#it's like rooting against villains because u think they have to be bad
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buzbu · 1 year ago
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I’m watching ‘Ladybug and Chat Noir: Awakening’ (you can watch a really bad quality bootleg recording on most pirating sites right now), these are my reactions while I’m watching . A lot of the points won’t make sense unless you’ve seen it too I’m sorry 😭
If you don’t want to watch the movie but want a vague idea of the plot, here u go
⚠️NEW MIRACULOUS MOVIE SPOILERS⚠️
- master fu is soo dramatic
- THIS IS A MUSICAL???
- whoever the singer is for marinette sounds so noticeably different to her it is throwing me off
- the character designs are so cute
- brand placement: 1
- Adrien is brooding so hard with his headphones. I bet he’s listening to something emo
- omg gabriel agreste backstory right away
- Luka cameo
- whyd they make plagg a fart monster
- there are more than 4 background character designs this is crazy
- whyd they make gabe kinda fine
- gabes first musical number as hawkmoth is so insanely Dr Facilier
- they made him such a good villain omfg I’m actually rooting for him he’s got the whole ‘a villain who would sacrifice the world to save her’ thing going for him
- oooo they have the mime villain from season 1 (?), and they are actually showing how op his power is. He could create literally anything and he just made a wall and a gun, he couldve done so much more. They did him justice they made him kinda fine too very Danny Bailey from Schmigadoon
- chat noir calling himself a sidekick is my villain origin story
- didn’t know how much I needed an action montage with a rock cover of the miraculous ladybug song until now
- a slither of adrienette in the montage
- brand placement: 2
- I’m an hour in and chat noir hasnt called ladybug milady ONCE
- oh my god they have the play fighting trope where they end up pinning eachother against a wall this is so them
- I don’t think the songs are very movie like, the words are pronounced like radio songs so you can’t really understand what they’re saying a lot of the time without captions (I don’t have captions 💔)
- the romance feels a lil rushed. Because they spent the first half hour almost exclusively on marinette and setting up her character/insecurities/etc and all the romantic development was in a montage. Now there’s a love song and theyre in love and it feels very underdeveloped to be at this stage already
- this song is cute though I can’t make out the majority of the words but in-love ladynoir content has my heart
- no marichat so far . Waiting patiently
- they haven’t set the love square up to its full potential 💔💔
- ok nevermind they kind of have, ladybug rejected chat noir for adrien, she asked adrien out and he rejected her for ladybug. But there has been no ladybug + adrien interactions or chat noir + marinette interactions yet
- omg gabriel adrien angst omg gabe is so much less of a dislikable character, they actually gave him some depth . Adrien is full on yelling at Gabriel and gabe actually looks like he cares about his son
- this bootleg is terrible quality but even with the bad quality the quality is so obviously good
- I’ve gotten used to the marinette singing voice and now I just love it
- this movie is so dramatic with the love songs and songs about insecurities, I feel like it’s that movie ladybug made fun of in the show
- GABE AKUMATISED HIMSELF AND ITS SO COOL THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT WEIRD IPAD VILLAIN HE WAS IN THE SHOW
- adrien just said ‘the less interested you are, the more they run after you 😒’ because ladybug called him for help after she rejected him😭😭😭😭 bro rlly said all girls are the same
- idk if this bootleg is just clipped together but it keeps randomly turning french with no subtitles and it’s confusing me so much. I don’t know french, why must they be in paris
- these boss fights are so well animated
- chat noir is so bitter god damn
- ladynoir angst but it’s actually high stakes im loving this
- LADYBUG SAVE YOUR CAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING
- SHE LET HIM FALL WHAT
- gabe just turned the water they fell in into lava this is crazy
- they just turned french again I have no idea what they’re saying
- MARINETTE / HAWKMOTH SHOWDOWN
- nevermind
- I’m sorry marinette would pick this dialogue to shreds it’s so corny
- GOT THE TINIEST SLITHER OF MARICHAT I AM HAPPY
- YES YES YES GABRIEL FORCED TO FACE THE FACT THAT ADRIEN IS CHAT NOIR
- HES SELF REFLECTING!!! REALISING EVERYTHING HE DID WAS INSANE AND HURT ADRIEN WHEN HE TOLD HIMSELF HE WAS HELPING HIM. THIS IS WHAT THE SEASON 5 FINALE SHOULDVE BEEN
- THIS IS PERFECT
- this is what ppl wanted for the show . adrien being resentful at first, Gabriel hit in the face with his own guilt and mistakes, having a genuine moment of self reflection, adrien forgiving him and gabe changing instead of getting his wish and being remembered as a hero, plus all of paris finding out hawkmoth was Gabriel, etc. I love this
- brand placement: 3
- omg there’s a masquerade ball everyone looks so good
- so marinette knows that adrien is chat noir but he doesn’t know shes ladybug yet ? That better change in the next 2 minutes
- HE KNOWS!
- marinette is so pretty I’m actually so happy with this
- OHHHH NATALIE VILLAIN ARC ????
- oh theyre talking in french again I have no idea what this ending means
FINAL THOUGHTS!
obvs it isn’t canon but I love this adaptation. The superpowers are portrayed as powerful as they actually are, there’s more drama and angst which I needed, the timeline is VERY different to the show. Marinette stands up for herself to chloe the same day that ladybug and chat noir reveal their identities, so it’s like the origins episode of season 1 mixed with one of the various identity reveals from season 4. Also she’s not friends with any of her class other than alya, adrien and nino, so it’s also kind of pre-origins vibes. Idk, it was really good and I can’t wait to watch it in better quality, with captions, and without ads playing every half hour
Also I’m forever thankful that there was no lila rossi storyline
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aliferous-ly · 2 years ago
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I know nothing of DSMP but I would love to hear how the ending/story/characters/creators were mishandled if you’d like to rant/ramble
OKAY.
I didn't watch the ending. I barely knew the ending was happening, because by the time it happened I was so disenchanted with the whole dsmp that I didn't really care. so I heard through the grapevine (Tumblr dashboard) that it was like.. everything blows up we're starting over and everyone's memories are wiped.
Which. Is a choice. But is a particularly horrible choice when one of the people roleplaying.. died, and would therefore "not be remembered" (with no new content). The people close to this person confirmed that dsmp 2 would continue technos legacy and that they wouldn't forget him, but the fact that it needed to be said in the first place is just. An awful feeling. like, none of techno’s actions would have any bearing on dsmp2...?
So fuck the ending, who even cares about it. The beauty of the dsmp is supposed to be the many interlocking characters, since they're all roleplaying to have fun with this comedy/serious rp. But the creators (read: the main creators slash writers of the arcs) would often ignore other creators on the dsmp and their role. Niki frequently was talked over and ignored. Her and puffy planned a dsmp lore stream only to cancel it because dream scheduled a server-wide event for the same day (literally the day before). eret regularly planned lore and streams, but received rare replies in the discord. they were the first villain character and received so many death threats for the arc that really kick-started the serious storylines, and then their character was mostly forgotten by the other big creators. I understand the improv of rp, but the streams started becoming more and more planned, and eret wanted to be in them! And as the original traitor, having her as a staple would have been INTENSE. but she just kinda.. dropped off. Anything to do with the egg was vastly considered uninteresting and therefore lesser to the "main" characters, which is, of course, tommy and dream. which sucked because I didn't care about tommy and dreams storyline and I liked everyone else's 😭😭 (this is more neg for the community than the creators, but whatever)
Another thing I hated was when the creators would joke about how cringe people getting invested in Minecraft RP is. stuff like that. because it shows that at a certain level they're ashamed of creating it? They're embarrassed of it. And so they disregarded their audience and fucked up the storyline and now dsmp 2 is never happening because who's gonna watch it? their scorned audience? like holy shit, guys, you were getting 200k viewers a stream because people liked the story. people like stories!!! the medium doesn’t MATTER.
Like.. okay. There's some really good characters in the dsmp. Schlatt, I think, had the best character, because he was cohesive and had an arc -- he entered as a villain against wilbur and tommy, was further corrupted by power, physically crumbling from his poor choices, was super horrible to quackity which set up quackity’s arc & insecurities... and his death was interesting! nobody killed him, he just succumbed to his own problems. I still think techno is a good character, because he stuck to his thought processes and morals (which was basically, governments = bad, people = good. with a dash of extremely violent inclinations). Whether or not you liked him. His problem was his innate existence as unkillable (technoblade never dies, he won a battle against the whole server, etc), because then it can get tedious, but he'd been planning to have cyberknife the Government Lover to counteract this (god, I miss him).
Dream is... Dream, I guess. Sam has a good character, very nice corruption arc (everyone literally hating him in his chat was annoying though. Like guys, you're in sam's chat, you gotta root for SAM. go to Tommy's stream if u wanna be a little bitch). also sam’s arc had everything that dream apologists wanted with dream’s character, lol. dream had no regrets and was a horrific abuser. sam started good and slowly corrupted to evil through “the ends justify the means” choices, which is FASCINATING, because by the end he was a mess of ethics and trauma. I love Niki's arc, but I wish she could have had more closure with Wilbur, because he was huge for the beginning of her arc. Hannah, bad, ant, and punz had this super cool thing with the egg (bad and skeppy was WILD) and I loved the fantasy aspects and that it didn't take 4 fucking hours to do the climax, with like 1 hr of actual action. (the egg was like... a fungal infection came to the dsmp and infected various characters to do its bidding by promising whatever they want most. and bad wanted to be with skeppy, who is his actual in-canon soulmate, since bad’s CANON LIVES were tied to skeppy’s. meaning he never lost a canon life unless skeppy did. fellas...)
I guess overall it's like... the main creators didn't communicate and plan enough with many of the people who wanted lore and arcs. Foolish, quackity, purpled, Sam, and Charlie did really well at the end, I loveddd the whole purpled defecting and shit. charlie’s arc was incredible. and they COMMUNICATED in the discord to make this happen. 
Dream, sapnap, and George just had no handle on the storyline they were trying to construct. And it's their server. They needed an ending. Something satisfying, cathartic, something where tommy finally gets the chance to heal which might only happen alongside dream's death-- and the servers getting blown up by a nuke okay sure that works too I guess.
I’m so, so upset by the lack of happy ending for tommy. like, the cc wanted to move away from dsmp, so they could have written an ending for the character and then he could ease away from the server and lore. it didnt have to happen Like That.
Also, if dream wanted to play a different character, then Do That. He could pretend to be a shape shifter who liked the original dreams form, or the original dream could be a shape shifter who copied dreamXD (the literal god of the server, which I feel like was not mentioned more that foolish had regular interactions with them?), or just, anything. but the constant evil!dream abusing tommy was getting a bit much. it was just never ending.
AND. THIS ISNT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE STUPID FUCKING THREE LIVES THING.
Like.. they had three "canon" lives. This happened because the original roleplay was Not Serious, it was just them fooling around. They would kill each other to steal their stuff. Everyone died all the time. And I don't remember the specific inciting incident.. it might be as far as tubbo getting executed on stage? but suddenly This Death is far more important than all the Other Deaths, so they have to separate them and add some significance, but tubbos back now and technos not apologizing which is a whole thing (oh nooo techno didnt save tubbo from being executed despite not receiving any communication), so tubbo is alive, so this death is Significant (but he's still alive) so. three canon lives. Which is dumb, because the only thing (seemingly) signifying a canon life loss is that it's literally written into the plot. (Which, jack manifold dying to techno and then falling into a glitch and respawning, to then claim that he lost his third canon life but through pure determination to kill tommy/techno crawled back out of hell, is metal as fuck). which takes out a lot of the improv, makes things a lot more staged. But it's canon, in the lore, that sometimes people die and they don't lose a canon life. It's just.. so bizarre. (Phil having one life to show that he's from a hardcore world is also, however, very cool).
it makes the whole thing a bit meta, using terms like “canon life” within the actual roleplay. the only bandage I could think of would be coming up with unique ways each specific character could die. Like, tubbo can only be killed via explosives/fireworks. Tommy and Dream can die by axe. techno’s is unknown, until tubbo infiltrates phil’s house and finds information that techno can be killed by being crushed. this would cause some other brand new problems, though.
Anyway. Wilbur's plots were well written, but disregarded Fundy (his canonical son) and mostly Niki, too (who he brought into the server). George obviously didn't give a shit about lore, bc he was never there. Sapnaps lore is meh, even though he has, arguably, one of the most interesting relationship webs of the server (his best friend became this abusive pos, his parents are skeppy and bad, he’s off-and-on dating quackity and karl, both of which have their own crazy shit going on. god, i didnt even talk about karl). Tommy's was very well done even though I personally didn't like his character.
Like... These people just didn't know what the fuck they were doing. Which could have been fine, if they didn't try to capitalize the fuck out of the views lore streams could bring while also ridiculing their audience for liking this sort of thing, and then attempted to tie it together into some sort of ending to the tommy / dream arc. Like, new arcs can happen, sure, but things have to end! They have to!
Honorable mention for ponk who regularly streams earlier than I watch but consistently was on the dsmp. He kept that shit alive. He was the og. His tree jumpstarted the lore. Much love for ponk and many wishes for future successes for that man.
Also it was really weird how the dsmp was primarily white men because it originally was just dream and his friends, which obviously is fine ur not gonna intentionally diversify your minecraft server for friends, but after people started pointing out that most everyone being added was a white man and the only defense was that it's dream and his friends became.. thinly veiled. Because he started adding people that hes not like, close friends with, but they were also white men. Like I'm so sorry Michael mcchill I love you and your energy is fantastic but this is about you and manitreed and foolish and and and. There were like 30 people on the server and like 6 poc. maybe 6 women. (Shout-out to Tina, lmfaooo).
idk. it’s a storyline that was wonky and weird at its base, so the viewers were willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for a lot of things, because we knew that it was improv and sometimes things dont go your way. and they had this massive, growing, beautiful thing at their fingertips. and wilbur said “yeah i’m not writing this arc” and communication became nonexistent and everything collapsed. the server literally NUKED ITSELF. OK . holy shit.
that being said i immensely enjoyed my time in the dsmp fandom. it helped me through covid, it inspired me, i’ve written quite a bit of fic for it. i loved the dsmp. there are aspects that i still love, and will love forever. but holy shit. we were not treated well.
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samplingmoonsters · 3 years ago
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OKAY BUT WHAT IF SYLVARI DREAM'S WYLD HUNT WAS TO CREATE PEACE OR SOMETHING AND HE TURNED TO NIGHTMARE BECAUSE HE GAVE UP HOPE TO BRING IT ANY OTHER WAY. and techno is just totally chill working with a nightmare court sylvari he's like 'this is dream, don't be rude' when people are like 'that's a nightmare sylvari???'
I mean, its only fitting for Dream to be part of the nightmare court. It’s also funny because Sylvari are all about following the “Dream of Dreams” before awakening from their “birth”.
And Dream who’s literally named “Dream” is like,
“Wait a fucking, damn second. I kind of don’t like this whole Pale Tree business and I want more power. Fuck you guys, and fuck you Pale Mother, I’m going dark.” 💀✌️
But he’s also not totally against the Pale Tree, like other Nightmare Courtiers. He wants to merge the nightmare with the dream (u know? Going all Thanos “perfectly balanced as all things should be” bullshit). Green Plant boy just wants more power so he can kick the dragons’ asses 😔
Anyway, on his way towards Bloodtide Coast, he has to travel through Lonar’s Pass. (he can’t use the shortcut through Lione’s Arch. Not with his face drawn on multiply wanted posters all over Central Tyria ‘cause of his unfortunate connection to the nightmare court o7. If he even takes one step into the capital city, his green ass will land in jail before he can even cast a spell.)
Lonar’s Pass is a difficult place to travel through for a Sylvari with the low temperatures, all the snow, and the lack of sun. Soon Dream finds himself in a bad predicament when his body begins to give out on him. He’s all about to pass out and get buried under a layer of snow when a warm, furry thing catches him before he can meet the ground.
Technoblade, a Tribune from the Blood legion, saw the Sylvari stumbling through the snow like a newborn fawn and decided to check out what is going on with him. He quickly realizes that Dream is in a bad state and builds them a campfire so the Sylvari can warm up his freezing roots.
Being born on the other side of the continent, Technoblade doesn’t really know nor care about the Sylvari culture or the ongoing civil war over the pale tree. So he helps Dream get better without much thought about his villainous status.
After Dream gets better and they talk a little, they discover that they are both on the same mission to kill the dragon, Zhaitan. They decide to team up for the time being, and throughout their journey, they develop an extraordinary relationship that goes a lot deeper than simple friendship :)
Techno uses his “heroic” status to get them inside of major cities while keeping Dream safe from any Sylvari who are after his ass. In turn, Dream teaches Techno a lot about the value of nature and nurture and that magic shouldn't be frowned over. (The Charr race is largely against magic).
While reading the Charr wiki I also discovered that Charrs mate for life occasionally (though, they mostly have a more casual viewpoint when it comes to family and romantic relationships) but I’m sure since Dream and Techno already make an unusual pair, that Techno would mate Dream for life and beyond 🥺
And while we are already at it, let's talk about Dream’s and Techno’s professions.
I think that Dream would either be a necromancer (because, duh) it would only be fitting with c!Dream holding the knowledge of revival. Or, he is a Mesmer cause they are all about deception and illusions and it would fit with Dream being kinda manipulative by nature. ( I want Dream to be a magic-user since it would contrast perfectly with Techno’s rather cynical view of it and his more blunt fighting style.)
Techno, of course, is all muscles and pure strength, so him being a Warrior would be only fitting. I also like that he would use adrenaline to fuel his power. It's like a fire boost or something lol.
But Guardian would also fit him perfectly. He’s more caring than other Charr. They are also described to be brilliant tacticians and selfless defenders and I think that would fit Techno so well! He’s all about tactics after all.
I would love to hear what other people think about Dream’s and Techno’s professions.
So yeah, these are some more thoughts on the gw2 dnb AU. Sorry that it took me so long to write this lol
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akajustmerry · 4 years ago
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hottake maybe but...while there's some credit to the assertion that ratings were low for tfatws finale due to racism, i think the main reason is that narratively this series did not seem well thought out. things were vague at best and while u can get away with that in a 2hr film (as the mcu has done for years) u can't get away with it in 6 hours of TV.
the big problem with these Disney Marvel shows is that they're still being written like films wherein reveals and immediate reaction are the story. this is fine in a film because ppl generally don't expect high levels of detail when the only time being asked of their attention is 2hrs. but in a TV show, ur asking ur audience to sit with a story for 6hrs over 6 weeks, you simply have to give ppl more than reveal/reaction.
"vague terrorist organisation wants to abolish boarders with big bad plan" is serviceable for a 2hr film, but 6 hrs in 6 weeks?? and ur not even going to reveal their plan until the final episode?? ur asking ur audience to root for the protagonists AGAINST this group and ur not even gonna provide context or detail for what their actions are in the story until the last episode?? all so the plan can be revealed and reacted to in the final act? that's not how tv works.
marvel/Netflix Daredevil had its problems don't get me wrong, but can you imagine how hard that show would have been to stick with if you as an audience member did not clearly understand what Matt was up against even when he didn't? Daredevil is structured around you, the audience, knowing what Fisk is up to and rooting for Matt to stop it. You're rooting for him to know what u know so he can stop Fisk. You watch as Matt figures out fisks plan at about halfway/two-thirds of the way through the season and the rest is watching Matt strategize how to stop Fisk and Fisk pushing back so the final act feels satisfying cos u as an audience member know exactly what ur rooting for and rooting against both in ideology and in action.
To put it simply, when it comes to long form narrative like television if your antagonists' goals aren't made clear in the beginning than your protagonists' aren't either, and your audience has no reason to keep watching. There is nothing and I mean nothing about tfatws final episodes that couldn't have happened in the first two episodes, but because these shows seem to be built around reveal everything is drawn out in service of the reveal at the cost of storytelling people can actually invest in.
The Flag Smashers plan to kill the GRC members should have been revealed to the audience in episode 1 and Sam and Bucky in episode 2 at the LATEST because then we'd have clear context and motives for everyone's actions, but we didn't have that. We just had 5 episodes of a wild goose chase where we didn't know where the goose was running to. How can you surprised that a finale was underwatched when neither general audiences nor the protagonists had been given clear motivation or expectations for the final conflict?
the first episode of tfatws was (apparently) the most watched thing on Disney plus, more watched than Wandavision. People wanted to see these characters, that was evident. The main reason the finale was low rated, if you ask me, was because after 5 weeks of television, ppl realised they had no clue what the villains (the antagonists supposedly catalysing the story) were doing so why would they care??
Wandavision had this same problem where the reveal was the story so the finale fell flat because we as the audience didn't get a chance to understand the conflict in any meaningful way. we weren't even sure rooting for Wanda was the right take because she'd been angled as the villain, not because it made any sense, but because the writers wanted you to go 😳 when Agatha was revealed to be the villain. But like lmao Wanda is literally a white woman Avenger, audiences weren't gonna buy her as the villain anyways.
Revealing ur villain's intended actions as a climax for the story works in film because of time constraints, it doesn't work for TV. especially week by week TV because ur asking ur audience to spend weeks/months with a story without knowing the story's literal context. It was very poor writing covered up by big budget and star power and Sam Wilson, the first Black Captain America, deserved better.
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szivtalan · 4 years ago
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otp questions for endhawks.........will u kick me if i'm greedy and say ALL OF THE NUMBERS
I WILL NOT but this might take a while tho!!!!
1. Who is the most affectionate?
hawks is more physically affectionate - he'll link their arms together, cuddle to enji's side in public, climb in his lap when they're home, hold his hand, initiate kisses more. but it's enji that people notice sending fond looks for his boyfriend so many times it becomes embarrassing - tabloids will have a whole article on endeavor's "heart eyes" ("my eyes are not hearts" enji frowns at the magazine in hawks' hands, who just shrugs and grins "seems like they are for me") so i would say, deep down the big man's a softie too
2. Big spoon/Little spoon?
enji/hawks. unless enji has a nightmare, because in that case, hawks is more than happy to be his lil jetpack.
3. Most common argument?
ah they fight about the most useless things but one of my favorites that must come up often is enji thinking that hawks deserves better than him, and hawks insisting that he's everything he ever wanted.
4. Favorite non-sexual activity?
kicking villain ass and family dinners. hawks likes to eat, and enji likes to eat with his loved ones all in one place. he wonders why hawks gets along so well with his children, and then he realizes - he forgot (again) how insanely young hawks is, and that he's merely a few years older than his youngest son, too. ngl natsuo glares daggers at his old man for having a boyfriend half his age ahahaha
5. Who is most likely to carry the other?
given that enji could swing hawks around like a yo-yo, i think it's him ADJGSGH
6. What is their favorite feature of their partner’s?
hawks likes everything about enji. he's really into his body, but also his dry sarcasm, his occasional goofy jokes, and most of all, his heart. hawks will watch enji kneel down to a couple of children at a battlefield, his own face and hands dripping with blood, grunt out "are you alright, kiddos? come here, i'll get you somewhere safe" and see him do exactly that, scoop the kids up in his arms and carry them on shaking legs that could barely keep himself up, and then he will see him let his eldest burn the world, his second eldest scream at his face, his youngest treat him like dirt and know that he still cares so deeply for them, know that he loves them and wants the best for them and if the best is torment their father until he dies or worse, he'll let them without so much as a complaint.
enji, on the other hand, loves how easily hawks can lift the mood. he's learned to see through facades, and he'll call him out if he senses that it's hurting hawks to put on a mask, but hawks joking around and mouthing off makes our atlas feel like the weight of the world is a little lighter that day. he loves him for how driven he is, how graceful and hard-working and focused he seems in a fight, and thinks about how those traits were most important to him in the past but now he can see hawks use them to create a world where they can rest, and he realizes... that's not so bad an idea after all.
7. What’s the first thing that changes when they realize they have feelings for the other?
enji speeds up the process of divorcing his wife lol. also he becomes more nervous around hawks, because shit, he likes him too, but he shouldn't be liked, why does hawks even like him? when hawks learns that enji likes him too, he gets shamelessly flirty. he doesn't make a move, of course - enji is still a married man, but he'll laugh at his nervousness, play with his own hair for enji's viewing pleasure and send suggestive winks his way like the damn tease he is.
8. Nicknames? & if so, how did they originate?
enji calling hawks birdie is pretty obvious. hawks alternates every petname imaginable for enji when he learns that he's never been called one (he figures it out when he jokingly calls him darling once and enji blushes to the roots of his hair), his favorite is "sweetheart" and "baby". enji also calls hawks his angel, but only when he's being very soft for him
9. Who worries the most?
i mean..... both? enji tends to worry more for hawks' safety and hawks worries more for the crushing guilt enji lives with.
10. Who remembers what the other one always orders at a restaurant?
hawks - claims he does, but the truth is, he says a different thing each time and enji's happy to try new things as long as hawks will beam at him proudly after ordering
11. Who tops?
depends. they both do. enji topped more at the beginning because hawks was really into it and he was kinda insecure about asking for anything else, but hawks once offered and found out that he has a delicious bottom bitch on his hands.
12. Who initiates kisses?
hawks. height difference doesn't really matter when you have wings to fly up to your boyfriend's face and kiss him stupid
13. Who reaches for the other’s hand first?
enji does. he wants to feel that hawks is by his side all the time, safe and sound.
14. Who kisses the hardest?
again, enji. his kisses get desperate, his hands rough. his temperature goes up despite his will and he just wants hawks to melt against him
15. Who wakes up first?
enji does! he's used to working out in the early morning before going to work
16. Who wants to stay in bed just a little longer?
hawks does!! deep down he's still a rebellious lazy teen and whenever he has a day off, he likes to sleep until 12. he swears he considers breaking up with enji the first time the man wakes him up at 6 to ask if he wants to come work out with him
17. Who says I love you first?
surprisingly, enji does. hawks is way too protective of his own feelings to let them flow out so soon, but enji is desperate, he wants hawks by his side for ever, and the first time he says it is the first time he realizes it's true. they're out eating dinner one day, and enji watches hawks chew around the food in his mouth, downing chicken like his life depended on it, and he watches the last rays of sunlight hit his golden hair, his golden eye, paint his wings blood red, and he knows he hasn't seen anything more perfect than that sight. he tells him he loves him, and hawks laughs so much he almost chokes on food. "pretty fucked up to tell me that while i'm deepthroating yakitori" he tells him, giggling
18. Who leaves little notes in the other’s one lunch? (Bonus: what does it usually say?)
hawks!!! it usually says cheesy things like "good luck at work, endeavor-san!" or "don't forget to eat ur vegetables!" when there are zero vegetables in the lunches hawks packs for him
19. Who tells their family/friends about their relationship first?
i mean hawks doesn't have much connection to his family, or has many friends, but enji is kind of pressed to tell his family all about his relationship since, you know. the news would reach them sooner or later anyway
20. What do their family/friends think of their relationship?
mirko is THRILLED that hawks is dating endeavor. the todoroki family, i mean.... shoto is confused, natsuo is mad, fuyumi and rei are both supportive and say they both want the best for enji. but mostly they just all think that he's really. Really young lol
21. Who is more likely to start dancing with the other?
hawks!!! he likes to dance around the kitchen while enji is cooking or doing the dishes, and sometimes manages to seduce enji into his arms too.
22. Who cooks more/who is better at cooking?
hawks is a better cook, but he never tells enji about that. he just lets him suffer and teach himself how to cook because it's so much fun
23. Who comes up with cheesy pick up lines?
hawks, but he says nothing he would ever say can beat enji calling him his angel. that's the cheesiest it can get, and it's also only because of his wings, like shut up enji omg that's so embarrassing
24. Who whispers inappropriate things in the other’s ear during inappropriate times?
hawks gets bored on important meetings. then he looks over to enji in a suit and gets horny. one of his favorite hobbies is watching enji squirm and struggle to keep it together after he's stroked his thigh under the table and whispered filth in his ear
25. Who needs more assurance?
enji does. he really, honestly thinks he doesn't deserve the love hawks has for him.
26. What would be their theme song?
my dude every song on ur playlist could be but this one in particular takes the cake for real
27. Who would sing to their child back to sleep?
in an au where enji's kids are still kids instead of grown adults, hawks would definitely read to them (sometimes legit tales, sometimes just colored-up and censored versions of their dad's missions) and cuddle them to sleep while he hums to them softly. in a non-au, enji catches him with shoto sleeping all wrapped up in his arms and wings, right after comforting him when he had a nightmare, trying to keep awake but slowly dozing off holding enji's youngest, most precious son, and enji kind of falls in love a lot more.
28. What do they do when they’re away from each other?
text, call, videochat. hawks makes a show of wearing some of enji's clothes, but really, you can't keep these assholes away from each other.
29. one headcanon about this OTP that breaks your heart
enji will never think he deserves to have hawks by his side
30. one headcanon about this OTP that mends it
hawks will never grow tired of showing enji how much he deserves him.
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frenchphobic · 4 years ago
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long fucking post on why a c!dream is a shitty person and probably should not have a redemption because it is unpog
honestly i just want to refute dream apologists thats why im making this post. i think that dream as a villain is interesting but i think that trying to make him out to be secretly a good guy is just bad ngl. also /roleplay and all
tw for abuse and mentions of suicide
dream as a villain
dream is a villain. he is chaotic evil according to wilbur, deliberately does not stream to appear less sympathetic (and yet), and is set up as an antagonist to tommy who bears the title ‘hero’. dream is not a good person, no matter how you look at it or try to justify his actions.
‘but he wants to unite everyone to be a big family :((’ the ends dont justify the means believe it or not. having a vaguely positive goal does not excuse the actions you’ve done. it also goes hand and hand with saying dream is correct for punishing tommy the way he did because he acted up. if i socked you across the face and then suddenly said ‘sorry there was a roach on ur face’ does that make it okay? probably not i still punched you, enacting an unnecessary amount of violence. thats a very simple analogy i will admit and there are more complex comparisons. another example off the top of my head is say a child just scribbled all over you walls with crayons. would hitting them be a justified answer? if u said hes thats really fucked of u go seek help u loon. violence as a punishment is very toxic, just because it gets the job done does not mean it is okay. at the end of the day, you still committed this act and the harm you caused is real, having a good motive doesnt suddenly make it okay.
‘but tommy causes all of the conflict’ the disk war wasnt even caused by tommy, it was sapnap and then tommy got involved. and the reason why tommy even caused conflict was because of the discs, because he wanted them back. and most of the time there was a level of antagonism from another party, such as schlatt exiling him, dream taking the disks in the first place, dream threatening l’manberg. and if dream wanted to end the conflict so badly, why didnt he just give tommy back his disks? tommy upfront said everything started with the disks, so he wants them back so he could end the conflict. notice how after tommy got his disks back he has been staying out of conflict, apologizing to everyone, and the only bad thing hes done is try to scam people but everyone does that. this would have been the most peaceful option, yet dream chose the path that would further antagonize tommy which then draws everyone else into conflict. why did dream need to have leverage over tommy so badly? why did he want to hold power over tommy so badly? its because of control, and that’s ultimately dreams end goal. sure he wants a big server family, but would said family have a free will?
‘but dream is sad’ the thing is dream is completely at fault for everything that happened to him. he pushed away sapnap (and george ig). he tried to take control over the server and their possessions. literally everything that happened to tommy. literally everything involving ranboo. villains can be sympathetic, i am not arguing against that. but it does not mean that they should be left off the hook. that doesnt mean u should ignore the shit theyve done because ‘oh no theyre sad’ because it doesnt make anything better. dream had this shit coming for him.
now people also skirt around calling dream an abuser. which is fair ig, its a very loaded word. its much easier to say manipulated. that being said, dream can classify as abusive. and no, tommy is not abusive. abuse is about control and a power imbalance. dream has power over tommy, but tommy does not have power over dream, at least not in the way dream does. he’s taking back power to stand up for himself, dream uses power to control.
the reasons i listed for why dream is from the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project so if u want a source on that, there you go.
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using coercion or threats: dream often threatened tommy, such as the pit thing and often employed violence on him. while normally this could be attributed to Normal Minecraft Player Go Smack. minecraft mechanics cannot always translate to real world since violence is pretty normal in minecraft however we also need to consider the context of the scene. dream gave an order, tommy refused, dream applies violence, tommy submitted. thats why its a threat, it has tangible effects that can correlate to real life.
using intimidation: dream blew up logsteadshire as a punishment. dream also destroyed tommys items anytime he visited. dream also hit tommy with his axe i believe. he killed mushroom henry, one of tommys pets.
Using Emotional Abuse: dream guiltripped the shit out of tommy for just hiding things and pinning the blame on tommy for just wanting his own private items. he definitely played mind games on tommy, pretending to be his friend. honestly i probably dont even need to go as in depth because it was so obvious.
Using Isolation: putting him in exile in the first place. destroying the bether portal so no one could visit tommy anymore. i really dont think i need to expand upon that.
Minimizing, Denying, and Blaming: dream in tommys stream when he got trapped said that exile wasnt that bad. he does shift the blame onto tommy for logsteadshire being blown up, even though dreams reaction was entirely unjustified for not listening and hiding.
Using Economic Abuse: see this is where i attempt to parallel minecraft mechanics to real life. obviously, there is no monetary system in place, so when i mean economic, i will use valuables such as armor, food, etc in place of currency. the idea behind economic abuse is to limit the victim’s resources so that they are dependent on the abuser and cannot escape. dream only really allowed tommy to have the armor he gave him while not giving access to armor so he does not regain a sense of power, and in the prison stream, dream holds all the potatoes which puts him in a position of power over tommy. this argument is more ambiguous i feel cause the whole minecraft mechanics thing is kinda weird so u don’t necessarily have to take this part in.
i feel like i need to emphasize this very strongly because dream is not a good person. abuse cannot and should not be a response to someone. its an awful mentality to have. i just want to prove the point that dream is not a good person, his reasons absolutely do not justify his actions.
what makes a good redemption
redemption arcs are tricky. when done right they are great. when done poorly, its a slap in the face. rn im going to establish a formula to what makes a good redemption with an example.
the most well known example of a good redemption is zuko from atla. first, its the magnitude of what theyve done and why. zuko did commit some shitty actions, since he was in a position of power in the fire nation but its because he is a child being abused and wanted to regain honor. zukos real awful acts was season 1 and the whole betrayal thing. thats not to say that zukos actions suddenly are okay, he did shitty things. but its something that can be traced to a higher entity or seem less malicious then the other villains. the thing also about the magnitude of actions is that there is a certain point of atrocities that there is no redemption. some people simply cannot be redeemed because the actions they commit are so ingrained in their character or the action itself has serious moral issues that it would just be wrong.
the next is acknowleding what they did was wrong. a genuine reflection on the self and analyzing what they did and why it was not okay. zuko realized what he did to uncle iroh was bad for example. he turned his back on his father, realizing he didnt and shouldnt seek acknowledgment from someone as heinous as him. its pointing out your actions and going ‘hey, this wasnt right i should not have done this’ and not even excusing ur actions. its also going straight for the root of the problem and figuring out to stamp it from the source. just because a character is sad does not mean they are reflecting, sometimes they are attempting to garner pity. it has to be direct and clear acknowledgement of the injustice.
and finally, an important part about redemption arcs is the actual redemption part. its when you make amends. zuko made amends with katara by trying to help her get revenge, he fought against the fire nation and tried to make things more peaceful in his rule. he apologized to iroh. an important part of the amends section is that it does have to be a genuine desire to change and become a better person, not to change a person’s perception of you. the thing is u cant expect a person youve hurt to forgive you. you cant expect people to be sympathetic towards you nor should u attempt to make urself sympathetic. u shouldnt be expecting a pat on the back or an award. redemption is about internal and character change.
why dream should not be redeemed
ive already established the key points to a good redemption (imo) but heres where dream falls short. his actions are extremely heavy so redemption may not even really be possible. abuse is not something you can wave off so it does cross to the point of fucked up. acknowledgement of what he did was wrong? all he said was that he changed, yet never explained why he changed or was too vague. he needed to label specifically what he did and bring it up. attempting to make amends? he’s been doing the exact opposite in fact he continues to manipulate tommy and ranboo. its not a genuine change. he is still repeating the cycle and has given no indication of ceasing. at the moment he does not have any signs of redemption.
and the thing is most of the attention around a dream redemption comes from either justifying his motives (which i do want to emphasize does not make anything suddenly okay) and because he is sad in prison sad face. these are not good reasons. its gonna pain me severely to bring this up but snape from harry potter does have some form of sad character ig yet he very much abused his authority to bully children as old as 11 just because he said ‘aight gonna die’ doesnt suddenly make his general bigotry and abuse suddenly okay there is a threshold. again im so sorry for using harry potter as an example none were coming to mind and i needed a popular one i do not like harry potter please dont say i do i would pass away.
and the last thing to consider is the audience. keep in mind that the audience is composed of minors and while yes there are adults, minors are the main component of the fandom. keep in mind that there are quite a few people who can relate to tommys character because they might be in the same position or have gone through his experiences. tell me what kind of message does it send to that audience that abusers can be redeemed. this is not a narrative u should push to this audience in these situations and the writers are seemingly aware of it. remember how in exile tommy spiraled into a suicidal mentality? consider how fucked of a message it would be if he just committed suicide instead of escaping abuse and attempting to recover from his experiences. tommy did an excellent job in not going that route and having a message of ‘it will not get better’. its the same thing here. victims are not obligated to care for or forgive their abuser, and portraying an abuser as sympathetic might fuck with the message a lot, even change their perception in that ‘oh, maybe my abuser was right, maybe they had a reason for treating me the way they did’. this is not to say that every victim watching this will internalize this message, but people also look up to these characters. there can be a degree of influence from the story onto oneself and thats the dangerous part.
conclusion
all in all dream is a shitbag asshole and probably shouldnt get a redemption because it would not be pog thanks for coming to my ted talk.
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e-milieeee · 4 years ago
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listen,, midoriya izuku has proven himself every bit the hero that deserves all might’s power and here’s why: 
all of bnha hints towards one thing: the inherent problems in hero society, and the underlying theme of what it truly means to be a hero. class 1a is slowly understanding this; they all have their own reasons in the beginning (iida because his brother, uruaka for money), but they also begin to face what it really means. during the hero killer arc, iida is faced with his own misconceptions and where he’s gone wrong. after nighteye’s death, uraraka comes to the realization that she wants to save people. class 1a is slowly being confronted with the sacrifices necessary and what it truly means to be a hero. 
even endeavor is learning: 
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hero society is flashy and full of braggy and honest-to-god some pretty incapable pros. why is the league of villains so understandable; why did stain get so big? because these flaws in hero society are there and have not been addressed. all might was the symbol for a reason; his retirement shakes society to the roots for that reason. many heroes, meant to be self-sacrificing and brave, are really just glorified celebrities. 
and this is EXACTLY why all might chose izuku to be the inheritor of OFA. 
take izuku’s pivotal moment: saving bakugou from the sludge villain. horikoshi’s writing is honestly genius—from subtle dialogues and panelling. we see the pros try to defeat the sludge villain, but none of their quirks are “compatible” in the sense to defeat the villain. they go “too bad for that child, but all we can do is wait for someone with a more useful quirk in this situation to defeat him”. they sit back with someone’s LIFE OR DEATH on the line because they don’t think they stand much of a chance against the sludge villain. 
and while that might’ve been true, it’s contrasted by izuku—quirkless, weak, bullied izuku—running to save kacchan. these highly trained people with superpowers aren’t helping, yet this powerless boy is. because even if he can’t, he has to try. 
the importance of this implication really evaded me the first time, but honestly i understand why this stood out so much to All Might that he was willing to pass OFA to izuku after that meeting. he demonstrates the exact values hero society SHOULD have, even if he were the least likely one to do so. he’s brave, he’s determined, and most of all, he’s empathetic. 
the last one i think really shines through in the shie hassaikai arc, when izuku bumps into eri on the streets. togata is meant to be another of izuku’s mirror/parallels, because the viewer is presented to the supposed-candidate of OFA. he’s highly capable. he works hard. it’s HIS hard work that he’s gotten to where he is today. he believes that being a hero is saving people too—if All Might hadn’t had that chance meeting with izuku, wouldn’t togata have been equally—or MORE—worthy than izuku? 
nighteye’s doubts about izuku are honestly perfectly valid to the reader as well, until horikoshi dismantles ALL of that with one subtle scene: 
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although togata also wants to “save a million”, when the moment actually comes, it’s izuku who sees eri’s terror and prioritizes her well-being ahead of the whole operation. and isn’t that what a hero should be doing? they’re not saying “oh, we should let her suffer more so our own operation can go smoothly”—when presented with a frightened, abused child, they act on it IMMEDIATELY. izuku’s empathy, understanding, and values shine through. he’ll take responsibility for a failed operation if it means he can save this one girl from more suffering. later on, togata realizes this too: if he can’t save even one child, how can he say he’s going to save a million? 
being a hero starts from the smallest things and isn’t always the flashy, fame-inducing, crowd-cheering work. it’s pain and blood and tears and laying yourself down for others, and izuku has understood it from the very beginning. 
anyway thanks for coming 2 my tedtalk,,,, bnha is honestly such a lovely complex show and i love izuku with all my heart and if u think he doesn’t deserve ofa then um bye 
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dabihaul666 · 3 years ago
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New 'round here. You say you love all villains..even AFO? Yknow cus he's like..bad. Stinky bad man. Bad.
Love Spinner though, thoughts on him?
ON AFO:
''stinky bad man'' its ok anon we can use our big adult words here. CORRECT. I do love ALL the villains.* I appreciate afo as a villain! his fight with all might in camino ward was GREAT, very exciting to watch. afo even was taking over shigaraki's body or whatever for a bit?? who was supposed to be his like perfect heir or whatever? I can't say I love this most recent manga update though... it kind of seems like hori is changing his motivations and they don't make a whole lot of sense. idk i havent read it yet tho just the summary lolololol. but without that part he's just a good old fashion big bad evil villain!
this new thing where like, villains are ''too bad'' to be liked or appreciated is so silly to me like. ok so u want lackluster villains that never go too far or do TOO bad of things? you always want them to have a deeply traumatic childhood sob story? would that make what they do okay? re like - people compairing shigaraki and dabi and todoroki shouto and overhaul's backgrounds.
how on earth would bnha world keep spinning without afo? ''you know he's bad, right'' is so.... lol weird to me. like yea thats why he's good.
ON SPINNER:
tbh i like spinner! i just don't think he has what it takes to be a villain! i was always rooting for ''redemption arcs'' or whatever you want to call them for spinner and twice.
spinner's still really different from the rest of the league. ive said it before but he wasn't down for going against police in the chapter 160 highway chases. the anime glossed over it but spinner was demanding answers from shigaraki when they were fighting machia! when the league took over that mansion belonging to the anti-heteromorph cult!! he believed in stain's ideals the longest out of the league!! i think he should totally guide a movement for heteromorphs i love that for him, but im just not convinced he would have to stay with the league/liberation front for that, and i think they (plf +afo) know it! the plf needs his fans to stay relevant after they lost like 100k of them members, afo likes to make everyone do his bidding, i think both of them are trying to stroke spinner's ego a little bit, make sure he knows they find him a valuable asset u kno what i mean?
so i like spinner i just never talk about him bc he's not..... really evil enough. he doesn't appeal to me personally. he's kind of coming into his own but he was WELL out of his depth when he first started tbh. like also with magne, i would classify her as more dedicated to the league than spinner because she was ready to throwdown life or death instantly against some random dude. tbh idk how old spinner is but he just seems young sometimes, which yknow maybe because he was a gamer neet due to heteromorph racism and stuff in his ? smaller town? iirc. he was way in over his head and that really kind of cemented for me when i grew to love some characters more than others if this makes sense.
BUT WELCOME to around here anon!!
if i come off as hostile or talking with too much hyperbole or extremism its bc i have been here for a very long time and put up with a fair(unfair?) amount of things lol. my main goal is to mind my own business making bizarre and niche aus for myself and maybe like a few other ppl and friends with my evil little meowmeows. if they haven't killed someone they probably dont interest me too much :p
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korpuskat · 4 years ago
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Start Game [Tomura Shigaraki/Reader] - Part 4
[Ao3 Mirror] Rating: Explicit Word Count: 6,817 Summary:  Things don't always go as planned in new relationships... and finding out that he's a murder and leader of a terrorist group certainly isn't the plan. Contains DFAB but gender neutral reader; handjob, blowjob, vaginal sex
So, I had a really bad night so instead of doing Kinktober 8, here’s the final chapter of Start Game that I was sitting on. pls hmu if you see errors, I’m really tired dkjfddhgdgkjs
===== [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] =====
In the end, you knew nothing about him.
Memories sit like a rock in your stomach. It felt so obvious now- plain as day. Half your screen lit up with your chat log- days worth of conversations laid bare, the words making your chest ache. How could you be so stupid? He’d warned you about it. That he was a stranger. Just some guy you'd hang out with, play games with- the center of your little innocent, stupid daydreams. That's all it was supposed to be.
The other half of your screen is covered with a still image, a photo grabbed from a news cast pasted onto a tips wanted hotline. Every cell in your body has gone cold as ice, frozen as the image. In the chat window, tiny text appears below the log: dust2dust is typing...
It was true. You knew nothing about him after all.
You didn’t reply to him, fully aware you’d left him on read.
You’ve never done that before. Always, always you’d reply as soon as you saw his message, all too eager to talk with him, spend time with him. But then, he’d never been quite so forward. It was always about gaming, about hanging out- to be so transparent about it now…
dust2dust: are u free tonite
Your stomach churns, sickness rising in your throat- tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. They bubble over, blur your vision and wipe away the image of a man standing on a rooftop, his hair whipping around his face. Maybe you could believe it was someone else, the strange mask he wore obscured Tomura’s recognizable skin and scars, the image too far out of focus to tell his eye color, even the darkness had left his hair more gray-colored than anything. But beneath the long black shirt sleeves, bandages peaked out, uneven. His right hand, his left wrist.
The tip hotline poster sealed it all together. Shigaraki. The man in connection to the Hosu City incident and the attack on U.A. prior and, oh. The bandages. Shigaraki had been shot, hadn’t he? That’s what the article you’d dug up before said.
A villain. He’s a villain! You’ve been hanging out with him- he could’ve killed you!
You curl up on your bed, tug your blanket tight around your shoulders. Your phone is solid under your fingers- the number pad staring back at you. You could get him caught. You could stop him from hurting anyone else…. It would be so easy! All you had to do was dial the number, to just... push the buttons. That's all.
You squeeze your phone in your hand- and your thumb is stiff, aching- just push the button, just tap the screen- that's all it would take. Why is it so hard? You could prevent the next attack, could make the world a little safer, to be a hero-
So why can't you do it?
Ding! You flinch, close your eyes- will yourself to look away from the screen. You don't need to see the chatbox flashing, don't need to see the new message sitting on the screen-- but with the client open, he'll get the read notification just the same. You just... walked away from the computer is all. It's just that innocent, that easy- to pretend you aren't aching to talk to him. That it's an honest mistake and not your desperate attempt to keep your head together.
The notification rolls in on your phone- a banner dropping down over the screen: New message from dust2dust.
Finally, your thumb moves. A single tap- and the mobile app opens up, your chat log spreading out.
dust2dust: u there
All you want in the entire world is to say yes, to ask what game he had planned tonight. To lose yourself in whatever colorful world was his interest tonight- maybe he'd want to visit your Animal Crossing island again. But that is wrong… isn’t it?
Between a rock and a hard place- you can't turn him in and you can't go back. There's no good answer to this, no way to pretend you didn't know why he wore those gloves now. No way to pretend he hadn't put those hands on you- in you. And... you can't avoid him forever.
You fingers shake as they touch the screen, tap on the keyboard where they could not meet the number pad. I know.
The response is immediate.
dust2dust: Know what?
You sniffle, wipe your face. You're over the precipice, there's no going back.
Shigaraki.
The cursor blinks in the text box. dust2dust is typing... appears and is gone within seconds. Nothingness. The green circle beside his icon remains lit, his status online.
You rub at your face and struggle to type out:
I won’t tell anyone. I promise.
The words sound true; you couldn’t even work up the nerve to call the hotline. Turning him in… somehow feels scarier than messaging him. Talking to him.
You watch, wait for the typing notification, but it doesn’t come. All that changes is the green circle beside his name turns gray, the status below his username updates: offline. last seen one second ago.
A coldness lances through your chest, a pain far worse than before.
You spend the next day waiting. Maybe for death, maybe for Steam to give you a friendly little pop-up, dust2dust is playing… and maybe you’d join him. Like nothing had changed, you’d join his party, he’d admonish you for being late, give you that quiet, warm praise when you solo a monster.
But it doesn’t. When desperation for fresh air drives you out the door, you expect a man in a black hoodie waiting for you. Maybe to talk, maybe to so easily lay his hand on you, just to be sure you won’t speak of him.
He isn’t there. He doesn’t lurk around every corner, doesn’t come online- you check. Every time your phone buzzes your heart swells, and every time it’s not him. The status on his profile ticks upwards without fail, no matter how often you open the chat and want to find the right words.
It’s worse than you imagined, the loneliness. Your once real friend and oh, of course! Of course you’d have the sense to befriend Japan’s Most Wanted. No matter how much you remind yourself, it doesn’t change the icy pit in your stomach. It’s not dread, it’s not fear.
Because as much as you think about him appearing and exacting his vengeance for you knowing too much- he could’ve done it before. He took you to his home, touched you, let you sleep beside him- he could’ve killed you through any of that. Instead he was careful, wore gloves. Opened up, just the tiniest bit. He could’ve killed you and he didn’t. Could’ve shown up at your door— could’ve destroyed the whole building.
He didn’t.
And that makes the pain sharper, more acute. A horrible ache has taken root in your chest and won’t go away.
.
.
.
.
.
It’s a terrible makeshift metric for goodness: that he didn’t harm you when he could have. But that has to mean something, doesn it? All the time he’s spent with you… that can’t be nothing. He risked exposure to be near you- and thus far has not left you in the dust.
Offline. last seen one day ago.
It has to mean something, it has to. That’s what you tell yourself as you slip through your apps. In your internet tabs there’s one that catches your eye. A map, a google search for restaurants near me with a bright red pin stuck into a satellite image.
It has to mean something.
.
.
.
.
.
.
You repeat that mantra over and over, even as you step off an unfamiliar metro line. It can’t be for nothing, can it? You walk, follow the directions back to your pinned location. The weeks spent talking and gaming even before he’d laid hands on you, when you still looked at him with star-struck eyes and a naivety that must’ve lasted longer than you thought.
He has to be busy. Can’t spend all his time in the arcade, being prickly and antisocial to everyone but you. That has to mean something.
You stumble through darkened streets- your journey having taken much longer than expected with your shaking legs and three separate breakdowns to consider if you were completely batshit.
The tiny distance calculator counts down as you walk and that might be the only thing keeping you sane. A nice little number to watch tick by as you approach a run-down section of the city. Sure enough, you end up outside a characterless building. It doesn't look right- where you had been was certainly somewhere lived-in, his possessions covering the shelves. But then, wouldn't a more nondescript building be more suitable?
You bite your lip, stand before the building in question. Your hand shakes as you approach- a broken BAR sign flickers once in the window. This is such a terrible idea, your worst, really. Bad enough to befriend a villain, but to go back? Maybe you should take a fourth break to debate if you've really lost it. There’s no turning back.
You reach out, fingertips brush against the door- it’s ripped open.
“Whatever, I’m-“ A man’s silhouette blocks most of the doorway, his face cast in shadow, backlit by the soft yellow of the would-be bar’s interior. He stops, looks down at you- and your bravery plummets to your toes. He glares at you with narrowed eyes ringed by heavy scars and facial piercings. “Who’re you?”
Your voice dries up- the reality of it all setting in too fast. “Oi, what’s-” Your attention snaps from the scarred man’s face to just over his right shoulder.
He looks just like he did in the press release: a terrible white hand grabbing his face, obscuring everything except one bright red eye. An eye staring you down, opened impossibly wide, pupil blown full, eclipsing the red of his iris till only a sliver remains. But it's him and the relief that washes over you makes it feels like years since you last saw him, not simply a day and a half.
The scarred man looks over his shoulder towards Tomura, raises one eyebrow- but Tomura doesn't even see him. Doesn't acknowledge him at all, doesn't see anything except your face.
"Oh, so this is your problem." The man huffs, shoulders past you.
And with him gone, all that is left is an unobstructed view into the bar, of Tomura Shigaraki, wanted villain, easing himself off a bar stool. He moves slow, but you watch his fists clench and release over and over, long, slender fingers drawing invisible lines in the air in a motion you've become all too familiar with.
Your hands shake, but you step through the threshold just the same. The door closing behind you is only faintly alarming, but with every sense attuned to the man before you, you don't have much thought to spare. He steps towards you, just one foot the first time- a test, a measurement- and though you cower, you don’t run.
That’s all he needs to know.
He’s on you- you hadn’t even seen him move. No more than a blur of black and the gray of the bloodless hand- and you’d think by now having him pressed up on you wouldn’t make your heart stutter in your chest. It does, though. But this time, this time you know the danger of his touch- of three fingers and a thumb curled over your throat.
“How did you get here?” He hisses, the threat of his hand has spread to his throat, the one eye now only half-visible under the misplaced fluff of his hair.
His hand eases off your windpipe just enough for your voice to eke by. “Phone saved the location.”
It feels wrong to speak of your almost normal date with the violence in his eyes. "Why are you here? Playing bait for the heroes?"
"No," You shake your head, your chin rubbing along the inside line of his hand. "No, I swear. I didn't tell anyone."
"Then why?" His eye narrows down to a slit, the damaged skin there folding in tight.
Your tongue wets your lips, your mouth parted as though that would make the words come easier. "I don't know." It's true; you knew coming here was crazy. "I... I missed you."
Even from behind the hand, you hear the hitch in his breathing. His eyelid lifts, rage giving way to something else. He stares at you, hardly moves but the gears turn in his head, "You're lying."
Tomura's wrist is cool under your fingertips- his pulse jumps as you touch him. It's not a plea for him to get off you, your hand not tight around his wrist- it's hardly more than a brush of your skin against his. "I..." Shame makes you look down to his feet, the same red sneakers you've come to love on his feet. "I didn't know what to say when... when I figured it out. I was scared." His grip shifts, as though confirming that you should be- "But... then I kept checking my phone. Waiting for you to message me. But I... I knew you wouldn't and... I couldn't find the right words. I thought maybe being here would be easier..."
"Is it?"
It's so disarming, so honest, you struggle to catch your breath. "Can I see you? I mean, could you...?"
Tomura waits a moment, but he does it nonetheless. His right hand never leaves your throat as he grasps the preserved palm with three fingers, drawing it away from his face. Your heart races- and from the twitch of his thumb over your jugular, you think he notices too. It's still him, of course- brow creased even more than usual, eyes tightened around the corners as he judges you.
"Tomura," You breathe, more sure. His face twitches, something just beneath the surface dying to break free. Still smothered beneath his suspicion. "I missed you. You're... the only person I really have and when I thought of never being able to talk with you again or- or touch you," You feel your cheeks heat, shame driving your gaze back down. "I couldn't stand it."
His breath shakes, his eyes like blood dart across your face, searching for something there. You're trembling so hard- anxiety and adrenaline rushing together in one awful slurry- you hardly even recognize that his hand is trembling too, his last finger twitching to come down and end it. It's not his finger that touches you.
All at once you think back to him standing beside you in the arcade, laying next to you in his bed: his hand on your skin, his breath warm across your face- he lingers there, eyes spread wide in something you dare not name. Not until he decides- and surges forward, presses himself to you completely, angling himself to find every inch of your body he can against his; his long legs set just inside yours, his thin torso leaves you hardly any room to breathe, his free hand raising to grab the side of your face- and with a burning need, he devours you. With lips and teeth and the tips of his fingers digging deep into your flesh, leaving eight bruises behind- and when his mouth drifts from yours, down onto your neck more bruises follow.
His tongue is hot and wet, laves a humid streak up from collar bone to jaw, leaves you shuddering and digging your fingers into his hair with a plea of "Tomura,"
"I knew it." He says, half laughs against your throat. The skin there tingles with the latent pressure of his hand, the threat that never came to fruition- then sparks as he kisses, messy and too wet, nipping freely, littering your skin with marks until you're panting. "I knew you meant it, that you're mine."
The word makes your knees weak, an airy moan escaping from your lips- which only fuels him to keep going. "You- you want to touch me?" The giddiness is back, an ecstatic trill in his voice, a shiver wracking down his body- all the way to the tips of his fingers that catch your wrists. "Then go on, touch me." He doesn't actually give you a choice, he shoves your hands against him, forces your palms up against the firm bulge in his pants.
Shock makes you tug against his hands for a moment- and for one agonizing second, Tomura's face falls. His too-wide grin- the one that puts you right back against the wall in that dim hallway- slips from its upturned joy. And then you touch him. Even with his demanding control, it's different when you actually do it: your fingers curving around the shape of him, feel his weight through the cloth. His breath catches and though you're sure it feels good, the twitch of his brow into something almost like surprise- just a flash of emotion before dissolving back into that thrilling, dangerous smile- has you thinking it's something else.
You palm at him and his hands loosen, lets you explore. A squeeze makes him grunt, and you take that as a good sign. Your best attempt to stroke him through his pants has his hips pushing into your hands. Though you need to bite your lip to keep yourself grounded, the loose, stuttering jerks of his hips give you enough courage to do more. Tomura stares at you, point-blank, inches from your face as your fingers quiver but dip below the waist of his pants.
The grin widens and nervousness makes your breaths come in quick- but when have you been able to say no to him? You push his pants down- and his cock bobs free, just as you had imagined how it looked when he was grinding on you: long and pale, the head a blushing pink, half-exposed, peeking out from under his foreskin. It's practically radiating warmth and throbs as you hesitantly wrap your fingers around him properly for the first time.
You just hold him for a moment, stumbling over what you should do- and his hand finds your wrist again. You welcome the help; he's not shy about what he wants you to do. He curls your fingers in tighter, tighter- until you'd be worried you were hurting him if he wasn't currently fucking your hand, half the motion coming from his grasp on your wrist, half from his hips. It's rough, the skin of your palm dragging against his cock, your strokes unlubricated except for the sweat of your palms and the first drips of precum that squeezes out each time your thumb and index finger squeeze up around the head. On the downstroke, the thin hood of skin slides back, fully reveals the pink skin beneath.
"You're doing so good," Tomura's voice is husky, rasping next to your ear. His gaze flits between your hands on his cock and your face, watching as your expression evolves- lingering when you lick your lips.
"Wait," You work against his grip to still your hand. Tomura whines, ruts once against your palm, fingers twitching as he tries to control himself. There's a question in his eyes, one you soothe with your free hand touching his side, then with words. "I want to... try something." His brow twists, one eye narrowing- until you're bending your knees. In the meager space he's left between himself and the wall, you slide down. His breathing hitches and something wild passes over his face.
You touch his legs, still covered in his dark pants. Beneath, his thighs are slender, but solid. One hand slides into your hair, bitten-short nails scratching at your scalp- spark a shudder that jumps down each vertebra, prompts you to look up at him. With his hand in your hair, you follow the long, thin line of his arm to his face. From below, he's menacing, face completely cast in shadow, his hair now framing the damaged and ruined skin of his features instead of obscuring them. Just like this, you're one finger away from a death too many people have seen. Maybe you should be concerned on why, exactly, that makes your mouth water.
His fingers- all except the littlest- press down at the top of your head, bring your mind back to the matter at hand. What you had wanted to try.
It's different being level with his cock. Before it was intimidating, something new and unfamiliar- but at least you had Tomura's hand to guide you... or really hold you still so he could use your hand. And that was good, amazing, even- to hear his panting up close and feel him, really feel him as he throbbed in your palm. But you worked up the courage to come here, you made some kind of horrible realization about your own desires in this world and you want to follow that thrilling conclusion to its end before common sense can catch up to the adrenaline.
Down here, with your thumbs sliding up beyond the hem of his pants, stroking at the expanse of pale, smooth skin of his thighs- barely dusted with hair so thin and pale it looks white, it's different. His cock hangs heavy between his legs, foreskin eased back into half-covering the head, a shiny bead of precum glistens at the slit. You touch him, squeeze just how he showed you- and feel the thick vein on the underside pulse hard beneath the pad of your thumb. You resist the urge to swallow, instead opening your mouth and easing out your tongue.
The first lick makes his cock twitch, though you think it's more the sight of you on your knees than the actual sensation. The taste is not quite what you expect; a single bead of precum and that which has smeared is not the bitterness you expected. It's mostly watery, a faint tinge of sweetness that settles in the middle of your tongue, soaks in deep. The next lick is less timid, more adventurous. You press the meat of your tongue up against the underside and stroke upwards, feel his pulse quicken. As you reach the tip, his hips twitch.
This time, you ease him into your mouth- and a wonderful little muttering of "Fuck." that goes straight to your clit. His fingers slide back from the top of your head, down to curl around the back of your skull. He gives you another guiding push, urges you to slide down his length a little more. It's something you can do- it's easy when he's the one talking you into it. And the praise that follows- "That's it, that's right,"- makes you shiver, makes you shift impatiently and try to swallow him down.
You bob easily, your hand covering what your mouth can't, each stroke smooth and slick with the saliva that slips from your lips. Each sound he makes is a badge of honor and you chase them without shame- Tomura's half lidded eyes and lopsided smile is all the sign you need to know he's thrilled with your attempts. Like building a catalog, a reference- trying anything you can think of and waiting for his noises, measuring your success with impatient thrusts and broken-off sighs, choked-down whines.
You sink down on him until your lips meet the sides of your fingers and you have to lay your hand against him, fingers pushing into the mess of pale hair along the base. Your jaw aches, but you want to try- want to swallow him down, to make him lose himself to your mouth just as you'd done to him. His cock touches the back of your tongue and saliva wells up around him- half an inch further and he brushes the back of your throat; you choke.
Your throat spasms, a wet noise escaping from your lips- you struggle to cough around his cock, feel shame rise in your cheeks as you try to pull away- and are stopped by Tomura's hands at the back of your neck, by his voice.
"Oh, fuck yes." He's staring down at you, blood of his iris completely lost to the black of his pupil. He pushes at your head, urges you back down. "Do that again."
Embarrassment washes away, leaves you wide-eyed, something like pride welling up instead. The head of his cock still on your tongue, you play with it for a moment. Breathes even and slow through your nose as you lick at his foreskin, slip your tongue in between. That earns you a sharp intake, so you swirl your tongue around the head, let the almost sweet taste of his precum coat your mouth until you're finally ready to try again.
He touches the back of your tongue and again your mouth floods in response, spit leaking from your lips to cling to his cock and drip over your chin. A deep breath and you do your best to flatten out of your tongue, let him slide in- it's not so severe this time. Like the itch in your throat before a cough, trying to suppress that urge makes your eyes water, so you squeeze them closed. You take him a little deeper- and Tomura moans as your throat constricts around him again; his hands keep you still as you instinctively struggle.
Your nails bite into his thighs, but the warning goes unheeded, utterly ignored as his hips rock, forcing his cock further into your throat. Protests muffled in your throat, but from the way Tomura's eyes roll back, you're not sure he even understands.
"Here, here," He says, one hand catching your chin with three fingers. He draws your chin up, tilting your head back- and the pressure in your throat eases. Breathing through your nose, catching your breath, you again find yourself staring up at him. With careful fingers, he brushes a loose hair from your face- and ghosts his thumb just below your eye where the gaging has made them water. He hesitates there, can't find the words for what he wants to ask. He doesn't have to. It's awkward to nod with his cock still in your mouth, halfway down your throat, but you do your best anyway.
With his hands returning to their place at the base of your skull, you resume. With the new angle, it's easier to take him in. Even if you do have to pause to choke, your own will keeps your hands at the backs of his thighs, keeping him from pulling away from you. Tomura loves every second of it, watches you from above with rapt eyes, keeps your hair out of the way so he can watch his cock disappear further and further into your body. You're doing so well, you look so good, he wants to tell you, but every real word has left his head, leaving him drooling and panting and he wants more
The tightening of his fingers into your hair is the only real warning you get. First, an easy stuttering of his hips, the same little motion that he's tried to suppress before- it makes you choke again, but you know he likes it- and perhaps you do too, feeling wetness well up in your eyes at the pressure in your throat, how your head feels light and empty as you struggle to breathe around him. But usually he gives you a moment to compose yourself- not this time. He whines and through tear-blurred eyes his face contorts in pleasure- his hips thrust again. You sputter, relax your jaw, and let him.
Each stroke makes your throat ache, itch as you fight the coughing fits that build up in your chest, but his next thrust has your nose brushing that tangled mess of hair. His scent, the musk of sweat and arousal fills your nose- and while Tomura greedily fucks your throat, one of your hands falls between your legs, rubs hard against your clit. The long-needed pressure makes you moan- and the vibration of your voice has him rambling, words too half-formed, too broken up by high-pitched, heady noises, too buried under the slick noise of his cock in your mouth for you to piece anything together except:
"Cum- ah!- gon' cum- I- oh," He breaks off again- his teeth sinking into his lower lip. You hold onto the back of his thigh- let him use your mouth until he's gasping, fingers twisting hard into your hair. His cock throbs on your tongue- and with his next thrust, sharp bitterness fills your mouth. With how Tomura moans above you, his brow drawn in high and tight, mouth hanging open, his cracked lips burning bright pink with his teeth's abuse, you couldn't begin to imagine not loving it.
He pulls you in close and you gag again, closer, closer until your nose is buried in those short hairs. Tomura's head falls backwards and all you can see past the black of his shirt is the long column of his neck and red, scratched skin there. This deep you struggle to breathe, to pull in enough oxygen around his cock, but the little dying whimpers of him riding out his orgasm is all that matters in the world right now. He pulls back before blackness can eat at your vision-
and for a moment, Tomura stares at you with such wonder in his eyes. His hands leaving your hair to grab the sides of your face, tilting your head so he can look at you. You can't imagine you look good, covered in tears and spit from gagging, but he runs his thumb along your lip all the same. He pulls you up by your jaw and you have to claw your way up his clothes to keep pace, near falling with your legs half-asleep- his mouth crashes onto yours. His kiss makes you lightheaded in a way even his dick could not, leaves your head spinning as you hold onto his shoulders for dear life.
His legs move, stepping backwards, but his arms give you no choice but to stumble along with him, half-dragging you as he goes. "Good, so good, perfect," He praises between kisses, "My perfect little pet," Another barrage of kisses, so fast and haphazard you can't begin to reciprocate before he's breaking away again. "You'd like that, right? To stay here and be mine." You try to say yes, yes but he's back on you, drawing your lip into his mouth and sucking too hard; all that comes out instead is a high-pitched whimper. You don't even realize where he's taking you until he's pushing backwards through the purple curtains into that dark hallway beyond. He fumbles behind him with one hand until he finds the doorknob.
The lighting is no better than before, a paused game screen lighting up the room in harsh blue light. He doesn't give you long enough to take it in. The room spins as he moves you like a doll, turning you around and shoving you back against his bed. Your knees catch on it and you fall back- and Tomura is back on you in seconds.
This time, he bypasses your mouth, lips latching onto your neck while his hands shove your shirt up and up until he can grope at your chest. Pain shoots from your neck at the harshness of his bite, his teeth sawing into your flesh in desperation to mark you, to force more noises from your mouth- while he catches your nipples between thumb and finger. Whatever had been holding him back before is gone now- he's rough, unhinged, twisting and tweaking at your chest, pulling on your nipples until your chest has to arch with him to assuage the pain. His mouth pops off your throat, breath ghosting over the wet, aching spot he's left behind before he finds another spot closer to your collarbone.
This hands, too, move along. The minimal patience he had for your shirt is lost on your pants; his fingers twist into the fabric and you're gasping for a reason other than his ruinous mouth. Cool air greets your heated skin- and his fingertips push between your outer lips. Tomura immediately detaches from your neck, a long trail of saliva hanging between his lips and your skin as he rears back at his fingers. You already know what he sees; the warmth has been building between your legs for far too long, the ecstasy of letting him use your throat, of listening to him lose himself in you- it hasn't been without effect on you. A single huff of laughter and he's back over you, teeth nipping at your earlobe as he taunts you. "This wet already? You're so dirty," He kisses over the still stinging mark he left, "I knew you liked things that were wrong."
His fingers slip through your slick, dragging it up to your clit. He swirls the pads of his fingers around it, fans the flames in your belly until you're squirming, begging into the darkened room, "Please, please,"
"That's right," He sighs, giddiness still making his voice light and airy, "You want me, don't you? Need me?" You can only whimper and nod, chase his fingers with your hips. "That's alright, I'll take care of you."
He shifts just enough to shove his own pants off his thighs and kick them off- and his left hand holds your thighs open as he settles between them. With his right, he grabs the base of his shaft- and you can't suppress a whimper as the head of his cock slots between your plump lips. He nudges against your entrance, teases your tight hole- before letting it slide through your arousal, coating the underside and rubbing against your clit. The head, fully revealed, peaks up between your legs as you look down- and it dawns on you that yes, this is really going to happen. He's going to be inside you-
And Tomura grins, leans in close to your face until you could trace every scar, even line across his face. As elated as he looks, his voice holds a dark sincerity. "I'm going to destroy you."
It's a promise and he delivers. He pushes into you- wetness eases his way, but he hadn't even stretched you. The head makes you pussy ache, sting around his girth, but he doesn't stop there. He breaks you open, cleaves his way deeper, forces your tight cunt to bend to his will and you do. Your body flutters, strains to accommodate his desires until he's buried inside you completely. Your thighs shake, tremble with the desire to latch around his waist and keep him still- but his hands are already settling just behind the bend of your knee.
"I told you," He says, pushing on your legs until you're bending in half, knees nearly meeting your shoulders. Above you, he consumes your vision, your world. Everything you've ever known fading away in favor of Tomura's scarred face and the way his hair sways when he moves. "You'd like it like this."
And Tomura plants his feet and thrusts. One stroke and your hands are scrambling over his sheets. He drives into you with reckless abandon- any finesse he might've had lost in your soft, pliant, heat. It doesn't matter. The extreme angle has his cock pushing in deep, touching all those new, sensitive places you've never found before. Every motion has him filling you up to bursting, the stretch making your body sing around him until unintelligible noises fall from your lips.
It's too much all at once; his cock is redefining your life, stroking each nerve into a new awareness while he's so close you can nearly kiss him, yet just inches too far, leaving you only able to stare at Tomura's features in rapt wonder. His gaze has long since become lust-hazed, his teeth sinking once more into his lower lip in a feeble attempt to stay quiet- but in reality it does nothing to stop the feral grunts that come in time with his cock pounding at your cervix. Worst of all is the arrhythmic stroking against one sensitive patch of your front wall that makes your entire pussy tingle and spark to life, driven so close to the peak you can't quite reach.
"Tomura," You can barely breathe, each punctuation of his hips knocking the air from your lungs. He doesn't respond, doesn't acknowledge you at all, opting to lower his head and pant against your chest. The heat makes sweat gather, your skin prickle- your arms waver, weak and near lifeless as you reach for his wrists.
"Tomura," repetition makes awareness filter back into his eyes. He stares at you from under the undulating wave of his hair, stray, sweaty strands sticking to his forehead in a wild fringe. "Please," The word barely makes it past your lips as another brutal punch of his hips has your eyes rolling.
"Tell me." His grasp on your legs tightens, digs in until you know bruises color your skin.
"Touch me."
Tomura's breath catches, his hips stutter as that dangerous spark returns to his eyes. He doesn't look away, holds your gaze as his right hand slides from your leg to your belly. With the rest of his fingers curled into a tight fist, the side of his thumb finds your clit. He doesn't even have to move it; each thrust makes your body sway with him, rubbing in time with his cock.
It's immediate- the tightly-wound arousal that's been aching in your belly flares, sparks finally catching in ignition. He keep fucking you, driving your high up and up until you can't stand it, hands grabbing at his arms just to have something to hold on to, something too desperate to be human escaping from your lips- until your mouth falls open and everything comes crashing down. The dam breaks; pleasure flooding out your need, cascading through your body, whiting out everything that isn't his touch, his voice, his cock- and you're arching, twitching, your cunt clenching around him as your clit throbs with his never-ending thrusts.
It's too much, watching you cum, feeling your walls contract around him until you're so tight he can't move and it hurts, your cunt milking him for everything he has and he drives into you until he can't anymore just to see how your legs and fingers twitch in overstimulation. He gives no thought to the way he's drooling mindlessly, how tightly he's gripping your leg- he cares only for the hot, wet sleeve of your pussy and the way your eyes have rolled back because of him.
Tomura cums so hard he shakes, sees stars- his cock kisses your cervix as he fills you, forever marks your pussy as his. His injured arms don't last much longer, but even with how his world goes fuzzy, he's careful with his hands, pulls each finger into cautious fists. Your legs ache from being bent for too long, falling down to rest on either side of his slender hips. Sweat dampens your chest, but he doesn't mind, rests the side of his face there, breathes hot air into the divot of your breastbone.
Your arms fight you, want to lay boneless where they landed, but with several movements that make you feel more like a loose marionette than a human, you find Tomura's back. One hand slides under the wide, loose collar to find the bandages there, the other cups the base of his skull where sweat has dampened the short hairs there that curl wildly.
The stale, unmoving air takes too long to help you cool down- fluids drying on your skin making you itch, feel disgusting-- but the weight of Tomura's head on your chest and his slow, even breaths keeps you anchored in place. But even Tomura must feel uncomfortable because he soon stirs, tipping his head to lay lazy, open-mouthed kisses across your chest. Another movement has you hissing- his hips shifting as his softened cock slips free- and so does the gush of fluids that run over the curve of your ass, pool onto the sheets.
Tomura doesn't even notice, lifting his head to meet your eyes again. In the blue light of his screens, you can make out how his pupils have released their stranglehold over his irises- which in the lighting look purple. Muscles feeling a little more human, you touch the side of his face- and speak the words you've been dreading. "What now?"
He blinks, slow and easy, catlike. When his lips part to speak, they stick together. "We never did play another game of Cloud Seven." And his mouth spreads into a grin- just soft enough, just rounded enough to perhaps be happiness.
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1kook · 5 years ago
Text
distractions
jeon jungkook x (f) reader
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summary: “Soft.” / “No shit,” you say, “you’re deep between my boobs.” tags: gamer kook, soft bf jeon, extensive knowledge of the MCU (Mario Cinematic Universe) warnings: nsfw; mostly tit play, dry humping, slight praise, jizzing in ur pants like ur fifteen again wc: 3k barely 
when u have 34827 other fics to finish but ur brain hyper focuses on this image at 1 in the morning. not proofread bc idk ppl 
ty for all the nice comments on skirt chasers btw<333
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There were a lot of things about Jungkook that you didn’t learn until you were official. Like the fact he rarely matches his socks unless they’re cool socks. Or that he prefers his pancakes pre-drizzled with syrup. Not necessarily bad things, just aspects the general public wouldn’t normally see. In fact, the worst “trait” you’ve learned about Jungkook in the past year is how easily distracted he can get. Nothing crazy, just tiny actions, like forgetting to eat for three hours because he refuses to leave his Wii until he can beat the guys in three rounds of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the Mushroom Kingdom stage. Strangely specific, but it’s Jungkook and you’ve long since learned he’s an enigma.
Times like now, when you creep up behind him as he continues screeching into his headset, voice cracking every now and then in that adorable way it does when he’s overwhelmed. You are no stranger to Jungkook’s apartment, having visited more times than you can count, and even dropping by and doing a little dusting while he was on tour. However, you’re surprised you can see the back of his coconut hair from the low backing of his new computer chair. He’d told you he recently threw away his big leather, super villain gaming chair because it’d started to tear, but it was a fact you hadn’t really paid much attention to.
Now, however, you’re feeling a little happy he did, because it means you can slide your palms around his shoulders in somewhat of a back hug. It’s way better than having to walk all the way in front of him, and you bite down on a grin when he mutters the softest “hi, baby.”
“Which stage are we battling on today?” You murmur, pinching the tip of his mic to twist it away. Faintly, you can hear Taehyung’s voice shout a greeting your way.
Another button smash of his remote, hands enveloping the tiny device. “Wii Fit Studio with Wario,” he replies, eyes flickering across the screen like his life depends on it. You snort.
“I thought you hated Wario,” you point out, and move with him when he jumps after being shot off the screen.
He looks at you for the first time as he waits for his character to respawn. “Changed my mind. He’s just misunderstood. Listen to my theory, babe,” he starts, and you let go of him because you have the back of a ninety year old war veteran and can only hunch over for so long. You take up a very bodyguard-esque position behind him, watching him play and gently pressing your thumbs into his shoulders. “Imagine this. You’re a kid trying to have fun and this other kid who looks exactly like you but better is somehow also cooler than you.”
You hum, letting go of his shoulders to toy with his hair. You pull it into a makeshift ponytail and giggle, not that Jungkook minds, too immersed in his game and his sudden loving Wario speech to care. “Then, you get older and this same dude is still getting all the credit for being exactly like you. On top of that, his little brother is doing the same to your little brother! I’d be so pissed.”
You let his hair drop, and then quickly brush the strands away from his face when he whines. “Uh huh. But theoretically speaking, aren’t you the Mario of your little universe?” Jungkook is silent. “If we’re going by your little story, I hardly doubt there’s another Jeon doing better than you,” you point out.
Jungkook’s Wario gets blown off the screen for the last time, and he’s left blankly staring at the screen. You poke his neck. “I don’t wish to discuss this further,” he says rather matter of factly. You laugh, shaking him and his seat. “Baby, why would you say that!” He cries.
You smile, flicking the switch on his headset before pushing it off his head. Jungkook moans again, head lolling back to glare up at you. “I finally come to terms with the fact that Mario is the true asshole, just to find out I’m Mario? Fucking absurd.”
You roll your eyes at his dramatics, fingers dancing down the stretched column of his neck. “Listen, no one told you to go out and create an entire deep backstory for the Mario Cinematic Universe.”
He scoffs, eyes fluttering shut as he continues basking in your soft caresses. “The MCU,” he chuckles under his breath. On screen, Taehyung is still fighting with whoever else they were playing with tonight, a little Isabelle and Dark Samus dancing across the screen.
Meanwhile, you’re still absentmindedly running your fingertips along Jungkook’s skin. For a second, you think he’s asleep by the deepening of his breaths, his body so soft and relaxed beneath your touch, but then he gets one of those weird twitches of his, and pushes his head between your breasts.
“Ah,” he sighs, eyes still shut. “Soft.”
“No shit,” you say, “you’re deep between my boobs.”
The little shit snuggles closer at your words. “My favorite place in the world,” he croons, and you pinch his neck for his stupidity. “Tell me when they’re done,” he mumbles, sounding as if he’s actually gonna fall asleep.
You relent, continuing your gentle massaging of the muscles in his neck as you tune into the match on screen. You’re not exactly sure which one Taehyung is, but your gut tells you he’s probably playing as Isabelle, so you root for her. You’re weirdly into it, jumping every time a good spar happens.
By the time the match ends (literally only like 4 minutes later) and you check on your boyfriend, he’s snuggled his way between the valley of your breasts, his cute nose poking out from between. “Oh my god,” you sigh, having to take a momentary pause to collect yourself from the sight.
Jungkook giggles.
“Well. Taehyung’s done,” you inform him, and he hums though he doesn’t really seem to care about Smash anymore. His hands go slack around his remote, crawling up to dwarf yours.
He sighs, sounding so happy with himself. “Baby, you’re so soft,” he hums, and you try desperately, and you mean desperately, to ignore the sudden drop of his voice, his hands ever so gently tangling with yours.
You try to hit him with the facts, because you know where this will go if you don’t. “Well, breasts are made up of mostly fatty tissue, and lobes for producing milk,” you inform him.
Contrary to your goal, the handsome smile that envelopes his face has you fighting down the curl in your stomach. You can never win.
“You know I love when you talk anatomical to me,” he purrs, and it takes everything in you to not punch him straight in those pearly whites.
You don’t have enough time to respond, too caught up in a mental pep talk to re-evaluate what your body considered attractive. Jungkook’s corny jokes should definitely not be high on the list, but your rock hard nipples said otherwise. “So, you gonna let me suck on them or what?”
“I hate you,” you groan, reaching over to completely unplug Jungkook’s headset because you were absolutely terrified of creating an accidental porno with your celebrity boyfriend.
Jungkook chuckles. “No you don’t,” he teased, finally wiggling his way away from you to whirl his seat around. “Could feel your nip nops pressing into my forehead. No bra today? She’s bold.”
“She’s bold and embarrassed that her boyfriend calls them nip nops,” you sigh, climbing into his lap. His remote presses hard against your thigh, and you yelp before he tugs it out and throws it on the desk behind him. Vaguely, you register the screen lighting up behind Jungkook, but then he’s nudging your shirt upwards.
He’s barely brushed his hands against you, but you’re already shivering and squirming in his lap. “Relax for me, baby,” he assures you, a new depth slowly creeping around his words. “Gonna take care of you, alright?”
You nod, breath already caught in your throat just from the way he looks at you. He flashes you another smile, bunny teeth slightly pressed against his lower lip, before he’s pushing your shirt above your chest, and marveling at your boobs.
You don’t miss the way his gaze becomes glossy, eyes hyper focused on the rise and fall of your chest. Just as you’re about to urge him to do something, he’s reaching up to brush his thumb around your nipple. “Oh,” you blurt out, the skin around your nipple rising with goosebumps.
Jungkook lets out a soft huff of air at your reaction. “So sensitive. Bet I could make you come just by touching your tits, baby.”
You scoff, choking back another sound when he does the same to the other nipple. “I wanna say I doubt it, but I feel like you’ll prove me wrong,” you retort.
At this, Jungkook smirks. “Oh, so now it’s an expectation?” He smiles, and it’s the last angelic side of him you see before he’s ducking down and latching his supple lips around your breast.
Immediately, your back arches forward, hands scrambling to grip onto his shoulders as he licks across your breast. “J-Jeon, wait—“ you cry, body shaking at the way his tongue dances around your nipple.
Your hands tangle themselves in his hair, tugging and twisting it as he flicks his tongue back and forth, knocking it against the hard pebble. You moan, and almost choke when he pulls away with a lewd pop.
His lips are glossy from his own saliva, red from the friction. He’s looking at your glistening breast like a starved man, thumb returning to glide over his own messy artwork. “So pretty,” he hums, Puckering his lips to blow a soft tuft of air against it. You shiver. “Aren’t you the softest little thing,” he says, one hand falling to your waist and gently easing you closer to his crotch. His sweatpants do nothing to conceal how he’s feeling.
You hate to admit how your insides had turned into a Fruit Gusher the second he started sucking on your boob, and now that you think of, you'd be absolutely embarrassed if you did come from just this.
As if sensing your inner turmoil, Jungkook meets your gaze. “I fucking knew it,” he says, slightly out of breath. You furrow your eyebrows, to which he pointedly raises his and gestures to his crotch. “You started pressing down so hard on me the second I got my mouth on you,” he brags, and as if to punctuate his statement, grinds his hips upward into you. “Did sucking your titty make you that wet, doll?”
Your cheeks flush at his words. Belatedly, you nod, your eyes falling to his lips that quirk up into a smile. “Oh, you’re just so desperate to be touched, aren’t you?” He continues, and then reaches up to pinch your nipple between two rough fingers.
You gasp, body arching into him. The pain is new, but definitely welcomed. “Yes,” you cry out, hand reaching out to grapple around his wrist. Though you try to tug it away, it feels disgustingly good and you know he knows, which is why he gives it a slight tug.
Finally, when he lets go of you, he doesn’t hesitate to lower himself down by your other, ignored breast. “I wanna see you cream your shorts, okay? So I’m gonna suck your other titty until you’re near tears, baby,” he states, before giving you a soft push of his hips.
“Please, be gentle,” you choke out, words stuck the moment he wraps his lips around you. This time, he’s ruthless with his tongue. He traces it all over, tonguing your nipple like a lollipop. It feels nice, the wet caress, that you don’t see that bite coming at all. You moan, body unconsciously pushing away from him in surprise.
“Nuh uh,” Jungkook tuts, strong arms wrapping around your lower back to bring you back into his embraces. This closer position has your core pressing down directly over his dick, and the sudden double stimulation has your vision momentarily going white. “Gonna give you a pretty little bite right under your tit, doll,” he announces, and in a scary act of trust, presses his fingers into your spine until you’re staring at the ceiling, the only thing supporting you his strong arms. He nudged your breast with his nose until he finds the perfect spot to place his impromptu hickey.
It’s right against the bottom curve, where your skin folds over, that he settles on. “Need you to to sit nice and still for me. You can do that, right baby?” Jungkook says, big doe eyes looking up at you. You nod your head quickly.
His teeth are cold, unlike the rest of his mouth. “Jungkook!” You moan, toes curling and thighs attempting to clamp shit. They hit the outside of the chair instead, slightly squeezing around his thin waist. “You’re s-so good to me,” you wail, pushing down into his covered cock for friction.
As much as you wanted to act like this wouldn’t affect you, your body is no liar. Fingers tangled in his long curls, you find yourself gently rutting against him. Much to your surprise, this makes him break away, a thin bridge of saliva connecting his mouth to your chest. You mourn when it finally breaks.
“Told you to stay still, doll,” Jungkook warns, one set of long fingers sprawling on the small of your back as the other reaches up. “You had all the time in the world to work yourself on me, but you wanna choose now?” He gently reprimands you, twisting your nipple between two pinched fingers. You mewl. “Promise you’ll be good?”
“I can’t,” you whine, desperation seeping into your voice as your traitorous hips jolt forward again. You nearly fall onto him when a particular nudge of his cock over your core feels just right. “Want your cock so bad,” you wail, throwing all hesitation out the window as you begin full on humping yourself against his crotch.
Jungkook sighs, trying to act annoyed with you but the twitch of his cock beneath you cannot lie. “Well I’m not done having fun with you,” he says, though the way his words are tinged with complaints, you can tell he’s trying hard not to pout. Nonetheless, he latches his mouth around your breast again, and you nearly faint when he rolls your nipple between his teeth.
“Jeon,” you cry, looking down with probably the world’s worst quadruple chin only to catch him absolutely savoring your titty. He’s got his eyes closed, pink tongue licking across every inch he can get. His arms are wrapped around the smallest part of your waist like he can’t possibly fathom letting you go. When he moans, a whole new found wetness coats your walls. You choke on a sob, “I-I love you, Jungkook.”
You can feel a smirk pressed around your breast. It’s this moment when Jungkook finally gives up on his little quest to tame you, hips bucking up to meet your offbeat grinds against him. He pulls off your breast with another wet pop, though he’s slightly lower than you from how consumed he was when sucking you tits. He has to make a little effort to stretch his neck up to look at you, and even then it’s over the top of his nose that he gazes at you.
His lips pucker slightly, and the next time you grind down onto him has them brushing against your lower lip. “That’s it,” he croons, admiring the different expressions that contort your face as you become closer and closer to your orgasm. “Come all over your pretty panties for me, baby,” he encourages, sucking your lower lip between his.
His mouth had been so dangerous to you today, licking and sucking in all the right spots, but nothing has ever felt as right as having it on yours. “I-I’m sorry,” you whimper, fingers knitting themselves in his hair.
“Don’t be,” he comforts, gripping your hips and swiveling you in a circular motion. “Next time you’ll do better, won’t you?”
You nod, head bouncing like a bobble head. He smiles, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth. Your thighs twitch. “I was gone for so long,” he rambles, hips picking up their pace the second he hears your breath hitch in your throat. “Didn’t think you’d become so sensitive and needy.”
A faint smile passes through your lips, and your toes curl and your belly tightens in that delicious way it does right before orgasm. Another grind against Jungkook, and he sighs “I love you,” as you cream your pants like a dweeby high schooler being touched for the first time.
Jungkook’s gentle movements halt the moment he sees that orgasmic face overtake you, pressing soft smooches all over the bottom half of your face, peppering your lips with them, until your fingers finally loosen in his hair.
“Fuck, I’m embarrassed,” you huff out, feeling gross and sticky in all the worst spots. Jungkook chuckles, and you can still feel his hard cock nudging the insides of your thighs.
“Nah,” he says. “It’ll make it easier for me to slide in.”
Even in your post orgasmic state, his words have a brand new coil of heat revving up. God, you were whipped for him. “Bed?” You ask, and he nods as you clamber off his lap, tugging down your shirt.
Immediately, he whirls around and catches sight of his abandon Smash game. “Huh.” He says, and you already feel the distraction staple itself into his mind. “Have you ever noticed how Dark Pit—“
You cut him off, gliding your hands around his neck and slowly craning it back until you can give him a tiny Spider-Man kiss. “If you make me cum a second time I promise I’ll listen to whatever theory you have about him,” you purr, punctuating your words with a tiny smooch.
The screen is off in record time.
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wandaposting · 3 years ago
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Hello there, popping in to say I really appreciate your thoughts on Wanda re: her role in MOM and most especially, brown hair being superior for her. While the ginger color actually looked nicer than usual in the trailer, brunette Wanda is my Wanda lol
But I think that anon saying Wanda might have brown hair underneath the red may actually be right. I thought they were just confusing her hair being in shadow as brown but there's a shot of the back of her head when she's by the tree where there's a very clear divide in color in the strands of her braid. It's an interesting way to show her hair going back to brown but I'll personally take anything at this point.
Also, what's your take on making Wanda a villain in the 'right' way? I keep seeing people say that just making her possibly possessed/corrupted by the darkhold is a cop out and they should give her agency in these decisions to make a better character, and if Wandavision didn't happen I'd be inclined to agree. But it would be complete regression to go from freeing Westview at the expense of her family... only to (allegedly lol) start murdering a bunch of people to get her family back.
Like, as much as the darkhold is a copout, to me, at least, it's preferable if they HAVE to make Wanda this big scary villain. Wanda making a choice to go full villain after WV is the real regression. Being possessed puts her character in stagnation, not ideal since we won't get proper development until the next project she's in, but at least I can shrug my shoulders and say 'well at least she doesn't MEAN to murder people, it's the demon book making her do it'. Guess at this point I'm really trying to have this mindset about it going forward so I can just sit back, relax, and try to enjoy Wanda being evil and looking cool and beautiful doing it.
Sorry this was long, would love your opinion on it tho!
I think the problem is multi-faceted
- Wanda was already introduced as an antagonist, in Age of Ultron. And her motivations there were underdeveloped enough as they were. a Stark brand missile = lifelong murdergrudge against Tony Stark and the Avengers instead of the conveniently unspecified faction that launched the missile in the first place? do we really think the conveniently unspecified faction that launched the missile that killed their parents wouldn't have just launched a generic brand missile if Stark Industries didn't exist? i digress but u know they shot themselves (and wanda fans..) in the foot right then and there with all that and the hydra stuff
- But she's clearly been trying to move forward from that shady backstory and use her powers for good to redeem herself. If interviews are to be believed, she wants to be whatever she thinks the side of good is
- Aside from her lowest point in WandaVision, which she specifically emerges from, which is specifically meant to be a big deal for her arc, you never see her toy with the idea of... let's be a lil bad, as a treat. There's no Walter White descent that she never rises back from. WandaVision could've laid stronger villain foundations, but it seemed like they wanted to have their cake and eat it to. Had us question her morality for a hot sec and then went like "oh she was just being blinded by grief but she's obviously still GOOD because she's giving up her fantasy life". and the narrative even goes as far as to coddle her with Hayward being an absolute Joke and Darcy/Jimmy/Monica collectively going out of their way to sympathize with her
- and all of that, only for her to go evil and/or possessed all along? narratively, that's a nah from me. Both options would still leave me calling it bad storytelling. Possession is cheap directly after a story specifically about her agency. Willfully turning child-hunting neck-snapping dimension-destroying levels of evil also seems cheap after the same story went out of its way to tell us she's Still Good Yep Still Good. But her story is unfortunately already rooted in kinda bad storytelling, so would it surprise me if they went with that anyway? noooo...
- anyway I'm already expecting it to be kind of bad, because Raimi doesn't have a great track record with writing complex powerful witches, and it feels like MCU (Marvel in general,,) as a whole doesn't know what her throughline is supposed to be. They're kind of making her up as they go, with different projects and teams (Whedon vs Russos vs Schaeffer vs Raimi) doing different things. The moment I simply accepted this as My Truth, the happier I became eating up the cool shots and scenes and independent moments and visuals for what they are. It's all capeshit,, always has been,,,,,,,,
(i will print this entire wall of text and happily eat it if multiverse of madness ends up being a masterpiece (or at least Not Bad) for her character)
(also can you imagine how blissfully joyous i would be rn if i never read a single so-called dsitmom "leak")
(I TOO WISH FOR THAT RE: THE HAIR!!!!!!!!!!!)
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intoanothermind · 4 years ago
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Beauty Queen - Chapter 7
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B E A U T Y   Q U E E N
Synopsis: You are the Ice Princess of Narnia during the Long Winter. Your sister Jadis, the White Witch, hates that you’re always helping Narnians escape prision. She decides to hunt you down and you have to run away from the palace. What happens when you find the four humans lost in Narnia?
- Edmund Pevensie x reader
Masterlist
<Chapter 6 | Chapter 8>
—-
C H A P T E R   S E V E N
“Run, Mother!” cried Mr. Beaver, rushing in the dike house, along with others.
“Oh, okay!” she exclaimed, going towards the cabinets.
“What is she doing?” asked Peter.
“You will thank me later.” she said, while getting some groceries. “It is a long journey and the Beaver is in a bad mood when he is hungry.”
“I already am!” He exclaimed.
“Are we going to need jam?” Susan asked, as she and Y/N helped Mrs. Beaver and straighten things out.
“Only if the Witch serves toast.” scoffed Peter.
They heard howls and barks surrounding the house and the wolves started to destroy the house.
“Quick, this way!” said Mr. Beaver, pulling Y/N to a side door.
He opened the door and threw a rope over there in the darkness. Peter arrived with torches and they could see a hole there. When they heard the closest howls, they jumped in there, with the help of the rope that the beaver threw there.
“The badger and I dug it.” said Mr. Beaver, while they ran through the tunnel to save their lives. “Come out near his lair.”
“You said it went out to your mom's house.” said Mrs. Beaver.
Lucia tripped over a protruding root and fell, but soon Susan helped. They heard a distant howl. It seemed to be an echo.
“They're in the tunnel.” he whispered to Lucy.
“Quick, this way!” cried the beaver.
“Quick!” echoed Mrs. Beaver.
“Run!” shouted Peter, as everyone ran panting.
They stopped at a place with no exit.
“I should have brought a map!” squeaked Mrs. Beaver.
“It was the map or the jam!” cried Mr. Beaver, turning to the wall and there climbing through a hole at the top, followed by Ms. Castor.
“Come on, come on, Susan!” cried Y/N, helping to pass through the hole and then going right after.
“Come on, Lucy!” Susan said, helping her out so Peter and the beavers could put a large and heavy barrel to cover the hole.
They turned and saw several small animals turned into stone. Mr. Castor approached one in particular, who had his front legs raised to protect himself. Mrs. Beaver went to help him.
The petrified animal was the badger, a friend of the beaver.
“I'm sorry, honey.” said Mrs. Beaver..
“My best friend...”
Everyone was watching the stone-shaped massacre. They didn't like the scene very much and Y/N felt her heart tighten even more when she imagined that this could be Edmund's destiny. She hadn't known him for a long time, but she knew he had become special to her.
“That's what happens to those who play with the Witch.” said a fox, who appeared at the top of one of the dens.
Peter quickly pulled Lucia behind him and the others took up defensive positions. Except Y/N. She knew the fox, the petrification spell had been undone by her - the one who was the final straw for Jadis to pursue.
“Take another step, traitor, and I will tear you apart!” said the beaver, threatening, but Mrs. Beaver quickly stopped him.
“Relax!” laughed the fox, descending from the top of the hole and approaching with graceful and predatory steps, proper to his species. “I'm one of the good guys.”
“Are you?!” asked ironically the beaver. “Because it looks more like one of the villains.”
“An unfortunate family resemblance.” he said the fox, disdainful. “We’ll talk about races later. Now we have to go.”
“We won’t trust you, fox!” said the beaver.
“We will and we must.” said Y/N, so authoritatively and with leadership, that the three humans no longer doubted that she was the Princess of Narnia. “I helped him out of Jadis’ spell, he’s trustworthy. What do you suggest, fox?”
“Your Highness.” The fox made a brief bow to her. “Go up that tree. This can help to mask your smell.”
Y/N nodded, thanking him, and ran with the others to a large tree. They heard the barking of wolves coming from inside the tunnel. They hurried up, and when they were up there, Y/N stared at the snow a few feet below her. She whispered a few words in an unknown language, and the snow stirred minimally there and below. Minimally, but visible to others.
“What was that?” asked Lucy.
“I turned the snow to take our trail farther.” I replied Y/N, the moment the wolves broke into the tunnels.
The wolves surrounded the fox.
“Greetings, cousins.” said the formally, but lowering the tail. “Did you lost anything?”
“Don't try to fool me!” scolded the wolf seemed to be the boss. “I know whose ally you are. We look for humans.”
“Humans?” the fox joked. “Here in Narnia? That’s a valuable information, don’t you think?”
A wolf advances on top of the fox, sticking its fangs into its neck. Lucy gasped, ready to go down and help her, but Y/N took her and covered her mouth, whispering.
“It wouldn't be good if they found us.”
When Lucy nodded, agreeing, Y/N uncovered her mouth, but she was still holding her firmly around her waist, afraid that the younger one would slip. She looked to the side and saw that the beaver was doing the same thing to his wife.
“Your reward is to live.” said the wolf commander, approaching the fox. “It’s not much...” laughed. “Still... Where are the fugitives?”
The fox sighed and Peter was afraid he would report them.
“North.” the fox sighed at last. “They fled to the North.” and lowered his head.
“Look for their scent.” Said the commander while the other wolf released the fox and everyone ran North. Y/N smiled when she realized that the spell had worked.
When they seemed far enough away that they wouldn't be seen from above, Y/N descended with Lucy, who quickly ran to the fox and helped her stand.
“Are you okay?” He asked.
“Yes, thank you.” he replied, a little breathless.
Soon the others went down.
“And what now?” Susan asked.
“We need to get some rest.” said Peter.
“We need to warm up, but how?” Susan asked, rubbing her arm them to ward off the cold.
Minutes later, Peter had already started a fire for them to warm up and they were all around her, eating some things brought by Mrs. Beaver.
“They were helping Tumnus.” said the fox, trying to make a dressing on his paw. “The Witch got here before me.”
The fox grunted when Mrs. Beaver touched a bruised neck.
“Are you okay?” asked Lucy.
“Dogs bark but they don’t bite.”
“Stop moving!” said Mrs. Beaver. “It's worse than Beaver on a bath’s day.”
“The worst day of the year.” joked Mr. Beaver.
“Thank you for your kindness,” said the fox, standing up. “It's a pity, but I don't have more time.”
“Will you depart?” Lucy and Y/N asked at the same time.
“It was a great pleasure, my queen and princess” said, bowing to the two “but time is short and Aslan himself sent me to gather some troops.”
“Did you see Aslan?” asked Mr. Beaver.
“How is he?” asked Mrs. Beaver.
“Well, as we always hear.” said the fox. “It will be a pleasure to have you in the battle against the Witch.”
“But we do not intend to fight the Witch.” Susan said.
“But surely King Peter...” said the fox, turning to look at the sad expression on the blonde's face. “The prophecy!”
“We won’t go to war without you.” said the beaver.
“But they do!” Y/N insisted. “The prophecy cannot be undone.”
“We just want our brother back.” Peter said sadly.
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kbstories · 4 years ago
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impression//expression
“It’s not like Kirishima had come all this way to U.A. to immediately break the promise he made to himself upon arrival.
It’s just that Bakugou is as feral as they come, and the moment Kirishima recognizes it’s fear he felt crawling up his spine that day, he makes it his personal mission to face it head-on until it’s gone.”
(Or: Being friends with Bakugou Katsuki is anything but a linear experience. Kirishima Eijirou would have it no other way.)
Tags: Kirishima POV, Developing Friendships, Post-Kamino Arc, Hurt/Comfort, Domestic Fluff and Recovery, The Boys Discovering Unbreakable Via Questionable Training Methods
Chapter 1. Chapter 2. Chapter 3. Chapter 4. Chapter 5. Content warning for nightmares and generally traumatic experiences (both only mentioned). Chapter 7. Chapter 8. Chapter 9.
***
Three days into U.A.’s new dorms, Bakugou hasn’t crossed Kirishima’s path a single time.
Don’t fuss, Kirishima had reminded himself that first night, crimson eyes following Bakugou as he slinks off to the elevators. Hands in his pockets, duffle bag slung over one shoulder, his typical slouch executed to perfection – the same as always yet achingly out of place against the buzzing excitement of the dozen and a half heroes-to-be at his back.
Under his breath, Kirishima muttered, “Give him space”, as he heaved boxes of manga, multiple sets of weights and his punching bag into his room before dedicating all his attention to stuffing a suitcase worth of brightly patterned shirts into the standard issue closet U.A. provided them with. He worked for hours and hours, unpacking and reminiscing and decorating until the room was satisfyingly his and the gel in his hair drooped with how sweaty he got.
It’s fine, he thought, pinning the last poster to the wall he shares with Bakugou. It hadn’t quite sunken in yet that they’re neighbors, now. Bakugou is antisocial on the best of days. He’s fine.
The thought of the white headband he’d lost had been fleeting at most, a lamenting little sting as he wiped his brow and saw his roots were starting to show. It came back full force as he stepped out to join the others in the common room and found an identical one hooked on his knob, the tag still attached.
Right. Kirishima gave the door to his right a soft look, firmly shut as it was. The tag was snapped off with ease and the headband was back where it belonged.
It goes on like that for a while. With the administration accommodating their move and the new term weeks away, Kirishima invests his free time into catching up on his gaming hangouts with Kaminari and the re-watch of Fullmetal Alchemist he started with Sero before everything went haywire. He helps Mina sort through the abundance of gossip flooding in with everyone’s mundane habits and routines suddenly much more apparent, and talks to classmates he hasn’t had the time to get to know all that well over shared breakfasts and class-wide movie marathons.
It’s like he gained a whole new family overnight – a notion that’s healing in and of itself, the rift that disastrous training camp tore into them scarring shut with every moment spent together.
(Still, Kirishima misses his moms and Riot something fierce. Their goodbye had featured a total sum of zero dry eyes between them; Kirishima’s face had been a blotchy red mess for hours afterwards.)
And then there’s Bakugou.
The guy is like a ghost, those first days, his absence felt as much as the odd trace of his presence he leaves behind. A mug drying next to the sink in the mornings; the thrum of guitar riffs and double-base beats muffled to indistinctness by the thick concrete between them; carpet-dulled footsteps down the hallway, that stomp familiar even without an intended audience for its passive-aggressiveness.
Little bits and pieces of evidence Kirishima takes note of and memorizes just for the sake of it. For the moments that’s not enough, he texts.
Best Bakubro 💣💥
baku my man (sent 13:05)
got too many dorayaki by accident, u want some? (sent 13:05)
(from the store) (but still pretty yum) (sent 13:05)
nah (received 13:11)
ok no probs ❤️ (sent 13:11)
One time, he couldn’t come up with a valid enough excuse and spent minutes agonizing over the empty text box only to type a short u good bro? that was answered with an equally short fine a while later.
Kirishima is very, very glad Bakugou has dropped the habit of leaving him on read. This way, his frayed nerves only have to withstand the background stress of what if he’s downplaying it that seems moderate in comparison to–
Yup, not thinking about Kamino again. Moving on.
“Is he like… okay?”, Sero asks him eventually, YUI’s Again playing as they wait for the episode to start. He’s lying belly-down on his bed, his laptop positioned in a way Kirishima can see the screen from his chosen spot in the hammock. “Not gonna lie, it’s a bit freaky how quiet it’s been. When he’s around at all, which isn’t much.”
Not moving on, then.
Kirishima doesn't need any clarification who is meant. Sero isn’t the first (or the last, most likely) to approach him about this; for once, even Midoriya has been beaten to the punch by Todoroki. It doesn't matter who it is, though, the answer is always the same:
“I don’t know.”
A little hushed because it’s the truth and a confession at the same time. The mild surprise on Sero’s face makes Kirishima look down in search for words, his hands wringing the pocket of his threadbare hoodie just to have something to do. Half the intro flickers by in silence.
“Baku isn’t exactly a people person, y’know?” Kirishima scoffs at himself. What an understatement. “He likes to do stuff his way and fight his own battles, lone wolf style. So, it’s been a bit, uh, stressful for him. To have everyone – and I mean everyone, heroes, police, the media, you name it – be in his business and then have all of us around all the time, too.”
That’s pretty much what he can say without outright speculating or infringing upon the things Bakugou told him in confidence. No matter how much Kirishima appreciates Sero as his friend, his lips are sealed unless Bakugou decides otherwise.
About two minutes into the episode, Sero hits the space bar. The screen pauses on a frame of ambiguously European-looking buildings.
“Okay, sorry, it’s just. How is Bakugou the one with the biggest cryptid energy in 1-A right now? Even Tokoyami emerges from the shadows sometimes and being a cryptid is like, his whole deal.”
Wrapped in humor as it is, Sero’s concern brings a smile to Kirishima’s lips. It’s good to know he – and Todoroki, and Midoriya – care, even when Bakugou is being elusive and hard to reach on purpose. It’s what makes all the difference, sometimes.
“Dunno, he’s a pretty complex guy once you give him a chance. Plus, I’m pretty sure he spends 90% of his time either training or studying or thinking about training and studying so it’s not like he’s not doing stuff. It just doesn’t really involve any of us.”
A thumb on his chin, Sero muses: “Not a cryptid but a closet nerd, huh? That… makes a lot of sense actually. I always thought he’s some kinda genius but I guess even geniuses have to work hard to get good.”
“Dude, he’s such a nerd”, Kirishima agrees with an enthusiastic grin. “Like, I’m pretty sure he wakes up with the sun and gets right to it. Being around him is so motivating, I wanna shoot for the stars and achieve my dreams simply because he’s doing it, too.”
“Okay, I get it. Blasty’s the best.”
Kirishima nods so hard the hammock moves with it; Sero snickers and shakes his head. His smile dims, then, more pensive than before.
“Listen, man. I know it’s over and done with and like, getting bent out of shape over what ifs is pointless but – I wish I’d been there.” Sero traces the borders of his laptop, a repetitive and thoughtless motion. “To help him, I mean. Watching him fight for his life on TV was really freaking miserable, I was shaking the whole time. To think you guys were there as well and how much worse it could’ve gone… How bad things are, even now… I don’t know. It’s haunting, honestly.”
It’s entirely silent, for a while. Kirishima’s mouth is dry, his eyes starting to burn with how quiet Sero’s voice got towards the end there.
“I’ve, um. I’ve had nightmares about it, actually.” Admitting it feels right, despite the heaviness that doesn’t belong in a room smelling of fresh paint and new beginnings. “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say here. It’s all a blur anyways, I was freaking out until we got there and once we had him we just ran. But… We were there, hiding behind this wall with Midoriya doing his mumbling thing to figure out what the fuck to do. All for One was there, too.”
Just the memory makes Kirishima want to hurl. Images flash before his eyes, there and gone and seared into his retinas all the same. He looks at Sero, at eyes gone wide with worry.
“That guy’s presence… It felt like dying. I don’t know how else to describe it, it was like standing on a cliff knowing you’re about to lose balance and go splat and it wasn’t going away. Katsuki talked to him directly, fought villains outnumbered six-to-one with him right there.”
Somewhere in their periphery the laptop’s screen flickers to darkness. Kirishima takes a deep breath, mentally counting down on the exhale.
“I’m worried, too. I’m trying not to fuss because it makes Bakugou uncomfy when I do but it’s hard. He’s answering my texts, at least. And he, uh, didn’t mention all the embarrassing shit I sent him while he was gone. So, that’s something, I guess.”
That makes Sero’s brow perk up from a somber frown to vague curiosity. “Embarrassing shit?”
“Really embarrassing shit.” Kirishima’s face flushes so hard his cheeks practically glow with heat. “Full on you-might-be-dead-and-I-don’t-know-how-to-cope-with-that embarrassing. I was a total mess, dude.”
Sero breathes a sympathetic sort of noise. “Oh, that.” He reaches over to pat his head. “Yeah, you kind of were. It’s okay, though, Kiri. I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to be a mess when your best friend– Well, y’know.”
“Mmh”, Kirishima makes, his hands framing his own face in a bid to cool it down a bit. “I swear if he ever brings it up I’ll perish on the spot. Goodbye sweet world, it was nice knowing ya.”
“Pressing F hard for you, man.” Sero nods along solemnly. “Don’t worry, I’ll let Riot know you loved him.”
“Thanks, bro!”
They share a grin, not as bright as it could be. Given the state of the world, it’s a damn miracle it’s there at all. Kirishima sighs a little and juts his chin at the laptop.
“C’mon. Let’s watch the Elrics do cool alchemy stuff and/or cry about how depressing their life is.”
Sero finger-guns at him, “You got it”, as a line of tape goes for the touch pad and the freeze frame comes unstuck. The rest of the night is lost to the comforting nostalgia of a story they both know by heart.
Best Bakubro 💣💥
u ok? (sent 22:00)
yea (received 22:02)
oh!! ur awake (sent 22:02)
? (received 22:03)
hhhh isn’t it way past ur bedtime? (sent 22:03)
💦💦 (sent 22:03)
🖕 (received 22:11)
GASP (sent 22:11)
did you seriously just type out “gasp” (received 22:11)
uh yea??? this is an important moment (sent 22:12)
i’m so proud of u (sent 22:12)
fucking hell (received 22:12)
 go to sleep already (received 22:14)
aaa ok (sent 22:14)
night nitro!! (sent 22:14)
🔪 (received 22:17)
❤️ (sent 22:17) 
*
The alarm jolts Kirishima out of fitful sleep.
A hand searches the bedframe with clumsy pats, eyes squeezed in a bleary squint as the screen flashes to life in the dark. The notification reads Gym w/ B!!! besides a big, glowing 5:00.
Kirishima groans. It’s a critical hit to his still-recovering sleep deprivation, making his arms bend like limp noodles under his weight. He crashes back into bed and lets the void swallow him.
*
Knocking. Hard, incessant, escalating in volume and frequency until–
“Oi! Shark Teeth! Get up already!”
Kirishima is ripping the door open before he’s even aware he’s on his feet and awake enough to do so. A breathless “Bro!” fills the space the knocking occupied a moment before.
“About fucking time.”
In the shy light of a sun peeking over the horizon, the phantom of the 1-A dorm becomes solid and real in the shape of one grumpy-faced Bakugou Katsuki: a towel over his shoulder, a bottle of water hanging from two fingers by its handle, looking whole and rested and average amounts of ticked off and oh, Kirishima missed Bakugou.
Kirishima’s also staring. Which he realizes because Bakugou shuffles in place, gaze drifting to the side, a hand scratching his neck. “It’s Saturday”, he says a little awkwardly, offering nothing else to follow it up with.
Saturday. Gym day, which Kirishima’s phone remembered and Kirishima did, too, the night before when he’d wondered if that’s still a thing now that they moved together and Bakugou went into stealth mode and everything is constantly shifting under their feet.
Not everything. Most things, apparently not this one, this thing that’s been theirs since the start. Kirishima smiles, bright and relieved. He promises:
“Be right there. Two minutes!”
He runs because what if Bakugou changes his mind? What if he decides to go ahead without him, and Kirishima loses that glimpse only he gets, of Bakugou being in his element and relaxed and happy?
Then he’s back and Bakugou is still there, leaning against the wall and scrolling on his phone while he waits. A glance, lingering on the all-caps SWEATING print on his red tank top over neon aqua shorts – Kirishima flexes to show off his outfit properly. “Pretty rad, right?”
Bakugou blinks, slowly. The verbal jab Kirishima expects never comes. Instead, he gets a low, “You done or what?”
“Yeah, man! Let’s go.”
Maybe Bakugou missed him, too.
*
“Push it!”
Kirishima clenches his jaw, the serrated line of his teeth grinding to the point of pain. He pushes, skin pulling tight and muscles screaming as they bunch up and split apart in harsh ripples. His vision fractures into two, three distinct shards.
The blast engulfs him between one heartbeat and the next. Nitroglycerine-fueled flames lick over every inch of exposed skin, his arms and face and chest registering the heat before the pain, dull and frustratingly there.
It’s over in a flash. Bakugou wipes sweat off his chin with his arm, palms still smoldering. “And?”
“Still feelin’ it”, Kirishima rasps out. His quirk drops, leaves his body softer and aching; breathing is a bit of a challenge, inhales and exhales coming quick and hard. Arms crossed over his head, he lets out a groan, his voice dipping into a growl.
“I can go further! I know I can. It’s right there but I can’t. Quite. Grasp it. Urgh!”
“Fuck”, Bakugou mutters with feeling. Exactly, Kirishima thinks, fuming at himself. Fuck.
They’ve been at it for hours. Gym γ is in ruins, which is fine since Cementoss can fix it up in seconds once they’re done but still. By this point, Kirishima expects more progress than aggressive indoor renovation via explosions.
A hero’s Ultimate Move is supposed to be this grand, show-stopping technique to turn the tides and save the day. Finally, finally, they’re in the clear to develop their own. There’s an idea in Kirishima’s head, a concept he’s worked on for almost as long as his aesthetic as a hero. An extension there-of, in a sense.
It’s badass, it’s manly, it’s invincible–
It’s not this. Kirishima is starting to doubt he’ll ever get there.
“What’s wrong with me, man? Like, I see you coming and my quirk kicks up a notch ‘cause it’ll hurt if I don’t harden enough and then it just. Stops? Before it gets where I want it to be? Are explosions to the face not dangerous enough, or something?”
Bakugou is shaking out his hands and loosening his shoulders, a wince making his nose scrunch a little. “You’ve taken more of ‘em today than you could at the Festival”, he notes in that neutral tone he uses when he counters Kirishima’s whining with facts and logic. “Pretty sure any of the other extras would be dust by now, including that steel fucker.”
Kirishima appreciates the Bakugou-version of a pep talk, he really does, and he’s probably right (he usually is). But it’s not what he wants. He wants his Ultimate, and he wants it now.
And, eyeing Bakugou’s grenade bracers, he might know of one way to get there.
“Use those.”
“Hah?”
Kirishima pats one of the clunky devices, hand hardened just in case. Bakugou bares his teeth at him but doesn’t pull away. “These. Hit me with ‘em? Full blast.”
Bakugou’s expression sobers. Dead serious. “Don’t fuck with me. They’re not made for people.”
(And Midoriya is what, a house plant? Kirishima doesn’t voice that thought out loud. He has some sense of self-preservation, thank you very much.)
Besides, Bakugou didn’t say no. The possibility is there, if heavily guarded – and where there’s a chance, Kirishima will always at least try.
“Look, dude. For better or for worse I’m too used to anything else, and adrenaline alone is clearly not cutting it right now. I’m…” Kirishima laughs, a little embarrassed despite himself. “I remember what that explosion did to Ground β. Not gonna lie, it was pretty wild and I’m a bit, uh, scared. But I’m also ready. I can take it, I know I can.”
Bakugou is looking at him, intense in a different way, searching Kirishima’s face for… something. “You’re scared of me?”
What? Kirishima rewinds what he said in his head and oh no. He waves his hands in front of him, like he can physically wipe away the notion. “No. No, Katsuki, I’m scared of what I saw back then. You, I trust. With my life.”
Which is a sappy thing to say, even Kirishima will admit that, but it’s also true. Asking Bakugou to use the bracers on him is literally placing his life in his (very lethal) hands.
There is a line between sparring and actual combat, and while they’ve come close to it, have toed it and tested its give in pursuit of greater heights, they’ve never taken that leap. They’re back at it now, balancing on that edge, and Kirishima can guide Bakugou there but he won’t push him across because Bakugou is hesitating.
“Once I pull the pin, I can’t stop it”, Bakugou says, locking Kirishima’s eyes with own. “I can redirect the blast but it won’t stop.”
Kirishima nods. “I know.”
“They’re all the way full. It’s gonna be brutal.”
“I know”, he repeats, chest warm despite the tingle of nerves in his gut. “I can take it. I swear.”
Bakugou spits on the ground. “Fine. Fuck it. You better fucking push it this time or you’re literally dead.”
“Oof, did you have to put it that way?”
A cold look is all he gets. Kirishima stands a bit taller on instinct. No time to joke, got it. Bakugou rolls his neck and explosion-jumps a good twenty yards away before turning back towards him. His right bracer is checked over in brisk and efficient moves.
“Get ready. I’ll count down from five. On go, you go. Plus fucking ultra.”
Legs apart, knees locked, back in a straight line. The stance comes to Kirishima as easy as breathing, as does the rigid feeling of his quirk taking hold. He braces his arms, hands up with his fingers sharp and claw-like.
A grim smile. “Plus ultra”, Kirishima confirms.
The safety slides off with an audible click. The pin emerges, Bakugou’s index limp on the trigger. “Five.”
Inhale.
“Four.”
Kirishima knocks his hands together, the rock-like smack reassuringly familiar.
“Three.”
Exhale. His limbs go stiff, his skin having long lost feeling as the keratin in it grows solid. Tough. Bulletproof.
“Two.”
Harder. Harder. Like a mountain. Like granite. Like raw fucking diamonds. Harder than that.
“One.”
Inhale, inhale, inhale. Kirishima’s chest locks into place, his heart pumping away as his innermost remains unchanged and everything else goes rigid. Be strong. Be invincible–
“Go!”
 A hiss, a spark, flames – the explosion roars to life and Kirishima roars back, sees it coming in a wave of light and destruction coming for him and only him. It’s not enough, more, more, but his quirk is buckling as it crashes into that wall inside him he can’t break–
“Push it, Kirishima! Push it, damn you!!”
He’s in Kamino, back to the wall and head full of death. Himself, dead, his classmates, dead, Bakugou, dead dead dead–
Never!
A second before impact and it fractures, splits apart. Time passes in slow motion as his vision bursts into a thousand unique and unknowable shades and–
Everything is so sharp, fragmented and crystalline and bright. The explosion hits, a kaleidoscope of red-yellow-orange that makes sense, somehow. Kirishima watches as it rolls over his hands and wrists and arms; it pushes against his chest like a gust of wind, playful, almost, like it could carry his weight if he leans into it, so he does.
One step. His body is heavy, so heavy, rumbling and grinding against itself at every point of contact – at his joints, between his fingers, along the knife’s edge of his teeth. Another step, again, again, moving through it like it’s the ocean lazily lapping at his legs in molten waves headed to shore.
It couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. Kirishima doesn’t register it’s over until he catches a shouted “Eijirou!” and Bakugou is there, sliding to a stop right in front of him. There’s shock written all across his face.
“Holy shit.”
Maybe Kirishima died, after all? It’s hard to tell with him being head-to-toe numb – he is pretty sure that feeling in his chest is his heart beating like the wings of a caged hummingbird. His lungs are screaming for breath, actually, and Kirishima tries but breathing is not working right now, which is fine. He opens his mouth all the same.
“Did it work?”
His voice is this low rumble that he himself barely recognizes. It’s okay, Bakugou understands him. Bakugou laughs, in fact, a short, incredulous huff of air.
“Did it work?! Did it fucking–”
A gasp, like Bakugou realized in that exact moment it’s Kirishima in front of him. Then he grins, big and toothy and so excited it’s making Kirishima dizzy.
“Holy shit, it worked! You fucking survived! And you’re a dragon! Or something! You have claws and fucking fangs and– That’s so badass, what the fuck!”
“What?!”
“YEAH!”
Kirishima looks down at his hands – his claws, long as daggers and curved inwards. “Oh fuck. Is it cool? Dude, I can’t see myself! Is it cool?!”
“You’re a fucking dragon of course it’s fucking cool”, Bakugou yells at him in one breath. “Shit, wait. Wait, wait, where the fuck is my–”
He takes off his cloves and fumbles for his pockets, like fumbling is something Bakugou does. The world is still weirdly precise and crystal-like and starting to spin, uh oh, that can’t be good. Bakugou’s got his phone out and Kirishima smiles, a Pavlovian response to being in front of a camera, and his jaw creaks with the movement.
Creaking is not a noise a human body should do. Then again, surviving a blast like that is also something that should be impossible.
Holy shit indeed.
“I made it.” Kirishima continues to stare down at himself, at the jagged plains of his chest where he tore through his shirt. It doesn’t feel real but it is. “I’m alive. I got my Ultimate.”
Bakugou is back and closer than before, his face mere inches from Kirishima’s. “Fucking woah, dude. Not a single scratch. This is insane.” The grin is still there, his voice quieter and dripping with pride. “Did ya feel it at all? How’s your mobility? Is there a time limit to this or–”
It’s getting hard to focus, Bakugou’s words running into each other and flying right by without his brain processing any of it. His spiked vision is blotted out in places, increasingly stained in black ink dots.
“I think I’m… I’m about to pass out.”
“Wha– Drop it. Kiri, drop your quirk!”
I’m trying, he wants to tell him but there’s no air left to say it with. Kirishima goes to his knees an instance later, his stiffened body resisting the way he wants to fold forward. Sounds are muffled, the darkness closing in–
By impending unconsciousness or by command, it doesn’t really matter: Kirishima feels his quirk fade and his entire body soften. He’s falling over until he’s not, strong hands catching him around the shoulders. A moment later, a semi-gentle slap to his cheek reminds him that there’s something he should be doing.
Kirishima breathes.
It feels really good, even if it hurts, too. His chest is flexible enough to expand now but clearly not happy about it while his lungs lurch for every bit of oxygen they can get. Breathing is a lot of work, then, but it’s worth it. Kirishima has an Ultimate Move, and he knows how to turn it off. Kind of.
“Why didn’t you tell me you can’t fucking breathe in it?!”
“Ah”, Kirishima mumbles, in-between pathetic pants of air, “That would be… because… I didn’t know… I couldn’t… Wow, I’m so dizzy.”
Bakugou groans. “Yeah, it’s almost like you just nearly suffocated yourself to death. Sit your ass down, idiot.”
A flick to Kirishima’s cheek has him whining. Every inch of himself is prickling with oversensitivity, the polar opposite to how it felt to exist in that explosion.
Because he did that. That happened.
By now he’s aware he’s leaning on Bakugou, his legs wobbling even as he’s held steady until he can plant his butt on the floor. Bakugou doesn’t push him off after he sits right next to him, either; he nudges him aside to take off his bracers and his collar but otherwise, Kirishima is free to stay where he is.
Kirishima takes the invitation for what it is and lets himself rest against his shoulder, thoroughly exhausted. “It felt so cool”, he tells Bakugou once he can inhale without shaking out of his own skin.
“Like. My vision went nuts just before the blast hit, I think that’s when I activated it. Everything was all bright and, like, broken apart? Kind of like shards of glass or something, it sounds weird now but it made sense in that moment. I was standing in the explosion and it barely moved me.”
Bakugou’s eyebrows go all the way up. “Seriously? That shit usually levels a whole building.”
“Yeah! I walked a bit, too, so that’s what I’ll work on next. Breathing would be good as well, I guess. Just have to get used to, well, everything.”
Looking down at his naked arms and the red outline around his right wrist, Bakugou nods, pensive. “Were you scared?”
Kirishima winces. Still thinking about that, huh? He almost regrets mentioning it at all, even if it’s the truth and part of them. Their starting point, all those months ago.
“At first, yeah. And then it was gone. Like, I feel I can face down anything when I’m like that, y’know? I won’t break no matter what. It’s exactly I wanted.”
Kirishima’s laugh comes out wheezy. There’s a headache pounding away at his temples, his throat raw from yelling and everything else. “Unbreakable. That’s what I called it when I thought of it. And it’s reality now.”
“You’re fucking crazy.” A shake of Bakugou’s head. He digs out his phone again, flicking to the most recent entry in his camera roll. “Here. That’s how it looks like.”
What he sees wipes the smile off Kirishima’s face entirely. He gestures to the phone and Bakugou shrugs, dropping it in his hand. Kirishima holds it close to his face, almost cross-eyed with his need to drink in all the details. The red spikes of his hair. His eyes all intense and turned to stone. The teeth, holy hell. Layers and layers of armored skin shifting over each other like tectonic plates.
No wonder he sounded like rocks tumbling down the mountainside in that form.
Bakugou nudges his side. “Okay, spill. What’s the sad face for this time?”
“I don’t know.” Kirishima swallows. “It’s scary, isn’t it? I know why you got dragon from this and it is cool. It feels cool, too. But is it something people would feel safe around?”
“Uh, yeah?” The device is snatched back. “Civilians are morons and fickle as fuck but if this is standing between them and certain death, fuck yeah they’ll feel safe. Besides, you’re like Riot.”
“The dog or the hero?”
“Fucking both but I mean the dog. You’re like, stupid friendly and all”, a vague gesture to his face, “wholesome and shit, whoever doesn’t immediately get ‘hero’ from that is dumb as hell and deserves to die.”
“Okay, okay, I hear ya.” Kirishima chuckles, rubbing the back of his head under the praise. He hurries to say: “Well, minus the wishing-civilians-dead part.”
“Nope. They can definitely die.”
“Dude.”
Bakugou is grinning, though, knocking his phone against Kirishima’s forehead. “Get your head outta your ass already. That Ultimate is badass as fuck. We’re trying my AP shot on it, next time.”
“You mean the one that goes through concrete?”
“Ye-up, that’s the one. Now get off me, you’re all sweaty and gross.”
Kirishima oofs as he’s pushed to the ground. He stays there, for a minute or two. Staring up at the far ceiling and musing how okay things feel right now. Hoping that they’ll stay that way, for a little while at least.
Then Bakugou is standing over him, offering him a hand. “I’m not carrying you back, asshole. Get up.”
Kirishima groans as he’s pulled up. The tingling has firmly settled into soreness and it’s everywhere. Still, when Bakugou makes to let go, he holds on tighter.
“Bro, wait.”
A questioning glance.
“We gotta do the thing!”
The glance turns almost concerned, a silent have-you-finally-lost-your-marbles sort of look. “The… thing?”
“Yeah!” Kirishima imitates an explosion between their hands. “The sparking off thing!”
All confusion disappears. “Ah”, Bakugou says. Then he turns around and marches right out the gym.
“Baku, no! Don’t leave a bro hanging like that!”
(In the end, Kirishima gets his handshake. Bakugou complains about his ‘shitty ass puppy eyes’ being ‘effective as all fuck’ the whole way to the dorm.)
>>Chapter 7.
27 notes · View notes
pop-culturereference · 4 years ago
Text
as long as i’m reflecting you
Summary: “I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out yet. I'm you, Hawks."
@hawksweek2020 day 1: Clich��
If you’d rather read on ao3 (or if you want to read my long rant in the chapter notes): https://archiveofourown.org/works/27203351
Fandom: My Hero Academia
Pairing: Gen
Rating: G
Characters: Hawks, Dabi
Dabi towers over Hawks as he lies there, helpless, blue flame licking greedily at his face and wings. He can feel himself shriveling under the heat, but perhaps the worst part is this:
Takami Keigo.
Dabi knows his name. Dabi knew all along what Hawks was doing there, knows more than even his friends do—his name.
Hawks panics at the sound of Dabi’s boots crunching on the broken shards of his visor—He can’t die here! The battle is far from over, and he’s the only hero ready and equipped to deal with the aftermath. There’s not much Hawks can do, at this point, but he does have one option. Dabi needs time between using his quirk in order to recover. Use conversation, distract him, draw him in. In Hawks’s experience, villains never pass up a chance to gloat and throw their self-righteousness in everyone’s face. Get a villain talking about themself, and they won’t shut up. Even closed-off Dabi will likely blab his life story, thinking Hawks is about to die. It’s worth a shot.
“The only members of the League I found nothing on were you and Shigaraki. I found everyone else’s background, their families—but for you, I couldn’t even find a name. Who are you?”
Dabi sets a foot on Hawks’s back, leans his weight into it. Hawks pushes himself up with his hands as much as he can to prevent his ribs from snapping. He’s miscalculated. Dabi will keep his secrets over his ego. Hawks accepts his death even as he fights and pushes against it; he can’t die, but he’s going to, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s expecting Dabi to burn him to death right there, and he’s already bracing himself and gritting his teeth against the heat. He is <em>not</em> expecting Dabi to crouch down, one foot still on Hawks’s back, and whisper:
“I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out yet.” There’s a warm huff of laughter on his ear that has Hawks cringing away, then— “I’m you, Hawks.”
-----------------------------
Hawks wakes up to the horrible smell of antiseptic solution and the annoying tug of compression sleeves on his leg hair. Then, of course, the swoop of vertigo that speaks of some Pretty Heavy Anaesthesia. He tries to cough the smell out of his mouth, but is met with a sore throat—more than sore, actually. It’s like someone’s taken literal sandpaper and dragged it down his entire esophagus. He gags, tries to sit up, is hit off balance by the vertigo, and promptly throws up over the side of the bed.
He leans back against his pillows and wallows in the agony his stomach acid has raked over his poor, abused, sandpapered throat.
“Can I get you anything?” asks a nurse holding a bucket. Oh, good. He’d vomited into a bucket and not all over the hospital floor.
Hawks gestures frantically to his throat with a plea in his eyes that the nurse hopefully interprets as “water,” or “cough drop,” or even, “please just slit my throat and put me out of my misery.”
The nurse hands him both water and cough drops. Hawks’s eyes water with gratitude. Well, either that or pain. Maybe both.
“Sorry, man,” says the nurse as he reaches to adjust Hawks’s blanket. “They had to do surgery on your wings, and you had a breathing tube.”
Hawks croaks in horror. “Wings!?”
“They’ll be all right. You also had some skin grafts for the burns.”
Burns. Dabi. I’m you, Hawks.
“Phone,” he demands urgently.
With his miraculously only-slightly-singed phone in his hands, Hawks shoos the nurse away and starts tapping and typing with frenzied vigor.
His google search shows him an article spotlight on him, featuring an interview with Tokoyami, who apparently saved him. Good kid, that Tokoyami. It also shows him that there were minimal casualties and that apparently the UA students were spearheading the clean-up and rebuilding of the battleground. Okay. Okay. Good, good. All of it good. 
Now, what he <em>really</em> wants to know: Dabi.
To: VP HPSC: 
get me every pic i ever sent u of dabi highest res possible asap
also the cam footage of lov hideout
To the number he’d found on Google for the news network he saw at the raid:
Hi, this is Hawks. I saw your news logo at the fight in Reika. I was wondering if you could send me any footage you managed to get of the villains. Thank you. Here’s a selfie for proof it’s me.
To: Dabi (Villain):
hey ik its a bit of a long shot but like i would love an explanation thanks xoxo <3
He knows Dabi’s claim is ridiculous. He knows, all right? What he’s actually hoping to find is some connection to Endeavor. There’s definitely <em>something</em> familiar about Dabi, and that, paired with the fire quirk, could explain it. 
The first replies he gets are the pictures and footage from the Commission. Hawks zooms in and examines Dabi’s hair. He always knew it was dyed.The roots come in a lighter color, which would make his hair look perpetually greasy if it laid flat; but instead, it makes his spiky hair look just the slightest bit detached from his head. As he looks at the pictures, he’s surprised to realize that he was already biased toward his Endeavor explanation in his head: he was thinking Dabi’s hair was white, like the color of Todoroki Shouto’s ice side, from whoever was Endeavor’s wife. Closer scrutiny shows that it’s actually a dark blond, like Hawks’s own hair. 
That doesn’t mean anything, though.
Dabi’s aesthetically stapled under-eye bags are right in the spot where Hawks has his natural eye markings.
The one picture he managed to find of Dabi shirtless (It’s okay, Hawks reminds himself. I’m a creep with a noble cause. It was for the intel) shows that the stapled purple skin covers the part of his back where Hawks has his wings. If Dabi had wings and they were removed, purple skin grafts or whatever those were would cover up the evidence quite nicely.
And… what Hawks learned during the raid. Dabi’s weakness is his own quirk. Fire. That’s Hawks’s own biggest weakness. That’s almost too much to be a coincidence…what if…?
As he’s looking over the Commission’s images, he almost drops his phone in surprise because Dabi (Villain) texts him back. 
Every intelligent thought in his head evacuates in favor of wtfwtfwtfwtf.
It’s a selfie—a close-up of Dabi’s face, right behind a hand that’s flipping him off. It’s just the puzzle piece that he needs, because the small gleam of light catches on the telltale glint of a contact lens, and Hawks can see where the edge of the blue goes lighter where it’s not covering the colorful iris underneath—Dabi’s eyes aren’t actually blue. And, what Hawks has always thought of as edgy eyeliner looks suspiciously similar to his other eye markings.
Another quick text to: Pres HPSC, VP HPSC:
i dont have any sort of long lost twin brother right??? or like an evil clone or smth??
Almost instantly, he receives a No.
It should be a relief, but his mind’s still going haywire. Dabi…is him? He is Dabi? Dabi is Hawks? Does Hawks is Dabi who? Shut up, brain, you didn’t connect shit. It Dabi, Takami Keigo Dabi Hawks… if Hawks? Who Takami Dabi… he…   
-----------------------------
Maybe I shouldn’t try thinking when I’m high on painkillers, he thinks when he wakes up. 
As he looks around, he realizes he’s been moved to a more long-term room. Instead of curtains, it has a door, and there’s a TV and a nightstand. His phone is dead and he’s not about to call the nurse to come plug it in for him, so he switches on the TV instead, not sure how much he can trust his conclusions on the outcome of the raid if he convinced himself that he was somehow Dabi in the same 10-minute timespan.
The first thing that shows up on the news channel is a report about Hawks, and he’s greeted with the atrocious selfie he took to prove his identity to the news channel. His hair is a devastated battleground and missing completely on his burned side, he’s covered in gauze and medical tape, and his smile looks half-crazed. What was he thinking?
“Hawks is recovering in an unknown hospital, but he looks to be well. The real question is, will the Number Two Hero still be able to charm without half of his famous wind-swept hair?”
“I don’t know, Motome-san. Let’s look at some footage of the battle. I’m sure any lady—or gentleman—would be charmed by someone willing to go so far to protect them.”
Hawks rolls his eyes and scowls, but doesn’t turn off the TV. If they show his fight with Dabi—if he could get a quick glimpse of him—he could turn off the idiot switch in his brain that won’t shut up. 
Instead, what he sees is a streak of red that flies into Dabi’s hand. That’s one of his feathers. Dabi controlled one of his feathers. Dabi has control of Hawks’s Fierce Wings.
To hell with his pride! Hawks repeatedly jams the help button on the side of his bed, and a nurse arrives soon after, out of breath. Hawks feels a little bad for scaring the poor man, but he needs to charge his phone. As soon as it turns back on, he sends out the text to almost every single one of his contacts.
Hi all, this is Hawks. I’ve figured out the identity of the villain Dabi. It should help you lure him out and take him down. DABI IS ME. Text me with any questions. Go after him with fire, if you can.
Within three minutes, Hawks has rejected 7 calls. Text me with any questions, he said. Not call. He won’t be speaking with his sandpaper throat for at least the next month if he has anything to say about it. 
Someone with enough manners finally texts instead of calls. It reads: omw to kill you right now. should have finished the job last time.
Oh, shit. Did he really send that message to Dabi? 
Yeah. He did.
SOS this is not a joke, he sends to the HPSC. Dabi just texted me says he’s going to kill me right now. i’m in the hospital, can’t fight. PLEASE send someone
He answers the next call from Pres HPSC. “Can’t talk,” he rasps and tastes blood on his tongue. The president talks to him and he gives one tap for yes, two taps for no.
“Do you really want us to send someone?”
One tap.
The president sighs. “Hawks, as soon as you can speak, I expect the most thorough, detailed, in-depth report you’ve ever given in your life.”
--------------------------------
With Hawks’s warning, they capture Dabi easily enough. He shows up at the hospital directly and comes face-to-face with Endeavor, who, knowing about his weakness to fire, easily takes him down.
When Hawks visits Tartarus a month later to interrogate Dabi, he wonders how he ever missed it. Without the dye and the contacts, there’s no denying that Dabi is Hawks. He’s left wondering, though.
“Why did you text me at the hospital that you were on your way to kill me? I immediately got Endeavor there. I thought you were a little smarter than that.”
Dabi just shrugs, his newly-regenerated red feathers rustling with the movement. “Obviously not. I am you, after all.”
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potatowitch · 4 years ago
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finding out that the star wars sequel series was written on the fly rather than actually planned out makes so much fucking sense but also pisses me off EVEN MORE because i watched the force awakens in 2016 and within a day of leaving the cinema had a fully fleshed out idea in my head of the direction the next two films would take and the plot points they would cover, all brainstormed in the shower. 16 year old me was more capable of writing a cohesive storyline than disney was. so here you are - i rewrote the sequels to be ten times better than what disney actually gave us. enjoy.
- after rey finds luke they train for a bit then he's like "gotta tell u something. u ever heard of mara jade? she's ur mum" "wait weren't u two dating for a bit" "yeah" "does that mean ur...." "...yeah"
- "why did u leave me on jakku?" "i didnt. she did. i only just learned u existed i wouldve come for u" "oh."
- "...can i call u dad or" "i would be honored if u did"
- meanwhile at the resistance base leia realises finn is force sensitive, gives him her old lightsaber she had in the comics
- because come on. rewatch the force awakens and tell me that man aint fuckin feeling the "shitloads of voices cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced" when starkiller goes off
- and he picks up a lightsaber and instinctively knows how to use it?
- also: two main heroes in a star wars film being a queer coded woman and a queer coded black man.
- and the whole "used to be a stormtrooper and defected, becomes a jedi" is a TOTALLY NEW storyline? not some tired old "white boy villain is a dick for three movies then suddenly turns Good TM right at the end" trope
- make rey explicitly asexual. she's beautiful and smart and got abs that make everyone who sees them MELT but she is NOT INTERESTED in anything but JUSTICE and PLATONIC HUGS
- finn and poe are also making out because come on, disney, if u wanted to show you're becoming more progressive having a loving interracial gay romance is the fucking easiest way to do it. BB8 has two dads and they share The Jacket
- turns out finn is a kenobi because u cannot tell me obi wan didnt Fuck. jedi code says "dont form attachments" but watch the clone wars - obi wan plays fast and loose w the jedi code at the best of times. now we got a skywalker and a kenobi working together being best buds again, THE WAY IT SHOULD BE.
- the destruction of starkiller has crippled the first order. don't fucking look at me like "the resistance just won a major, VERY VISIBLE victory but OOO no somehow they're still very low on numbers and infrastructure" NO. the public destruction of starkiller has earned the resistance an influx of allies. the republic has started publicly supporting them. the first order spent years building that thing and now not only is all that time, effort and MONEY gone, they lost a shitload of staff and military personnel when it blew up
- "the first order is rich" is a plot point I DO NOT UNDERSTAND because it directly contradicts what's going on in the expanded universe books. the first order was built from remnants of the empire that had been banished to the outer reaches of the galaxy to live out of broken down, shitty old star destroyers.
- it's the reason hux, who was raised in a decrepit old academy in the ass end of the universe by an abusive father, is SO anti republic. in his head, it's the reason he starved as a child. it's the reason his mother is dead. it's the reason he had to be raised by a father that beat him. his hatred for the republic is PERSONAL
- disney learn how to write a good villain challenge? hux EASILY could have been terrifying AND sympathetic
- hux and kylo now have to deal with how absolutely PISSED snoke is that both of them failed with starkiller. hux gets force choked and threatened. kylo gets snoke very painfully rooting around in his head. it is emphasised that snoke's relationship with these two is downright abusive.
- somewhere in there, they realise that the whole five years they've known each other snoke has been deliberately pitting them against each other and sneakily forcing them to undermine each other's authority
- they realise it was snoke's shitty leadership that lead to the destruction of starkiller. they realise that maybe they'd be better off on their own
- the two of them plot to murder snoke themselves. while this is happening, the resistance is happily building an army, gathering resources, and forming alliances. luke and rey have reunited with the resistance and now rey and finn are both happily training with luke.
- snoke dies. hux decides to take the mantle of emperor. kylo LETS HIM because he realises he doesn't know shit about fuck when it comes to leading anything more than his knights. has a crisis of confidence about how useful he actually is, then hux decides he wants to keep the knights of ren around as his personal "fuck up the resistance" squad.
- the two of them working together turn out to be fucking terrifying, competent villains. the films have short, five to ten minute sections where they explore their VERY SIMILAR traumas to make them sympathetic WITHOUT making them seem like "uwu they're not actually bad people" because THEY'RE STILL AWFUL GENOCIDAL MASS MURDERERS
- on the kylo trauma side: it's made obvious in the books that from about age 6 snoke has been in his head deliberately grooming him away from his family. make that obvious in the films. make its impact on kylo obvious in how unsure of himself he actually is. don't make his "redemption arc" one where he suddenly goes light side. give him a bastardisation arc where he realises his whole life he has never made a choice - and then make THE FIRST ORDER his choice. (it is the wrong choice! emphasise that! but make him MAKE THAT CHOICE)
- the resistance thinks they're doing well. they have two new jedi. they've seen very little of the first order outside of small operations that they've been squashing. they think "hm. starkiller's loss must have crippled them. we're doing well!"
- until they learn actually. they've got an emperor now. and the commander of the knights of ren is INCREDIBLY loyal to him. the first order is PISSED OFF and VENGEFUL. they're back with a force. they've started invading and subjugating planets even with their forces cut as thin as they are because hux is a military mastermind and kylo and the knights of ren are a fucking TERRIFYING unit in combat.
- also why did disney decide to present hux in the films as a weak pissbaby when he probably topped his class in all combat situations and fights dirty in close quarters. man can SNIPE. man will bite your fucking finger off if you manage to disarm him. he is a 6 foot beanpole and he will kick your ass
- kylo has a crisis about actually having to kill his mother, uncle and cousin. he still feels a bit bad about han - despite everything, he still loves them and is struggling. he actually confides in his knights about this. we get to see that the knights of ren have a found family dynamic with their commander and they comfort him.
- kylo realises it will be painful to murder the last of his bio family but it must be done, because he's come around to hux's view that the resistance and the republic are standing in the way of true peace in the galaxy. he actually believes that reinstating an empire is the best thing for the galaxy. this makes him a more effective villain because he actually believes what he's doing is right.
- more stormtroopers defect to the resistance. finn is there to welcome them and help them adjust. there's a couple of lowkey force sensitive troopers in there too. we learn more about how horrible, soul crushing and traumatic stormtrooper training is. this is a good way to keep painting the first order as an organisation that violates human rights and the geneva convention at every turn.
- the first order makes up for this loss of troops in picking up recruits from the planets they've taken over in the outer rim because they've been providing stability. again - it is SO EASY to write the first order as sympathetic villains WHO ARE STILL FASCIST ASSHOLES. this would've been such a good opportunity to show the moral argument between stability vs freedom. show the flaws in the republic because they do exist!! we see that throughout the ENTIRE expanded universe! every iteration of the republic fails in some way!
- the fight against the first order becomes increasingly more difficult, but they're actually on pretty even ground. it doesn't make sense to me that disney decided to go for the route of "the resistance should've been squished easily by the might of the first order but uwu kylo can't make up his mind and thats what saves them!" that is not a compelling storyline! they are relatively evenly matched and the resistance only JUST comes out on top!
- kylo kills luke in actual combat, not just "luke randomly dissolves for ... no good reason?". this hits the resistance HARD. rey and finn have to struggle with their desire for revenge. leia realises her son is beyond help. it nearly breaks her. she has a moment where she feels like she has lost everything. poe has to step in to remind her she still has him. it is revealed that he joined the resistance after the first order killed his family HORRIBLY when he was a teenager and he and leia sort of have a mother/son relationship.
- this is also a good way to juxtapose hux and kylo. they took their trauma and it made them awful. poe takes his trauma and it makes him kind. it makes him want to protect people from what he went through. also gets rid of the "haha we made the latino man have a drug dealer background" bullshit that disney did
- poe also has to comfort his boyfriend and best friend and remind them that they are fighting to make the galaxy a better place, NOT for revenge. then they have a discussion about "yeah, don't make revenge your main priority, but the jedi were a bit wrong in saying that you shouldn't enjoy it anyway. it's going to feel good to fucking murder kylo and that's okay". acknowledgement that the old jedi code was garbage and too restrictive for actual PEOPLE to follow it.
- kylo still can't kill leia or chewie. we get flashbacks of her singing to him, braiding his hair, comforting him after nightmares. we see baby ben riding on chewie's shoulders. seeing the conflict between kylo recognising his family loved him and still choosing to be a villain would have RUINED ME. he tells hux this, expecting hux to shoot him for it. hux understands - he had a mother, once. the republic killed her.
- (they actually didn't. she was an imperial slave and was probably left behind when an imperial settlement was being razed. the only reason hux actually survived was because he was his father's only heir. there's a whole spiel in the books about brendol going "this kid is a piece of shit bastard i dont want him" and imperial officials being like "the empire needs kids. go pick him up")
- hux decides to kill leia instead. he nearly dies doing so because woman is STILL a force to be reckoned with even at this age. remember she is actually trained to use a lightsaber AND guns. the only reason hux doesn't die? kylo steps in at the last minute and kills his own mother. he's made his choice. he mourns, and then he steels. there is nothing left to pull him to the light side anymore.
- anakin has given up trying to bring his grandson to the light from beyond the grave. him and obi wan are focusing their force ghost attention on rey and finn. now luke and leia are both there too. we get the same "all my jedi ancestors are rooting for me" moment that disney gave us, except now it's shared between rey and finn.
- the two of them plus chewie cut through the knights of ren until they get to kylo. he kicks the living shit out of them, but they manage to kill him. rey earns some gnarly, sexy scars. chewie needs a hug and goddamn does he get one.
- poe is the one to kill hux. he's not just doing it for the galaxy, he's doing it for leia. the first order already stole his first family from him. he won't lose his second family to them. bonus points if BB8 joins the fight and like ... tases hux in the leg a few times.
- we get some gratuitous "c3p0 and r2 are sneaking through an imperial base and fucking shit up but like, badly because 3p0 never stops talking" scenes
- you want to bring rose tico into it? she's head of the resistance's infiltration team. she's with the droids taking down shields, stabbing people in the back, freeing prisoners, stealing plans, sowing chaos. she's the one who finally takes down phasma.
- without their emperor and the knights of ren, the new empire crumbles pretty quickly. the resistance has taken HEAVY losses but they have won. we get a very beautiful funeral scene for luke and leia. there's a gorgeous group hug between finn, rey, poe, chewie and bb8. poe and finn smooch against the sunset.
- we see finn and rey going into crystal caves to get kyber crystals. poe, chewie, bb8, r2 and 3P0 wait outside the cave in the falcon for them to be done picking up their crystals, then we see finn and rey inside the falcon building their new lightsabers with guidance from a bunch of force ghosts. we get to see that rey has chosen to decorate the inside of the falcon with a bunch of potted plants so she can be surrounded by greenery at all time. the found family aesthetic is STRONG
- rey builds a saber pike. it comes out golden. finn builds a standard single blade saber that comes out white, like ahsoka's. gold to emphasise protection of the weak and the perfect blend of combat and scholarly pursuits. white to emphasise free will from both the jedi and the sith. it is emphasised that these two will NOT be your traditional jedi.
- we see an epilogue where poe is working to help shift the republic's focus from political squabbling to actually protecting its citizens. he leads reconstruction efforts, helps establish more of a presence in the outer rim, constantly fights for moving resources from protecting the republic's assests to providing food, shelter and safety to its citizens.
- finn is constantly by his side. we see him protecting his new husband, on the front lines destroying remnants of the empire and the first order, and using his combat prowess to absolutely murder slave owners.
- rey has taken to training new force sensitives with chewie by her side, however she recognises the jedi code has been failing force sensistives for millennia, and instead her teachings are more aligned with the grey jedi philosophy. she recognises that people feel anger, hate, grief - and that they are all valid emotions. it's what you choose to do with them that is important.
- she actively encourages personal connection, believing that loving your friends and family is righteous and the true path to the light side. her apprentices all adore her, and she is always there for them - she'll listen to their worries, from something as small as "i am 13 years old and my first crush just rejected me" to "i am a former slave coming to you after the first order murdered my family and tortured me. i am having nightmares and am afraid of the anger i feel".
- she encourages apprentices to stay in contact with their family, and she becomes that family for the ones who have lost theirs.
- you get the feeling that this time, peace in the galaxy is actually going to last. anakin, obi wan, luke and leia look on from the Force in pride at their children and grandchildren. they did good. they can finally rest.
- the sequels have made personal choice a major theme. finn chooses to defect. poe and rey choose to be kind, when they have every reason not to be. hux and kylo make the wrong choices. there's no flip flopping like a dead fish between good and evil until the very last second. the lines between kindness and freedom and hatred and subjugation are clearly drawn again and again.
- i sit in the cinema after the screen goes black and i weep. i am satisfied. this was a fitting end for a franchise i have loved for most of my life.
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zanguntsu · 5 years ago
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what are ur thoughts on each bleach arc o: like quality wise!
oh boy this got longer than expected. Whoops.
substitute arc: i rlly like this arc! its short but i love how it sets up the characters and i adore the integration between ichigos human life vs shinigami life And i like the monster of the week set up its a fun and its a lot more character focused in the beginning. the fights were very character driven, like with grand fisher, sora, the hollow that went to hell. all the fights felt like they had a meaning that had a strong impact on a character, like ichigo having closure after defeating (he should have killed him tbh) grand fisher.
soul society: one of the best if not the best arcs imo. theres a good amount of development, the fights are good and have emotional weight (ichigo v byakuya, uryu v mayuri, chad v shunsui, yoruichi v soi fon) and the newly introduced characters are interesting! very iconic and cool! there was a lot of character arc conclusions? Closure? like with uryu and yoruichi as well as rukia. the characters are a strong point here too and the introduction of soul society brought in world building and it was something we really needed to see. soul society as the villains was pretty good and it did show them as a threat. its a good arc and had a good cliffhanger ending to the next arc
arrancar arc: its a pretty good arc but this is where i feel like bleach was starting to fall off in quality since kubo didnt plan for the series to go past ss. like the plot was a little repetitive with the rescue arc the placing was pretty bad and its where the kubos problem of having too many characters started forming. there are some pretty good moments though, i really love the ichigo vs grimmjow and ichigo vs ulquiorra fights along with rukia vs aaroniero (rukia development time,,). the arc just felt pretty slow at times ig? But there are some very good moments
fake karakura arc/deicide: i like this arc even though i know half of it was bullshit. there are some good fights, soi fon vs barragan is one of my faves bc her bankai and it was just interesting to see the captains more involved even though i wish they didnt just stand there. like cmon the fate of the world is at stake gang up on ppl u have numbers. i do think its bullshit to have aizen be That powerful (i will excuse the hogyoku use bc thats his trump card and was set up) but having him take down everyone like that was eh. like i know it was meant to show how powerful aizen was but honestly i wish there was a better way. maybe make them all fight amongst each other like with momo but its all mind games and shit i feel like that was a better way of showing how strong aizen was. also speaking of aizen i wish there was more character to him like take away his manipulative badass thing and its just nothing. what drives him to kill the soul king and why? was it loneliness (which is a poor motive tbh), injustice? what brought him on this path? i feel like tousens goals had more to it then aizen tbh
the deicide arc was pretty okay i love mugetsu but im sorry there was absolutely no lead up to him. i love that form but its pretty bullshit that it didnt get as much as a mention in the past and i wish it did bc that would have made mugetsu have a lot more impact. i remember how ppl theorized that it was how isshin lost his powers even though it was proven otherwise but i wish they went with that. but i did like seeing zangetsu again and that touching moment with him and ichigo was good also the rukia and ichigo goodbye was very emotional. was it a good arc? maybe not plot wise but its pretty beloved
fullbringer: oh this is where the quality definitely dropped which sucks because i feel like this arc had a very interesting premise and plot set up. i know that i havent watched/read all of the fb arc but i do know enough of it just not much in between the beginning and end. i wish that the fullbringers had more focus bc they were all forgettable except maybe riruka and they should have had more screentime and the concept of fullbringers is genuinely interesting?? humans with hollow powers is a good concept and its a shame kubo didnt expand upon this more
oh and i have some beef with the villains bc its a fucking tragedy of wasted potential. ginjo is like. almost there to be considered a good villain. hes the previous substitute shinigami and u only bring it up at the end?? thats such a huge chunk of information and it sets up a connection between ichigo and ginjo. idc about tsukishima he can be whatever but i do think ginjo could have been a pretty good villain if he wasnt as blatantly evil. like i know the betrayal schtick is getting old but i would have preferred him as a villain with good intentions, like having him against soul society is a good motive bc ss commits war crimes but it was never clear in this arc (aside from ss monitering the substitutes) but it just didnt feel as strong as a motive to make him do what he did.
one good thing i do have to say about this arc was i do like ichigo in this arc and how much conflict he experiences and we get to see him commit murder although i do wish this had repercussions on him. i feel like soul society’s intervention was unnecessary but thats just me. the fullbringer arc being centered around humans was a good idea, bringing the series back to its roots and i just wish we spent more developmemt with the humans before jumping back to soul society, like more time on the aftermath of the last arc. also this arc should have been the chad arc im dying on this hill.
tybw: wow! this was a trainwreck of an arc! i have. So Many issues with tybw and its where kubos writing weaknesses truly shine. the biggest issues are its pacing which is absolutely abhorrent and it takes up at least a third of the entire series (literally. tybw had 206 chapters out of 686 since tybw officially starts on 480). we had periods where the main cast dont show up for like. 50 chapters. the other biggest problem were the characters. why did kubo think it was a good idea to introduce 26+ characters. why. there is absolutely no time to develop them and while some may receive screentime the majority have no impact to the plot beyond their fights with the characters we actually care about. there is no reason for people to give a shit about them. i can barely remember their names, much less their backstories
and one of the bigger problems was the antagonists themselves. they have a motive and while i understand hatred towards soul society. yhwach’s motives were the worst out of all the villains. i cannot fathom what motivates him because it went fucking everywhere. did he have beef with ss? was he waging war out of self preservation? did he want to end death? like the narrative hints at all of these but it just feels like a mess of a character! i never liked yhwach to begin with since his very concept is awful (seriously? giving a previously thought group of people who experienced genocide a nazi motif? what the fuck kubo). hes a villain but theres no substance. his powers could have been cool but it was on the point of needing a deus ex machina to take him down.
and the fights are forgettable with the occasional good ones (shunsui v that one fuck, rukia v that other fuck) but there are some bad fights (askin v yoruichi, the quincy thor guy). there are some good moments, like all the bankai reveals, it adds more to the characters but it also causes so much jumping around in the plot and this is what happens when u have this many characters and some will be forgotten (so sorry chad). it sucks. some of the fights dragged on longer than necessary and it was just. so much. all of these issues really downgraded the arc and thats what made it the mess it was.
and a lot of the ideas brought in to tybw are criminally underused. ichigo being a quincy may have been wack but i did like the idea but it really only had some sparse moments like masaki and zangetsu development, creating a connection between ichigo and yhwach but that was really it. it was not like his hollow powers which coexisted with the plot and had huge moments and was just a constant presence. you could forget that ichigo was a quincy tbh and we needed more quincy moments. and the soul king was horribly underused because it did have set up from the arrancar arc, it was aizens entire goal! but kubo never really explores the ideas of the soul king and only in cfyow do we really get more info about it and thats no good because the soul king is a vital piece of bleach lore and worldbuilding.
anyways thats my two cents sorry this was rlly long
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