this sudden rush of memories about his sister that are all definitely real. But they’re not the right memories are they? Like, he has them, so they must be his, right? He can describe them in perfect minute detail. He was there, he knows, he has memories of it.

But he also has memories of a completely different life that contradicts almost every memory he has of her. Of his sister. Of Wanda.

Like, ok, he remembers babysitting Wanda while mom went to work but, like, he also remembers Wanda and him walking to school together for their first day of kindergarten.

And he remembers moving into an orphanage in some Eastern Bloc leftover after their parents died. But the orphanage in his memories looks a little like the boarding school from The Facts of Life and a lot like a house in the suburbs outside of DC. And for some reason his mom is there and also his estranged father is on the TV.

And sometimes he remembers running around an old house in upstate New York but there never was a house and he was never in New York, he was running in Sokovia, almost always Sokovia, running with Wanda. And one time there were robots. At first they were friends with the robots and then they realized that the robots were trying to destroy the planet and so they were fighting the robots. Him and Wanda. Fighting robots with their powers. And then --

No. That part he can’t remember. He knows he died, on a street he’s never been on, 100 miles in the air, saving the life of a man whose face he recognizes but who he’s certain he’s never met before. But he can’t remember actually dying. And how could he be dead when he’s very much alive and talking to his sister? His Wanda. His twin sister Wanda. He has a twin sister named Wanda, and don’t you forget it!

I have a twin sister named Wanda, he thinks, and you can’t argue with the facts when they’re standing in front of you and calling you by your name - Peter? Pietro. Peter. No, it’s Pietro, she’s calling Pietro, that is your name. Your name is Pietro.

He is in the kitchen holding a can of cola. How did he get here? He has no memory of walking into this kitchen and finding a glass and filling that glass with cola and standing at just this angle, the better to showcase this Kane Cola from a can. Who is he showing it to? The boys are not in the kitchen with him. Wanda and Vision are not in the kitchen with him. It is important he shows off this can of cola while he is in the kitchen. He takes a long thirsty sip, and then, to the empty kitchen he says, “What’s better than the refreshing taste of a cold Kane Cola?” and honestly he can’t think of anything better, that must be it, that must be why he said it out loud.

Everything feels slower here. He’s running, he’s running faster than everyone else, but it’s slow. It feels slow. He feels slow. Maybe it’s all the memories from someone else. Some other past that’s not his. But it is his. He was there. He knows because he remembers. He lived them. The memories. Like getting shot in Sokovia. No, he got shot at the Pentagon. No, he stopped people getting shot at the Pentagon. When was he at the Pentagon? No, maybe he stopped the bullets in Sokovia. But then, how could he be dead if he stopped the bullets? But then again, he’s not dead so maybe he didn’t.

He’s teaching his nephews how to shotgun a can of Kane Cola. What’s better than the refreshing taste of a cold Kane Cola? He puts this question to the twins. He likes the twins. He likes kids. That’s why he works at a school. They all remind him of his little sister Wanda, just a little bit. But Wanda’s his twin. He doesn’t have a little sister. And he never worked at a school, he died in Sokovia. Right after he’d decided to turn his life around, too. That’s a real bummer.

But hey! Now he’s not dead. No, he’s very much alive, and he’s visiting with his sister, his twin sister, his Wanda. And she’s married! To a Robot! Er, a Synthazoid. Who is also Not Dead! There’s a lot of that going around. Him and the 'zoid are basically brothers since they both got their powers from the stone in Viz's forehead. The stone from that time that him and his sister, his twin sister (Wanda), volunteered to be lab rats. You know, for some quality twin bonding time. And maybe some light vengeance. So why does he remember pocketing candy in a convenience store and running from a shop clerk at age 10? Running blocks and blocks and crossing the city line from downtown to his home in Virginia in a matter of seconds. Blocks on a street in DC, with American flags and US postal service boxes. But thinking about those blocks makes his head hurt and then the post boxes are evenly spaced in the middle of a crumbling Sokovian warzone.

He cracks open another Kane Cola. So smooth, so refreshing. Is there anything better than a cold Kane Cola?

It’s Halloween. He doesn’t remember it being October but he doesn’t really remember life before Westview, so he’s not that worried about it. He’s very excited to take the kids trick-or-treating. He has to take the kids trick-or-treating. It’s very important that he takes the kids trick-or-treating. Afterall, he has to help out his sister, Wanda. She’s fighting with her manbot and he has to keep them from fighting because if she fights with the manbot one or both of them could destroy the fragile fantasy world that they are all currently inhabiting, innocent bystanders and all, and what kind of brother would he be if he let that happen? Just one of those twin things.

The kids are having a great time. Tommy’s obviously superior and not just because Billy doesn’t seem to trust or like him. These kids also came from Wanda and that’s one helluva mystery since, by the sounds of it, she was only pregnant for about 48 hours but who is he to judge anyone for speeding things up? He takes the kids to steal candy. And smash pumpkins. And spray silly string on all the trick-or-treaters. He hopes the audience likes the shenanigans. They better or else they won’t pick the show up for a season 2. Then what will Wanda do?

But now it’s time for Real Talk. Wanda’s in trouble and what’s a big brother to do? Sorry, a twin brother to do?

“How’d you do it?” he hears himself asking and although he knows, factually, what he means, he does not understand, literally, what it is that she has done or why he is asking about it. He guesses that’s why he asked.

She tells him she doesn’t know and he believes her. Or maybe he doesn’t because he keeps pressing her for answers.

“Where were you hiding these kids up 'till now?” And he looks around at the children in the square and wonders, again, what he means. “I assume they were sleeping peacefully in their beds. No need to traumatize beyond the occasional holiday episode cameo, right?” He’s not sure what that means either. “Hey, I'm not some stranger and I'm not your husband. You can talk to me.” That’s nice, he’s glad he’s said that to her. But then he forgets her face. He forgets that he’s known her all his life. He is sitting on a hay bale saying these words he doesn’t understand to a woman he’s never seen before in his life. But that’s silly. He’s known her all his life. They’re twins. This is his twin. His sister. Wanda.

And then it looks like she’ll answer these questions. She is thinking hard and there’s a glint of revelation in her eyes, as if she is on the verge of understanding these answers herself.

But then the kids break in.

“Mom! I hear Dad in my head. He's in trouble!” It’s the suspicious one, it’s Billy. He suddenly doesn’t like Billy all that much. Which is ridiculous cuz he likes all kids, doesn’t he?

“Hey, don't sweat it, sis. It's not like your dead husband can die twice.” He hears himself saying these words and they don’t really feel like his, but they’re coming out of his mouth so they must be, right? But honestly there’s no time to process what he’s said or why because Wanda’s anger, her fury, is palpable. It’s a physical force that he can see and taste and it burns inside him, like the anger is his now. He can feel it, like really feel it, like it is literally smacking him in the face so hard he is launched across the town square and into some hay bales and fake headstones.

But it is this, this moment, the force of it, that shakes loose the dream he’s been living in. This playacting he’s been a part of - no, not playacting. He’s not an actor, he’s a puppet. A puppet whose strings are pulled by a walking Nervous Breakdown who thinks he’s her brother. She manipulated him, she’s manipulating this whole world, into living out every sitcom trope she’s ever seen and he was just a single bit player in a larger than life television production. But now? Now he’s clear. Now he remembers - his life, his past, where he was before Westview. Best small town in the world my ass. The clouds in his mind are lifted for the first time in what feels like a long time and now he knows who he is.

He is Ralph Boehner.

[madlymiho]

Yes my dear one ! I really enjoy this topic, it's very angsty but it was so intense and awesome to write !

To put a bit of contexte, I write this before the time skip, when the Heart Pirates have just droped anchor in Sabaody !

Hope you'll like this, anon ~

Law scenario - reunion with childhood friend who's now a slave (read after the cut)

Sabaody Island - two weeks before the Marineford’s Summit War,

He’s the only one. The last man standing after the tragedy of the White City. There’s nothing in the world which testified that the town has existed once. Everything is trapped inside Law’s memories, and honestly, those are just wrecks. The traumatism was too harsh, too profound, and somehow Law’s mind has slowly started to heal, in such a way that today, he can’t truly remember all the faces he once knew. He doesn’t really want to remember, in fact. It’s still a deep wound in his heart ; he has lost so many things back then, so many friends, so many loved ones… It’s easier to forget. Easier to move on with a few blank in his mind than all of those awful nightmares he would be forever trapped with.

There’s a few things he still despites in this world, though. Tenryyubitos are certainly one of those things. He hates seeing them walking in the streets of Sabaody, with large metal chain restraining so different kind of slaves. He often clenches his fists, and tells himself to remain focus, insensitive, because otherwise, he would be able to kill every of them ; every of those nobles who think they are so much better than everyone else. He patiently waits, leaned against the doorway of a shop, as a family of Tenryyubitos is walking down the street. It’s quite a massive one, with six children, and almost fifty slaves escorting them. The cortege is long, they have a slow pace, and it doesn’t really suit Law’s plans. Yet, he needs to remain patient ; the situation is tensed in this island since the “worst generation” has been identified, his name puts on the top of list with various other pirates. He knows they would all be around any time soon, so it’s not necessary to provoke the world government at the moment. Not now. He’s not ready to strike, yet.  

“We’re moving once all of this is done.” Law comments, looking at the sinister show in the middle of the street.

Penguin and Shachi nod, pinching their lips. They know they have to wait until the end of the cortege, even if it’s barely possible to watch those poor creatures being treated worse than animals. Law is about to turn his back, heading in a dark alley, when something catches his attention. There’s some nervousness among the citizens, obscurs whispers of panic he perceives and would like to understand.

“Oh poor girl…” he clearly hears coming from a woman near him.

Law doesn’t really understand why they all seem so sorry. They are used to the Tenryyubitos’ behaviors, they shouldn’t be so surprised to witness something violent. He sighs and turns his feet, making his way between the crowd until he can have a proper view. There’s one of the slave on her knees. She has her head down, her messy long hair tousled around her skull. Her clothes are made of nothing ; her top is teared and her skirt is covered with mud, she doesn’t even have shoes. One of the children of the Tenryyubito is pulling on her chain, trying to get her back on her feet.

“Move, pig!” The kid hisses, ignoring the fact that she’s already bleeding because of the friction caused by the metal on her fragile skin.

“I...I can’t walk…” she whispers, shaking from her head to her feet.

Law furrowed his eyebrows, concerned by the whole situation. His eyes travels on her body, as he tries to understand why she doesn’t stand up right away. Her life is in danger and she must know it ; is she too weak to fight for her existence anymore? After a few seconds, he spots something strange on her ankle ; a sort of red and purple area, and clearly her bone below with the wrong angle. It’s broken. She’s crying silently, her face still hidden behind her hair, her hands up in the air, like she would try to protect her head from a punch. Law doesn’t need to examine her to understand that she has broken her ankle a long time ago and they have certainly forced her to walk on it.

“I said move!” The child yells impatiently, raising a horsewhip in the air to violently slap her shoulder with it. “Papa! Papa! The ugly white slave doesn’t want to move! Papa! I think she’s broken! Give me the gun, eh!”

Law feels the terrible need to grab the kid by the shoulders and throws him against a wall. Yet, he can’t help but find something...familiar in the shapes of the woman on the ground. This hair color reminds him someone, yet, he can’t really put a name or a face on it. Then, as she slowly raises her desperate face, to implore her owner to spare her life, Law’s heart skips a beat. He feels suddenly numb, unable to speak or to move a finger. This face. Those eyes. He remembers someone like her. Younger. In better shape. Someone he has known once.

“Please…,” she begs, her fingers gripping the dust on the floor, her voice almost inaudible. “Please, don’t…,”

“Did someone give you the permission to speak, pig?”

A man is now standing beside the kid, watching her with a disgusted face, a transparent bubble protecting his head from the general atmosphere ; certainly the father of this family. He holds a gun in his hand and points it in front of her face.

“Sorry butterfly, I’ll buy you another one at the auctions,” the man says, patting his child’s shoulder with an almost sorrowful face.

“I hate her!” The young one shouts. “I hate her! Kill her! Papa, I want her dead now!”

He suddenly crushes her broken ankle with his shoe, extracting a painful groaning from her throat. She tries to grip her wounded leg, her voice muted, only hurtful moans coming out of her mouth. Law can’t accept it anymore. He’s definitely sure it’s her, and this show breaks his heart and his soul on so many levels. He knows he shouldn’t get involved. He knows he could have so many problems with the world government as he’s not ready to face them all at the moment. But it’s her.

“Kill her papa!” The kid yells as he shakes his father armed arm, throwing dark looks to the girl. “Now!”

Law clicks his tongue, and as the father is about to pull the trigger, he lifts his hand in the air.

“Room!” Law says, in front of the desperate eyes of his crewmates. “Shambles!”

He twists his fingers, and as the bullet is shouted, ready to hit his friend in the middle of her forehead, it finds nothing but a rock on the floor. She suddenly appears in the middle of the air, a tiny gasp coming from her throat, right in front of Law. He catches her like a bride with one of his arm, pressing his free hand on her lips to silent order her to remain silent. She’s still destabilised, tears falling on her cheeks, but as soon as she meets Law’s gaze, she widens her eyes. Now that he’s carrying her, he has no doubt ; it’s clearly this dear friend he has once known in his childhood.

“Could you stay quiet for a little bit?” Law asks, his heart racing in his chest as he throws a concerned look on the street.

Everyone is panicking. The Tenryyubitos are accusing the citizens of Sabaody, unable to understand what just happened. They can’t stay here anymore ; it’s too dangerous. Law runs far from the crowd, followed by the Heart Pirates. He holds her tightly, his lips pinched, feeling her stare on him. She must think she’s dreaming and that she’s already dead. Her body is heavy and harder to carry than he would thought, certainly because she has absolutely no strength anymore, near to lose conscientiousness.

“Stay with me Name-ya…,” Law suddenly says, looking at her blank face while he’s still running. “Don’t give it up yet.”

“Is this...really you?” She painfully whispers, her head bobbing on her shoulders like a puppet.

He grips her slightly stronger, unable to answer at the moment. He feels overwhelmed by all those feelings. He turns one last corner before he eventually stops his race, gently kneeling on the floor as he keeps her against his chest. He’s out of breath, his forehead covered with sweat. He’s nauseous, his eyes locked on her multiple scars all over her body and her thin shape. She has changed so much. She has been through hell and he knows it.

“Law…,” she calls softly, raising her weak hand in the hair to grab the side of his hat, a tiny smile growing on her dry lips. “I thought you were dead.”

He wants to answer, but no words can cross his sealed lips. His vision is blurry as he holds his tears, lowering his head, closing his eyes.

“I’m not,” he manages to say, sniffing loudly before he looks back at her. “And you’re not either, Name-ya. I’ll take care of you.”

He points out her broken ankle with his head. She laughs softly, her hand falling back on her belly, like she’s finally cleared from all of this awful life. She sighs and smiles, a for a second, she looks exactly like she used to be in her childhood.

“Thank you, Law.” She murmurs, eyes slightly closed, until she passes out, her head falling against his chest.

Law remains still for a moment, looking at her like she would vanished instantly. He can’t believe she’s still alive. It hurts how much it feels so comforting and heartbreaking at the same time. Law slowly raises his head, watching his crewmates with an expression they have never seen before.

“We need to get back on the sub.” He simply orders.

And even if it doesn’t follow their initial plan, none of them would argue, their eyes locked on the frail woman lied inside their captain’s arms.

[sending-the-message]

What the blind man sees by TobiasWade

I’ll never see her face again. If my blindness only meant scrubbing this dirty world into an ocean of black mist, then I think I could learn to accept that. Stealing my wife from me before her time though — that I’ll never forgive. It’s bad enough she’s sick and fading from me already, but not being able to see her to say goodbye is killing me as surely as it is her.

I suppose it’s my fault though. I spent the last few nights leading up to my accident shifting around the rigid hospital chair beside her bed. I was so tired that I could barely walk straight, and all it took was a patch of black ice in the parking lot to pitch me to the ground. My head slammed into the asphalt and everything went dark. The black mist didn’t lift, but next I could remember I was sitting in my own hospital bed with a nurse explaining what had happened.

“…post-traumatic cortical blindness,” she was saying. “It seems like there was some damage to your occipital cortex when you hit the ground.”

“Where’s Sarah? Where’s my wife? I want to see her.”

The nurse just coughed, giving me time for my own words to sink in. “There’s a chance your vision loss is being caused by pressure on the optic nerve, which can be potentially corrected with surgery. The doctor doesn’t want to get your hopes up though. You should be prepared to adjust to life without sight.”

It’s true that I couldn’t see the nurse, or the hospital room, or even my own hand an inch from my face. But the worst thing was I could still see. It just wasn’t the same world I had left behind. I fumbled for words trying to explain the black and purple vines which dangled around me from unfathomably tall trees. How they swayed gracefully in an unfelt wind, bending across their hundreds of joints like fingers bending back and forth upon themselves. I pointed at the greasy orange sky and the swarms of softly teeming insects which obliviously paraded towards me from all sides.

“Hallucinations aren’t unheard of after acute vision loss…”

It was hard to take her seriously when her voice seemed to be coming from a giant blue flower whose bell-shaped petals seemed deep enough for me to stand in. If this was a hallucination, then it was clearer and more vivid than anything I could have possibly imagined. I tried again to explain the infinitesimal detail of the insect’s uneven carapaces, but she excused herself to leave without letting me finish. I never even got the chance to tell her that I could feel the thousands of tiny legs crawling up my body as the insect parade passed through the origin of disembodied perspective.

I was stuck somewhere between worlds. I could still feel the coarse fabric of the hospital blanket, but so could I feel the smooth gloss of each leaf and barky tree in this sudden jungle I was mired within. I pulled on one of the purple digits only to see it coil around my arm, inquisitively feeling me in return. I tore away from and tried to stand, leaning on a cold metal IV pole that I couldn’t see.

I felt like I was going insane, and there was no amount of reasonably toned nurses or insightful doctors that would convince me otherwise. I knew instinctively that I had to find my wife — Sarah was the only real thing left to ground in the world I was supposed to be in.

It wasn’t easy navigating two worlds at once. Even when I shuffled around until I found the door to my room, I still had to push myself through a thick curtain of fingers which had inconveniently infested the portal. It was slow going navigating the invisible hallways while plowing through the thick jungle foliage, and to make matters worse the blue-white sun was beginning to smolder and set in the orange sky. My hearing remained fixed to this world strangely enough, so at least I was able to hear people approaching and not run into anyone.

Once someone pointed me to the main elevator, I had no trouble from there. I had visited Sarah so many times that I could find the way with my eyes closed. It was disorienting to feel myself rise in the elevator, seemingly flying directly into the air, ducking and dodging branches as I did. I hesitated before her door to ask the passing footsteps:

“Sarah’s room?”

“Are you sure you should be out of bed? Let me go ask —”

“Is my wife in here?”

“Yes, but she should be resting too. She had another grand mal seizure last night. Hold on, I’ll go see if I can find the doctor.”

Footsteps. My hand was on the door, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to push through. Sarah had been in the hospital for the last three months, growing weaker each passing day. There had been a number of tentative hypothesis, but there has yet to be a definite diagnosis to the underlying issue. I guess that’s why I’ve been holding out hope for so long: if she could get sick without a reason, then she didn't need a reason to get better either. All those nights I’d spent beside her, watching her pale face and listening to her shallow breathing — it was all some kind of cosmic misunderstanding that would sort itself out on its own.

It was only now when I knew I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. The black and purple fingers protruded thickly like sprouting plants on the wide branch beyond, converging on a recumbent form the exact size and shape of a human. Some of them reared their sensitive tips only to plunge directly back into the mass, pulsing and squirming as they did fought one another to penetrate farthest. All too clearly I could imagine them puncturing her body or forcing themselves down her where her throat should have been. If this wasn’t a hallucination, then it was explaining an illness that an entire hospital couldn’t decipher.

“Sarah?” I opened the door. “Are you in there?”

Her gentle moan. That’s all I’ve heard from her the last week. It hadn’t made any sense to the doctors as she appeared conscious, but it made sense now. How was she supposed to speak this whole time with those things lodged in her throat?

Sickened and furious, I flung myself at the warped vines, carelessly clattering through her invisible bedside table as I did. I seized one near where her head must be and pulled with all my strength, feeling it go taunt to resist me as I did. Other vines were reacting, unwinding themselves from her to seize me by the arms and legs. I fought through it, clutching and tearing, even sinking my teeth into the rubbery thing. More fingers crawled from the branches above, circling around my arms, up my shoulders, slithering around my neck…

“Someone help! Get them off her!” I shouted.

The fingers were constricting around me, but I didn’t let go. I threw my whole body weight backwards, heaving and straining until something finally gave. Sarah was coughing and retching, the beeping of her vitals going berserk as I struggled. She was shaking so bad that the whole bed rattled, each increment of progress agonizing to watch as I knew the finger must be relinquishing its hold of her stomach and lungs, or however deep the corruption spread. All the while my bondage was secured, ruthlessly tightening to cut off blood supply to my arms and crush my throat into a collapsing pinprick.

“She’s having another seizure. Get a doctor in here!” One of the nurses. I was held so firmly in place that I couldn’t even turn toward her, not like I could see her even if I could.

“What about him?”

“He’s not responding. Get him on the ground and keep his airway clear.”

Hands unwittingly pushed their way past the swarming appendages to ease me down. The pressure slackened, some returning their attention to the knot which surrounded my wife. Blood was beginning to return to my limbs. I could feel, and as soon as I could breath, I could fight again. I was still gasping on the floor when the doctor entered the room.

How could I tell? Well there were certainly auditory clues as a gruff voice barked commands to the nurses, but more prominently was the knot of interlacing fingers which formed the shape of a human. They were spread so finely that every artery and vein must be filled, and I could clearly see them pulse and twitch as they tightened and relaxed, moving the doctor through the room like a puppet.

“Another seizure,” the doctor said. I could see the strum around his head as the things inside him opened and closed his mouth, with smaller ones inside maneuvering his tongue and vibrating his vocal chords. “Check her mouth. Make sure there isn’t any vomit or obstruction.”

“The fingers!” I shouted, aware of how mad I must appear rolling on the ground. “Get them out of her! She can’t —”

“And give him something to calm down. Diazepam, 400 miligrams should do it.”

“They’ve got him too — don't touch me — don't let him touch Sarah —"

I tried to sit up, but someone was squatting on top of me and pinning me to the ground. I jerked as a needle slid into my thigh, but the pressure only increased. Something scoured through my veins. The humanoid network that was the doctor dropped to his haunches beside me, and I felt a warm hand run down my face to cup my chin. It was getting too dark to see anything at all.

“Just a nasty hallucination, that’s all. Let’s get you back to bed and see if we can’t do something about those eyes.”

They had good news for me when I woke up. Not only were they able to alleviate the pressure on my optic nerve, but my wife had made a miraculous recovery during the procedure. I actually wept in relief when I opened my eyes on the hospital room and saw Sarah anxiously sitting over my bed. Just Sarah and the room — no fingers, no unfamiliar jungle, no crawling sensation of the insects or dodging alien trees.

They told me Sarah was talking and eating and even walking on her own, although they warned me she was still stiff and slow to react. “Stiff” isn’t how I’d describe her lurching movements though. She seems more like a marionette doll to me, tethered by unseen strings from the inside and out.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 229: The Real Me

Previously on BnHA: Dabi fought a dude who could control ice. For like three pages. Then we cut to my boy Twice, who had located an unconscious Toga (who as you recall had her blood blown up a couple chapters back, so yeah) and was understandably freaking out about how to get her some help. To make a long and somewhat confusing story short, you know that long-haired guy who hacked Giran’s phone? Turns out he has the power to create human puppets or some shit, and he created a bunch of Twice duplicates and sent them to capture the real Twice (who you might also recall has some traumatic history involving clones of himself). Seems they want to use Twice’s quirk to create a backup clone of Re-Destro, just in case history repeats himself and he ends up kicking the bucket like his great-great granddad. Wouldn’t that be sad. Re-Destro getting murdered. Wouldn’t that just be a darn shame. Anyways so let’s see where this leads.

Today on BnHA: The Villain Flashback Arc continues with today’s installment featuring, you guessed it, more villain flashbacks! We learn more about our little buddy Twice who was apparently orphaned as a young teen and subsequently found himself alone in a cold and uncaring world. Honestly you guys, after reading this I’m amazed that he’s still as nice of a guy as he is. Anyway, so he used his quirk to clone himself because he was lonely, and the clones and him engaged in a petty crime spree or two, and then somehow or other it all led to the whole murderfest that fucked up his head so badly. Back in the present, a struggling Jin tries to escape and help Toga, so Skeptic orders his puppets to break Jin’s arms. They do so, but this has a curious side-effect that Skeptic may not have been expecting. Namely, that having that much damage dealt to him makes Twice realize that he definitely is not one of his clones, and is in fact the real deal. This appears to at least temporarily cure his split personality woes, and the chapter ends with him creating about a dozen duplicates to go fuck up the Liberation Army’s day. Hell yes.

(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, but aside from that there are no changes.)

hey guys, sorry I’ve been inactive all week; I’ve been sick and haven’t really had much energy. I still am sick, but I appear to have reached the stage of exhaustion where I’m all “eh, fuck it, yeah sure whatever” where it’s ironically easy to motivate myself to do stuff because I have no willpower to resist, lol

so anyway. we’re apparently not missing a beat, picking up right where we left off last week with Twice’s mask being pulled off by one of the gorilla puppets

wow and they’re just like. flinging him aside

DON’T FLING MY BOY NO!! AND GET AWAY FROM TOGA

AHHHH

shit, how creepy is that? are they cold because they’re just ~puppets~ and not actually real, living people? what a disturbing touch

now we’re cutting back to Skeptic, who’s giving the puppets orders and addressing them as various letters of the alphabet. how can he tell them the fuck apart

meanwhile Giran’s asking what they’re doing to his pal. ;_; Giran you continue to be the best

and Re-Destro’s forcibly directing his attention elsewhere, but he’s also answering his question, strangely enough

that’s a lot of detail to be giving the guy when you could have just smacked him and told him to shut up. these villains are so confusing

but I guess they’re just telling him all this to taunt him more, because now Skeptic is bragging that he learned about Jin’s psychological disorder from Giran’s client data

hey btw I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but fuck this guy so hard for taking advantage of Twice’s trauma and using it against him. what a shocker, the Meta Liberation Army of dickheads pulls another dickhead move. these guys are so classy

oh my fucking god you guys Giran is getting hotter with each fucking chapter though fffffffff

if you’d told me a month ago that this dude would be nipping at Aizawa and All Might’s heels for the title of BnHA’s most eligible bachelor I would have called you a liar and a thief, yet here we are. good lord

that said, I appreciate that he’s thinking about how hard it’ll be on poor Twice, but they also just said they’d kill Toga as well, so I imagine that part of it would be pretty hard on her too. just saying

SDLFKSDLFHK SPEAKING OF

FUCK ME YOU GUYS I ALMOST LEAPED TO MY FUCKING FEET, WHAT THE FUCK. DON’T TELL ME THEY’RE GOING TO SNAP HER NECK. HOLY SHIT

SOMEONE BETTER SAVE HER OR I’M GOING TO FLY OUT TO JAPAN AND GIVE HORIKOSHI MY STUPID COLD. THAT’LL SHOW THAT BASTARD. HAVE SOME BRONCHITIS YOU PIECE OF SHIT

AND TWICE IS WATCHING ALL PANICKED AND SCREAMING THAT HE’S GOING TO KILL HER

AT FIRST I WAS CONFUSED AND WAS LIKE, DOES HE BLAME HIMSELF FOR GETTING HER IN THIS SITUATION? BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THE CLONES AND THAT YEAH IT’S LITERALLY HIM KILLING HER THOUGH OMGGGGG

AHHH HE’S SO CONFUSED THIS IS SO CONFUSING

I’M TOO SICK TO DEAL WITH TWICE’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS YOU GUYS, IT’S REALLY FREAKING ME OUT, HELP. THE FUCKING PANELS ARE ALL WOBBLY-LINED AND THEY KEEP ZOOMING IN ON HIS FACE AND SHOWING HIM ALL BUG-EYED SCREAMING “WHO AM I” OVER AND OVER AGAIN OH GOD

OH SHIT!?!?

ACTUAL TWICE FLASHBACKS OH SHIT?! I was not expecting this oh snap. I am so into this

anyway, so he’s thinking -- with surprising coherence -- that because of his rough appearance, people were always afraid of him growing up

but also, what was that part about him not having a family? so he was an orphan then?? Horikoshi you are aware that I already love Twice and am emotionally attached to him, yes? but like if you want to hit me with even more feels and fuck me up some more then be my guest I suppose?

anyway so whoever he’s talking to here says Jin, who is apparently sixteen here, evidently hit some dude with his motorcycle by accident. oh shit

and baby!Jin says the guy jumped out in front of him and he was obeying the speed limit and everything

and the man he’s talking to seems vaguely sympathetic but says that regardless, it’s usually the victim who ends up winning these cases, and that Jin may end up with a criminal record. “but don’t let it get to you.” oh, sure. yeah, let’s just look on the bright side here

he says that no matter how many times you stumble in life, you can always start over

well shit is it any wonder this kid ended up going the villain route and making a bunch of clones of himself to live his best life? I mean jeez, he had absolutely no one on his side and was slapped with a criminal record when he was only sixteen. that shit is rough

oh fuck me and it just keeps getting worse

well that’s nice. so make that homeless with a criminal record, then. jesus christ he was still just a kid

so apparently his parents died in a villain attack when he was in middle school, and he had no relatives. I guess the state didn’t give a fuck either, damn

I find it extraordinarily easy to empathize with, actually! that’s one of the things that makes you such a great character!

so I guess he originally ended up making a clone of himself just because he was lonely. okay wow. not only does Twice continue to be the most likable villain in the series, he’s working his way up there as one of the most likable and relatably human characters, period

look at this shit! he’s just a guy who had a run of bad luck and tried his best to cope with it in whatever ways he could. there’s nothing villainous about him, he was just someone whom nobody wanted. he had his entire future stolen out from under him in the blink of an eye and had nowhere else to turn. he just wanted some friends for fuck’s sake

and so then he and his merry band committed a bunch of petty crimes. but they just needed some cash so they could live! like, all he wanted to do was just chill out and be happy. I got your back Twice. it’s not your fault

and then the flashback just kind of cuts to him tied to the chair in the aftermath of the clone hunger games. so I guess that’s all the backstory we’re getting as far as that goes. ngl I would have really liked to see just a bit more of the lead-up to that specific event. he’s such a nice guy that it’s a bit hard to picture him just suddenly going “RAWR I’M GONNA MURDER ALL Y’ALL.” but what I’m thinking is that all of the tragedy in his past contributed to him forming his violent alter ego personality, and that one of the clones must have just snapped one day and the rest is history

anyway so now we’re cutting to his first meeting with my new boyfriend Giran

ah okay, so he’s scared because if he actually is one of the clones then just a tiny bit of damage would be enough to finally do him in

btw Giran, possibly the one good thing Re-Destro and his buds did was getting rid of that scarf and sunglasses though bud. if you decide to change up your look after all of this, I’m not going to complain. there’s a reason I thought you were just some douchebag this whole time. obviously I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge you, I realize that now of course

but seriously Giran who wears sunglasses at night indoors. I mean, idk, maybe you get migraines or something. but if not I’m just saying

regardless, questionable fashion choices aside, Giran is actually a super nice guy, a mensch if you will, and he is now casually changing Twice’s entire life in the span of a few sentences. awww

how the fuck were you planning on smoking that cigarette while wearing a paper bag over your face. ??

also, Giran on this page kinda reminds me of Sanji, if Sanji was, like, a beatnik about to throw down on open mic poetry night

anyway so that’s the end of our happy flashback, and now we’re back in the present with Twice resuming his freakout!

but in spite of his mental struggles, he’s shaking the puppet clones off and trying to dash toward Toga again omg!

up in his little tower Skeptic seems fairly surprised

in related news, fuck this guy so much. also he’s using one of his puppets as a chair, which is one of the creepiest touches Horikoshi has put in this manga to date. but also they mentioned last week that Skeptic makes the puppets out of any human-sized materials that happen to be lying around, so I kind of wonder if maybe this dude originally was a chair. the mysteries of BnHA

moving on though, yeah, Twice and Toga really do have a strong bond though, don’t they? their chemistry is as beautiful as it is strange

oh shit but they really did hit him though

FUCK YOU F AND G

FFFFF SON OF A BITCH

DLASFKJLKJ PLEASE DON’T YOU FUCKING PSYCHOPATH, I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO FUCKING DIE YOU ASSHOLE!!!

motherfucker! and we just established that he’s afraid that a broken bone will be enough to kill him if it turns out he really is a clone!

-- holy shit, but. on the other hand, if it doesn’t kill him though, that just might be enough to cure him of that particular fear once and for all. oh shit, unexpected plot twist

though in this particular situation it probably won’t make much of a difference how sane he is if he’s still got two broken arms though fuuuuuuuck

anyway... gotta click to the next page... even though I really don’t want to, sob

aaaaaaaand they’ve broken them. well shit. at least it wasn’t graphic. he’s just hunching forward and screaming and his arms are facing the wrong way, fuck

and now Skeptic is all “your legs are next,” and uh, can Twice actually hear him, though?? like, what? did I miss something here? is he piping his voice in through the shed’s convenient sound system or something?

anyway he’s telling Twice not to struggle anymore, and Twice is muttering to himself all darkly about how much that hurt

and apparently Toga’s regained consciousness now!!

wow Skeptic, okay sure, go ahead and keep talking about how you’re about to kill Toga in front of his eyes. just keep on digging yourself deeper. it’s like he doesn’t realize there’s only one page left in the chapter and things are just about reaching a tipping point and our heroes (?! I mean they are, though, for this arc at any rate) have had just about enough of his bullshit

lol I can’t take the tension omg

please do something badass please do something badass please d --

oh snap

Twiiiiiiice ;_; so it’s like I thought. they unexpectedly cured you of your identity crisis angst

anyway I guess this chapter is a longer one than usual because it’s page 15 now and we’re still going! so I will now resume my “please do something badass” chant. c’mon Twice. kick some assssssss

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS

THIS TIME I REALLY DID LEAP OUT OF MY CHAIR OMG. BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

LMAO ARE ALL OF THEIR ARMS BROKEN TOO. FUCK IT, IT DOESN’T MATTER. DEKU HAS SPENT APPROXIMATELY HALF THE MANGA WITH BROKEN ARMS AND IT’S NEVER STOPPED HIM*

*forest angst aside. and anyways that all worked out in the end, so

“wounded heroes are the most dangerous.” well fuck. given that we’ve just seen an exhausted and delirious Shigaraki eradicate an entire wave of people, and a bloodied and wounded Toga straight up murder one of the Army’s leaders, I think it’s safe to say we can apply this statement to villains too. and I for one can’t wait how dangerous a wounded -- but now sane -- Twice can be. motherfucker how I am loving this glorious arc