#hes a goddamn hero

[rangerzath]

I've been asleep in the driver's seat I've been lost in my head for weeks Tryin' to find what it is I need Too god damned tired to sleep

My first drawing of Zachariah Trench based on the best Trench/Darling fanfiction The Days of Thunder by @wondrouswendy. If you haven't checked it out you should! Peek Trench and Darling characterization, drama and that wonderful romance!

As Trench is my favorite character (I know you're all surprised) it made sense for him to be my first "realish" full drawing. I know it's not great but I tried really hard. Trench is cool so here he is. He always needs more love and for more people to appreciate him.

[strongsuits]

"I'm the Godddamned hero!"

[a11eya]

You’ve been dating Bakugou for almost a year now, and it’s been nice keeping the relationship to yourselves. 

So it comes as a big surprise to you when Bakugou brings up telling your friends about the two of you. And eventually going public about the two of you.

“You can take care of yourself,” Bakugou says, more to himself than you at this point, as you’re barely listening. You’re both relaxed on his couch, decompressing from work, and he has your legs in his lap. 

He runs a hand up and down the length of your thigh, slowly, measured. He's not thinking about what he’s doing to you, you can tell. His touch makes you warm, interested. In the glide of his hands, the sharp angle of his jaw. In the curve of his bicep. Not in this conversation.

You try to focus. The both of you have been pro heroes for years, now, and both your quirks are offensive ones. Strong. It’s something you’re grateful for. (Though some days are still spent worrying about him, keeping you on edge, jagged. The nights when you wake up to him sleepless and sitting up in bed beside you, hand cupping the pulse in the side of your neck, are somehow worse.)

That's probably what he’s thinking about—that if your relationship got out beyond your friends that villains or enemies would think to use you against each other. And he’s saying they would think twice, knowing your reputations. That if either of you were civilians, or not at the top of your game, being open about your relationship wouldn’t be an option. 

He's always respected your strength. It’s one of the things that made you fall for him. 

Bakugou scowls. “And s’annoying dealing with Shitty Hair’s questions. He’s been irritating since Halloween.”

“You think he saw us?” you ask. The two of you had gotten a little careless towards the end of the night, sneaking off to a corner of Midoriya’s apartment to let your hands wander. 

Bakugou rolls his eyes, shrugs. “If we tell him, he’ll stop being such a goddamn pain.”

He glances at you, waiting. His hand stops its movement, instead gently squeezing the meat of your thigh. You watch him watch the indents his fingers make in your skin, the satisfaction that settles on his face as he touches you. 

Your stomach flutters. He has to be doing this on purpose. 

What were you talking about again? 

“We can tell our friends,” you finally manage. “I don't mind, though you know Kaminari’s gonna tease and Midoriya and Kirishima might be upset you didn’t tell them sooner. But maybe we keep it private from the public for a little longer? If that’s okay?”

“…Okay,” he says after a long moment. 

It is okay—at least for a couple more months. Your friends are as sweet (and obnoxious) as you expected them to be, upon hearing the news. 

Recently, though, Bakugou's been acting differently when the two of you are out and about. He's less careful about wearing a mask to hide his face, and he’s stopped wearing hats to hide that distinctive blond hair of his. 

He used to lean out of frame of photos and videos you’d post to social media of things you’d do together, food you’d eat at meals together. But these days, you’ve had to make a real effort to only get footage of him that’s below the neck. 

You’re not sure what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s just tired of having to be lowkey, now that both your friends know. If that’s the case, you get it. Sometimes, you can’t be bothered about concealing your identity too. 

Bakugou sits across from you, watching as you pull out your phone to take some pictures of the food in front of you. 

You first came to this cafe together a year ago, and despite the owner recognizing the both of you, she was discreet. Respectful. She even makes sure her staff seats you so that you have the most privacy. It’s one of your favorite places to grab a drink, a little dessert. 

Smiling to yourself, you begin recording a short video, panning over your food. 

Suddenly, Bakugou ducks his head so that his face is in frame of your video. His mouth is turned down in a ferocious scowl. 

“Katsuki!” you exclaim. You stop recording, shaking your head in bewilderment. “What’re you doing?”

“Tired of this soft launch bullshit,” he grumbles, and your eyes widen. “You ashamed of me or what.”

“What? I'm not!” you say, suppressing the laughter bubbling up in you, trying to escape. You’re failing miserably, a smile stretching your lips, and it only makes him scowl harder.

“How do you even know what a soft launch is?” you manage after a moment, regaining your composure. Bakugou's rarely on social media—his PR team controls all of that, as he has zero interest. 

“Soy Sauce Face and Shitty Hair were talking about it,” Bakugou says. A very subtle expression you identify as embarrassment flashes across his face. “Some singer they follow started dating someone or whatever.” 

“Soft launches are only a thing if people don’t know who I’m dating,” you tell him, tapping your foot against his under the table. “Everyone who matters knows that I’m yours.”

You watch his face, looking for any sign that he’s still bothered. Bakugou can be unpredictable about things when it comes to dating, you’ve found. With most everything he’s loud and unfiltered. Direct. So you know it’s when he’s trying to hide things, hide how he’s feeling, that it’s important to pay attention.

“We can go public if you want,” you say a little more quietly, looking into his eyes. 

“If you want,” he says gruffly, reaching over to pinch your cheek. 

You wince exaggeratedly to make him let go, and then you turn your face into his hand. You smile. “Okay. Let’s tell Japan.”

[lilybecca1]

Someone pointed out Bakugo's explosion looks like a heart in that one Memories episode and now I can't unsee it

[mmira-d]

🔥 FLAME ON ‼️❗🔥🔥

I finally finished reading pjo!! started lost hero and rekindled (ha) my love for the boy teeheehee

[haine-kleine]

anyway. the ending was like That because it was Izuku's hero academia. it was his story told from his point of view and it concluded all the plot points he was concerned with, like his relationship with Bakugou, Allmight, the public's opinion on the heroes, what the new generation of heroes is going to be like, how Shouto is perceived by the public, Izuku's general relationship with his former classmates and Aizawa.

he never really cared about Shigaraki outside of their brief confrontation. he didn't really know Shigaraki as a person, and nor was he interested in getting to know him, even when he got the chance to peek into his past, Nana and Allmight had more reason to be interested in who Shigaraki the person was. to Izuku, Shigaraki started as a terrifying villain and ended as a crying boy he was unable to save. this is why, as he joins the rest of his classmates and becomes a pro hero, he imagines the ghost of Shigaraki looking over him, haunting him, reminding him of his failure but also inspiring him to try harder and 'keep reaching out'.

The villains were the ones concerned with their stories. Spinner wrote that book by himself, as Izuku's notes are being written at the point the book has already been published. Izuku never mentions any contents of that book nor Spinner or Mister Compress. Because they do not belong in his story, not really.

They belong with each other, in the League of Villains, as they have proven time and time again how important they are to each other and how far they are willing to go to protect their own. Shigaraki's thoughts before Izuku had killed him were all about the League. Kurogiri's last act was trying to save Shigaraki from AFO and the heroes. What kept Spinner's spirit from crumbling after losing everyone he had cared about was his burning desire to tell their story to others, to let their stories be heard. Touya finds no solace despite getting everything he had ever wanted from his family and being reunited with them - because his place was in the League of villains, the place where he was accepted just as he was, unconditionally.

the conflict of heroes versus the villains led to nothing but devastation and destruction for the villains. even those who were heard out and validated by the other party ended up becoming victims, or martyrs.

after that experience, after having a whole crowd of pro heroes, the people who made it their lives career to save others witness his destruction by the man who stole his body from him and by the boy who swore to save him, why would Shigaraki be interested in keeping in contact with these people, had he survived? why would Kurogiri go out of his way to let Shirakumo's friends know he had survived their students attempt to take his life and the life of the boy he wanted to save, all because they couldn't accept his affection for that boy outweighing their long gone friendship? why would Toga, when the reporters and the heroes saw her body after starting to transfuse all of her blood to Ochako and not even bothered to pick it up, to save her life or even to bury her?

here is how it went: Kurogiri did end up successfully saving Shigaraki, the fact going unnoticed by the heroes because both of their bodies were crumbling. he had also taken Toga, which is why her body wasn't picked up together with Ochako (and why Ochako doesn't have any memories of Toga's dead body, only of her final words to her). and then Kurogiri teleported them far away, where they healed and started planning how to get the remaining three LOV members back, while they are still alive.

they broke Spinner and Compress out of the prisons. In memory of Twice, Hawks had covered it up, as long as they don't resurface as villains.

Shigaraki and Toga had considered letting Touya stay together with his family, up until the news of Endeavor's disgraced villain son being on his deathbed got out. On the very next day, Shigaraki broke the tank Touya was residing in to pieces. Enji and his sidekicks had covered his eldest going missing by holding a funeral ceremony for him (the second one, this time knowing full well it's a fake funeral). Shouto was enraged with his father's decision and Enji used Shouto's just starting pro hero career as an excuse, don't you want to have a clean start, without the weight of mine and Touya's crimes weighting you down? It's not like Shouto has a choice in the matter, just as when he was a kid. The family wonders about the missing one's fate. Sometimes, Shouto gets messages from unknown numbers. He doesn't share them with anyone, except for Natsuo, who is still devastated about not using his one last chance to reconcile with the brother he had been so sorely missing for 8 years.

The ghosts of Toga, Shigaraki and Dabi live on, haunting the heroes who failed to save them. Himiko, Tenko and Touya also live on. They are very different from these ghosts.

[hulloitsdani]

Well if ain't the consequences of their own actions! How we feeling about the new FEH book guys?

[somewhereincairparavel]

Genuinely VERY confused, why is the majority of the fandom blaming Jason for the downfall of his friendship with Reyna?

i legit came across like a handful of comments today like "Reyna deserved much better than dirtbag Jason, he was such a jerk to her, choosing Piper over her and not talking to her after he came back to camp jupiter"

like?? stop over victimizing Reyna in this situation, it isnt even that serious lmao its just teenage drama, she doesn't need pity for this. both Reyna AND Jason were accountable for their crumbling friendship, it wasnt all on Jason. Reyna made PLENTY of mistakes too they are LITERAL teenagers, stuff like this is normal ffs. She didn't send a search party after Jason to look for him, she never held a memorial service for him even after the camp basically thought he was dead, she never initiated a conversation with Jason either after he came back, and practically avoided him the entire time completely (she flat out avoided eye contact with him in BOO and intentionally ONLY acknowledged Piper who was standing next to him)

Also, Reyna did literally the same thing to Jason that people are bashing him for, The fandom's problem with him is that he shouldnt have developed feelings for piper bc it "betrays his connection" with Reyna. But anyone ever thought about how Reyna developed feelings for Percy almost immediately after he came to camp while simultaneously claiming that she longed for a relationship with jason? if you put it in the fandom's logic, Reyna too, was "unloyal" to Jason, since she did not hesitate in giving a random new boy her best friend's position.

you cant tell me she wouldnt have gotten with percy if he were single. be so fr rn. but apparently its completely alright if she moved on from jason with percy, but its illegal if jason moved on from reyna with piper, right? they owed eachother absolutely nothing. They were just friends.

Jason had no reason to even think reyna liked him that way since she canonically avoided him thoroughly after the whole venus mess. so no. Just bc Reyna wasnt upfront with her feelings for him, does NOT mean he "lead" her on.

this situation isnt black or white, i think yall forget that they are both literal children

[numberoneredriotfan]

I love domestic rodydeku...

Rody leaning his head on Deku's shoulder while talking about his day, Deku playing with Rody's hair when he gets bored, the two playfully bickering with each other which turns into wrestling (in which Deku beats Rody every time), Pino flying over to give Deku a peck on the cheek whenever Deku is about to leave before Rody can, talking about Rody's siblings as if they were their own children, Deku picking up Rody whenever he feels like it (which Rody stopped protesting against eventually), Rody constantly picking at Deku.

Just everyday occurrences between them <3

[pinazee]

Can we take a moment to appreciate that emma was down to help bill get his daughter back even though it was incredibly dangerous and she just met him??

[welcometogrouchland]

I miss them so bad (Dick and Damian)

[evelynpr]

FINISHED WATCHING MHA MOVIE 2: HEROES RISING!!! SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVENT WATCHED IT

OH MY FUCKING GOD THIS WAS SO GOOD YO HOLY FUCK I LOVE IT AAAAAAAAAAAAA

This was truly My Bakudeku Academia. Watching that final battle felt like a religious experience- as if I was watching the birth of Christ. Holy fuck if that really was the original ending, with Deku passing OFA to Kacchan, and the whole "Oh it actually stayed with Deku and Bkg got amnesia" didn't happen, this would have been a dramatically different story moving forward.

Horikoshi really loves Bakugou- like absolutely no question. The story following this kind of ending would be about him continuing OFA's legacy with the guilt of a thousand suns on his shoulders for "taking away" Izuku's dream. Izuku would have continued the hero course as an actual quirkless student. I would love to see aus of this being canon and continuing their story from there.

I'm guessing Nine here was supposed to be AFO, and he would basically be gone too. Katsuma is perfectly set up to be the next protagonist (I can already imagine him using Cell Regeneration as Super Regeneration- he could become invincible while also healing others. Incredibly amazing quirk).

NUMBER ONE COMPLAINT I HAD WAS ADDRESSED. THE REST OF THE CLASS ACTUALLY DO FEEL STRONG AND USEFUL AND EVERYTHING AS SHIT I LOVE IT AAAAAAAA

YES MY GIRL OCHAKO FINALLY HAS HER BIG MOMENT FLOATING SO MUCH DEBRIS!!! I'M SO HAPPY- EVEN JIRO, AOYAMA, SHOJI, TOKOYAMI AND MORE HAD LEGIT GOOD SCENES AND FIGHTS I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHH THEY ARE SOOO COOLLLLL THEY GENUINELY GAVE IT THEIR ALL FUCK YEAHHHHH

(note. THAT WOLF GUY CALLED SHOJI UGLY- A FELLOW HETEROMORPH, CUS HE WAS PROJECTING HIS "MONSTER" ISSUES ON HIM HOW FUCKING DARE YOUUUUU)

THEY ALSO MAKE IT ACTUALLY MAKE MORE SENSE HOW THE WHOLE CLASS IS SEPARATED ON AN ISLAND TOGETHER AS A WHOLE CLASS THIS TIME TOO (and not just half like last movie). They even managed to tie it in to AFO, the LoV, and Hero Society. Like it actually feels more grounded and reasonable why the class would be here alone with supervision.

They even add hints of Touya Todoroki with him having a short battle with Endeavor, Hawks spying in the LoV, the HSPC head cameo, and other little things too. Man I loved this fucking movie I would watch it 10 more times right now.

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.

[frogaroundandfindout]

“I love the man you are dick, but you need to be happy with him too.”

“You have spent your whole life defining yourself by others. Putting yourself last. It’s an admirable quality dick. It’s what makes you a hero. Now you need to find out what makes you a man.”

“I love you Barbra. And I’ll always come back to you someday. I promise.”

Barbra writes a letter to dick encouraging him to go with Bruce because he needs to find out who he is outside of other people and learn to be happy with himself. Dick goes and leaves his ring behind with a letter and a picture of him and Babs.

[niko-ur-local-moron]

If Bones fucks this scene up in season 8, yall will be seeing me on the news

[brennbug]

Just watched world heroes mission and… nobody could slip my man a crisp $20??