#here i have no power over the trauma response in even that most basic way of being able to say ‘this was traumatic’ because i don’t know wha

[dancedance-resolution]

guys do you want to know something absolutely insane. i was thinking about a catholic related world news event that happened a while ago and thought to myself man, i can only imagine how crazy it must’ve been for the kids going to my old catholic school the day after that happened. so i googled when it happened to see if my best friends little brother was there when it happened and um. I was there when it happened???? lololol i’ve been thinking about it for 20 mins and i think that now i maybe do remember the teeniest tiniest bit going to school after it happened…. anyways as if i needed any more evidence that my time in catholic high school was deeply deeply traumatic to me, it turns out my brain did the trauma response thing of completely erasing my memory of those last two years lol

[utilitycaster]

Do you see any way, at this point, that Ashton will be meaningfully challenged by other members of BH or the narrative to walk away from this with actual growth? Or do they even need to be confronted or challenged at this point if they defer to the group ultimately? I feel like since FCG’s death and Downfall they’ve regressed to the point where they are simply not fun to watch and Talisen’s response on Cooldown really made me go “ok dang, he is really thinking Ashton has a point here.” I appreciate the swings being taken, but man does it make me sour on a character that used to be one of my favorites.

I don't really think this will happen and I don't really think it has to happen. Like, fundamentally that's the issue with Bells Hells in the end; they don't really challenge each other. There's a lot of reasons why, and I've talked through them before (insular subgroups who in turn don't challenge each other either; not having to make decisions as a group much until, well, now, and therefore not developing a good way to do so; an early prioritization of surface pleasantries/politeness over actually trying to make each other better that never really went away fully) but the rails have been laid down. I mean, I agree, it does make me sour on a character I previously enjoyed, particularly because the character development after the failed shard absorption was really enjoyable and meaningful and to see that just collapse into this selfish bullshit is such a disappointment, but yeah I think the rest of the party is leaning in a different direction so I think it's just like. well this guy is in your party, and they have some shitty ideas but they'll be useful in killing Ludinus, and ultimately Imogen and Fearne hold the power of making this decision and Ashton doesn't so they can just quietly do their own thing. Like, the party did confront him once, and it was great, and he backslid entirely, so there's a point where you just say "welp, guess they're like that, we'll work around it."

The above all sounds rather flippant and in light of my previous post I should note that like, none of this is unrealistic! I do think that Ashton retreating into nihilism after FCG's death is VERY real. But as I've said many a time, a recurring theme in basically all actual play is "stewing forever in your own trauma will take you down dark paths in which you inflict harm on others" and a recurring theme among the fandom discourse is people who think that one's own trauma means other people need to treat their blorbos (and them) real niceys no matter how badly they treat others and act shocked and affronted when actually, most people respond to you acting like a fucking asshole by being like "hey you're a fucking asshole, fuck you."

[getvalentined]

@sephirthoughts: my tumblr app isn’t showing your ask box for some reason so i’m asking here 😂 8, 12, 35, 47 for vincent please? 🖤🖤🖤🖤

(I turned it off and back on again so let me know if you see it now! I just turned it back on today after having it off for a couple weeks, so I'm not shocked it's a bit buggy.)

[For the Random Character Asks game.]

8. Unpopular opinion about them?

I mean my most unpopular opinion about Vincent is definitely that he's the single most compelling character in the entirety of Final Fantasy VII, but with regard to like...headcanons and character interpretations, it's probably that I don't think most of his monsters are actually entirely separate entities with their own unique personalities—I don't even interpret Chaos as sapient the majority of the time.

Aside from Hellmasker, who I've discussed before, any personality seen in Vincent's monsters is literally just a facet of Vincent's own with various traits and aspects stripped away based on the trauma through which they manifested. Galian and Gigas are more like partially-dissociated identities, not complete entities unto themselves, while Chaos has the capacity for periodic sapience only after decades of filtering itself through Vincent's consciousness via the protomateria. At its core Chaos is really just an animal, meaning any personality it might seem to express is the result of it mimicking Vincent over time, which is why it's just vicious and out of control when it manifests in Dirge without the protomateria. (I think my take on the protomateria is probably also wildly unpopular, but I actually can't remember seeing anyone else ever talking about how they believe it functions, so I'm not sure you can call something "unpopular" when there is no "popular" option.)

Fandom really likes portraying all of them as completely separate fully-fledged characters, and it's easier for my Vincent to refer to them similarly in most contexts, but he knows that's not really how it works—he just chooses not to explain it.

12. Crack headcanon?

Vincent is the king of Junon. No, I'm not kidding, this is consistent in basically all my renditions of Vincent. Even if it doesn't come up, if I'm portraying Vincent in basically any version of the canon universe wherein the Wutai War took place, Vincent is the king of Junon.

My version of Valentine family is founding nobility in Junon, which is a crowned republic, with the royal family basically operating as a ceremonial figurehead. The royal family has no actual ruling power at this point, but people like having them around—particularly the other noble families, who use their existence as a way of maintaining the right to a share of taxes and the like—and between the war with Shinra and everything else, nothing has ever really been done to change that.

I was going to try to explain the genealogy behind this, and then I remembered that I have a chart—and I'm gonna put it and the rest of this post under a cut, because this is stupidly long at this point and I'm two questions deep.

Vincent's extended family tree:

Okay so, Vincent's second cousin was Queen Adelaide, who took the throne fairly young due to her mother passing away; the one who "married in" doesn't keep rulership after the death of their spouse except in cases where their heir is still a minor, and then rulership passes to the heir upon adulthood. If there is no heir, the title gets kicked to the next royal-by-blood on the line. Adelaide died in the late '90s, unmarried and without an heir—but there were no other royals left. She was an only child, and all the others were dead.

...Well, probably. See, Vincent had been listed as missing in action since 1978. Because of the clandestine nature of the department, Turks that disappear aren't listed as dead until there's either a body recovered, or they've been missing for 50 years, whichever comes first. Legally, Vincent was still alive, and the Junon Society of Royals (aka the JSR, the group responsible for keeping Junonese nobility in their wealth) grabbed onto that to perform what's called a "paperwork ascension." These used to be pretty common back when heirs would get sent away to war or for school or whatever, gone for years at a time whether their ruling parent died or not.

The plan was for the JSR to plug Vincent in temporarily and proceed to dig back through the entire genealogical record to try to find some distant heir who was actually present and definitely alive to put on the throne instead (there is also a mechanism for this in Junonese tradition) but there was the whole war with Wutai, and then a bunch of terrorist nonsense happened, then everything went sideways with Meteor, then Geostigma, then Omega—and then King Vincent Vickalor Valentine VII, a man who should have been about 60 years old and whom everyone assumed was actually dead as hell everywhere except on paper, reappeared working with the WRO in 2010.

Vincent had absolutely no idea any of this had happened. He had no fucking clue that he'd legally been king of Junon for over a decade. Upon finding out via a very angry letter from the JSR asking him to pass the crown to another noble family and please do not come be King Cryptid the public cannot take it, he instead routed as much of the royal family's share of taxes as he was legally allowed to the WRO as a recurring charitable donation, including that same percentage from the escrow account into which that share had been fed since Queen Adelaide's death, and divvied up as much of the rest as was permissible to various other charitable causes. A good chunk of it is stuck just sitting there, which is annoying because he doesn't want it, but if he dissolves the monarchy then the WRO stops getting that funding so he can't do that just yet. He will eventually, since he can't die and thus the JSR screwed themselves over by putting him "in charge," but it will be a while before he does it.

This means that the king of Junon owns three pairs of pants, lives in an apartment that contains only a mattress and a radio, and hasn't gotten his hair cut in over 30 years. The JSR do not broadcast his existence and he doesn't meddle too much with their bougie nonsense, so it's not general public knowledge.

Reeve knew the entire time and just never said anything.

35. Their idea of a perfect day?

This one is actually really hard, because my Vincent doesn't really...think that way? He doesn't really make his own plans or have his own aspirations, because if he thinks about his future he won't stop and that's pretty crippling for him what with the immortality, so the idea of a perfect day hasn't crossed his mind since he was sent to Nibelheim.

If we're going outside his thoughts on the concept and into what would be a perfect day for him within the feasible bounds of his general existence immediately postcanon, it would vary depending on which headcanon universe I'm working with. Going with the one I've been playing in the most recently, it would start with cloudy weather in Junon and a short workday at WRO HQ—busy enough to keep occupied but slow enough that he can afford to head out early—followed by his mostly-monthly visit to Edge to help Tifa deep clean the bar and kitchen at Seventh Heaven. After that, he and Tifa and Cloud (and Barret, who is stated to live in Edge as well post-AC) would hang out in the closed bar and catch up, maybe have a few drinks; once it's dark enough, Vincent and Cloud would split off, finding somewhere quiet and secluded to recover from all that peopling. Maybe up on the roof, maybe a little ways out of town, and they'd stay out there until Cloud got sleepy, at which point Vincent would get him home. Maybe Vincent would stay the night, but realistically it'd only ever be to sleep. Someday maybe it would be more than that, but Vincent does his best not to think about the future.

A perfect day is being useful, getting to pretend he's still a normal person, and spending time with the people who won't call him out on the lie.

47. Their dream job?

Vincent's dream job is being a Turk. Period. It doesn't matter what point in time we're talking about, that's the answer.

Postcanon, this isn't because he wants anything to do with Shinra (the Turks don't actually work with Shinra anymore by then in my headcanon, the department was absorbed into the WRO just after AC), but because it was the only thing Vincent ever really wanted to do before. He and Tseng would butt heads too much for him to rejoin the department, but that doesn't even matter—Vincent is extremely mako-enhanced, among other things, and Turks aren't allowed to have any biological augmentations. His abilities may have been forced on him, but they're still very much enhancements, so Vincent's physiology bars him from the only job he ever wanted.

Vincent is no longer a Turk, and never will be again—no matter how much he might dream about it.

[thousand-winters]

(So sorry if you got this already tumblr has been eating my asks recently gahhh)

In my head, there's this very angsty scenario of how things would play out between Darius and Hunter in the aftermath of All The Shit, where Darius basically pushes Hunter away because of his own internal guilt over how he treated Hunter during his time in the coven, not necessarily because he just feels bad about it, but because he recognizes that if he and Hunter get closer, Hunter would not allow himself to get mad at Darius for his bullying and dismissal -- the same way Hunter never allowed himself to get mad at Belos. And Darius would think Hunter deserves to be able to get angry at him, (projecting his own anger at himself, of course), so he puts distance between them in the hopes that Hunter would eventually be angry at him for the things in the coven. And poor Hunter would be so lost and confused about it -- he thought they were getting closer, that they were friends. It would take a stern talking to from one of the unexpected parents (Eda, probably) or just a smack upside the head from Camilla to set him straight again. "Darius, it doesn't matter what you think might not happen -- he's made his choice already. He wants you. And if you make him feel safe enough, whether he gets mad at you initially won't matter either, because he'll feel safe enough to deal with it eventually."

(No worries!!! Tumblr is so wonky sometimes)

Oh, my goodness, I love that.

Something I really love to play with when it comes to Dadrius early dynamic after the finale is that it can be such a mess of misunderstandings because Hunter doesn't feel like he's quite enough (right enough, worthy enough, normal enough) to be someone's child, while Darius doesn't feel prepared to be someone's parent, let alone Hunter's, which is so ironic because I think for Darius part of that doubt would come from the fact he's perhaps the adult who knows the best how much help Hunter will need and the one with the best idea of the extent of the trauma he suffered while at the castle, which means to him it feels like a more daunting situation; he does NOT want to mess things up when Hunter is currently in a bit of an emotionally fragile estate.

This would definitely play a big part here because Darius, who knows Hunter used to justify what Belos did to him because they were family —for the most part Hunter probably didn't realize some of the treatment was messed up, but when he did, he learned well to find excuses for Belos—, knows very well too how Hunter tends to let authority figures he even just remotely admires or respects walk all over him (he did that himself once, after all), and while that's definitely something that can be unlearned, he would be afraid that his own actions back then might influence too much how things go now. Especially because I think that while obviously he made up for that, at the time Hunter was a bit like a wild animal you don't want to scare by offering too much human decency at once 😭 He couldn't say "hey, Hunter, it was a bit fucked up of me to project my grief on you and insult you, you are not responsible for other people's, especially adults, emotional troubles" or else Hunter would have been jumping through the window.

So because he had to work slowly through Hunter being comfortable and not weirded out by being treated kindly and taught some level of boundaries, Darius could feel like Hunter might have a skewed vision of things and might think it's okay if Darius mistreated him, and while that might be sort of true, it's no more so than how Hunter is with any other adult with power over him.

Poor Hunter just feels like Darius was kind to him to the extent of making sure he was safe and out of Belos' reach and now he doesn't give a damn about him... and why would he when Hunter has nothing to offer? 😔 With Camila things were temporary, and with Belos he had to earn his place, so he can't just expect Darius to want him around forever or at all without doing anything for him, right? So he probably wouldn't even try to insist one bit to Darius, he would respect that distance.

Hunter and Darius are truly such a pair, out there thinking the worst of themselves and creating a conflict where there's none.

I figure Eber would be the first one to try and talk some sense onto Darius, and then probably Eda or Camila or whoever Hunter is staying with for now, since then Darius would not only have the objective view of things from Eber, but also a glimpse of how Hunter is feeling, which is very important if he's assuming that Hunter is just gonna forget their bond and thrive somewhere else if he just tries hard enough.

There's definitely going to be such an awkward period after this too, I think the whole "you can be angry at me" matter would have to be one of the firsts they tackle considering how much it escalated. Darius might not be so convinced at first, caught up as he is in his own self-doubts, but it would be very good for Hunter for his parent to say that to him, since it already shows from the first moment that this isn't going to be any kind of dynamic of servitude or anything of that sort. And you know, Hunter might not even mind that much what happened at the coven because he understands how that environment can make you angry and spiteful, and the kindness Darius showed afterward was very significant to him more than a simple apology would, but ironically he might be upset at Darius pulling his whole distancing himself move.

Not exactly how either of them expected things to go, but they can work with it, and seeing that it won't be a deal breaker will help them form a stronger bond because they know they don't have to walk on eggshells around each other... as far as it comes to this matter at least. There's quite a lot both of them have to learn.

[eyesanddragons]

Rambling incoming. People often remember the book 10 vase scene & the epilogue as poorly written (and they are), but I'd argue that what happens after the vase scene is just as badly written, if not worse.

Being told that Darkstalker not only brainwashed one of her friends, but also attempted to kill off his entire tribe with a plague, should have been the final straw for Moon. She had already experienced a SEVERE breach in trust with Darkstalker before he even emerged from the mountain, so much so that it put her into tears (end of book 8). She should have immediately realized that trying to redeem Darkstalker would necessarily put the lives of her friends, Winter's tribe, and the world at risk, as long as he still had his powers. She should have immediately started focusing on how to neutralize DS as soon as possible. Maybe neutralize him in a way where she can safely try to redeem him without gambling the world on it, but not if it requires the sacrifice of her friend's safety. She should have redirected her empathy towards the friends she KNOWS she can trust. This does not happen. Instead, she throws herself a pity-party, like she is the real victim in all of this. She stubbornly insists that he can still be redeemed much to the dismay of Winter and the questioning of Qibli, and then puts the entire world at risk by betting on him willingly eating the strawberry to find redemption. It is ONLY through the serendipitous hubris of Darkstalker that he is defeated. Yet the books do not hold Moon to task on ANY of this completely blind and genuinely selfish crusade of hers. No, it's everyone else's fault for not believing in her.

A few short pages after the vase scene, Moon outright channels suburban mom energy out of nowhere, infantilizes Winter as if he is a toddler throwing a temper tantrum over spilt milk, and basically tells him to go to his room. All because he was upset that, after being told that DS nearly wiped out the IceWings and brainwashed one of her closest friends, she wanted to go talk to the culprit. She refuses to explain why and doesn't even try to understand why Winter is so upset. Yet she calmly explains her reasons to Qibli on the very next page. This scene alone made me almost quit WoF entirely because it straight-up invalidates Winter's trauma while, somehow, framing him as the unreasonable one.

After their conversation with Darkstalker, they realize they have to tell Winter that Queen Glacier, his aunt whom he genuinely cared about and valued so much that he made it a cornerstone of his identity early in the arc, has been killed by Darkstalker's plague. So, since they are such good friends they would feel genuine empathy and sorrow for him, right? Dreading the task of telling him because it will be a genuinely difficult thing to do, to tell a close friend that a loved one of theirs died? Lmao nope. Instead, all Qibli and Moon are worried about is that he might yell at them. Moon's only response to Qibli's worry is "I've heard worse in his head." Not "he's allowed to mourn," or "he's been through a lot recently, cut him some slack." Imagine if your friends, behind your back, learned of your loved ones passing and went "Oh god, alright let's draw straws on who has to tell this guy."

The 2nd half of book 10 is, to this day, probably some of the worst, most mean-spirited writing I've ever seen in... anything really. It systematically destroyed the found family to resolve a love triangle that nobody wanted, because letting Moon and Qilbi just choose each other was apparently *not* an option.

The Vase scene and how the character's react and treat Winter in the 2nd half of Book 10 is one of the reasons why it's my least favorite WoF book. It really is unnecessarily mean spirited. Though I do wanna touch a bit on what you say here. Specifically about Moon since I think her actions her could of actually been handled in an interesting and impactful way.

This isn't to defend the Vase scene or anything...it's really bad and honestly I think it's worse with this context. I just wanna mention this since I think Moon is a really under-utilized character.

Moon's in a horrifically toxic friendship with Darkstalker, he repeatedly makes Moon feel responsible for his actions, he isolates her from her friends, he constantly pleads with her to stay with him because it'll make him better or make him stop acting horrible. It's notable that Moon is the only one Darkstalker didn't enchant because her Behavior is like someone who was enchanted. Darkstalker doesn't need to enchant Moon, he's already got his grubby in her 13 or so year old mind. Moonwatcher also has a surprisingly black-and-white worldview. Moonwatcher sorts thoughts into bad and good and judges people by them. Darkstalker exploited this by showing Moon all the good things he wants and all the good things he thinks.

If we get rid of all the magic from Darkstalker for a second what we have is a horror story where a much older teenager is manipulating a much younger one to Stay With Them so that They don't Kill Anyone. This is Deeply Horrifying and I'm not even going to touch on how he compares her to Clearsight because it becomes even creepier and I don't want to talk about stuff like that at the moment.

This is why I hate the vase scene even more! Because if we divorce it from the rest of book 10 for a bit it's actually a deeply fucking terrifying scene where Moonwatcher's sense of self is so reliant on Fixing Darkstalker that the idea of him doing something so horrible is something she can't accept because if she Does that means she's at fault.

Plus part of the worry in the vase scene is coming from how Moonwatcher trusts Darkstalker still, and how Darkstalker can read her mind. Winter is putting Moon at risk by telling her this. Could you imagine if Darkstalker Did decide to do something to Moon because of what Winter did? Moon is being put in danger by that information.

Of course we live in a world where book 10 sucks and Moonwatcher is barely a character outside of the love triangle so we don't get that. Moonwatcher's personality changes depending on what the love triangle needs to continue. The clearest example of this is Moon Wanting to Abandon waiting for Winter in Escaping Peril when SHE'S the one who wanted to wait for him in the first place!

I think one of my major problems with Book 10 is that, due to the romance plot, a lot of characters feel like there being given a script by Tui herself for the plot to go like this. So, as you mentioned, instead of acting like concerned friends who just learned that there friend's aunt was practically murdered, Qibli and Moon act really dismissive and even cruel. Complaining about being yelled at rather than the fact that Winter's Aunt is Dead. However this scene is supposed to push the romance further, to show how Winter is less attractive to Moon compared to Qibli.

Now, again, really fucked up to use his aunt's death as the backdrop here, but it is the purpose of the scene. This book is so meanspirited and horrible I Hate it god I hate Book 10-

[theliterarywolf]

So as far as the Centurion Borealis MK II and Acrioziolana, I have too many questions:

How do you log out of that thing? Is it safe zone dependent? Do you need a motion or phrase? Can other users disable it or is it because someone's registered as hostile?

What's the time disparity? People can sleep in this thing. With Fimbulventr mentioning consciousness, are most users just dreaming as they risk getting kreugered?

So is there no SAO incident or investigation involved or is it just publicly known that people die in these things? Is it just the The OASIS from Ready Player One with pain and pleasure? Is it free from the laws of The Other? Can you even mention the real world proper? How big a hole does it burn in one's pocket?

How the hell do powers even work here? What's the skill tree? What's the leveling? You got magic and guns yet the only healing so far is potions. Does everyone just start at nothing? Can someone hypothetically hack the game and make themselves immortal or inulnerable?

Alright, let's see... Ended up typing a lot, so here's a Read More

The first part of your ask:

Anyone can log out or Disengage of Acrioziolana at their own leisure. However, there are some instances that can prohibit the command.

These can include, but are certainly not limited to certain areas being hostile zones that you can't log out of until you leave their boundaries and certain players being able to 'abuse' the permissions of the app and preventing people from Disengaging so as to prolong their torture or commitments.

There is also, and this is going to be touched on a bit more in upcoming volumes, a certain party to which certain players staying away from Acrioziolana for too long is a conflict of interests. So even if you log out and decide 'okay, I'm not going to play anymore; it's too dangerous', that will pretty much result in you having to constantly keep an eye over your shoulder in case said party sends someone to, ahem, clean up any loose-ends.

The second part:

3-4 days in-app would equate to around 6 hours IRL time.

The basic level of logging into Acrioziolana is closer in kin to an incredibly in-depth VR system that can result in psychosomatic responses in the body due to certain in-game stimuli (i.e.: someone being brutally murdered in-game has a 50/50 chance of either causing someone's body to go into shock and die or the pain/trauma being so much that their mental-state can't take it)

The third part:

You'll remember what I mentioned earlier on about a 'certain interested party' being heavily invested into Acrioziolana. Well, they do their best to make sure that players don't go blabbing about the game via monetary initiatives, dark-web shenanigans, or having plenty of clean up staff.

You can mention the real world in-game to a certain extent but most people just default to using the term 'The Other' as a means of keeping their personal data safe.

The only real monetary cost of playing Acrioziolana is getting a hold of a Centurion Borealis Mk II. Which, aside from costing 50K and that's even if you can find one for sale; many of the core characters in Speak Not have stumbled their ways into getting one somehow or another.

Aside from that, the only risk you have is your life! Yay! But, you can earn a lot of money, so...

The final part:

The power-system of Acrioziolana is best described as that of an almost prestige-like system?

In better wording, it's like 'Yes, everyone starts at an almost ground-level of zero, but depending on what feats they decide to take on, how many they slaughter, how many they conquer, and just how much of a threat they become to those around them translates to how powerful a player is'.

Thus far, though a few have tried, no one has managed to successfully hack the system. The closest thing is the core antagonist of the series, Shivaari-Jaarti, managing to exploit the game's servers to keep his hold of Acrioziolana solid.

[invisiblegarters]

So Just How Present Has This Ex Been, Anyway?

Out of curiosity to see how much my opinions have evolved about OF and its characters over the course of the series (season?), I've been going back over a bunch of my own posts since the beginning. While I will probably make another post about how wrong I was about some things (and how right about others, I do so love being right and pointing it out), what really struck me in light of all the back and forth about Sand (even if most of it doesn't actually seem to be about him at all, which is darkly hilarious to me in an episode that goes out of its way to highlight how Sand regularly ignores himself to make way for others) is just how early they started laying the groundwork for what's going on with Boeing.

This is an excerpt from something I posted in episode two. Please ignore the part about Ray (I know it's hard but we all have to make some sacrifices here) and think about it for a sec. As early as episode two there was groundwork that was laid down thick enough that I was picking up on it - I say this because I am not exactly the most observant person and I do tend to miss a TON on my first watch of these episodes. There's no background at all given yet, this is entirely based on the way that Sand looks during this "interview". Which is basically like he's Seen Some Shit (as an aside, I just love watching First make expressions and I think Sand is some of his best work. He's just so damn good at conveying so very very much with just the subtlest changes. First what even is your face).

I also noted in this episode that Sand...doesn't talk about himself. That he answers direct questions but he doesn't volunteer information (and I'm getting ahead of myself here but we see this in action again in ep 5 - he says he has dreams but explicitly does not elaborate until Ray asks him directly what his dreams are. At the time I was not as cognizant of that because I was too busy being surprised that Ray would even ask - I had a Ray hating reputation for a reason, guys - but in hindsight (and while thinking about this post) it struck me. We also see him really hesitate before telling Ray about his dad even though it's in response to a direct question (and he doesn't give him the entire truth, as we find out later). It's also the ep where we see Sand treating his own birthday like it's any other day, nothing important).

The second is that there are still times when he's looking at Ray that I don't see fondness, reluctant or otherwise. I see a man assessing how likely it is that the animal in front of him is going to bite. But more and more I am beginning to think I'm delusional because the guarded, emotionally unavailable man I sometimes think I see in Sand is not the one I'm getting in scenes like one in the car after the party

This is not a screenshot because it's in the middle of a paragraph and would look weird but it's from episode 3. Because there was this way Sand had of looking at Ray (you know the one: head tilted, taking him in like he was a bug under a microscope) that made me feel like I was taking crazy pills in between all the ways he was already folding for him at every moment.

But now, with the power of hindsight, it occurs to me that I might have been supposed to be seeing that. I just didn't have the information to know that it wasn't necessarily a reaction to Ray himself but a wariness he might be showing with anyone that he started falling for. Because Ex Trauma. Also I think now we see that in some ways Ray in the beginning especially was very like Boeing - getting into Sand's space regardless of how Sand may feel about it, ignoring Sand's attempts to put him off or tell him no because it's pretty obvious that if he pushes enough Sand will cave, etc - and maybe a part of Sand even registered that and reacted to it. Or maybe he's still just very fucked up from his last relationship and those feelings that he hasn't dealt with are already spilling into this new thing (for what it's worth, the second option feels most right to me).

By episode 4 it was very clear to me, apparently, that Sand had a metric ton of issues surrounding the ex.

Of course it was. That's the episode where Nick plays that far too often used recording. It's the episode where Nick says that compared to Top he feels like nothing, and Sand gets his patented War Flashbacks Look (TM) and says he knows exactly how Nick feels. It's also where we find out exactly what Top did that makes Sand hate him so much: "He stole my ex."

And I remember reading tumblr at the time (for my own sanity I do not have a twitter account and never ever will), as well as a few youtube comments and seeing people taking him to task for that line in particular. And while I agree, it's true you can't own someone so they can't be stolen and Boeing probably left all on his own (very clearly did, as we find out in future eps), to me this was the moment when I realized just how not over the whole thing (and I thought at the time, the ex himself) Sand really was. Because you don't hang onto that kind of anger if you've come to terms with something. And usually (not always but usually), you aren't quite so eager to keep the blame hanging all on the person that the ex left you for if you've moved past what happened. Even if Top actively pursued Boeing knowing that he was with Sand (and as of yet we have zero indication that was the case, and honestly probably won't unless they plan to drag Sand's Boeing Shit into another season), surely some of the blame would have to go on Boeing too, since he was the one who was actually in a relationship? But nope, that's not what Sand's doing, which told me all I needed to know about where his head was at regarding said relationship.

Just putting this here because this was me in episode five. LOL had I known how much the reaction to it would annoy me I might not have been so eager (that is a lie I totally would have I am HERE for what this might be able to do for Sand guys you have no idea).

And if Episode 4 hadn't given me an inkling of where Sand's head was (or very much wasn't) at regarding his ex, episode 6 would have done the thing.

The man is so angry after he speaks with Top in the hospital (after the ex is directly and indirectly brought up) that he goes and straight up steals a sex audio and then uses it to point good old volatile Ray at Top's new relationship like a missile. That was unhinged. Utterly.

And the use of Ray was definitely deliberate. Oh, I know that there are schools of thought that Sand was also trying to torpedo Ray's chances with Mew while he was at it (and I guess that's why so many people were so weirdly smug about RayMew happening and Sand seeing it?), but I don't believe that. I do believe, however, that he knew that giving Ray that information would guarantee Mew would find out, and he had no issues blatantly using him to make that happen...but for me it leads back to Boeing.

Hear me out. I know that everyone was very focused on how Ray was trying to move on from Mew before Boston dropped his bomb and I get that, it makes total sense, but it might help to remember that he wasn't the only one. Here Sand is, taking what he thinks are steady if slow steps to having something real with Ray, letting him in in spite of still being guarded and taking care of those burns he got from Boeing, and then it's dropped in his lap that nope, all that was a farce, this guy he's been focusing on as a real option (maybe the first person he's done that with since Boeing) is in love with someone else and has been all along.

Now I'm not saying that he's correct in thinking this - but I am saying that Sand doesn't have any information that would make him think otherwise (and no, Ray being sweet with him is not it. Ray also made very sure to clarify over and over to Boston that he and Sand were just friends, they weren't like that, etc - whatever reasons he might have for doing it, that's what Sand hears, and he isn't psychic and can't intuit if Ray's lying to save face just in case Sand doesn't like him too or if he's lying because he doesn't want news that he's not entirely single to get back to Mew). At that point Ray didn't even know how he felt, lol, how on earth could Sand be expected to? He's drawing his conclusions based on the evidence he has - filtered through his own biases and past fuck ups, yes, but who isn't guilty of that?

Even though the situations aren't quite the same, it must have felt like Boeing all over again. And I will say until I'm blue in the face that Ray owed Sand nothing at this point, it really doesn't change that. And I completely understand why Sand's reaction was to retreat, to build back up his walls and to decide fuck it, I don't matter so why should he? Didn't matter before, don't matter now. And frankly he was way more upset about the end result than just about anybody else involved save Mew and Top. Possibly Nick. More than anything, what Sand's behavior in episode six told me was that whatever issues he had with the ex, he hadn't dealt with them.

And we've seen zero evidence of that changing. What we do see, over and over, is Sand letting the past affect his present. What we see is him being wary at best even when he has what he's clearly wanted almost this entire time - Ray right there next to him, all in on him and happy to be so. I said this episode that it did not escape my attention that Sand doesn't reciprocate Ray's affectionate words at all - he loves hearing them, but there's a way he responds that reads (to me) as rejection - not of Ray, he'd never, but of fully believing the things Ray's saying to him.

I've said it before and I'm going to say it again now: I do not believe that Sand's hesitation is about Boeing. It has nothing to do with Boeing beyond what Boeing did to him making him gun shy. This isn't a fight between Sand's feelings for Ray and his feelings for Boeing. It's a fight between his feelings about what happened with Boeing and what he wants now with Ray.

What I want, more than anything, is for this to be about Sand. Ray had his whole epiphany, he knows he's in and he's committed. But Sand hasn't had that. Even now there's a part of him that isn't fully in this thing - hence all the not really responding beyond smiles and shakes of his head when Ray's being ridiculous and calling him boyfriend every five seconds and telling him that he's got a mental rolodex of things about Sand, etc. I don't think it's a Ray issue specifically I think it's because he was all in once and not only did it break apart, but it did so in a horrible way, and even though he's moved on from *Boeing* (sorry but if the show wants me to think that he still loves that man it's doing a horrible job of it), he's not moved on from that pain and disappointment. I would love it Boeing pulls double duty once again and not only tests the foundation in this relationship but also breaks Sand out of that particular barrier.

What happened with Boeing has been, to my mind, woven through so much of this drama that I don't even think we need a flashback here. We don't need to see what their dynamic was like to see why Sand is so fucked up right now - it's all been there from the beginning. Sand put off really dealing with his feelings about what happened with Boeing, and now they're here smirking at him and making a bunch of insinuations that Sand has no real defense against. It's not surprising or confounding to me that Sand is dealing with it by trying his best not to deal with it, or that he wants to keep his new, shiny thing untarnished by the past (even though as I've gone to great pains to point out, it already has been). But he's not going to be able to get away with it this time. He has to deal with it in some way.

Personally I hope he deals with it by braining Boeing with his old guitar, but then I do have a violent streak when it comes to fictional characters.

[hihopelessromantics]

The Learner Learns Nothing

In which the writing of Seven Deadly Sins expects us to believe that Merlin, the glutton for knowledge, is incapable of learning what really matters over the course of her 3,000 year journey. 

I wrote this inspired by @zeldriszezinho‘s comment on how Merlin was able to reactivate Elizabeth’s curse. The implication that Merlin at some point during the 3000 years gained the ability to break the curse and could have done it AT ANY TIME from that point forward absolutely blew my mind. 

If so canon Merlin is DEAD to me I swear that is so WRONG.

I've never seen a master manipulator character written like this before and I'm not even sure if this is a good way to write a trick villain or whatever the hell she was supposed to be. It sure is baffling so nakaba got that right. I was just as shocked and disbelieving as the sins were. Still am. Regardless of how well it fits her “canon” character and personality it is NOT consistent with the found family themes 😭 Plus it would make her RIDICULOUSLY overpowered... how would she have as much power as a god without serious consequences? And literately no one noticed, ever? Britannia started literately falling apart when Meliodas had that much magical power.

You know what I think I will jump on the hating canon Merlin bandwagon with you zeldriszezinho. I am stitching the Merlins from fanfictions together to make a better, healthier one as a present to the sins for all they've gone through together.

Merlin is just - ugh - it’s too sad. Everyone else gets to be, as the people who remember English class would say, a round character, including many of the antagonists! Tons of minor characters get memorable moments of growth, but Merlin, one of the major characters? She stays static for the most part. Trapped as a plot device until the very end. The narrative leaves her alone, torn away from her found family by an insane twist that I don’t quite understand.

 It’s like Merlin never gave a second thought to how the sins are acting. Ten years out of 3,000 isn’t a lot but someone as smart and observant as Merlin should have seen the way the other sins treat her. They knew close to nothing about her, and she constantly isolated herself emotionally and physically from them, but they never made a move to exclude her from the group, or pry too much, or question her origins. They just loved her unconditionally even though she wouldn’t let them in. There was so much raw potential for her character to have a unique and complicated bond with the sins as a group. Maybe it should have been the wakeup call she needed that the unhealed child inside of her could still learn to receive love. That it wasn’t too late to have a life outside her chaos obsession. Canon left us with a pretty unsatisfying answer as to why she acted the way she has. Like hmmm. Really?

Canon Merlin, you had 3,000 years to decide whether to seek help for your childhood trauma and learn how to love in a somewhat healthy manner and you want me to believe you didn't even try that route??? And that on top of that you effectively prolonged the torment of the only two people shown to love you unconditionally? Whom you supposedly loved in return?? Uhhh heyo! I don't believe you. And also I am holding a sword to your throat getting your shit together is no longer optional.

Sure Merlin can be seen as a character study of how obsession can cause someone to forsake all other aspects of life. We saw it in Frankenstein - saw what became of that whole spectacle and how quickly the perpetrator learned that they didn't actually want [insert here], they were just looking for that basic hierarchy of human needs and weren't ready for the responsibility that comes when using the pursuit of scientific advancement as a substitute for, idk, I think in Merlin's case it would be coming to terms with essentially being treated as a weapon due to her abilities. (meliodas and Elizabeth parallel anyone?? We were robbed of three child soldiers learning to love together and be a family smh thanks a lot gods ) anyway back on topic. What Merlin and Frankenstein have in common throughout their story there are a lot of opportunities that they didn't take, and friends that they kept brushing off, never confiding in them until it was crisis time. Frankenstein's story is a tragedy - he keeps abandoning the rational thought and commitment to ethics that make a good scientist. Any second during his story, while he was neglecting correspondence from friends, neglecting to sleep and eat and pay attention to his needs as a person that the obsession had tossed in the trash bin, he was free to say “hey actually I CAN spare a second from my neverending workload to breathe and think about what's important to me. Why I'm doing this? And how I could do it better. Have I learned anything in this latest deep dive into knowledge?” Instead he is ruled by his emotions, which in the end, keep him from properly emphasizing with other people and actually achieving what he wanted to do. I don't even remember if Frankenstein KNEW what he wanted to get out of his experiments. Probably not considering this the way he immediately freaked out when it actually WORKED. And then it was crisis time, so he goes to his friends, but does he confide in them what really happened? What part he had in it and how he feels about the whole thing? Don't think so. So they just think he's depressed as fuck and going a little crazy. They're completely unable to help him in any substantial way. 

We see this with Merlin. She has to have complete control of the situation at all times so she tells no one. If she can get this ONE THING right finally everything will fall into place. That must be what she thought. But what the hell? Knowledge is and has always been collaborative. We know she was never learning just to learn or for the love of it - it was a poor substitute for the love and attention a child needs to grow up with a good understanding of how to pursue fulfillment. So she was always aiming to accomplish something with her knowledge and all around her were people working together to accomplish something. Hell, she worked together with the sins to accomplish her goal. 3,000 years. She stopped her own time. Physically, right? Or was it mental too? The science there doesn't seem to work with the brain literately rewiring itself as it gets new experiences so. We're just meant to assume she spent 3,000 years trapped in the same mindset while traveling all over Britannia and interacting with God knows how many people. Just out of pure necessity to survive and obtain the information and tools she needs she would have to interact with a LOT of people. That's not even mentioning the people she did research on. And we're expected to believe she didn't learn anything that would make Merlin- smart, curious, motivated little Merlin who tricked two GODS on the OFF CHANCE that what they give her will satisfy the hole in her heart - didn't learn enough about human behavior to give abandoning love and true connection a second thought? Or even TRY to engage meaningfully with anyone? It's not like she had never made that connection with anyone before. What about Meliodas? What about 106 Elizabeths? 

This twist that Merlin might have been manipulating the Sins all along, rather than blowing the reader’s mind with the clues and clever foreshadowing that were there all along, blows a hole in the overarching themes in the story. Merlin’s betrayal is a catastrophe of the highest proportions because it calls into question EVERYTHING they learned up until that point. What she did would cause extensive trauma to everyone involved - all this time they believed that hey, maybe fate brought us together, wasn’t it so good that we finally found people that could understand us? And now they are questioning all of it. So yeah, emotionally, the twist does what it is supposed to. It hurts. But... it doesn’t make sense.  Being in the Seven Deadly Sins causes every other member to learn how to reconcile with themselves, their pasts, their feelings, and their relationships. Why is Merlin the exception? This feels like disappointing writing and a huge waste of character potential. 

It's not like abandoning all emotion and other desires was remotely necessary for Merlin to achieve her goal. She's had fun along the way and that's shown to us. Why are we given ‘i used to have a crush on Meliodas’ as a reason why she would give up on connection or whatever? Merlin that was literally 3,000 years ago when you were 12(?). You didn't talk to anyone about THEIR childhood crushes in all that time? And it's not like Meliodas ever stopped loving or caring about her. Even after getting his emotions stolen bit by bit he only abandons her and the rest of the sins out of necessity. Here she's got a good friend to confide in. And he's EXACTLY the kind of friend she needs if she wants to resurrect an old god! Meliodas is trusting, supportive, willing to Go the Distance for anything he believes in, AND desperate enough to consider extreme courses of action in order to break his and Elizabeth's curses.

All Merlin has to do to potentially get Mel on board is say, "Hey, some of my personal research has turned up something I think you might be interested in. The existence of an old god that the Supreme Deity and Demon King locked away because they feared her power and didn't want her to interfere with their goals.  I've been curious about rumors like these since I was a child, and now I have finally found enough solid evidence to confirm that this god exists. It stands to reason that such a god would be able and even willing to help with the curse on you and Sis-sis. Not a timely solution, but a good plan B or C. I'll be looking into it, and I'll let you know if I find anything that could help you."

What's Meliodas going to say to that? Probably, "Thanks, Merlin!"

He was not afraid of potentially starting an "age of Chaos" when his father told him that is what killing him would mean. Chaos is a mysterious entity of both darkness and light, good and evil, creation and destruction. Previously worshipped by goddesses and feared by the demons. Its agenda, if it even has one, is even more mysterious than Merlin's was before the big reveal. As far as I can infer, Chaos (without the influence of fantasy racism) seems just as likely to bring balance as it could bring upheaval. Something that Britannia desperately needs. And since Chaos is the mother of life in this universe, why would it destroy everything it has created?

It makes sense that if he had known, Meliodas would have been wary of this god, and warned Merlin to be careful, but in the end... wouldn't he have as much reason to help his friend as he would to stop her? Why continue on to release Chaos after the curse is already broken? Fair question. But why not?

Meliodas just wants to live in peace with his loved ones. If releasing Chaos means an "age of Chaos" will occur, well, that just means going back to the beginning, before the eternal game between the Supreme Deity and Demon King. So. The same unknowns that he's faced in his life thus far, except the two dictators manipulating everyone into an eternal war are replaced with the creator of life itself? That would actually sound pretty good to Meliodas, right?

Chaos is disappointed with the weakness of humanity but acknowledged it as, hehehe religious parallels my beloved, "the race most like itself, that embodies its values." Now, this could be 4+ years of religion classes talking but Chaos's previous goal before the Holy War seems to have been to create a race "in its own image." And it did. The question is, now what? I doubt this god is capable of being truly evil because why would evil create creatures with moral compasses? Evil cannot create good and vice versa. We the audience know what happened in Four Knights of the Apocolypse thus far regarding Chaos's preference to humans, but Meliodas and the other Sins have no reason to suspect the entity of chaos would ever go full genocide mode on its own creations. A god that creates all life according to a set of intricate rules (physics, etc.) tends to have patterns of behavior that make sense. Creating everything just to kill it all off doesn't really make sense.

Merlin could damn well have told the Sins, or even just Meliodas, that her goal is to resurrect the original god of their universe that was locked away by the Demon King and the Supreme Deity, who play with people's lives for fun and obviously freaking suck - without making herself look like she has a) gone off the deep end or b) working toward an evil goal that they should immediately put a stop to by any means necessary.

Instead, she just tricks Meliodas and the Sins outright in the most painful way possible. Wtf?

She doesn’t have a solid reason to hurt the people who love her like no one ever has. Who, in their own messy way, have treasured her like her own parents and her people never did.

The twist that her true goal all along was to release Chaos would still work, both as a plot mechanic and for shock value. What’s not shocking about your friend actually being serious about releasing an ancient god, and doing it so soon after Britannia was nearly destroyed by a Holy War? The Sins would have been shocked and hurt all the same with how she orchestrated them coming together, trained Arthur for this exact purpose, and prompted Meliodas to confront and kill his father - all things which were ultimately for the best for all of the races, but with Merlin’s questionable choices, involved a lot more trauma for everyone. Hell, if Merlin got a character arc like the others, the Chaos reveal would actually hurt the Sins MORE. Instead of realizing they didn’t really know her, they would be realizing that the sense of warmth and belonging and the bonds they had forged with each other hadn’t reached Merlin’s heart. That whatever effort they had put into bonding with her wasn’t enough, it didn’t help her the way she had - the way they thought she had helped them. That they had been oblivous to their friend’s suffering and emptiness, that she didn’t trust them the way they trusted her, etc, etc. A deeper and more cutting reveal if you asked me. 

As it is, the reveal makes it so that they didn’t lose a friend and member of their found family. They lost a person who was just... there. Forgotten until it was strictly neccessary for her to be there. Who never truly cared (?). While that’s sad, it’s... not what it could be if she had gotten the chance to genuinely be a part of the sins, physically and emotionally. 

It seems to me that in the moment, Meliodas doesn't seem overly concerned about Chaos. He's angry that Merlin would be willing to blindside and manipulate him, making light of a friendship that's spanned over 3,000 years, for the sake of something that might not even exist. He's angry she seems to value that over everything she already has. Is this the only thing she truly cared about? Was he and his loved ones nothing but pawns to her, just as he was a pawn to his father? Same with the other Sins - they don't know what's going on, but they are angry and hurt at the prospect that their friendship with Merlin was a lie.

THIS, Merlin could have avoided entirely! She is an intelligent, powerful woman - a genius according to some of the most powerful demons alive - and she has BETTER OPTIONS! Choices. By all means, she could have had wonderful, meaningful times with the Sins for all of their journey together, and kept them as friends afterward, maybe finding true fulfillment in the process. All without giving up her pursuit of releasing Chaos. 

She could have learned. Why didn’t she? 

[kulay-ng-banaag]

Filipino* Hetalians are bothered by how vocal people are to criticize the US state but not CN. We only wished for others to be as critical, because Filipino Hetalians have been criticizing the CN state for trespassing — no, literally violating international law that was settled years ago and ineffectively implemented after our former president elected to court the CN state in the name of anti-US imperialism. The coast guard of the CN state rammed the boats of our fisherfolk — one of the, if not the, poorest sectors of the Philippines. It doesn't matter who you are, if you are in their way, they won't hesitate. Why they do this has more to do with capitalism than racism per se (even while racism is ultimately rooted in capitalism).

We're critical because WE DON'T WANT IT TO ESCALATE INTO A CONFLICT THE LIKES OF PALESTINE RIGHT NOW. The White House is literally intervening because the CN state refuses to take accountability. We are forced to invoke a law that most of us did not even exist to protest before. It doesn't help that they have used the military bases they built here as a jumping point for other wars (one example with the keywords: Clark Air Base, Allen Lawrence Pope, 1958 PRRI/Permesta Rebellion). What happens is we end up holding some level of responsibility for something we as a people did not sign up for. Then, we have to pay reparations but our taxes literally get pocketed, so we only further suffer for the sins of capitalist pigs.

But since no children have died yet, I guess it doesn't matter? Our government is debating over the reimplementation of mandatory ROTC for university students. One student was killed years ago for exposing the hazing rituals that have been normalized in the ROTC system. This is the same ROTC that obliges us into military service when the state calls for our specific names, only this time everyone has to go through it, and therefore anyone can be called on. Of course, that is unlikely unless there is war. Now put that next to our West Philippine Sea issue and you see the dots connect.

You would have known that if you had just listened to Filipino Hetalians from the start, instead of scrambling for excuses and copy-pasting racist rhetoric as a clapback to defend your victim complexes.

Nobody asked for you to explain your trauma. Nobody asked because we're completely aware and SYMPATHIZE with that. That's not our problem. That was never our problem. Your trauma is not our oppression. The problem is a neighboring government refuses to acknowledge and intervene in the aggression of its own resources. Nobody said iT's yOuR fAuLt ThEy'Re DoInG tHiS, it's honestly worrisome how people hear things that were never uttered...

But what are we supposed to expect when you have informants everywhere to keep track of any form of disagreement so you're basically a panopticon over the fandom that nobody wanted in the first place? Do Filipino Hetalians have to go into detail now about how we here are under constant surveillance from the Philippine state because any form of vocal disagreement will get us red-tagged and possibly killed as retaliation for offending the egos of those in power?

You demand we respect your trauma while irrationally labeling someone else's trigger as racism? Did you actually believe that would contribute one step closer to a ceasefire? Be honest with yourselves and think it through realistically: Did you actually believe that your online, inflammatory retaliation will contribute a step towards a ceasefire?

The honest and realistic answer is NO, because you wasted energy that could have been put into organizing on the ground. You wouldn’t have to get snarky about how you spend time helping elsewhere because your lack of training in working with fellow organizers with mental health issues indicates your lack of experience. Your lack of experience indicates you have yet to touch real grass and organize beyond huddling your friends into online harassment campaigns.

You don’t get to sprinkle disclaimers of not harassing people while adding #hater tag. You literally gossiped about me in your circle. You cherry pick receipts in your favor. The worst part is I’m not the first person you’ve done this, and I doubt I will be the last one. You only visibly condemn public harassment in order to wash your hands clean of your private harassment.

And I’m not even white, yet you spit inflammatory statements about me as if I was a white racist. Between us, who’s the Westerner to the other?

This is not about racism from white supremacists anymore. This is elitism, and we Filipino Hetalians have too much of that already. It’s elitism because you constantly enforce your intellectual superiority over us like some evangelizing conqueror holding dominion over the poor, unenlightened savages. It’s elitism because being Asian by blood doesn’t change the fact that you’re entitled to privileges not so within the means of non-migrants. Note that I write “by blood” because tying identities to the state is conclusively dehumanizing. Does my being Filipino automatically make me anti-indigenous? Does someone being American by citizenship make them racist freaks, regardless if they are also black/indigenous/Asian/Pacific Islander?

We’re as upset over the racist-motivated attacks of Chinese people because of the racist framing of the CN state as the source of COVID-19. We’re as ashamed of the lingering sinophobia in SEA. At the same time, we here in SEA are in closer geographical proximity to the CN state puts us in a higher vulnerability to exposure to aggressions on a state level. You could have also learned of our genuine opinions if you had just asked. Instead, you assumed for us. We may both be Asians by blood, but what happened to the whole respecting our nuances because Asians aren’t a monolith? Please understand where the nuances lie.

Elitism is also satisfying your freedom to freely speak of your traumas while policing the traumas of other people not shared by you, because the conditions you have grown under have instilled a hostile and ableist perspective for mental health breaks in general. That is the fault of the normalization of capitalism that every one of us must live under. The good news is that it can be dismantled. The bad news is having a petty fight with someone you dislike because they explained why they disagreed with your fandom opinion on the internet is not going to leave a scratch on the foundation of capitalism we mutually want to destroy.

Lastly, elitism is also the combination of residing in Western countries — all the more in the core of all cores of imperialism today that is the United States of America — and having a significantly larger following, and therefore influence, on social media than most non-migrant SEAsians in the Hetalia fandom. You hold a privilege and leverage over other voices; I mean, just look at how much traction the racebending disk horse received. As far as I can speak for my commentary — though I wasn’t the only one — we only wish for acknowledgement of the nuances alongside the impossibility of total depoliticization of nation-state personifications.

You speak of fighting racism, yet you constantly patronize the people from the communities you demand more representation of. It should not be any harder to realize the unappreciated double standards than the history of racism against diaspora communities in white-majority countries. I hate that it happens. We hate that it happens. But the internet is not restricted to the Western experience alone. The internet is not occupied solely by Westerners. Sheesh, guys, I know the US is even colonizing the digital space but don't give them that validation lmao?

And at the end of the day, this bizarre drama was never about the Chinese identity or the anti-Asian racism or the genocide of Palestinians. It was about a neurodivergent SEAsian expressing that her sudden quiet presence on social media is because she needed to recover from an anxiety attack that was preventing her from functioning, which includes platforming her support for Palestinians and other obligations in her every day life with sincere intentions. Understand that you are enforcing an unwanted power dynamic every time you make everything about you, again and again and again and again.

Understand that in creating a false rumor in mocking someone's trigger, you are establishing that the Hetalia fandom is not a safe space for the neurodivergent.

Understand that in creating a false rumor in mocking someone's trigger, you are establishing that the neurodivergent are useless, and therefore have no right to participate, in the fight for the freedom of Palestine.

UNDERSTAND THAT YOU ARE A VICTIM OF RACISM AS MUCH AS YOU ARE AN ENABLER OF ABLEISM.

THE GOOD NEWS IS THIS: It can be unpacked. Here are some articles on the impact of frequent media exposure to extreme violence. Mental health wellness is as much a part of the peace process.

Media Exposure to Collective Trauma, Mental Health, and Functioning: Does It Matter What You See?

Witnessing images of extreme violence: a psychological study of journalists in the newsroom

Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings

You are free to email the authors to argue about why dedicating time for recovery is morally wrong and a privilege that can never be a right. Don't take it to me or to any other Filipino Hetalian anymore, take it to the specialists in the field. Argue against the foundations of their profession. Shake them to the core, for all we care. Tell them how you think their works supplement racism because you want so desperately to be right about your bad-faith reading. Understand that your stubborn inability to hold others in good faith for once is toxic and destructive.

EDIT (01/09/24): Here are abridged infographics of a webinar addressing mental health and systemic violence, and organized by an advocacy network that works with indigenous communities and environmentalists. To quote them: "mental health must be addressed with collective care that is inseparable from collective action in solidarity with the Palestinian people's national liberation movement." If that still does not humble you, then accept that there are Hetalians — not just the non-migrant Filipinos — who are actually uncomfortable with your constant aggression and you just don't know it because you don't listen when they choose to speak up about it.

Now that that’s all said, take the time to comprehend how our pains now stand as equals in magnitude with respect to our dignities as humans.

*Bluntly, me and my friends and mutuals in the Hetalia fandom who are all non-migrant Filipinos. I don’t want to assume for others not in my circle, but I am extremely tired of all the cop behavior over us. This is not Martial Law.

P.S. Stop using “mainlander” like a slur. Not even as a joke. Stop it before it blows into full-out racism.

[icedteaandoldlace]

i often wonder how badly her being kidnapped by zoom relates to killer frost successfully overtaking her. like caity has been kidnapped the most out of any character in the flash, but the time zoom took her was a multi-episode spanning thing and she actually gets to realistically suffer for it for an episode after getting away from him. the ptsd gives her panic attacks and hallucinations. and when kf comes out definitively after after julian tears that necklace off, after another fucking man decides he can choose her life for her, that he's entitled to make her decisions, that he has the right to make her into what he wants her to be. she must have been so tired. it started with her father and it never ended. but if she was a killer, if she was someone else... she would be too cold to ever be touched again. caitlin can just go to sleep while the new girl piloting her body gets to be a god. and the going to sleep forever thing, that's suicide ideation.

tl;dr was caitlin choosing not to fight frost that hard anymore a motherfucking suicide attempt???

Okay, I gotta tell you, it is honestly fascinating getting your take on this because you're such a big Killersnow fan, so there's a lot of emphasis there on them being separate individuals, and I (before the big Frost retcon in later seasons) always saw Killer Frost as literally a part of Caitlin. Like, not just in the sense of sharing the same body, but like, they're two sections of the same mind, just kept separate because Caitlin couldn't reconcile her darkest thoughts and emotions with the rest of her identity, so she buried them deep down where she wouldn't have to deal with them, and then the perfect storm of trauma and stress finally caused them to surface and take over. There is so much in the first three seasons that seems to point to this, most notably Hartley's comment about how she doesn't like emotions because they're messy, and also, YES, the Zoom trauma, which absolutely played a major roll in her frost powers coming out. Like, they stopped Zoom, and then Paradox takes place THE NEXT DAY (it just doesn't seem like it because of time travel and the between-seasons hiatus and a series of scatterbrained writing choices). Dude totally jump-started her powers/Frost surfacing by being a dick and inflicting all that psychological damage on her. This is something I have thought forever.

BUT, all that being said, from season 4 and onward, the idea of Killer Frost being Caitlin's dark side gets chipped away bit by bit, until finally it's chucked out completely, and Frost is now a full-fledged person with her own mind and agency that doesn't involve Caitlin, and as a result, you have this weird continuity issue where season 3 Killer Frost is Caitlin, and Caitlin is the one responsible for stabbing Barry and kidnapping Cecile and all that other stuff, but season 7 Frost is Caitlin's "sister", and Caitlin had no hand in the crimes Frost committed, she was just stuck riding shotgun in her own body while Frost was at the wheel.

So that's where my head has been, basically, that there are some points in the show where they're two sides of one person, and there are some points where they're two people sharing one body, and however you interpret who Frost is in what season just depends on how you wanna view it, I guess.

But the angle you're coming at it from here provides a way for Caitlin and Frost to have been two different individuals the entire time. It's not foolproof, because the show's writing is still inconsistent in places, but it works a whole lot better than just saying "Frost went rogue in season 3 because she finally got to call the shots, and she just wanted to make up for lost time." Like, what was that all about?? Frost's motives being entirely separate from Caitlin just doesn't make sense. Even when it's played like Frost just enjoys violence and hurts people for the heck of it, it doesn't fit with the massive chip on her shoulder in season 3. What does fit is Frost acting on Caitlin's anger. Whether it just gets transferred to her as a result of sharing a body, or she is actually angry herself on Caitlin's behalf and acting out of a protective impulse, it just makes more sense for what Caitlin is going through to be Frost's driving force when she's out committing crimes, than for her to just be randomly violent out of nowhere.

I feel like this has strayed so far from the original subject, and also I'm very sleepy and not sure if it makes much sense. You just got my wheels turning so fast because now I have material for headcanons involving Caitlin and Frost being different people from the beginning, and there is so much to think about. It's like you just handed me a bag of asphalt patch and now I can go fill plot holes I kept bumping over before.

In response to your main point here, Caitlin basically giving Frost control as a means of letting herself escape is a very interesting takeaway of the situation. I don't know if I see s3 Caitlin as dealing with suicidal ideation (s1 Caitlin is another matter), but I get where you're coming from on that, and it is a thought provoking point. Also, never thought about the fact that Julian taking off the necklace is another case of a man choosing something for her, so major props for pointing that out (and this adds more layers to the end of the season when she turns on Savitar after being given a choice on who she wants to be...)

[hjohn3]

Of Policies and Purges…

The General Election Campaigns Do Not Get Off To A Good Start

Source: The Independent

By Honest John

FROM RISHI Sunak's sodden announcement of a "snap" General Election for 4th July 2024, the first week and a half of the campaign for both parties has not exactly gone according to plan. Labour, having for months promoted a miserabilist offer that basically says "things are terrible under the Tories maybe they will be a tad better under us (maybe)" are now trying to inject some much needed urgency in their campaign with aggressive launches in safe Tory seats, a pledge card that isn't a pledge card promising, top of its list, a stirring commitment to "economic stability" and a genuinely eye-catching promise to reduce NHS waiting lists to their position in 2010 (18 weeks maximum wait from referral by GP to treatment), which implicitly commits the party to literally billions of pounds of investment in the health service in its first term. Despite claims from the Tories and the left that Labour have a minimal policy offer, behind the uninspiring pledges, there exists a recognisable and credible social democratic offer: £40bn of investment in green energy over its first term; nationalisation of rail; the most ambitious set of employer/employee reforms in favour of, for once, the workers, in 50 years; a major housebuilding programme; devolution of real political power to the English regions; removal of the hereditary Lords, and a commitment to a national economic strategy and plan, with structures to enable it to happen. All the above is a significant break with the laissez-faire neoliberalism that has dominated British politics since the 1980s. Those that claim the parties are "all the same" are being either disingenuous or are not keeping up.

So how is it that Labour has contrived to shoot itself so dramatically in both feet while carrying out one of most botched "purges" in political history (not so much Krushchev, more the Keystone Kops)? The whole sorry saga, exemplified most dramatically by the frankly indefensible treatment of Diane Abbott, hinges on an ill-advised attempt by the leadership to prevent anyone who might conceivably be considered on the left of the party (even if their commitment to international socialism consists of little more than 'liking' the wrong tweet), from standing for Labour regardless of Constituency shortlisiting, promises to candidates or even the fact that local leaflets bearing their photograph may already have been printed. Let's face it, any serious operation seeking to "purge the left" should have got the bloodletting and the trauma out of the way long before the election was called: to attempt to strongarm CLPs into accepting centrally approved candidates during the campaign itself, speaks of an amateurishness as well as a deadening intolerance at the heart of a party that still proclaims itself to be a broad church.

But if one feels limited sympathy for naive candidates who retweet anti-semitic tropes (although one must also ask, who is it going through their history looking for this stuff?), the Diane Abbott saga is little short of disgraceful. Here is a black, female MP, the recipient of near continuous online and face-to-face abuse of the most foul kind, who has been treated by a party she has belonged to her entire political life in the most humiliating and demeaning of manners. Abbott was suspended by Labour over 13 months ago following a letter on racism she sent to the Observer. Despite withdrawing the letter - which claimed black people endured a greater level of racism than Jews, Irish people or Travellers - and apologising in response to the resultant furore, Abbott was immediately suspended by the Labour Party on the grounds that the letter was anti-semitic, in that it denied that Jews suffered from racism. I have re-read Abbott's letter of couple of times. It is a clumsy, badly worded exercise in competitive identity politics, asserting that black people's experiences are somehow worse than other groups suffering prejudice - despite anti-semitism being objectively the most ancient and lethal racism of the lot. That makes it crass, provocative and divisive - but not intrinsically anti-semitic. However, an investigation was not in itself out of order: what is unacceptable is the unconscionable length of time it took the party to investigate a single document and the fact that it has emerged the investigation concluded six months ago, despite Keir Starmer claiming it was still "ongoing" as recently as this week. Labour then compounded its offence by allowing it to be briefed that even when the Labour whip was belatedly restored to Abbott, she still would not be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate at the election. Starmer has at last personally intervened to confirm Abbot is free to stand for Labour in Hackney and Stoke Newington, but the whole affair has left a nasty taste - a feeling that an act of vindictive sectarianism blew up in the leader's face, causing an abrupt climb-down. The impression is left is of a deeply unpleasant party, prepared to humiliate an MP who, next Parliamentatry term will be Mother of the House, in the interests of a ham-fisted purge. Along the way, Labour's new NHS commitments were lost in the noise of accusation and counter-accusation.

As for the Tories, their launch has resembled an incontinent Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The Conservatives seem to have forgotten one of the most basic of political adages - have your Manifesto agreed and nailed down before the election campaign. Instead, Sunak has followed up his ambush of his own party when he announced the General Election date, with an ill-thought out commitment to a reintroduced National Service and an unfunded tax break to pensioners, leaving Tory ministers and spokespeople floundering in their attempts to answer what this reheated National Service actually means and trying to explain how the pensioner tax break won't increase the public spending cuts already announced by the Chancellor. Added to the culture wars previously, if unconvincingly, launched by the PM (attacks on disabled people; promising to get rid of "mickey mouse" degrees and the hardy perennial/ dead horse of the Rwanda scheme), the Tory campaign is disjointed and defensive - aimed at holding onto Conservative supporters and staunching the flow of right wing voters to Reform. However, for all Sunak's frenetic energy, the polls remain stubbornly against the Tories, with most commentators predicting a collapse in seats at the election to as few as 150 - a quite extraordinary result given Boris Johnson’s barnstorming victory less than five years ago. In the meantime, another MP defects to Labour (Mark Logan of Bolton North East), others announce their support for Reform and big beasts like Michael Gove and Andrea Leadsom add to the extraordinary number of Conservative MPs deciding not to contest the election. If Labour's campaign has been one of self-inflicted damage, the Conservatives’ operation appears to be falling apart before the voters' eyes. It is hard to think of another election in which the government of the day appears to have more or less given up, four weeks out from the election.

All this must be good news for Labour, and in terms of simple electoral success, of course it is. But there remains the issue of the cul-de-sac the party appears to have driven itself into when it comes to actually governing. Whereas aspects of Labour's programme do not require additional funding, if Labour do form the next government, much of the impetus behind voters' rejection of the Conservatives will come from their despair at the state of public services, run down to the extent many now barely function. The "change" that Labour promises, and the electorate want, is not simply that of a change of management, but a change in priorities and economic model, away from the market state and towards social solidarity and the protective state. However, sitting above Labour's ambitions to reset the nation lies the dead hand of Rachel Reeves' fiscal rule. All taxes rises have been ruled out, direct and indirect, with VAT recently joining the list of potential revenue sources shut off; unnerved by the Truss experience, additional borrowing has also effectively been closed down. All that is left to balance the country's finances are public spending cuts. Reeves has neither pledged to reverse Hunt's tax cuts or his reckless and unpopular abolition of National Insurance. This is in addition to the £22bn of revenue spending cuts already pencilled in by the Tories for 2025. Of course it is possible, and I truly hope it is, that later this year, a furrow-browed Starmer will tell us that the state of public services is such, that the fiscal rule will have to be dispensed with and both tax-raising and borrowing solutions will re-enter political discourse. Without this, there is little chance of Labour's Wilsonian project of national renewal getting past first base.

Successfully explaining to a disbelieving electorate that "change" may in fact, be no such thing, will take more than iron discipline, message control and a "changed party": it will require a minor miracle.

31st May 2024

[linkspooky]

What’s your personal thoughts about the… um… I guess the Cursed Naoya arc? Does that arc even have a name???

Ahem. But yeah. That arc. Got any thoughts on it?

For me personally, I’m ‘meh’ with it. Like… it wasn’t the worst thing ever I guess… but it also wasn’t what I expected when we returned to Maki.

I wrote three meta over the course of the fight, here, here, and here.

It's not really an arc I personally enjoyed though, and unlike most people I'm not really that critical of the Culling Games arc. With the exception of the last two fights, I think most of the individual matchups in the culling games arc were interesting fights to read through.

It has nothing to do with Naoya appearing again necessarily, I find Naoya to be an enjoyable character with just enough personality and depth his screentime doesn't ever feel wasted and the idea of a vengeful cursed spirit is a fun one which was clearly set up as a concept long before this.

The problem with this arc really is Maki. I don't like the fridging of Mai as a character, or the fact that the Zenin Massacre arc even happened, but it did happen and we are stuck with the choice Gege made so if you are going to make the darkest most tragic turn in Maki's arc possible then she should be reacting like she's a character in a tragedy who has suffered a horrible loss.

Like, Gege is so desperate to push this narrative that Maki is the second coming of Toji, but Maki herself acts nothing like Toji. Toji killed random people. Toji's trauma was so all consuming he lashed out and hurt others, he basically had no morals, he cared more about his selfish pride in wanting to invalidate the jujutsu world and kill Gojo then the fact Megumi would have no home to return to. Maki right now is acting as Toji but like with all the character flaws removed, despite having Toji's trauma she has none of Toji's negative behavior, which is like... not how trauma victims act. Despite being the return of the sorcerer killer she's not... killing random sorcerers in the culling games which is a perfect opportunity for Maki to do that.

Which when drawing the parallels between Toji and Maki the only real parallel we have left is that Maki has the same powers. Which like, okay, we make Maki take this incredibly tragic turn in her arc and yet her character doesn't change at all, she just gets a power up.

Maki's massacre of the Zenin is something that should have huge fallout, and should be her darkest moment as a character. This is something a lot of Maki fans tend to brush over, but murdering an entire family of people in revenge for one person's death is not... good. It's not moral. It was a revenge killing. Not every single person in the clan was responsible for Mai's death, in fact several of those people were just foot soldiers who didn't have an innate technique and therefore were similiarly disadvantaged in the clan. Maki killing that many people should have been a sign of her mental breakdown like it was for Geto. Geto's massacre of the village was his point of no return, it was something that made all of his friends label him a monster and the institution he worked for call for his execution. It's a turning point for both his story and the character.

The way Maki acts right now, the Zenin Massacre may as well have never happened. Post Mai's death we are basically left with the same Maki, and even though she apparently was so heartbroken by Mai's death she massacred an entire clan in her name, she doesn't even seem too broken up by her sister's recent death.

Noritoshi Kamo is a minor character, and yet more screentime is given to his distress and his feelings about his lost mother and his fear that he's been replaced and has nowhere else to go in the world. Maki is dealing with similiar issues but she doesn't process or face those feelings at all, she just sumo wrestles.

So you could have done a lot of follow up work to salvage Maki's character post Zenin Massacre, and show that the Zenin Massacre was not a good or healthy thing for her character to do and we get none of that. In fact, the tragedy of Mai's death isn't really something we feel either, because Mai shows up as a fucking sword, and apparently she's fine being dead and only existing as a fucking sword for the rest of her life and even pats Maki on the back for defeating Naoya. That whole scene with Maki and Mai was weird at the end where she congratulated Maki, like you don't murder your way to peace of mind. Maki shouldn't be like "Well, everyone's dead now problem solved."

It's just not interesting, because I don't care about Maki's super powers, I care about her as a person and I want to know emotoinally how she is doing, but her thoughts and feelings are something Gege has shut us out of entirely.

[sneakyfox55]

Does Asriel have any trauma in enduretale?

SO!!!!!

*trigger warnings for mentions of war, graphic depictions of permanent injury, and PTSD*

Asriel in this AU starts off as the Prince of Monsters still, and he was also born on the surface!! but pretty early on in his youth he started showing signs of having super powerful magic, even compared to his parents

a few years pass since Asriel is born, and Undyne is still training under Asgore to be in the Royal Guard. she's about fifteen in monster years as of this point hgdjdghjdghj

and then!!!

the War!!!!! actually starts because, the humans are too scared of Asriel's magic :'DD like there's a lot of factors that go in to it in the end but, it's what really tips them over the edge and what they use as an excuse to attack them jhdgdhjgdshj

Asriel is meanwhile!!! like!!!! five in monster years!!!!!!! (monsters don't age like humans do here but he's basically five)

Undyne is on the side of protecting Monsterkind but she REFUSES to give up Asriel and stuff, in response to one of the humans' offers ("just turn him in and we'll call off the whole thing", which,, not shady at all) and of course Asgore and Toriel refused too, because that's their feckin innocent CHILD BABY SON

as a whole most of Monsterkind is very!! very upset at humans for this!!! they do not like humans because of this!!!! Undyne is PISSED and wants to continue the War but, Asgore is just. tired. and he gives an ultimatum as the King, saying "if you want to force our Prince away from us, you'll have to force ALL of us away" and thus he proposes humans lock them Underground instead, "solving" every issue. this is a unified thing that most monsters agree on, and they bring it to the humans, who find it reasonable enough that they. do in fact banish them and lock them Underground just like that

everyone is just. depressed (but Asriel has no clue lol he's still a bab at the time)

anyway some more time passes and he grows up!! he knew how to control his magic for the most part but he kind of had to be trained in some parts by Asgore; Undyne, who's now eighteen-ish and in the Guard, is like an older sister to him and offers to be his sparring partner for fun and they both train together

through this he learns he actually likes sparring and using battle magic and stuff, so he's like, hey!! what if i start training for real and i do something similar to what Undyne's doing (being in the Royal Guard PFFFT) and that's, basically what he did, hdsghdjhghsdhjgdsjh

oh also!!! Undyne is buddies with &@$%*#'S kids, Sans and Papyrus, whom she introduces to Asriel when they start hanging out in the Guard and they all grow to be pretty good friends with each other!

more years pass, and Undyne becomes Captain of the Royal Guard after Gerson steps down and she (without really thinking about it and impulsively) makes Asriel her General to go with it HGDFJDGDJHGDSJHDSGJDSHGJSDHJ

this is all well and good until!! uh!!!! human, falls down and, they're not at all prepared for it??? and??????

this particular human is very murderery!! and because no one was prepared they're able to kill a good number of monsters.

they're able to slip around the Guard's watchful eye and Undyne and Asriel as a whole. they get all the way to the throne room, assumedly looking to kill Asgore himself. neither Undyne nor Asriel had made it there yet. they couldn't have made it in time, so someone else tried to stop the human for everyone when he'd heard what was going on.

this didn't work.

they were able to make it in time to stop the human themself in the throne room but by then it was too late. Asgore was safe and unharmed, but there were lots who'd been lost. Asriel was supposed to keep everyone safe and he hadn't. (he was supposed to keep THEM safe and he couldn't even manage to save even one of them.) the human goes for him next.

Asriel later wakes up in the hospital with most of his loved ones around him. they're happy he's okay but he's lost a good chunk of his HP--as in, his maximum HP had depleted. whereas he'd had over one thousand, he's down to little short of six-hundred. he's half-blind where the human had struck him in his right eye, and cut part of his face. there's now a scar that runs from the top of where that eye used to function to his lower jaw. and what little physicality he'd managed to heal up since then cetainly isn't much. he still has that right eye, it regenerated, somewhat, but it doesn't work much at all. there's a raw, true pain his side sometimes, though he's not completely sure why. Undyne won't ever tell him why (but he has an idea).

he starts wearing an eyepatch because he hates looking at himself in the mirror. he swears there's a scar stiched into his side when he looks too, but he usually tries to forget it (and is successful, for the most part).

a phantom pain shows in his arm, sometimes; the one that had once tried to bring a best friend to safety.

…

he's still in the Royal Guard to this day. though Asgore has stepped down as King, and Undyne has left to step up as Empress for him, Asriel still remains. in fact, he's promoted from General to Captain in Undyne's place!

. . .

he misses Undyne a lot.

he misses his parents a lot.

he still has horrible nightmares of the human. and his friends.

…but he has a duty to his people!

someone's gotta take care of them, right?

[imperialkatwala]

*Cracks knuckles* I have been given permission to explain the lore and context and stuff >:D This got a little long, be prepared

So! The Chain goes to some in between era! A fight happens, an Incident occurs (details tbd but some people get hurt and it's Time's fault), and the royal family summons the group to the castle. They present them with essentially an ultimatum: do exactly what we tell you when we tell you or there will be Consequences. For the good of the people, you understand.

Time, very guilty, agrees to this. Legend, having PTSD flashbacks, does not.

You see where this is going.

The two of them argue about it, loudly and at length, and the group starts to splinter into factions. Warriors is immediately on Time's side (he's seen what the group, Time especially, is capable of, and rank matters a lot to him), Wild is immediately on Legend's (he refuses to go back to how he was before the Calamity - mute from fear and helpless to change anything). Twilight (loyal and responsible) and Sky (guilty about Demise's curse, as always) side with Time. Four is trickier - Green agrees with Time, but Red, Blue, and Vio agree with Legend. At some point, they split and stay with their respective groups. (It's Bad. Green has never been alone like this before, and the others don't feel right without their other piece there. We will angst this So much, don't you worry.)

Wind and Hyrule are the last to choose sides. Hyrule has seen abuses of power before, and Legend is important to him, so that's where he goes. Wind stays with Time, because there are people he respects on that side, and he doesn't really know what else to do.

And because he doesn't really have a strong opinion here, Wind is the first to realize that hey, people are being hurt by this. It needs to stop.

He slowly starts getting the others on his side, getting them to realize that this is all stupid and pointless, and it's going fairly well! He's convinced most of them, except the most stubborn ones. They're getting ready for an intervention because wow do those two need it.

And then the arguments stop being about the royal family's deal at all, and start getting personal.

Legend and Time, both very deeply spiralling and playing Beyblade with their trauma responses, switch from arguing about their situation over to who can hurt the other person more, and unfortunately for everybody Time escalates it Way Too Far when he decides to show Legend why they need restrictions.

He puts on the Fierce Deity mask.

The thing about FD in this is that it isn't evil. It isn't even particularly bad. He just categorizes everything he sees as either a Threat or Not A Threat, and threats are dealt with quickly and efficiently. Legend, in this case, is a threat. As are the others, when they step in to defend a severely injured Legend.

Time, of course, realizes how incredibly stupid he was the instant he sees Legend hurt, but FD has never listened to his threat level suggestions in the past and doesn't plan to start now. Time has started something he can't stop.

The thing is, though, he doesn't have to.

The others distract FD just long enough for Legend - relegated to not a threat status with his injuries, and thus basically invisible to it - to get close enough to get the mask off. The themes. The symbolism. You get it

Then they all have a good long cry, apologize, and grow both as people and as a team :D

(and I write a lil fluffy sequel fic about FD probably aksjdbd)

This is so badly edited but I got bored and started making this three hours ago and I finally finished it (it’s 3 am)

There is actual lore and context and stuff this idea/au I guess whatever you call it but I just. It’s 3:38 am take it and I’ll explain everything later on maybe if I feel like it

[aquamarinescarlet]

Great, my girlfriend is a toddler

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Word count: ~4.5k

Warnings: one curse word (I think), mentions of past trauma (nothing graphic), and a lot of fluff

Summary: Reader is caught in a trap during a mission and ends up trapping herself in her five year old mind and body.

Author’s note: I know I basically just post incorrect quotes, but this idea came to me and I just had to write it. I won’t stop with the incorrects btw, and if you guys prefer I create a different blog to post these little stories just let me know. Without further ado, enjoy, and let me know what you think (this is my first time writing something like this too, so tips/remarks are always welcome).

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the marvel characters.

(Picture is not mine, got it on pinterest)

“West wing clear”

“Basement clear”

“Guys I need some help here.” 

You heard through comms as your teammates infiltrated the Hydra base.

It was a fairly simple mission, small base, so not that many enemies to fight off.

As you made your way down an empty corridor to the control room you could listen to Bucky's grunts, and punches, on your earpiece as Sam and Steve made their way to him. 

The silence and emptiness was rather suspicious, but you made nothing off of it, thankful you would get in easily. 

“I’m in the control room.” You spoke when you found yourself surrounded by computers and all sorts of technology. It seemed quite ancient for an organization that has been a pain in your asses for the past months.

Hacking wasn’t your specialty, but you sure were better at it then the other three, hence you getting the task. Your eyes scanned the room, trained on identifying threats. Surprised by the emptiness of it all, you focused on finding the main system.

You plugged the pen drive Stark had prepared and started typing, your eyes occasionally leaving the screen to take a quick glance around the room, an uneasy feeling growing at the pit of your stomach.

“Y/L/N, we’re all clear here,” Steve’s voice rang on your ear, “how are you doing there.”

“I’m nearly done,” you stared at the computer as the information was downloaded to the little gadget, “I don’t know guys, something here feels wrong, it’s too empty, too quiet.” 

No response.

“Guys? Can you hear me?” Your heart rate picked up, something was definitely wrong.

In a second the download was complete, and you hastily snatched the pen drive, going for the door. Your desperation grew when you stated it was locked.

“Can anyone listen? I’m locked.” You spoke to the earpiece. “The doors locked automatically. I need help getting out.”

The door was sealed shut, not even a small slit in between it and the floor, your powers wouldn’t help you on this one. You tried to bring your heart rate down as your eyes scoured the room once again for a way out. No air vents, no windows, there was another door on the other end of the room, and you promptly made your way to it, only to confirm it was also locked shut.

Your attention was brought back to the first door, loud banging and a faint voice coming from the other side. Thankfully the boys noticed there was a problem and came to your aid. As you ran across the room, your head started to get fuzzy, your vision was not as clear as it had been seconds ago, and breathing was starting to get harder.

Before you even reached the still shut door, your body collapsed on the floor, everything going black.

You stirred in bed, shifting to a more comfortable position. Some light seeped through your eyelids, but you were tired, dragging the sleep as long as possible. 

Your peace was broken by a door suddenly opening.

“What the hell happened?” A woman’s voice filled the room. She sounded angry, and upset, the hostility in her tone made you clutch the blanket harder.

“Wanda calm-” A man spoke, but was cut off by the woman.

“Calm down? CALM DOWN? Don’t you tell me to calm down, Stark, when I got back from a mission fifteen minutes ago only to learn that my girlfriend turned herself into a five year old toddler.” She was loud and it just made you even more scared of being in trouble.

A small whimper escaped your throat getting both people's attention. You opened your eyes only to be met by several stares, there were easily five or six people in that room, but you didn’t have time to count as you pulled the blanket over your head, bringing your knees closer to your chest.

Your body was trembling with fear from what you knew would come next. You hadn’t done anything, you had been a good girl, done your chores, never speaking unless spoken to, but for some reason the people from the orphanage took a particular liking in punishing you even when you hadn’t done anything bad.

You waited for it to come, but instead of the ill-disposed voice and harsh hands, you were met with a soft “hey” and a delicate hand. Nonetheless it was still frightened, making your whole body tense.

“I’m sowy, I didn’t do anyfing, pwease don’t huwt me, I’ve been good.” You cried out, tears threatening to fall.

The hand started to caress your arm soothingly.

“Hey Y/N, you’re okay, we’re not going to hurt you, okay? You’re safe here.” Your muscles relaxed slightly at the words, thick with an accent, and touch. Your mind was still on alert but for some reason your body responded to this woman in a way your mind didn’t understand.

“Seems like she lost her memories too, she still thinks she is in that horrible place.” A new voice spoke up.

“Hey Y/N,” the woman spoke close to you, low as not to frighten you further, “you’re not in the orphanage anymore okay? You are somewhere safe. Those people can’t get to you here.”

You peeked over the blanket and was met with mesmerizing green eyes, they seemed so kind and comforting putting you at ease.

“Pwomise?”

“I promise. No one’s going to hurt you. We will protect you.” She offered you a smile that made your lips want to curl into one too, despite your wariness of the woman still being a stranger.

You pulled the blanket back above your head, muttering a quiet “okay”. Your heart rate then picked up it’s pace once you noticed you would be punished for forgetting your manners, your mind still not fully understanding you were no longer in a dangerous place.

You yanked the blanket just below your chin, uncovering your whole face so you were facing the woman.

“Fank you, miss.” You spoke quickly and hid again.

She chuckled slightly and you couldn’t help but feel fuzzy.

“How about you stop hiding that pretty face of yours huh?” The words caused a smile to unconsciously tug at your lips, as you pulled the blanket down and started to sit up. “See, much better, right?” 

You stared at the figure in front of you with what could only be described as adoration. She was just so kind and beautiful you couldn’t seem to stop smiling. A slight movement behind her brought you out of your daze and you landed your gaze on the several people watching the interaction, people you had seemingly forgotten were still in the room.

Your eyes went wide and a gasp left your lips before you laid back down, covering your curled up body with the blanket again. The woman noticed what had frightened you and brought her hand back to caress your back.

“Hey, it’s okay, they’re only here to protect you too. They are just worried about you.” You didn’t move, this was too many new people and having all their eyes on you was making you nervous. “Do you want me to ask them to leave?” She whispered closer to your ear and you nodded excessively.

Sounds of chairs moving, footsteps and a door closing were heard before the room fell back to silence.

“We’re alone now.”

You peeked carefully outside the blanket to be sure you were alone. When you found the rest of the room empty, you moved to sit back up. Suddenly the idea of being alone with this woman made you very shy, your eyes watching as you wiggled your toes. 

“Fank you, miss.”

“Wanda”

“Wanda” You whispered, not taking your eyes off of your feet.

After a few moments of silence a question popped into your head.

“Why did you save me?” You tried to speak but the sound wasn’t higher than a whisper.

“What?”

“”Why did you save me.” You said louder. “The Sisters said that I was- I was a bad giwl, and that is why my pawents didn’t want me, and no one would want because I was bad and-”

“Okay, stop,” she cut off your rambling and you finally met her gaze, “all those things they said about you are not true, okay? Don’t believe any of that.”

“How do you know it is not twue.” Sadness seeping on your voice. “You don’t even know me.”

“Quite on the contrary, I happen to know you very well. I know you get grumpy when you wake up. I know you don’t like to wear dresses. I know you like to laugh and make lots of funny jokes. I know your favourite colour, favorite food, favourite animal, favourite movie… but most importantly,” she brought her hands to rest on your sides, “I know you are very ticklish.”  

At that she started to tickle you mercilessly causing you to fall back on the bed, a string of laughs and giggles escaping your mouth. She stopped after a few seconds and you took the opportunity to catch your breath.

“See. I know many things about you.” 

“Yeah.” You said amidst giggles. 

“And I know that none of those things the Sisters said about you are true.” 

“Fank you, miss Wanda.” She let out a laugh.

“You are too cute,” she pinched your cheeks causing you to feel shy all of a sudden, “just call me Wanda.”

Your gaze fell down to the mattress again.

“Okay, fank you, Wanda.” Your voice barely above a whisper.

“You’re welcome.” She brought her hand up to smooth your hair. “Do you want anything sweetie?” That little nickname just made you even more flustered, even though you couldn’t hide the smile that formed at your lips.

You pondered her question for a second, you were hungry, but you knew better than to ask for food outside of mealtimes, the memories of the punishments still fresh. After a few moments you shook your head.

“Are you sure?” She pushed. “Don’t you want to eat something?” It was almost as if she could read your mind. “You can tell me, it’s okay, no one will hurt you for being hungry. And we can fix up something for us to eat.” She must have noticed your hesitation. “Y’know, I’m a little bit hungry too.” She whispered close to your ear, her breath tickling your ear causing you to chuckle. 

Your mind knew this was a bad idea, that you would get punished after, but Wanda was just so convincing you ended up nodding weakly.

“There you go.” She cheered.

She picked you up from the bed, but before she could lower you to the floor your arms circled her neck and your legs, her waist. You couldn’t help it, you just wanted to be close to her. She giggled at your actions, but didn’t fight it, carrying you out of the room and into a big corridor.

When the sound of muffled voices started to grow louder, your posture became tense. Wanda took notice, rubbing circles on your back.

“Hey, it’s alright, they are nice, you’ll see.” She tried to calm you down. 

Your posture relaxed, but you weren’t sure if it was because of her words or just her general presence.

“Whewe awe we going?”

“To the kitchen.”

“And the people in the kitchen? Will they huwt me?”

“No honey, of course not, they care so much about you, they are here to protect you too.” 

As she made her way into the kitchen, you hid your face in the crook of her neck, trying to ignore how the room went quiet with your presence.

“How is she?” A male voice asked, you recognized it from moments earlier.

“She’s okay, a little scared, seems like she did also lose all her memories, everything she knows is from when she was five.”

Wanda moved around and kept up with the conversation, to which you stopped paying attention when your eyes fell onto a thing a man was eating. You had tried one of those before, once, when an old woman donated a basket of those to the orphanage and you managed to steal a small piece, it was delicious, tasted like heaven compared to all the tasteless food they gave you in that place.

Wanda settled on a chair and you kept your head hidden, but your eyes were locked on the man.

You thought you heard Wanda calling you, but your attention was entirely on that piece of food. The man seemed to take notice when he met your gaze and gave you a smirk. The eye contact would’ve made you shy away, but Wanda’s presence made you feel safe, so you held it.

“I think I know what she wants.” He spoke to Wanda. “Would you like a muffin Y/N?” He directed at you. You lifted your head from Wanda’s shoulder and, after a moment of hesitation, you nodded slowly.

He opened a cabinet and picked one up, handing it to you, offering a beaming smile. You stared at it for a second, not expecting him to give you a whole one. Your eyes darted from him to Wanda, looking for some sort of confirmation. 

“It’s okay, take it.” She smiled at you encouragingly.

You slowly stretched your hand and grabbed the item.

“Fank you, siw.” You practically whispered.

“You can call me Sam.”

“Fank you, Mw. Sam.” 

“Huh, Mr Sam, I can get used to that.” He joked. Or at least you thought he did, since now you were just blankly staring at the muffin, not really sure if you should really eat it, despite your stomach screaming for you to do so.

“Just call him Sam,” Wanda spoke to you, “and we can’t let her keep calling us that, Sam, she does it out of fear for disrespecting us.”

“Is that why she also hesitated from taking the muffin?” A new voice questioned.

“I don’t know Stark, maybe…” Wanda trailed off and you decided to help, since they were talking about you anyways.

“Fhey did not let us- let us eat out of meal time and-,” you took a breath trying to calm your nerves, “and thewe wewe too many kids so- so thewe was nevew enough food and- and,” your eyes went wide when you noticed everyone was staring at you intently and a whimper left your lips unconsciously before you shoved your face back into Wanda’s neck.

She rubbed your back in an attempt to calm you down and, surprisingly enough, it did. Something about her just made you so calm.

“You don’t have to worry about this here,” a man with glasses said, “we have plenty of food and no rules, you can have whatever you want whenever you want, just tell any of us and we’ll get it for you, deal?” You smiled at how nice they were being with you.

“Deal, siw.” You nodded.

“And call me Tony, please.” You nodded again.

“See, it’s fine, you're safe here.” Wanda reassured, giving you a kiss on your temple. The action caused a silly smile to grow on your lips and your cheeks to heat up, as you leaned into her chest.

 “Oh, come on, seriously?” A man with the same accent as Wanda blurted. “She has known you for, what? 20 minutes? And she already has a crush on you.” His comment made laughter erupt around the kitchen, and, even though you didn’t understand what was so funny, you enjoyed the moment. Laughter was not common in the orphanage.

Throughout the rest of the day you started to feel more comfortable around everyone. 

Wanda never left your side, or, you were the one who never left her side. Spending the rest of the evening watching movies on the most amazing TV room you had ever stepped foot on. 

Other people would join you from time to time. Pietro, who you learned was Wanda’s brother; Natasha, or Nat as she preferred; Bucky; Sam; and Steve. 

You couldn’t quite pinpoint when it was that you fell asleep. You just knew you were now in a room you had never seen before, it was pretty, but unfamiliar. You saw a stuffed animal left on the edge of the bed and clutched onto it, trying to get the images from the nightmare you just had out of your mind.

Several minutes passed and you were just too scared to even close your eyes. Sleeping alone was something you never did, the rooms in the orphanage were filled to the brim with precarious beds or improvised mattresses due to the excessive amount of kids there.

Deciding that you wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore, you climbed out of bed and made your way out of that room. Your feet automatically took you to another door down a big hall. You knocked softly, but got no response. 

After three more tries, you turned the door knob and it opened. You put your head inside the room and detected a figure laying in a bed. 

“Wanda,” you whisper shouted, trying to catch the woman’s attention, “Wandaaa.”

She stirred and lifted her head to look at you, her eyes were sleepy, but she managed to give you a tired smile.

“Hey Y/N, is something wrong? Do you need anything?” 

“Can I- can I sleep with you?” Your gaze fell to the floor.

“Sure.” You smiled widely and ran towards her, climbing into the bed messily, since it was so ridiculously tall.

She laid on her back, opening her arms, and you took that as your chance to cuddle into her, wrapping your tiny limbs around her torso. She caressed your hair until you drifted to sleep.

The next morning you woke up still cuddled to Wanda. She was still fast asleep, and looked so peaceful you didn’t have the heart to move and risk waking her. Plus, you liked the proximity, the warmth from her body, her arm hugging you close.

A few minutes passed before she opened her eyes, only to be met by yours.

“Good mowning.”

“Good morning princess,” you giggled at the nickname, “wanna go down and get some breakfast?”

You nodded eagerly, already used this new environment, without the rigid rules and punishments. She climbed out of bed and made her way to the bathroom, you just sat up and watched as she washed her face or something. She then went through another door, which you assumed was where she kept her clothes since moments later she came back in different clothes.

She picked you up from the bed and took you into the kitchen. When she walked past the room, a confused expression grew on you.

“Whewe awe we going?”

“To the dining room, we usually have our breakfast there.”

“Oh, okay.”

And that was one breakfast table alright. All kinds of fruit, bread, cereal, cake, cheese and ham, and butter. 

“Look who found our little runaway.” Tony commented, but you didn’t give him any attention, mesmerized by the amount of food.

“Yeah, she found her way into my room in the middle of the night.”

“Really? How?” Steve asked.

“Good question, hey, sweetie,” Wanda caught your attention and you turned to look at her, “how did you know which one was my room last night?” You shrugged.

“I just knew whewe to go.”

“Seems like some part of her memory is still intact.” Stark remarked with interest.

Wanda sat down, with you in her lap and started serving food on her plate. The rest of the room fell into light conversation as you all enjoyed breakfast.

Soon you were interrupted by Bruce.

“Guys, I’ve got results from the tests.”

“Do you know what happened?” Steve asked eagerly.

“Kind of, the smoke she inhaled during the mission was poisonous, it was supposed to kill her, but it seems like her cells reacted to it differently.” He explained. “Her shapeshifting abilities reacted with the poison causing her body to, well, change, in order to avoid dying.”

“My powews wewe able to bweak down the poisonous gas into hawmless pawticles.” You responded automatically.

Everyone was shocked at your statement, but you just kept on eating like nothing had happened, not understanding what they were so surprised about.

“Yes… precisely,” Bruce added, slowly, “and that took a toll on her own cells, turning off her powers momentarily, why she got stuck as her five year old self with no memories whatsoever of the rest of her life is unclear.”

“Can you turn her back?” Nat asked.

“I can try and find some serum that reverts her situation, but, by the looks of it, her body is doing it on its own.”

“She did remember her way to my room last night, and now this. It means her memory is coming back.”

“Can you predict how long it’ll take for her to come back to her own self?” Bucky urged.

“Not really, this is all new to me. Although if I had to take a hint, I’d say a couple of weeks at least.” The scientist answered.

“But she will come back, right?” Wanda sounded preoccupied, and it caught your attention.

“Relax sister, she’ll come back. And even if she doesn’t, she’s already in love with you again anyways.” Pietro teased.

“That’s not helping.” She teased back and tightened her hold on you.

A few days passed and, as expected, you were still stuck as a five year old. You would slip out little snippets of things from time to time, memories of things you’ve learned only when you were much older, but you still weren’t coming back.

After a while you fell into a routine. You would sleep with Wanda every night, watch movies with her and some of the other people in that place, Bucky and Sam would come up with the funnest games for you to play, Pietro would take you around the compound to help set pranks to play on the others. 

You grew accustomed to the place and the people. The lack of excessive rules was relaxing. How nice everyone was to you. When Wanda would call you cute nicknames and get you all shy and flustered.

You were now watching Frozen for the fifth time that week, with Wanda by your side and Nat, Peter and Sam scattered around the TV room.

They found it adorable how you sang along to every song even though you didn’t know any of the lyrics. Peter and Sam had now countless videos on their phones of you doing all sorts of things just to mock you when you came back to your older self.

The movie was nearing the end, now on the scene where they were rushing Anna to the trolls to see if they could help keep her alive. You sang along to the song up until the moment where Anna collapsed from the spell Elsa threw on her.

At that moment you mindlessly turned to Wanda, the words seeping out of your mouth without your control.

“You bettew not die on ouw wedding.” Her eyes went wide with shock from the statement, which you didn’t notice. 

“What?” She whispered, more to herself than to you.

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna mawwy you one day.” You gave her a smile and turned your attention back to the TV, unaware of what you had just said as a blush creeped around Wanda’s face.

When the movie ended, you chanted for you guys to watch it again, earning a groan from everyone. When a yawn escaped your lips, Wanda took that as her cue.

“C’mon, honey, you are tired, we can watch it again tomorrow.” She picked you up.

“Pwomise?” You gave her your puppy eyes.

“I promised.” She pecked your nose, earning a giggle from you.

You settled in her bed as you waited for her to shower and join you. You cuddled into her and drifted off to sleep.

You woke up feeling extremely weird, your muscles ached and your head was spinning a little. You kept your eyes closed as memories from the past days came back to you. The mission going wrong, you waking up in the med bay. 

And then you remembered.

“Holy shit.” You whispered to yourself, careful not to wake Wanda.

You had spent the past week as a five year old. Every moment started to come back. You playing hide and seek with Sam and Bucky. That time you and Pietro showered Nat with glitter,  and how she almost killed the boy later. Tony being a dad all the time, checking up if you needed anything and making funny faces to make you laugh. Steve carrying you around inside his shield. 

And Wanda, always being there with you. Taking care of you. Watching the same movies all the time. Cuddling every night. 

Your attention was caught by the woman stirring in bed next to you, still fast asleep. She had been so patient throughout the whole situation that you couldn’t help but smile.

You propped yourself up on one elbow, facing your girlfriend. You watched for a few minutes while she was fast asleep. Just appreciating how beautiful she was and how peaceful she looked. You were falling even more in love with her, if that was possible.

Not being able to hold yourself back any longer, you gave her a lingering kiss to her forehead, moving then to her cheek, leaving small pecks all the way. You then moved to her jaw and neck, inhaling her scent, as your free hand started to draw circles on her stomach.

You felt her breath changing, indicating she was no longer asleep and directed your lips to her ear.

“Good morning, my love,” you whispered softly, pecking her earlobe gently. 

Her hands grabbed your cheeks and moved you up to face her, her expression one of full happiness.

“You’re back.” She whispered moments after, trying to convince herself that it was true.

“I’m back.” You leaned down to capture her lips in a long and passionate kiss, resting your forehead against hers’, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” she moved so she could stare into your eyes, “I missed you.”

“Why? I was here the whole time.” You teased.

“You know what I mean.” Your smile grew as you leaned in again, your lips meeting in another gentle kiss.

“At least we learned two things from this experience,” she eyed you with curiosity, “first, is that no matter what I’ll always be in love with you,” you referred to the crush five year old you had on her, and enjoyed as her cheeks turned bright red, “and second, is that you are great with kids.”

“I am, aren’t I.”

You spent hours in bed, cuddling, kissing and laughing at your childish antics from the past week.

That’s when you knew, you would marry that girl.

[izusun]

Goblin anon here absolutely screeching over feral quirkless Midoriya, it's everything I wanted

I would like to also introduce a brand (my brand) of feral to Midoriya: pyromaniac.

Imagine Midoriya getting through the entrance exam by saving people, but also by bringing makeshift Molotov cocktails and wrecking almost as much shop as Bakugou.

Imagine the battle trials where Bakugou tries to blow up the building because "that's the only way to keep this little shit down" and in response Midoriya dodges and then sets the building on fire.

Imagine the USJ incident, which goes about the same, but his first instinct is to set the Noumu on fire. Yes he does so. He also nearly sets the stadium on fire at the sports festival so much that they had to evacuate sections of the stadium.

Midoriya (say it with me now) sets Stain on fire. When Tsukauchi meets with the murder trio after the Hosu incident, he just sighs and is like "Midoriya, really?" And this is when we learn that Midoriya has a history of coming across random villains and setting them on fire. When Inko arrives to pick him up she's just like "You're grounded."

There's theories about what Midoriya's quirk, everything from increased intelligence to extremely shitty luck to the ability to make anything he touches explodes (due to his inane ability to make a bomb/lighter out of the most insane things). When it comes out that he's quirkless, it just makes everyone even more afraid, as Midoriya can make a bomb out of some LSD and a rubber duck quirkless-

Pyromaniac quirkless Midoriya.

- Goblin anon

GOBLIN ANON IT’S BEEN AGES IM SORRY IM JUST RESPONDING NOW (ive been so bad at responding asks my god i struggle but thank u for ur au dumps, i love loVE THEM SO MUCH!!!!)

IM IN LOVE WITH THIS AU

feral quirkless gremlin midoriya going through shit by setting things on fire is just the way to go im duwldjwksk

i read midoriya with molotov cocktails and i have not stopped simping for and thinking about this midoriya

genuinely swooning at this ver of him

midoriya probably has a collection of lighters and basically does those hand tricks to calm him down or to take his mind off of things

bakugou and midoriya being more familiar with each other in their middle school days compared to canon and bakugou gifting midoriya with personalized all might lighter god that’s adorable

ok but they’re talking about their favourite heroes and bakugou goes, “shocking that you don’t like endeavour.”

and midoriya just shrugs, twisting his hand and fingers to orchestrate the fire’s dance from his lighter, his viridian eyes brighter and says, “his fire feels wrong.” and they leave it at that

midoriya being inspired by bakugou’s explosions and attempting to copy those so bad that bakugou thought midoriya’s trying out for support classes

OK BUT FIGHT WITH SLUDGE VILLAIN?

he yanks out makeshift molotov cocktails from his bag, lights them up and throws them at the bastard. the sludge villain screams and retreats slightly because not only was he facing the fires but also the exploded glass shards. it gave enough time for bakugou to explode the villain and escape enough to allow him to breathe. in the end, all might still defeats the sludge but he misses bakugou and midoriya who escaped. no ofa for firey green bean.

bakugou helping midoriya create more explosions.

“but kacchba i want fire, not explosions!”

“same difference you pyro asshole!”

midoriya learns them anyways and enjoys it.

THE EXAM!!

i have two ways:

one: midoriya appealed to the staff that he needed support items and they allowed him and they watched in shock as this little boy explodes the arena worse than the explosion-quirked student. of course he passes and aizawa took him on as his student.

two: midoriya appealed to the staff that he needed his support items but the staff did NOT allow him because they’re considered weapons (as if quirks are not genetic weapons but i DIGRESS) and so when the exam starts, he stays at the very back of the other examinees. this was so that when he arrives at the scene, there are already spare parts for him to scavenge so that he can build makeshift explosions (foregoing whatever shit he learned from katsuki because all that’s on his mind right now are molotov cocktails)

so that’s what happens. he scavenges parts and hides inside one of the buildings so that he can focus more on making explosions and be less worried about being attacked. when he was fully geared, he steps out and begins to retaliate.

he works fast as to not waste his time and the makeshift explosions. because of this, others (ahem-aoyama-ahem) had no opportunity to steal his score.

same thing happens: uraraka gets caught and midoriya explodes the zero pointer. this time, however, the robot is utterly destroyed.

aizawa and majima saw midoriya’s performance, adored it, and began fighting for midoriya.

“majima, he’s here for the hero classes.”

“great. now give him to me.”

nezu pretends that he’s not planning on splitting midoriya’s schedule anyways.

BATTLE TRIAL OH MY GOD rip all might i bet you keeled over so bad, you were one second from turning to small might there and then.

all might: ok so one explodey kid to look out for. that’s not bad.

all might, one minute later: this green kid looks familiar…

all might, ten minutes later: what the fuck.

NO BECAUSE bakugou and midoriya being excited to explode things (well, more like midoriya’s excited and bakugou just wants to fight midoriya) and having a blast when fighting each other.

1a’s probably thinking “oh no” followed by “they’re hot” (literally too because yk the building’s on fire.)

MIDORIYA EXPLODING THE NOUMU??? king shit

midoriya saw this monster running to aizawa and he just points a more eloquent looking flame thrower (thank u mei for working with midoriya with that) at this beast and sets it on fire.

it effectively slowed the noumu and gave the others an opportunity to pull aizawa from the hit zone. it also granted all might more freedom when fighting the noumu because it was slowed enough that all might didn’t have to worry about exceeding his time limit.

the fire damaged some of its nerve processes that the scientist and afo had not accounted for. of course this review is returned to them and many of the noumus become fireproof because of this incident.

OK BUT DURING THE SPORTS FEST

midoriya crushing on todoroki because fire.

he was actually very interested in todoroki prior to sports fest but something about todoroki’s fight against sero sparked something more in midoriya. midoriya saw the anger from his ice, now he wants to see the same intensity from his fire.

his spiel of “that’s your power, todoroki” goes differently. todoroki still pulls him aside and trauma dumps on him but this time he goes, without missing a beat, “that fire is a waste on you.”

todoroki full body pauses because that’s not something he’s ever, well, considered to hear after trauma dumping.

“what?” he croaks, confused at the bubbling feeling. it’s a miasma of anger and hurt, but to a scale so unfamiliar.

midoriya shrugs. “fire is unique, more so as an elemental quirk. you think it doesn’t make half of you—well, i mean you’re right. it doesn’t. you make it. you control it. fire is often uncontrollable and yet here you are, having it as your power. it’s yours to control, so control it. use it.”

todoroki’s ears are ringing.

“you have it as your power.”

“so control it.”

and so he did.

midoriya watched todoki’s fire; watched the way the flames lick up up up and leaves no air bathed in heat. midoriya sees the rawness of anger and determination and thinks, “this is how fire should always look like.”

unconsciously he also thinks how todoroki’s fire is far more beautiful than endeavour’s.

midoriya loses and he’s not as sad about it. losing to something sentient (fire, not todoroki), for him, is a blessing.

todoroki advances along with bakugou.

bakugou who is jealous of todoroki because he saw how midoriya eyed todoroki’s fire and knew todoroki’s a competition in other more ways.

bakugou wins again, this time less angry because todoroki used his fire against him.

STAIN THINKING MIDORIYA’S JUST THIS WEIRD HERO STUDENT WHO HAS NO SPECIFIC QUIRK UNTIL HE FEELS FLAME KISS HIS SKIN AND SCREAMS BECAUSE DAMN IT GREEN EYED KID JUST SET HIM ON FIRE

todoroki full on pausing because he thought he’s the one who set stain on fire unconsciously only to follow the fire’s trail and sees it’s from one of midoriya’s many support items.

“shoot i didn’t mean to burn him that fast!”

“that’s your issue!?”

midoriya gives them a “duh?” look and todoroki feels himself warming up (HAH another fire pun) at midoriya’s ease.

flying noumi still comes and picks him up but midoriya also sets this thing on fire. the difference between a winged noumu and a normal noumu is that the wings are far more flammable and midoriya had quite a bit of fun at setting it on fire and hearing the crackling of flames on rubbery wings.

endeavour casts him a glance that speaks of approval and midoriya doesn’t know if he hates it or not.

tsukauchi arrives and sees not only stain, but the noumu and heaves up a very big sigh. “midoriya, really?”

GOBLIN! PYROMANIAC QUIRKLESS MIDORIYA IZUKU IS A FAVE IM SCREAMING