#it's hard to see it as anything other than villainy

[icharchivist]

Lamorak's motivation is actually really interesting, I feel like you don't get to see that often. When does selfless lead you on the path to villainy, indeed

FOR REAL he fascinates me!!!

Like we joke and joke about how he's the "i can fix him" type of guy, but also like, how rare it is to have an antagonist being set up fully on the fact that he just wants to help the main antagonist getting better, even if it means playing along with the villainy yaknow?

And i just think it's fascinating, especially with the thematic going on with the Wales Brothers and all.

Aglovale dealt with his grief seeing everyone as the enemy, he became uncaring, unloving, seeing the worst in people even when they did nothing wrong to him.

Lamorak dealt with his grief the complete opposite way. He started to care too much, to love too much, to see why everyone walked with a broken heart just like he did, seeing constantly what good was inside a person no matter the amount of villainy in their action.

Percival is the one who balanced it out. He's kind and caring but if someone is acting vile, no matter their reason to act this way, he will not let it stand. He still has problems and everything, but ultimately he came out of it with a pretty healthy outlook on how to connect with people in a way neither of his brothers did, because Aglovale gave too little, and Lamorak gave too much.

And i also just adore how Lamorak's whole thing, the whole reason he's like this, is because he failed to heal his mother, and he failed to be able to develop healing magic, so he's going to "heal" people the only way he has left. He doesn't want failing healing people anymore, and since he can't heal them physically, he will heal them mentally, emotionally, as much as he can.

and this is because he has this healer motivation that he's currently an antagonist. He's villain because, at heart, he's a healer. How rare is that as well?

And of course his motivations on the long term is still to sabotage Merlin, to not have Merlin cause the destruction he seeks, but in order to save Merlin from his own grief, Lamorak still has to play along with his plans. He will bear the price of being a villain if it means staying at Merlin's side so that eventually down the line he could help him get better.

Lamorak is such a fascinating character and i'm obsessed with him.

[youlikegoodstuff]

2 years later…

All Might x arch nemesis! Reader

Gender is neutral.

Summary: it has been 2 years since you have retired your villainy due to undisclosed circumstances. Yagi goes to visit you in prison only to be surprised.

Tw: slight suggestive moments (not even that crazy, just some words that gets taken out of context lol). Swear words.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It has been 2 years, 4 months, and 6 days. 2 years, 4 months, and 6 days since Toshinori had last fought you. 2 years, 4 months, and 6 days since you were taken into Tartarus.

Yagi never kept track of last seeing someone unless they were important to him… and he had to admit to himself: You are important to him.

He made sure to visit his long time arch nemesis of 15 years every week.

Today would’ve been 17th year of being his arch nemesis… had you not been forced to retire days after your 15th anniversary due to an unfortunate event he never wants to think of…

But enough of that, he had issues in the present he was dealing with… like finding a successor… and visiting you again.

Sigh.

He had been really busy the past few months, what with preparing for his retirement and searching for a successor.

And yet, that wasn’t the only thing weighing on his mind…

He had to admit to himself: he missed you. The streets of Musutafu has been too quiet without you, too still.

He missed your presence, your voice, your… your everything.

Yagi sighed to himself as he pushed through the busy streets of the city. Today was the day he would finally go to see you. It had been too long, and for once, he was going to the prison to see you, not as a formality and not as an obligation.

He was going to see you because he wanted to see you.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t even see who he bumped into on the street…

Yagi came to a momentary halt as he was brought out of his musings by accidentally bumping into someone on the street.

He quickly regained his thoughts and looked at the person he had collided with.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was-“ as All Might’s eyes focused more and more on the person who he had bumped into, all of his breath left him.

There in front of him, on the street, was you…

Toshinori stood there, completely in shock, mouth agape and eyes wide. He was not hiding his shock that well…

He could tell, however, that you didn’t recognize him. No wonder, because he never showed his deflated form to anybody.

He still stood there just staring at you, while you were staring back, looking like you were trying to place him.

“…you alright, sir?” You asked while tilting your head.

He was in fact not alright.

He was just standing there, staring at you while his heart was thudding so loudly and so hard that he could hear it in his ears.

He finally found some words to say, but they still came out as a whisper.

“Y-yeah… I’m… I’m fine.”

Yagi could not believe his eyes. He had just visited you in Tartarus only a month ago, and now you were just… here.

He looked you over, dumbfounded, and could not take his eyes off of you. You looked so… so… so different to how you normally looked.

He had never seen you in anything other than your villain costume and the prisoner outfit. To see you wearing casual everyday clothes… it was such a huge shock.

“You sure, sir? You look like you seen a ghost.” You said casually.

Yagi quickly shook his head and snapped himself out of his reverie.

“No, no, I’m fine, really…” he said.

When and how were you out of Tartarus?

He wasn’t going to ask that as he knew it would blow his cover… so he changed the subject.

“I’m… very sorry about bumping into you, by the way,” he said with a sheepish smile.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I wasn’t really watching where I was going either.” You chuckled out before moving to walk past him.

“Enjoy the rest of your day, sir.” You said casually.

You were oddly so calm despite once being the super villain, Highland Havoc…

Yagi continued to stare at you as you started to walk away.

It was so bizarre, seeing you be so calm and so casual. The villain he knew was cunning, conniving and manipulative. The you he was so familiar with was always scheming and acting like a mischievous mastermind.

This you was so much different…

“H-hey!” Yagi called out before he knew what he was doing, his curiosity getting the better of him.

You paused for a moment before turning to look at him

“…is there a problem, lad?” You asked while looking at him questioningly.

Yagi froze for a moment when you paused and turned to look at him.

What the hell was he thinking?! He couldn’t very well ask you why and how you were out of Tartarus! You would immediately grow suspicious of him and his identity if he asked that!

“No problem, I…”

He wracked his brain on what to ask you instead and finally came up with something somewhat simple.

“Where are you off to?”

Smooth.

“…Cheba Hut.” You responded casually.

Yagi’s eyebrow raised. Cheba Hut was a sandwich restaurant, that he knew.

But why were you going there of all places so… casually?

“Oh? Having lunch?” he inquired.

“Aye. Nothing else to do at a restaurant but eat, lad.” You said with an amused smile.

Yagi chuckled at your obvious statement. He was still really surprised by how casual you were acting. It was throwing him for a real loop.

“Well yeah, obviously… but by yourself?” He asked.

“…Am I required to walk with someone to a sandwich shop?” You asked with an even more amused smile.

Yagi internally facepalmed at himself for asking that.

He was really terrible at this. His head was so full of questions and worry, but instead of asking the right ones, he was asking the really obvious ones.

“Err… no, no. You certainly are not…” he said, awkwardly fiddling with a strand of his shaggy hair.

The silence was awkward as shit… made even more so when Yagi’s stomach growled out.

Yagi internally screamed as his stomach made its loud declaration of hunger.

Why did that have to happen just as the silence was becoming uncomfortable enough? His stomach always growled at the most inopportune times!

He looked up at you with a somewhat sheepish look and chuckled awkwardly.

“Sorry, I haven’t had lunch yet.”

You simply snorted before giving him that amused look again.

“No worries, I’m not exactly fueled up on food either.” You said, patting your own stomach.

Yagi’s face reddened at the sound of you snorting at his predicament. He knew you were laughing at him.

“Well… uh,” he began, looking in the direction of Cheba Hut and contemplating what to say next.

He suddenly had an idea, and immediately wanted to smack himself again.

“Do you… err… mind if I tag along?” he asked.

“It’s a public space, you don’t gotta ask.” You said with a smirk before nodding your head over to the direction of the sandwich shop.

Damn, he was really was off his game this afternoon. He had to get himself together.

“Right…” he chuckled awkwardly, still fiddling with that strand of hair.

He started to walk beside you in the direction of Cheba Hut, looking down at you with an interested but confused look. He still couldn’t make sense of your odd change in demeanor.

The two of you walked in silence for a few minutes, which All Might found awkward and uncomfortable.

He had so many things he wanted to ask you, so many questions swimming in his head, but he didn’t dare ask any of them for fear of blowing his cover.

He looked at you from the corner of his eye, and finally decided to break the silence with an unrelated question.

“Do you… come to this sandwich shop often?”

A few people walked by, giving him odd looks. They were definitely scrutinizing his deflated form with disturbed or creeped out looks…

“Oh yeah. Almost 5 days a week.” You answered his question, still staring forward without a care with your hands in your pockets.

All Might had to suppress a snort at the stares he was getting. He knew he was getting looks of disgust and revulsion. They certainly weren’t used to seeing a gaunt, old, emaciated man walking besides a somewhat normal looking citizen.

He chuckled and was surprised that you admitted to visiting so often.

“Why so often? The sandos that good?”

You chuckled at this, covering your mouth before letting out a huff.

“…you call them sandos? Thats actually cute, lad.”

Yagi almost tripped and fell over at your response. He didn’t expect you to comment on his habit of saying “sando”.

He looked down at you in stunned surprise before a sheepish chuckle escaped his mouth.

“I’ve… uhh… gotten into the habit of calling them that… yeah,” he said with a slight flush to his cheeks.

“No no, don’t be embarrassed, I was just caught off guard. I don’t hear a lot of men like yourself giving food cute little nicknames.” You said with a laugh, instinctively patting his shoulder.

Yagi was surprised again. He was not expecting you to reach out and pat his boney shoulder without fear or repulsion, or even a hint of hesitation. In fact, your reach was so casual that it seemed almost instinctual….

He did not expect the warm feeling he got from your touch either. Your simple hand on his shoulder felt like the first warm ray of sunlight after a long winter.

He couldn’t tell you how much he had craved your company and your touch during the month that he didn’t see you…

Yagi’s thoughts were interrupted by a group of teenagers walking past them.

He heard hushed whispers between them as they passed, and one of them had the audacity to look at him and whisper a little louder “Why’re they hanging out with that old man?”

Yagi’s face fell for a second, and his fists balled up.

He hated it. He hated being looked at like an old, feeble man. He hated being the one looked down on and pitied at whenever he was out in public.

It hurt being seen as some old wreck due to something he couldn’t control…

“Well that’s cuz I’m 54, wee ones.”

You flashed a toothy grin, showing off your sharpened teeth to the now bewildered group of teens.

All Might’s eyes widened and he froze mid-walk as you called out to the teens.

He hadn’t been expecting such a brazen and casual response.

He had never really thought about your age before, but he definitely didn’t expect you to be 54…

He watched the teens jump at your words and immediately speed up.

Once the teenagers were out of earshot, All Might stared at you with wide eyes, stunned that you had said that to them.

“You…. you’re 54?” he asked, still not quite believing the information he had just been given.

“Yessir.” You said with a casual smile, not at all bothered by your older age.

He could hardly believe it. He always assumed he was a lot older than you, but it turns out you had a few years on him!

What baffled him more was the fact that you didn’t care that you were in your fifties. You should be in your midlife crisis state of mind, yet you were so nonchalant about it. It befuddled him.

The only proof you had of your older age was that small patch of silver hair that stuck out from your (h/c) hair like a (h/t) silver ribbon…

Yagi almost slapped himself again.

How had he missed that!?

He thought back to the past years that he had visited you, and he realized that you had always had that patch with that bullet proof glass between you two! How on earth did he never notice it??

“You like it? I know I do.” You said jokingly as you reached up tugged at the piece of silver hair that seemed to reflect light like metal or the scales of a gold fish.

Yagi snapped out of his self-deprecating thoughts, startled again by you.

He chuckled awkwardly.

“H-huh?” was all he managed to get out of his mouth. His brain was still in a loop, confused by everything that had just happened.

“You were looking at my silver souvenir for a hot minute there.” You said in a teasing manner, though not at all bothered.

The early November air and environment made the less populated area of Musutafu look so… what is the word? Yagi couldn’t think of a good word to describe it, but your silver hair reminded him of it.

Yagi’s eyes widened when he realized he was staring. He didn’t even know he’d been gawking at you for that long! He had been so stuck in his thoughts that he forgot his social cues.

He looked away, taking one more glance as the sunlight caught your hair and sparkled against the silver strands.

It was like you took a piece of a winter day and placed it in your hair…

“S-sorry, I just… I didn’t notice that before…” he said, still red in the face.

“I’m not offended.” You said with a chuckle before noticing Cheba Hut just up ahead.

“Brace yourself for some good shit, lad! I’ll buy.” You said while gently slapping him on the arm like you two were friends…

…Well, you could be considered friends, since he always visited you in prison. And even though you were arch enemies in the past, you being the #1 villain and him the #1 hero, the both of you were always friendly, acting more so like two best friends who rough house than actual enemies…

Yagi was slightly startled and confused by the “friendly” slap on the shoulder, but that familiar sense of comfort and warmth came over him again and calmed him down.

He was also surprised by you suddenly suggesting that you pay.

“Y-you don’t have to do that,” he muttered, still awkwardly fumbling with a strand of his shaggy hair.

“Why not? It is the 17th anniversary since I’ve been your arch nemesis, yeah?” You said with a smirk.

All Might’s eyes widened as you smirked at him and said his words from his last visit with you. He felt a chill run down his spine.

You knew.

You knew who he was.

And now he was terrified of how you were going to react.

He tried to calm his racing heart, but instead it just beat faster and faster in his chest. His face fell as he stopped walking in front of the sandwich place.

Instead of that look of pity, disappointment, or disgust that usually came with those finding out about his true form, you did not look bothered one bit.

If anything, you looked at him with a mischievous look, playful even.

“You didn’t actually think I wouldn’t recognize you, aye big man?” You said as you opened the door.

Yagi could not believe how calm and nonchalant you were about the whole thing. He had been expecting any other reaction other than the smug look on your face.

Did it not bother you? The fact that he was no longer the muscular, buff “Symbol Of Peace” that he had been since he inherited One For All. Was the fact that he might never be that buff again not an issue for you?

He followed you into the sandwich place slowly, still flabbergasted.

The moment the scent of food hit his nose, his stomach once again growled out loud. He nearly forgot you found out about a secret he kept from you and everyone else…

Fortunately, his brain turned back on and went back to the important topic at hand.

How the hell did you find out? did you know before hand or was he just that obvious.

He found a table for two and sat down, eyeing you carefully, almost warily, as you headed to the counter.

“What do ya want, Lad?” You asked.

You still didn’t know his real name thankfully, he managed to keep that secret locked for over 17 years of knowing you…

Yagi was still dumbfounded that you weren’t putting any pressure onto him despite knowing what he looked like now. You acted like this was a normal outing between friends instead of a possible disaster.

He sat at the table, watching you at the counter, before he heard you ask him what he wanted.

“O-oh, um… a chicken and cheddar, I guess…” he called out to you.

You chuckled and shook your head before giving him an amused look.

“You gotta read the menu, you dork. They’re not simple sandwiches like Subway.” You said while nodding towards the large menu.

Sure enough, the sandwiches were not simple at all, having lots of ingredients as well as funny names to go with them.

Even the sizes were labeled… nugget, pinner… and Blunt.

Yagi looked over the menu with befuddlement at all the different sandos and ingredients he could pick from.

Yeah. This was nothing like Subway.

He looked over the sizes and found “pinners” and blunts, and a thought came to his mind about the “blunt” option.

He smirked, imagining taking a single bite out of an enormous sandwich and having half its filling fall right out onto his lap.

“D-do… do people actually ask for the blunts?” he asked.

“It’s the biggest size for a sandwich here.” You said while still smirking.

“And trust me on this. You’ll want the blunt.”

His mind went somewhere else when you mentioned he’d want the blunt. Your voice sounded flirty for a second, and it made his cheeks warm a bit.

He quickly cleared his throat and chuckled awkwardly, trying to hide his pink cheeks behind a hand as you pulled out your card.

“H-haha! I guess I’ll give the… uhh… blunt a shot.”

“Alright. You said you wanted something with chicken and cheddar, right?” You asked.

“Why not try the Midwest Best? Thats the closest thing you’ll get to a regular chicken and cheddar… not that you’ll want it to be when you take a bite~”

You winked at him while saying that.

Either you were hinting at something, or you were hinting at him falling for the Midwest Best sando…

his eyes widened at your words. The words “Midwest Best” and you winking at him, sounded very suggestive to him, but he didn’t know if you meant it to be that way, or if he just had a perverted mind.

He cleared his throat again to try hiding his flustered state.

“I’ll… I’ll try the Midwest Best… y-yeah” he managed to say.

“Alright! Prepare your ass, Goldie locks, this is going to be the best damn sandwich you’ll ever have the pleasure of biting into!” You exclaimed while the cashier typed in his order.

His face went an even deeper shade of red as his thoughts ran wild again.

Do you even know what you’re saying? How can you be making this sound so suggestive??

“Y-yeah, I’m getting… excited in anticipation for the Midwest Best…” he said in a wobbly voice.

Get it together, man!!!!

All Might mentally beat himself up in his mind, trying to ignore that dirty train of thought.

He just had to be so perverted.

No, stop. Focus on something else. Focus on the food. Focus on the…

Damn, focus on anything but what they said…

(To be continued)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Yeah just some fluff.

All Might still hasn’t found his successor, but he did find a daaaaaate~

We’ll see how it all goes.

[coraniaid]

#19 for person of interest and #2 for willow rosenberg

#19 ... one behind-the-scenes trivia fact I've learned somewhere and my thoughts on it.

I honestly don't really know that much trivia about Person of Interest. One thing I think I remember reading somewhere once is that the writers originally cast Amy Acker to play [a version of] Caroline Turing and only quite late in production decided on the twist that Caroline Turing was actually an alias for Root [at which point, presumably, they renamed her character, because she probably wasn't called 'Turing' before that].

Which is kind of amazing to me, if it's true: Amy Acker as Root is such a huge part of the show that's it's strange to think it almost didn't happen [and, presumably, the show itself would have gone off in an entirely different direction in Season 2 without Root: we'd have seen a lot more of Alicia Corwin for a start].

But, well, I can't find the original claim now and even if I did it probably didn't have any particularly solid proof to back it up. So maybe it's not true at all. (I think it's obvious that the writers hadn't yet cast Amy Acker as Root in Season 1's Root Cause, but that's a much less interesting claim to me).

#2 ... ...how I would have chosen to change their story from canon

Not an original take, I suppose, but to me the big problem with Willow's arc is the way that everything the show has been building up to since (at least) Becoming gets utterly derailed by the Willow-as-a-metaphorical-drug-addict subplot in Season 6. And, yeah, I can see arguments for this subplot: magic had been used as a metaphor for drug abuse before, and it does fit with Season 6's wider theme of exposing the characters to more bleakly quotidian problems like bills and dead-end jobs and (metaphorical) battles with social workers. But it just doesn't work for Willow or her arc. Willow's descent into villainy ends up being almost something that happens to her [because of bad actors like Amy or Rack or Warren] rather than something that evolves naturally from her own flaws.

And that's frustrating, because the show's already spent a lot of time setting up Willow's character flaws and how they will surely lead to tension between her and Tara and her and Buffy. We know Willow has self-image problems ["I'm not your sidekick!" she snaps at Buffy in Fear Itself], that she's afraid that people won't like her if they see the real version of her [see her dream in Restless for example], that she compensates for this by trying to help everyone and make herself useful ["I want to help", she tells Buffy in The Harvest, "I need to"].

We know Willow is prone to being jealous when other people get attention despite (in her eyes) not working as hard for it as she's had to or when they threaten to come between her and the people she loves [see: Faith in Season 3, Anya in Season 5]. We know Willow is very often unsympathetic to other people's problems if she can't personally relate to them [see ... well, many examples, but in particular Buffy in Dead Man's Party].

We know that Willow's been getting into magic to an extent that worries all the other sympathetic magically-aware people we know. We know that Willow has a strong sense of herself as a 'good person' despite the fact she often does things that are illegal or dangerous or unwise. We know that Willow is proud of her intelligence and her accomplishments and that she often ignores advice she doesn't like or lashes out at people she thinks are talking down to her [see, for example, the way she talks to Tara in their fight in Tough Love]. We know Willow has had trouble respecting other people's wishes and that her first reaction to relationships going wrong is to try to work out how she can "make" people forgive her [how she reacts to Oz discovering her with Xander in Season 3, for example].

None of this has anything to do with Willow being tricked into being a magical drug addict by a girl who used to be her pet rat. It just doesn't.

In my ideal version of Season 6, Tara still leaves Willow (for much the same reason she does in canon: Willow not respecting her boundaries, using magic to mess with her memories to 'resolve' arguments they have) and Willow still reacts terribly (and manages to de-rattify Amy). But Rack doesn't exist and more generally Amy is not at all the person she is in canon who pushes Willow to use magic more and more because she's some sort of self-destructive hedonist.

Amy should be more or less the same person she was halfway through Season 3. She shouldn't be luring Willow into drug dens [drug dens which she shouldn't even know about!]. She shouldn't suddenly be recast as a Bad Influence. She should be more or less the person she was in Gingerbread. She should be (honestly) amazed by how much better at magic Willow's gotten since high school. She should think of Willow as her friend and try to 'stand up for her' because she (thinks she) knows that Willow lets people push her around too easily. She should (unintentioally) feed Willow's ego: tell her that she's perfectly in the right and it's everyone else who's over-reacting to her growing magical strength.

And yes, maybe eventually she should start directly encouraging Willow to misuse magic (to help her 'fix' her relationship with her Dad, for example, or to get back into college despite technically not finishing high school). But it should be a gradual process. It shouldn't be something that starts fan theories about Catherine Madison somehow posessing her again. And the narrative should [and I can't stress how much it doesn't do this] care the slightest bit about Amy herself as a person, and recognize that she has gone through something awful and traumatic.

Amy's role in the plot of Season 6 should be to encourage Willow to keep telling herself she can use magic all the time whatever anyone else says because she's a good person. She should enable Willow, sure, but not intentionally. She's been a rat since she was 17; she shouldn't know things about the world she didn't know three years ago (except rat things, I guess). She shouldn't force Willow to do magic or trick her into it, because then what happens to Willow is no longer a consequence of who Willow is as a person.

You can make Amy a catalyst for Willow's continued bad behaviour without making her deliberately evil. You just need to make Willow the more active partner in their relationship. Wilow should be the one to decide to keep using magic but just keep it hidden; the one who keeps finding excuses for why she can treat people like objects and still be a good person; the one who keeps redefining where the line is everytime she steps over it. Until eventually Willow goes too far even for Amy, and she has to reckon with what she's been doing all this time.

And that makes Season 7 Willow works better too, because she's actually got something real to feel guilty about. She's not just sorry that after Tara died she reacted by temporarily going a bit crazy and having a relapse into her former addiction [and then being persuaded by some bad magical energy she absorbed into wanting to end the world]. She should be sorry about what she deliberately did to Tara (and to Amy, and to Buffy, and to Dawn, and to everyone else), not what she almost did to the world when she wasn't in her right mind.

I mean, sure, you can keep Warren killing Tara if you want [I'm not sure I would, but...]. Play up the parallels between Warren and Willow, even. Keep Willow killing him and trying to kill Jonathan and Andrew. Keep her trying to end the world, too. But the fundamental moral agency should be Willow's.

Her arc shouldn't be a temporary drug habit she's tricked into by her Bad Friend followed by going cold turkey for a bit and then relapsing after a random horrible event. She shouldn't decide to end the world because a coven of witches we've never met use Giles as a proxy for some elaborate and almost self-defeating 11-dimensional chess game (I quite like Grave, all in all, but that particular twist is infuriatingly stupid). Willow should drive her Season 6 arc by being Willow, only worse. By being the same "callous and deeply strange" Willow we know from the high school seasons, just more so, one who ignores Buffy's advice from Ted to "use [her] powers for good".

The writers shouldn't be afraid to acknowledge that Willow Rosenberg (who, to be clear, is one of my favorite characters in fiction) actually does have the capacity to be a bad person without external factors forcing her into it.

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 8) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9

Chapter 8

“I can’t believe this is happening,” the high school student at the front desk says for the millionth time. “He must be so scared.”

“That kid? No way. He’s probably killed half the League already.” One of the nurses scoffs. “He’ll be fine. The heroes will handle this and put an end to that mess before you know it.”

You’ve been hearing versions of this conversation for the last three days, and you were bored of them on day one. It’s an effort not to roll your eyes. “But he got kidnapped,” the high schooler says again. “He probably doesn’t even know what happened to his friends, if they’re okay –”

“The other students are okay,” you say. “I heard two of them are still unconscious, but they think they’ll be fine. Their lungs were just more sensitive to the gas than the others’ were.”

“Was it really mustard gas?” the high schooler asks, and you shake your head. “How do you know?”

“A friend of mine,” you say. You’re not talking about Tenko. “He’s helping the heroes gather intel. He says it’s more like Midnight’s sleeping gas, but with a cumulative exposure effect.”

“The news said that kid was in high school,” a passing doctor says. “What are we doing wrong that kids in high school are turning to villainy?”

“It’s a problem with the villain, not with us.”

You can’t hold in the derisive sound you make, and all three of them turn to you. “What is it?” the doctor asks. “You don’t agree?”

“I just think it’s weird for people who see what we see every day to act like every villain is just born bad,” you say. Your colleagues stare at you. “Some of our patients feel trapped. A lot more of them feel helpless, or hopeless. Most of them have had hard lives, and no one’s helped them or saved them. If they feel invisible in their suffering, it’s not hard to imagine why some of those people lash out. Not even to hurt others. Just to be seen.”

You know what it’s like to feel hopeless, to feel invisible. To feel angry and know that your anger doesn’t matter, because you don’t matter in the first place. You turned that feeling inward, but most people aim it out. “People don’t become villains because they’re happy with their lives, or who they are. The way the world works makes a lot of people unhappy.”

“Young people – present company excepted – want everything handed to them,” the doctor says. He gestures at you and the high schooler. “If we had more people like the two of you, it would be a different story. You know how to work hard.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” you say. You’re not making your point well. You try again. “The villains who currently exist are the heroes’ job. It’s our job as a society to stop new villains from arising. The only way to do that is to make things better for everybody.”

“Of course,” the nurse says tiredly. She’s probably been working at the clinic longer than you and the doctor combined, and longer than the high schooler’s been alive. “When you figure that one out, honey, let me know.”

You’d love to. Really. Lately the difference between what you feel and what you think has been growing, so fast that it’s consuming every thought in its wake. Kazuo might be right from a legal standpoint that not stopping something isn’t the same thing as aiding and abetting it, but that doesn’t change how it feels. The attack on the training camp succeeded. The psychopathic student was kidnapped. Students were hurt. Pro heroes were hurt. One hero is missing. Moonfish, Mustard, and Muscular were all captured. And you knew it was happening ahead of time.

This time, you weren’t powerless to stop Tenko’s plans. You could have contacted UA and warned them that the location of their summer training camp had been compromised, that villains were planning an attack. You could have done it without endangering Tenko – he wouldn’t have even been there, and with Kurogiri’s protocol of warping everyone to and from the hideout, none of the others could have revealed his location if they were captured. You could have stopped this. Part of you wishes you had.

And part of you can’t stop picturing the look on Tenko’s face if he found out you betrayed his trust. The hurt you’d see there in the moments before he sealed it away. He’d probably kill you, and you’d feel so guilty that you’d probably want him to – but it’s not the fear of death that keeps you quiet. It’s the fear of losing him again, by your own fault this time. So you’ll take the guilt over the attack on UA’s training camp, the kidnapped student, the missing hero. You’d rather feel sick over that than hollowed out by losing your best friend.

You’re on the night shift, but it’s slow tonight, and when the high schooler turns on the TV in the waiting room, you don’t stop her. UA is having a press conference, with the principal and the two teachers who were there at the training camp apologizing for allowing the students to be put at risk again. You shouldn’t feel guilty, but you do, and you almost ask the high schooler to turn it off – but then the hero whose student was kidnapped starts defending said student, and you get annoyed. “That’s not what he’s like?” You mimic the hero’s flat, almost-affectless voice, then revert to your own. “Bullshit. That’s exactly what he’s like.”

“Huh?” The high schooler looks at you, surprised – or maybe offended. “That’s his teacher. He knows him better than you do. You’ve never met him.”

“I’ve met dozens of him. I know what they’re like.” You think of your siblings, the twins, the triplets. You think of the people who made your life hell until you made stronger friends. “You know who knows that kid better than his teacher? Everybody that kid has ever picked on. They only show who they really are to people who can’t hit them back.”

The high schooler is staring now. “I’ve never heard you say that much about anything before.”

You step out from behind the desk and head to the lobby for a little cleaning. “I only get one outburst per month. You can tune in next time.” In general, you’re not reactive – growing up, you weren’t allowed to react to anything – but ever since you found Tenko, you’ve found it harder and harder to hold in your frustration with the way things are. Your viewpoint doesn’t align with the League of Villains or with Stain, because you don’t think that dismantling the heroic system would automatically create a better world, but lately you can’t shut up about the things that are wrong.

Employment and housing discrimination against quirkless people and heteromorphs, and the total lack of anti-discrimination laws. The constant threat of violence, triggered so often by heroes pursuing nonviolent criminals, in situations where violence shouldn’t be necessary. The disinterest most ordinary people show in helping anyone, changing anything, because they expect heroes to do it for them. Things people who have power never see or think about. Things you’ve been living with since you were a child.

Seeing the heroic system come tumbling down won’t fix any of that. All it will do is put the privileged on the same level as you are, force them to play by the same rules you’ve had to follow. And some part of you thinks that would be a nice thing to see. After all, you’ve been playing this game your whole life. For once, you’d like to have the advantage.

The UA press conference is just concluding when you feel the first vibration, a low deep hum traveling through the air. A chill goes down your spine, and you look up from cleaning the air conditioning filter in the lobby to the high schooler behind the desk, only to find her already looking at you. The TV switches to breaking news with a blast of trumpets, announcing that All Might and various heroes have teamed up to rescue Bakugou of Class 1-A, but even as they’re announcing the good news, another vibration travels through the air. A moment later, a similar vibration travels through the ground. Somewhere in the distance, you hear a crash – an enormously loud sound, coming from just far enough away to avoid rupturing your eardrums. Not far enough to avoid rupturing anything else.

“Get down!” you shout, diving for cover, and the high schooler drops behind the counter just in time for the windows to blow apart, spraying glass across the lobby.

Now you can hear explosions. Or you could, if your ears weren’t ringing. When you look out the shattered windows, you see a sky that should be cloudy and dark blue turning unearthly purple and orange. As the ringing in your ears dies down, you hear screams, sirens, the whirring of helicopter blades. Something terrible is happening.

You struggle to your knees, then your feet, doing your best to avoid the broken glass. “Are you okay?” you shout to the high schooler. You hear a whimper from behind the desk, and a split second later, the phone starts to ring. “Can you grab that?”

No answer. You stumble through the glass, kicking piles of it aside, and find the high schooler crouched behind the desk, shaking. She doesn’t look hurt. Shell-shocked, sure, but not hurt. You aren’t seeing blood. You grab the phone. “Yokohama Free Clinic South. How can I help you?”

“This is Yokohama PD. Your building has been designated as an evacuation site. Please prepare to receive evacuees from Kamino Ward.”

“Kamino Ward?” You fumble the clinic’s disaster preparedness binder out of the desk and start flipping frantically through it. “Our windows are gone from the shockwave that just came through. Is that going to be a problem?”

“Is the building still standing?” The officer on the other end doesn’t wait for confirmation. “The first evacuees should be arriving within minutes. Once the hospitals are full, the remaining casualties will be directed to you.”

“What? We’re an urgent care, not a mass casualty –” The line goes dead and you stare at it in horror. The rest of the night shift, doctors and nurses and techs, are just emerging from the back of the clinic. You turn to look at them and try to convey the information as quickly and efficiently as possible. “Evacuees from Kamino Ward are coming here. Once the hospitals are full, the casualties will be coming here, too.”

“What’s happening in Kamino Ward?”

“Look.” The high schooler’s voice is almost as shaky as her hand as she points to the TV. You do as she says and everything gets worse in a heartbeat.

Kamino Ward is gone. It’s a smoking crater, ringed by the ruins of buildings, and in the center of it all stand a collection of small figures. Half your thoughts come to a stop on the buildings, on how many people must be trapped in the wreckage. The rest are with the group of people in the crater. Wherever the news feed is coming from, whoever’s filming zooms in until you can see their faces. All Might’s there. So is Tenko’s master. And so is Tenko, him and the rest of the League, everyone who wasn’t captured after the attack on the training camp – alongside the student they kidnapped.

LIVE: All Might fights unknown villain, the scroll at the bottom of the screen says. Kamino Ward leveled. Rescue efforts underway.

Two of your friends live in Kamino Ward. Your mind floods with emotion, the leaks in your defense mechanisms coming from a dozen different sources. Worry for your friends, panic about the evacuees who are about to descend on your clinic and the casualties that are sure to follow, terror that the fight will break from Kamino Ward and come to you. Fear for Tenko, who’s right there in the middle of it all. Shame over the fact that when you realized he was there, your fear for him drowned everything else in a split second.

But you don’t have time for worry or panic or shame or fear, because you can hear voices in the street. People are coming here, looking for shelter, and there’s glass all over the floor of the lobby. “We need to clean this up,” you call out to the others, even as you run for a broom. “We have to hurry.”

Somebody yanks the broom out of your hands and passes it to one of the CNAs. The doctor forces the disaster preparedness binder into your hands instead, only for one of the older nurses to snatch it away. “Put her on triage. We need to keep them calm and we need to move fast.”

You’re good at those two things when the lobby is full. Not when an absurd number of people are being directed your way. You pull the blinds over the glassless windows, hoping it’ll stop people from seeing them as entry points to the building, and prop open the door, stationing yourself just inside it. When you see the crowd coming down the street, led by an overwhelmed-looking police officer and two minor heroes from the area, you take a deep breath and do everything you can to clear your mind.

“Get a list of who’s here,” the nurse who took the disaster preparedness binder hisses in your ear. “Uninjured to the right and left, injured to the front.”

“Got it,” you say. Someone drops a pile of nametags and a permanent marker into your hands. That’ll work. One of the heroes has jogged ahead to meet you, and you square up. “Get everybody in a line. Keep families together. We’ll take care of the rest. How many do you have?”

“A hundred, plus or minus twenty. Some fell behind.”

And those are probably the injured ones. “Go back and pick them up,” you say. “We’ll handle this.”

The hero conveys your instructions to the others, and a line begins to form. You address the first person in line – a grey-haired man, carrying what looks like either a grandchild or a random kid. “Family name, first initial,” you say. Iwamura K, granddaughter Iwamura T. “Injuries?”

None. You peel off the stickers, apply them to each evacuee’s arm, then herd them inside. “Next?”

Your handwriting gets worse and worse with every nametag, but you’re moving fast. You screw up the system you were supposed to implement almost immediately. Uninjured evacuees go to the right side of the lobby. Injured ones go to the left, where the other nurses are waiting to triage them more effectively. All the while the air vibrates with distant blows and you vibrate with it, your mind teetering between focusing on the tasks at hand and worrying about your friends, about Tenko. You’re scared that one of your friends will come through the door on a stretcher. You’re scared that Tenko won’t come back at all.

The phone rings somewhere behind you while you’ve still got dozens of people in line, and a moment later, the high schooler shouts to you. “The teaching hospital’s full and the route to Yokohama General is cut off. They’re directing casualties here.”

Fuck. When you find out who cut off the route to the city’s biggest, most modern hospital, you’re going to break your foot off in their ass. That goes double if the guilty party is Tenko’s master. You start hustling people into the building at top speed, trying to think of which entrance will be best to direct the ambulances to. The rear entrance, probably. Somebody else will have to take care of that. You’ve still got people coming through the door.

The closer to the back of the line you get, the more damage the evacuees are working with. The last few are covered with dust, their clothes torn, their bodies already bruising. You try to ask them what happened, but your words are drowned out by a collective gasp, followed by dead silence from inside the building. The TV is still going, the words tinny and distant, but you hear the first person who speaks up loud and clear. It’s a kid. “Mama, what’s wrong with All Might?”

The noise comes back up immediately, leaving you with no idea what’s happening, no idea if All Might’s been defeated or killed, no idea whether the fight’s shifting, heading this way. You hear ambulance sirens wailing, getting louder with every passing second, and someone yanks your arm. You turn to find one of the medical assistants. “Go to the back. They want you helping with the ambulances.”

You don’t want you helping with the ambulances. You’re good under pressure, but not that kind of pressure. Not the kind where someone will die if you screw it up. You try to reason with yourself as you weave through the lobby and head down the hall, aiming for the back doors. You’re not running point on any of these cases. Your job is to assist the doctors and the nurse-practitioners. They’ll tell you what to do. You just have to do it. It’ll be fine. You think that, and keep thinking it, right up until you put on your mask and gloves and turn around to find yourself facing a patient whose legs have been crushed below the knee.

It’s awful. There’s blood and sinew and tissue everywhere, and sharp fragments of bone emanating from the exposed kneecap. Bitter saliva floods your mouth and your stomach turns, threatening to upend itself, but you grew up with siblings who could make you vomit on their command. You learned to resist them, and this – you clench your jaw and step forward. “How can I help?”

“Pinch off the femoral artery on the left side.” The doctor’s face is pale. The patient is unconscious, must be unconscious, because otherwise you can’t imagine the doctor saying what he says next. “We’re in hell.”

You’re not given to dramatic statements, but as the time wears on, you start to agree with him. You lose track of which patients you’re seeing. It’s all you can do to remember to switch gloves between patients. Your scrubs get sprayed with blood, but you can’t change them. There’s not time. The site commander for whatever’s happening in Kamino Ward sent your clinic twelve patients who should have gone to Yokohama General. You can’t save them. Your job is to keep them alive long enough to transport them to the people who can.

It’s a task you fail once, twice, three times, five times. One of the nurses, someone who worked somewhere else before coming here, tells you that the patients wouldn’t have made it anyway, but it doesn’t help. Even with the EMTs of the ambulances staying to lend a hand, there aren’t enough hands, not enough eyes to spot the signs of someone crashing and not enough mouths to call out a warning. You lose five, stabilize seven. If this goes on much longer, you might lose them all.

News of what’s happening in Kamino Ward trickles back slowly. All Might’s deflated, or decrepit. Skeletal. Disfigured. All Might’s getting an assist from the Number Two hero – Hiro will be thrilled. All Might’s winning. All Might’s won, but the League of Villains has escaped. All of them except their backer – All For One.

All For One. It’s not a villain name you’ve heard before, but you’re pretty sure that’s Tenko’s master. Whoever he is, wherever he came from, he was strong enough to hurt All Might, to nearly kill All Might. If he could do that, what the hell does he need Tenko for? What’s going to happen to Tenko with his backer gone? Where is the League going to go? You’re pretty sure they can’t go back to their hideout – it was where they were planning to take the captured student, and if they and the student wound up in Kamino Ward, something went wrong. Where’s Tenko now?

That’s not your problem right now. Your problem is your patients, and whether or not any of them will still be alive by the time the route to Yokohama General reopens. You throw yourself back into work. Back into hell.

Relief eventually arrives in the form of basically every off-duty staff member – all of them who don’t live in Kamino, that is. You stay in the mix, not wanting to be the first one to call for help. You’re not that tired, anyway. You just got on shift at six. You have a long way to go before –

“It’s seven am. Get out,” your supervisor says, and you stare blankly at her. Seven am? That can’t be right. It was midnight two seconds ago. “This patient’s stable, and the route to Yokohama General is finally open. Transfer them and go home. With all the repairs we’ll have to make, we can’t afford to pay you overtime.”

Transfer, then home. You transfer the patient, who hasn’t been conscious once since they arrived in the clinic with a skull fracture wide enough to see their brain through, to the waiting EMTs, and then you go looking for a change of clothes. There isn’t one. You’ll be wearing this home. You wade through another crowd of people to clock out, then step out onto the street. The trains probably aren’t working, but that’s fine. It’s not that far. You can walk.

The sky is still purple and orange. Clouds of smoke are billowing up from whatever happened in Kamino Ward, and you can smell it, along with gasoline and ozone and who knows how many other acrid stenches. You check your phone as you walk and find frantic messages from your friends, everyone trying to confirm that everyone else is alive. You tap out a message confirming that you were at work and you’re fine. Then you put your phone away and trudge the rest of the way home.

After the noise of the clinic, unabated for hours upon hours, your apartment building is weirdly quiet. At this time of day people should be up, getting ready for work, getting their kids ready for school, but instead it feels like time’s stopped. Maybe they left. Maybe they’re in an evacuation shelter somewhere. You don’t know. You unlock the door to your apartment and step inside – and freeze.

Your apartment should be empty. It isn’t. Your apartment is full of people, and you’ve met them all at least once before – Spinner, Dabi, Magne, Compress, Twice, Toga. Kurogiri. Tenko. No, Tomura. They’re all staring at you, just like you’re staring at them.

Toga’s the first one to speak. “So that’s what you look like,” she says, smiling. “I knew you were cute!”

“Don’t scream,” Tomura says. You shut your mouth and shake your head. He looks you up and down, frowning. “Whose blood is that?”

“At work. I was at work. We got some of the casualties from – from Kamino –” You’re stammering. You’re making approximately zero sense. There’s only one question that matters. “What are you doing here?”

Nobody answers you. Dabi’s mouth contorts into a sneer. “No wonder you wouldn’t show your face before. You’re a fucking civilian.”

“Yeah, she’s a civilian. That’s why her place is safe to stay at,” Tomura snaps at him. He turns back to you, the frown still present behind the hand. “Is all that blood somebody else’s?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.” You don’t feel fine. You feel numb, but your heart is racing so fast that you’re worried you might faint. “Did anybody see you? Or hear you?”

“Kurogiri delivered us right to your living room,” Compress says. “We’ve been quiet. Most of us.”

He’s aiming a dirty look at Magne, who glares back. “It hurts,” she snaps. “If somebody stabbed you in the chest –”

Your stomach lurches. “Stabbed?”

“I hit my face on that giant hero’s face. Do you hear me complaining?”

“You were stabbed?” You step around Tomura and cross the room to where Magne’s sprawled in one of your armchairs. “How long ago? Is it still bleeding?”

“Not with a knife,” Magne says. With what, then? “Boss’s daddy forcibly activated my quirk with his hideous little tentacles.”

There’s nothing about that sentence that you don’t hate. “The same thing happened to Kurogiri,” Spinner adds. He’s leaning against the wall. Grimacing. “A hero messed with him first, though.”

The answer to the question of why they’re here finally clicks in your overworked, exhausted brain. You’re the team medic, and they’ve all been hurt. They need you to do the same thing you’ve been doing all night, when all you want to do is peel off your bloody clothes and go to sleep. Instead, you need to triage. “Okay, who took an injury that knocked them out?”

Hands go up – Magne, Dabi, Kurogiri. Compress might have a facial fracture, based on the way his mask is askew. Spinner’s ribs hurt, but he never lost consciousness, and he’s not bleeding from anywhere. Twice, Toga, and Tomura are all beaten up but otherwise fine. You point them in the direction of the freezer so they can put together some ice packs, then turn your attention to the group who passed out.

Of the three of them, Dabi was unconscious the longest, and his injury was a head injury. He threw up when he regained consciousness, although thankfully not on your floor or your couch. He reports a splitting headache, and when you shine the penlight from your keychain in his eyes, you see that one of his pupils isn’t reacting normally to the light. That’s not a good sign. “Do you remember what happened immediately before the blow to the head?”

“Why do you want to know? So you can make your story sound better for the cops?”

“No, I’m testing your memory. It’s an indicator for the severity of the concussion. Track my finger with your eyes.” You observe his eye movements. It could go either way. “What happened before you were struck?”

“The damn kid turned us down. Who does he think he is?” Dabi scoffs. “Shigaraki told Compress to turn him loose, like a fucking moron, and then the fucking heroes broke through the wall. One of them kicked me and that’s all I remember.”

“Kicked you in the head?”

“That’s right.” Dabi groans. “Fuck off with that light in my face.”

You put the penlight away and think through your options. “I’m going to give you some medicine. Over-the-counter NSAIDs –”

“What?”

“Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs,” Tomura says. You glance at him, surprised, and find him smiling slightly from behind the hand. “Acetaminophen or ibuprofen. They’re over the counter. You can get them without a prescription.”

“I know what over the counter means,” Dabi snaps. “I didn’t ask you. I asked the medic. Do you have some?”

“Yeah. Acetaminophen’s best for this. The bottles are opened, but I’m going to go get them – Twice, will you come with me and watch me get them?” you ask. Twice looks startled. “You can watch me and tell Dabi that I’m not tampering with the pills at all.”

“I’m not that fucking paranoid,” Dabi says. But he doesn’t tell Twice not to follow you.

You’ve been wondering if Twice remembers you. So far it seems like he doesn’t, but something jogs his memory as you come back with the bottles. “I knew I’d seen you before,” he announces loudly, and you shush him alongside Compress, Toga, and Tomura. “You stitched up my mask!”

“Did the stitches hold okay?” you ask. “I know it was a little rushed.”

“Barely,” Twice says. Then: “They were great! Lasted until Giran hooked me up with a new one.”

“You’ve met her before?” Compress asks, suspicious.

“Sure thing. If she’d showed her face, I could have backed up the boss and said she was all right!” Twice sounds cheerful. He slaps you on the back and you nearly spill acetaminophen tablets all over the floor. “Nicest nurse I ever had. No screaming, no calling the cops. Just stitched my mask and gave me the good drugs and sent me on my way!”

“He got the good drugs?” Tomura says, incredulous. “Why didn’t I get those?”

“You behaved. Sort of.” You need to get into the kitchen, but Toga and Tomura are both there, holding bags of ice to their various scrapes and bruises. “Can one of you fill a glass of water? The cabinet to the right.”

Tomura does it – with warm sink water – and hands it off. You head back to Dabi, drop a double dose of acetaminophen into his hand, and order him to drink the whole glass of water with it. You’ll hit him with the same dose in six hours, if they’re still here in six hours. It won’t do anything good for his liver, but if he’s in too much pain to rest and starts trying to do things, his liver will be the least of his worries. You order him to hold still, eyes closed, and focus on Magne and Kurogiri.

Your friends got you a stethoscope as a gag gift a while back, but the stethoscope is real, and you know how to use it. You listen for any irregularities in Magne’s breathing and heartbeat, then tell her to go into the bathroom and check for bruising on her torso – at which point she whips off her shirt. “Check for yourself.”

“Agh, no!” Spinner twists the other way, but not before you see his scales flushing. “Don’t do that!”

“Or at least give some warning,” Twice says. Then he gives a thumbs-up. “Looking good!”

“Put those away. There are children here,” Compress says.

“It’s okay.” Toga is staring avidly. “I don’t mind.”

“You should. We’re the League of Villains, not the League of Perverts.” Spinner is still facing away. “Are you done yet?”

“Are you done yet?” Magne asks you. You’ve been studying her torso and the series of bruises on it. “Well?”

“Nothing that suggests internal bleeding. You’re good to go.”

She pulls her shirt back on. “I hope you all enjoyed that. I won’t be doing it again.”

“Don’t,” Spinner says. “Please.”

You commandeer one of the ice bags Toga made and hand it to Magne, then turn your attention to Kurogiri. Kurogiri’s going to present a problem, and both of you know it. “What do you have in the way of internal organs?” you ask. “Heart, lungs, digestive tract –”

“Everything, but it will not be possible to listen to. This is in the way.”

“He can take it off,” Tomura says. “Kurogiri. Go somewhere else and show her.”

You’d say the bathroom, but Kurogiri’s a lot taller than you are. There wouldn’t be room. You go to your bedroom instead, leaving the door slightly cracked so you can listen to what’s happening in the living room and intervene if it gets too wild. Kurogiri shrugs out of his waistcoat, followed by his shirt, leaving nothing but a pair of pants and a swirling cloud of mist. Then, as you watch, the mist begins to peel back, revealing a body underneath it.

It’s pretty clearly a human body. It looks like it’s been stitched together out of multiple other bodies, but all the requisite parts of a human body appear to be present. So is the metal neckpiece of Kurogiri’s costume. Above it, though, there’s a face. It’s a young face. Younger than you, younger than Tomura, and it looks back at you with enormous yellow eyes. Its mouth moves, and the strange doubled voice issues from it. “Hurry up. I can’t do this for long.”

You conduct a quick physical exam. Unlike Magne, Kurogiri has actual puncture wounds. One actual puncture wound in his ribcage, and when you listen to his breathing, there’s a whistle on that side that shouldn’t be there. “You’ve got a punctured lung,” you say. “It might repair on its own. If there’s anyone else who can –”

“The doctor will perform the necessary maintenance,” Kurogiri says. That means zip to you, except that the doctor’s apparently willing to treat everybody except Tomura. “Is Shigaraki Tomura safe in your company?”

You look up into that young face, see the shadow of human eyes within the yellow ones. “He is.”

“Tell him where I have gone, and that I will return shortly.” Kurogiri vanishes.

You go back out to the living room and deliver the message, then check in with Compress and Spinner about their injuries. Compress won’t let you look under his mask, but does a self-exam under your direction and somewhat confirms your diagnosis of a cheekbone fracture. He gets NSAIDs and an ice pack. Spinner has a rib out of place. You need to put it back in.

He’s not making it easy. “Stop tensing up,” you say. “Every time you do that while I’m trying to put your rib back, the likelihood of a muscle tear goes up. That’s a lot harder to fix than a dislocated rib.”

“It hurts. I’d like to see you try it!”

“I haven’t had the privilege.” The temper you swear you don’t have is doing its best to break out of captivity. “Okay, here’s the deal. I have some vodka in there. You’re going to drink that while I check on the others, and then we’ll handle your rib. Okay?”

“Sure,” Spinner says, surprised. “You lift the bottle down from the top of the refrigerator and hand it over. “Thanks.”

Twice has mostly bumps and bruises, as well as complaints about the fact that Spinner got alcohol but he didn’t. You shoo him off to share with Spinner, then check in with Toga. Toga’s really interested in your scrubs. “How many people’s blood is on there?” she asks eagerly. “You’re so lucky. All that blood everywhere – doesn’t it smell good?”

“It just smells like blood to me. But my sense of smell probably isn’t as good as yours.” You look Toga up and down. “Did you get hurt anywhere?”

“No.” Toga keeps studying you. “Can you get some blood for me? If everybody’s already bleeding –”

“Sorry,” you say, and she pouts. “I’d get caught. Plus, don’t you want those kids’ blood? Blood from some random patient of mine probably won’t help much.”

“No,” Toga agrees, “but it would taste good.”

“I’ll take your word for it. You’re good to go, also.” You watch as she skips off to join Spinner and Twice, then turn your attention to Tomura. You saved him for last on purpose, hoping you’d get a chance to talk to him, and now that you have one, you don’t know what to say. “Um –”

“Don’t.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.” The fact that you don’t know either is immaterial.

“It was probably going to be some kind of pep talk. In your evil shrink voice,” Tomura says, and your mouth twitches. He notices, and a moment later he’s mimicking you. “Tomura, this could be a lot worse. You could have gotten everybody captured instead of just Sensei. The kid you handpicked to join the League of Villains blew Father’s hand off your face, but at least you’ve got a face, right?”

The joke occurs to you, and you’re so tired and overwhelmed that it comes out of your mouth with zero edits. “That’s one more face than Sensei has.”

Tomura coughs. “What?”

“Also, you missed part of what I was going to say,” you say, seizing the momentum and running with it. “Well, what you were going to say. You were going to complain about All Might winning, and I was going to say that he didn’t really win, because he leveled Kamino Ward and I spent all night trying to keep the people in those buildings alive, and mostly failing –”

“Wait, what?”

“And then,” you say, wishing you hadn’t said a word about your job, “I was going to remind you that everybody saw All Might’s scarecrow form. So nobody’s going to want him to fuck them now.”

Tomura’s expression contorts to a degree that looks painful. “That’s – not – funny,” he grits out.

“I mean, when we talked about rendering All Might unfuckable, I thought it was just a pipe dream,” you say. Tomura’s shoulders are shaking now. You don’t know what else to do but keep going. “But this is proof. The sky’s the limit. Anything is possible. I mean, if you can set up a situation that takes All Might from fuckable to unfuckable in a split second, then you can do anything you want to do.”

Tomura is staring at you, speechless and twitching like he’s caught in an electric fence, and even though you think there’s a nonzero chance you’re going to get killed over this, you can’t resist. “How’s that for a pep talk?”

“It sucked,” Tomura says, and then he bursts out laughing.

You’re proud any time you can make him laugh, and this is no exception. At first he’s just laughing. Then his breathing starts to hitch, and you realize that the laughter’s tripped another circuit in his brain – one he probably doesn’t want the others to see. “What the hell are you two laughing about?” Dabi demands from the couch. “Let the rest of us in on it.”

“Yes,” Compress agrees, “we could use something to laugh at.”

“Inside joke. You wouldn’t understand.” You catch Tomura’s sleeve and tug him down the hallway, out of sight of the others. His laughter is sounding less and less like laughter with every passing second, and he’s clawing at his neck with one hand. You keep your voice quiet, trying above all not to drop into the conflict-resolution voice. “No. Tenko, don’t. That’s not going to make things better.”

“I really fucked up.” His voice, already raspy, cracks in a way that sounds painful. “Things were supposed to – I’m not ready. I haven’t learned. He was supposed to teach me. I can’t –”

Something tells you that right now’s not the time for a joke. You think Tenko might be crying. No, you know it, and he knows you know. “Don’t look.”

You remember that from forever ago. He never wanted you to see him cry. You turn your back, as much as it hurts you to do it, and as soon as you do, his arms come up around you. His hands are curled into fists, shielding you from his quirk, one balled up against your shoulder and the other balanced over your hipbone. Something thuds against the floor behind you and you glance to one side, a jolt running through you. There’s the hand he calls Father, discarded.

Tenko’s body shakes, strongly enough to rattle you both. He’s taller than you, but not so tall that he can’t duck down and press his face into the curve of your neck and shoulder to muffle himself. After a few seconds, it’s clear that it’s not enough. You feel his mouth meet your skin. A moment later, his teeth.

It stings, and you will yourself not to flinch. You remember the few times you actually saw Tenko cry instead as opposed to just hearing it when you were kids, remember seeing him shove his fist into his mouth to stay quiet, but both his hands are occupied holding you. You wonder if he even knows he’s biting you. Or how hard he’s biting you. His breath is hot against your skin. So are his tears, and you stand there, not flinching, letting your best friend take what he needs from you. He let you hug him the last time you saw each other, when you were upset over something as small as meeting his master. Over something this big, he can have this as long as he wants.

When you cry, your tears usually stop quickly. It’s a skill you developed on purpose. But Tenko’s take a while to trail off, and it’s a little while after that before his mouth lifts away from your skin. He doesn’t mention the bite, and neither do you. He keeps holding you close. “What were you doing tonight, again?”

“Forget about that,” you say. “It’s not important.”

“Say it again.” Tenko’s hand drifts from your hip halfway under your shirt, three fingers resting against your stomach and his index finger raised. “Please.”

You try to think. “Um, I said you had one more face than your master has –”

This time Tenko snorts. “After that.”

“I said you’d say All Might won, and I’d say he didn’t, because he leveled Kamino Ward,” you continue, “and I spent all night trying to save the people who were inside those buildings –”

“That’s it!” Tenko stiffens. One hand grabs your wrist and pulls you around to face him, and you see wild excitement in his face. “You didn’t blame me for those people getting hurt. You didn’t blame my master. You blamed All Might. My plan – turning people against heroes – what you said about making them choose wrong – it worked!”

“It worked,” you say, bewildered. “Ten, I’m not exactly the common denominator here. Everybody else –”

“The ones who worship the ground heroes walk on – they were always a lost cause,” Tenko says. You won’t argue with that. People like your parents and siblings will never listen. They won’t even try. “It’s people this system hurts who will see what I’m doing. People like you. You –”

He breaks off, looking at you, grinning with tear tracks down his face. You remember this look, too. Except when you were five years old, you never saw it in the split second before he kissed you. His mouth fits against yours, messy and enthusiastic with blood on his lips, blood that could be his – or yours, depending on whether his bite broke the skin. Tenko pushes you back against the wall and keeps kissing you, only breaking away for air when he has to. You wrap your arms around him, since he can’t touch you safely, and try to deliver a reality check. “Tenko, I’ve known you forever. If I understand you –”

“Then I don’t need anybody else to,” Tenko says. “Everyone else can get behind us or get out of my way.”

He kisses you again, but before you can really get into it, Magne calls out from the living room. “Are you two done fucking yet? Spinner’s got the hiccups.”

Tenko’s face turns bright red. He scrambles to pick up the hand, and you head down the hall ahead of him. “If we were fucking, it would take a lot longer than that,” you say, and Magne lets out a low whistle. You turn to Spinner. “Sorry about the hiccups, but we can use those. Stand up, over here. And hold your arms out like this –”

Spinner does it, grimacing. You observe the timing of the hiccups for a few more minutes, then step in and apply the necessary force, popping the rib back into place. Spinner lets out a small yelp that would be more problematic if any of your neighbors were around, then lowers his arms. “Is it done?”

“It’s back in place. Feel better?”

“Yeah,” Spinner says. Then he hiccups. “Fuck it. No.”

“We can fix that, too,” you say. “Follow me.”

Tomura comes back while you’re feeding a spoonful of sugar to Spinner, instructing him to hold it under his tongue until it dissolves. He fixates on the two of you. “What are you doing?”

“Curing the hiccups.” You direct Spinner to sit down, then focus on Tomura. “What else do you need?”

“Food,” Toga says, to general assent. “Do you have food?”

“Not enough for this many people,” you say. “But we can order in.”

Five pizzas at nine in the morning isn’t the weirdest delivery order you’ve ever placed, and it’s also not the most expensive. You have a coupon, and the members of the League of Villains are surprisingly willing to pitch in – although Twice and Compress try to give you counterfeit at first. Tomura calls them on it, and they pay up in real money, after which Compress gives you a quick and unexpected lesson in how to spot counterfeit currency.

“Obviously, none of that holds if it’s a copy of Twice’s,” he says at the conclusion of the explanation, “but it’s much easier to tell with Twice’s currency. Observe –”

He drags a nail across one of the coins Twice gave you, at which point it collapses into sludge on your kitchen table. “That’s the problem with Twice’s stuff,” Toga says. “It doesn’t hold together long.”

“It looks great while it does,” Twice protests. Then: “I’m a failure!”

Toga and Magne both console him, which is weird to watch. Weirdly supportive. You didn’t think villains were supportive of each other – but why wouldn’t they be? Villains are people, just like anybody else. They have enemies. It makes sense that they’d have friends, too.

Kurogiri’s return from the doctor is poorly timed – it happens right as the pizzas arrive, and it takes every ounce of people skills you possess to prevent the delivery driver from carrying the pizzas inside for you. Kurogiri goes immediately to check in with Tomura, while everyone else tears into the pizza like they’re starving. It’s all you can do to retrieve a piece or two for Tomura. You’ve sort of lost your appetite. The last time you remember having one was last night, before everything went to hell.

You come back to Tomura and Kurogiri in the kitchen. They’re strategizing, and Tomura takes the plate from you with one hand and pulls you into the conversation with the other. “This can’t be our base,” he says to Kurogiri. “It’s too much of a risk for all of us, her included.”

“What if it were to act as something of a way station?” Kurogiri suggests. “It will likely be some time before we can establish a base with some of the creature comforts we are used to. Perhaps if we were to come here for things like showers, or laundry –”

“I don’t want them alone with her.”

“I’m not here for most of the day,” you say. “I’m at work, or running errands, or with my friends. As long as you aren’t seen and you don’t run my water bill through the roof or eat all my food – or steal my stuff – it’s fine with me.”

“Having access to a place like this would improve morale,” Kurogiri continues. His eyes tilt towards Tomura. “It would also give you an excuse to visit that no one would question.”

“I don’t need an excuse to visit. I can do what I want,” Tomura says. It’s quiet for a second. “Fine. If you’re okay with it –”

“I’m okay with it.” Your phone buzzes and you check it, hoping it’s Sho or Hirono, but it’s neither – just work, telling you that you’re not on until tomorrow morning, instead of tonight like you were supposed to be. “How long do you think you’ll be staying this time?”

“Until dark,” Tomura says. “We have to lay low for a little while. Then we’ll move.”

“I would recommend getting some rest,” Kurogiri says. “After eating that.”

“I don’t need to rest.” Tomura picks up the pizza and takes a messy bite.

On your first date, such as it was, Tomura said that villains argue like kids do. Based on what happens after the pizza’s consumed, they fall asleep after they’ve eaten like kids do, too. They hold off sleep long enough to fight over sleeping positions, but none of them go after your bed, and when Tomura starts yawning, you take the empty plate out of his hands. “My room’s darker. It’ll be easier to sleep there.”

You feel yourself relax the instant you shut your bedroom door behind the two of you. The other villains might be friendly to you, but you only trust Tenko, and to a lesser extent, Kurogiri. Tenko, paradoxically, tenses up. “I don’t need a bed. I sleep standing up.”

“Standing up?” you repeat, baffled. “How?”

“So I don’t destroy it. Once I touch something with all five fingers, it’s gone.” Tenko looks at the bed, almost longingly. “And I don’t have gloves.”

“I’ve got some,” you say. Tenko looks at you, surprised. “I took yours with me when I left last time.”

They’re folded on your dresser. You bring them over, and Tenko pulls them on, a moment before he knocks you backwards onto the bed. You give him a few seconds, then put your forearm against his chest to push him back. “Whatever we’re doing, I’m not doing it in bloody clothes. Let me get changed.”

“Fine,” Tenko complains, and shifts slowly to one side to let you up. At least he doesn’t ask you if he can help.

If you were alone, you’d shower, but you don’t want to risk being that vulnerable with an apartment full of villains. You change into your regular pajamas, the kind you’d wear if you were sleeping by yourself instead of in the same bed as your best friend, who’s a guy, who’s into you. You’re pretty sure Tenko’s not going to try for sex tonight. Not with his level of experience. And not after the day and night he’s had.

When you step out of the bathroom, changed for bed, Tenko’s sitting cross-legged on your bed, pretty clearly lost in thought. The hand is resting on your nightstand. “Hey,” you say, and he looks up.

He looks you over slowly, color coming up in his cheeks with every second that ticks past. Your pajamas aren’t particularly revealing, so you’re not sure what he’s getting excited about – but then his eyes fasten onto something and his gaze sharpens. “What the hell is that?”

You look blankly at him. “On your neck. It’s –” Tenko realizes what it is in the same moment as you realize what he’s looking at. “Fuck. Why didn’t you say something?”

“You were trying to stay quiet. I wanted to help.” You take a step back as Tenko rises from the bed and comes closer. “It’s not a big deal. It just looks –”

Tenko’s fingers brush over it and you wince in spite of yourself. “It looks worse than it is.”

Tenko steps past you, headed for the bathroom. The light switches on, and a moment later you hear him rummaging through the cabinet above the sink. “You’re a nurse. You don’t have band-aids in here?”

“The first-aid kit’s under the sink,” you say. Then something occurs to you. “This isn’t a first-aid thing. It’s just a bruise.”

“You’re not looking at it. I am.” Tenko comes back and drops the first-aid kit on the bed next to you. When you reach for it, he shoves your hand away. You reach for it a second time with the same result. “Stop. I did it, so I’m fixing it. Hold still.”

You sit there, bemused, while Tenko fumbles through the first-aid kit, trying to figure out what to use on a bruise that isn’t bleeding. “You could always kiss it better.”

“That’s lame,” Tenko scoffs. Then he leans in and does it anyway, lightly enough that it doesn’t sting. Your face flushes, a flush that only goes down once he’s come back with what feels like half a tube of Neosporin. When he speaks up again, his voice is quieter. “Why did you let me do that?”

“I didn’t let you,” you say. “Was I supposed to punch you or something?”

“Yeah. Or say ‘hey, don’t fucking bite me’. That would work, too.” Tenko sounds more than a little sarcastic, but it fades fast. “I don’t know how to do any of this. Not that out there –”

He gestures towards the door, the hallway, the League. “Or this in here,” he says, gesturing between the two of you. “You’re going to have to show me how. At first. Then I can pick it up as I go.”

“How to do what? Put a band-aid on a bruise?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tenko says. You figured you probably earned that one, but you’re going to make him say it anyway. “Be – with somebody. Master never – it’s not like I’d ever do what my parents did – or that happy-ending bullshit on TV – I don’t know. And I figure you do, since you’ve got condoms in there.”

You weren’t expecting that. “Are you slut-shaming me?”

“What? No.” Tenko gives you a weird look. “There were, like, two missing. And they’re basically expired.”

“You counted?” You look at Tenko, and he snaps at you to face front again, his face turning red. “Don’t do things like that. It’s weird.”

“Look at that. You already taught me something.”

You’re tempted to retort that Tenko shouldn’t need to be taught not to snoop through your bathroom cabinet, but then you remember that Tenko wasn’t raised like you or anybody else you know. Tenko was raised by villains, and proper socialization doesn’t appear to have been a priority. It hasn’t taught him much about first aid, either. He’s peeling open the biggest band-aid in the kit, touching all kinds of stuff he shouldn’t be touching, before lowering it gingerly down over the bruise. “You’re already good at this part,” you tell him.

“What part is this?”

“Aftercare.”

Tenko’s heard the term before. You can tell by the way his ears turn red. He presses down the bandage at the edges, then sits back. “Next time, tell me not to bite you.”

“See? You can teach me stuff, too.”

Getting into bed is weird. Sure, you both made jokes about sleepovers the last time you saw each other, but this time there’s a bed – and thanks to Tenko’s snooping, you’re both well aware that there’s a mostly-full box of condoms somewhere in the offing. You get under the covers, and after a moment Tenko copies you, fully dressed. He doesn’t stay there too long. “This is too warm.”

“You can sleep outside the blankets. Or take something off.”

The rustling tells you that Tenko’s opted for door number two, most likely with his shirt. “Now what?”

“We sleep,” you say. You decide to save cuddling as a concept for another time. You close your eyes and within seconds, you’re asleep.

You wake up to your phone buzzing on your nightstand, and Tenko tossing and turning in a restless sleep on the far side of the bed. When you flip your phone over you see notifications from the group chat. A whole pileup of them. Hirono and Sho must have finally checked in. You unlock your phone to respond and your heart goes still in your chest.

Kazuo: They didn’t make it.

Kazuo: Sho’s building came down. He died instantly.

Mitsuko: fuck you

Mitsuko: if you don’t quit fucking around

Kazuo: Hirono was trapped in the wreckage. Once she was extricated, she was sent to Yokohama General and died there ninety-eight minutes ago.

Mitsuru: and you’re just telling us now???? what the fuck

Kazuo: We had to notify their families first.

Yoshimi: we’re their family

Yoshimi: what are we going to do

Ryuhei: Sho’s family treated him like SHIT, why do they get to know before we do??

Ryuhei: what the fuck

This isn’t on Kazuo. Whoever else it’s on, it’s not on him, so you wade in, your vocal cords tied in a knot. It’s a good thing this isn’t happening in person. Your friends already saw you cry once this year, and they need someone to be calm. I know Kazuo let us know as soon as he could. And Ryuhei, you’re right – we love them more.

*loved.

You look at Mitsuko’s addition, feeling sick to your stomach. Love. It doesn’t go away. It never goes away. If anyone knows that, you do. We should be together right now. Kazuo, are you okay to host tonight?

Kazuo doesn’t send anything more than a thumbs-up, which is how you know that whatever feelings he has left are hurt by how everyone’s treating him. What’s he been doing all night? Using his quirk. Identifying victims. You’re overcome suddenly with the need to see him, to give him one of those hugs he always stands awkwardly in but never pulls away from. He’s your friend, too. Your friend who’s never hurt you or dragged you into the middle of his disastrous crusade against society. A crusade that just got two of your other friends killed.

Your breath hitches in your throat, and beside you, Tenko stirs, sits up. “What?” he asks, but you don’t answer. Can’t answer. You’re too busy jamming your fist in your mouth, a move you didn’t realize you learned from Tenko until right this second. “Who are you talking to?”

Notificaitons come up – your friends, setting a time to go to Kazuo’s – and you power off your phone and shove it away. You’ll get there early. You need to talk to him first, tell him that you get it as much as anyone can, that you’re sorry he was forced into this position, sorry he was the one who had to say it. Sorry because this is your fault. If you’d told UA ahead of time what was happening, then the student wouldn’t have been kidnapped. Then there would have been no fight in Kamino Ward that led to hundreds, maybe thousands of casualties. If you had just –

“What is it?” Tenko shakes your shoulder. “Hey. Take that out of your mouth and talk to me. What –”

You pry your fist from between your teeth. “I’m going to tell you something, and I need you not to say anything.” You can’t sit through his justifications, his arguments for why it’s All Might’s fault, when all you care about is your friends and what happened to them. If they knew what was happening. If they were scared. “Two of my friends died in Kamino Ward tonight. I just found out.”

“I –”

“Don’t say anything,” you say. “Just –”

You turn to face Tenko, wrapping your arms around him, burying your face in his shoulder. The two of you have been through the hugging procedure enough times now that he knows what to do in response. He hugs you back, hauls you closer. His skin smells like sweat and smoke, but yours smells like blood, and you know already that you’ll be tearing the sheets off the bed, throwing them away, getting rid of the evidence. But it doesn’t matter how much evidence you get rid of. You can’t hide the truth: This happened tonight because of what Tenko did, and what you didn’t do.

You made this bed, you and Tenko. At least you get to lie in it together.

[redphlox]

Do you think Toya ever had a chance? I feel like his descent into villainy as Dabi was inevitable, I know he has the equivalent of a Quirk disability but I feel maybe it wasn't meant to work like his father's Quirk but in a different way.

I wished Toya had the chance to go back home but Horikoshi pulled a cruel fate on us.

I didn't want Toya to be saved this way, it felt too late and he will always be seen as his family's regret and failure because he is the cruel reminder to everyone that this family was a mistake, nothing but a Quirk experiment.

He can never be seen as anything other than a mistake or regret to make up for out of guilt. I know his family is here now, but it feels more out of obligation more than anything.

I have a few thoughts about how disability is framed in BNHA but I'll reserve my thoughts until after the manga is officially over. I'm not sure if you've read my other posts, but I'm optimistic that Touya's fate isn't to die. I'm not going to entertain doom and gloom on my blog. I'm finding that spiraling is influencing others to think the worst of the worst and causing unnecessary heartache and anxiety. I'm not saying others can't spiral - just don't do it on my blog.

I don't agree with the idea that the family thinks of Touya as a mistake - where does the manga indicate the family thinks his existence was a mistake? Can you show me the panels? No, because they don't exist.

In 301-302, it's plainly stated that the family thinks Dabi was born out of Endeavor's ambition and selfishness and failure as a father. The other children were quirk experiments too, but Rei and even Endeavor NEVER state regret about starting a family - they don't regret their kids. They regret hurting their kids, but they don't regret bringing them into this world. Not once has Rei or Enji stated they regret Touya being born. Neither have the siblings.

The regret the family feels isn't that he exists, but that they feel they failed him in some way - Rei and Enji as parents, Natsuo and Fuyumi as siblings (even though it wasn't their fault at all.) It's only natural to feel responsible and guilty for your loved one's downward spiral and feel like you could have done more if you had known what would have happened (See: Spinner in 427).

The Todorokis love Touya unconditionally (although it was hard to show that during their childhood because of the abuse). That's why they united to stop him, why they united to come see him at the hospital, and that's why they want to talk to him and have SO much to discuss. Touya is literally shivering and his heart rate is speeding up from the happiness of finally feeling wanted and seen now that his family is at his bedside.

They're literally saying, "Tell me all your thoughts. I want to know. I want to be with you."

He's a hated criminal now - BUT they're not abandoning him. They're facing hell right now because of what he did but they're not forsaking him or distancing themselves to save themselves from the public's damnation. They WANT to be with Touya, even if it'll be difficult. They could have easily left him, deserted him, forsaken him, turned their backs, washed their hands clean of him - much like Hawks and his mother distanced themselves from his father.

But the Todorokis HAVEN'T spurned Touya, and WON'T. That's what they're conveying by being at his bedside and telling him they want to talk to him. Nothing he can do can make them stop wanting him. Sure, there might be some resentment and hurt feelings, but that doesn't negate unconditional love.

Horikoshi went out of his way to make each Todoroki family member state they were present in Touya's room because they wanted to be there. "We're not all here out of a sense of duty" = we're all here because we want to be. If reading 426 didn't convince you of that, you might want to step back and reread a few more times.

[izzyshandz]

I swear if i see one more mf say izzy has been 'redeemed' or needed a 'redemption arc' im literally going to scream into my pillow until i lose my voice.

redeem is such a black and white way of looking at his entire character and dismisses everything hes gone through and yall (izzy haters and others) are just so fucking snob nosed and ignorant to sit there and think hes a villain because of how he acted. theyre fucking pirates. theyre not perfect, none of them are. eds a villain, stedes a villain, if youre doing it like that. ed has killed so many people, stede literally left his wife and kids and also had a hand in killing people; it may be easier for them to change because of the perspective the show gives them and they had love but izzy did not. everyone hated him, ed, his own crew, stedes crew.

normalizing peoples reactions to things as something other than villainy and heroism is so god damn important in a show that's trying to accurately involve our perspectives in this day and age. its a tale as old as time, making someone 'completely in the wrong' because their perspective isnt the one you aligned with as much.

like the rest of the crew izzy had his own bad things hes done, he didnt need this 'redemption' everyones blabbering on about. he needed to be fucking heard, to be seen, and acknowledged-- not thrown aside and abandoned because of a whim. you all can ride up blackbeards ass because oh hes so hot, hes so pretty omg wow; but that wont ever change the fact his character is a fucked up person... youre allowed to love him anyways, why not izzy? we didnt see blackbeard before screen but how hes mentioned it shows he was a shit awful person, the only reason no one cares is because on hes fuckin gay for stede or whatever so the main characters get a free ride. ( i agree they all get a free ride, im just tired of this izzy isolation man )

why does he need to be redeemed in your eyes? just because youve seen what hes done? he was literally a product of his environment in season one he was a product of blackbeard's leadership. only with the loyalty and solidarity of the crew did he really begin to find himself, thats fucking hard to do that late in life. instead of calling it some bullshit black and white redemption arc, lets just celebrate izzy being himself and being fucking loved for once in his god damn life.

hes also way more fucking mature and put together than people give him credit for. love you izzy.

edit: thank you all for the reblogs and insights in every single one, i read them i promise i do. im just so mf heartbroken we have to tag things as discourse when its really just about people not being compassionate. (as a couple people have pointed out) i will said id reblog and comment on every single tag but this is my side </3 EVERYONE PLEASE READ THE REBLOGGED TAGS TOO / / theyre so real ! ive also opened up that ask box thingy i havent been on tumblr in yrs and have 0 clue how any of that works if anyone wants my perspective on anything izzy related. *or otherwise ofmd related

[rubyreduji]

Good to be Bad - jww & kmg

title: good to be bad pairing:  jeon wonwoo x gn!reader, kim mingyu x gn! reader genre: fluff, minor angst, descendants au (child of hades reader) warnings: mentions of violence, stealing, bullying, and canonical bad parenting w.c.: 10.2k summary: moving to auradon brings many new things, good and bad a/n: this will follow almost none of the canon descendants universe lol. if i make someone mean its for the plot i promise i dont think they’re actually like this

here's the list of everyone's parents too if you're curious

You’re sitting on top of a warehouse roof when you hear footsteps approaching.

“Are you going to apply for the proclamation?” Wonwoo always seems to know just where to find you. He takes a seat next to you on the ledge and you scoot over a bit so your thighs are touching.

“It’s just charity to make them look good. They don’t actually care about us.”

Earlier in the morning, the royal palace released a proclamation, stating the royal family are going to sponsor six villain kids and bring them over to Auradon to help ensure a “better future”. Every child on the Isle of the Lost will send in an application and the six best candidates will be chosen to move to Auradon. 

You don’t believe it though. It has to be a big set up. There’s no way the people in Auradon actually want to help, or they would have done something a long time ago. 

“It sure is a unique opportunity. To go and live on the mainland, get to attend Auradon Prep.” Wonwoo is trying so hard to come off as nonchalant, but you catch the wistful air of his tone.

“You’re going to apply,” you say. It’s not a question. “They’ll pick you for sure. You’re not like us Wonwoo, you don’t belong here.”

“None of us belong here,” Wonwoo mutters.

“Maybe…” You’re quiet for a moment before you continue. “But you’re the one who deserves to get out.”

Wonwoo doesn’t respond. You two sit in silence, staring out at the Isle. It really is an ugly sight to behold. Even in the worst of places, you can find beauty, but not on the Isle. It’s ugly on the inside and out. 

Eventually you get up and Wonwoo follows, still not saying anything. You two start to walk to your place, the unspoken agreement that Wonwoo will spend the night. The walk is far, considering you live in an underground lair on the edge of the Isle. Your father likes to be far away from people and to live underground, seeing as he is the God of the Underworld.

Your dad…well he’s not winning any Best Dad of the Year awards anytime soon, but he’s not near as bad as he could be. Sure he’s a bit negligent, treating you more as a lackey than his child, and he likes to remind you how much of a mistake you are and how you will never live up to him, but why complain when other kids have it worse.

Like Wonwoo, who’s mother is the literal most evil woman alive. She’s always been disappointed in him, seeing as he takes no interest in any villainy. That’s why Wonwoo sleeps at your place.

When you get inside the lair you and Wonwoo quietly navigate the dark rooms until you get to your bedroom. You two flop down onto your bed, squished together on the twin size mattress. You and Wonwoo have been sharing the same mattress since fourth grade, so the proximity of your bodies is normal at this point.

You’re not tired, but you know if you’re too loud your father’s going to yell at you in the morning, so you lay quietly staring up at the ceiling. You can tell Wonwoo is still awake too because you haven’t heard him taking his glasses off yet, and you know he hates sleeping with them on.

“Y/N-ah?” Wonwoo’s already soft voice is even softer as he whispers out to you.

“Woo?”

“Come to Auradon with me.”

Your breathing freezes for a moment before you gain your composure again. “I can’t.”

You and Wonwoo aren’t the same. By the time you and Wonwoo got close, you were already corrupted into the Isle’s ways. Besides Wonwoo, you have one of the most influential, evil parents on the Isle and whereas Wonwoo tries to ignore that part of him, you lean into it.

“You deserve to live a good life,” Wonwoo says. “You can’t do that here.”

“There isn’t a place for me in a world like Auradon. All they’re gonna do over there is try and ‘fix’ us so they can rub in our parents’ faces,” you say. “And all the while they try to fix us, they’ll just villainize us.”

“So we’ll just prove them wrong. I can’t live my most fulfilling life if you're not there too. So please, just think about it.” You’ve never heard Wonwoo ask for anything in his life, let alone beg.

“I…I’ll consider it.”

And consider it you did. Which is why you’re now standing at the bridge with Wonwoo, waiting to be picked up to go to Auradon. If you’re being honest you still don’t really want to go. The choice between going to Auradon with all of the prissy princesses and stuck up princes, or staying at home with your homebody dad who tries to get rid of you at every opportunity possible, was definitely a tough one. To you, it sounds like a lose-lose situation, but while you were going over the pros and cons you were hit with a tie breaker.

As much as you don’t think Auradon is for you, there’s only one reason why you even considered it to begin with. As hellish as it sounds to go to Auradon Prep, there’s one pro that outweighs everything else.

You were sure of your decision when you told Wonwoo and his whole face lit up. It’s rare to see that cute little smile spread across Wonwoo’s lips but whenever you do see it, you’re reminded why you’d do anything in the world for him.

“Well isn’t this a sight to see?” You hear someone approach the bridge before you see them, but you don’t have to turn around to identify who it is.

Jeonghan, son of Mother Gothel, is probably the only other person you trust who is not Wonwoo, and with Jeonghan you only trust him as far as you can throw him. He’s the one friend you have who you can get into mischief with. He’s manipulative and sneaky and quick witted and can talk himself out of nearly any situation he gets put in. If you and Jeonghan weren’t friends, you’d be a bit concerned with how similar you two are.

“What are you doing here Han?”

“I’m here to catch my ride to Auradon.” Jeonghan grins at you. He strolls up to you, slinging an arm around you when he gets close. “So nice of you to come see me off.”

“Yeah right, try again.”

“You're going to Auradon? You practically run this place, why would you give that all up just to be surrounded by a bunch of assholes?”

“I should be asking you the same thing,” you scoff.

“I’m going so I can wreak havoc and cause chaos. Why would I stay here when I can mooch all of the premium stuff off of the rich bitches while torturing them with my presence?” You don’t miss the way his eyes flit over to where Wonwoo is standing. “Oh I get it, your reason has more to do with lover boy and less to do with villainy.”

Jeonghan and Wonwoo are on…neutral terms, but then again, most people are with Wonwoo. People are more scared of his quiet, polite demeanor than they are of the kids who can do any actual damage. Jeonghan likes to tease you for the close nature of your relationship with the other boy though.

You’re about to retort back to Jeonghan when the next VK walks up, his always present companion slinking behind him, and anger flares up in you.

“No. No, fuck this. Living in Auradon is bad enough, but now I have to do it with him there as well?” You glare over at the boy who just walked up.

Minghao, son of the Evil Queen, just stands and stares with a disgusted look plastered on his features.

You and Minghao hate each other, and you have since kindergarten. At first it was just stupid little kid fights, and then petty middle school arguments, but as you’ve gotten older the disdain for one another hasn’t gone away. In fact it’s probably gotten worse.

His little pet, Junhui, son of Cruella de Vil, is never seen more than a few feet behind Minghao anywhere he goes. You don’t have anything against Jun per se, but by association with Minghao, he’s just another enemy.

“That’s only five, where’s the sixth VK?” Wonwoo asks.

With impeccable timing to Wonwoo’s words, the final VK strolls up. Rather than the anger you felt with Minghao, annoyance takes over that feeling. The sixth and final Villain Kid who was chosen, is Chan, son of Gaston.

You don’t have a direct reason to dislike him, other than the fact he has an affinity for getting on your last nerve. Just like his father, he loves to boost his own ego and you can’t help but puke your mouth a bit every time you hear or see it.

You wonder briefly if you still have time to back out. As much as you love Wonwoo and tolerate Jeonghan, you don’t know if they outweigh the other three companions you’ll have. You don’t have time to deliberate though, because soon the barrier is opening and a long black car is pulling up.

A man steps out from the car and greets you all. He quickly confirms your identity before ushering you all into the car. In the back it’s like a lounge area. You could combine all of the Isle and it still wouldn’t be as nice as this car.

The car takes off and soon you guys are on your way to Auradon. You’re staring out the window as you start to leave the Isle when all of a sudden a shiver runs through your body and you start to heat up. You’ve never felt so hot in your life and then you hear Chan scream. You look back at the others in the car and they all look at you terrified.

“What?”

“Your, um, your hair is on fire,” Wonwoo tells you. You reach up and touch your hair only to realize there’s flames in its places.

“Oh.” You do your best at concentrating to make it stop and soon everyone in the car starts to look calm, so you assume it went away. “Well that’s new.”

“It’s probably because of the barrier,” Jeonghan says. “You get to use magic now.”

“Woah, lemme try!” Chan shouts before Minghao smacks him on the back of his head.

“You don’t have magic parents dumbass.”

You sigh and really hope that coming to Auradon isn’t a mistake.

When the car finally pulls up to Auradon Prep, there’s a few people standing at the front. The six of you climb out of the car, taking in your surroundings. The mainland is definitely a lot…brighter, than the Isle.

You squint until your eyes adjust to the lighting. When you can finally identify what you’re looking at you wish you could go back to not seeing. Standing in front of you is the royal family. You watch the way the future king, Seokmin, flicks his eyes from you to Wonwoo to Minghao to Jun. It takes you a moment to realize what he’s doing but he’s looking at your hair. You and Minghao both have blue hair while Wonwoo has purple and Jun has white hair with black stripes. To you it’s never been anything out of the ordinary, but apparently it’s just an Isle thing.

The queen not so subtly nudges Seokmin and he stops his staring. The King smiles at you six as he approaches you.

“Welcome to Auradon! We are so happy to have you here!”

You all stare at the King, not saying anything. He comes to that realization only after he’s looked at you for too long.

“Well, I’ll leave my son here to give you the tour of Auradon Prep. We hope you enjoy your time here, and have a successful future.”

Seokmin steps up and greets you all. “Let me bring you on a tour.”

You and Wonwoo glance at each other before you follow behind the prince. He takes you through the halls, explaining everything as he does, but you’re not paying much attention. It seems the only person who really is paying attention is Wonwoo. Minghao and Jun keep whispering to each other and Chan keeps trying to touch things he shouldn’t. You and Jeonghan stray at the back of the group, bored more than anything.

It isn’t until you approach your first group of AKs that you have full attention. An unsettling feeling creeps down your spine.

“Jihoon, Joshua!” Seokmin calls to them before turning to the group. “Guys, these are my best friends, Jihoon, son of Ariel and Eric, and Joshua, son of Snow White and Ferdidnand.”

“Woah, that’s a lot of leather,” the boy named Joshua mutters. The other boy sizes the VKs up before turning back to Joshua, totally ignoring your presence.

You don’t miss the way Minghao stiffens, his eyes focused on Joshua. It never really occurred to you, but now that you’re in Auradon, you’re going to be meeting the kids of the heroes who your parents were villains to. Well that’s another thing to look forward to.

At the awkward tension in the air, Seokmin bids his friends goodbye and continues with the tour.

“Here at Auradon Prep, everyone has a dorm room. You’ll occupy these three rooms so pair up and feel free to get settled into your rooms or explore around.” With that Seokmin leaves, and you all pair off. You and Wonwoo pair off, to Jeonghan’s demise (who ends up with Chan), but you just brush him off.

As soon as you walk into the room, your nose upturns. You quickly move to shut all of the curtains. “Why is it so goddamn bright here?”

“You grew up underground, everywhere is bright for you,” Wonwoo teases. “You better get used to the light, this is our new home now.”

“As long as they don’t ship me back off to the Isle,” you mutter under your breath. Wonwoo still hears you though.

“That won’t happen, because you’re going to behave yourself. Right?” He gives you a pointed look.

“Yes, sir!” You jokingly salute at him and he rolls his eyes but accepts your answer.

“Just think Y/N, this is the start of our new lives. We’re Auradonians now, and get to go to Auradon Prep. It’s going to be amazing, I can just feel it.”

Despite the growing nerves in your gut, Wonwoo’s upbeat attitude helps soothe them down, just for now at least.

“First day of class, are you excited?” Wonwoo asks as you two get ready for the day.

“It’s just school,” you answer, shrugging noncommittally. The whole week Wonwoo’s been excited to be in Auradon. He’s been in a happy mood, happier than you've ever seen him before. Happier than you’ve ever seen anyone before (you didn’t even know people could be that positive). He even went as far as getting a new wardrobe and a haircut. He looks like a completely new person.

He looks…good.

You always thought back on the Isle that he was just quiet and reserved, but you’re starting to think that was just how he had to be to survive. He’s been more open and active, like he’s found the life inside of him.

You on the other hand, you’ve been dreading being in Auradon since you stepped foot in it. You thought you could do it for Wonwoo’s sake, and it does warm your heart to see him so lively, but you can feel your own self starting to deteriorate. That’s just while you’ve been staying in your room, now you actually have to go to classes filled with all of the Auradonians. You can already feel the snide remarks and the accusations and normally that wouldn’t bother you, but you’re worried about how it will affect Wonwoo’s mood. Back on the Isle you could protect him from anything, but here it’s a whole new playing ground.

“It’s not ‘just school’ it’s proper school now. We get to actually learn from people who want to teach! Why aren’t you more excited?”

“I just don’t want you to get your hopes up too high,” you tell him as you pull on your jacket.

“It’s going to be great Y/N, just you wait.”

You can’t do anything but hum at Wonwoo as you sling your bag over your shoulder and head towards the door. Wonwoo is quick to follow and as you two step out of the room, Minghao and Jun are doing just the same. You and Minghao tut at each other before heading off into different directions.

“Even in a new place you’re going to hold the same sentiments to Minghao?”

“Just because we’re in a new place doesn’t mean he’s a whole new Minghao. If you’re that concerned about it, you befriend him first.” Wonwoo doesn’t say anything. “Exactly.”

You walk out of the dorm area and into the classroom part of the school. There’s already a large group of kids wandering about to their classes. When they catch sight of you and Wonwoo they’re quick to give you a wide berth. You don’t pay them mind as you continue walking through the halls.

You and Wonwoo have different first blocks and you two split off, but not before you remind him to come find you at lunch. After Wonwoo leaves you start to navigate your way to your first class. When you walk in there’s already a handful of kids sitting at desks and they all stare as you walk in.

You send a hearty glare in their direction and they all quickly look away. You walk through the desk, noticing the way a couple of the students flinch away from you, before you take your seat in the back of the class.

It’s not long before the whispering starts up. You’re not stupid, you know it’s about you, but you can’t be bothered to listen. You knew it was going to happen, you know they’re not saying anything nice, so why listen to things that are just going to annoy you even more than you already are.

As you were getting up this morning you told yourself that you can’t pay mind to anyone who has something to say about you, no matter how hard they stare or sneer or whisper, you can’t do anything about it. You have to focus on being good now, be the bigger person, so you can stay here with Wonwoo.

That’s what you keep repeating to yourself as a group of guys snicker at you and a few girls start to obviously stare at your hair. It’s going to be a long day.

It’s not just the day that turns out to be long, it’s the whole week. Wonwoo seems oblivious to it all claiming “everyone just needs time to warm up” but you also have a suspicion people are either being fake nice to Wonwoo, or not giving him the same treatment as the rest of you due to his new look. Whatever the reason is, Wonwoo doesn’t seem to be aware of the comments and glares you and the other boys have been on the receiving end of. 

It’s strange, everyone seems to be scared of you, but at the same time they have no problem making under the breath comments on your upbringing. You’ve definitely been called a ‘freak’ a couple of times and one guy even tried to trip you in the cafeteria. He immediately cowered back when you raised your fist him, but still.

You’ve found a particular enemy in a boy named Seungkwan, the son of Cinderella. He makes the most comments about you and the other VKs and you think you may hate him more than Minghao. You have your third period science class with him and rather than listening to the teacher, he likes to focus his attention on you instead.

“Better watch out with this one, you don’t know what kind of potions they may brew up,” Seungkwan sneers.

“You wanna say that again?” You growl.

“What are you going to do? Light me on fire? They’ll just ship you right back to that slum you call a home. Actually, maybe you should do it. It would get rid of at least one of you vermin.”

That whole interaction happened in front of a teacher, who didn’t say anything. You’ve noticed that’s a recurring theme as well. Teachers love to look past what the Auradonians are saying, but as soon as you glare at someone, you’re the one being told off.

The issue is that Wonwoo has barely been experiencing any of this, and he’s off doing stuff during his free time. He’s found new hobbies and has been practicing his magic with Fairy Godmother and over all soaking up all of the Auradon goodness, which leaves you to spend time with Jeonghan or yourself.

You stand at your locker, wondering if maybe it would be a good thing if you got sent back to the Isle, when a giant body slams into you, shoving you into the lockers.

“Watch it, asshole,” you growl.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry! I-” The guy’s words cut off when he gets a good look at you. “You’re one of the Villain Kids.”

“And you’re a giant dumbass who can’t watch where he’s walking.”

“Oh right, I’m very sorry about that!” The guy quickly bends at the waist in a bow. When he stands, he stares at you expectantly. “So how are you enjoying Auradon?”

“I don’t remember agreeing to talk to you.” You close your locker with a loud slam. You turn to leave but the guy is in your way. “Move.”

“No, wait-”

Without meaning your hair bursts into flames as you glare at the guy. He jumps back, his reaction causing your hair to go back to normal.

“You’re…you’re the child of Hades…”

You glare up at the tall guy. “Yep. Now if you’ll very kindly move out of my fucking way.” You shove your way past him, surprised at how easily he moved despite his stature. You can’t focus on that though, rather trying to focus on just getting away from him.

“Wait, no! Come back!” The guy grabs your arm and spins you around.

You stare between his frantic face and his hand clamped around your bicep. “I would advise you to let go if you favor that hand.”

He’s quick to release you. “I’m sorry! I just…wanted to talk. I know you uh, Isle kids probably don’t wanna talk to us, but I just want to get to know you guys. This can’t be easy for you and I want to try and get to know you guys before I judge you.”

“So when you do get to know us, you’ll be free to judge?”

“No! That’s not what I meant! I just meant, ugh, that like…it’s unfair for everyone to be saying what they are when they don’t even know you. That’s all.”

“Have you ever considered that maybe we don’t want to talk to you?” With that you turn away again, this time more prepared to deck the big oaf if he touches you again.

As you walk away, he calls to your retreating back, “The name’s Mingyu by the way! Son of Hercules!”

And as much as that interests you, you continue to make your exit, filing that information away for later.

You’re not exactly sure how you ended up in this situation, but sitting across from you in your dorm is the son of Hercules. It seems after your first encounter he’s been partial to seeking you out as much as he can. You were just walking into your dorm when he bombarded you and all but forced his way into your dorm. So here you are, sitting on your bed, staring at where he sits at your desk.

“You’re here so you can what? Run back to all of your little friends and tell them all about me?”

“Oh no, I actually uh…this is kind of embarrassing, I don’t really have any friends.”

“You live in Auradon, how the hell don’t you have any friends? Aren’t you guys all about friendship and kindness and all that crap?”

“Yeah, we are, but I don’t know. Most people see me as some clumsy, annoying guy.”

“You are a clumsy, annoying guy.”

“I know that, but it’s different when they say it. I don’t know, none of them really like me that much. They don’t even pretend to like me like they do with some of the others.”

“I don’t get that. If you’re not going to like someone, don’t hide it. Honestly, it’s better they don’t fake it with you. I’d rather have a million enemies than one fake friend.”

“It’s different here,” Mingyu says. “Everyone does what it takes to get them higher on the totem pole.”

“And being fake does that? I’ve always openly hated Minghao and I’m the highest on the damn totem pole.”

“Oh no. We’re not allowed to hate anyone. Well I guess, unless it’s me.”

“Why do they even hate you? From what I can tell you’re smart, and strong, and…nice,” you force the last word out. “Sounds like everything everyone here values.”

“I may be smart, but they still think I’m stupid. I probably am sometimes. I guess when you have to be nice all the time, you need someone to be the punching bag to get all of your anger out on. I just happened to be that person.”

“Why don’t you do something about it? Your grandfather is literally Zeus. The Zeus. They should all be bowing to you, not walking all over you.”

You’re not sure why you care so much. Maybe it’s because Mingyu is the only person who hasn’t sneered at you. Maybe it’s because he knows what it’s like to get sneered at.

“What am I supposed to do? Rain lightning bolts down on them? Beat them up with my strength? I can’t do stuff like that, that’s villain stuff.” Mingyu glances over at you, like he said something wrong. Like he’s not supposed to bring up villainy around you. You barely pay attention to him though.

“Hell yeah it is! What’s wrong with a little villany? Beats being a punching bag for the rest of your life.”

“I would be hated even more than I already am,” Mingyu says.

“Villains aren’t even the bad guys. They have good views, people just get mad because they didn’t think of it first. Honestly half of the villains wouldn’t even be villains if it wasn’t for your parents! The two strongest villains on the Isle, Hades and Maleficent, wouldn’t have even become villains if they just got a goddamn invitation to begin with!” It’s something you and Wonwoo have discussed before. The coincidence of your parents path to villainy. “If you ask me, the real villains are the good guys. Real heroes don’t bully others.”

“You know you’re…not nearly as bad as the others make you out to be.”

“Yeah well, I was a lot worse on the Isle. I just know I’ll get shipped back if I do any of my normal activities, and I can’t leave Wonwoo alone here like that.”

“Wonwoo…Maleficent’s son. He’s not like the rest of you guys is he?”

“No, but he’s not like the Auradonians either. He’s probably the only good guy I know. Well I guess, you count now too. But Wonwoo’s a whole different thing. Despite who his mother is, he’s never given into any of it. He couldn’t even hurt a fly, and his conscience keeps him accounted for everything. Even that time he accidentally borrowed a pen from me and forgot to give it back.”

“You really love him, huh?”

“Of course, he’s my best friend.”

“No I mean like…happily ever after love. Romantic love. I can tell by how you talk about him. It’s the same way my mom talks about my dad.”

“You’re mom…Megara.” You decided to change the topic. You don’t want to think about your feelings for Wonwoo, especially now that it seems like he’s ignoring you.

“Yeah…she wasn’t exactly a hero to begin with either. She doesn’t talk about her time with Hades much, but sometimes she brings it up in passing.”

“He’s…something.” You roll your eyes. “Let’s change the topic now.”

“Right…so back to Wonwoo.”

“Or maybe you can just leave all together.” Mingyu grins at you but you keep your face deadpan.

“Okay! No talk about Hades or Wonwoo. Good to know.” Mingyu doesn’t say anything for a moment and you’re about to ask him to not so kindly fuck off when he speaks up again. “So do you have any hobbies?”

“...No.”

“Oh.��

“There’s not exactly a lot to do on the Isle and I doubt you’d consider stealing a hobby.”

“So there’s…nothing you like to do? What have you been doing in your free time? Haven’t you thought about trying new things?” Mingyu spitfires the questions at you, something you’ve noticed he does a lot.

“In my free time I sit in my dorm or spend time with Jeonghan. There’s nothing here I want to do. Why try new things when they all sound awful?”

“You’re pretty pessimistic, you know that?”

“Yeah I do, it’s almost like I was raised by villains.”

“Well let me show you fun things to do! I promise it will be worth your time. Meet me at the front of the school tomorrow after class!” With that Mingyu gets up and leaves. You just stare at the space he was sitting in, trying to process his words.

For some reason you find yourself in front of the school after class the next day. You’re not sure why. Curiosity? Boredom? Some kind of pity for the kid with no friends?

“Y/N! You’re here!” The big guy runs up and attempts to give you a hug but you dodge him before he can. “You won’t be disappointed!”

“I better not be, or I’ll set you on fire.”

Mingyu laughs, not understanding you’re being completely serious. “Let’s go.” He starts to lead you to another part of the school you haven’t explored yet. “I thought I could introduce you to a bunch of things that you may enjoy. Cooking, art, music, reading, sports, gaming. Stuff like that.”

“I know what all of that is, I just don’t have an interest in it.”

“Do you not have an interest in it or are you just afraid to participate in something that’s not villainous?” You don’t answer. “You can’t tell if you don’t like something if you don’t try it! You live in Auradon now, you don’t have to be evil all the time. And don’t think I’m trying to change you from who you are, I’m just trying to…expand who you could be.”

“You’re cheesy, you know that? You sound like Fairy Godmother in Goodness Class but less stuck up and more puppy-like.”

“Puppies are a good thing!”

You just roll your eyes as Mingyu guides you into a room. There’s a bunch of equipment inside and a large mirror on one of the walls. There are a few people inside, using the equipment and it takes you a few seconds to piece together that it's a fitness gym.

“Why did you bring me here?” You turn to look at Mingyu.

“Well you seem to have a lot of pent up feelings and this is a great way to get them out. You can get swole while doing it too!” Mingyu flexes his arm and you try to not show how impressed you are at the size of his bicep. Stupid Hercules kid.

“So what? You just want me to lift weights?”

“Well…more like hit things. C’mere.” Mingyu takes you over to another part of the room where there are large bags hanging from the ceiling. “Punching bags. Just put the gloves on and go at it.” He hands you a pair of large gloves.

“You know on the Isle when you punch someone you don’t wear gloves. Seems like a sissy thing to do.”

“It sounds like protecting your hands from getting hurt. Just put them on.” You do.

You think Mingyu is about to say something else but you ignore him and throw a punch at the bag. You continue to throw punch after punch, working up a sweat and getting out all of your frustrations. The bag swings all over, probably due to your demi-god strength, but you don’t stop.

You don’t stop, until you hear someone cackle behind you. You step back from the bag to turn around and see two people staring at you and Mingyu. One is the small guy you met on the first day, Jihoon maybe? And another guy.

“Look Jihoon, it’s a delinquent and the dumbass,” the new guy scoffs. “Why don’t you two get out of here before you stink up the place.”

“Don’t even bother with them Cheol, they’re probably too stupid to understand what you’re saying,” Jihoon says.

This ‘Cheol’ doesn’t seem to listen to his friend though. “You know you have no right being here. Not just in this room, but at this school, on the mainland. Go back to the Isle where vermin like you belong. And you Mingyu. I knew you were fucking pathetic but hanging around low-lifes like them? You really are the biggest fucking loser in this school aren’t you?”

“Watch your mouth.” You throw the gloves off and start to walk towards the two but you feel a strong hand on your shoulder, stopping you.

“Don’t. C’mon, let’s just go. It’s not worth it.” You glare at the pair as Mingyu practically drags you out of the room. He doesn’t say anything else after you two get out of the gym. 

“Hey,” you break the silence, “you said you were going to show me a bunch of things. What’s the next one?”

Mingyu perks up a bit at your enthusiasm and starts to guide you to a new part of the school. When you get there you realize it’s the art wing of the school. You’ve walked through it before but never stopped to look for too long.

You two walk in through the door of a room and to your surprise, Minghao and Jun are in there.

“Nope, we’re leaving,” you tell Mingyu. You try to drag him out of the room but unfortunately for you, he’s a lot stronger than you are.

“Why, what’s wrong? Aren’t those guys also from the Isle?”

“Yeah that’s the problem. Just because we’re from the same place doesn’t mean we’re friends, that’s an Auradon thing. It’s actually common to have a lot more enemies than friends on the Isle.”

“They’re your enemies?”

“Yes,” you hiss. “So let’s go before they see us.”

Mingyu finally seems to understand you and you two silently sneak out of the room. The sad look is back on Mingyu’s face. “Well that’s a two for two bust.”

You roll your eyes. “I’m supposed to be the pessimistic one, remember? There has to be more than punching things and half assed art.”

“Fine, fine. The final thing today is actually my favorite thing to do, so don’t be too harsh on it okay?”

“No promises.”

Mingyu ignores your last statement and leads you to your final destination, the kitchens. “My favorite thing to do is cook!”

You don’t have much time to protest before Mingyu is handing you an apron and getting right to work. You find that you don’t want to protest much anyways. Mingyu seems genuinely excited as he bustles around the kitchen and you may be evil, but not evil enough to kill his happiness. You do as he says and you two talk about your childhoods and yourselves as you work side by side. You find that you’re enjoying yourself, and that maybe you do like Mingyu’s company, just a little bit.

The food also comes out…really good. Better than the dining hall food and way better than anything you’d ever had on the Isle. You and Mingyu sit on the counters of the kitchen as you eat your meal and continue your conversation.

You stare at Mingyu as he goes on a story about trips to Mount Olympus and you decide he’s pretty. Objectively. He has good facial structure and tan skin and nicely styled hair.

“Mingyu,” you cut him off.

“Yes?” He stops his story to look up and stare you in the eyes.

“Uhm…thanks.”

“For what?”

“For…this? For you know,” you struggle to get the words out, you’ve never been the best at showing emotions, “for being my friend.”

Mingyu lights up at this and you think that his smile might be the prettiest thing about him.

“You and Hercules’s kid?” Jeonghan drawls and if you weren’t used to much scarier things creeping up on you, you would have jumped. 

It’s been a few weeks since you admitted to Mingyu that you guys are friends and you’ve been spending a lot more time with him lately. He just left your dorm when Jeonghan approaches you.

“What do you want Jeonghan?”

“Oh nothing. Just interesting seeing you all buddy-buddy with the big guy. Especially given your parents and the fact you yourself said you’re not gonna be making any friends here.”

“Oh shut up. Don’t act like you’re not always with that pretty boy all the time.”

“Pretty boy? You mean Josh?”

“Josh? A nickname? Really Jeonghan? And you want to try and judge me?”

“Joshua and I aren’t friends. He’s just in like all of my classes and has taken to hanging around me, not the other way around.”

“The Jeonghan I know would have told him to fuck off. You really wanna be with someone who keeps shooting glares at Minghao whenever he can?”

“I guess that makes us even, given he’s the one hanging around Rapunzel’s kid. And anyways, since when are you sticking up for Minghao? You two are sworn enemies.”

“We are, but unlike on the Isle, there are much greater enemies to worry about around here. The Auradonians have it out for all of us, no matter how ‘buddy-buddy’ we get with them,” you say. “You guys can make all the friendships you want, but in their minds, we’re still just villain scum.”

“You’re one to talk. I just saw the son of the guy your father tried to kill walk out of your dorm!”

“He’s not like them!” You argue. “He’s more like us than anything else. He listens and understands when I tell him things. He gets bullied by the kids here, and he’s one of them.”

“You have always been soft for the underdogs haven’t you,” Jeonghan says. His tone is condescending and you know he’s referring to Wonwoo.

“I’m just saying you can’t judge me when you’re doing the exact same thing. If you want to judge someone, maybe start with the people who are the actual enemy.” With that you slam your dorm door in Jeonghan’s face.

A few minutes later you hear a knock on the door and you all but growl. You storm over to the door and throw it open, expecting to see Jeonghan, but instead you see Wonwoo, his hands full of books. It really shouldn’t surprise you to see him, considering he lives here, but in all honesty you haven’t really seen him in a few days.

“Thanks Y/N, I couldn’t really open the door with my hands full.” Wonwoo walks into the room and dumps the books on his desk.

You stand at the door, staring at your best friend. You’re not sure what you’re feeling. Relief to see your best friend. Anger because you haven’t seen him in a few days. Sadness because you miss him and even though he’s right in front of you, you still miss him.

Wonwoo turns to look at you. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Uhm, uh…no,” you admit. You finally close the dorm door and trudge over to Wonwoo’s bed (it’s closer) before flopping down. “It’s like…too much has changed since coming here. I don’t see you anymore and Jeonghan and I got into a fight and everyone here sucks.”

Wonwoo slowly crawls up onto his bed as well, and draws you into his arms. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry we haven’t seen much of each other lately. I’m sorry you don’t like it here. I shouldn’t have forced you to-”

“No don’t,” you tell him. “I made the choice to come here, don’t blame yourself. I just wish…I wish it wasn’t like this. That’s all.”

“I know,” Wonwoo murmurs. “How about this…you’ll have me this whole weekend to yourself. Just us hanging out. How does that sound?”

“Wonwoo I would love to, but I…kind of have plans?”

“Plans?”

“Yeah…Mingyu’s supposed to be taking me to town to go shopping? Or something like that?”

“Mingyu…that’s…Hercules’ son?”

“Yeah…we’re kind of friends? He’s like the only person here I like, but that’s only because he’s not an asshole. He kind of reminds me of you, but he’s like a total extravert.”

Wonwoo chuckles at that. “Well I’d like to meet this Mingyu who’s been keeping you company. Maybe we could all spend time together?”

You bury yourself further into Wonwoo’s arms and smile. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

You’re not sure how it’s happened but Wonwoo and Mingyu get along really well, maybe a little too much, because now your days are spent with both Mingyu and Wonwoo, to the point where you don’t get a break from them. Like three peas in a pod, or whatever Fairy Godmother said to you. You don’t mind, you’re actually happy that Mingyu and Wonwoo get along so well, but it doesn’t cover up the fact that Auradonian’s have gotten worse, and now that Wonwoo is actively hanging around you again, he’s started to become at the end of their insults as well.

You can take the insults, but it makes your blood absolutely boil hearing them thrown at the two boys. There’s been plenty of times where they have to pull you away from the AKs, saying how you can’t turn into what they want you to. You really don’t care what happens to you, as long as they leave Mingyu and Wonwoo alone, but they do care what happens to you so you have to stay at least somewhat under control.

You’ve recently realized that you’d do just about anything for Mingyu and Wonwoo and as much as that scares you, it also doesn’t. You love them and they mean the world to you and as long as it took you to admit that for Mingyu, it’s true.

Which is why you’re here, standing at the Parents’ Day event, even though your dad is back on the Isle, most likely sitting in his chair and watching TV. Mingyu asked you to be here, so you came.

You, Mingyu, and Wonwoo are standing at the edge of the set up, staring at everyone else. You watch everyone with their families, smiling and hugging and laughing. You’re rightfully uncomfortable, but you try not to show that to Mingyu.

Your eyes sweep over the crowd again when they stop on a large figure at the entrance of the garden. You take a deep breath before exhaling slowly, breaking the silence that you, Mingyu, and Wonwoo were standing in. “I didn’t know your dad would be making an appearance,” you mutter under your breath.

“Neither did I,” Mingyu responds.

Your hand automatically reaches for Wonwoo’s and he accepts, holding onto you tight. Mingyu excuses himself, telling you two not to move, before he moves to greet his parents. It looks like the three have a brief conversation before they start to make your way towards you and Wonwoo. You quickly avert your eyes so it doesn’t look like you were blatantly staring.

“Well son, let’s meet these friends of yours.” You hear Hercules’s booming voice before you see him, but it’s not long before Mingyu and his parents are standing in front of you.

Before anyone can say anything, Megara gasps. “You look…just like him.”

“Uh, Mom, Dad, this is Y/N and Wonwoo.” Mingyu shoots you an apologetic look.

“The…villain kids…” Hercules mutters.

“Nice to meet you sir,” you stick your hand out and you don’t miss the way Megara flinches a bit. Hercules wraps a large arm around his wife. You lower your hand.

“Hello Mr. Hercules, Mrs. Megara. You have raised a wonderful son. He’s been nothing but kind and accepting since we’ve met, and he’s shaped up to be a phenomenal friend,” Wonwoo says to the couple. They look less…on edge talking to Wonwoo. Maybe because he’s in an actual suit and you couldn’t be bothered to put on something nicer than a slightly wrinkled button up shirt and your nicest leather bottoms.

“Let’s meet some more of your friends, son.” Hercules claps a large hand onto Mingyu’s back and he stumbles a bit.

“Dad, I told you, I don’t have very many friends here.”

“Sure you do! Who couldn’t love this face,” Megara coos before pinching Mingyu’s cheek.

“A lot of people,” Mingyu mumbles softly so only you and Wonwoo hear.

“So Mingyu? These other friends?”

“I don’t have any other friends Dad!”

“You’re only friends are…the kids of the two worst villains of all time? No you’re lying, no son of mine would be friends with such degenerates!”

“Don’t call them that,” Mingyu growls. “Dad you’re being unfair.”

“Unfair? You’re friends with the children of Hades and Malficent.”

“So what? They are amazing people and you can’t judge them just because of where they come from. What makes them any different than Mom-”

“MINGYU!” Hercules booms. “That is no way to talk about your mother. Son, we’re very disa-”

“When are you not! Why did you even show up today? You’ve always been too busy for me and when you do pay attention to me, it’s to tell me how much I don’t live up to your expectations. Just leave already,” Mingyu spits out. “I don’t know why any of us are here, let’s go.” Mingyu roughly grabs your arm and tugs you away, Wonwoo following.

Mingyu storms all the way to the dorms before he calms down. He’s still grabbing onto your arm tightly and you gently try to pull your arm out of his grip before he realizes.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry Y/N. Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine. High pain tolerance.”

You three stand in silence as Mingyu sighs. “I’m…I’m sorry about them.”

“It's not your fault,” Wonwoo is quick to assure him.

“I should have known-”

“You couldn’t have known anything. It’s fine, nothing we’re not used to,” you say softly. “Let’s just…go back to the dorm, yeah?”

It’s somber as you walk back to the dorm, and nobody says anything as you crawl into your bed, Mingyu and Wonwoo following, sandwiching you in the middle. The silence continues as you hold each other, until you eventually drift to sleep.

You’re rarely guilty about anything, but you are a bit guilty for not seeing Jeonghan in a while. He is, admittedly, your friend, and you haven’t seen much of him since Mingyu and Wonwoo have gotten close. You blame yourself, but you start to rethink that thought when you catch him all but sneaking out of Minghao and Jun’s dorm one day.

“What the hell are you doing hanging around those guys?” You confront Jeonghan. He doesn’t look surprised to see you, but his face is somber.

“Listen Y/N, this might be something you want to stay out of.” Jeonghan’s tone isn’t threatening like it normally would have been. He is giving you a warning. He pushes past you.

“Jeonghan.” At the call of his name he stops, but doesn’t turn around. “When have you ever gotten into mischief without me?”

You see Jeonghan’s shoulders rise and fall before he turns back around. “We can’t talk about it here.”

He takes you to his dorm. You sit down at his desk, noting the way their room still looks the exact way when they moved in.

“You can’t tell anyone about this. Even if you don’t approve, you can’t stop us. You have to promise me that Y/N.” Promises are a big deal on the Isle because they’re enforced. You break a promise, and you’ll get your arm broken in return.

“...I promise.”

“Minghao, Jun, Chan, and I are gonna take down the crown. We’re tired of the way we’re being treated. They promised a better future and all they’re doing is making us want to go back to the Isle, which is saying something.”

“Take down the crown…?”

“Yeah. We’ve already started a plan. We’re gonna make all of Auradon pay, and then maybe we’ll even take over the world.” Jeonghan shrugs his shoulders.

“Woah, wait, hold up. What?”

“Y/N. C’mon dude you’re like…one of the evilest people I know. Don’t you get it? We’re gonna break into the Museum of Cultural History, get Fairy Godmother’s wand, and finally do what our parents couldn’t all those years ago.”

You wonder how long the boys have been planning this. You wonder if they would have told you if you didn’t catch them before they executed the plan. Knowing Minghao, probably not. 

“We’d actually really appreciate your help if you’d like to give it. Wonwoo’s too, but I think he’s put all the villainy behind him,” Jeonghan scoffs. “Waste of potential. The son of Maleficent, and all he wants to do is read books.”

“What are you going to do when you do take down the crown?” You ignore the dig at Wonwoo, because if you don’t Jeonghan would be sporting a black eye.

“Not sure yet. If you’re worried about us hurting your precious little Wonwoo, don’t worry. No matter how much of a goody two shoes he is, he’s still one of us.”

“And everyone else in Auradon?” You think that if Jeonghan lays even a finger on Mingyu that you’ll castrate him.

“They’ll bow to us now, and do what we say. It doesn’t matter what happens to them, it will be us who have the power. So are you in or what?” Jeonghan stares back at you expectantly.

“I-” You contemplate your options.

You think about every Auradonian who’s scoffed at you and whispered behind your back. You think about the condescending remarks on teachers' tongues and the shifty looks the parents keep sending you. You think about your father who scoffed at you everytime you tried to tell him about your newest villainous act. You think about Wonwoo and Mingyu whose safety needs to be ensured.

You look back up at Jeonghan. “I’m in.” 

“Nice to have you,” Minghao drawls as you walk into the next meeting with Jeonghan. “Finally came to your senses?”

“Just figured you’d need a lot more brains to counteract your stupidity,” you retort.

“Whatever the reason is,” Jun butts in, “we’re happy you’re here. Besides Minghao, you’re the only one of us who can use magic.”

“Technically, Wonwoo ca-” Your glare cuts Jeonghan off.

“What even are all of your powers?” Chan asks you.

You give them a run down of all of your powers. Fire and smoke manipulation, like your dad. High pain tolerance and increased strength because of demi-god powers. Manipulation of souls and the dead. All the basics.

“Yeah…yeah we can work with this,” Minghao mutters. “With the plans we have…we could put them into action by the end of next week.”

“And you’re 100% in?” Jun questions you.

“Yeah…of course. We’ll make them all pay.” Pay for how they treat you. Pay for how they Wonwoo. Pay for how they treat Mingyu. Pay for all of it.

“Well then, it looks like we have a team.” And something about that excites you.

A week after your first meeting with the other VKs you guys have a solid plan of action, and you’re ready to execute it. It’s a bit strange to actually be getting along with Minghao and Jun, but you decide they’re not as bad as they used to be. Or maybe you’re just finally giving them a chance. Either way, you find that you can stand to be around them for prolonged periods of time.

They’re not the only ones that you’ve had new revelations for. Sitting in the meetings, planning to take over Auradon, you think about how you’re doing it all for Mingyu and Wonwoo. Your boys. You’d honestly go to war for them if they asked. You think you may love them, but then again you’re not exactly sure what love feels like. Nonetheless, they mean the world to you, and so you’ll do everything in your power to give them what they deserve.

You hate to admit it, but you’re also a bit excited to get back into villainy. You know it’s the morally wrong thing to do, but when have you ever cared about morally correct? You miss the thrill you get from plotting something and carrying it out. The only time you ever feel a bit bad about it is when you come home to see Mingyu and Wonwoo waiting for you in the dorm.

“Where have you been going the past few nights? I miss you.” Mingyu pulls you into a hug, resting his head on yours.

Your heart swells. “I’ve just been with Jeonghan. I feel bad for leaving him out to dry lately. You know I do have other important people in my life than just you two.”

“When has anyone ever been more important to you than me?” Wonwoo questions and well, he’s got you there.

“We are still your favorites though, right?” Mingyu looks at you with his big puppy dog eyes and you roll your eyes but inside your stomach flutters with butterflies.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” You push yourself out of Mingyu’s arms so you can start to get ready for bed. “Are you spending the night again Mingyu?”

“Can I?” He looks at you hopefully and grins wide when you nod.

You crawl into bed and Mingyu follows after, and even though Wonwoo was on his own bed, he makes the short trip over to yours so he can crawl in too. Snuggled in between both of them, you think about how there’s nowhere else you want to be. Even if you don’t have a label, you sleep peacefully knowing that everything you do, it’s for them.

You’re nervous, but only because you want things to go well. You don’t think you’re going to fail, but if you do, you just want to make sure your boys are okay. Minghao has decided that today is the day you’re going to execute the plan and then after this, everything will be over. You guys will finally be safe, and happy, and together.

The plan is to meet up at the museum where Jeonghan and Minghao will steal the wand while you, Chan, and Jun will do damage control. From there you will storm the castle and capture the royal family, before finally taking over all of Auradon. There’s a lot that could go wrong, but in turn there’s a lot that could go right which is a risk you have to take.

You quickly crawl out of bed, through the foot of the bed so you don’t have to crawl over the body on either side of you. You slip out of bed and start to pull off your pajamas to grab your clothes.

“Y/N?” The soft, sleepy voice stops you in your tracks. You don’t want to turn around, because if you do you’ll be tempted to just crawl right back into bed with your boys, but you have to do this, for them. “Y/N what are you doing? It’s late.”

“I have to go. I need to go do something right now,” you say as you continue to pull on your clothes.

“What could you possibly have to do at 3 am?” The other tempting voice in your bed sounds out. Great now they’re both awake.

“I have to go meet with Jeonghan, it’s very important and I promise I’ll tell you everything later, but just know that everything that happens has a reason. If things seem wrong, don’t freak out, it will all work out.”

“What are you talking about?” You hear shuffling in bed, meaning that most likely Wonwoo is sitting up.

“Just explain to us where you’re going, Y/N,” Mingyu says. “Why are you meeting Jeonghan at 3 am? You two have been very suspicious lately.”

“...If I tell you something, you have to promise you’ll keep it secret, okay?”

“Oh this is serious,” Wonwoo mutters.

“We promi-”

“We promise to our best ability to keep it secret,” Wonwoo cuts Mingyu off, having more experience dealing with Isle promises, “but we cannot promise our full secrecy if we deem fit to bring others in.”

That’s a good enough answer for you, and you finally turn around to face the two boys. They’re both sitting up, staring at you with half-tired looks on their faces. “The past couple weeks I’ve been meeting with Jeonghan and the other VKs. They’re planning on stealing Fairy Godmother’s wand and taking over Auradon, and I’m going to help them.”

“What!” Wonwoo roars, fully awake now. He quickly climbs out of bed to approach you. Mingyu hastily follows, a more concerned look on his face.

“Are you going to be safe? Did the others force you into this?” Mingyu, always the caretaker, rushes to make sure you’re okay.

Wonwoo, on the other hand, does not share the same sentiments. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you know how risky and stupid this is?” 

“Yes I know how stupid this is, okay, but it’s just something I have to do. I can’t give you all the details right now, but you guys just have to trust me.”

“Trust you? You’ve been off planning world domination with Minghao,” Wonwoo says.

“I know, okay, and I’m sorry and I promise we’ll talk about it later, but I really have to go.”

“What are we supposed to do? Sit around and wait while you just take over the kingdom?”

“Y/N, I don’t like this. What if you get hurt, or caught? Do you trust the others to have your back?” Mingyu asks, your safety still being his biggest concern. “Why can’t you just stay here?”

“I have to do this Gyu…I can’t keep living here like this, but I can’t go back to the Isle. Things won’t get better unless we make them better.” You grab his hand in yours and squeeze tight. “You have to understand what I mean.”

“I’m with Mingyu on this one Y/N. I don’t want you doing this without any kind of back up.”

“Then join us,” you blurt out. Both of them look like they want to say something, but the words die on their tongues. “Everyone here treats both of you like shit. Don’t you want to do something other than sit back and let them? You two both deserve the world, so let me give it to you.” You reach up and cup both of their faces one hand each.

“Wh-what about-”

“We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure everything out. But I need you both to be with me.” You recall the words Wonwoo told you long ago. “I can’t live a fulfilling life without you two in it.”

“Okay,” Mingyu breathes out. You’re a bit surprised he’s the one who responded first.

“Okay?”

“Okay. I- I love you. If this is what you choose, then I’ll follow you to the end of the earth.”

You ignore the way you feel your stomach flutter at his words. You instead face the other man standing in front of you. “Woo?”

“You trust those four?”

“I trust they’re doing what’s best for us.”

“And we’ll be free?”

“No evil parents. No royal bullies. We make the rules now.”

“And it will be us together?”

“Forever.”

Wonwoo’s eyes search your face to make sure you’re sincere, but you both know you’ve never lied to Wonwoo a day in your life. His eyes flick over to Mingyu before looking back at you. “Okay.”

Relief surges through your body and you don’t think you’ve ever felt so powerful in your life. Mingyu pulls you into a hug and you snuggle into his large chest. You feel Wonwoo wrap himself around your back, once again sandwiching you between the two men.

The others can wait a few minutes, you think as you relax in their arms. You relish in the comfort of their warm bodies pressed into yours, enjoying the calm before the storm. You’re not worried though. You’re not worried at all. You have your two boys by your side and a plan to take over the world, what else could you need?

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[dalishious]

The Dragon Age Fandom’s New Favourite Charming Slaver

There is nothing wrong with appreciating and enjoying villainous characters, especially when they are done so well. Everything about Rezaren Ammosine makes a him a remarkable and fascinating villain. He’s very intelligently depicted; all aspects of his character matter to how he presents in the story. His design is that of a handsome young white man. He is animated with a graceful and gentle flow, not just in how he casts spells but literally how he carries himself. His voice has a soft and soothing tone, and he uses that soft tone as part of his powerful charisma and sway he has over the people around him, like Tassia. In fact, Rezaren uses all of these characteristics for his benefit. Because just like in real life, abusers do not always wear “I’m a shithead” signs on their chest. To the outside world, they are charming and gentle people who couldn’t possibly hurt a fly, could they? But make no mistake. Rezaren Ammosine is a villain to his core. And treating him as anything other than a villain is a grossly disrespectful interpretation to fans of colour, given the nature of his villainy.

From his very introduction, we see that Rezaren is used to getting his way, and becomes easily frustrated and angered when his will is denied. When he summons a spirit of memory to interrogate about the circulum’s creation, the spirit warns him that answering too much would be unwise. Rezaren ignores these warnings and orders the spirit to continue, to the brink of turning the spirit into a pride demon. This is called back into further example when Miriam refuses his plans for her. Again, he becomes easily angered and physically lashes out, using his magic to flare up the pain in her wound. Then to solidify the power he has over her, says “You live because I will it.”

Rezaren explains to Tassia, “Her name is Miriam. She's my sister. My mother owned her. She was to be my personal spy, assassin. Whatever was needed. My left hand, as it were. But she raised us as siblings.” Except we see how Miriam and Neb were really raised in flashbacks. We see how they were beaten for Rezaren simply tripping while playing with them. We see how they were forced to do hard labour, and told they were not allowed to own anything. And we see how Rezaren’s mother sacrificed Neb so that Rezaren would not become an abomination during his Harrowing, sending the demon into Neb’s body instead. And that raising has obviously shaped how Rezaren views this so-called siblinghood, because while he may call Neb and Miriam his brother and sister, make no mistake, he still views them belonging to him. Rezaren has no respect for their autonomy. Even in death, he defiles Neb’s body by using blood magic to put a demon inside it and controlling him. And Miriam? He cannot bare to accept that she refuses to submit to slavery again, no matter how pretty a picture he paints of them being like family. But you don’t own a sibling. “Selfish bitch! You and your ungrateful brother. You were mine!” he shouts at the very end, before Miriam fatally stabs him.

So, Rezaren is a villainous slaver. Why is it, then, that people are writing reviews praising his character while calling Miriam and her party the real baddies? Why are people saying he “deserved” a redemption arc? The only assumption I can come to is simply that people are so not used to the white guy being the one to lose in the fantasy genre, that they’re willing to bend over backwards to try and paint the only white person in the show as a victim of the #mean brown woman. Think about it. How many stories are out there where the hero is a white man? White people are conditioned to always be the centre of attention, so when they’re not for a change, they need to seek it out by shining a spotlight on whatever white man they can find. This is of course nothing unique to the Dragon Age fandom, but rather a disease found in fandom spaces as a whole. Hell, look at the Star Wars sequels, and how the bizarre love for and babygirlification of Kylo Ren was so strong it led to ruining the second and third films. This is why it’s such a relief to me that Rezaren dies in the end of Absolution, because otherwise it would truly end up a fear to me that the writers would try the same with him.

When you’re pushing Rezaren into the spotlight, you are pushing Miriam out of it. And Miriam is such a treasure of a character, it’s a crying shame to see her get so much disrespect. I have nothing against people who like Rezaren, but if your like for him goes to the extent of putting down Miriam in order to put him up, then we have a problem.

[the-knight-of-destiny]

On Fantasy High, Redemption, and Agency (General Spoilers for Junior Year, sort of?) Also this post about FHJY is long as fuck, as all of mine are getting. In short it's my understanding of how Brennan Lee Mulligan sets up the teenage villains of Fantasy High.

Fair warning, this is LOOOONG below the cut.

Y'know when I said I wasn't going to talk about Ratgrinder discourse? I lied.

So Brennan as a DM has a very specific narrative language for how a villain is 'redeemable' and it primarily has to do with the level of agency a villain has in their actions. This isn't particularly hard to notice when you look at our very own (and fan favorite) reformed villain squad.

Starting with Ragh, while he was in his right mind for most of his villainy in Freshman Year, he really didn't do too much other than beat people up and be a bully? While he worked with Daybreak on some level, he wasn't anything more than muscle and not very in on most of the plans. There was also some implication of grooming and manipulation from Daybreak to Ragh.

Zayn as an example also helps build this thesis, while he also hasn't done a TON evil he's generally a bit more discerning than Ragh. However he builds the understanding of how Fantasy High looks at it's redeemed teenage villains, when Zayn is found as a ghost he explicitly calls out Daybreak as being the only reason he's still housed, were he not to go along with the Freshman Year scheme he'd have been sent back to his abusive parents, the foster system, or homeless as like, a fifteen year old boy.

But the actual silver bullet to understanding this is Aelwyn, to preface. Aelwyn fucking sucks in freshman year, way worse than Ragh or Zayn. She's also responsible for way worse than any other teenage villain in the series. She's arguably committed worse than Dayne Blayde or Penelope Everpetal, but there's an important component to her redemption in Sophmore Year, something Brennan has her stay conscious despite making death saves to explain.

In tears Aelwyn notes that Kalina was actively threatening to kill her had she not complied with the Kalvaxus plan.

So there's a running theme here, Ragh didn't seem to have much of an idea of what the wider plan even was and was just muscle, Zayn was under significant threat to his personal safety (and unbeknownst to him, also under threat of death, a threat that actually gets carried out), and Aelwyn was literally convinced she'd be murdered for not complying.

This tracks with the teen villains who DON'T get redeemed by the way, Dayne had no qualms about casually murdering his classmates with a great sword, Penelope didn't seem to mind the idea of throwing her best friend Kalvaxus for a power play. They both get killed because they don't seem to really care what happened, were fully complicit, and had no form of remorse at all.

This leaves us with our code to cracking if Brennan sees the Ratgrinders as possibly worthy of redemption (IMO, signs point to yes, but it's complicated.) We know the Ratgrinders are being manipulated heavily by Porter (I have so many more thoughts about Jace's place in this but that's for a whole other post,) however they don't have Ragh's excuse of being mostly in the dark.

Kipperlilly and Oisin for sure know exactly what's going on, and the rest (sans Buddy) probably do too. The actual question is how much does Ankarna rage affect one's reasoning, and the thing that's interesting about how the Ratgrinders have been set up is that question is sincerely ambiguous.

Signs point to the corruption needing some sort of genuine anger or frustration to latch onto, but this is my first hot take here. This isn't really that damning? Pre-Rage Kipperlilly said some concerning things, in private confidential counseling. She (at the time) understood her fixation on Riz was a problem and perhaps not fair. Oisin probably was mildly frustrated or saddened a girl he had a crush on didn't notice him, but to cast Pre-Rage Oisin as a full on Biz Glitterdew incel is, in my opinion, unlikely. Ruben was already seeking attention but wasn't anything worse than a mildly annoying teenage boy, etc.

These aren't exactly 'good' feelings but they are pretty normal for 14-15 year olds. Pre-Rage Ratgrinders really aren't that much worse than Pre-Character Development Bad Kids, let's not forget that they too definitely act out in really mean, unfair ways at around the same time as Pre-Rage Ratgrinders (Fig and Fabian, most notably.)

As for agency though, they clearly have a bit more of it than previous teenage villains, and are a bit more aware of their actions. They're not under direct threat of violence like Aelwyn or Zayn (though the way Porter and Jace act around them may make that threat implicit.) and they don't have Ragh's excuse of being seemingly largely in the dark.

The Ratgrinders I feel are an intentional test for the Bad Kids (and the Intrepid Heroes as players) because they're significantly more antagonistic than previous teenage villains. Heck, even ones that turned out totally evil. Dayne's kinda chill to the Bad Kids initially, Penelope is a bit backhanded but she isn't outright mean. If you count him, even Johnny Spells humors Riz and is relatively lax to him. Ragh's honestly way more harsh for most of the first half of Freshman Year, Zayn's initially more rude and confrontational to them too.

That said they're both being influenced by a much worse adult (Like everyone in the Reformed Villain Squad) and have a rage god clouding their judgement to an unknown degree. If we follow previously established patterns, they're salvageable by the story's own logic.

The test is for the party, it's easy to forgive Zayn when he openly cries and apologizes immediately when finally confronted about his place in the villain plot, it's easier to forgive Aelwyn when she openly puts herself in harm's way and almost dies to save Adaine.

It's going to be harder, emotionally, for both the player characters and the players themselves to forgive the Ratgrinders and recognize they're also victims in some sense when the Ratgrinders have been actively fucking with the Bad Kids for the whole season, and taking an obvious amount of satisfaction in it.

The challenge Brennan has set up for the party, I feel, is a test of their character. Fighting a possibly ascended god Porter is gonna be a lot easier without a whole other party of enemies in the fight (and even much easier if you can convince some to fight alongside you as a part of heroes.)

[maxwell-grant]

Thoughts on The Penguin trailer?

This one has a more generic mob show vibe out of the ones we've seen so far, and I'm not gonna lie a part of me is still skeptical regarding it, but the emphasis on post-flood broken Gotham besieged by a crime family fighting for the scraps of the kingdom kept me piqued, and then the words "Post-Apocalyptic Sopranos" crossed my mind in the elevator and oh Yes, Ha Ha Yes

It's one thing for a show about mob power struggles and troubled dynamics to happen in a regular society where they exert power and there are structures in place to abide to, it's another thing entirely for said mob power struggles and troubled dynamics to be happening in the wrecked ruins of a city in the process of rebuilding all of it's structures and for said mob to be simultaneously on free-fall and poised for new beginnings as the world itself is changing (if anything Tony Soprano wishes he could be living like this, with more carte blanche to cut through his stresses with a machine gun every now and then)

It's a decent shake-up on a crime show formula even on it's own, without factoring that oh yeah this is Gotham City and said destruction was caused by a nerd obsessed with riddles and all of these mobsters will have to look over their shoulders for the rest of their lives in case the freak in power armor decides to show up and suplex them into the pavement, and things are only going to get worse and weirder from here on out.

Clancy Brown once again showing up to play the Final Boss / All-Father / Divine Judge of organized villainy, we love to see it, it's what he does and he does it better than anyone. Here breathing a whole new life and power and significance into the other major throwaway Gotham gangster.

What I'm interested in regarding Sofia and the Falcones in general is that they've said several times in the past that Oz is modeled after Fredo Corleone, and this trailer goes out of it's way to paint Sofia as the Michael with direct references. For the contrast between Penguin and the actual gangsters to exist, for this to explore the divide and collapse on regular crime vs super crime that the movie kicked off, this thing needs a standard Prestige TV Crime Show protagonist to work, and that seems to be Sofia, the protagonist of a story, just not this one.

The trailer's placing a big emphasis on Oswald as a guy who's still a long way from the top, contrasting with Sofia holding what's left of the reigns of power. Sofia stares at political protestors behind windows and attends fancy dinner conversations and dwells on the scars of her past and makes threats on how she's been pushed aside too long and it's her turn now, and Oz is out there in the ruins hauling corpses and mentoring an understudy and getting into machine gun fights and doing all the grunt work himself.

She gets the dramatic close-door boss shot, and the trailer ends with her cornering Oswald and leaning in real close to tell him she was always onto him and threaten him, because again, she is entirely convinced he is just the Fredo, and that she is in her girlboss Michael Corleone era. She does that, and then it hard cuts to all the violent destructive cool shit Oz is gonna be doing instead, because she is catastrophically wrong about how this thing is gonna work.

Sequel this, Reevesverse that, Trilogy whatever, none of that is gonna cut anymore. I will no longer accept any way of referring to this that isn't The Batman Epic Crime Saga. I'd say the crimelords of Gotham are asking Oswald if he has it in him to make it epic but he's already giving his answer.

The Falcones are right, Oswald IS just a goon who'd never hack it in the old system. It's just that there isn't an old system anymore, and the future looks a lot more like him than it looks like them. She and Alberto think of themselves as troubled scarred underdogs next in line for succession poised to get what is owed to them, while Penguin opens this by walking up to the former ruler of the entire city and telling him, hey head's up, I'm calling the shots now, as he laughs and snorts and plots to burn down the empire and shank them at their weakest and machine gun battle for what he's decided is his. Even if his name wasn't in the title, it wouldn't even be up to debate who's going to win this fight.

Really what is Batman as a whole about, if not Epic Crime?

[itsnothingofinterest]

Since I have you, btw, I’d like to address something that I don’t see you bringing up very often in your posts: the place that civilians have in the absolute mess that is hero society.

In MHA’s society, heroes are put on a pedestal as being the answer to all of society’s problems, the ones who will always save the day. Tenko’s story is emblematic of this; he needed help, and the so-called “good citizens” paid him no heed or told him to wait for a hero, because they didn’t consider it their job to help him. Thus, he was taken in and groomed by AFO, leading to the current situation.

A lot of your posts talk about how the heroes haven’t substantially changed and how the new generation doesn’t seem to be surpassing the old one as much as they should, but… how much better can you really expect them to be? They’re basically super-powered cops or soldiers. They’ve been trained to be the blunt instruments of society, upholding public order even when that order isn’t necessarily good. And while it’s great that heroes like Izuku and Ochako are thinking beyond that, I don’t think they can or should be made to take all the responsibility on improving things. Just because they’re superhuman doesn’t make them gods. They just can’t do it all (again, especially due to the influence of their training and the corrupt government).

I don’t expect a MHA II, and even considering that possibility, I’m not really sure it would address your complaints with the heroes. Personally, what I’m hoping for is that the civilians follow up on what was said after Ochako’s speech. They should answer her call, mobilize, get the fallen heroes and villains to safety, and after the war, they should factor heavily into how society improves for everyone. That’s my take on things.

(Kind of in response to this post.)

Well I do think a change in the civilian mindset is a potential solution to the faults in hero society, or at least a part of one. (It’d need to be quite a dramatic shift to help more than just the Tenkos of the country though.)

If I may broaden the topic a bit, I'd say in general that any kind of solution I’m looking for would involve some drastic change in one or more levels of hero society to save the people current-day heroes are sweeping under the rug. Could be the heroes, could be the civilians, & government's a longshot but would that work if it happened. That said, relying on the civilians here and now, as we last saw them for that is a bit…well…

The Civilian level

Alright so; my main problem with putting all this on the civilians right now is, even when they let Deku in under Ochako’s prompting, many only ultimately agreed to take Deku in that day when promised a return of the status quo. That deal was even a significant part of Ochako's speech. So they didn’t come out of that looking ready to better the world to me (even before we factor in them triggering Danger Sense when demanding he leave.) And even then, if we took that decision in the best possible light, that’s just one step in the direction of solving just one of the many problems that led to the League destroying so much. Let's not forget their troublesome mindset towards any unseemly quirks like Shinsou's, Toga's, or any heteromorph. And just, in general the civs have a shorter track record of being helpful then...the opposite. It's just hard putting everything, all the hopes for this country pulling its head out of its arse, on one scene of the civs agreeing to house a hero in exchange for the heroes doing their job, you get me?

I mean like, I certainly can get behind the idea of the civilians changing to better help each other not fall to tragic villainy or excuse corruption; they just don’t feel there yet in the same way the kids don’t/haven’t felt ready to save their villains yet.

(To say nothing of how humanity in MHA has a shelf life of around a century at best. And no one left on any side cares to do anything about it even for selfish reasons. So it really feels like small steps towards getting their act together are not the way to go, if for no other reason than another crisis will soon make them all very busy.)

Also, and this is minor in the grand scheme, but we should remember that there are no civilians anywhere near any battleground in this war besides hospital patients and the Todorokis; the rest are all evacuated. So I’m afraid likely we can't end the war with them helping with the clean up and getting folks to safety, and thus build this idea of them carrying their weight going forward. Best we could get is an epilogue with little additional build up of having them all clean up their act. And I'd question the writing of that happening, & that being the big solution to everything that got use here.

The Hero level

Regarding the heroes; well to be honest I don't see a ton of trouble with putting this on them when saving as many as they can is what heroes are supposed to do. Yes under the current system, they’re just super cops in practice; but that’s a flaw in the system capable of being mended, not some unavoidable part of the ideal they’re trying to embody. There's plenty of room for what heroes are to grow to what they should be.

‘Plus I don’t think any Deku-types would really be opposed anyway, he wants to save everyone already, and it feels like the idea of heroes sweeping aside those they don’t save hits home for him’...that’s what I had written before the last chapter dropped while writing this and supported everything I’m saying*. For all I criticize Deku & his classmates; we all know he wants to do more, to save more. Give him the chance & a good idea how and he’ll jump at “shredding the rug with his own hands.”

Maybe it is, from a certain perspective, unfair to say they all need to be like this. But I get the distinct impression that this is what a lot of the hero characters want to be; this is part of the ideal they want to embody. After all, in the aftermath of his forced retirement, even All Might wanted to save Tomura.

(*Btw, sorry this took a bit to write.)

The Government

Ah yes, and it'd be remiss of me to ignore how much of this stems from seeming government policy and general societal reaction to quirk based topics (though there may be overlap there & civilian attitudes). But I want to post this answer sometime this week; so I won't get too into the poor handling of quirks since their inception, the correlating quirk laws, just...the hero commission in general (where would I start?), the effects all this has on hero training as you brought up, or the prison where people get sent for life with no trial or parole. (I don’t care if they’re all supposed to be monsters, especially when we know that’s where they’d have sent Toga & Dabi had things gone differently. “But Tartarus was destroyed,” Yeah but why would they not make a new one?) And probably other stuff I'm forgetting off the top of my head. But suffice to say, there’s a few messes that could be cleaned up there too.

Conclusion

So I guess one way or another, the solution I’m looking for is some dramatic shift in hero society on one or more of the civilian, hero, or government levels to address the causes of the League's fall to villainy. Any combination could hypothetically work.

But the reason I never shut up about a my hero part 2 is that none of them feel like they’re in a state to work like that now. Heroes & civilians on their respective wholes have both made small steps in the right direction and I don't want to downplay that (leadership not so much but what else is new), but both elements need more time & development to accelerate these steps and feel like we could trust them to get anything done in the next century.

[bisexualdawnsummers]

due south for the fandom ask meme

my favorite female character: Victoria Metcalf. I find her fascinating and would love to read novel length fics about her pre and post Fraser life. I love a female villain in general, and I think Victoria is an example of a well done one. I love that she’s smart and competent, complex, and most of all, uncompromising. She does love (and hate) and want Fraser, but she’s not going to ‘go good’ for him. She doesn’t soften or learn the error of her ways, and I think that’s great. At the same time, I don’t think she’s portrayed as Pure Evil or cartoonish in her villainy, she’s still human.

my favorite male character: Ray Vecchio. For me, Ray is a case of if I loved him less, I could talk about him more. Idk, I just love him. I love how he grumbles and protests doing anything, but still goes along with everything – and usually ends up going above and beyond. I love how brash he can be. I love his fashion sense. I love how loyal and caring he is to everyone he loves. I love how he feels like a real, lived in character with real flaws to go along with all his good traits. I would like to write more, but again, thinking about him makes my brain overheat with love and meltdown.

my favorite book/season/etc: Season 1. Overall s1 was the best written and had the most cohesive character/story arc.

my favorite episode (if it’s a tv show): The Deal (THE Ray Vecchio episode) A big thank you to David Marciano for fighting for this one.

my favorite cast member: I guess I’d have to say Callum Keith Rennie (my birthday buddy!) as he’s the main reason I started watching the show in the first place. I’m more familiar with his work outside of due South than any other cast member. (However, my fixation on RayV has bled through into wanting to seek out more of David Marciano’s work - and listening to a few podcast interviews - so he’s catching up. I also love DM for fighting for RayV’s character. We wouldn’t have The Deal without him.)

my favorite ship: RayV/Fraser. THESE TWO!!! This ship just perfectly scratches at a very specific part of my brain. I love the way that Ray just instantly welcomes Fraser into his life, into his home (into his heart). The way he offers Fraser friendship and acceptance on a level that he’s probably not used to. I love that they have a sort of two sides of the same coin thing going on, how they are parts of a whole, how when they’re alone they are incomplete but together better than they are separately!!!

a character I’d die defending: Ray Vecchio. I’m lucky that I wasn’t around for the Ray Wars and didn’t have to fight against the ‘Ray Vecchio is Homophobic’ or ‘Ray Vecchio is a bad friend to Fraser’(LMAO) allegations that apparently were flung at him back then. I’ve encountered a bit of it in some fics and it makes me want to scream. (To be clear, I don’t mind if RayV has some internalized homophobic issues, I think that’s fair to explore, I’m talking about Ray being violent towards Fraser or refusing to be his friend if he’s gay type of thing. The stuff that is clearly written in bad faith towards RayV.)

a character I just can’t sympathize with: Hm, idk…maybe Pa Vecchio.

a character I grew to love: Meg Thatcher. I never disliked her, but I think I grew to appreciate her more in subsequent rewatches than on my first run through.

my anti otp: Hm, I’d have to say RayK/Stella, I guess, but only in an ‘endgame’ scenario. I actually find their relationship and history interesting and like reading about it in fics occasionally. I also love the idea of them reconnecting as friends because they are a very important part of each other’s lives. I just don’t like the idea of them rekindling their romance in any sort of permanent way. I think Stella makes it very clear that she doesn’t want to reconcile with Ray, so I hate to see that happen on her behalf. I feel like she had to work hard to put up boundaries to keep them from slipping back into old patterns, because while they clearly still care about each other, they’re ultimately not meant to be married. I think that’s why she tends to act so prickly towards Ray, to keep that wall up, and Ray might take any softness as encouragement. Also, I’m not a big fan of divorced couples getting back together in general. I’ve seen a lot shows/movies where couples divorce/separate, only to reconcile (usually without really addressing the issues that led to the separation in the first place), and I’m always like “Please let that woman stay divorced!”

Thank you so much for the ask! <3

[susandsnell]

for the character asks - 2 for sue snell and 4 for armand!

thanks so much nixe dear!!! hope your day was good!!

Character Ask Game!

2. Favorite canon thing about this character? - Sue Snell

It's so hard to pick one thing I love the most about her, so I'll pick the fact that she published her own book about the events of the prom, My Name is Susan Snell. There's so much to be said in horror fiction (and, more broadly, gothic fiction) about the role of the archivist, the narrator, the messenger; the survivor who acted as witness, who brings us the tale, and how their agenda and emotional realities colour the way they tell it.

Sue is, for all intents and purposes, the Final Girl of Carrie while also being the unwitting instigator of the latter reaching Killer status. As a bully, she was her monster's monster, partaking in the incident that would precipitate Carrie's descent into villainy. But crueler still, it's her attempts to atone and go from stepsister to fairy godmother that set the final tragedy in motion. In any version, the compassion and regret Sue feels turns to love and an ironclad will to do right by Carrie -- but no good deed goes unpunished. Sue is put through nine circles of hell. Everyone she knows except her immediate family -- her teachers, her boyfriend, her soulmate, her friends both current and former -- are dead, and she was powerless to stop it. In the 76 movie, she's left as we leave many final girls - screaming, howling spectres of the trauma they've absorbed. In the musical and the book, she's the scapegoat interrogated by police and committee, forced to identify Carrie's body before given proper medical help.

And the existence of the book turns so much of that on its head. She's taking back the narrative into her own hands to communicate the truth of what happened, to reinterrogate her own experience and to honour the memory of her dead, not as heroes or villains, but as humans. She willingly plunges back into hell itself and then brings that hell to the public eye, to communicate the truth, and hopefully, gain peace and closure through disclosure. (And maybe help some other tragic telepaths along the way, we don't know and that sequel is not canon to me.) Less than 10 years after the fact, Sue is the messenger on her own behalf and on the behalf of all those who aren't there, admitting her sins and contextualizing those of others. I know the excerpts from the book say she will be "thinking until she dies", because there's no leaving what happens to her behind, but as messenger, she doesn't simply evoke the memory of the prom, she shapes the status it will hold in the public's consciousness. Sue's nightmare is compounded by the fact that her greatest suffering is in the hands of the public to judge and understand as they will, but through her telling, she is grabbing it back and giving it the shape and status that only one who lived it can; she is the witness to the horrors demanding in turn that the world be her witness. It's in the title: My Name Is Susan Snell. (A parallel to all that's made of knowing Carrie's name?) A whole, complete person with her own voice, and not the villain or victim you'd have her be.

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in? - The Vampire Armand

Oh, here's a fun one! I'm actually working on a top-secret AMC!verse crossover with a friend (can't give away much, but it's with Tanz Der Vampire), but I will talk about other possible media I'd like to see him in. Honestly, the gremlin would do just about great in most psychosexual horrors you put him in; the biggest no-brainer for me would be that he'd absolutely rock it as a Cenobite in the Hellraiser universe, since we know that even if he never wanted the leadership role in the coven/cult, he does manage solidly well for centuries, adaptive-yet-stagnant as he is. He would probably take great enjoyment in the entire mindfuckery-aspect of corrupting someone, reshaping their will, and exploring the intersections of agony and desire in the process; it might even be something that would benefit him in a twisted way, given that it normalizes what the crux of his suffering is with respect to the ways his relationship to pleasure and trauma are so tightly intertwined. (I also think Armand could totally, easily Saltburn someone, but I don't think he'd keep the same ending; there's no way he'd want to be alone in a big house like that!)

On a completely different note, I think he'd do well in a Moulin Rouge or Sucker Punch style backstage drama films or stage musicals (hell, even Phantom of the Opera?), especially since Sucker Punch involves a lot of reality-bending and the director's cut directly has seduction to accepting one's death as a comfort. He's a theatre kid and a snippy, exacting director at that. I'd love to just watch him occasionally throw around his breathtaking elder-vampire powers when push comes to shove with the drama and tension and potential patrons/investors, but not half as much as I want to watch him get overly invested in micromanaging stage productions of increasingly questionable quality. Put Armand in The Producers or Something Rotten. I want to hear his Andrew Lloyd Webber takes.

Or -- just throw him into Derry Girls. I think if anyone could outwit him to his defeat and then befriend the guy, thus kickstarting the world's most bizarre redemption (?) arc, it'd be them.

Thanks so much for this! <3

[lokfeedsthegays]

WUKO WEEK 2024!!! :D!!!!!

Prompt: ANGST + AU

yes this is my miraculous au I’m cringe but I’m free

[CW: violence & implied homophobia]

-

It was personal. That was the first thing Mako thought upon seeing him.

The unfortunate consequences of their situation weren’t secret. Fighting people- usually innocent people, having their minds warped and twisted into near-cartoonish villainy- it was never pleasant. But if he didn’t think too much about it and got it done, it didn’t weigh on him too heavily. And they at least didn’t have the memory intact of him and his friends beating the shit out of them.

Naturally, it was harder to digest if it was someone he knew personally. Even more so someone he liked. Maybe more than liked, but he didn’t have the emotional capacity to process that at the moment.

They were taking a high perch on a building, trying to survey the threat. The threat, this time, being a friend of theirs’. Or what was left of him. How much truth was in akuma victims’ monologues and threats was an ongoing debate- and one Mako didn’t like. He tried not to care. He knew it wasn’t them, so that was all that mattered.

And it was easier to separate the slow-striding figure on the street below from the jovial, theatrical person he knew in his civilian life.

Long, ornate robes flowed on the asphalt, green and gold, his entire body ornamented with at least times the usual amount of jewelry that Wu normally wore, which was saying something. Mako could practically hear the clinking from where he was. His hands, normally soft and gentle, seemed to have gold growing out of them from the knuckles, coalescing and twisting together into hooked claws. Really, gold seemed to have replaced his veins, with branches of it swimming through his skin, which was grayed and pale and sickly-looking. Inhuman.

He had a crown. A pointed, heavy-looking, so ornate it was hard to process crown. And his eyes were like pearls- white and empty.

He scanned the abandoned street, pausing for a moment before continuing on his way. Every step was methodical, almost robotic, and regal to the point of sheer pretension. The only sign of emotion was the seconds of a grimace when he found no-one. Did he want people to be there? To watch him, maybe?

Where the last of his robe left, gold made the trail, making a signature of his presence wherever he went. And it let Mako know that they shouldn’t just go in and kick him. Not if they wanted to be solid gold in less than a second.

Whatever his new name was (Mako didn’t care, he’d still call him Wu), Mako was sure it wouldn’t be the best idea to just jump down and say hi.

“So then what do we do?” Korra huffed after he voiced this out loud, partially to him and partially to herself. Her blue, cat-like eyes narrowed in sheer concentration. She took her metal staff and sat it across her knees, hunching over into a relaxed position.

“There has to be some kind of weak spot. None of the villains are impervious. We just have to find out where it is. I suggest we keep observing- maybe we can find his object and…fish it out or something.”

”He’s covered in jewelry and ornamentation,” Asami piped up, her red cape folding as she leaned back. Her red, spotted outfit complimented Korra’s black suit as they slumped against each other. “We have to figure out which is the one holding the butterfly, but…I don’t know how to do that.”

“We could ask him,” Bolin provided, and Mako resisted a mean glare. Bolin blinked back at him through his green visor.

“No, Bolin, we’re not going down to the supervillain and asking him what his weakness is.”

“Well if we can’t think of anything else, why not?” Bolin said. “Besides, we can’t predict how they are. He might actually tell us. Wu’s a nice guy.”

”So are most of the people who get turned into villains,” Asami reasoned. “It doesn’t mean he’ll be nice now. He’s not in control; we have to be smart about this.”

“It seems like he’s looking for civilians,” Mako said, placing his fingers around his chin. “If we walk up to him like this, no doubt he’ll attack. But maybe one of us could go up undisguised. See if he’ll be calmer. But that’s a backup plan…I’d rather none of us get put in the path of danger.”

”Seems like a good plan to me,” Korra interjected, lowering herself and creeping closer to the edge, trying to get a better look at him. “We can’t just sit up here and watch him.”

”Well…yes we can,” Mako said slowly.

”And what if someone goes up to him and gets in trouble? We’ll just see what he does?”

”Well, no, but I-“

We don’t have time to waste watching him. We gotta do something, and now, before he does anything bad.”

”Well then what do you suggest?” Mako responded, his temper mounting.

”I suggest your first plan. I bet he’d say at least something with you down there. He likes you.”

”When he’s sane he does! I don’t know how he’ll-“

”C’mon, just go. We’ll be here to intervene if he does anything.”

”And get yourselves turned into statues? I’d rather not.”

”You don’t know that!”

Well we also don’t know-!”

”Just GO!” Korra cried, seeming as if she was one word away from smashing her head into the roof. “You’ll be fine. You’re smart and he’s got a big fat crush on you.”

”He does not-“

”Detransform, dude.”

Mako did as he was told, but not without a sour expression the entire time. Magical energy flowed off of him, leaving him vulnerable, and he promptly made his way down the building’s stairs, hurrying through and out the side door, dipping into the alleyway. He slid along the wall until he could peek around the corner, getting a closer look at Wu.

Safe to say, he grew a bit. Maybe there were some kind of insane platforms under that robe, but he was easily taller than Mako now, making him (unfortunately) more imposing. His now-gold plastered hands were curled into almost fists, and his face was locked in a grimace, making him look perpetually agitated.

He scanned the street again with his blank eyes, and Mako ducked out of view, making sure to tell his heartrate to slow the fuck down. Once he got that under control, he composed himself, checked to make sure his Miraculous was intact, then stepped out into the open.

Wu’s gaze immediately locked onto him within the second, piercing and almost wild. Mako suppressed a flinch, and decided to feign innocent surprise, his arms coming up in surrender. He let the moment sit, then squinted.

“…Wu?” he tried, covering the reach as slow recognition.

He prayed Korra was right, and that he wasn’t about to get swiftly and completely incapacitated.

Wu’s eyes narrowed before they widened, and even though his posture barely changed, he somehow seemed a little more relaxed. “Mako,” he breathed. “Finally. I was starting to think people were avoiding me.”

”What happened?” Mako asked, not daring to take a step closer.

“Oh, this?” Wu said, looking down at himself. As if Mako could be talking about anything else. ”A recent development. Does it look nice?”

Wu twisted a bit, showing off the intricate patterns of his robe.

”It’s…a lot,” Mako answered truthfully. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your usual outfits are a little…tamer.”

Wu chuckled, and Mako took that for the leeway he hoped it was.

”But I mean- what happened to you? To make this happen…”

“Oh, nothing too bad, really,” Wu said, which was clearly a lie. “Just..family issues, mostly. Nothing revolutionary! But I suppose those issues are gone now.” He flexed his hooked fingers, the gold sparking in the sunlight. “Now I’m staking my claim, as it were.”

”What…happened to your family..?”

”My aunt? Hm. Well, she was being my aunt. That’s all. But the problem is solved, and she’s to be made an example of in my new domain.” Wu motioned out around them, and Mako’s expression sank.

“Wu, listen to me,” Mako said, his heart skipping a beat as he tried his luck, “there are people who can help you. You don’t want this, trust me. Are you hearing me?”

Wu smiled and strode closer, and Mako was frozen as Wu stopped right in front of him. Mako had to crane his neck to look up at him, which was absurd, and it only added to the heavy feeling in Mako’s chest.

”I love how you care,” Wu sighed, “but I’m alright. This is a new beginning for me! You’re my friend- you should be happy for me. You should join me on my coronation stroll. You can be made a high member in my court.”

Mako winced, his nose curling. “Wu, people are scared of you right now. You’re not yourself- just- let me help.”

“Mako! Chivalrous as ever, but trust me, everything is fine. Come with me- you’ll be safe, I promise.”

Wu reached out, his warped hand grasping Mako’s wrist. Mako tensed, preparing himself for the worst, but he quickly realized that nothing was happening. So it seemed Wu could control it- which could be beneficial if he played his cards right. Mako scanned his friend for any signs of a telltale object, but nothing stood out.

“But I don’t-“, Mako started to protest, but was cut off when Wu began his stride again, dragging him along the street. He tried to quell his panic, wanting anything but his friends to leap down there hastily. He could handle this- he just needed a bit more time.

”Now, I think we should find a decent point to declare this city’s new ruler. We can go to City Hall- a public assembly should be easy enough to gather with my talents. I’ll probably have to freeze the president, but, you know, necessities.”

“Wu-“

”Oh, and that name. I mean, it was nice while I had it, but that’s not who I am anymore. Someone at your station would call me ‘your highness’ but an exception can be made for you.”

”Wu- spirits- you don’t want to turn the president to gold! Just listen to me-“

The pressure on Mako’s wrist increased, and Wu’s smile dropped in an instant. “You know I love you, but you know you’re not exactly in a position to make requests. I’ll be happy to listen later, but right now I’m trying to do my job.”

“Please! Just- tell me where your object is- we can get you back to normal,” Mako pleaded, brushing off the disbelief at himself for using Bolin’s tactic. “This isn’t going to end well for anyone if you keep going. I know you know that!”

“Mako!” Wu shouted, his tone harshening into something unfamiliar. Mako jolted when he realized his feet were stuck to the ground. He looked down to see reflective gold rooting him to the spot. “You must stop arguing with me. Go with me, or stay here as a statue. Your choice, but that’s as far as my lenience will go.”

Mako clenched his jaw, his eyes darting around the robes, trying to find something significant. Anything significant at all. Transforming wouldn’t get him out of this mess- he had to be smart.

“Wait- I’ll go with you. I will, I’m sorry.” Uttering it made Mako want to hurl, but he needed more information. He hoped his friends could hear him.

”Hmmm. That’s what I thought,” Wu hummed, and the creeping gold quickly receded, letting Mako shake his feet out. “Not to worry. You’ve done a fine job protecting me in the past. It’s high time I return the favor.”

Wu began his stride again, and Mako had to hurry to keep up. He usually walked with a pseudo-haughty demeanor, but this was a full-on parade of privilege. This new Wu had no problem lifting his chin as high as he could without looking ridiculous, and all of his jewelry sparkled as he walked. That, coupled with his sterner than usual expression, remarkably gave off an air that was intimidating.

”So you…want to turn the president to gold?” Mako prompted.

”Yes. How else are people going to know that they have a new ruler?”

There were several leaps in logic there, but Mako would be remiss to point that out.

“My aunt claimed I was in no state to assume a position of power. She’s one to talk, though. She’s hardly the best queen ever. But no matter! She’s taken care of, and I’m proving that I am perfectly capable of commanding authority.” Wu chuckled contently at himself, then he looked down at Mako, his expression falling into a glare. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

Mako swallowed. “Yes- yeah- I agree- yeah.”

As they continued on, Mako couldn’t help but let his gaze drift to the rooftops, a prickling feeling on his neck. And there were certainly people there, but not his friends looking out for him. Instead, it was the force, peering down with equipment and weapons, getting clear looks at them with binoculars.

He wasn’t surprised. The force tended to intervene on many akuma incidents, and now that there was a “hostage” involved, they’d definitely be a little more hands-on. But he didn’t like the risks it posed. Mostly the chance that Wu would get mad and lash out.

Mako wished Korra had let him think through their plan a little longer.

Most likely Wu had already noticed the police. Mako just had to make sure a fight didn’t break out. Hopefully Lin had enough patience to keep her men where it was safe.

“Wu-“

Wu harshly cleared his throat.

Mako stifled any potentially insulting noise. “Your…Highness, um, you’re not planning on hurting anyone, are you? I mean, you need people to rule, after all. Right?”

”Of course I will do my best, Mako, but people must also learn to respect me. If they get in my way, I must silence their protests. It’s only natural.”

No, it wasn’t natural. Especially coming out of Wu’s mouth. Mako at least had to admit to himself that it was one of the things he admired most about Wu. He was pragmatic. He was the last person to make things happen by force, but trying to remind him of that seemed fruitless.

“What happened? When you were transformed…were you arguing with your aunt?”

”Mmh. Not arguing so much as being berated by her. Nothing new, but I’d had a particularly unpleasant day, and she was more grating than usual. The cow kept going on and on about my responsibilities and lack of ability. I suppose I just…had enough of it. Next thing I knew, I had these powers. And she shut up very quickly.” Wu’s hand twitched, and Mako looked at the fingers that bore at least a dozen rings on the gold surface.

Squinting at them, he scanned each of the rings until one pricked a memory at the back of his mind. It was a smoothie date…outing. One of many. Mako remembered the excited grasp of Wu’s hand- he’d grabbed one of Mako’s fingers and dragged his arm up and down. He had that ring on- the duller one, with a dark green gem.

That didn’t definitively mean that it was the object with the butterfly in it, but it was a solid contender.

Luckily, the police didn’t bother them all the way to City Hall. Less luckily, there was a higher concentration of people deeper into the city, and they were less able to flee the scene when a clear supervillain showed up.

The mass of people gave a wide berth to the regal figure strolling through them, forming a sort of natural pathway in the way he was headed. Mako kept his head ducked, partially out of embarrassment, but he didn’t want to instigate too much with the crowd. One wrong move, and everyone in the square could be frozen solid.

As they made their way through, people scrambled to get out of the area. However, branching gold wormed its way through the earth, slithering out to the edges of the square and mounting on itself, forming swift walls. People screamed and tried to haul over as it was rising, but it was too tall too quickly, and they all promptly became caged in.

Mako couldn’t do much but stare in horror, regretting his decisions.

“Now that that’s settled!” Wu said satisfactorily, clasping his hands together, which clinked. He then turned to the stairway of the town hall making his way up. Mako tried to duck into the crowd to lose attention so he could transform, but Wu went ahead and grabbed his wrist, bringing him up with him.

Walking through a crowd and being intimidating was not a crime. But entrapment most certainly was, and now, unfortunately, the police had a blatant excuse to dive in.

Helicopter sounds finally made their way over the clamor of the screaming crowd, and Mako looked up to see a few amassing, and ropes streaming down to release the troops. This, Mako realized, was not the police force at all, but Raiko’s recently commissioned force: the AEF. Akuma Extermination Faction- which was about as friendly as it sounded.

Lin had made the smart play in laying low and getting a read on the situation. But Mako should’ve known to not trust Raiko to do the same.

He also couldn’t trust Raiko to concoct an effective program either, because the moments their boots hit the ground and their guns were pointed, gold shot at them through the concrete, swiftly encasing their boots, then crawling up until all that was left was a screaming statue.

It took a second, but the troops got smart enough to not land, and instead hovered, dangling from their aircrafts, weapons still pointed.

“Release the hostages, or immediate action will be taken,” a stern voice declared from a speaker.

Wu’s brow creased. “Better idea: Raiko! Get out here or your citizens will be nothing more than decorations! We have business to discuss.”

Mako tried a small attempt in wrenching his arm free, but Wu held on tight, and Mako couldn’t hope to brute strength his way out of it when his friend had powers and he didn’t. He’d have to have a discussion with Korra about their planning skills when this whole mess was over. If it was ever going to be over. Mako didn’t like how seemingly everything was suddenly going wrong.

“Stand down- people could get hurt here. Raiko’s forces aren’t coordinated enough!” Mako threw out. He didn’t know what else to do- not yet, anyway.

”Standing down is weakness,” Wu declared, his nose and lip curling. His grip tightened and Mako grunted in pain. Then, louder, “Standing down is out of the question! I’d hurry, if I were you. The odds aren’t in your favor.”

”Well they’re not in your’s, either!”

Mako looked up as his friends, led by Korra, descended onto the top of the steps, nearly crashing down on them. However, Wu ducked out of the way and found himself on the midway point of the stairs. Mako, having been pulled back with him, was now dangling from Wu’s grip, hanging just over the lower stairs, his hand getting redder.

Korra spun her staff, letting it fall behind her in an intimidation position, her suit’s ears flat against her head. “Let him and the rest of these people go. Then we can get right down to brass tacks.”

She held up her hand, brandishing her ring. “This is what you want, right? These were part of the deal?”

Wu stared unblinkingly at the jewelry.

“Well then come and get them. If you win, then who’s to stop you?”

Wu sat in complete stillness and silence for a moment, practically a statue himself. Then, finally, he slumped a little, but a tight smile worked its way onto his face. “No, I don’t think so. I have a proposal of my own.”

Wu dragged Mako forward, showing him off to his friends. Mako tried to tug free, but to no avail. “Give me your jewelry. The longer you take, the more people get frozen. Starting with him.”

Wu shoved him onto his knees, and Mako was immediately locked there, gold replacing his jeans. “Hey! No!” he grunted, his eyes instinctively and desperately searching for a solution.

”Stand down! Last warning!” the speaker-voice called from behind.

”NO! Let him go!” Bolin shouted, lifting his shield. “Right now!”

Gold encased his legs- became his legs. Mako began to feel the imminent panic of not being able to breathe. He uselessly struggled against his constraints, trying to calm his heart rate. “Wu! Please! Listen to me-!”

”That is not my NAME!” he screamed, his hands curling. He lifted his arms, the grand sleeves of his robe billowing out. “Clearly I’m not bluffing! You may stand down now or face the consequences!”

Asami’s yo-yo began spinning into a blur. “I guess we’re doing this the hard way,” she breathed, eyes narrowing in concentration.

”Open fire!”

”Mako!”

”WU-!”

Mako didn’t have the chance to see it all play out. In the moment just before his friends leapt forward to fight, everything went black, and his body went numb.

——

When he came to, it wasn’t from a rescue.

Instead, when he collapsed, his limbs finally free, it was pretty easy to realize that- besides Wu- he was the only one unfrozen in the entire square.

The gold wall had extended upwards, curling in and forming a mass of finger-like spikes, curving inwards in an incomplete sphere. People littered the ground, suspended in various displays of screams and desperation.

His friends were locked in almost picturesque poses. Bolin was on the ground, curling behind his shield. Asami was next to him, her yo-yo outstretched, the winding string made mesmerizingly still. And between them, completing the huddle, was Korra, on one knee and one hand stretched into the sky. Around her hand, black energy of an impending Cataclysm was aloft, not having been able to be put to use.

Mako grunted, trying to suppress his horror. He shifted, his joints popping, and he was able to see Wu- not too far away from him, sitting on the steps. His straight posture and air of authority was gone, replaced with sullenness. He was hunched over, his hands supporting his head.

Mako took a shaky breath. “What are you doing?” he managed to rasp out.

”Oh, just, coming up with a plan. I have to unfreeze them at some point to get their Miraculous. I just want to be prepared,” he sighed.

“And you unfroze me…why?”

”For company. Surely you knew my suspending you forever was a bluff.”

”…Not…really..”

”Well,” Wu started, standing up, “now you know. Welcome to my council.”

Mako looked around, his mouth pinched into a thin line. “Not much of a kingdom, is it?”

”It will be better,” Wu responded quickly.

”Will it?” Mako tilted his head to look up at Wu from his curled position. His back ached when he tried to sit up. ”It’s the ring, isn’t it?”

Wu folded his hands over each other, resting them on his chest.

Mako adjusted with a grunt, turning to sit on the step. When he realized one arm was shaking, he twisted so Wu couldn’t see. “You know whatever your aunt says…doesn’t matter, right?”

”I know that,” Wu snapped, that unnatural aggression surfacing again. “It’s in the past. We shouldn’t discuss it.”

”We should,” Mako insisted, against his better judgment. “I can tell you’re fighting it- or else we wouldn't be having this conversation.”

”We won’t be soon if you keep pushing it.”

”I’m not scared of you, Wu. I could never be scared of you.”

”Excuse me?” Wu’s expression curled, scrunching into something sour and foreign to his face.

”Even if that butterfly’s pushing you to, you don’t want to. Hurt me, I mean. So I’m not scared of you, and I know I can talk you out of this.” Mako knew he was talking out of his ass, but he didn’t have much more than confidence at the moment.

“Watch your tone with me,” he hissed, leaning in and over. “I am not the pathetic boy you knew. I am a king, and you will treat me like such.”

”That’s what you think you are?” Mako huffed. “Pathetic? That’s not at all what you are, Wu.”

”Not anymore.”

“You weren’t before…this either. Wu, you are one of the most creative, caring people I know. If…if your aunt hated that, that’s her problem- not yours.”

”I know that!” Wu said shortly, waving him off, his large sleeve trailing behind the motion. “I don’t wish to talk about this anymore. Quiet, before I force you to be.”

”Let me help you.”

”No. I’m keeping you. My power- with you by my side- that will prove everything she has ever said about me to be foolish. I’m not letting it go just because you said so.”

“With me? What makes me so important?”

Wu’s face tightened, clearly holding in a stream of confession. “You’re not. I just happen to like having you around.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” Mako slowly stood, his mind slowly starting to click the pieces given to him together- like second nature. “I think you were antagonized by your aunt your whole life. I think…although I don’t know particularly why, this time pushed you over the edge. And that’s what the butterfly prayed on. It made that moral outrage you had ugly.”

Mako hobbled over to Wu, his joints still stiff. “But it’s not ugly. Hell, Wu, it’s one of the best things about you. You care, dude. A lot. Don’t let some thing take that away from you.”

Wu’s face relaxed from the enraged mask of insult, to something much more neutral and unreadable.

“Fine,” he hummed. “If you’re so desperate for the waste of space that I was, I can let you make a play for him. But if you lose, you stay with me. Forever, just like this.”

At least it was something. Mako swallowed. “Fine.”

”Very well, then.” Wu held out his glittering hand. “Take the right ring. And you can have him back.”

Mako tentatively stepped forward, his brow furrowed. He shifted his weight between his legs, eyeing the green-gem ring.

Wu would think it was a simple answer. Mako was observant. He knew what he has seen before, and he’d take that to its logical conclusion.

But what did it mean to Wu? His friend had always worn a strong variety of jewelry, each on his person simply for the fact that it was pretty. But he never talked about them like they meant something.

Except for one piece- one he wore only once, and simply because he had to. It was for a political event. One that a foreign prince, who’s tenure in Republic City hinged on his education, would be obligated to go to.

A brooch his aunt had forced him to wear to look presentable.

And there it was, on his robe. Mako forced himself to not look directly at it, and instead feigned scanning the rings. Even if Wu wanted out, the butterfly wasn’t going to let him. If Mako simply pointed at or grabbed the brooch, Wu would fight back and stop him in an instant.

Mako took a deep breath and slid the green-gem ring off of Wu’s finger.

Wu let out a low, pitying note. “I’m afraid that’s the wrong one, Mako.”

“I’m sorry this happened.”

”Excuse me?”

”I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve to be targeted for all this. Not just your aunt, but so many people. It’s unfair.”

”For…this…?”

”For who you are. You- underneath all this…gold- you’re incredibly compassionate, innovative and empathetic. Everyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

”Sweet, but meaningless now.”

”I don’t think so.” In a swift motion, Mako snatched the brooch, ripping the opulent fabric of the robe. Wu screamed, lunging forward in rage. But his surprise made him too slow, and Mako whipped around, throwing the brooch away from the stairs.

It landed against Korra’s hand, right into the Cataclysm.

The brooch dissolved into black dust, and an aura of dark energy surrounded Wu, releasing him. He fell from his tall perch, and Mako caught him- the real him.

Wu opened his eyes. Green. “Mako?” he breathed wistfully. He tilted his head. “Where am I? Am I dead?”

Mako rolled his eyes, sighing fondly.

[deadeyedaisy]

Tales of Destiny ~PROUST~ Forgotten Chronicle rough summary

I wasn't sure where else to post this, and Tumblr seemed like the one that would get the most use out of it.

So, I streamed my blind run through TODDC with Kio for the past several months. I ended up getting really into TOD from how much cleaner the presentation of the story and characters were over the PSX version, and was really frustrated that nobody had translated the drama CD, which had been hiding like 95% of Leon's characterization until the remake came along.

I kept a notepad of stuff to talk about during those streams. Sometimes it was off-topic things, sometimes it was little tangents about parts of the game that I thought of over the week until we'd play again. Sometimes it was summaries of supplemental material that was never localized. But most of the time, that material was translated by a fan.

Nobody has fully translated Proust. I wanted it to be translated. So I listened to it as hard as I could and summarized as best I could. The following are the unedited notes as I wrote them to be read during stream, rather than a direct translation or anything formal. I'm not good enough at Japanese to fully translate it. I'm so not good at Japanese that there's probably a lot of errors throughout this summary, too. I hope someone eventually comes along and gives us a full translation.

Also note that I'm not great at recognizing the voices of anyone that isn't the main cast of protagonists, so I probably mix up the antagonists or the generals' identities a lot.

--------------------------

So I went back through the drama cd, and I think I've got a few more little details. I could be wrong about a lot of this since there's no translation and I am really fucking bad at Japanese. But this should actually clear up a lot of misconceptions that we, or I had throughout this entire game. Foolish me for just believing everything TVTropes told me instead of trying to comb the drama cd myself.

(track 1-01 Thunder + track 1-03 Lullaby) Chris tried to escape with both children, but Hugo sent the goon squad after her?? and they managed to take Leon and mortally wound Chris. She drags herself back to the mansion to see Leon again and asks him not to hate Hugo, because this certainly isn't the same kind person she married. [I previously summarized it based on this post, which does a much better job of summarizing track 1-03: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/136918641610/so-after-the-horrible-sad-feels-from-the-emilio]

(track 1-02 History That Was Forgotten is just Leon saying the title of the CD)

(track 1-04 Yes, My Lady) Less than 2 years before the game starts. The girls in Leon's class aren't very good at dance lessons yet, so he complains to Marian that all the girls are stupid-- oh but not you Marian, it's only other girls that are dumb. lol I can't catch why Leon's mad at Hugo this time, but Marian sticks up for Hugo, since he's the one who pretty much discovered how useful Lens could be to further technology and make modern life easier, and has for the most part made it all affordable. She's also grateful that he hired her when she had nothing. Marian wants Leon to make friends with the girls because she's worried he'll be all alone. Leon says he's fine alone and that he'll only grow stronger, and to distract Marian, decides to teach her the dance he learned, calling her "my lady". At the end, he says he'll be fine as long as he has Marian. Hugo walks in on them and Leon quickly makes an excuse but Hugo just puts him down for hanging with the staff and tells him to get to sword practice. Leon seems excited for it. Leon whispers to Marian that they'll practice dancing again. Marian says she's looking forward to it, but when he leaves, she sadly mumbles that he's a pitiful child. (Not in a mean way)

(track 1-05 True) [Oops I didn't cover this one. It's just villainy anyway. Who listens to Proust to hear Mictlan-Hugo monologue?]

(track 1-06 Man of the Mask) I forgot about this detail and its MASSIVE importance. In the original, Leon and Hugo's relation wasn't known for a long time. In the remake, their relation is paraded around loudly. Hugo will not let anyone forget that Leon is his son, and Leon's motivation is to not be a nepo baby. But in the original, specifically in the drama CD, Hugo doesn't want their relation known. He doesn't want Leon around while he's doing business because it might reveal their relation. He reprimands him for coming home while he's doing business and tells him not to come home so often. Leon was actually excited to let him know of one of his missions' successes, on his 15th birthday no less. Chaltier tries to comfort Leon when he's basically told to gtfo, but Leon tells him he's not sad at all, and that he just wants to be acknowledged by someone as skilled as Hugo. His cadence is fairly fond as he says all this, but he's awfully insistent about it. Like thou-doth-protest-too-much insistent. Leon thinks he saw a masked man, but Chaltier says he doesn't sense anyone. They go on their way, but a filtered voice of Hugo calls Leon's name.

(track 1-07 Emilio) The following track makes it more clear that yes, he was actually very fucking upset about it. I already talked about this track since it was one of the only 2 tracks that were fully translated by someone else. Where Marian has a little private birthday party for him and he breaks down. With the added context of the previous track, the breakdown makes a bit more sense. He's just been told and brushed off again by Hugo even after so many smashing successes. Took it upon himself to put up a strong front in front of Chaltier. Then Marian does this gesture of kindness that I guess makes him feel like he's being treated like a child or mocked, and that's the last straw. Marian is of course calling him Emilio, and he refuses that name because Emilio is worthless, nobody needs Emilio, and he's all alone. He insists he's Leon Magnus, because he's at least useful as a tool for Hugo. Marian doesn't like him calling himself a tool. Says he's her precious Emilio. And Leon cries. [Previously summarized based on this post, which actually has a full translation!: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/136880537875/jeredu-spoilers-for-tales-of-destiny-for]

(track 1-08 Family) Next track takes place a year later and has Leon being the wunderkind beating everybody and being taken under Finley's wing. They've all got praise for him but are a little put off by him being so uptight. Late at night, Leon sneaks into Marian's room through her window because of the lecture he got about COMING HOME TOO OFTEN jfc. He's excited to tell Marian about officially working with the knights, and asks to dance with her. I think I skipped a bit. Leon only started trying to become a knight because Hugo told him to, so that he'd have a pawn within the castle to help further Oberon's goals. I think he moved out of the mansion after the last track to dedicate himself more fully to cementing his position there?? I'm probably wrong. But he's been a lot happier this way. Later that night, Chaltier tries to suggest that Leon just continues living like this and become a full fledged and honest knight instead of working for Hugo, because all of the generals seem to like him and are nice people. Buuuut Leon's already fallen asleep. Boo

(track 1-09 Nightmare) Next track has Leon and Finley talking and they think Greybaum's sus. They meet with Greybaum and Chal also thinks he's sus. That night, Leon has a nightmare where a man is telling him he can save Rutee. Except Leon doesn't know who Rutee is yet, or her name. The man is wearing a mask like the one from the mansion. It seems to be the real Hugo. He attacks Leon when he knocks his mask off I think?? and I guess Leon wakes up and is back at the mansion temporarily? I have no idea what's going on here but Hugo's not doing great and Leon rushes to his aid but Hugo basically tells him to gtfo his house again. I think real Hugo is fighting Mictlan, because Leon says something about Berserius. Belserius. Berselius. Fuck it. Scene change and Leon's at a tavern or something. The waitress fawns a bit, showing his good reputation has spread. Leon thinks about the nightmare and what the heck a Rutee is. Then he overhears some guy talking about a demonic lens hunter dude and the waitress is like oh nah you mean that girl Rutee? and Leon all but trips over himself to go aggressively interrogate the waitress. The guy she was talking to gets mad and tries to attack Leon and a fight starts. Finley shows up and slaps Leon and reprimands him and I think threatens him?? But Leon got the information he wanted out of the waitress.

(track 2-01 Masquerade) Next track. The villains talk stealing the Eye of Atamoni. A masquerade ball is held in Seinegald. Leon's all ready to be big bad security but Finley says he should blend in and dance. But he ain't got no fancy clothes! So Finley arranges to get him some fancy clothes. He's about to arrange for a partner too but Leon's like nah I got a girl for this and yoinks Marian up. She's worried she's not allowed to attend such a party, but Leon assures her she's part of the mission so it's fine. She tries to make excuses to not go but he shoots them all down. He sounds like he's having just oodles of fun on the carriage ride with her to the ball. He's laughing and smiling and it's just great. This moment is probably literally the happiest Leon will ever be in his entire life lol He… sneaks her in through the BACK DOOR and gets stopped by guards who ask who dis. And he says, "my partner" and they say they can't let randos in and he says NO SHE'S MY PARTNER and they say :/ that's not good enough bro, come on, and Marian takes his arm all suggestive like and says "What part of partner don't you understand ;)" and they let them in??? okay But Marian hasn't received her dress yet, so Leon's waiting for her to get dressed. And Chal teases him a bunch implying Leon's nervous to see her in her fancy dress. Leon tells him to shut up but Chal notes he's blushing really hard. But, Leon suddenly sees the masked man again, and this time Chal sees him too. Leon attacks but he disappears. He hears the voice and he's big mad 'cause he thinks he's being jerked around so he shouts a lot. Marian hears him shouting and rushes to him and real-Hugo goes whoops sorry about that I guess lmao and goes away. The ball gets into full swing and allll the girls are wowed by how pretty Leon's partner is. Marian says she feels awkward and Leon tells her she's beautiful, but she still doesn't think she should have come. He asks her to dance, she tries to make excuses not to, but he keeps asking, calling her "Lady" again like when they danced alone ;A; aaaa So they dance, and Leon is just so entranced and whispers that he wants to go far far away together to a place with only them, that's quiet and warm. He says something like he lost such a promised place inside of him a long time ago, but feels that it's also right there with her, and he's about to say something that MIGHT have been a confession, but they're interrupted by an attack and are separated. SO YEAH I'D SAY HIS FEELINGS FOR HER ARE PRETTY ROMANTIC. HOLY SHIT. I felt like I was listening to one of those listener-POV CDs where they do nothing but sweet-talk you, gosh. Whether his feelings are actually romantic or not, he's still just entirely fucking smitten with her. oh my god.

(track 2-02 Venomous Snake) Next track, I have no idea what's going on because I'm not familiar enough with all the villains' voices, but it's villain stuff. I think it's Greybaum mostly, and they're messing with King Isaac, the Phandaria King. And Greybaum is evil monologuing but Leon was hiding in the room and ambushes him. Hugo shows up before Leon can do any damage and something happens or is talked about, idk, villains get away. Leon's like what the fuck, dad, they tried to kill the king. Hugo says Isaac's spent too long in office and ain't doin his job right no more. So it's fiiine just let it go, besides, Graybaum's gonna be a useful tool. And the word "tool" sets Leon off 'cause it's always about tools with Hugo, and Hugo goes YEAH, A TOOL, A TOOL JUST LIKE YOU. I'VE BUILT HIM UP AND I'M TAKING ADVANTAGE OF HIM, JUST LIKE I DID TO YOUUUU. And he demands Leon apologize but Leon says no, he's done being Hugo's puppet, he's going to live for himself, he's not going to accept this shitty fate anymore, he's going to carve his own path and make a place for himself in Seinegald. And Hugo goes "Ohoho what silly thoughts Finley's put in your head. Sure, you could do all that, you could escape me no problem, you're good enough for it, but I wonder how Marian is doing~ Sure hope she's okay after getting separated from you. It's just such a scary world out there, you never know when or where such a fragile little thing like her could get got." So basically the ongoing threat on Marian's life has begun. It's not explicitly stated, but obviously the implication is that Leon could leave and take Marian with him, but Hugo will get to her one way or another. Then it's just 20 full seconds of Leon desperately calling and looking for Marian.

(track 2-03 Requiem) Next track, he finds Marian and clings to her and sobs in relief that she's okay. She says yeah it's okay I'm fine, but Leon just cries harder. Later after he's calmed down, he brings up that far away warm place he spoke about. He wonders where that could even be anymore. Probably somewhere further than the moon. He wonders if he can go there. Then it's very suddenly Finley's funeral. People are crying. The priest is praying. People are swearing vengeance. Hugo, Chaltier, and Finley's voice echo in Leon's head. Hugo coercing Leon into poisoning Finley. Chaltier asking him not to do it. Finley telling Leon they're alike in that they both lost their parents at birth. That he'd like for Leon to think of him as his father, because he thinks of Leon as his son, I think. Hugo reminding him where his place is, and that that's never going to change. Finley succumbing to the poison, in disbelief that it was Leon, and desperately asking why. Leon's sure he's never going to get to that place. Hugo and friends do some villain talk and make some snide remarks at Leon, and he just says it's fine. He's defeated at this point.

(track 2-04 Rutee) Next track has Leon on his way to Cresta to look for whoever Rutee is. Chaltier recognizes the name a little but doesn't remember. Rutee runs into him and runs away, but Chaltier recognizes Atwight on her back right away and they give chase. Rutee's giving gifts to the kids at the orphanage, is asked how she made the money for this and she's like "eehh I worked really hard :D" Chal finally remembers Rutee was the name Chris spoke of before she died and he's super excited that Leon's not all alone, that he still has his sister. But Leon just runs away. Chal's like what the fuck, where are you going, and Leon says it's been 15 years, so it doesn't matter, they're not family. Chal keeps trying to get him to go back to Rutee, insisting she must have been looking for her family for a long time, and that he should reach out to her. Leon admits that he's scared that Rutee won't accept him. Chal tells him that's stupid. Leon admits he's scared of Rutee also betraying him like Hugo did, and cries that he's truly all alone. The track ends.

(track 2-05 Flow of Fate) Next track, it's revealed Greybaum's theft of the Eye of Atamoni was actually not in the plan. He did that on his own and betrayed them. They plan for Leon to lead the investigation and gather the swordian users. Leon asks if Hugo knows who wields Atwight, and Hugo, like a fox, says mmmyessss. During Leon's first real meeting with Rutee, while she goes off on him, he's thinking to himself that he wishes he met her sooner, but he's too dirtied to face her for real by now. Chaltier insists to him that it's not too late, but Leon refuses. A bunch of scenes of Leon traveling with Stahn's group pass. Leon thinks about how Rutee has good friends and a home and family to return to, and feels even worse that he can't be happy for her. He hates himself for it, but he can't help it. Chaltier tells him he could become a part of her family. Leon says it'd be nice, since he's being shown such a warm place, but he can't escape his fate. More scenes pass, and Leon is moved by Stahn's resolve. He thinks maybe he was wrong about fate, because everyone is fighting. More scenes pass, and Leon is even moved by Batista and Greybaum, because they went against Hugo. Even if they couldn't win against their fates, they still tried. He's confused and doesn't know what to do, but Chaltier doesn't have answers for him. The only thing he knows he can do is protect Marian. The only reason he has to keep living is Marian.

It continues in the mines. Hugo and friends say they need to buy time to escape Stahn's group. He tells Leon to stall them as long as possible, and then detonate an explosive. Tells him exactly what will happen, down to the sea water flooding in. So Leon absolutely knows he's going to die if he agrees to do this. Leon asks to be alone with Marian, as his first and final request as Hugo's son. Marian observes that Leon doesn't want to go through with this. Leon says it's fine, he'll just do what he's told. He asks why Marian is here, why she's still a maid for Hugo. Marian answers it's because Hugo was trying to save the world, or whatever. She owes him a lot. So she'll do whatever she's told, too. Leon asks what'll happen if he dies. Marian says she'll probably never stop crying. Leon asks how much, for how long, because it's not possible to cry for him for her whole life. Says she'll probably cry for a bit, but eventually she'll meet someone he doesn't know, fall in love, get married, and have children, and she'll forget all about him, and then he'll truly be gone and not exist anymore. He'll disappear. Leon cries, really hard. He pulls himself together, apologizes, says she should go. She goes, but she calls after him that it was fun. That being with him was like a dream. He says quietly to himself that, yeah, it was like a dream to him, too. (The wording is different from the opening song! Important to note because the remake did a full on title drop in its climax. The opening song is 「夢であるように」, but the wording here is 「夢みたい」. But it's still probably a 100% intentional reference to the opening song.) [I cut off here because I previously summarized these two posts about the end of this track, which is an exchange with Chaltier: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/136997902840/i-dunno-if-its-possible-to-fall-in-love-with-a https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/137057162215/checked-with-a-friend-who-knows-more-japanese-and]

[I yada-yada'd track 2-06 Father, Friend because I already summarized it previously based on this post: https://jeredu.tumblr.com/post/143045097730/i-finally-typed-up-a-summary-of-father-friend]

(track 2-07 -Epilogue- Yes, My Lady) In the final track, Rutee is visiting Marian. She asks Marian to live with her. Marian declines, saying she has to keep Emilio's room clean for him for when he comes back. Rutee says he's already gone, but Marian interrupts and asks Rutee to dance. She teaches her how to dance. She calls Rutee "My lady" like Leon did with her.

-----------------------------

May I just say, if Leon retained his character from the drama CD in the remake, he absolutely would have broken down crying after Stahn convinced him they could work together to save Marian. And maybe hugged him or held his outstretched hand with both of his. While crying. Drama CD Leon is a huge crybaby and I'm so here for him. I was disappointed he didn't get to cry through the remake.

And also that hot damn, Hikaru Midorikawa was allowed to emote SO MUCH MORE in the drama CD than in the entirety of the remake, not even counting all the crying he does.

[genesisvirus]

Does evil max just hate every kid? He’s acting like a folktale villain.

i do think mdp is portraying evil max as cartoonishly evil for a reason tbh, which is probably as simple as "these shorts are pure brainrot there's no need to make a three dimensional villain here"

that being said, i'm here to overanalyze LMAO. i think he's targeting poor kid specifically, since he hasn't done anything with anyone else yet (well, other than try to kill jimmy, but i can talk about that more later). and it makes perfect sense, despite how awful it is to poor kid:

1. poor kid is an easy target. he's innocent and naive, also desperate for money. this is mostly fanon too but i don't see a reason not to think it; he does seem to take things at face value, and belive people are inherently good. which is likely the reason why he reacts so negatively to hardship (the waitress taking away the pizza and evil max shutting the door on him).

2. poor kid is kinda a loner, mostly in part to being homeless. but he so far hasn't interacted with the other characters, and doesn't seem to have any friends. which also leads into

3. i still think evil max is trying to lay low on his villainy and just portray himself as just a weird alter ego in order for him to gain control over max for longer periods. since poor kid is separate from everyone, that means evil max can do Whatever to poor kid and other people won't know unless they witnessed it. which ALSO leads into

4. the two times he bullied poor kid, there were no witnesses. even the newer short, he was out of sight and seemingly disguising himself?? (idk what the glasses were for other than that) so it seems clear to me he's doing it on PURPOSE.

it's hard to say if he hates every kid since he's barely interacted with any. jimmy's nugget friend he ignored, duncan / the bully hasn't interacted with him, and jimmy is a weird case since he tried to kill him. poor kid is the odd one out, and i do think it's intentional.