You Will Stop the Wedding! - Idia Shroud
SUMMARY: YOU were the one being kidnapped by Princess Eliza to marry her. How would he react and how would he save you? With the aggravation of he already having a crush on you.
CHARACTERS: Idia Shroud x Reader
TAGS: Fluff; GN Reader; Declaration
WORD COUNT: 1.710 words
Riddle Rosehearts / Leona Kingscholar / Azul Ashengrotto / Jamil Viper / Vil Schoenheit / Idia Shroud / Malleus Draconia
Rescuing You - Deuce Spade; Jack Howl; Floyd Leech; Kalim Al-Asim
COMMENTS: What have I done? Why did I commit to writing this? And why did I write so much? Why was I so inspired? There were seven of them! Why do I do this to myself? So yeah, this took me a long time. But I hope it was worth it, for me and for you.
CONTEXT: Someone was kidnapped to marry some ghost princess and might end up turning into a ghost too. And he just found out that someone was you.
Idia’s tablet was present at the Housewardens meeting. He didn’t really care about that kidnapping story. He even commented that he was just glad it wasn't him. It was because of things like this that he didn't leave Ignihyde, or his room.
So he asks, just out of curiosity, who was the poor person who was kidnapped. He probably didn't know but he could later look at the students' profiles or something, if he was curious. When the Headmage says it was the prefect and your name, the sound of someone spitting out a drink can be heard through the tablet. And then a "Hep!" Idia had spat out the soda he was casually drinking. And then he was afraid he had spat near a cable or something.
When they asked if he was okay, he said yes, everything was fine, it was just... Ortho scared him or something... Since they couldn't see him, he began to silently panic.
When they decide on the rescue plan and are choosing candidates for the groups, he doesn't say anything, he is petrified by the amount of negative thoughts in his head. So, Ortho is the one who offers Idia to be part of the last group. Idia comes back to reality in a panic and babbles very quickly. Ortho asks permission from the people on the other side of the tablet and mute the call for a momento.
Then he turns Idia's chair so that he is facing him and he looks at his older brother very seriously. He knows that Idia likes you and that's why he has to be part of the rescue teams. Being part of the last one is perfect because if any of the others manage to save you, he might just be relieved. But if they fail, he can study the failed attempts to create the best strategy to save you.
Idia ends up saying that Ortho is right and that he will be on the last team. But in his head, he's praying it doesn't come to that. He doesn't trust himself to save you.
But unfortunately for him, that's what ends up happening. And when they are preparing the last team, he tries to dodge it. Ortho gets confused and mutes the tablet to talk to Idia.
Ortho says this is his chance to save you, like a true hero. But that's when Idia says he's no hero. That if it depends on him, things will most likely turn out even worse than humanly possible, and because of him you will end up dying even faster. And this is where Ortho asks him a heartbreaking question: "Are you going to at least try to save (Y/N) while you can, or are you just going to skip into designing a new robot?" Idia looks at him with wide eyes. “There is still time. There is still hope. Don't waste it.”
During the way to the ceremony room, Idia tries to stay behind and offers to stall the ghost guards, but whoever his team-mates were, they either offered to stall the guards first or said that he was the one who should get to the wedding and save you. Again, to an outsider it might seem like he didn't want to save you, but the truth is that he didn't trust himself to save you.
Despite everything, he is the only one who arrives at the ceremony room. And when everyone looks at the person who just entered, he petrifies. The princess asks who he is and what he is doing there. He puts his fists to his chest like he normally does when he's scared.
“I I I I... um... a-am here to... s-stop... the w-wedding?” The princess asks, confused, if that was a question. “W-well... more or less... I mean, my main objective is to stop the marriage, yes, but as I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it, on the contrary, my biggest chances are of ruining everything, so it ends up being just an attempt, so it was indeed a question instead of an affirmation.” He ended up speaking so quickly that the ghosts barely understood half of what he said. He sighs.
“So you're here to stop the wedding.” The princess says. "Why?"
He starts to stumble over the words to respond, then, somehow, the ghosts understand that he is trying to find an excuse to deceive the princess and attack him.
He turns out to reveal himself to be quite capable of defeating the guards with magic. Getting to the point where he started to see it as a game and the smug Idia took the place of the shy Idia. He even says a few lines like "Do you really think you can stop me with those weak attacks?" or “Even smaller enemies on easy mode are harder to defeat than this.” and “Aw, are the gwosts twied aweady?” But all his smugness disappears when one of the guards turns into a giant ghost. Against this one, Idia ends up losing.
The princess approaches him and slaps Idia. “I'm not going to say I didn't deserve it.” he says. “Wait... wasn't I supposed to be petrified? I'm still moving, aren't I? Or was the slap so hard that I passed out and I'm dreaming that I'm moving?”
Everyone gasps, including the princess. When the guards ask what's going on, the princess says it can only mean one thing. Her slap is capable of petrifying anyone, except those who have already found their true love. The reaction from all NRC students is like "What the F-?!" And Idia's reaction is to, involuntarily, turn his hair almost completely pink.
“Wow wow wow! True love is a very strong pair of words.” he says “Besides I don't even believe in that.”
The princess is shocked, a little like the guards, and like a delusional person obsessed with finding true love, she asks Idia why he said that.
Idia starts talking about the brain chemicals that are released to make us feel what people call love. Which is nothing more than a chemical reaction in our body. But the princess doesn't understand anything and says she will prove to him that true love exists by marrying you and taking you to “live” happily ever after with her.
“WAIT! NO!” he screams, scared “Fine, fine. It is true love, whatever, just don't take them.” The princess asks why not? “Because I don't want to lose anyone else! I can't lose one of the only people I care about again! Take me then! I don't care. Just let (Y/N) go!”
Sacrificing yourself to save the person you love? What a true act of love the princess says that is! The greatest proof of love anyone could give. How she wished she had someone like that for herself too. And this was the opportunity that the guard who was in love with her found to declare himself and say that he would give his life for her, after all, technically, he had already done so. And that whole ending of the princess realizing that she loved him too happens, they get married and happily ever after.
After all that problem is over, you don't find Idia. But Ortho appears and hugs you, happy that you're okay. And then takes your hand to take you to his brother. He takes you outside, where Idia was waiting for him, but not for you. When he sees you, the ends of his hair turn pink. Ortho leaves you with his brother, wishes you good luck, says he's meeting Idia in Ignihyde, turns on the turbo at his feet and disappears.
He turned his back to you when Ortho left. “Oh yeah, um, it's getting late, I have to go back to Ignihyde...” You'll have to be the one to stop him if you want to talk to him about what happened. The moment he turns around and looks at you, the ends of his hair will turn pink again. “W-w-what?”
If you start talking to him about how he saved you, or at least how he was probably the most important part of your rescue, he'll tell you not to be ridiculous, that he didn't do anything. The ghosts just started having a strange conversation about love and somehow the princess decided to exchange you for that guard. “An abrupt and sudden drop in standards, let me tell you that.”
He will try his best not to talk too much about what happened, unless you find a way to get him to talk. And the way you found to do this, in a way that wouldn't force him to do it, was to being the first to be honest about the matter.
You tell him how you felt when you saw him enter the ceremony room, how much you were rooting for him to be able to save you, how cool you thought he was while fighting the ghosts and, most importantly, how scared you were when he told the princess to take him instead of you. This boosted his confidence.
“Oh, that... I... Honestly, I didn't want to save you.” Before you could react, he continued speaking. “I was too scared of making everything worse. I couldn't be responsible for another...” he interrupts himself, to take a deep breath and speak quickly “Okay, fine, I admit it, I like you, and that's why I was so afraid of ruining everything. But I ended up having no other choice and I couldn't lose another person I love. Happy now? Was this what you wanted? A cliché declaration of love after a life threatening situation? Congratulations, you've unlocked one of the most old fashioned achievements in the game.” and seeing that you were smiling, he adds with the confidence he has suddenly switch on “Well, I hope you like the route you just got for yourself, because now there are no more saves to change your choices.”
Unfortunately for you, he's not the type to go in for a kiss after this. Unless... you’re the one doing it for him. A kiss that he will return with pleasure and confidence. And you will feel a new warmth coming from him, from his hair.
If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX
1K notes
·
View notes
last night i asked if people would be interested in me posting a backstory piece for Martyn from the hero/villain / yellow rose au i’ve posted a single oneshot for despite the fact the backstory piece doesn’t seem to outwardly relate to the posted oneshot. no one outright shot me down so. here you go
for some context, the powers in this world of yellow rose come from a catastrophic event that took place almost 20 years prior to the start of the story, which wiped out a lot of the world’s cities/towns and gave many of the survivors powers or mutations
backstory takes place when Martyn is 0-10 years old (he was born shortly before the aforementioned catastrophic event) and focuses on an OC parent character / martyn’s relationship to said parent
anyway. yellow rose is an au made w @cherrifire. time for you all to meet robot dad
It’s hot on the day the world ends. This is not the only thing it remembers, but it’s one that still stands out, even years down the line.
It’d been dealing with a patient with symptoms of heatstroke, the third it had seen in an hour. Heatstroke is an easy enough ailment to give to a nurse bot to treat, so it gets the job. It had stepped out of its patient’s room and run into a doctor, who had asked it to fetch something from the basement storage.
This is why it had survived, it thinks, looking back. It had been in the basement, and by some stroke of luck, the building had not collapsed so completely as to destroy it alongside the rest of the building.
It had not had a concept of luck before that moment, before the shaking had stopped and the dust had cleared, leaving it mostly in tact. Once it had forced its way up the stairs, it found it was not sure whether surviving the collapse was good or bad luck.
When the nurse bot tried to ring its network for help, it found the line inside its head had gone dead. When it looked to the surrounding street, it found hundreds of buildings similarly smoldering. When it called out, it found only its own voice returning to it.
The nurse bot had tried to comb through the wreckage of its practice, looking for survivors. It found nothing, heard nothing, but it still attempted to sift through the rubble, to search for the people it had been built to assist.
A nurse bot’s arms are not meant to move stone and iron, however. It was not used to the strange things that happened in its processing when it thought about what might be under the wreckage, and did not know how to handle them. It made a mistake, lifting things it could not, and when the wreckage in its grasp had buckled…
Well. It had thought itself lucky, distantly, that unlike humans, robots are not generally “handed” in one way or the other. Statistically, it would have preferred its right hand, and it would have been much worse off when the debris crushed its arm, taking its limb from the elbow down.
Ah, and pain, of course. It would have been quite bad if it had been able to feel pain, or bleed. It probably would have died, had this fallen on it, or had it lost a flesh and blood arm.
It… does not look in the wreckage any longer.
The nurse bot did not know what to do, with the practice it had spent its whole existence in destroyed. It had never been outside before—at least, not while activated. It had never left the walls of the hospital it was built for. It had not been intended to function without direction.
It knew its purpose, though, direction or not. The nurse bot had been built to heal. It knew, direction or not, how to do this, and that it must do this. And certainly, if it looks, it would fine someone out there who needed it.
When it comes to matters of health, time is of the essence. With its direction decided, the nurse bot begins to walk.
It finds people, rarely, stumbling and unharmed, or nursing small bruises or minor sprains. It helps these when it can, and gives advice when it cannot. It finds bodies, often, and it looks away, as it has never seen a funeral, and it does not know to help the dead except to assist the living.
It finds a woman soon to be a body, despite its best efforts to help her. It lacks supplies to stop the flow of blood from her wounds, and the woman lacks any hope without stitches or bandages.
It offers her sympathies, and it holds in its one hand both of hers. There is little it can say to her, but it tries, quiet promises of I am here and I will not leave you and you will be at peace soon.
She holds its hand with all the strength in her body, knuckles white as paper, a stark contrast against the dark blood staining the rest of her body. It feels as the strength fades. It watches as the light in her eyes fades with it. She lets it go, and it closes her eyes.
The nurse bot keeps walking, keeps looking, until it hears crying. The sound is loud, a desperate sob of a young child, and it seems to stem from a building sagging in three places, roof and door and floor all ready to give in.
If it were human, the nurse bot may have thought the place too risky to enter. But it is not, and so in it goes, pushing the door open with one hand.
It finds the boy lying in his crib, a round-faced infant wrapped in a patterned onesie and kicking away a thin blanket. He cannot be more than a year old—the nurse boy would guess him to be maybe six months. The fact the boy and his crib have survived the destruction of the city is a miracle, one not offered to the rest of the home.
It reaches down into the crib, brushing its hand over the boy’s face. His sobs stumble, a bit curious, but the baby ultimately doesn’t stop crying.
The nurse bot hadn’t worked with a pediatrician, but it knows about children, as any nurse bot would.
“Are you hungry?” it asks. He doesn’t answer except to cry more, which is understandable—this is what babies do, it knows, and besides, this has been the chosen course of action for most of the people it saw today.
It could not help those people, but it can help with this.
The nurse bot steps away from the crib to examine the boy’s room, though the boy cries louder when its face disappears from his view.
“I will return shortly,” it tells him. This assurance does not calm him down.
It finds what it can in the rest of the home—food for the baby, a warmer blanket, a box of diapers. It finds the living room, where living is not what his parents are doing, and gingerly shuts the door. It finds a photo album and flips through, searching for the information it needs: delicate handwriting next to an image of the boy, held in the arms of the woman on the floor a room over.
April 7th, 20XX: Welcome to the world, Martyn!
His name is Martyn. His birthday is April 7th. The nurse bot usually keeps these things on file about its patients, and so it files them away.
When it returns to the crib, the baby inside is no longer crying, having worn himself out. It reaches down again, face blank.
“Hello, Martyn,” it says, “I am going to be your caretaker for now. I hope we will get along well.”
— — —
They don’t stay in the house. It finds a baby carrier in a closet and a duffle bag in the bedroom, and it packs what Martyn will need and carries him out of the collapsing home.
Martyn laughs a lot. Once he’s been fed and changed and has slept, the nurse bot finds he laughs all the time.
He doesn’t know, it thinks. He must miss his parents, probably, but he doesn’t know. He isn’t old enough to understand any of this. He watches the broken and bloodied street with awe—has he ever been this far from home before? This is all a big adventure to him.
It doesn’t tell him.
— — —
It stops three times a day to change and feed him, and to let him crawl around in the cleanest and sturdiest places it can find.
“Movement is good for development,” it tells him, watching him play with a piece of rubble.
It doesn’t stop to rest at night—it doesn’t need to, and the rocking motion of his continued steps helps Martyn sleep. When that isn’t enough, it tries to replicate the songs it has heard playing in the clinic’s waiting room, or seen mothers and fathers sing in the clinic to calm their children. Martyn seems to like that.
He likes the nurse bot’s hair, too. He tugs on it all the time as the nurse bot walks, held close to its chest, close enough to its head to access it. It lets him—it doesn’t hurt, and besides, it has few other ways to entertain him.
— — —
Martyn grows. He starts to babble, and to toddle. He becomes too big for the bot to carry him, but by then it has become adept at finding places to hunker down for a while.
“Your name is Martyn,” the bot tells him, pointing to his nose.
“Ma,” he tries.
“Very close,” it says. He grabs its hand, tugging, and continues to babble.
“Da,” he says, and it knows that he doesn’t have a concept of fathers or parents or the English language, and he is only making sounds.
“That is me,” it says anyway, and Martyn continues to babble.
— — —
“Dad,” Martyn tugs on its arm, barely tall enough to reach its fingers. “Daaaad.”
“Hello, Martyn,” it says, “What is it?”
“I’m bored,” Martyn says, “And I’m hungry.”
“We still have some food left for you, though I should start a fire soon,” it says, “We will need to move soon. Children your age need a variety of foods to—”
“Grow up healthy, I know,” Martyn whines, “That’s boring. I’m bored.”
“What would you like to do?” it asks, and he lets go of its hand, running off. It stands to follow, but then he’s back, holding a battered old book—some kind of short novel, something with a torn cover that used to have a dragon on it. The title is gone, as is the dragon’s head.
“Read this,” he says. Martyn is learning to read, but he hasn’t quite got the grasp to read a real book on his own yet.
This hasn’t stopped Martyn from searching for them, though, nor from presenting them to his father to read. It had started reading one aloud to Martyn to entertain him when Martyn had come down with a fever last year, and he hasn’t stopped asking to hear them since.
“After you eat,” it says, and Martyn cheers.
—
There is a group of survivors picking their way through town. The bot sees them before they see it, watching the street from a window. It does not know their intentions, and it doesn’t plan to find out.
It crouches down in front of Martyn, putting its hand on his shoulder.
“Hello,” it says, “We’re going to play a game, okay?”
“Okay,” Martyn says, and it nods, once.
“It is called hide and seek,” it says, “There are some people who are looking around town, trying to play, and we are going to hide from them. We will win if we are not found.”
“That’s a dumb game. Why don’t we play something else?” Martyn asks.
“It is their favorite game. We are going to play because that is what they like to do. But we are going to be very good at it and hide very well,” it says, “You can hide with me, okay? If we win, there will be a special prize.”
That’s all it takes to convince Martyn, who smiles and nods and follows it as it ducks away into the closet. Its legs creak as it sits down, and then it opens its arm, letting him sit in its lap. It can’t be comfortable, all cold metal, but Martyn wraps his arms around its torso and settles right in, content with the hand on his back.
“Now we must be very quiet,” it tells him, “I will tell you when we can talk again.”
Martyn nods, and it puts its hand on the back of his head, and it waits.
When the strangers leave, it asks him what he would like for his prize.
“Hug me again!” He says, and it obliges for as long as he wants.
— — —
Halfway through its sentence, the bot’s voice cuts out.
That has not happened before. Martyn seems unfazed, especially when it begins to talk again, but it takes note of the error.
— — —
It happens more. Its voice cuts out, stutters, corrupts. Martyn really only complains when they’re reading, but it starts to fear the worst.
It sits Martyn down, crouching down to meet his eyes.
“Martyn, I have something very important to tell- to tell- to tell you,” it says, and if it could, it would wince.
“Yeah?” Martyn asks, “Are we moving again?”
“Soon,” it says, “But that is not what I want to tell you.”
“Oh,” Martyn says.
“I am… sick. Do you remember what being sick is?” it asks. Martyn nods, reaching up to put his hand on its forehead, the way it had for him when he had been feverish.
“You feel warm,” Martyn confirms, “It’s okay. I’ll read to you until you’re better.”
“Thank you, Martyn. You are very kind,” it says, “But that is not the kind of sick I am. There are many kinds of sick.”
“Oh,” Martyn says, “Then what kind of sick are you?”
“I am… robot sick. I am- I am- I am- I am- getting old,” it says, “And my voice is starting to… not work properly.”
“I know that,” Martyn says, “You talk funny now and you keep messing up reading.”
“Yes, that’s right. You’re very smart,” it confirms, “But it might get worse. I might not be able to talk anymore soon.”
“But you’ll get better, right? I got better,” Martyn says. It shakes its head.
“I might, but I might not. Robot sick is different,” it says, though it knows it is lying. “I just wanted you to know. If you talk to me and I do not respond, I am not ignoring you. I am still listening. I am just sick, and my voice- my voice- my voice- my voice—”
It shakes its head, the way humans sometimes do, to clear the sentence. When it looks at Martyn again, he seems thoughtful.
“Will you still read to me?” he asks.
“As long as I am able,” it promises. And, for good measure, “I love you, Martyn. Do not forget.”
“I won’t,” Martyn says, “I love you, too.”
— — —
It makes a point to show him how to read. He had already been learning it, but it doubles down when its voice begins to waver.
It picks up novels and reads them to him with Martyn in its lap. It holds its arm around Martyn’s waist, and Martyn holds the book for it to see, and it reads the words Martyn points to, so Martyn knows what they are.
It doesn’t want him to lose this. It doesn’t want him to lose his fun, his creativity, his imagination, just because it cannot read to him anymore.
— — —
It loses its voice for good while it is reading to Martyn.
— — —
Its voice is the first thing it loses, but it is not the last.
Control of its fingers becomes… tricky. Martyn has to help it, doing things that require finer movements.
“Is your hand sick?” he asks, and he sounds afraid. It nods, because it knows it shouldn’t lie to him, even if it wants to.
It loses what little control it had over its face next. Then its neck becomes stuck. It doesn’t seem able to walk as fast, though that might just be due to Martyn getting faster—he grows older still, full of energy, constantly wanting to run and jump and play on his longer legs. It tries its best, but it cannot keep pace like it used to. It used to sing and walk all night, and now it cannot do either.
Martyn is as patient as a six year old can be, which is not very. He gets frustrated and bored, and he complains often. It does not blame him for this. He is doing his best, too, and that is all it can ask.
— — —
There are people. It tries to hide—pulls Martyn into a closet, tucks him close to its chest, pets his hair with his hand—but Martyn doesn’t like to play hide and seek, and he doesn’t know he has to be quiet.
“My name is Martyn!” he tells them, once the closet door opens, “This is Dad. He’s sick.”
They’re nice enough, a woman and her teenage son. It—he, now?—releases Martyn to talk to them, and climbs out of the closet. He hovers at Martyn’s side when they climb out, a hand on his son’s head.
“Why were you two in the closet?” the mother asks.
“We were playing hide and seek. That’s what Dad said other people like to do, but I don’t like it very much,” Martyn explains. She nods.
“Most people do like to play that game,” she says, because, as a parent, she must understand his fear. “But we don’t, either. Do you want to travel together for a little while, Martyn?”
“I want to!” Martyn says, and he looks up at his father, and his father would sigh if he could.
He nods, because what else is he meant to do?
— — —
The teenager entertains Martyn, reading to him the book his father never did get to finish. The mother cooks, and she takes a look at his hands.
“I used to be an engineer,” she says, “You’re a bit above my pay grade, but I could take a look, if you want.”
He doesn’t let her crack him open or anything, but she inspects the pieces of his wiring she can see. He’s reminded of his old clinic, though he can’t tell her how ironic this is.
Her prognosis is… grim.
“You probably only have a few years left in you,” she admits, “Your model was supposed to go for regular updates, replacing parts and…”
He doesn’t listen as she explains the old process, his focus instead on Martyn.
Only a few years? What will happen to Martyn? Who will take care of him?
Humans need care until they are eighteen.
Martyn is six.
“I could try and make some minor repairs for some of the obvious damage, but I don’t have tools for anything more. I can also try and tell you some things you can do to try and stretch that time out,” she says. He nods, understanding, grateful, as she does what she can.
He had been in her place, once, years ago, and so he understands, too, when she offers sympathies, when she holds his hand.
— — —
They split off from each other eventually. The other two are traveling to a place they claim never fell. He does not believe in such a place, and so he does not go with them.
Martyn cries. The mother hugs him, as does her son, and they are gone.
As they walk away, he holds Martyn’s hand, and he does not let go.
— — —
He teaches Martyn how to do… anything he can. He is too young to understand how to hunt or set a trap or clean an animal or cook or treat a fever or start a fire or boil water, and it is very difficult to teach when he cannot speak. He’d wanted to wait until Martyn is older, he does not have the luxury of time anymore.
Martyn is clever, is bright. He takes to the skills as well as a six, eight, ten year old can, and it is only partly due to the fact he has no choice.
— — —
He knows he is dying.
Martyn does not.
He picks up a stick, waving Martyn over. There is a patch of dirt that is mostly clear, and he crouches in front of it.
I AM SICK he writes, and Martyn reads it, and he frowns.
“I know that,” Martyn says, and he shakes his head. The dirt is soft, and so he clears it, trying again.
I AM VERY SICK he writes. Martyn reads it, and he frowns deeper.
“What does that mean?” Martyn asks.
I WILL SLEEP SOON he writes. He wants to be delicate, but he can’t—the patch of dirt isn’t very big.
“Oh, well, that’s okay. I sleep all the time,” Martyn says, “That’s how you get healthy again. It makes you feel better. You told me that.”
He wants to nod, but he can’t. This is the bit he was dreading the most.
I WILL NOT WAKE UP he writes.
For a long moment, Martyn doesn’t say anything.
“What if we get you medicine?” Martyn asks, “When— when I was sick, you found medicine. It made me better. It would make you better.”
NOT FOR ROBOTS
“That… that isn’t fair, though,” Martyn says, “Are you sure? We could get some and try it!”
I AM SURE he writes, and then he erases it, I LOVE YOU
Again, Martyn says nothing. He isn’t sure what Martyn is thinking, and then Martyn charges him, hugging him around the stomach.
He has more he wants to say to Martyn—he wants to teach him so much, to tell him to be careful, to tell him he’ll be okay.
He drops the stick, wrapping his arm around Martyn as tight as his failing joints will let him.
— — —
His goal is to find somewhere safe. An old house, maybe, somewhere where Martyn will be able to survive on his own for a while.
He looks, and he does not find it. He’s been looking for ten years, after all—of course he wouldn’t find one now, just because he is dying.
Other than that, his life does not much change. He holds Martyn’s hand as they walk, and Martyn talks to him about birds and books and whatever else he can think of. Martyn has become very good at filling the air for them both. Neither of them let go of the other’s hand.
He doesn’t actually know when it is going to happen, just that it will be soon.
When the moment finally comes, he does not realize.
They stop to rest for a night. Martyn is tired, as he is a child, and his legs can only carry him so far. He is tired, too, but he does not have it in him to think about why, or how strange that is.
It’s nowhere special, where they stop. A random house that has kept its roof, somewhere safe from rain and sun. Martyn finds a place to roll out his sleeping bag, and when he lies down, his father lies with him.
He does not let go of Martyn’s hand.
263 notes
·
View notes
after sitting with my thoughts about the epilogue for some time, I think the thing that broke the story had started right after Dabi's dance. said thing is LOV' utterly out of character treatment of each other and Shigaraki specifically.
them just standing there and passively observing the scene makes absolutely zero sense, if you use anything from their previously established relationships within the organisation for reference. especially with All for One's creepy comments. Spinner even points out shortly before this chapter that AFO!Shigaraki seems nothing like his normal self and this person is not the one he had chosen to follow.
and yes, Spinner does approach screaming Shigaraki and tries to help him, and his concern later leads him to seeing Shigaraki's mutated form in the cave, and on its own this development for Spinner is in line with his character and all around fine. pretty reminiscent of Toga and Twice, too.
(except Spinner is not allowed to really help Shigaraki in any way, unlike Toga was allowed to help Twice, and this entire thing between Shigaraki and Spinner only ends with Spinner's regrets and survivor's guilt instead of anything good or meaningful that isn't meaningless angst porn)
it isn't Spinner approaching Shigaraki that is the issue, it's the other's complete lack of action or even reaction besides appearing mildly disturbed. this is simply out of character for all of them, just judging by Twice's example who had similar breakdowns and wasn't plainly ignored by the others until his fit stops. this reaction makes even less sense, when you take into account the current state of the League. Twice had just been murdered by Hawks, the double agent who had infiltrated the League via Dabi, and Mister Compress had just sacrificed himself to give the League a chance for escape, and was sent to Tartarus immediately after his condition was no longer life threatening. Kurogiri is also being held captive by the heroes. there are only four of them left, with two dead and two captured. and none of them even mention the dead or the captured outside of the context of Kurogiri and his quirk.
this straight out makes no sense if you look back to the Overhaul arc and remember how far Shigaraki and the rest of them were willing to go to avenge Magne's death and Mr Compress' destroyed arm. this was important.
the event had motivated Shigaraki to be a better leader, because he had realized these people depend on him, and he won't let them be hurt under his protection. it had started the seed of self-doubt in Jin which would eventually grow to the desperation that allowed him to overcome the mental block against his quirk in the MVA arc, because he wanted to do everything he possibly could to help the League. it allowed him to make his clones despite the crippling trauma, because he saw Toga's hurt, bleeding body, and he didn't want her to die.
even fucking Giran, a broker whose very profession requires him to care about himself and his own well-being first and foremost, had sacrificed all of his fingers to prevent Redestro from getting his hands on the League. because he wants to protect them, to save them. and then we never actually see his mutilated hands or hear anything from him ever again.
and when Twice actually dies? all we get in response to that are two upset faces from Dabi and Toga's fury. that's it.
i really want to stress how out of character this barely-present reaction is, because Magne's example is right there and when Overhaul had killed her, the League knew each other for no longer than a month. this League has been together for at least half a year, had been through thick and thin together, had spent months on the run, homeless, having no one but each other to rely on, has defeated the Meta Liberation Army, quite literally, with the power of their friendship. they all cared enough about each other and Shigaraki specifically to stay with him during those months they had to fight Gigantomachia with barely any breaks for rest, still homeless, barely scraping by. it was imperative that they all survive through this together, especially for Shigaraki, who had went on this quest of getting stronger at least partly so that he would become a more reliable protector for the League. and when Twice falls victim to the hero who had murdered him in cold blood, because no one except for Dabi was there to save him, Shigaraki doesn't even get to react to Twice's death, and possibly never even learns about the fact.
on topic of Dabi, his reaction being exactly two frames of sad expressions and including the footage of Twice's murder into his broadcast, and ending immediately after that, also makes no sense. Dabi is someone who holds himself accountable and despite his declarations, cares about the League, it's the very reason he was keeping Hawks from the League and sprinted to Twice as soon as he realized Hawks' intentions with him, to protect him. Dabi's unsuccessful attempt to save Twice is another iteration of Overhaul, a combination of Shigaraki and Twice's roles in the tragedy. but unlike Shigaraki, who had steeled himself into taking care of his subordinates and becoming a responsible and strong leader, or Twice who had never forgotten about his role in the incident, Dabi just somehow forgets about the entire thing as soon as the first war is over. Toga is the one whom the narrative allows to actively react to Twice's death and express her grief. it makes sense that her reaction would be the strongest, as she was the closest with Twice, but why are two LOV members no longer allowed to care about the same incident at the same time? why aren't they allowed to protect each other anymore, when Giran, who is not even in the League, had made that sacrifice for them?
These are pretty small things, but it's these instances of Toga and Dabi preventing Machia from being injected with the sedative, protecting the League that are sorely missing in the second war.
and the biggest act of devotion and protection to the League, which was the last time we saw anything like this for them, Mister Compress' last moments with the League.
Mutilating his own body just to buy them five seconds to possibly escape. Because he loved the League, because he wanted all of them to be happy and achieve their dreams, to be free, and to live.
and in return for the favour, not only do they not come back for him like they did for Kurogiri (because his quirk is important for the plot, while Compress' isn't), but none of them mention Compress ever again. same with Twice (with the exception of Toga), same with Magne. from this point onwards, none of them are allowed by the plot to even care about the League of Villains. the interpersonal relationships between two individuals still shine through, occasionally, like Spinner's devotion to Shigaraki (and him alone), Dabi and Toga's pyromaniac trauma lane visit to her house and him giving her Twice's blood, Kurogiri reaching out to Shigaraki in the very end. but what about the League? ahd what about the dead members of the League, or Mister Compress?
somehow, at the point of the final war it boils down to the generalized conflict of heroes vs villains and the morality gymnastics involved in the concept. on its own, this would have been an okay development, if the examples the story was using to prove its point weren't people who had become very close friends and who had lost four people to this war against the heroes.
if the individual conflicts, like Toga's desperation to be acknowledged as human being deserving of affection, Dabi's familial abuse trauma and Shigaraki's lifelong manipulation by All for One not giving him any chance to be saved at all, were the finishing line of the villains' story development, why join them within the League at all? LOV is a separate concept functioning as a collective uniting all these villains, giving them a place to belong and people who give a fuck whether they live or die. except not anymore, because for some reason after the first war this concept is scratched completely.
so why not make them mere acquaintances who sometimes collaborate to bother the heroes together, if the bond between them got in the way of the story and wasn't the point of the story? why prove the depth of their bond with the Overhaul and My Villain Academia arcs? why make Shigaraki develop relationships and a sense of responsibility for these people at all, if in the very end his desire to save these people is denied by the author himself?
the previous arcs have spent a great deal of effort establishing that the villains are human too. they have human feelings, human desires and human relationships. so why is it that in the final arc their ability to experience human emotions towards each other is turned on and off manually by the author? at the very end even the author stops pretending like anything happening to the villains is evaluated on the scale of human experiences (unlike the heroes, whose injuries and deaths are talked about and mourned in great detail) and Kurogiri and Shigaraki are wiped out like plot inconveniences rather than important and well written characters.
honestly? it's ironically meta that the story ended up proving the very point it has spent 400 chapters arguing against.
290 notes
·
View notes