#hero and villain universe

[gbee-writes]

Hero winced as Mentor pulled the bandages through his fingers. She stoutly ignored his quiet hiss. A part him wanted her to tell him it would be alright, that he was doing well, but that wouldn't happen.

He hadn't gotten any kind words since the start of intensive training and he never got them from Mentor. It just wasn't how she worked.

"You're sloppy with your forms." Mentor said shortly. "I shouldn't have to teach you basics at this point."

"Yes ma'am."

"Have you been practicing them? Or have you just been goofing off with the other trainees?"

Hero chewed his lip as she finished bandaging his hands. "I...I guess I've been slacking off. I just wanted a break."

Mentor let out an aggravated snort. Her cold eyes met his and shivers ran down his spine. "You can't afford to slack off. The agency picked you as their next star hero; if you keep neglecting your training they'll drop their sponsorship with you."

"I know, but-!"

"No! No buts Hero!" He flinched back from her. "You have a duty to the people now. Every lesson you choose to ignore is the possibility of someone's death."

"Yes ma'am...but-..." Mentor stopped him with a snarl. For a few moments there was only silence. "All I do is train now."

Mentor got to her feet and went over to the weapons rack. She selected a pole-staff. "Welcome to being a Hero. Nothing you do will ever be for yourself. Everything you are is for the people you need to protect. If you don't work towards this? You are nothing. If you aren't fighting a villain you'll be here training or speaking to the public to garner their love. That's what it is to be a hero."

The cold sterility of her expression when she turned to face him made Hero feel sick. "What if that's not what I want anymore? What if I don't want to be a hero?"

"You don't want anything anymore." Mentor tossed him his own staff. "You're just a tool. Now be a good one and train."

Masterlist

Edit: this is not a prompt, it's a snippet!

[moodyvoid]

You and the League of Villains meet someone with a quirk that can show people alternate life paths if things had turned out differently.

Everyone’s a little “ehhh idk” about trying it, so Shigaraki, being the leader, is willing to go first.

He sees himself growing up, getting away from his abusive household, and leading a normal life.

Shigaraki is like, this is pretty mundane.

Until he starts seeing images of himself with someone else— you. He sees you kiss him and he’s in complete disbelief.

The images fade away and he’s already demanding another go, “Show me another path.”

In the next one he has the decay quirk, but he’s a rescue hero. He works alongside another hero— you, again. He sees you holding his hand and he’s still in disbelief.

“Okay, that’s enough.”

Afterwards, Shigaraki knows that everything he saw is unattainable—

His eyes drift over to you and he keeps replaying the intimate moments in his head.

Except you.

[autumnmobile12]

My Hero Academia AU: Road Trip

An Ambush Simulation Prequel

I am a little ashamed that this one was in progress for so long and I have only three pages to show for it, but I got so burned out with it that I just thought, "Damn, I'm done." So sadly I'm wrapping up Road Trip as a slice-of-life brief.

I bit off a little more than I could chew and found out I have zero interest in drawing vehicles the hard way. Still, I'm happy with how Shimura's motorcycle turned out.

[redrobinsrobbingrobin]

Each Robin is a direct reflection of attitudes towards the youth, racism, sexism and treatment of other minorities during their run. Each of them have a distinct character, from beginning to end of their individual run, which is represented in their original characterisations and those that they have been built upon, and can actively provide sources for attitudes towards minorities, women, and the youth during their time period and this should be more explored and more people should use comics as a way to explore attitudes and media of the time because it is an active reflection of the world we are/were living in at the time. In this essay, I will-

[autocrats-in-love]

Prompt (390)

The hero stared at the villain in disbelief. “You’re the one who’s been paying my medical bills? Why?”

The villain rolled their eyes. “What, just because I’m evil I can’t believe in universal healthcare?”

[fandomnerd9602]

Kara floats to her feet, Y/N readies for battle…

Kara: (purrs) is that the best you got?

Y/N: I am gonna marry you someday

Kara: what?

Y/N: what? I-I mean I’m gonna…I don’t know.

Kara speeds up and kisses Y/N…

Kara: so when’s the wedding?

[tekitothemagpie]

NANA YOU SAID IT!!!

[alexblack1306]

I finally finished my version of the Joker! I really hope someone will like my JJ and I'll see fanart on him^^

It also has references to two artists in it, @bepoucorp (earrings) and @jonkleringjerster (tailbone tattoo).

Thanks for the inspiration, guys!

[aaeeart]

(commission info)

some more Inquisitor Kanan, because i miss the whump

[poppitron360]

Dark!Piper is my Roman Empire. I’m loving this glimpse of her.

[i-am-trans-gwender]

Lego Batman and Lego Joker are definitely mutuals on Tumblr.

[gbee-writes]

"When the people find out you don't care about them they'll revolt. And I'll be happy to be the one to tell them."

Hero laughed at the empty threat. "There's a story about a rich man who decided to open an orphanage and he tells a priest about it but he changes his mind." Hero tilted his head to get a good look at Villain's baffled expression.

"He tells the priest that he's opening the orphanage for the wrong reasons: he wants the praise from doing it and doesn't give a damn about the orphans."

"...and?"

"The priest says that he should do it anyway. The orphans don't care about why they have a roof over their heads, just that they do."

Villain's eyes widened with the epiphany. "It doesn't matter if you only became a hero for the perks..."

"It only matters that I'm effective." Hero finished with a smirk.

[thes-hitoverlord]

art by Danishi

[autumnmobile12]

My Hero Academia AU: Sleeping Habits

A short comic for Ambush Simulation.

Summer Camp with UA and the Wild, Wild Pussycats.

This one’s a parody since this is a scene from Durarara x2!! and therefore this part will not be appearing in the Ambush Simulation fic.  It’s still funny to think about, so here's a little bonus while I work on the next chapter.

I don’t know if there’s a market in the simping community for post-shower hair Spinner, but if there is…you’re welcome?

I have no explanation for why Compress would wear the mask while asleep. (The original was a dude wearing a gas mask because he was worried about polluted air.)  Maybe he knows Dabi sleeps like a maniac and, on realizing he got the futon next to his, opted to wear some facial protection to avoid getting slapped in the face by the oblivious little shit.

Also, the headcanon that Dabi talks in his sleep...sure, why not?

...

Dabi:  Why are you wearing that mask?

Compress:  Nothing to be concerned about.

[villainboygirl]

Brad: Stop trying to be a hero, Loki. You're a villain. You're good at it. Do that.

Loki: ...Fine. *he plays the villain and torture Brad*

Brad:

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?