#i get better at it in later chapters

[lunarharp]

scrappies cause HE'S BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 📖

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[bonefall]

if rainflower was given a dishonor title, what would it be?

also is mapleshade still killed by crookedstar in the BOTTE?

Definitely something related to animals they disrespect. I don't see him going as far as to hit her with "Cuckoo" but he'd want to center her cruelty and lack of compassion. "Lamprey" makes a fine choice, and there's also a disrespectful word in Clanmew for egg-laying animals that don't care for their young.

But, he would certainly not do it because Rainflower is popular. Hailstar is a smart cat, in spite of how long he spent denying the problem and justifying it (sometimes intellect just makes you better at making excuses). He knows full well that something like that could backfire politically.

There's a portion of the Clan who thinks he was wrong to punish her at all, and more who are in that nebulous state of not being totally sure if his response was justified or not. He took her child and stripped her of all status. If he went further than that, it would look like retribution... which it would be, and in another, more furious Clan, would have appeased the angry mob.

But this Clan isn't furious. The reception is mixed. Hailstar's goal isn't to make a big point, it's to protect Stormkit the way he should have done a long time ago.

The best plan of action is the action that makes this transition go smoothly. Rainflower does not need to wear a name like Lampreypool right now, to draw attention to her, to have the whole Clan be looking at her while she plays the poor, besieged victim of a cruel and unusual leader. She needs to be kept out of power, and away from Shellheart's son as the poor child recovers.

(Also Mapleshade didn't die in the Battle of the True Eclipse! Not in BB and not in canon's The Great Battle either, lmao. She's still around, chilling in the Dark Forest, haunting Applekin.)

[greenheartart]

A new chapter appears!

Anxiety is hard. Trust is harder. Everyone is just trying to do what they think is best, with mixed results.

[vynnyal]

This is a pretty good point in the wip to share this, methinks :]

Map part for the hole dwelling map, starring... Not my ocs! I wanted to use ocs, but I don't have any-- so I just used the characters from a fic I was reading at the time 😂

Turns out, the symbolism was so much fun to twist into the 11 seconds I had to work with, I ended up going way more complex than I meant to. If you wanna read the fic this was based on, please do!! And tell the author I said hi! :D

[jounosparticles]

please if the airport being obliterated means jouno is actually dead dead i will be torn to shreds. he was in the ceiling. that has been completely destroyed. do not do this to me asagiri.

[might-be-tiny-gt]

Listen to the Audio Next Chapter

Read The Story Index | First Chapter

Welcome to Chapter 1 of the TAoLaW "dramatic" reading. What can I say, the theatre kid in me needed to record this in audio format. Have I mentioned how much I love this fic? Yes? Well I'm saying it again, I LOVE THE ART OF LOVE AND WAR!!! If you haven't read it please go read it.

The Art of Love and War Is written by @fireflywritesgt and the audio reading is recorded and posted with permision.

[catamations]

Look what I gotttt 👀👀👀👀👀👀

[jamiesfootball]

Whoop, here it is!

Roy’s got a new job, a therapist, and a niece who isn’t around as much anymore. He’s got decades of anger that’s never seen the light of day. He’s got a coaching staff trying to move forward without Ted. He's got four footballers looking to him for answers, and one of them—the one that’s become a bit special to him—is hiding a ticking time bomb under goofy outfits and complaints about classic literature.

Roy’s got one month to get his shit together before the season starts.

[raytorosaurus]

i don't believe i've ever seen the clip of ray apologizing to mikey for the perfectionism while writing thing, would you happen to know what interview it's from? <3

yeah sure! it was tom bryant, who'd known the band a long time, interviewing them in 2011 for a ten-year retrospective (rebloggable here). they talked about tough times in the band's history, especially how they all lost their minds in the paramour - gerard and ray in particular got deeply obsessive about the album. even then, based on every interview i've seen, that was the height of the interpersonal tension between the four of them over the whole ten years. and they all openly acknowledged it and apologised and moved on...literally the least messy emo band ever 😭

this is the relevant part but the whole interview's a good read:

then tom bryant went into more detail on it in one of the tougher sections of not the life it seems to read:

and then talks about the immediate aftermath, which led to flw, which saved the album:

bryant's biography is definitely a little sensationalised or biased at times but honestly not as much as it could easily have been imo, and i like that he pointed out how brave of ray it was to make that apology so plainly. that was definitely one of the things that really drew me to ray early on - you can beat yourself up or put yourself down in a self-deprecating way over your flaws and mistakes or you can acknowledge them and consciously decide not to repeat them. and the second one isn't an easy thing to do so it's something i respect so much about him :')

[coquelicoq]

There are 60 million people in Britain. There are 200 million in America. (Can that be right?) How many millions of English-speakers other nations might add to the total I cannot even guess. I would be willing to bet, though, that in all those hundreds of millions not more than 50, at the outside, have read A. Roemer, Aristarchs Athetesen in der Homerkritik (Leipzig, 1912), a work untranslated from its native German and destined to remain so till the end of time. I joined the tiny band in 1985. I was 23. The first sentence of this little-known work runs as follows: Es ist wirklich Brach- und Neufeld, welches der Verfasser mit der Bearbeitung dieses Themas betreten und durchpflügt hat, so sonderbar auch diese Behauptung im ersten Augenblick klingen mag. I had taught myself German out of Teach Yourself German, and I recognised several words in this sentence at once: It is truly something and something which the something with the something of this something has something and something, so something also this something might something at first something. I deciphered the rest of the sentence by looking up the words Brachfeld, Neufeld, Verfasser, Bearbeitung, Themas, betreten, durchpflügt, sonderbar, Behauptung, Augenblick, and klingen in Langenscheidt's German-English dictionary.

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt, i, 1, p 17

[kayzero]

hello, fellow zero escape fans, i need your help with something

i’m trying to explore the world of vlr, an Earth ravaged by Radical-6, and how such a world might change Sigma Klim so drastically from pervy unserious college kid to one of the greatest omnidisciplinary scientists that has ever or will ever exist

but i don’t know everything, or even a lot of things, so i don’t know what topics to explore. but i am Very Good at rationalizing things i know very little about.

this is where you come in. please send me comments, reblogs, DMs, and asks with topics to write about from the POV of Sigma Klim. anything will do as long as it relates to the VLR timeline in some way, but more specifically i’m looking for things that fit in these three categories:

What Went Wrong (micro, local events, reports from crash keys. e.g. perception of free the soul cult rallies from ‘crazy rambling asshole’ to ‘prophetic messiah’)

What Changed (macro, global events, e.g. antimatter bombs and rhizome construction)

What Sigma Learned (science stuff of all sizes, as minor as clockwork as dexterity exercises or as major as robotic prosthesis)

[chanedart]

I miss my smug, calm, eccentric genius :(

[deeranon]

Aquaphobia ~ A Furina Story

Chapter: Special

Warning: badly written angst and identity issues, that’s really it

@idkfitememate hope you’re ready because I think I flopped halfway through—don’t know how proud I am of it but at least it’s out? I’m proud about getting it out at least!

Hope you like it, at least :)

___

Furina loved the people of Fontaine deeper than any ocean on Teyvat. But she could not say the same for herself. Five hundred years of acting was bound to corrode the girl that Furina once was into little pieces eventually.

And so, Furina sat in her dull bed like a doll left to its thoughts while the owner was away.

Because that was truly what she was when you looked at it, wasn’t it? A doll in a body that was never supposed to be her own. Sure, people said she was human. But they didn’t know what Furina knew.

Her body wasn’t her own.

It never was. And probably never will be.

A trail of shattered mirror shards led from the bathroom and onto the stone tiled floor, but Furina didn’t bother to pick up the pieces. White hair with natural blue streaks that faded to an ever-present dim glow was scattered on the cold bathroom floor.

Furina bled from hands that did not feel like her own. Furina never had a reason to take the gloves off for the first few years of her act, but ever since the day curiosity overtook her, she wished the gloves could have been glued to them like there was nothing underneath.

The hands were like the hair that Furina had cut off.

Fading to two different hues of blue, the left one a blue so dark it was reminiscent of the midnight zone in the ocean, while the right faded to a soft icy blue like the sky and clouds had blended together. Thick and thin streaks a shade lighter than the blue of each hand reminded Furina of rock patterns swirled around the fingers,giving the hands an already unnatural glow that seemed to hide just under the skin where the patterns lay.

Furina wished she could cut off the hands just as she did the hair. As if in retaliation for Furina not being the true owner of the body, the wounds on the hands stung like millions of small needles set on fire. But Furina did not bother bandaging the injuries obtained from breaking the mirror. She simply sat on the bed in the new apartment and stared at the waning moon.

Because what else was there to do? Go outside when the sun rises and act as if everything is okay and totally normal? Ha. What a joke. She was sure to be a living embarrassment. If Furina could even call this life. There would be pointed fingers and eyes and she would become a laughingstock. And absolutely no one would or will take her seriously again after what happened at her trial. So what was the point?

Furina slumped into cushy pillows and blankets that made her sick as she remembered the knave’s words. Standing idle. Doing nothing. Failed.

Furina had been furious at the younger woman for her behavior, and had almost completely lost her mask in front of the Traveler and Paimon, who Furina wished to never see again.

Now, Furina just felt blank thinking back on it.

What was the use of getting angry? That wasn’t even her Arlecchino was talking to. It was her masked act, focalors.

If Furina was so insistent about being free from her act, how come she couldn’t seem to let it go?

Was this what other humans called a hypocrite?

Maybe it was because she didn’t truly feel like…whoever she was supposed to be if she wasn’t acting as focalors.

The little girl living her first day of life, innocent and kind, had been oblivious of the pain to come. Maybe that was the true Furina. Who she was. Not “focalors” or the god of justice. Her.

But deep in Furina’s unowned heart, she knew that little girl had been killed by her own hands just to sell the part of god of justice. The girl, wide eyed and curious about life, now laid dead. Torn to shreds by the demands of humanity and the expectations of the true Focalors.

But Furina knew she had been the one to choke the girl to her end.

It was all for Fontaine. Furina thought as she stood over the girl’s body. Yet she did not realize how the body that held her lacking human mind cried without her knowing once again.

But the act is over now, and there is nothing left of you. You are unneeded. You have completed what you were solely made for. Now what? Furina’s mind echoed in the silence. Her brain could not give her an answer. It was simply too tired to think straight.

Five hundred years of meticulously planning every step, every smile, every reaction, every answer, wore her mind down until it turned numb to the needs of true emotion. The only emotions that remained above the tides were fear and exhaustion.

All Furina wanted to do was rest, yet she had always been terrified of the thought of letting her mind sink beneath the waves for so long. At some point in her act, Furina had dubbed sleep overrated and used the cold nights to plan the months and years ahead as she struggled to stop the ever-present prophecy. A prophecy she was told to prevent by the reflection in the mirror, when the reflection knew it couldn’t be prevented at all. The reflection that had lied.

Now, Furina wanted to sleep without fear on the second day of her life. But her mind still raced with unwanted thoughts of terror. And probably from the pain of wounded hands.

Furina knew she was going to have to get rid of the now bloody sheets in the morning, so Furina might as well get it over with now, right?

She stood on shaky ombré blue feet and yanked the thin bedsheets stained with blood off of the mattress, scattering pillows and crumpled piles of blankets everywhere. The wounds screamed in protest as she carried the sheets without even a single wince as the cloth rubbed against open skin.

Furina walked out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, feet already numb from the chilly tiled floor. She headed straight for the sink and dropped the crumbled ball of bedsheets into the basin before reaching for one of the faucet handles, only to pause the moment before skin touched metal.

The sound of rushing water filled her mind, and she stepped away from the sink with a sharp intake of breath.

Furina gagged as bile rose in her borrowed throat and rushed to the bathroom, uncaring for the glass shards digging into the soles of dark and light blue feet but fully aware of the sound of cracking glass. The sound echoed in her mind, reminding her of that day like a movie film stuck on repeat.

Whatever little food Furina had consumed the day before emptied itself into the toilet as Furina hunched over with tear blurred vision. Soft white hair brushed against a leg and only made Furina gag harder as she tried to control the sobbing. She wretched into the toilet once more. The sound of crunching glass only made her cry harder.

No.

No.

No.

Not again.

Furina’s mind screamed as its thoughts looped over and over again. Stuck in a never ending cycle.

Water.

Flood.

Prophecy.

Fake.

Water.

Flood.

Prophecy.

Fake.

Fake.

Fake.

Furina closed off her sense of vision in a desperate attempt to calm down while she quaked. Body trembling like a flower in the middle of a windstorm. Furina knew she was supposed to do something to calm down somehow. But what was she supposed to do again? Furina couldn’t remember. Just like she couldn’t remember anything from before her single magical meeting in this world. Why was she so forgetful? Why can’t she remember?

Shaky hands released the rim of the bile filled toilet to clamp around arms that were trembling just as much as the hands. Like all those years ago.

Everything was so cold.

Where was the warmth? It’s so cold here…

So cold…Furina was cold. The body she inhabited gave no warmth, it was like the iciest depths of the ocean personified. Furina hated it. Furina hated this body. It was so cold, why did it have to be cold? Why?

Why couldn’t it feel warm? Like a normal human that everyone claimed she was? Even when Furina knew she was anything but.

All Furina wished for now was for something in this world to protect her from the eternal cold, even for a single minute. Was that so wrong?

Yes, a shard of her mask whispered. Because you are the one who gives up your warmth for others no matter the cost.

Furina wished for something to share its warmth with her, for something to ward off the empty feeling where a heart was supposed to be. But in the end she knew this was all wishful thinking.

Limp hands brushed against jagged shards, but Furina did not wince. For she could not feel. Her borrowed body was wholly and completely cold. Fingers subconsciously reached out and gripped a shard of mirror, testing if she could feel as already open wounds deepened enough to scar. But there was no reaction.

Furina felt numb.

The glass started to crack as the grip on it tightened.

Furina felt cold.

New trails of blood seeped from a dark blue hand littered with wounds.

Furina felt willing to accept that she had no protector to shield her from the cold, from her fears, and from herself.

The shard dug into a midnight stained hand slicked with blood. But the longer the mind ignored the pain the harsher the grip on the dagger-like piece of mirror became.

The hand held on tighter.

And tighter.

And tighter.

And then, there was nothing.

Furina felt something wrap around the left wrist that was now covered in blood and reopened her vision to find out what it was. Because it felt warm.

Furina almost didn’t know what she was staring at. It looked like a boy, but at the same time it wasn’t a boy at all.

It looked like a boy made of some kind of water; soft pink and gentle purple and blue liquids sloshed together with glitter floating in the water in clusters like stars at night, making it nearly opaque but not quite.

The thing cradled the shard-embedded hand like it was made of glass, tilting its faceless head down to somehow stare sadly at the wounded appendage. It rubbed gentle circles into the dark blue skin before looking up at Furina and staring into heterochromatic eyes.

Furina stared back, noticing how its uneven bluish-pink water hair fell over its face while the rest was pulled into a long shoulder ponytail that shimmered with a dark blue bow also made from glittery water.

But none of that really mattered to Furina, because she wanted to know who it was and why it was here. Did it want something from her?

“Who are you?” Furina whispered hoarsely. There was no verbal reply.

The thing simply leaned forward and wrapped its arms around shaky shoulders in a hug filled with such tenderness Furina completely froze. She did not pull away and scream, nor did she push the water-creature back and run for the front door to escape from the supposed intruder. She just sat there, frozen as the thing carded its watery but somehow firm fingers through short white hair.

Because this was the first time Furina had ever been given a hug. And she didn’t know how to react or what to do.

Furina felt safe in the entity’s embrace, she felt warm. Like sunlight was streaming through a window and straight into Furina’s soul.

Furina felt protected, for the very first time in her life.

And so, Furina unknowingly started to cry. Not from sadness, but for joy.

Bloodied hands moved on their own and gripped at the entity’s shoulders as tears streamed down to the even bloodier ground. The thing didn’t seem to mind and only held Furina tighter, rubbing circles into shaking shoulders with one hand while the other continued to card through messily cut white hair. The thing couldn’t speak verbally in common tongue, or really it couldn’t speak verbally at all, but Furina could feel as it shushed and consoled her in a language all its own.

And in that moment, Furina thought of a name:

Jamarie.

The prince that protects others with the soul of a warrior.

Yes, that name fits it well. Furina thought as the world grew blurry and she welcomed sleep with ease while being cradled in Jamarie’s warm arms.

And for the first time in more than five hundred years, Furina dreamed peacefully.

[orcelito]

It is Now

My birthday 😌

I am now 27 💃

[iamthepulta]

aw, balls. I put off my take home final until this week because I've been out of sorts, and I was going to take today to relax and gather myself, but I forgot the deadline and the deadline is today.