#feels weird to put basically an entire (short) oneshot up on tumblr

[jihnari]

midoriya/uraraka and 50, going thru a divorce

haha,,, let's not talk about how long this has been in my inbox, ok,,,,,

full disclosure, i started this back before the finale and i am not at all caught up with the manga (or the anime) so if anything doesn't jive with canon, just pretend it does. let us gather and participate in willful ignorance

__

When Ochako sees him, she hesitates. 

He has his back to her through the glass window of the coffee shop. His frame is so much bigger than she remembers, but that curly mop of green hair is unmistakable. She takes a deep breath, gripping the strap of her bag so tightly her knuckles turn white, and takes a step towards the door.

Except then she sees an attractive blonde woman walk past him, do a double take, then double back. Ochako stops. The woman's eyes are sparkling and her face red as she approaches him and starts up a conversation. He turns just enough that Ochako can see he's smiling. 

Well. God. She doesn't want to interrupt that. She's been pretty out of the loop for the last few years, but she knows Midoriya is single. Maybe Ochaco should give them some space. She could just turn around and go back home now, before he's seen her. She doesn't want to interrupt. 

No, that's not true. She wants to leave for entirely selfish reasons. She's not young and unencumbered anymore, and despite how close she and Midoriya had been in school, she doesn't want him to see her like this. But this is her entire life. It's who she is now. She can't escape that, but she can escape his judgment of it, his pity. That's the one thing she'd never wanted—that's the reason she'd taken the position Mirko had offered her after graduation. She was a good hero and she knew it, but she'd never be able to measure up to monsters like Midoriya and Bakugou and Todoroki. being around them meant she compared herself to them at every turn, and she hadn't liked the person it had been turning her into. so she'd run away from it all, but she doesn't regret it.

Well, didn't regret it until just now, anyway. Seeing Midoriya through the glass—impossibly muscular, impossibly popular, impossibly perfect—makes her stomach curdle with ugly jealousy. He's been in the top three for the last five years, whereas Ochako has been idling away in the mid twenties and thirties for almost her entire career. She'd finally broken into the teens this year and had been unbearably proud of herself, until the reality check that was the rest of her class got their rankings announced.

Then Midoriya, back still turned to her, waves his hands frantically back and forth. The tips of his ears and the back of his neck turn a bright red, and something in her relaxes at the sight. He's still the affable, awkward boy he had been in school. It won't be that different. Maybe it'll even be nice to catch up.

She enters the coffee shop, forcing a smile, and approaches Midoriya's table. 

"Hey, Deku-kun," she says, hoping she doesn't sound too stiff.

Midoriya beams at her, standing up from the table. "Ochako-chan! I hope this place wasn't too hard to find." 

She flinches, even though Midoriya's too nice to mean it as a dig against how late she was. "Nope not at all," she assures him, and then wants to explode on the spot with how perfect that excuse would have been, and how she'd totally just wasted it. 

She would have been right on time, but she kept chickening out and doubling back towards her new apartment; and then telling herself to stop being a coward and continuing forward. She'd done that maybe four times, and it had cost her upwards of twenty minutes. 

"Well, it's good to see you!" he says cheerfully. He approaches her then, and at the last minute she realizes he means to give her a hug. Stiffly, she opens her arms to receive him and braces herself. 

Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't for Midoriya to smell good and feel warm and solid and comforting. Solid, sure, the man's practically made of muscle. But she'd expected the hug to feel awkward and forced, not—good. Her face grows warm for no reason. She's being ridiculous. 

From around Midoriya's oversized shoulder, she accidentally locks eyes with the blonde woman from before. The woman glares, then turns around and marches back to her own table. Ochako watches her go, smug. 

Midoriya pulls away, still smiling, and Ochako can only hope that her face isn't red enough to be noticeable. She clears her throat. "Shall we sit down?" 

Midoriya tilts his head. "Do you not want anything to drink?" 

Crap, that's right. They're in a coffee shop. She still has to order. 

Her face does go red then, and she stammers out, "R-right, of course! I'll go do that!" and turns away quickly.

She orders whatever the seasonal special is and while she waits for the barista to prepare it, she stands facing a corner and slaps her face between both hands. "Stop being such a weirdo," she mutters to herself. They're friends. This doesn't have to be awkward or uncomfortable. 

And Midoriya doesn't have to be built like a fucking truck but—

No, bad, no horny thoughts about an old friend in a coffee shop. Be cool. Be normal. Just because she hasn't had sex in almost a year doesn't mean she has to be like—this. She has self control. 

Her name is called and she gets her drink and heads back to Midoriya's table where she is going to be so totally normal and she's not going to bring up rankings and she's definitely not going to bring up sex. They're just two old friends catching up. 

When she gets back to the table Midoriya waves again, because he's a dork. And somehow, that makes her feel a little better. She takes a deep breath and sits down and takes a casual sip of her drink to stall for time. 

"So, you're back in Tokyo now?" Midoriya asks, leaning forward. Even sitting, he's so tall. 

She swallows the sweet liquid—too sweet, it hurts her throat—and straightens. "Yep! Just moved back this weekend, and I'm starting at Ryukyu's agency next Monday." 

"Wow, that was only a few days ago. Do you need any help unpacking?" 

And let him see her tiny, messy apartment, when he probably lives in a penthouse and has a housekeeper? No, thank you. "Nope, I'm fine!" 

"Oh," he says, and he sounds a little disappointed. "Well if you change your mind..." 

"Sure, I'll let you know," she says, knowing she'll never do that. 

He looks down at his drink, then picks it up and puts it to his mouth. Ochacko leans down to her straw and takes another sip.  She doesn't like it any better the second time, but it's better than suffering the awkward silence. They both stop drinking and look at each other. The pressure to say something mounts higher and higher, until she finally opens her mouth. 

"So, how's—" she starts at the same time Midoriya says, "Um—" 

"Oh, go ahead," she says, and Midoriya speaks over her, saying, "Sorry, you first." 

She huffs. "You were saying?" she says forcefully, smiling maybe a little too aggressively. 

Midoriya smiles back sheepishly and rubs the back of his head. "I just wanted to—Sorry if this too—Um. How... have you been?" 

That's clearly not the question he wanted to ask. She knows what question he did want to ask and being a coward never helped anybody, so she decides to just get it over with. 

"The divorce, right?" she says stiffly. He winces and opens his mouth, surely to make another apology, so Ochako beats him to it. "Sorry, no, it's fine. It's just, it comes up a lot and people have a lot of questions and I've gotten a bit sensitive about it. But I'm fine! It's been—" Weird, living alone for the first time since high school. Messy, to the point where she couldn't take it any more and moved halfway across the country. Lonely, with Shindou and their mutual friends not talking to her. "—fine." 

Midoriya looks troubled. "If you need anyone to talk to, I just wanted to say—I mean. I know it must be... hard." 

Ochako sighs. Hard doesn't even begin to cover it. "It's not like we hate each other, we're still friends. I just—needed some distance." 

"Tokyo is certainly some distance," Midoriya says carefully. He's gotten more tactful than he was in high school. It's somehow surprising. 

"It's closer to my family. It's not like I moved to America," Ochako says, and only after saying it realizes her tone is defensive. 

After Shindou had gotten promoted and she hadn't, it only made sense for her to be the one to move. Is she resentful? Absolutely. But she also couldn't stand another minute in that town, with everyone's pitying looks and their gossip about her failed marriage. And Shindou's new girlfriend. 

And then, like a brick to the back of her head, she has a second horrible realization. The reason America had been in the back of her mind at all was because Midoriya had moved there for a while. That's why it was the first thing on her tongue. She's so stupid, she's being aggressive and petty for no reason and Midoriya is going to regret meeting up with her and tell all their old friends what a bitch she is now, and she'll deserve it. 

But Midoriya just smiles. "I'm glad. This way, I get to see you." 

Well. Shit. How had she forgotten how brutally nice Midoryia was? It really isn't fair. The tips of her ears are hot, and she knows she must be blushing bright red. To distract from it, she picks up her drink again and hurries to take a sip, and almost spits it back into the cup. Eugh, she forgot how sweet it was. And it's worse somehow, now that it's cooled off. 

She wants to change the subject before it gets any more mushy and she literally combusts, but Midoriya does it himself.

"Oh!" he says, like he's just remembered something. "Yaoyorozu asked me to—I mean, a bunch of us from 1A are getting together this Saturday, just a casual, you know, dinner, drinks at this izakaya we always go to and it'd be great if you came, everyone would love to see you. I mean—if you'd want to come?" He puts both hands on his mug, lifts it briefly, then puts it back down. Ochako isn't sure if she's just projecting, but she thinks he looks nervous. "I know you're probably busy with the move and everything so I didn't want to pressure you, or anything but—" He stops himself. "Sorry, I'm rambling. But Kacchan will be there."

Ochako, who had been smiling without fully realizing it, feels her happy expression twist into a shape it hasn't made since a fateful Hero Billboard Chart event several years ago. When Bakugou had stolen the microphone from the emcee and made the rudest speech she'd heard from him since the one time UA made the mistake of putting him on a stage willingly, during their first Sports Festival. 

She recognizes a second after she's made it that it's an oh god THAT asshole again expression and tries to reign it in, but from Midoriya's laugh, she doesn't manage. 

"He's calmed down a lot!" Midoriya assures her, but that sounds fake. "When we heard you were coming back, he was the most excited about it."

"He was?" Ochako asks, surprised. "Why?" 

Midoriya makes a face Ochako thinks she would name a fond grimace. It's an offshoot of her own Bakugou face, but weathered and somehow smooth, refined by the nature of being childhood friends. Or maybe just by the virtue of Midoriya's character, always so much more patient and forgiving than the rest of them. "He wants a rematch." 

Ochako blinks. "He wants to fight me?" It's been literal years since their match. She'd personally all but forgotten about it. 

Midoriya nods, clearly pained, and Ochako startles herself by laughing. 

She's still giggling when she says, "Of course he does, that crazy asshole." She leans back in her chair, feeling cocky and a bit pleased, and grins over at Midoriya. "I might as well, right? I'll wipe the floor with him." Her sureness almost startles herself. She'd up her mind without really thinking it through, and it had been easy—easier than anything has been in a long while.  

Midoriya grins back at her, looking almost as excited as she feels. "I'm looking forward to it. Both of you have grown a lot, you know? Oh, but I have to warn you—not that I think you'll underestimate Kacchan, but he has some new tricks up his sleeve you wouldn't expect. He's gotten a lot sneakier! You really have to watch out for—" and he prattles on, gesturing enthusiastically with his hands to make his points, and Ochako smiles and lets him. It's nice. It's comfortable. It's more familiar than she had dared to hope. 

For the first time since getting off the shinkansen on Saturday morning and dragging herself to her crappy new apartment, and thinking this is my life, now, whether I want it or not—she finds herself thinking maybe things will work out. 

Maybe coming back here had been the right choice after all. 

[thefloatingstone]

Would you please make me a list of your rcommended comics(books or web-series any genre original content or fanworks)

Oh that’s a god one! Thank you so very much 💙 Let me see what I have on my shelf and on my hard drive. (I don’t know if I’ve ever made a list of my favourite comics before or not here on tumblr?)

in no particular order;

1: Usagi Yojimbo by Stan Sakai

I dunno if it ever really shows or not, but Japanese historical settings are something I’m really into! I think it’s one of those dormant interests that flares up every now and then. Anyway. Usagi Yojimbo has basically been tied for my favourite comic for over 10 years now. It’s a series of stories, both short and with longer arcs, following the character of Miyamoto Usagi (roughly based on Miyamoto Musashi) travelling around the country of Japan in the early 1600s as a Ronin after the lord he served was defeated and killed in battle. Usagi, being one of his samurai, is not killed in the same battle which, considering his lord was killed, is a massive disgrace in historical Japanese culture. Basically along the thought of “If your lord died and you didn’t you must not have fought hard enough to protect him.”

Anyway, the comic is both a history lesson on Edo period Japan, a travel diary, a slice of life comic, a Chanbara, an action comic, some times even a horror or ghost story, a tragedy involving unfulfilled love and lost families, a lesson on traditional Japanese Yokai and other mythology, and now and then high fantasy.

10/10. HIGHLY recommend. The author Stan Sakai is also a wonderful person I’ve had the pleasure to meet a few times at Comic Con. And considering he like... remembers who I AM despite being an extremely famous comic artist... I dunno. I have endless respect for the man and he’s shown me great kindness in the past.

Also you know... black and white comics. They’re my jam, yo!

2: Bone by Jeff Smith

I have no idea if I even have to say anything because Bone might just, without hyperbole, be the greatest comic ever drawn.

At 1300+ pages drawn over the course of 10 years, the story starts out as a cartoon, full of hijinks and fun adventures and jokes and very slowly, reality starts setting in, things get more dangerous, the stakes get higher, the bad guys much darker. And by the time you reach book 3 of the 9 book story, you’re suddenly in a story of the “epic” variety. Not in the internet slang term but in the actual definition of the word.

You have massive wars between men and monsters, you have clashing cultures and ideologies, conflicting motivations and goals, and of course saving the world.

And it manages to do so without you EVER feeling “Excuse me but this was a cartoon book about funny jokes. This shift in tone is really weird and doesn’t work with the cartoony characters.”

It just blends and grows beautifully. And has remained as my favourite comic for... *counts* lord... 14 years now.

The book was recently released in a new colour version in case you prefer hat, but I honestly recommend “The Brick” single volume black and white version. It’s cheaper, first of all, but also I cannot express how masterful the blacks and whites of Bone are. They’re essentially Watterson level.

(also Jeff Smith is ANOTHER comic artist who is just like... the nicest person. Like REALLY nice. He’s been kind to me on occasions in that “you really didn’t have to be that nice” kind of way)

3: The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa

It’s published by Disney officially... but the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is essentially a fancomic. The only reason its not is because Don Rosa became SO GOOD at making duck comics Disney hired him to make them officially and he was SO GOOD at it became one of the most important Duck artists just after Carl Barks (the creator of Scrooge) himself.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comprehensive biography of Scrooge McDuck’s life, not just made up by Don Rosa, but pieced together from Carl Barks’ own comics where he would have Scrooge make passing mention to events in his past or people he met. Don Rosa essentially took all these passing remarks and mentions and drew out a timeline, starting with Scrooge age 13 leading all the way up to his reunion with his family when Donald as an adult met up with him again.

It starts with Scrooge, from a poor family in Glasgow in 1877, boarding a ship for America to seek his fortune. We follow him through the years as with each chapter, he comes close to being rich and successful, only for it to fail or fall apart at the last minute, until, eventually, we see him catch his break and become the obscenely rich and successful person he’s fought and worked and bled so hard to be.

...and then the comic continues. And we see him lose himself. Greed, the constant need for MORE money and MORE success keeps going. The need to show HOW rich and successful he is takes over, until we see him and his family fall apart. And the comic echoes Citizen Kane as Scrooge realises the best time of his life was when he was seeking riches, not after he finally succeeded.

And then Donald and his nephews appear, and Scrooge’s life gets a second wind. His lust for adventure flares up again, his need to seek fortunes and treasures burns as strong as ever. And he keeps going.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a story about looking for your place in the world and fighting to create it with your own two hands, but it’s also about how you should think hard where you place your value in life, and it’s never too late to re-direct course and try again.

There is also “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion” which is a collection of stories that didn’t fit in with the original comic and would have disrupted flow. Basically like how a fanfic will have oneshots related to a larger story

Also, the producer of the band “Nightwish” created a soundtrack to accompany the original comic as a sort of “What If” in what he imagined the story would sound like if it was made into a movie

4: Cucumber Quest by Gigi D.G. ( @ggdgart )

A newer comic I stumbled upon which has skyrocketed into being a fave and I can already tell, that’s not a position it’s gonna relinquish. Cucumber Quest is a more cartoony and comedic story than the previous comics on this list. But that by no means makes it of any less value or dulls the moments that this comic decides to punch you in the gut with emotions HARD.

The art and colours are glorious and something I hope to study so I can better my own art hopefully, and the writing and humour is of a calibre that I just know I could not replicate it if I even tried. Full of puns, absurdism, awkward jokes and a whole lot of FEELINGS, It manages to make me both laugh myself into a coughing fit as often as it makes me yell “OH NOOOO!!!” when something dramatic happens.

The story follows our main character Cucumber, a put-upon out-of-his-depth wizard-to-be who is tasked with saving the world from the evil Nightmare Knight who has been summoned from his thousand year slumber by an evil sorcerer who wants to take over the world (as you do). With him is his little sister, the sword wielding Almond, who is WAY more into this “being a hero” thing than he is (and probably better at it too) as the duo make friends and travel to the various kingdoms to defeat the Nightmare Knight’s lackeys, working their way up to fighting the Nightmare Knight himself and sealing him away once more!

That all sounds.... really straightforward, doesn’t it? Well... that’s what everybody else in the comic thinks too. ...Shame that real life is never easy and straightforward.

From evil henchmen that start crushing on cool “Good Guys” with cool swords, good guys who don’t REALLY want to hurt the bad guys because they don’t seem so bad? To cool good guys with cool swords suddenly learning that being in danger is not as much fun as it sounded when they started this. To big evil final boss bad guys who are just tired of all of this...

What’s also awesome is the entire comic... all OVER 800 PAGES OF IT... is completely free to read online! But you can also buy physical copies of the first 4 volumes in book form to support the author! 

http://cucumber.gigidigi.com/cq/page-1/

I HIGHLY recommend this one too! It has canon LGBT characters! It has found family plots! It has scary bad guys that just need a hug! It has magical girl transformations! Literally anything you could want is in this comic. Including emotional wrecking angst! Did I mention FEELINGS???

(I couldn’t pick a single page so here are 3 random ones without context. Seriously almost EVERY page is so good I struggled very hard to choose)

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5: The Property of Hate by @modmad

Hey. Do you like fantasy worlds made of imagination? How about protagonists with grey morality who act like super primand proper gentlemen when they’re actually huge nerds? How about reluctant “Well I guess I’ve ADOPTED you now you annoying gremlin” adult-kid relationships? How about puns? How about abstract and colourfull character designs? Or saving the world?

The Property of Hate is Modmad’s original comic that they’ve been working on a few years now. it follows our lead character, RGB or “Problematic Mary Poppins” as I like to think of him, as he asks a young child if she’d like to be a hero and help him save his world? When she agrees, he takes her to a fantasy land... completely NOT preparing her for what she’s signed up for. The story then follows the duo through the abstract and shifting world as RGB slowly divulges information on what exactly our Hero has to do to save the world. It turns out it’s a lot more complicated and messy than merely “beat the bad guy” or anything like that.

Not to mention it seems this fantasy world has its own rules of reality and dangers. Emotions and abstract thoughts have real physical form here, and something like an “idea” can quite literally run around and create havoc, while something like dreams can fuel or destroy, and emotions like grief can cause irreparable damage.

Our Hero also learns RGB himself is a lot more complex and messy than he first appears. Seeming to be a good person trying to do good things (despite being a little stand offish and rude at times) but seems to also be carrying a past and the weight of having done some very very bad things “for the greater good”. And our Hero, as well as we, the readers, start wondering how much we should trust him, even though, just like our Hero, deep deep down we just know we WANT to trust him. And maybe he needs saving just as much as the world itself does. Even when he’s at his scariest and... not quite himself.

The Property of Hate is also available online completely for free. Modmad does have books for sale but I believe it’s on-demand or something along those lines. Please feel free to message them here on tumblr and they are happy to chat to their readers and interact.

http://thepropertyofhate.com/TPoH/The%20Hook/1

I think I’ll leave it there despite meaning to do 10 at first because this is already EXTREMELY long.

Hopefully you found something that seems interesting! Let me know if you decide to check any of these out and whether you ended up liking them or not! I’d love to hear your opinions.

And thank you for indulging me <3

(I’m trying to remember to add my ko-fi link to all longer posts like this I make. Especially since I keep forgetting ☕️Buy me a Ko-fi ☕️ )

[my1stgirlfriendturnedintothemoon]

Writing is so weird for me to be so honest

Like I've been writing for as long as I can remember, fanfic shit before I even knew what fanfic was, me and my friend Sarah used to tell each other stories about our HP self insert OCs in like 5th grade. I have a whole plastic storage tub of notebooks filled with random fanfic and original writing going back to middle school. I'm 29. Some of those notebooks are old enough to vote.

And I've never finished anything lmao. Even stuff where I'm like "this is a oneshot!" I never considered really finished, because there's always some other connected idea.

Anyways I haven't shared any of my writing outside of like, posting things here on tumblr that I know only 3 specific people will read, since like. Before I joined the army??? I think?? Back when I was still using ff net lmao and it was like old Naruto and KH stuff and the one Yume Nikki fic I still wish I had finished, so like 8 years I think.

I hadn't even really been writing much at all this year, outside of a really self-indulgent Warden Surana/Warden Carver Hawke fic that never left my phone notes and will never see daylight bc it's just for me. And then I started replaying FE:A in July and realized I wanted to write about Inigo and Gerome, and I did it! I fuckin opened up my neglected AO3 and I spit out two chapters, and like 300 people read my story and I lost my mind! Three Hundred People! More than my damn high school graduating class. I never in my life would have thought 300 people would want to read my writing lmao

And then of course FE3H dropped and I was like. This is a new fandom, there's not a lot of content out for the ship I want to see, I have a small idea of something I would like to read, I should write it. I'm going to cook this food because the fandom is hungry. And my small idea wound up being a fucking 5k fic, my first smut fic ever, and today it got its hundredth bookmark. 100 fucking people read and bookmarked my horny fic in just one month. Two days after I posted that, I spit out a comedy fic that is currently THREE SHORT of FIVE HUNDRED kudos!!!! Five (5) hundred!!! Like, I'm Math Lady Meme over here trying to imagine 500 different individuals reading and enjoying something I wrote. That is TWICE my graduating class.

So of course, not satisfied with what I had produced, I went out and wrote a 6k fic of a rare pair that was basically entirely smut and the start of a series, because my brain is 100% on Clown Hours, and then made the second part a complete left-field crackpair, and people. Still love it. No one has come to end my life, no one has come with the torches my LJ and FFnet childhood promised. Instead they are praising me and I appreciate it but I still feel like a huge fool lmao!!

Like I'm so scared of negative feedback that I have literally stopped myself from writing things or sharing things for years, and in just one month of sharing things I have gotten so much positive response its overwhelming. I've seen my fics mentioned twice now in the wild while scrolling Twitter, by complete strangers. I bit the bullet and recced one of my fic to someone asking for my rare pair and people like it! I am pretty sure my first smut fic spawned a gift fic for someone else who commented they were interested in a rare OT3 I hinted at!

Anyways I've spent the last week alternately rereading everything I've written this month and going "fuck what the hell this is bile" or feeling like the Palpatine "Unlimited Power" gif even though this is the most attention and 'success' I've ever known in a fandom space, so. This is literally the most productive I've been with writing in years, I've put up 20k words on AO3 since the end of July and I still have like. 6 chapters of this story finished and waiting to be posted if I can just get the damn 2nd chapter out of the way and one of them, all by itself, is 4k. I've been writing like crazy lmao.

This was kind of a ramble but I've been feeling bad about my writing because it's not like some other people's and that's stupid, I may not be writing as much or in the same way but I'm doing numbers for the first time and I should be proud of that.

Over 10k hits I'm gonna shit!!!

Anyways I guess, like. Don't be stupid like me lmao and think no one wants to hear your idea or read your fic, or feel bad if someone else has already "done it", because no one can write it the way you will and there's always going to be someone who is starving for more of that content. I personally don't feel like my stories are that good or even original, but apparently people like them lmao! Share your stuff! You may be surprised.