#hero villain series

[chaotic-orphan]

Heroic betrayal (ix)

Read part one here // Continued from here

THIS SERIES HAS NINE PARTS??!?! IT DOESN’T FEEL THAT LONG, MAYBE FOUR OR FIVE WOW!!!

*~*~*~*~*

Hero woke up buried under extremely heavy sheets. It felt like a net of blankets weighing down on her, like a giant warm hug of safety. The first thing she did when she woke up was nestle deeper into the warmth, letting out a light hum as she did. She was entirely too comfortable, her mind rosey and hazy, exactly how she liked it.

A heartbeat steadily under her ear, warmth radiating off her mattress. The fog in her mind turned thick, impenetrable and she wanted to be sick. The warmth around her clawed at her desperately, trying to lull her into a false sense of security.

She had bolted from the bed, backing up until she hit the wall behind her, before she properly opened her eyes. Her chest heaving with heavy breaths as she glared at the man in her bed.

Flynn peered at her with one eye open, casually throwing an arm under his head to prop himself up. “Mornin’,” he said, his voice low from sleep.

“You fucker,” Hero hissed, her mind flashing back to last night when Supervillain fixed her nose. Flynn had settled her mind for her, leaving her in his artificial weightless-haze. “You said you wouldn’t use your powers on me.”

Flynn shrugged. “I didn’t want you to suffer.”

“No, you didn’t want to see me suffer, and there’s a chasm of a difference between them,” Hero huffed, crossing her arms over the shirt she was wearing. “Then sleeping with me?”

“You never complained before,” Flynn said with a lazy, cocky grin.

“That was before I knew you were a fucking scheming bastard, who,” Hero continued, walking towards her door and opening it. “Coincidentally, has his own room in this hell house. So please, get out.”

Flynn stared at her through half-lidded eyes, two hands behind his head now. Hero hated when he did that. She hated how it exposed his muscles and somehow made him hotter. He knew it too. He knew that she liked it when he reclined like that, because she told him once after a long night.

“I’m comfortable.”

“You’re a liar.”

“I’m a comfortable liar.”

“I hate you,” Hero snapped. The cocky smile dimmed on his face, and she took a little bit of satisfaction at it. Ignoring how it pulled a little on her heartstrings too.

“I know,” he replied softly.

Hero swallowed, lingering by the door, arms folded across her chest. “Were you here all night?”

“Yes,” he said with a sigh, running a hand through his hair as he sat up.

“Why?”

“Because you said you didn’t want to be alone,” he answered honestly.

Hero scoffed. “No doubt from your loopy induced haze in my head.”

“Despite what you may like to believe,” Flynn said, getting to his feet. He was fully dressed in the shirt and tracksuit he was wearing last night. Decent and gentlemanly. Infuriatingly. “I can’t sway your ideas in your head. If you want me to, I can find a telepath for you to put all your blame on.”

“Oh yeah? And will you kidnap them too?” She snapped, eyes blazing.

Flynn scoffed, grabbing his socks and shoes before walking towards Hero by the door. Hero’s heart beat double-time the closer Flynn got to her, but she maintained her resolve.

That was, until Flynn stopped in the doorway beside her. She shifted her feet under his gaze, feeling his eyes travel over every pore, lingering on every feature, tracing a line down the curve of her neck.

Her breath hitched when he reached forward, a hand cupping her cheek, the heel of his palm tilted her head up. So gentle. Filled with too much everything— Flynn knew her better than anyone, knew what made her tick, what made her nervous, her fears. His touch lit a fire under her skin, but his eyes laid her naked before him, and sent shivers down her spine.

“We could make this so nice,” he whispered like the snake tempting eve in the garden, his thumb running over her bottom lip. “We could go back to the way things were. We were happy.”

How Hero ached for that to be true. How she wanted to abandon her defences, to forget the heartache at his betrayal, and run into his awaiting arms. He could make her forget everything, what he did to Sidekick, what he was doing to her. Hell, he could make her forget that she was ever a Hero and it would be so easy.

Her eyes burned with unshed tears as she swallowed a sob and covered his hand with hers. “That was before you betrayed me, and everything I thought you were.”

“Hero…”

“How can I believe anything you say? How do I know that you weren’t seducing me as some plan you concocted with your father?” She asked, breathlessly. He dropped his shoes and socks with a clatter to the floor and stepped closer to her, caging her in against the door.

His eyes implored her to trust him, to love him, to believe him. She couldn’t look at the desire in them, so she looked at his lips instead. His soft lips.

“You know what we had was real,” he murmured, his hot breath fanning her face. “Believe in us. Believe in what your heart knows to be true. I love you, Hero.”

Hero’s bottom lip trembled against his touch. She swallowed and turned her head away, pressing her hand against his chest with more restraint than she thought herself capable of.

“Please, Flynn,” she said, her voice soft like the static in the air before a thunderstorm. “Just leave me alone.”

Flynn paused, his touch faltering and for a second she thought he was going to kiss her anyways. Something heartbroken inside her that still loved him told her that he would never do something like that. That there were lines of decency even a traitor wouldn’t cross.

“Fine,” he said, dropping his hand from her face and stepping back, scooping up his discarded shoes and socks. Hero did the right thing. She knows she did the right thing, so why does it feel like something just tore a hole through her chest? “Look, I know we were friends once, maybe more than that, maybe not, but right now Hero? I’m your only friend here. Your only refuge.”

Hero felt as if she had just been slapped. “Is that a threat? Be nice to me or else?”

Flynn had the audacity to look hurt. “No, that’s not—”

“Goodbye, Flynn,” she ground out through clenched teeth, stepping away from the door and grabbing it in her hand, ready to slam it in his face.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “See you later.”

The moment he stepped out of door frame she closed the door and leaned her back against it, sliding down and hugging her knees to her chest. She let the tears fall when she was alone, unaware that on the other side of the door, Flynn was listening to her, a pained expression colouring his features.

*~*~*~*~*

Hours later a knock sounded on her door. Hero ignored it. She watched the door handle open from her bed, her back propped against the headboard, her legs stretched out, crossed over at the ankles a book with its spine broken between her fingers. She inclined her head when the door opened, expecting it to be Flynn but froze when she saw a mess of black hair.

Villain was wearing a red leather jacket, contrasting against his sharp pale features and dark hair, making him seem other worldly. He smirked when he noticed Hero’s tension, he kicked the door open with his foot, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame.

“I’ve been told to call you for dinner.”

“Like the good dog you are.”

“Woof,” Villain replied, a grin that made her skin crawl spreading across his features. “Of course, you hurt Flynn’s feelings so he’s licking his wounds in his room. You get me instead.”

“Yeah, well, I lost my appetite looking at your face.”

Shadow hands sprung from the backboard of the bed and grabbed Hero’s wrists before she realised what was happening. They squeezed, hard, until she dropped the book, shackling her in a ring of icy coldness, that yanked her arms back sharply and pressed them against the headboard. Hero didn’t even struggle and suppressed her whimpers of pain, but it must have shown on her face because Villain’s grin got wider as he stepped into her room.

“I would be nicer to me, Hero.” Villain cautioned, his fingers curling slowly into a fist in his hand, the shadows tightening more until Hero couldn’t keep her cries locked behind her teeth anymore. “We could be friends, like you and Flynn, hmm?”

“Friends don’t hurt each other,” Hero ground out, pulling against the shadows keeping her pinned. With all the effort she put behind it, it only resulted in her muscles shaking in her arms.

“Well, we’re not friends yet, and besides, it’s not hurting each other. I’m just hurting you.”

Hero looked away from Villain, staring pointedly at the wall to her right just to piss him off. Who did he think he was? Another cold hand stroked a finger along her jaw. Hero shivered at the touch, but refused to look at Villain. That’s when she heard footsteps round her bed until she was staring at worn, red leather in front of her.

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” Villain said, crouching down so he was eye-level with the stubborn Hero. He tilted his head with a smile. “Hmm? You’re stuck here, y’know. Unless you grow a spine and want to kill your friend, in which case, well, you’d belong here.”

“Let me go,” Hero snapped, pulling against the shadows. Villain let out a dark, breathy laugh, standing again as he shook his head. His hand shot out, as cold as his shadows and pinched her chin between his fingers tilting her head up sharply.

“The sooner you learn your place here the better, I mean,” Villain said, sucking in a breath as if it hurt. “Upsetting Flynn? The only person here on your side? Not a smart move, not one I would make. Or Supervillain if he were in your shoes. I mean, aren’t you supposed to be smart? Isn’t that your whole thing? Cause god knows you’re not strong.”

Hero’s lips curled back into a snarl and she shot her leg out. Shadows caught her ankle before it made contact and yanked her down the bed, but the hold on her wrists didn’t budge and so her body was stretched taut, pulled in two directions.

Villain released his grip on her chin when his shadows caught her foot and now he just stood back as she cried out and tried to gain purchase on the bed with her other leg for support.

“You know, it’s not nice to kick people.”

“Get off of me!”

“I’m not on you, Hero. Why? Do you want me to be?” Hero’s breath caught in her throat at the very thinly layered threat in Villain’s voice, and the sick fuck seemed to feed off her panic. “Relax Hero, I’m not that kind of Villain. I won’t touch you until you beg for it.”

His words sent shivers down her spine, and when the shadow on her ankle dissolved Hero quickly pulled it into her chest, retreating up her bed back to where her hands were pinned, not taking her eyes off him for a second.

Villain hummed, then turned and walked towards the door. He lifted his hand and clicked his fingers without looking at her. The shadows dissipated, leaving her wrists red raw but otherwise unharmed. “Come along, Hero. Like I said. Dinner’s ready.”

On the way downstairs, Villain rapped on Flynn’s door and yelled: “grubs up.” Hero didn’t take her glare off of Villain’s back the whole way down her U-shaped stairs to the second floor. It wouldn’t matter either way considering all the shadows he could utilise to torture her, and there was no way she could keep eyes everywhere.

Though when Flynn’s door opened, she paused on the last step of her stairs, watching him as he walked out of his room and shut the door. He didn’t look at her as he followed Villain down the stairs. He may as well have slapped her in the face. Actually, she’d rather he would have slapped her, or looked at her, or even paused when he saw her in the corner of his eye. But he continued through the landing and to the stairs like she wasn’t even there, and Hero swore her heart broke inside her chest all over again.

She followed the brothers down to the dining room in silence. Flynn and Villain were already sitting down at the Supervillain’s side of the table, both on either side of where Supervillain sat. Hero stared at the chair beside Flynn, something urging her to sit beside him, but instead she sat at other opposite head of the table. Yanking her chair out and sitting down.

Why should she be the one who’s suffering or feeling guilty? Flynn should be the one feeling guilty. It was his fault she was here. His fault that she was on Supervillain’s radar in the first place. His fault that Sidekick is in the hospital.

Villain’s cunning eyes went between the pair. “Trouble in paradise, lovebirds?”

“Oh shut up, Vil,” Flynn snapped.

Hero leaned forward, clasping her hands in front of her as if she was about to conduct a meeting. She smiled sweetly at Villain, sickeningly sweet. “Yes. No trouble at all, Vil. I wouldn’t touch a villain with a ten foot pole if I could help it, but considering I’m on house arrest with a family of villains, I’ve had to make some concessions.”

Flynn shot her a scathing look, his cocky smirk sliding onto his face. “That’s not what you said when you were cuddling me this morning.”

Villain’s entire face lit up, eyes going between the pair, enjoying the two of them silently fuming at each other. “Damn. You could cut the tension with a knife. Get a room, guys.”

Supervillain stepped through the doors that joined the kitchen to the dining room with two steaming plates. “Dinner’s ready!” He exclaimed happily. Noticing the atmosphere, he raised his brows. “What’s wrong?”

“A lover’s tiff,” Villain answered at the same time that Hero and Flynn bit out: “nothing.”

Supervillain hummed, walking down to Hero and sliding a plate in front of her. It smelled divine, like last time, and Hero’s stomach grumbled at the sight. Two steaks of salmon and green beans and cauliflower. “For your strength,” Supervillain beamed at her, then walked to Villain and served him next.

He disappeared through the doors again. Villain smiled at Flynn. “I got mine first, I’m the favourite.”

“You wish,” Flynn said, folding his arms across his chest. “He serves me last because hr wants to make sure my dinner is still hot.”

Supervillain appeared again and sat at the table beside Flynn, handing him his plate too. “Ah. Bon Appétit.”

They ate in relative silence, Villain or Flynn would say something and they’d start a conversation that would ebb and flow while Hero ate quietly, trying her best not to scoff the whole plate down in seconds, but she didn’t have breakfast or lunch today, so she was starving.

“How’s the nose, Hero?” Supervillain asked.

“It’s fine,” Hero replied coldly, then stiffened, thinking better of disrespecting him and added a quiet, “thank you.”

“Good. Glad to hear it. I actually got you some papers today.”

Hero raised her brows. “Oh.”

“To keep you up on the news,” Supervillain told her, his smile reminiscent of his son’s, though maybe a bit more civil, but no less shark-like and menacing. “Don’t want you completely disconnected from the world.”

Hero pushed at the remains of her dinner with her fork, tightening her grip on the utensil. “You just want to torture me as much as possible, is that it?”

“Torture you? What would be the point? I have you immobilised and incapacitated. I don’t need to torture you any further. I just thought you’d like to know—”

“How the world’s doing outside my fucking prison?” She demanded, raising her gaze to meet Supervillain’s. Supervillain’s smile remained on his face and she wanted nothing more than to climb over the table and slap it off. “No thanks.”

“Things can be pleasant for you here, Hero.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

Supervillain tilted his head to the side, steepled his fingers in front of his face. “You didn’t let me finish, Hero. Things can be pleasant for you here, Hero, or—”

Hero felt the cold hands of Villain’s power grab her wrists again and yank them behind the back of her chair, her fork clattering along the floor of the dining room. “We can make it very, very difficult for you if you’d prefer. Which would you rather, now that you’ve tasted the cell and the room?”

“I’d rather you let me go, you fucking dick!” She hissed, trying to yank her hands free, but each time she got an inch her hands were clamped down tighter, almost dragging her over the chair, but she planted her feet on the ground, resolute, and glared at the man. “Stop threatening my friends and give yourself up to the proper authorities while you’re at it! That’s what I’d prefer over this playing house bullshit!”

“Hero,” Flynn cautioned. Hero scoffed. She would have threw her arms up if she could, bordering on hysterical.

“Now you deign to talk to me?” She cried. “Save it!”

She turned her gaze, crueller now, back to Supervillain, adopting a false sense of innocence. “I mean, this isn’t really a proper family, is it? Where’s the mother figure after all?”

Hero only got the briefest of seconds to enjoy Supervillain’s easy smiling expression dipping, turning to cold fury before a shadowed hand grabbed her throat, followed by Villain who grabbed her where the shadow hand did, and slammed her back against the wall.

“You fucking bitch,” he seethed. “You really don’t know when to shut up, do you?”

Hero spit at him in reply, cracking a smile despite her face that was steadily changing from red to purple at her oxygen being cut off. It wasn’t a proper glob, more like a spray of saliva, even her fucking spit was limp at her circumstances.

“Villain,” Supervillain said as Hero gasped on air that she wasn’t getting. Hero could barely hear him when he spoke again, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she clung desperately to air. She fell to the ground deadweight, head smacking off the floor but she barely noticed it as she gasped in oxygen like a fish being thrown back into a river.

Her throat screamed at the abuse, screamed at her to stop fucking tempting fate and cruelty of the family of villains but she couldn’t bring herself to care if they killed her or not. It would be preferable, honestly.

But then who would help Sidekick? Her stupid, logical voice chimed in as she pushed herself up by her hands. A pair of tailored trousers met her gaze as she righted herself, she had only begun to tilt her head up, her mind cloudy when she felt a hand lock around her upper arm and drag her to her feet.

She stumbled up, her leg faltering behind and falling again but the grip didn’t loosen and the legs didn’t slow down and Hero was forced to make her legs work after depriving them of oxygen for the last twenty seconds.

“Dad.” Flynn’s voice. “Dad!”

“Enough, Flynn.” They were in the kitchen Hero realised, the wood of the dining room floor replaced with the black tiles. Supervillain was holding her, dragging her to the far side of the kitchen and she had the sense to start digging her heels in when they reached a door she wasn’t familiar with. “We tried it your way, Flynn. Now, we’ll try it Villain’s way and compare notes.”

“Dad, no. Wait!” Flynn cried. Hero turned her head over her shoulder to see Villain’s sharp grin, arms around Flynn to stop him from following Hero and Supervillain wherever they were going. “Dad!”

“Ladies first,” Supervillain said after he opened the door and with a pause, he pressed his hand to Hero’s back and shoved her down the stairs.

*~*~*~*~*

Orphanage roll-call: (lmk if you wanna be added or removed): @xenlust @books-are-everything @micechomper r @shywhumpauthor @aarika-merrill @xxgalgurlxx @0eggdealer @watermelonrandom @tippytappytyping @silentpotat0 @swift-perseides s s @gloriousqueen101 @ladygwennn @books-are-everything @isnortkoolaidpowderteehee @memepsychowhowantsuperpower-blog

[aphel1on]

i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good

[itsnothingofinterest]

This is probably a weird note to end my time with MHA's run on; but I find it so strange how I still see people calling Tomura out on just being a destruction-hungry villain with supposedly no plan or follow up...as though he is unique for that simplicity. Especially after the ending we got. Like, Deku and All Might never really had a plan when they were reshaping society by beating up the enemy and everything worked out fine for them, but does anyone call them out for just using violence to mindlessly solve everything with no further plan? (Well, yes. Me. Right now.)

Because like, really thinking about it; how different was All Might's plan from the start of his career to take down AFO and become a symbol, and Deku's plan to end the villains and bring everything back, from Shigaraki's plan to end hero society and bring about a world accommodating to the League? It all seemed to boil down to the same basic premise of Step 1) Beat everyone & everything making things worse, Step 2) ...it all just kind of works out from there. (I guess All Might planned on being inspiring and uplifting, but then we could also count Tomura's plan to be imposing and...uplifting but for different people. Deku was winging it every step of the way though.) Everyone's getting on Tomura's case for doing nothing but destroying; but all evidence from when the heroes do it suggests violence & destruction works. And it just never fails to bug me when people call Tomura out for stuff that's fine when heroes do it.

Which, yeah, let's touch on how it did just work out for Deku that way for no logical reason, least of all anything he planned. He punched out the big bad just like All Might and now things are like a hundred times better than they were under All Might with no more Tenkos abandoned in the street. If stuff like that just happens if you punch out your enemies hard enough, then why couldn't that happen for Tomura? Maybe if he had destroyed the government & hero society it would've, idk, been so fear/awe-inspiring that all the villains would've been nice and cooperative under the PLF and everything would've been fine. Or something. No more contrived than what we saw with the old lady plot line, MHA is just a series where that stuff works out. Heck, one time it actually did just work out that way for Tomura:

Again, violence and destruction works in MHA. I mean; duh, it's a shonen manga.

Plus all this is ignoring the fact that, unlike those two, Tomura did have a follow up to the violence. He did have a step two, or at least one & a half, after "beat down all the bad guys in the country." Rather than just going "and everything will work out from there," he had his guys plan for the future so he could say "and Spinner, Toga, and RD et. all will make sure everything works out from there." (Admittedly, not much; but also, not hopes and dreams.) He did have a plan, it was just the plan from the Overahul arc, where he was last asked to have a plan: leave it to his allies.

And hey, that means it's actually better than what we saw from genius All Might and brainiac Deku. So why are we still, even after everything was over, acting like there's some expectation as a villain he didn't meet? I guess it's just in the nature of a 'tantrum-having man-child who wants nothing but destruction' to put more forethought into the future he wants to build than the society-uplifting greatest heroes.

That or maybe everyone had really detailed follow-ups for when they won that Hori never went much into, but that'd render this post a bit pointless so shhh.

[hufflepuffwritingstuff2]

An Offer You Can't Refuse- Part 2

Part 1

Hero woke up to the feeling of being watched. The weight over their eyes had been lifted, and their restraints had been removed as well, judging by how they were sprawled out in bed. Bed? This bed felt much bigger and softer than their own bed. The feeling of being watched grew stronger. Who cared whose bed it was- who was watching them!? Hero’s eyes snapped open, darting around the room until they landed on- oh. Right. Them. That. This.

“Good morning, Hero,” Supervillain said softly, “I must admit, you slept so long I was worried they had overdosed you, but you seem to be alright. That’s good.”

Alright? Alright!? What about this was alright!?

“Do you often make a habit of watching people sleeping?” Hero blurted.

Did they really just say that!? Hero’s heart hammered in their chest. This was Supervillain they were talking about- one false move and they were dead. No, scratch that, death would be a mercy- surely someone like Supervillain was an expert at dishing out fates worse than death-

Supervillain just chuckled.

“No,” they said, “but after eighteen hours and no sign of you waking, I did want to check up on you. That couldn’t have all been the drugs, I’d wager. Were you overworking yourself before you were abducted?”

“Eighteen-” Hero started.

“Technically twenty-five if we’re being specific,” Supervillain said, “your little snores are quite cute, and did you know you sleep-talk?”

Hero blushed in embarrassment. More than flustered, they felt confused. Supervillain had bought them for… however much they paid for them (Hero couldn’t quite remember) and now they were waking up in a lavish bed while the mastermind made small-talk about the whole thing?

“Are you hungry?” Supervillain prompted.

“Confused.” Hero admitted.

Hero’s stomach didn’t like that answer, and it growled loudly in protest. Supervillain smiled knowingly.

“I’ll have my chef make you something,” they said, getting up, “It would be in your best interest not to leave this room.”

Supervillain left the bedroom, closing the door behind them. Hero waited until their footsteps faded into silence. They sprung out of bed and tried the door. Locked, of course. Hero formed a small icicle in their hand and started to pick the lock. After a couple seconds of picking, the icicle snapped in two. Right, well, time for something more aggressive then. Hero forced the door down with a blast of ice. Stepping over the now-warped door, they looked around for the nearest exit. They ran down a hallway and past a few different doors, before reaching a grand staircase. They checked both ways for signs of Supervillain, then descended the stairs at a breakneck pace.

They realized, as they were rushing to freedom, that they weren’t wearing any shoes. In fact, their entire suit had been replaced by silk sleepwear. Oh well, they’d just have to make a new one when they got out of here. Their hand was on the front doorknob when a rough force yanked them backwards.

Hero yelped in surprise. They craned their neck to see a large, muscular person behind them. They had an earpiece and a small microphone hooked up to them.

“Got ‘em,” they said, “taking them back now.”

The henchman started to drag Hero back by the arm.

“Hey, let me go!” Hero shouted, forming cold energy in their hand and hurling a snowball at the henchman.

“Gah- why you-!”

In shock from getting a snowball to the face, the henchman had let go of Hero, who was now making another run for it.

“C’mere you-”

Hero turned, anger burning in their eyes. If it was a fight this bozo wanted, it was a fight they were going to get. And Hero was going to win.

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[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?

[a-whisper-in-the-forest]

A work of art

Part 1 (Disgraced apple pie)

TW: torture, blood, mention of mind control

“It's a form of art, you know,�� Supervillain says, kneeling in front of the beaten and bloodied Sidekick. “Knowing where to cut, where to punch, to get just the right reaction.” Villain can feel their stomach turn to the point they can practically taste the half digested apple pie.

“It seems unnecessary," Villain tries to say in their standard, ice cold tone but somehow that has become difficult. “To an ordinary human it might look unnecessary, but to us villains…” Supervillain says, looking at the poor sidekick as it was a painting in a museum. “Wouldn't you agree?”

Anyone else would believe that the Supervillain is asking for their opinion. Villain knew better, though. They knew that tone and knew what would happen if they didn't agree. They're not in the mood for that. “I agree.” is all they said.

Supervillain let out a satisfied hum and focused on the Sidekick. “Anything else you would like to say?” The sugar sweet tone made Villain sick again. “Please…please, no…” Sidekick's broken sobs fill the room. “You're gonna have to give me a little more information than that, honey,” Supervillain said with a sweet smile on their face. Bullshit. Supervillain isn't stopping until they're bored. “Please, no…i can't…”

Villain stared at the wall and felt a familiar sensation fall over them. Their mind began to wander to a carefully constructed mind palace. They imagine sitting in a cabin in the middle of the woods. The fireplace softly lighting the room. They're reading a good book while their cat is napping in their lap. Some nice, calm music playing in the background. No pain, no yelling, no begging, no fighting…

“Don't let your mind wander like that, Villain.” Supervillain's voice brings them back to the cold, dark room in the basement of Supervillain's lair. Supervillain stands up and approaches Villain. They put both of their bloody hands on Villain’s cheeks. “I need you here, you know that. Don't go there.” Villain notices the possessive hint in Supervillain's voice. They never want Supervillain to take control over their mind again. Not like last time.

“I know. I'm sorry,” Villain says, barely above a whisper. “It's okay. But I give you freedom and you can't abuse it like that,” Supervillain says, still holding Villains face. “I'm sorry.” Villain answers, still not daring to speak louder than a whisper. “It's okay, just focus now. Yeah?” Supervillain lets go and turns around to face the Sidekick again. “Mind getting the last bit of information for me, my dear Villain?” Supervillain asks with a smile plastered on their face.

Villain's not proud of what they do next. Their powers control shadows. Their own but also the ones around them. Basically, anything light doesn't touch, so the shadow of the chair in the corner, their own shadow, the shadow inside someone's lungs.

It's a basic trick for them and one of Supervillains' favorites. They take control of the person's lung's shadow and expand it. Not much so they don't actually burst, but enough to give the sensation of bursting. Immediately the poor sidekick begins to scream and immediately the Villain wants to stop. The figure standing behind them stops them from doing so, though. That last bit of information, all the codes to the Agency's entrances, came quickly.

They're going to need an extra slice of pie after this.

~

Hero is still sitting at the same booth that they shared with Villain. They couldn't bring themselves to go home. It's so empty as the Agency doesn't allow any personal decorating and certainly not a pet. They shove the last crumbs of the pies in their mouth and start looking for their coat to put on.

“Are you seriously still here ?”

a familiar voice says behind them. As they turn around they can see Villain standing there. Still surrounded with their cold and distant aura, but Hero could sense a hint of… defeat. What happened in those 3 hours for them to look so empty?

“You here again?” the Hero asks with a smile. “Still hungry,” Villain says with a cold tone and sits down in front of Hero. “Well, you came at the right time. I just saw the girl behind the counter restock the pies,” Hero says cheerfully. They're not sure what caused the empty look in Villain’s eyes, but they feel like Villain could use something to cheer them up right now.

“Good thing I came then.”

Next part

Hi! Well...that turned dark fast. Hope you enjoyed this part as much as the first one. (Wich has like 95 notes, which is crazy, so thank you so much for that!)

[jaundicity]

i have a lot more to criticize about this show but let me tell you guys the real tea of it all..

the writer's team for HOTD simply does not know how to portray war.

they don't know the complexities of war, nor do they hold a knowledgable grasp of the true horrors of it and how it affects everyone from the powers orchestrating it (eg. the blacks and the greens) to the people at the bottom.

now, i'm not saying that they should put on their soldier helmets and go fight in wars, because that's stupid and as much as i dislike them, i don't want that for them at all, but i am pointing out that they clearly don't understand that the dance isn't an easy heroes v. villains superhero battle that they have written it out to be, because it's not.

it's a criticism of war and its destructive nature, of the powers that basically damn innocent people to die for nothing because of their rulers aka. the people who should be protecting them ultimately letting their desires cloud their duties to the land they're overseeing. for the writers to not understand that and basically glaze over what george was basically saying through the text in favor of producing HBO's attempt at marvelizing the WOIAF is truly gutting, because why even try to make war a winning game? it isn't.

fuck, even movies and tv shows outside of that do so much better at portraying the messages that the OG dance has that HOTD has failed to drive home. come and see, all quiet on the western front, even the hunger games especially in mockingjay— those are fantastic media that accurately or even come completely close to portraying how devastating war can get. so much horror, grief, rage and overall tragedy is shown in the three pieces of media that i just listed, so it is insulting to me and hopefully to others that ryan and co. had not seriously considered looking to them or any other media for inspiration on how to accurately hit the mark on the original story's real themes for the show.

[wisebeth]

why does the pjo series have to unnecessarily villainize goddesses (hera & athena) or show them as silly ladies (aphrodite & demeter) BUT posiedon and apollo are somehow shown as the coolest/most likeable gods, even though arguably, they're right after zeus on terms of corruption?

ares shown as the worst god after zeus and hera amuses me. last time i checked, he was the patron god of amazons and literally killed a man for attempting to rape his daughter but guess who cursed women for rejection? apollo. guess who raped women when they said no (aside from zeus)? posiedon.

[byjovewhataspend]

sorry guys i just Can Not get over these three being coworkers

I spent so much of this manga wanting deku to interact with these two (and deku NEVER ONCE speaks with mic in the WHOLE SERIES despite CANONICALLY BEING A HUGE FAN ) only to find out they were hanging out DAILY for YEARS as EQUALSSS

anyways <3 hes in the group chat. he goes drinking with them. hes on the gossip train. hes the cucumber in the sandwich

[annajustdraws]

Allies or Enemies?

[commander-revan]

The focus on their hands.

[galgali]

stories where the main character is a hopeful, optimistic pacifist in a bleak world usually takes one of two routes: one, everything works out for them. the world shifts to their kindness and they’re allowed easy routes on account of their morality. two, they’re torn apart by the story for being naive. their hope is something to mock and beat out of them and they can only grow once they abandon it.

then there is trigun.

trigun says that hope will hurt you. you will let people into your life that you shouldn’t have and they will leave you with scars. your obsession with trying to minimize the necessary conflict right in front of you will cause more damage than if you had just fought that battle. you can’t run from your past and all the times you’ve tried to be kind and failed. you can’t avoid hurting other people and you will have to live with that for the rest of your life.

but—

trigun says that there is so much kindness in all of us, and we are more likely to act on love than hate. no matter how many dark nights you’ve cried through, there are brighter tomorrows worth living for. if you want to be good, you can be good. love is what connects us and connection is how we save ourselves. we have to believe in each other. you are made of love. love is all we have.

[hufflepuffwritingstuff2]

Forced Vacation- Part 2

Part 1

Hero stirred to a cool sensation going up and down their arm. They groaned weakly as their eyes fluttered open to a shady umbrella overhead. They felt a soft surface underneath them and heard the lapping of ocean waves nearby. Then they remembered their situation. Hero sat bolt upright, but they were yanked back down.

“Hold it! You’re not going out in the sun until I’m finished!”

Hero’s head jerked to the side.

“Villain!? What the heck are you doing!?”

Villain got another helping of sunscreen out of the bottle and applied it to Hero’s other arm.

“Hooking you up to my doomsday device,” Villain said, “…what does it look like, darling?”

Hero opened their mouth, closed it, opened it again, then closed it fruitlessly. Villain chuckled, then sat them up. They started to apply more of the citrus-scented stuff to Hero’s back.

Hero blinked in confusion. They looked down at their body and saw that their suit had been replaced with swimwear. Their cheeks turned red at the thought of someone undressing them.

“Oh relax,” Villain said, “I didn’t peek.”

That made Hero feel a little bit better, but only a little bit. In a few minutes, Villain was finished. Hero went to stand up again, but Villain stopped them.

“Hero! It has to sink in for at least fifteen minutes!” Villain protested.

Hero huffed, then begrudgingly sat back down. Villain smiled.

“Good,” they said, “I hope you’re not so jumpy because you’re planning on escaping, my dear Hero.”

Hero opened their mouth to speak.

“Because if you were,” Villain continued, “you’d have a pretty hard time getting off this beach, let alone the island. I have security measures everywhere. And I know you don’t plan to swim all the way back to the city; that would be insane even for you.”

Hero scanned the beach. Various henchmen dotted the sand dunes, waiting in case they decided to try something. So they were stuck here.

“How long?” Hero grumbled.

“You still have about thirteen minutes-”

“No.” Hero shook their head, “how long are you keeping me here?”

Villain cracked an annoyingly attractive grin.

“As long as it takes, Hero. As long as it takes.”

That wasn’t an answer! Hero went to say so, but Villain shoved a straw in their mouth.

“Strawberry daquiri,” Villain explained, “go on.”

Hero eyed it suspiciously.

“Virgin- no alcohol.”

Hero still didn’t drink.

“Oh for the love of-” Villain took a small sip from the drink, “-there. Happy?”

Satisfied, Hero started to sip on the daquiri. It was so sweet and refreshing, they relaxed on the spot.

…

Hero dried their hair with a fluffy towel. The beach had been tolerable. Okay, it had been really fun, but they weren’t about to admit it. They had been escorted to Villain’s fancy villa at the heart of the island and had been left to shower and change. Hero had done both, and was now dressed in a loose, flowy outfit that swished in the breeze.

“Had fun, my little mermaid?” Villain smiled, leaning on the doorframe.

Hero whirled around.

“It was… it wasn’t torture,” Hero conceded.

“I would hope not, considering I had to practically drag you out of the water for lunch.”

Villain had left the beach completely soaked, but not because they had been playing in the water too. Hero may have splashed them a few times… they were completely dry now, though, and wearing a crisp button-up and shorts. Hero giggled thinking about the beach.

“Come on,” Villain nodded to the door, “you’re going to love what Chef made.”

Hero’s urge to fight was fading evermore into the back of their mind. They joined Villain and followed them to the patio where various foods and delicacies waited.

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[webanglikethat]

on Luke castellan: web weaving

maybe you weren’t a terrible person, maybe you were just a victim, trying to reclaim your existence. (yes, you chose a greater evil, but you just wanted to change the lives of others so they wouldn’t have to suffer like you did.) “give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.” “give them their childhood back, it was never yours to taint”

special tag: @helpallthenamesaretakensblog <3

[dabidaily]

Dabi manga & series