#shitty middle aged woman save me…… save me shitty middle aged woman

[marzipan-alligator]

I’ve been playing Limbus Company a bit. Here’s Outis, mid-battle

[roxannepolice]

hi!!! hows it goin i’m here to dump my thoughts about simm!master/lucy vs ten and martha cause i have MANY. also a disclaimer before i begin that i’m white and that likely does color my experience as a viewer compared to a BIPOC viewer. anyways: i’ll start with ten and martha because by sound of drums we’ve spent all season watching them and its that already established dynamic which i think lucy/saxon are meant to parallel in a way. you have ten very much still grieving rose and his entire planet, which makes him try and push away any new companions for a bit. but he’s still looking for - and i think needs, in a way - this kind of connection where he can depend on someone, and ideally they could depend on him. however. ten sucks at this second bit. for the entire season. so he’s in need of this connection despite not wanting any whatsoever, emotional intelligence completely out the window right now since he’s grieving x2, and martha unfortunately walks in right in the middle of this. so you get this dynamic really starting from i’d say the shakespeare code wherein martha is carrying a lot of the weight in their relationship. ten will entrust her with the most deeply personal shit (like his memories of gallifrey, his feelings on losing rose, even in 42 where he’s like "i’m scared i’m so scared" where he depends on martha for emotional support) and then when martha’s like hey can i get some support here or something ten’s like “uh sorry all out too busy being sad” i mean that's a bit exaggerated/summarized but thats the vibe they have. in the beginning he doesn't even admit she’s traveling with him! he’s all “just one trip” “just one more” and refuses to make a concrete decision that martha really needs him to make already. and despite this emotional unavailability shtick ten still relies on martha quite a bit! off the top of my head you have 42(martha freezing/unfreezing ten as he screams in pain), blink (they get sent back to the 1960s… and only martha gets a job???), and. human nature. wherein martha endures racial abuse alongside lesser shitty working conditions in order to ensure the doctor doesn't get his body possessed or something. and in the middle of it this human version of the doctor falls in love with another woman(after basically uh leading her on for the whole fucking season) (sure maybe unintentionally but that's not the point here) who. also was racist to her she's not even a nice person. and her only friend in this godawful place gets possessed. and human doctors a dick to her. and i think. i reflect on it and i come to the conclusion that ten very much does expect martha to just… do his job for him sometimes. handle all the dirty work like making sure human him doesn't get distracted or hurt or die. and still immediately after is like haha we are in 1960 now. i will not get a job what is that. why do you want me to “communicate” or “pull my weight” you’re traveling across space and time lol.

and the master and lucy are a darker extension of this dynamic that i actually haven't really seen people talk about much!! the master is very clear about why he married lucy, and there is no love/admiration/respect whatsoever in there. it is purely a means to an end - her family gets him influence, and she helps him carry out his plans. he gives nothing to lucy, only takes. which is in itself a mirror to ten & martha - the audience knows ten isn’t intending to be malicious in how he treats martha throughout the series, but when paralleled to lucy & the master i think you really get a sense of the harm this can cause down the line. what resentment this kind of dynamic can lead to. and ALL THE WHILE martha is walking the entire planet for a year to save all of humanity while ten hangs out aged 100 with his little tent & dog bowl & seething sorta-ex-husband-boyfriend-whatever. i mean he doesn't have the best time either but he also doesn't have to do that much and also is perhaps a bit too happy about not being the last time lord to fully grasp that hey, uh, humanity's in pretty dire straits right now. martha watches as the master turns earth into a living nightmare, slaughters millions of people on a whim, turns ten into a 900-year-old tweety bird, and tortures her family for a year, only for ten to go “guys dw i can fix him lol we’ll just live in the tardis for eternity together” as if she hadn't had to fight for that too. and ten is still shocked-pikachu-face when she goes “yeah no i’m leaving. i gotta get out.” and that is very much similar to lucy's moment in a way! where she sees the doctor forgiving(without really considering everybody else's opinion on the Past Year), martha's mom talked down from killing him, even Jack is talked down from his confusion at the whole idea, and i think in that moment she goes. okay. you guys can forgive. you guys can let him walk away having just taken, taken, taken everything without any repercussions. i meanwhile have this gun and two years of pent-up rage coursing through my veins. and both of these moments - martha leaving, lucy firing the gun - come at a shock to the doctor and the master. i mean you can see the master's little "oh" face when he gets shot. even if he plays it up like he expected it after i don't think he considered it before. and i think on a certain level neither really expected to be called out like this - ten because he’s got the emotional intelligence of a baseball bat, the master because he doesn’t think humans are capable of wiping their own asses - so in both of these moments in LoTL theyre like "wait i didn't know you could do that"

anyways tl;dr thats why i think lucy and the master are a darker parallel to the doctor and martha in their own way. which feeds into the rest of the finale where the master is just showing the natural extremes to who the doctor is - this is that toxic dependency taken to its natural worst possible place, where you treat someone as a tool rather than as a person. the master's generally a great foil to the doctor but the series 3 finale is just a fantastic example of it i think.

OMG, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts like this! And I love your thought process here so much.

First, absolutely, Martha is the case of right person, wrong time... which is probably what makes hers my favourite companion arc - as I like to put it she travelled through hell and pulled her Virgil (because yes, the Doctor absolutely always has this guide role that brings Virgil to mind, at least in companions' first episodes) to the Earthly Paradise in the process. There's a lot of debates going on about whether Ten was leading Martha on, because on the one hand - well, he's very clear he's not into her romantically, on the other - ok, bitch, you made it clear the kiss doesn't mean anything, but also you hit off with flirtatious winks and end showing off time travel while also casually showing off your Adam's apple. Yeah, a girl can make deductions. And you're right that this superficial frankness is mirrorred in Master's relation to Lucy - though if anything he's crrepily keen on playing a caring husband, what with the 100% performative hug he gives her while the Toclafane are hacking a journalist up. Though I suppose in his head this is what the Doctor does as well when they comfort their companions. And let's give it to Ten - when he said he's not going to let Martha *checks notes* fry in a small capsule in far space because of a sentient sun, he does bend head over tits and does as promised. But historically it has happened that the Doctor's reassurances were hollow (future, but kind of most painful in Twelve assuring Bill he's going to de-cybermanize her only to later admit yeah not really an option... considering Saxon was there to witness this, I wonder if he marked this in his Notebook (of Rassilon) of Spiting the Doctor).

Ten's handling of the chameleon arch is kind of pathetic, thanks for pointing that out! Like, ok - if the Family gets a whole Time Lord lifetime it is a genuine threat to the universe, but his attitude of oh I'm just going to spend three months as a human in a random timespace, what could possibly go wrong, and anyway, Martha will be there to clean up any mess? is a mess. I do like John Smith's romance with nurse Radfem, though, not in the sense of shipping them, but more of an appreciation of the concept: a classic victorian/edwardian romance, but when you look at it from the persective of a BIPOC servant... it kind of becomes apparent both parties are dickheads. This does tie back to the Master in a way, because I think... want to think... that by the time the Doctor went oh no, we're better than a tyrant maniac that spent a whole year destroying the planet and torturing everyone in the room specifically, so we're not going to execute him, I'm going to put him in my nice spaceship and we'll have nice cuddle movie evenings instead, she was already hardened by the fact that he put her in an (unintentionally) tailor made emotional torture room for three months only to later reveal oh yeah, I could absolutely have handled them all along. Is just higher moral ground, innit?

I guess as all best foils do, the clue lies in the diffrences, though, right? Both Martha and Lucy end up deeply disillusioned with their respective semi-immortal twinks from space, but in one case there is still a disillusioned friendship (Ten's surprised Pikachu face, excellent comparion) and in the other there's only hate - and for good reasons! And where the Doctor grows to really respect Martha (and I wouldn't say he started off dismissive, I mean he is impressed when she tells him oh no mister, a doctor isn't something you just are, you have to earn the title) and is not just saddened but... humbled?... by her leaving, the Master shows up in EoT and is like Hey, my widow, did you miss me, hope you haven't remarried, that would be awkward to explain in the registry office :D!

*sigh* I suppose this is why tensimm is so special to me. It's 20 seasons of foil dynamic condensed into 5 hours. It really shows how thin the difference between the Doctor and the Master is. And how in the right circumstances, including the loss of the handy mirror villain to show how things can go wrong, a madman with a box can turn into an eldritch horror deciding the future of the universe. So, again, thank you so much for poining out yet another excellent parallel!

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Round 1

Propaganda why Charlie Morningstar is insufferable:

"Her entire personality was rewritten to be insufferable. She behaved like an idiot who didn't understand anyone or the problems they had. Her ideas were shit and so were her dramas."

"I know her whole character is naive and innocent. I even liked her at first. But with every rewatch I find her more annoying. She is waaay too naive and doesn't listen to anyone else's concerns like Vaggie's or Lucifer's, instead just believing everyone will listen to her. I might be alone in this, I just hate this archetype of naivety and innocence to this degree."

"She was insufferable in the the Masquerade episode. It infanticided her so much, it ruined any enjoyment I might have had in her. She is supposed to be an adult woman trying to safe sinners meanwhile she acts and is treated like a toddler??"

Propaganda why Bloom Peters is insufferable:

"Look at this image and tell me this looks like winx

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYjRjMjg2MGEtMmQ1Yi00Yjc0LTlkZTItNjQzYjAwNjQ3MGU0XkEyXkFqcGdeQWRvb2xpbmhk._V1_.jpg"

"Bloom (and entire show) is written like the director gave a middle aged conservative man $100 to write what he thought “woke” teens would like."

"God. GOOOOOODDDDD. Netflix's take on Bloom is one of the worst character assassinations I have ever had the misfortune to witness. She has a fuse the size of a hydrogen atom. She gets angry at people when they try to assist her, ranging from accusing a passerby of 'mansplaining' when he tried to help her find her class to YELLING at the person who saved her life from her own out-of-control fire powers. She wanders off to chase a lead on her ~mysterious backstory~ in the middle of a zombie invasion. She did not realize she was adopted when no one in her family has red hair. She treats her roommates (particularly Aisha) and classmates and parents like shit, and ignores their needs constantly (like insisting on having lunch and important discussions in a crowded room with Musa, an empath who can't turn her powers off, and Terra, who has crippling social anxiety). She begs an adult for help and then insults them. She suuuuucks. (Also her parents suck too, but this isn't about them. Fate!Vanessa you and I will fight at midnight about taking away Bloom's door I don't even blame her for accidentally setting you on fire.)"

"Her sins:

1. Main character of one of the worse live action adaptions I’ve ever seen

2. Not like other girls x1000- she likes ✨reading books✨ and ✨going to vintage stores✨ and gets in a fight with her mom about how she doesn’t go to parties and have friends like a ✨basic bitch✨

3. Gets so mad at her mom that she loses control of her powers and nearly kills her parents in a fire

4. A guy told her she was going the wrong way to get to class and she accused him of “mansplaining”

5. Shitty and boring fashion sense, little to no bright colors and not a single glittery top

6. Season one “Transformation” is just a dozen different camera angles of her awkwardly floating with cgi fire around her

7. I didn’t watch season two, but a friend who did told me she develops a savior complex and has an unnecessary amount of make out scenes at random times"

[comicavalcade]

Submariner Summer 34

Ay Namor Nation, this is a big one! #SubmarinerSummer part 34, and we are doing one of THE comics of all time, Tales To Astonish #100: Let There Be Battle! After sharing the title for dozens of issues, we finally get the Astonish crossover of Namor vs. Hulk. Behold the cover!

Stan Lee is scribing this one himself, and lets us know our sense will be shattered. The great Marie Severin on pencils and Adkins on inks, Sam Rosen lettering. Title page has our Prince contemplating Hulk as he falls into a predicament, thinking of making him an ally

Namor recaps his predicament, being banished from his people after being falsely believed a traitor (thanks to Plunderer, and a shitty screen). But since he's matchless in the sea, and Hulk is Strongest One There Is (on land), and they're both outcasts...well, the logic is clear

So off Namor goes to make an ally and make the surface pay. Things go smoothly right away (/s), as the second he surfaces, someone shoots at him. 'Merica. Turns out, old foe the Puppet Master was in the middle of a heist, and now Namor has spoiled it.

This throws Puppet Master into a rage, but he soon stumbles on an idea...since he can't strike at Namor directly, how about using *Hulk* against Namor? So, one radioactive puppet later, Hulk bursts out and is sent to destroy Namor! Namor's plan of alliance is now sunk

From here? Its game on, as Namor and Hulk descend into all out battle on Miami beach. Let me tell you, if you're unfamiliar with Marie Severin, she is absolutely one of the Silver Age great artists. This woman was highly underrated, and this ish a shining example

Excuse me if I gush, but the scenes deftly show the two fighters' power, their figures bold yet fluid with the motion in the panels easy to follow. And there's plenty of motion as Namor seeks to take the battle to the air, then the water, and Hulk accidentally obliges

The oceanic recharge brings Namor careening back; IMPERIUS REX! A quick dip in a pool gives Namor a clear advantage but ends with a Hulk leap.

I'm just giving some highlights of the tussle, btw, there's a LOT of action packed into this 22-pager The military's called in, though they don't actually do anything as the titans clash; love how often Hulk or Namor burst out of the panels in this issue, too powerful to contain

And in one excellent page we get the obligatory moment to remind, Namor has his own code, his own honor, and foreign though it may be at any moment in the midst of destruction he might just come and save any or all of us; that's just how he rolls

Namor finally maneuvers Hulk into the sea, and from there...well, Hulk continually loses ground 😁

Hulk is also getting sick of the voice of the Puppet Master in his head and that isn't helping either, a distraction that isn't even properly feeding his anger

Namor launches a colossal assault using his speed and strength to toss Hulk around helplessly; that's right, mi gente, we have reached the "going in circles for the win" stage of Silver Age fights

And, this also spells doom for Puppet Master, as the giant waves wash his whole hideout away; double L for Puppet Master, double W for Namor, who doesn't even *know* he's defeated Puppet Master along with the Hulk

And yes, the fight is finally over; the last relentless assault has left Hulk washed up, and only Bruce Banner remains, unconscious on the sand. Namor doesn't know from Bruce Banner, though, and so confused he wanders back to the sea. So much for his plans for alliance against the surface

You all might have guess that I love this issue, so I am in no way impartial. But listen, this is peak superhero action. Nay, peak heroic epics: its Herakles vs Triton, Gilgamesh vs Enkidu, Jacob vs the Angel, Krishna vs Chanura. Lee and Severin were both firing on all cylinders

If you agree, feel free to let me know; if you don't, drop a line as well and let me where you think it falls short. We're about to come to a great transition for Namor (and Marvel) so things are about to shift, and I'm interested in where we're all at on Tales to Astonish

But we're not *quite* there yet, although we are at the beginning of something new, so NEXT we cover Tales to Astonish #101: ...And Evil Shall Beckon!

[tragedy-peanut-gallery]

5, 10 and 17 for the ask game!!! i luv ur art <333

Ohmygod thank you!!! You’re so kind thank you for sending some asks 😭💖😭💖

5: A dead female character you need to save

God there’s so many I wanna save but if there’s one I absolutely NEEEEEED to save……. Naerys. This woman needs a permanent break from her shitty life AND martyr complex

10: A quote so good it makes you crazy

“No chance, and no choice” Holy fuck. Oh my god. That quote actually gave me goosebumps when I read it, aged fifteen, in the middle of a science class like. I don’t think I’ve ever reacted that way to any quote since then. Permanently altered my brain chemistry nothing will ever top that

17: Favourite theme

I don’t think I have a favourite favourite, but I do really enjoy the never ending cycle of violence <3 the throne isn’t a prize it’s a death sentence and whoever sits on it dooms themselves and everyone else, doesn’t matter if they’re good or evil the throne consumes you and it only bides its time until war starts again!! And people KILL each other to sit on the death chair!! It’s all fucked!!!

[pclyglct]

(  MAYA HAWKE  |  CIS WOMAN  |  SHE/HER  |  24 )  — — —  it's  just  been  another  long  week  in  boring  -  ass  hawkins.  isn't  that  right,  ROBIN BUCKLEY  ?  shit,  i  guess  they  can't  hear  me  over  PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER  by  PATTI SMITH  playing  through  the  headphones  of  their  walkman.  it  looks  like  they're  gonna  be  late  for  WORK  as  a/at  LIBRARY ASSISTANT AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.  did  you  know  ROBIN  has  been  in  hawkins  for  THEIR WHOLE LIFE  ?  yeah,  their  family  and  friends  describe  them  as  INQUISITIVE,  but  i've  seen  them  be  HYPER  too  !  i  would  also  say  they  remind  me  of  disorganized bookshelf cluttered with knick knacks, chipped black nail polish, daydreaming about faraway places while language tapes blast through headphones around her neck, the unsettling feeling of sticking out despite every effort to blend in, beaten up red converse covered in doodles, but  is  that  weird  ?  i  guess  nothing's  too  weird  for  this  little  town,  huh  ? 

happy to be here! I'll be sticking to canon, but also using the rebel robin podcast to form the bulk of robin's backstory, drive, and character prior to show antics. tl;dr: closeted disaster lesbian who only recently started feeling comfortable in her own skin. loves her friends but desperately wants out of hawkins. just returned from a 3-month trip backpacking across Europe & has started a new job as a library assistant. 

name: robin buckley

age: 24

gender: cis woman (she/her)

hometown: hawkins, indiana

current residence: hawkins, indiana

education level: high school graduate

sexuality: lesbian (has only come out to a handful of people)

positives: inquisitive, authentic, intelligent, kind, easygoing, open-minded

negatives: skeptical, hyper, anxious, sarcastic, avoidant, aimless

house: ravenclaw

alignment: chaotic neutral

pre-canon (rebel robin)

robin's wiki!

born to domesticated hippies Richard and Melissa Buckley. their former lifestyle and permissive parenting meant robin had experimental, open-minded parents who often didn't give her the attention they should have. the disappearance of will byers changed things for a bit, but they struggled to maintain anything that resembled a firm grip or a nuclear household for long, and that was perfectly fine for robin.

domesticated hippies also = poor af. savings were nonexistent when they spent their youth backpacking and staying in hostels or couch surfing. melissa's pregnancy forced the couple to settle, and they used the scraps of money they had to buy a tiny, shitty house not all that unlike or far away from the byers residence.

growing up, robin has always recognized that there was something... different about her. something off. but she was never certain on what exactly it was. when the quirks of her personality brought on some early childhood bullying, she quickly learned that whatever it was, she had to do everything she could to keep it hidden and to stay out of sight.

as she went through school, she mastered the art of social camouflage, fitting herself easily into certain social categories and being just social enough and just distinct enough to be utterly uninteresting to the regular hawkinite. the movie ticket girl. the band geek. during that time, she saw the loss of multiple different friendships for a variety of reason: her childhood friend barbra holland "dropping" her for nancy in middle school, her fellow odd squad members kate and milton dropping her because of shitty boyfriends or new girlfriends. while she later reconciled the latter relationships, the sting of rejection did nothing to help robin's growing sense of unease and the belief that something was wrong with her, that she was the broken one causing everyone to leave her.

she found solace in the adventures her parents talked about experiencing in their youth: the different people they met, the risks they took, the communities they were apart of, the annual christmas party with old hippie friends from all walks of life, impossibly pouring into hawkins and their tiny house, a colorful oasis in the middle of monstrous town. it all sparked an interest in knowing more about the world around her.

her need for camouflage kept her from exploring her curiosity in school and excelling (less she lose her average B student status by being an overachieving teacher's pet), so she instead funneled that need into exploring literature and learning languages. the books exposed her to interesting philosophical and moral dilemmas, points of views, and (later much-needed) representations of life not found in hawkins. the languages made the possibility of exploring those parts of life feel more like a possibility.

operation croissant bloomed from there: a dream to spend a summer backpacking across europe, venturing on a life like her parents did when they were younger, meeting people who are maybe like her. at her core, robin longs for acceptance and community. she wants to exist as herself, fully as herself, with people who know every aspect of her and love her for it. more than that, she wants to be around people like her, to not be the odd one out. she wants to be surrounded by a community who sees people who are different and their first reaction isn't to judge. as her feelings for tammy were realized for the crush that it was (in large part due to the insights gained from her friendship with mr. hauser) and she began to recognize why she was different, her dreams adapted to include wanting to be a pillar for change, to fight back against the Hawkins monster and to somehow make things a little bit better for the people like her who come after her.

her teenage years never saw operation croissant come to fruition, but she somehow stumbled upon a tiny community with reformed douchebags and prisses and a gaggle of children and she's never been happier (or more traumatized, but alas, a worthy trade off to her).

post-canon

following the defeat of vecna, robin continued to work at family video.

she came out to her parents not long after - their reaction was probably the best she could have hoped for from them: they accepted it in their eccentric way of theirs, regaling her with stories of other lgbtqia+ friends they've met in passing (along with uncomfortable tmi stories of their own sexual explorations from their youth). the whole thing has brought the buckley family a bit closer together, as her parents have made more of an effort to be present and invested in her life in a long-term way.

she's chosen to stay at home partially for this reason, but also because she's too broke to get her own place, and partially still resistant to the idea of investing money in roots in hawkins.

with the money she saved, advice from her parents, and a full year of planning, she finally made operation croissant a reality. she spent the first three months of this year in europe, and it was a lot. amazing and overstimulating and eye-opening and terrifying and beautiful and ugly and bustling and lonely and affirming and a lot. she was relieved to return to the warmth of her loved ones when her trip concluded, but also both comforted and left-wanting in a way she'd never experienced before.

and thus, her dilemma.

she loves her community, can't even imagine a life without her friends, or picture how she can find anyone who'd understand her the way her people do in hawkins. but the idea of being stuck in hawkins and becoming a Hawkinslifer itches at her skin in a way she can't help, can't soothe, can't stop.

she doesn't actually know what to do to solve this problem, so she doesn't really voice it (a rarity), especially now that weird shit is maybe staring up again so leaving is not even an option to consider. but in the back of her mind, operation new york has started sprouting just the tiniest of bit.

anyways, she's always been kind of aimless, unsure of what she wants to do with life since she can't picture an actual future in hawkins. but, after returning from europe at the start of april, she decided a good first step would be to do something that actually interested her for work, so she left family video to take on a job as a library assistant at the public library.

misc/headcanons

prior to working at scoops ahoy, robin worked at the hawkins theater (season 1 timeline). she was fired when she accidently melted a movie.

has maintained a good relationship with her former english teacher mr. hauser since graduation. he was the first person she came out to, and she has always valued his caring presence in her life as an older gay. his gift of a russian-version of anna karenina is the most worn book on her bookshelf (frankenstein remains her favorite though).

she's picked up a few more languages since her high school years. she's fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Pig Latin, Russian, Portuguese, and Dutch. She's currently trying to learn ASL, but her hand coordination is fucked so it's a slow go.

[enzohuang]

i have no excuse but love me still thank you

[ lewis tan, cis male, he/him ] - was that ENZO HUANG i saw by the lighthouse today? i heard that the THIRTY-EIGHT year old who has been in nightrest for TWENTY-THREE YEARS and works as a DRUG DEALER & MECHANIC AT MIKE’S AUTO SERVICE has a reputation of being SPIRITED, but also VOLATILE. they reside in FOG GATES & people in town usually associate them with MELANCHOLY FEELING OF WALKING AROUND LATE AT NIGHT, PLAYING WITH FIRE & BLACK LEATHER JACKETS. let’s hope the killer doesn’t go after them next.

trigger warnings: parental death, bank robbery, murder, drugs, violence 

BASICS

full name: enzo huang

nickname: enz

date of birth: january 18, 1985 

gender: cis man

pronouns: he/him

occupation: drug dealer & mechanic

birthplace: new york, new york (the bronx specifically) 

sexuality: heterosexual 

height: 6′3″

BACKGROUND

enzo huang had a really good childhood. for about 5-12 years (depending on how old his younger sister will be, which will be a wc sent to the main!!), he was the sole child of christine & tai huang. he was extremely spoiled because whatever he wanted, he got

he was a happy and social kid, always surrounded by friends, always eager to play but also pretty attentive to his surroundings because that’s how he was raised. he was born and raised in the bronx so he’s definitely got his guard up from a young age, and he’s learned to be friendly to a lot of people but not trust many

he liked running a lot, and by the time he was in middle school, he was part of the track team, with a promising future in marathon and shot put

at the age of 15 though, his entire life changed when his parents left to go to the bank and never came back. it was a bank robbery that unfortunately had casualties, both his parents included. it made national news because the people suspected to have been involved had been on fbi’s most wanted list for years 

enzo’s entire life changed that day. because he and his sister were still underage, they were shipped off to their closest living relative, catherine graves, a woman who lived in salem but moved to nightrest when she was given the opportunity to become a news anchor 

enzo was definitely NOT impressed when he came to nightrest. it was a shitty town in the middle of nowhere. the only thing he liked was when it was summer time, and tourists flocked towards the beaches. 

as someone who was so used to the hustle and bustle of new york city, the sleepiness and quaintness of the town was foreign to him

catherine was nice to him and his sister, but she was married to her job and her job alone. always chasing after the next story. always wanting to be the first on the scene. she cared for them, but wasn’t exactly caring, wasn’t particularly present

this gave enzo the opportunity to do whatever he wanted tbh

started hanging out with the “bad crowd” because he had so much anger in him that he needed an outlet. sex, drugs, alcohol, you name it 

didn’t go to college, but immediately started working so he could save up because he wanted to travel and eventually, he was able to. 

when his sister was old enough to be left alone, he made his way back to new york for a few years because he couldn’t shake the feeling that that was his true home. 

also spent some time traveling to other cities but he always came back to nightrest, mostly to see how his sister was doing

eventually came to stay when someone he spent his last few years of high school with offered him a job as security at first for a night club in salem, which turned into him being roped into the business, eventually becoming a drug dealer for nightrest, for a gang situated in salem proper 

he’s moved up the ranks since then, but still deals drugs, mostly to the douchey people in the yacht club. it was laughable how easily he could ruin the reputations of these clean cut men with their perfect, little house wives if he chose to but he knew when to keep his mouth shut

to keep curious eyes away, he also got a job as a mechanic because he had always been pretty good with his hands 

he was settling into the life in nightrest (even though he still spent most of his weekends at salem) when his aunt decided to date this guy that enzo immediately disliked. there was just something absolutely off about this guy and it was like his aunt chose not to see it 

he figured it was just a mid-life crisis on his aunt’s part, but three years ago, he took a life for the first and only time solely because of self-defense

enzo came to sunday dinner to see his aunt with a gun to her head, after a particularly nasty fight with her boyfriend

one thing led to another, enzo got a hold of the gun and his aunt’s boyfriend died 

it was self-defense but given the fact that he already had a record by then, the court denied that it was justifiable homicide and sentenced him to five years

he got out after two and a half years because of good behavior 

he’s been out officially for about seven months now and is still rebuilding his life. got his job at mike’s auto service back and still went back to the gang that he was with

still deals drugs and is just a lot meaner now

PERSONALITY TRAITS

+ spirited, protective, resourceful

- volatile, resentful, disinterested

FUN FACTS

very much a coffee person. hates tea with so much passion

has very restless hands

usually seen smoking tbh (cigs & spliffs, he smokes them all) 

will literally kill for his younger sister and didn’t think he had it in him to kill for his aunt, but he did it anyway

in another life, he could have been a track star or a rockstar like music is very important to him and he likes to play his guitar (but none of that acoustic stuff thank you) 

definitely got some anger issues tbh 

is a dickhead i’m sorry in advance 

really doesn’t like it when people try to get in his business 

hates rich people unless he can play them like a fiddle for their money

doesn’t really care if you’re in a relationship or even if you’re married. if you’re down, so is he

hard pass on having kids like that life is not for him tbh 

goes running a lot

WANTED PLOTS

his younger sister (to be sent to the main!)

ride or die

more friends because he needs them

exes that ended on bad terms 

exes that ended on good terms

that one ex he was seeing before he got locked up 

people he met while he was traveling

new york buddies (possibly childhood friends?) 

ex-friends

good influence

flirtationship

family friends

opposites attract kind of friendship/relationship maybe!!

someone he’s actively a bad influence on (who actually likes that)

enemies

clients (both as a drug dealer and as a mechanic)

friends who won’t hesitate to call him out on his shit 

a forced blind date that ended in disaster

i’m more than willing to plot all the things !!!!!

[endoliithic]

@forwardintros​ || Look who it is! If you take a look at our database, you’ll find that KAYLA BERNARD is a thirty-two year old VAGRANT/GEOLOGIST that’s been in Chicago for 9 YEARS. According to the file, they’re a mutant on LEVEL 3 with the powers of MINERAL MANIPULATION. That must be why they’re DETAIL-ORIENTED and UNYIELDING. If you ask me, they remind me of caves full of glittering minerals, wicked knives with hand-made handles, and a tidy little hearth in the middle of the wilderness. They are affiliated with THE KAPPA RUNAWAYS.

under the cut: basic info, appearance details, personality traits, personal history tw for: death (in childbirth), child abuse, fratricide, eye injury

BASIC INFO:

NAME: kayla bernard NICKNAMES: kay / k, chomper (kappa guards) AGE: thirty three BIRTHDATE:  nov. 7, 1989 GENDER: cis woman PRONOUNS: she / her SEXUALITY: bisexual with a strong preference for women SPECIES: mutant AFFILIATION: herself, the kappa runaways

APPEARANCE:

HEIGHT: 5’0” / 152cm BUILD: fat and strong HAIR COLOR: medium brown EYE COLOR: brown ETHNICITY: white NATIONALITY: us american TATTOOS: a phoenix that takes up the entirety of her upper left arm, rendered in scorching reds and glowing oranges that leap from her skin like the flames surrounding the bird; four knives in dripping, bloody detail and the outline of a fifth identical one grouped together in a row on the inside of her right wrist PIERCINGS: both earlobes, a few cartilage piercings SCARS: a pale shimmery web of scars around her right eye, intersecting her eyebrow and stretching down her cheek, barely visible except in bright sunlight; a thin, white line through the left side of her bottom lip; a stab wound between the ribs of her left side, too low to have gotten to her in the heart, unfortunately for the bastard that stabbed her OTHER: missing her right eye but wears a glass one, usually with some sort of inhuman color

PERSONALITY:

ALIGNMENT: neutral (evil) ZODIAC: sun: scorpio, moon: capricorn, rising: scorpio TRAITS: passionate, loyal, tenacious, intense, perceptive, quick-tempered, calculating, sadistic, vengeful

HISTORY:

     kayla grew up in seattle, washington, the middle child and only girl in the family. her dad was a shitty guy — first military, then private security, always a jackboot. her mother died in childbirth when kayla was only three, too young to understand anything but that the new baby had somehow taken her mother from her. her older brother, thomas, took care of her as best as he could — even saving her life by the grace of his mutation at one point — and she adored him for it. eventually though, he left for university. his exit was hasty, truth be told — he knew he was doomed if he didn’t get out of his father’s house. thomas despaired to leave his younger siblings behind, but to stay would doom the three of them. or so he thought. he could not have known that none of them would escape unscathed.

     when their father made the switch from military to private security (during which he moved them across the country to new york city) he seemed to abandon the last of his few remaining scruples. he pulled kayla and her little brother benjamin out of school and started training them in martial arts and other forms of combat. the two children were pitted against one another in everything, with unbearably high stakes. hatred took root between them and grew, made ever more bitter by the fact that their father favored kayla for her mutation — which manifested shortly after the move — while benjamin remained disappointingly human. he made up for this with cunning and viciousness the full depths of which kayla had no idea until it was far too late. 

     at eighteen she started working for her father’s company. never one for the sort of coddling required for nepotism, her father made sure she started at the very bottom of the ranks. but she was a furious little beast, ill-content to take orders from men she knew she could easily kill without needing to lift a finger. she clawed her way up through the ranks, causing quite a stir along the way. 

     at some point she met the man who would become her first boyfriend. their first meeting was on the training floor, where she bested him in under 10 seconds. initially, he basked in her brilliance, and they began to date. but as time passed his admiration soured into envy — two years and still he struggled to win a fight against her, and his fragile ego ached under the strain. benjamin, also working for their father now, saw his discontent and was quick to take advantage.

     his trap was well and cruelly laid. it was the night of a dinner celebrating kayla’s latest promotion, and everything fell into place beautifully. thomas was the unfortunate bait — benjamin had the fantastically cruel idea of framing his sister for murder by forcing her to commit it. and who better to play the role of victim than the brother she dared to love more than him? his plan went perfectly, right up until the very end. kayla did in fact deal the killing blow to her older brother, but she didn’t stop at one brother that day. when benjamin marched in, leading their father, her boyfriend ( of all people! ), and a small army of private security and police officers she knew what he had done and she was furious — mad with rage and unwilling to take the time to cross the room to strike him, she lashed out with her mutation. but her control was compromised, and while she succeeded in killing him ( she watched with satisfaction as he crumpled to the ground ) when her boyfriend stepped forward with the first wave of officers she lost the last of her control. her uncontrolled abilities wounded several guards and destroyed her own right eye, but with some good fortune, one of the tranquilizers fired off in the chaos had found its mark in her left arm, and she lost consciousness quickly. 

     having killed not one, but two men in the span of five minutes, both in front of an audience, kayla’s trial was a very, very quick affair. her father, ever shrewd, never affectionate, denounced her furiously and publicly, going so far as to testify against her. his testimony swayed the jury against her, but it was that of her now ex-boyfriend that truly damned her. he had handed over her things in cooperation with the courts, but not before tampering with them, planting documents and emails and phone records that implicated her in a grandiose plot to kill both her brothers — which she had in fact accomplished. though his partner in crime lay cold and lifeless in the ground, the traitorous wretch stuck to their story, sure that if he simply got her put away for life, he would be safe. and to prison she went, though not for very long. 

     kayla was literally the opposite of a model inmate. within her first five months behind bars she started ten fights, injured five guards, and killed two other inmates. it was at this point that the warden contacted AMMO, requesting that they take her off his hands as they were “better equipped for her particular variety of bullshit” as he so colorfully put it in his letter. AMMO accepted custody of her eagerly, keen to see the lengths to which they could push her particular variety of bullshit. 

    the next nine years of her life were spent at the kappa facility — day to day life was quite literally torture, but it could not be honestly said that kayla didn’t give them their fair share of hell while she was there. the warden had neglected to mention just how all those guards had been injured — she had a penchant for biting. after she took someone’s finger off, they started muzzling her. even kappa inmates who had never met her probably heard a guard mention “chomper” at least once during those nine years — that was her. 

     kayla escaped the kappa facility with the first round of escapees and almost didn’t look back. as desperate as she was to put as much distance as possible between her and kappa, some of her fellow escapees would need someone like her. so she stayed in the greater chicago area, at least. 

      instead of joining the other escapees in the warehouse, kayla makes her home in the forests outside chicago. the warehouse, though large and mostly empty, feels suffocating. it’s hard to breathe within its walls, or any walls for that matter. she ventures into the city from time to time, and stays in touch with the other escapees in case they need her, but largely she keeps to herself — roaming the forest, moving from campsite to campsite to avoid being found. when she has the time and inclination, she looks for information about her ex, who it seems has gone underground since word got out that she’d escaped. 

[fyodior]

hello all !!! in my attempt to raise money and awareness for the genocide occurring in palestine, i will be participating in @ficsforgaza's “sponsor a WIP” event - where you donate to a reputable Palestinian fundraiser, and i post one of my current WIPs in return!

how it works:

$1 (USD) = 100 words. below are my current wip's with approximate word counts; you send me a screenshot of your donation to a vetted gaza fundraiser (list found here) and based on how much you donated, i'll write that amount on the wip of your choosing! your asks will NOT be published and all information will be kept private. reminder that minors are NOT allowed to interact with me, so unfortunately even if you donate, i will not write for you if you do not have a visible age on your blog. (i more than encourage you to donate or reach out to other creators, that's unfortunately just a boundary of mine.) reach out to me with any questions you have!!

i will regularly update this post with word counts as they change, as well as cw's if anything new arises!

WIPs below!! beware of dark content! (any and all hate towards dc will not be acknowledged and instead promptly blocked - keep it to yourself <3)

fics

tidal temptations (ch. 2) ✧ merman!fyodor dostoevsky x reader ✧ after stumbling upon an injured merman in chapter 1, you can't stop thinking about him. will he ever show up again? ✧ tentative cw: brief nsfw (fingering) ✧ word count goal: 4,000 ✧ sponsored words: 4,000/4,000🎉🎉 ✧ progress: 0/4,000

i can see you (tentative title) ✧ prince!fyodor x princess!reader ✧ against your will as a fiercely independent young woman, you've been arrange to marry a man from a far away kingdom, dragging you away from your friends, family, and everyone you've ever known. will the forced proximity turn to what you assume will be resentment, or will something different happen? more info here ✧ tentative cw: nsfw ✧ word count goal: 4,000 ✧ sponsored words: 1,500/4,000 ✧ progress: 1,000/4,000

smutty one shots

pegging with toji fushiguro ✧ toji x gn!reader (can be read as reader having strap or dick) ✧ you've always wanted to top, and toji has always been a little curious about getting fucked... ✧ cw: anal sex, bottom!toji, top!reader, oral (m receiving), etc ✧ tentative wc: 1,500 ✧ sponsored words: 1,500/1,500🎉🎉 ✧ progress: 0/1,500

pegging with son!fyodor (VERY DARK CONTENT!) ✧ son!fyodor x mother!reader ✧ "plot" pending. unsure where to go other than knowing i want reader fucking fyodor ✧ cw: BLOODCEST - mother and son (fyodor is an adult), anal sex, top!reader, bottom!fyodor, oral, etc ✧ tentative wc: 1,500 ✧ sponsored words: 0/1,500 ✧ progress: 0/1,500

baby trapping with rin itoshi ✧ rin itoshi x afab!reader ✧ after star striker rin itoshi gets into some hot water in the press after punching an opponent during a match, something needs to happen to save his image. the perfect thing? a pregnant girlfriend! ✧ cw: nsfw; dubcon/coercion, shitty rin, vaginal sex, creampies, more to come ✧ tentative wc: 2,000 ✧ sponsored words: 2,000/2,000 🎉🎉 ✧ progress: 100/2,000

age gap with shigure soma ✧ shigure soma x afab!reader ✧ unbeknownst to you, your boyfriend kyo's older cousin has always had his eye on a pretty young thing like you. when you venture to the kitchen in the middle of the night during a sleepover at his house, shigure finally gets his hands on what he's so desperately been wanting. ✧ cw: nsfw; age gap (reader early 20's, shigure mid 30's), dubcon/coercion, risky sex (kyo asleep upstairs), vaginal sex, oral (m receiving), etc. ✧ tentative wc: 2,000 ✧ sponsored words: 0/2,000 ✧ progress: 100/2,000

[elsannasecretsanta]

gift for asksillysisters

It was December, and that meant it was cold. Very cold. Elsa, naturally, loved this. She was thriving.

It was a Friday, and that meant it was date night, and she and Anna would be celebrating Christmas together - dinner, visiting their parents’ graves, opening each other’s presents, drinking tons of wine, and watching shitty but cute Hallmark Christmas movies.

“Come onnnnn, Elsa!” Anna yelled from downstairs, losing her patience by the minute. She was already dressed up in her formal suit attire - always one to go out with perfect fashion sense.

Elsa, on the other hand, struggled to even wear clothes most days. This time, she wanted to impress Anna, so she searched her closet deeply, every inch and corner, to find the perfect dress.

She had already done her makeup in the way Anna had showed her. Anna was always more elegant and girlish than the blonde, so there were many feminine things Anna had shown her in her adult age.

“A-ha!” Elsa exclaimed as she found the perfect dress and held it up to the light.

It was a light, solid blue, with lace shoulders that extended all the way to her wrists. It had an open back, and extended past her knees. She threw it on wickedly fast, and she was surprised by how comfortable it was. She didn’t think she had ever worn this dress, and was definitely sure Anna had never seen it.

She put her hair in a braid as quick as lightning, and was ready to go.

“Elsa!” Anna yelled as soon as she left their bedroom. “Finally.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine; I’m just very excited. You know how I love Christmas.”

As Elsa stepped into the light from the dark hallway, Anna gasped.

“Woah! Elsa! Damn you look hot. You look amazing, what the fuck?! How long have you had this dress?”

Elsa blushed and withdrew into herself. She felt like a middle school girl when it came to Anna - who was so genuine, so willing to compliment, so careful and gentle with her love. Elsa felt that Anna deserved better than anything she’d be able to provide; she’d be lucky to give half of what Anna gave to her.

“I thought you would like it,” Elsa said quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“I love it!”

***

Their reservation was a really nice place in the heart of downtown Chicago. It was called ‘The Palm’, a new place they were trying out. They tried to go to a new upscale restaurant for Christmas. This would be their third Christmas together - as a couple; not including their Christmases while they were growing up.

They were served quickly and Elsa ordered their most expensive wine. She allowed herself this one treat, every year, saving up all year for this one special occasion.

“Oh, yes, Elsa the sommelier,” Anna remarked, trying her best to pronounce the French word.

“It’s just right for the occasion.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t!” Anna joked, and gave Elsa her best smile. Her teeth were white and perfect, something Elsa always envied about her. “Honestly, we should get fucked up tonight, like old times.”

Elsa reminisced on their Christmases together in high school and college. Many years they went to Christmas parties, and many years they hosted their own parties. Every year, they would get blacked out, cross-faded, or something along those lines, ending up doing crazy shit together in the middle of the night with their friends. They probably weren’t the best friends on Earth - maybe people they shouldn’t have even hung out with - but the memories they all made together were cherished in Elsa’s middle-aged mind.

“Perhaps,” Elsa replied, teasingly. “What’s in it for me, though?”

“Um, you get to be drunk with the sexiest woman on the planet?”

Elsa turned away quickly, her smile lingering, and she pretended to look around. “Oh? Is she here tonight? Where is she?”

“Oh, please. You’re luckier than you’ve ever comprehended.”

Elsa turned back to look at the redhead, extending her hands out, which Anna graciously accepted with her own. “Oh, Anna. I love you. I know I’m the luckiest person ever every single day. But I don’t think my intestines can handle the way we once partied anymore.”

“You chicken. Kidding! Of course. I love you too, Els.”

***

After their dinner, they visited their parents’ graves, as per tradition. Elsa knew that other people found it sad that they did this on Christmas, but to her, it was a way of including her parents in their celebration of Christmas. It was nice, not depressing.

Their parents were buried together in a cemetery outside of the city, where it was peaceful and quiet.

“Ol’ Aggy and Iduna!” Anna exclaimed. “Merry Christmas!”

She laid down the roses they had bought for them on top of their graves.

“Don’t say ‘Aggy’, Anna.”

“I don’t hear him complaining about it.”

Elsa huffed but didn’t respond. She stood there in silence as she thought to herself. She missed them, of course, but mostly she wondered where they were, or if they were looking down upon the girls now, as she often wondered. What would they think? What would they say?

She knew that they had always wanted them to be successful and live their lives to the fullest - not to incessantly wonder about them. It was hard, though. She loved them very much.

“Okay,” Elsa said finally, and she looped her arm through Anna’s, who escorted her towards the gazebo. They always walked the trails of the cemetery, taking in new things each time they visited.

The gazebo was lit with fairy lights, which Elsa remarked in her mind, because she couldn’t remember exactly if they were there before, or if she forgot about them. She looked out over the field. Oak trees were large and demanding of attention, and the graves were all surrounded by grasses, moss, and trees. It was really a beautiful sight to behold.

“Elsa,” Anna said softly.

“Yes?” Elsa said, turning around - only to find Anna kneeling with one knee on the floor. “What are you doing?”

Anna looked up expectantly at her, a huge smile on her face. “Elsa, my wonderful sister, my beautiful partner, my one-and-only, moon of my life. Will you marry me?”

Elsa started laughing, but ceased when she saw the expression on Anna’s face. “What? Are you serious?”

“Yes! Why wouldn’t I be, Els?”

“Annnnaaa. You know we can’t get married.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’re sisters.”

“So?”

“So… that’s not in the cards for us.”

“It could be. You always play so carefully by the rules. You listen to what everyone tells you about what you can and can’t do. Why can’t we be married? I love you, Elsa. I love you more than words can say. I love you more than any love song has ever tried to convey. I couldn’t imagine a life without you, and I want you to be by my side every step of the way. We can’t be legally married, sure. But you could still be my wife, however that works, whatever way we want it to be. Besides, how could I not propose to you with that dress on? Please say ‘yes’; my leg is getting tired.”

“Anna, in what universe would I say ‘no’ to you?”

“Hopefully not this one!”

“Yes, Anna, yes, I will marry you, whatever way it is or will be. I love you; I’ll always love you, for all of my days.” Elsa started tearing up, while Anna was sobbing as she jumped up and put her entire body around Elsa, and with great strength, lifted her up and spun her around.

They both devolved completely into tears and laughter, and kissed each other long and hard, passionately yet gentle.

***

A few hours after they had gotten home, watched a shitty Hallmark Christmas movie, and blasted themselves with wine, they were exchanging gifts between them.

Some gifts were from friends and other family, but for the most part, they were gifts to each other.

Of course, the biggest gift this year was the engagement ring. It was golden, with an emerald in the middle, adjourned with amethysts running along the band, twisting about with a golden vine that protruded out of the gold and back into itself at the other end.

“I love this ring,” Elsa said suddenly, in her wine-drunk stupor. “It’s perfect.”

“Yeah, I have pretty good taste, huh?”

“I want to get you one. You deserve one, too.”

“Surprise me, then.”

Soon they were climbing into bed (at ten P.M. like the old people they were), cuddling and stealing a few kisses from each other.

Anna broke the silence, quietly. “How great was this Christmas, Els?” she whispered.

“Amazing. Best one yet. It’s going to be difficult to outdo this one in the future.”

“Yet in the future Christmases, you’ll be my wife. That’s pretty awesome.”

“Yeah. It is. I love you so much, Anna.”

“I love you, too, Elsa.”

[gas-stxtion-a]

@rejectshumanity said: ♡ ♢ ☼ for the munday meme!

(what is this? an interrogation? come back with a warrant - open)

//hehe thank you <3 i'll put these under the cut b/c i never fucking shut up lmao

♡ What are your top five favorite things about yourself?

//how daaaare you make me be nice to myselffffff

no jokes aside <3 anyway.

i like that i'm generally a nice person! i think that it's important to be kind when you can, because there's enough darkness in the world. why not be kind when you have the chance?

... on another note, though, i'm really happy that i'm getting better at standing up for myself and handling conflict. because being kind is important, but sometimes you gotta be a bitch and that's life! i was rereading something i sent a friend years ago regarding a conflict i was having at the time, and i was astounded by it lmao like... oh my god. my dude. you have very good reasons to be upset and it's okay to say "i'm mad at this person" without adding a million disclaimers that it's probably not their fault!!

i genuinely think i'm *so* fucking funny, and for better or worse, you will certainly hear my jokes.

i'm a good listener. when people are having a hard time and need someone to talk to, i'm good at like... just offering a listening ear. i may not always have advice but i can generally listen and chat and help someone talk through it if that's what they need.

i don't like to judge people unless they give me very, very good reason to, especially if i don't know them. i try to assume ignorance more than i'll assume malice, though i'm also trying to get better at recognizing when the line between those can get a bit blurred haha.

♢ What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?

//gimme that salted caramel <333 though honestly a long-time favorite is like. anything with cherries. that's the good shit.

☼ Who are your top five favorite fictional characters?

//CRACKS KNUCKLES.

okay for the sake of not going on forever, i'll just list five characters that aren't muses of mine (at least not on this blog). because we all know mr jack townsend is number one but like. others deserve a shot. for fun, i'll also explain myself a bit :3c

dr. robert langdon - the da vinci code (and other dan brown books)

i was obsessed with these books a completely normal amount as a middle schooler (lying). something about this like... charming middle-aged professor who keeps finding himself in the middle of massive conspiracies usually related in some way to religion and frequently having his life put in danger? and saves the day by being a fucking nerd? what a dude!

arthur morgan - red dead redemption 2

if you were there for my rdr2 fixation (which most of you definitely weren't lmao) then uhhh yeah <3 genuinely i had a huge crush on this character and was so obsessed with him for so long. the yearning was out of control, folks. i do still have a lot of fondness for him, but tbh some not-so-fun interactions in the fandom really put me off of the whole series for a while. he still means a lot to me though!

rhys - tales from the borderlands

would it be exaggerating to say that rhys tftbl is the reason i'm trans? probably. but y'know something about him really resonated with me at a time when i was really going through some gender fuckery and trying to figure myself out. idk what it says about me that that shitty little twink helped me figure myself out a bit, but anyway.

evelyn mckinnon - accounts from a lonely broadcast station

had to list at least one woman lmao- but yeah i really love evelyn. she's such an incredibly written character and every time i reread (or. rather. re-listen to) the series i actually get a little choked up because her narrative is so *fascinating* and well-done to me. like wow we love a tragic cringefail woman who has to face her own mistakes and become better, not just for her own sake but for others'!!! and face the fact that her fuck-ups hurt more than just herself!!!

evelyn is one of the many characters i'm considering for the horror multimuse i talk about sometimes. and maybe i'll even let her stay a cis woman- i'm kidding ASDFJKL; but like. fr. we'll see.

charlie kelly - it's always sunny in philadelphia

honorable mention for the trashiest man i'm currently thinking about lmao- so i started watching iasip because i wanted to see the insanity for myself and. wow all of these characters are terrible. but god it's so fun to see them in action. and charlie is by far my favorite. he's illiterate. he drinks paint. he eats cat food for fun. he's an artist. he makes a living beating rats to death with a stick. he's a wet paper bag of a man. he's very deeply traumatized and doesn't realize it.

he's the perfect man.

[maddiwrites]

The Hybrid (Prologue)

Pairing: JJ x Reader

Summary: The Pogues rekindle their friendship with their old childhood best friend and JJ’s first crush, Y/N. Old feelings resurface for JJ and Y/N, possibly leading to a summer neither one of them could ever forget. Due to past trauma, Y/N is reluctant to let anyone into her heart, but JJ never backs down from a challenge, even if he knows it will come back to haunt him in the end.

Note: So happy to be back with another series!!! I honestly really missed posting. Unlike Secrets of the Shore, updates will be slower because I don’t have them all written out yet. A couple things I wanted to let you know before you read. I based Y/N’s family off of Gilmore Girls. I thought they were the perfect fit for this story and the show in general and I just love their dynamic. (Including Luke who I renamed Steve for obvious reasons). Chapter 1 will explain more obviously but I wanted to give you guys a little snippet of the characters and relationships. So let me know what y'all think!

Word Count: 3.3k

Outer Banks. Paradise on Earth. It's the sort of place where you either have two jobs or two houses. Two tribes, one island. As you know, the Outer Banks is essentially divided into two groups. If we want to be blunt - it’s the rich and the poor. Figure Eight is home to the rich. Aka the Kooks. With houses bigger than necessary with extra rooms that go untouched, boats the size of homes on the Cut - the other side of the island. Most people who live on Figure Eight are your naturally raised assholes. People who don’t know the value of a dollar and take advantage of people who do most of their dirty work that lets them prance around the island with perfectly manicured fingernails. These hard workers are the Pogues. They live on the south side of the island where most Kooks wouldn’t be found dead. They serve fancy meals at the country club for shitty tips, mow lawns, and work their asses off at any other job for minimum wage. The drastic difference in lifestyles tend to cause many spats and arguments between the two communities. Especially between the teenagers who still don’t know how to control their raging emotions or know when to bite back their tongue. For the Kooks, every fight is a fight for dominance where as the Pogues fight for equality - to put the Kooks in their place. Many of these fights happen at summer parties where the two groups clash to find a good time with their friends filled with alcohol, drugs, and good music.

That’s where they find themselves tonight. The infamous Pogues. John B, JJ, Kie, Pope, and now Sarah Cameron. Although born a natural Kook, she’s earned her spot next to the adventurous teens and her boyfriend. Unlike her brother Rafe who basically is the leader of his notorious group. Topper and Kelce are his best friends who follow him blindly.

The Pogues watch them from their spot surrounding the keg. Kie purses her lips in distaste as the boys cat call for the ladies around them. Somehow most of them finding it flattering. Sarah sips on her beer to hide her embarrassment, often wondering how she and her brother grew up to be so different. Pope and John B stay mostly disinterested, only worried if they try to make a pass at an unwilling girl or fire a degrading comment at their short tempered friend. JJ Maybank is known around the island for his trouble making behavior. Usually if he gets in trouble for fights, no one ever asks who the other people were in the scuffle. Because if JJ Maybank is in the fight, he’s the one who started it, right? Wrong. In fact, JJ usually is never the one to start it. He’s good at keeping his head down and only speaking when spoken to when it comes to the Kooks - the only form of advice worth taking from his father. But his short temper is something the Kooks his age loved to take advantage of because they liked getting a rise out of him. It was like an adrenaline rush.

Luckily, tonight both groups were keeping their distance, either only talking to each other or random Tourons that have found their way to the party. This is usually JJ’s favorite part of a boneyard party. Finding his one fish in a sea of many that he can reel in just for the night and never have to worry about seeing them again.

He has his eyes set on a beautiful blonde making her way to the bonfire when all of a sudden Kie’s voice pulls him out of his trance.

“What’s she doing here?”

JJ follows her line of vision, spotting you walking down the wooden steps that lead to the beach, pulling your best friend behind you by his wrist. He first notices your smile and how it brightens up your entire face. Then of course his eyes scan down your slim but athletically toned body. You’re wearing a pair of jean shorts and a cropped white T shirt that says UNC across the chest. Who knew someone could look so good without even trying?

Well JJ did. He’s known it for a while.

“Careful. I think you’re drooling,” John B whispers in his best friend’s ear.

JJ pushes him away and mutters, “Shut up. No I’m not.”

But maybe he was.

Y/N Y/L/N is a unique resident of the island. Unlike majority of the island, she doesn’t fall in either Kook or Pogue category. She’s what everyone calls the Hybrid.

People who work hard for what they have but haven’t fallen to be Pogue status. Quite literally living in the middle in a place they call the Crest.

Your story is well versed among the gossipers of the island (which tends to be just about everybody).  And mainly that’s because of who your grandparents are.  Claude and Doris Y/L/N. Two of the riches people on the island, living in a three story house on the beach. Many people fear them, others envy them. Most feel both. Even Ward Cameron walks on egg shells around them, which is quite often, considering he works for Claude. They’re the kind of people who have never heard of Barefoot wine or Walmart. They keep their noses up and turn a blind eye to the suffering communities around them. Thirty four years ago, Doris gave birth to a daughter that couldn’t be more opposite than them. Lorelai Y/L/N was a wild child. A rule breaker. She snuck out at nights, dated boys her parents would never approve of, dabbled in breaking the law here and there. It didn’t matter how many times her parents disciplined her. She always managed to make her parents’ life a living hell. 

No one was surprised when word got passed around that Lorelai had gotten pregnant at eighteen. Although it was with another Kook, she brought shame upon her family name when she refused to get an abortion, even when her mom tried dragging her by her hair. 

Lorelai risked everything by running away from her parents’ home in the middle of a windy night. With only one suitcase, the baby daddy out of the picture, and less than a grand in her pocket, she managed to make a life for herself on the South side of the island. She worked two jobs, found an affordable apartment for cheap rent, and managed to save some money before her babies were born.

Yes, babies. As in more than one. Five months after running away from home, she gave birth to twin girls and they instantly became her entire life. With the help of her best friend Steve, who she met one month after being on her own, meeting him at his automotive shop when she very much literally rolled her junky car into the garage, she raised you and your sister on the Cut. The two of you are her greatest accomplishment. Every now and then, she mentally throws up a middle finger to everybody who doubted her, proud of who the two of you have become. 

Right before you turned ten, your mom took a business risk and opened her own Cafe. The Bikini Beans cafe, very popular amongst both Kooks and Pogues. The business did so well that she was able to move the three of you out of your shitty apartment into a beautiful one story home with three bedrooms in between the Cut and Figure Eight, aka the Crest, the summer going into your freshman year.

You actually used to be best friends with John B Routledge, JJ Maybank, and Pope Heyward. It was easier being friends with them than the girls, finding more joy in sports and rough housing than makeup and gossip. 

Doing the same summer that you moved, your mom pulled you out of Kildare County High and placed you in Outer Banks Private Academy. Aka Kook Academy. Around this time, your grandparents had also become more involved in your life, and you wondered if they had somehow bribed your mom into forcing you to transfer schools. You tried asking her during one of your many fights that started with you begging her to keep you at Kildare County High, but she quickly shut you down and told you to be grateful. That was ironic coming from the woman who ran away from the people giving her an expensive high school career. 

You had no choice but to do what your grandparents wanted and attend Kook Academy. Making friends was a lot harder there than it was in Kildare County High. You managed to make one friend in your freshman year. Andre Cortez. Due to an incident a couple years back, you built thick walls and Andre was the only one able to break them down. You were grateful for your friendship, but hanging out with him was nothing like hanging out with the Pogues. 

When you transferred schools, you lost touch with the Pogues slowly. Your life became busy with school and playing dress up for your grandparents and the boys were starting to work. Eventually all contact was cut and ever since, you’ve felt a void in your heart.

“Look,” You tell Andre. “I told you I would be your wing woman and I’m not backing down from what could possibly be the most important role in my life.”

You didn’t notice the Pogues or any of the stares around you. It’s true you’re not much of a party girl. I mean, you’ll go out here and there, have a drink or two, but you felt more comfortable at places where you weren’t surrounded by drunk and horny teenagers. 

“He’s probably not even here,” Andre says. He’s trying to look nonchalant but you notice the way his eyes dance from face to face of the people around him. 

“He told you he was going to be here, right?” You ask him with one brow raised. Andre nods. “Then, we’ll find him.”

Sarah and Kie never made any effort to talk to you at school, but to be fair, neither have you. You’ve heard mixed reviews, some people call them spoiled brats, ungrateful...some even go as far as calling them ‘The Cut Sluts.’ Of course you never take any of those things to heart. You can’t judge a book but it's cover. Plus, they’re friends with your old best friends. They can’t be that bad for John B and JJ and Pope to be hanging out with them, right?

“You think she'll come over here?” Kie asks. No one’s ever said it out loud, but her friends wonder if deep down, Kie was a little jealous of you. Because you were their first real girl friend. You were the first girl they ever let in and opened their heart too. That was a tough pill for Kie to swallow when she originally thought she was that girl. Of course the boys don’t like you any more than Kie and vice versa. But sometimes Kie wishes she could have grown up with the boys the same way you had. 

“Probably not. Unless she’s drinking,” Pope says and motions towards the keg they’re near. 

“I have an idea,” John B says and fills up a red solo cup. He hands it to JJ. “Why don’t you go offer her a cup.”

JJ snags the cup out of John B’s hand and glares at him. “Fuck off, dude.” 

“Do you guys ever see her around at school?” Pope asks the girls.

Sarah shrugs. “Not really. She doesn’t really get a long with my old group of friends.”

Kie rolls her eyes. “No one gets along with your old group of friends.”

Sarah playfully shoves Kie by the shoulder and they laugh. 

“I heard she turned down Raymond Easterling a couple weeks ago and he didn’t take it very well,” Pope says, remembering the words he heard from the kids in his class roaming the school hallways. 

Raymond goes to Kildcare County High with the Pogues. He’s known to be a trouble maker and a class clown. He works with JJ at the country club. The kid can make JJ laugh sometimes, but he wouldn’t necessarily say he likes him all that much. He can be an arrogant asshole with an ego bigger than it should be.

“She turns down everybody,” Sarah says. “Some people at my school call her ‘The Heart Sucker’ because she can pull people in with the snap of her fingers and break their heart just as quickly.”

Something stirred in the pit of JJ’s stomach.

“Hey! Where you going?” John B calls out to JJ who’s making his way deeper into the sea of people on the beach. 

“Taking advantage of a good boneyard party, my friend,” JJ calls back and slugs the rest of his beer. Looking left and right, he searches for the blonde he had eyes on earlier. Because right now, he needed a distraction. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The party starts to die down a little after midnight. Some people leave to find another party, some are passed out in the back of their cars, and others had already found what they were looking for - someone to leave with. 

The boneyard party wasn’t as bad as you expected it to be. You had found a couple of kids from your school who were nice enough to make small talk with you while Andre left to find a guy named Devon, a Touron he’s been talking to who’s renting for the entire summer. 

Now you’re waiting for Andre to come back so the two of you can walk home. You find comfort under a slanted palm tree towards the back of the beach, scrolling through random apps on your phone to pass the time.

“Y/N?” You look up from you phone and smile when you see your former best friend inching closer to you, squinting in the dark to see if it’s really you. 

“Maybank? What are you still doing here?” You stand up and pat the sand off your hands on you thighs. 

Your heart skips a beat in your chest when you look at him. He’s beautiful. Lucious blonde hair, perfectly tanned skin, piercing blue eyes. You always knew JJ was going to grow up to be gorgeous. He was cute when he was younger. At least you always thought so. 

“I was just leaving, but I thought I saw you sitting here and wanted to make sure you were all right.” He knows it’s not like you to stay this late at a party, especially all by yourself. When he first saw you sitting there, he didn’t know if he should say something. Mostly due to nerves of seeing you again. But the other Pogues had already left and he didn’t trust anyone else at the party to be near you alone late at night. It didn’t matter if you were sober or not. 

“Aw. Was JJ Maybank worried about me?” You tease. Talking to him felt easy. As if you never stopped being friends. A few years ago, you and JJ had the best banter. Despite constantly bickering back and forth, John B always swore the two of you would get married one day. The two of you just always clicked like a natural connection. And even now, when only seeing each other every now and then for a few minutes at a time, it felt normal. You smirk when JJ rolls his eyes. “I’m kidding. Yeah, I’m okay. Just waiting for my friend to come back from his little rendezvous,” You say. 

JJ nods. “Did you have a good time? I feel like I never you see at these things.”

“Yeah. Parties aren’t really my thing. But Andre was nervous to meet this guy he’s been talking to for a little while so I came for moral support.”

“Looks like he didn’t need much of the support.”

You shrug. “It’s better that way, anyway. I don’t mind waiting for him. What about you?”

“What about me?” 

“Did you have a good time tonight? I hear your quite the ladies’ man at these things.”

“Come on, Sparky. You know better than to believe everything you hear.”

Your face lights up at the mention of your old nickname. You use to always be busting out the seams with energy. On days where the boys just wanted to chill and play video games, you would drag them to the park for a game of kick ball. Or when they wanted to sleep in after a long week, you showed up at 8 am to drag them out of bed to catch the morning waves. So one day JJ started calling you Sparky, and it stuck with the rest of your little gang. You always pretended to hate it, but secretly you loved it. 

“Oh I don’t believe everything I hear. I do, however, believe what I see. And your arm around that tall blonde in the little black dress looked quite convincing.”

You first saw JJ at the party when he was making his way to the pretty girl by the water. Your teeth involuntarily clenched and there was a twisted feeling in your stomach you couldn’t shake whenever you looked at them. 

In that instant, JJ felt grateful for the dark sky. He felt the rush of heat rise up his neck to his cheeks before he could stop it. He knew the motivation to see that girl was because of you. He just wished you never saw it. But he didn’t know why. 

“I walked her home. She wasn’t my type,” JJ plays it off. 

“I didn’t realize you had a type,” You giggle, but a small part felt relieved to hear this. “So what is it? Your type?”

Hybrids with a Pogue attitude, bright smile, beautiful eyes, and a mouth that could make any sailor turn around, JJ thought. 

“I don’t know. Haven’t figured it out yet.”

You roll your eyes playfully. “Well, when you figure it out let me know.”

“Why? So you can transform into my ideal girl?” He teases.

Now you’re the one thankful for the dark sky. “In your dreams, Maybank. But so far, I do have the perfect wing-woman track record, so if you needed help -”

“I don’t think I need any help in that department. Thank you very much.”

You throw your hands up in fake surrender. “Ooo. Touchy subject.”

JJ rolls his eyes at the same time your phone pings with a text message. You pull it out of your shorts pocket and open the text from Andre, telling you to leave without him because he’s gonna stay out late with Devon and won’t know what time he’s going to be done.

“Everything all right?” JJ says, watching you read the message.

You lock your phone and stuff it in your back pocket again. “Like I said. Perfect wing-woman track record.”

“That was Andre?” 

“Yeah. He’s most likely not coming home tonight.”

“Lucky bastard.”

“At least one of us is,” You joke. 

JJ’s grin slightly falters but you don’t catch it. You have no idea how much he wishes the two of you could be equally as lucky. Together. 

“Well, I should probably go,” You say and bend down to grab your flip flops.

“Let me walk you home,” JJ offers. 

“Oh no. It’s okay -”

“You’re cute. It’s wasn’t up for debate. I’m not letting you walk back by yourself.”

You scoff lightly. “I’ll be fine.”

“Just humor me.”

You roll your eyes and smirk but choose not to argue. In fact, you’re excited to spend more time with JJ. It’s been so long.

“Fine.”

“And here I thought you might’ve grown out of your stubborn phase by now.”

You shove him playfully by the shoulder. “Shut up!”

And just like that, it felt like old times.

[the-wild-wolves-around-you]

hear those bells ring: chapter 3 (a deaf!bakugo x reader fic)

Summary: Bakugo wakes up with his hearing and a bunch of questions.

Pairings: Katsuki Bakugo x Reader; Katsuki Bakugo x You

Rating: M(ature)

Warnings: Blood, descriptions of gore, and adult language.

A/N: Sorry for the wait on ch 3, I had to work over the weekend. Anyway, hope you enjoy! 

~*~*~ No spoilers or anything. This is just a self-indulgent AU fic with aged up characters. Everyone’s in their mid-20s. Fic title is from a song called “Achilles Come Down.”

Ao3 Link: Here

Ch 1 Tumblr Link: Here

Ch 2 Tumblr Link: Here

Bakugo woke up confused, disoriented, and pissed off. 

He bolted upright, the taste of smoke and ash still on his tongue, but when he whipped his head from side to side, there was no fire, no burning asphalt, no villain, only the empty, dark expanse of his apartment. 

But something was still tugging at him, fucking incessantly, and it took him a moment to realize it was his phone alarm. 

Red eyes flicked to the device on his bedside table, and even though its continuous siren was like nails on a chalkboard, Bakugo found himself unable to move, unable to stop it. 

Because he could hear the alarm. Clearly. Loudly. 

He hadn’t been able to hear his phone alarm in weeks, not really. It was nothing more than a muffled tone that petered out toward the end as it rose in pitch and frequency. Thankfully, Bakugo’s internal alarm got him up most days around the sun, but he’d been late to morning patrols a handful of times. 

But now… 

Numbly, Bakugo finally reached out and tapped his phone. His ears rang slightly in the ensuing silence, but it was barely perceptible, nothing like the perpetual buzzing he’d been living with, like a hive of bees had taken up residence in his head. 

The quiet, after so long, was almost… unsettling. 

And it was all because of that woman. He was sure of it. 

Bakugo pressed his lips into a thin line as he thought about you, the memories of last night flooding back. The blurry image of your face, crouched over him, splattered in a thin mist of red blood and dusted with white plaster. He couldn’t remember much from right after he blasted that villain into the fucking dirt. He remembered the feel of glass breaking around him, and pain, a lot of fucking pain, but then it was black until you appeared. When he’d opened his eyes and met yours, he recalled thinking he should be in more pain, but then you spoke to him and derailed all coherent thought. 

Because he’d heard you. Clear as fucking day. 

That immediately drew his attention, and so did the blood all over your hands. 

There was a lot of it. Way too fucking much for nicking yourself on some glass or whatever bullshit excuse you gave. And Bakugo knew it was bullshit. You weren’t a convincing liar. Well, maybe to some idiot extras you would be, but not to him. He clocked the way you stuttered, the way you fidgeted and averted your eyes. And when you looked at him… fuck, your face was so goddamn guilty. 

Why, he had no idea. 

But he did know one thing. 

You had a healing quirk. There was no other explanation. 

Even if he hadn’t just miraculously recovered the hearing that a doctor told him he would never get back, there were a lot of other little discrepancies. His left arm, for one. Bakugo remembered how it felt when the villain’s asphalt wrapped around his limb, the burning, scalding agony of it. But now, the skin was just pink and barely blistered in some places. 

Then there was the blood. 

When he’d gotten home after ditching the crime scene, Bakugo had immediately beelined for his bathroom to take a shower. But, when he stripped off his hoodie, he realized it was heavier than it should be right before he noticed it was dripping onto his floor. Dripping blood. Without thinking, he’d wrung the hoodie out on the bathroom floor, and a fuck ton of red liquid seeped out of it. 

He had immediately dropped the jacket and started scanning his body in the bathroom mirror, but besides the shallow gash on his abdomen, the burned arm, and a few other minor scrapes and bruises, he was uninjured. 

But… his back was coated in red, and so were the seat of his dark jeans and boxer briefs. It was almost like… he’d been lying in a pool of blood. 

So, you had to be a healer. You just had to be. 

Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to confirm this since the cops had been circling you like vultures. He also hadn’t wanted to be bitched at by any more heroes, or the fucking media, so he made himself scarce. 

But he needed to see you again. Needed to hear the truth from your own mouth. 

And maybe he could coax you into a deal. 

The doctor Bakugo spoke to yesterday obviously hadn’t known what the hell he was talking about. He had made it sound impossible to fix the blond’s ears, and yet you’d somehow done it easily, in the middle of a fucking battlefield. 

With that kind of power, Bakugo wouldn’t have to worry about going deaf or designing stupid hearing aids with some company. 

With that kind of power, Dynamight would become Japan’s Number One Hero in no time. 

But first, he had to find you. 

Resolved, Bakugo shoved the covers off and slid out of bed, but before he could make it to his bathroom, someone started knocking on his front door. 

No, not knocking. Banging. It sounded like they were trying to break the fucking door down. 

“Bakubroooooooo!” 

“Gotta be fuckin’ kidding me,” Bakugo grumbled as he padded to his front door. He was only dressed in boxer briefs, but that’s what the idiot got for barging over so early in the damn morning. 

The banging persisted, growing louder and more fervent. 

“I’m fuckin’ comin!” the blond shouted just before he undid the deadbolt and wrenched open the door. 

Eijiro Kirishima, dressed in his Red Riot costume, blinked on the other side of the threshold, his fist still raised to knock. 

“What the fuck, bro?” he asked after a moment of just staring at Bakugo. 

The blond immediately scowled. “That’s my fuckin’ line. What are you doing breaking down my door at six in the damn morning?” 

“Excuse me?” his patrol and agency partner scoffed. “I’m obviously coming to check that you’re not dead since you’ve been MIA for over twenty-four hours.” 

“What?” Bakugo frowned. “I saw you yesterday morning for patrol.” 

“Noooooo,” Kirishima drawled like Bakugo was a particularly stupid child. “That was two days ago, bro. Then that night, I see you all over the damn news, and no one could get ahold of you all day yesterday. I would have come to check on you sooner, but I’ve been having to play damage control with the media because someone decided to blow up a residential neighborhood.” 

“Two days?” Bakugo echoed with a furrowed brow. He’d slept that long? 

“Have you been passed out this whole time, dude?” Kirishima groaned as he shouldered his way into the apartment. “I guess that means you got none of our messages?” 

“Our?” the blond grumbled as he closed the door and followed the redhead to the kitchen bar. 

“Yeah, Denki, Mina, Sero.” Kirishima waved his hand dismissively, marching over to the counter where Bakugo kept the fruit and selecting an apple from the wire basket. “I even asked Izuku to message you, just to see if he’d actually get a rise and response from you.” 

“I don’t need stupid Deku knowing about my problems, Shitty Hair,” Bakugo growled before he stomped over to his fridge to see what he had to eat because he was suddenly starving. 

“Well, that would imply I know your problems, Oh Great Lord Dynamight,” Kirishima snorted and took a bite of apple. “So, what the fuck happened the other night?” 

“I blew up a residential neighborhood,” the blond deadpanned as he turned on his stove, cracking a few eggs into a skillet. 

“Yeah, I saw that. I was more wondering about what led up to it.” 

“What the fuck do you think led up to it?” Bakugo snapped, rummaging through his cupboard for seasonings. “I was walking home from getting a drink, and a damn villain just popped up in front of me.” 

“From what I heard, there were other heroes there, too,” the redhead mumbled around another bite of apple. 

“Yeah, fuckin’ useless extras,” Bakugo sneered as he started to whisk his eggs with a pair of chopsticks, throwing in some leftover white rice and a bit of nori. “They obviously weren’t getting anywhere, and the bastard was tearing up the street, so I stepped in.” 

“To finish destroying the street?” Kirishima cocked an eyebrow, chewing noisily. 

“Fuck off,” the blond said with an eyeroll. 

Internally, though, Bakugo knew the redhead was right. He’d been sloppy, careless, probably still borderline drunk. But he’d just been so angry about the doctor’s appointment, his fucked-up ears, his bleak and silent future. He had just wanted to break something, hurt someone, consequences be damned. 

Except now the consequences were catching up to him. 

Fuck, he didn’t even want to think about what his citizen’s approval rating must be now. 

Silence stretched between the two pro heroes for several long minutes, in which Bakugo finished making his breakfast and Kirishima finished gnawing on his apple core. The blond quickly shoveled a few bites of eggs and rice into his mouth, but his scarlet eyes kept flicking over to the redhead. 

“How bad?” he finally asked. 

Kirishima, to his credit, had learned how to translate Bakugo’s curt grunts years ago. 

“Actually, if I’m being honest, it’s not that bad,” he sighed, tossing the apple core in the trash and scratching at the back of his head. “Could be worse. From the reports I read, most of the damage—besides the road—is superficial. Broken windows, charred and peeling paint, a few busted cars that we’re still trying to figure out if our insurance or the city’s will pay for. It also helped that you saved two people. That definitely softened the blow.” 

“Two?” Bakugo mumbled around one of his last bites. “I just remember the stupid extra on the street that I shoved out of the way.” 

As the memory flashed through his mind, Bakugo frowned. He’d shoved that extra out of the way and got snatched by a giant asphalt hand for his troubles. The blond’s red eyes dropped to his pink and blotchy left arm and then trailed over to his chest. He recalled the sensation of his ribs snapping under pressure, but now only a mild soreness lingered after he took a deep breath. Yet another inconsistency… 

“Yeah, two,” Kirishima said and drew Bakugo out of his thoughts. “Do you seriously not even remember your own heroics? And that girl had such nice things to say about you, too.” 

“Girl?” Bakugo snapped his head up. “The girl whose… apartment I fell into?” 

“Crashed into, dude,” the redhead snorted, but then he narrowed his eyes as a sly smirk tugged at his lips. “But yeah. Sounds like you remember her, huh?” 

Bakugo didn’t like the smug look on his friend’s face. 

“I remember her fuckin’ yellin’ at me.” The blond scowled. “Like I wrecked her place on purpose and didn’t just save her whole block from a lunatic.” 

“I mean, to be fair, if you crashed into my house, bro, I would have yelled at you, too.” Kirishima grinned. “But don’t worry, she’s fine. In fact, when she called the agency yesterday, she asked for you specifically.” 

“She did? Why?” Did she want to confess her healing quirk? Fuck, were there side effects Bakugo didn’t know about? 

“Bro, seriously.” Kirishima rolled his eyes. “You’re Japan’s Number Two Hero, and you saved her life. And, like Mina keeps telling you, you’re not as ugly when you stop scowling.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” Bakugo flipped him off before he went to dump the dishes in the sink. 

“Yes, dear.” The redhead smirked. “But, in all seriousness, she called to figure out how to file a claim with our insurance. Or at least that’s what she said, but she also asked how you were doing, and she actually sounded genuinely worried.” 

Worried that a random side effect was going to kill him? Or worried that he would say something about her quirk? She’d obviously hidden it for a reason, tried to lie for a reason. 

And Bakugo was determined to find out just what that reason was. 

“Yeah, well, I’m fine,” he grunted as he rinsed off his plate and put it on the drying rack. “Just a few scrapes and bruises.” 

“I can see that,” Kirishima said as he eyed the butterfly stitches stretched across the gash on Bakugo’s abdomen. “Well, I’m glad I didn’t find you dead in a pool of your own blood. That woulda been a real bummer way to start the morning.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Bakugo muttered before he averted his eyes to the living room window across from him. “So… what did you tell her?” 

“The girl?” 

“No, you’re fuckin’ mom,” the blond scoffed. 

“Oh, speaking of moms, you might want to text Mitsuki. I called her last night after you ignored my billionth text, so she’s probably going crazy wondering where you are.” Kirishima grinned and then immediately dodged out of the way as Bakugo hurled a fork at him. 

“You bastard!” Bakugo hissed. “Now, I’m going to have to see that hag this weekend or she’s gonna fuckin’ barge over here.” 

“Maybe you should turn the ringer up on your phone.” The other hero shrugged, ducking again when Bakugo chucked an apple in his direction. 

The blond scowled at his friend, but he didn’t reply. 

If you and your quirk were the real deal, Bakugo wouldn’t have to worry about missing a call ever again. 

When Kirishima realized the projectiles had stopped, he popped his head over the back of the couch and smirked. “But to answer your previous question, I told the girl we would handle the insurance claim on our end if she sent us her info. And I didn’t really have anything to tell her about you since, like I’ve said, I thought you were dead. Kinda. I was at least thirty percent sure.” 

“Have you filed the insurance claim?” Bakugo asked. 

“No.” Kirishima shook his head. “She hasn’t sent in the info yet.” 

“Well… we should go get it from her.” 

This caused the redhead’s eyebrows to shoot up into his hairline, and the surprise on his face quickly made Bakugo backtrack. 

“I just… want to get this shitshow over with,” he grumbled as he averted his eyes again, but he could feel a traitorous heat crawling across the bridge of his nose. “The longer her apartment’s all fucked up, the longer the press is gonna rake me over the coals. The hero ranking’s aren’t far off, and I’m not going to lose to Deku again over some stupid broken windows.” 

“Righttttt,” Kirishima drawled, but his tone was mocking. “Okay, well, I know the hotel the police have set her up at. After we swing by the agency, we can head that way… to get her insurance info.” 

He still sounded unconvinced and like he wanted to needle Bakugo more, but the blond changed the subject quickly. 

“Why do we have to go to the agency?” Bakugo asked, and he frowned as he glanced back at his partner. “Even if I lost yesterday, my next scheduled patrol isn’t till tonight.” 

“Oh, I know.” Kirishima nodded solemnly. “But Nao wanted to have… a word with you ASAP, if I confirmed you weren’t dead.” 

“Fuckkkkkkk,” Bakugo groaned as he dropped his head back. If there was anything Bakugo hated more than the press, it was his actual PR manager. That old hag was good at her job, which meant she was always up Bakugo’s ass about something, and he knew she was going to have a field day with this shitfest. 

“Yeah, I’d recommend coffee and preemptive painkillers before we head in,” Kirishima said. “Plus, some putting on clothes. Maybe we can stop on the way and get her something sweet as a bribe.” 

“No amount of sugar is gonna make that bitch nice to me,” Bakugo grumbled before he spun on heel and started marching to his bedroom. 

“Maybe flowers then?” the redhead shouted after him. 

Bakugo slammed the door in response. 

~*~*~*~*~*~ 

“This is fuckin’ ridiculous,” Bakugo growled around his cargo, kicking his foot out at Kirishima. “Why did I listen to you? I’ve had to go shopping twice today now.” 

“Come on,” his friend laughed as he dodged the blow, which made the bags in his arms crinkle. “You can’t deny the flowers and cookies sweetened ole’ Nao up.” 

“To you,” Bakugo muttered, shifting the package in his arms a bit. “She still yelled at me for fifteen minutes.” 

“Well, you kinda deserved i—yow!” Kirishima yelped as Bakugo kicked him squarely in the ass this time. “This isn’t helping your image, bro!” 

“No one even knows it’s us,” the blond hissed. 

“Yeah, I guess the hoodies and sunglasses help,” the other pro hero mused. 

“And the fact that we’re carrying all this stupid shit.” 

“It’s not stupid.” Kirishima frowned in that earnest way of his, which made Bakugo roll his eyes. “It’s thoughtful to bring gifts to people who are having a difficult time. Especially when you made that time difficult. You basically kicked her out of her house, dude, not to mention her shop.” 

A wave of guilt actually washed through the blond, which he didn’t like. It made his throat feel tight and his stomach churn, and he glanced away from the redhead with a scowl. 

“Tch.” He clicked his tongue. “It’s not like we aren’t gonna pay for it.” 

The excuse felt flat, even to him. 

“Still,” Kirishima said as he shifted the bags in his grip, pulled out his phone, and consulted the map. “It must be stressful. So, we’re going to be nice to her, alright? Which starts with the gifts.” 

“And how is a fuckin’ fruit basket supposed to help?” Bakugo asked as he glared around the overflowing mound of crinkling plastic and bright fruit that he held against his chest. 

“Uh, one, it’s practical. Her apartment’s all fucked up, the power’s probably still out if not inconsistent on the street, and she’s been living in a hotel for two days, so she probably hasn’t had some nice fresh fruit in a while. And two, it looks nice!” 

“We coulda just left this shit at the hotel,” Bakugo grumbled. “She has to go back there eventually, right?” 

After old Nao chewed his ass out, Bakugo and Kirishima had gone to the hotel the police said they’d put you up in. Except you weren’t fucking there, and the number you left with Kirishima when you called the agency was going straight to voicemail, so here there were, fucking trekking through the city with a bunch of useless shit. 

Bakugo just kept reminding himself it would be worth it when he got the truth about your quirk out of you. 

“Nope,” Kirishima said and drew the blond out of his thoughts. “The city only pays the first two days after an emergency, unless the villain caused all the damage, but, uh, that’s not the case here, so we’ll be accommodating her until her apartment gets fixed up.” 

“At the agency?” Bakugo asked as his red eyes clicked over to his partner. 

As the Number Two and Three Heroes, the two of them had built a solid agency together. Bakugo still didn’t care for a bunch of extras riding on his tailcoats, so they had few sidekicks, all of whom reported to Kirishima and left him the fuck alone for the most part. But they owned a nice, sleek building in a nicer part of town, and one of the floors was dedicated to individual rooms with beds and other amenities. They were usually used when Bakugo, Kirishima, or the other sidekicks wanted to crash after patrol instead of going home—which Bakugo did more often than not—but they’d never had a civilian stay on the premises. 

Until now. 

“Yessssss, at the agency,” the redhead drawled as a shit-eating smirk crawled across his face. “So, you’ll be seeing a lot of her for the next couple weeks.” 

“Wipe that stupid look off your face.” Bakugo scowled and shouldered past the other hero, who snickered as he jogged to catch up. 

“Take the next left up ahead.” 

“Shut up!” the blond growled, but he followed the instructions. 

This was good news, though. Bakugo wouldn’t have to trek to this shitty part of town more than he had to. 

And he’d have a healer just down the hall. 

They marched along in silence for a few minutes, keeping their heads down, but there wasn’t much foot traffic. Bakugo was lost in his thoughts, planning out the questions he was going to ask you once he could distract Kirishima, but the redhead suddenly stopped in front of him. 

“Hey,” Bakugo grunted as the fruit basket crinkled against the other hero’s back. He hadn’t even notice Kiri get in front of him again. “What’s the damn hold up?” 

“Holy shit, dude,” Kirishima muttered, staring out at the road he’d just turned onto. 

“What?” the blond grumbled, shoving past his friend, but then he stopped, too. “Oh… yeah.” 

The street in front of him looked much worse in the bright light of midday. The road was a torn-up mess, more patches of dirt and gravel than actual asphalt. Most of the large-scale debris had been hauled away, but black scorch marks covered the sidewalks in long, dark smears. The walls of several businesses also bore charring along the facades, but most of the damage was focused in the center of the street. A crater nearly six feet deep was carved into the middle of the road, and the buildings on either side were blackened, their broken windows gaping voids. 

And then there was the hole in what Bakugo remembered as your second-floor apartment. A tarp hung over the wound, but one of the corners had come undone, flapping in the wind and giving split second glimpses into the darkened room beyond. 

Guilt crept up on him again, but Bakugo shoved it down, hunching over the fruit basket and nudging Kirishima. 

“Come on,” he muttered before he started moving forward, and a moment later he heard the crunch of boots on gravel as the redhead followed him. 

There were more people on this street than on the last several, but Bakugo could immediately tell they weren’t customers just passing through. People swept sidewalks, clearing away the last of the rubble and glass in front of their shops. Then a few old ladies stood under one awning shaking their heads, their hands laden with containers of food or gifts. 

Guess Kirishima hadn’t been wrong with this stupid idea. 

Then Bakugo realized some of those people were starting to look back at him, so he ducked his head further behind the fruit basket, grateful for his hoodie and sunglasses. 

But then suddenly he was there, standing in front of your ruined shop. His red eyes immediately flickered upward, but if there was a sign there before, it was gone now, burnt to ash. 

“What kinda shop did you say this was?” the blond asked under his breath as Kirishima paused beside him. 

“I’m… not sure,” the redhead said with a furrowed brow. “I don’t think she said on the phone. No time like the present to ask, though.” 

Before Bakugo could stop him, Kirishima shifted the bags in his arms, lifted one hand, and knocked on the charred metal frame of the front door. 

“Hello?” he called through the broken windows, followed by your name. “Anyone in there?” 

“Shit!” The squeaking voice was followed by a crashing sound somewhere in the shadows of the store. 

Bakugo didn’t speak a lot of English, but he did know curse words, and the sound of it made his lips twitch in amusement. 

“Are you okay?” Kirishima called out. “Can, uh, we come in?” 

“Yes, I’m fine!” the voice answered back in flustered Japanese. The words were fluent, though, with barely the hint of an accent. “And, um, I-I guess you can come in, but—” 

That was good enough for Bakugo. 

The blond shouldered past his partner, boots crunching over glass as he ducked into the darkened shop, and Kirishima sighed as he followed. 

The interior, if possible, looked worse than the outside. The room itself wasn’t very big, but it was a mess. Two metal rods had been embedded in the left and right walls at odd angles, obviously caused from the explosions, though Bakugo couldn’t tell what they used to be. Several pieces of blacked mannequins were scattered through the debris, and one wall was a charred mess of shelving and fabric, spots of color peeking through the black ash here and there. 

In the back, left corner were the remains of a tri-fold standing mirror, the ones where you could see yourself from different angles. Large shards of glass were missing, though, so the image of Bakugo and Kirishima standing backlit against the street was fractured. 

Last but not least, in the rear, right corner of the store was a counter that was half collapsed to the floor, behind which stood an empty doorframe that Bakugo assumed led to the back of the shop and upstairs. 

And it was from behind this broken counter that you popped up with a dustpan in one hand and a tiny, handheld broom in the other. 

The first thought Bakugo had was your face was rather plain… but in a somehow pleasing way. Like if his eyes had scanned over you in a crowd, something about the line of your jaw, the slope of your nose, the delicate quirk of your mouth would give him pause. 

His second thought was that his first one was stupid. You were just some extra, of course you would be plain and unmemorable. 

But his third thought was something about the color of your eyes was captivating, in a way that was damn fucking annoying. 

“Sorry, I was just… cleaning… up,” you said, slowly trailing off as your eyes met Bakugo’s. 

He saw the recognition flare in them immediately, followed by fear, and he couldn’t help the frown that twisted his face. 

Why were you afraid of him? 

“No, we’re sorry for barging in here like this,” Kirishima barreled on, oblivious to the stare off the other two occupants of the room were engaged in. “Didn’t mean to startle you. Oh! I’m being so rude. My name is Eijiro Kirishima, or you might know me as—” 

“Red Riot,” you breathed, finally tearing your eyes from Bakugo’s, and you flashed the redhead a half-smile that trembled along the edges. “We spoke on the phone.” 

“Yes.” Kirishima grinned, pointed teeth flashing in the dim light of the shop, before his gaze flickered over to the blond beside him. “And this is—” 

“Dynamight,” you finished once again, and you looked like you were trying desperately to maintain eye contact with the hardening hero, but then your eyes clicked back to Bakugo. You didn’t flash him a smile. “We’ve met.” 

“Oh, yeah, right,” Kiri chuckled awkwardly, and his arm jerked like he was going to rub the back of his neck, but the bags in his hands crinkled and stopped him. 

“What… do you have there?” you asked, frowning at the bags and the fruit basket the heroes were carrying. 

“Gifts!” the redhead declared as he hefted his arms up, and then he shuffled forward over charred fabric and glass and extended the bags to you. 

You blinked at him for a second, but you set the dustpan and handheld broom on the counter, where they promptly slid to the floor since the whole surface was slanted. You winced at the loud clatter and tried to cover it up by taking the bags from Kirishima, which crinkled loudly again as they transferred hands. 

Bakugo would be annoyed if he wasn’t more grateful that he could actually hear the innocuous little noise. 

“O-Oh, um, you shouldn’t have, really,” you started as you peeked into the bags, and then Bakugo swore he saw your eyebrow twitch once you saw what was inside. 

“It’s not much,” Kirishima said, and he was finally free to rub the back of his head and neck as his smile turned a little sheepish. “But, what with the state of your… apartment, we thought you might need some new clothes! And comfy clothes are the best after stressful days. These especially are super soft, we made sure of it. And, if you don’t like them, you could always sell them for a good chunk of change.” 

The redhead winked at you, not in an overly flirty manner, that was just how he was, but your cheeks flared as crimson as his hair, and your eyes dropped to the floor. 

Bakugo took the split instant to get a better look at you and noted you were wearing patched, faded jeans, solid boots, and a bleach-stained orange sweatshirt with some English writing he couldn’t read. Usually, he didn’t really see what other people wore because he couldn’t give less of a shit, but somehow he found your obvious cleaning clothes… endearing. The orange looked good on you, too. 

Fuck, maybe you didn’t heal him as well as he thought. He had to be hemorrhaging into his brain to be thinking this stupid shit. Or maybe it was a side effect of your quirk? 

He needed to get you alone and get answers. 

“Well… thank you, this was very thoughtf—oh, wow, that is soft,” you murmured as you partially drew a sweatshirt out of the bag. 

Bakugo instantly recognized the forest green and orange color scheme, and apparently so did you, because your face twitched, and you dropped the garment back into the bag and traded it for fuzzy socks with Red Riot’s signature gears stitched into them. 

“These will definitely come in handy, my feet are always cold,” you said with an awkward giggle. Then you cleared your throat to cover up the sound. “Thank you, um, Red Riot.” 

“You can call me Eijiro, or Kirishima, whatever you’re comfortable with,” the redhead said with another easy grin. “We’re going to be seeing a lot of each other, after all. Oh! We also got you a fruit basket, and I think there might be a few other sweets tucked in there.” 

Kirishima nudged Bakugo forward, and your face rippled through a range of emotions, like your brain was taking a second to catch up to everything the pro hero just spewed. First, flustered embarrassment colored your cheeks, then confusion buckled your brow, and your eyes widened before they looked at the fruit basket Bakugo was extending at you. 

“Oh, you can just put it down… um…” you trailed off as you turned to the counter and remembered it was half destroyed. Then your eyes jumped around frantically for some kind of flat surface, but the ruined shop didn’t offer any solutions. 

“Told ya we shouldn’t of brought this shit,” Bakugo grunted, shooting a scowl at Kirishima. 

“Yeahhhhh, we probably could have just delivered it to your room at the agency, my bad,” the redhead laughed. “But don’t worry, we’ll carry it back for you, along with any of your other things.” 

“My… things?” you echoed, sounding out the words like a child, and a frown marred your face. “I-I think I must be misunderstanding you, I’m sorry, I’m American. But did you say my room at the agency? As in… your hero agency?” 

“You’re American?” Kirishima asked with wide red eyes. “I wouldn’t have even guessed! Your accent is almost perfect, I thought you were maybe just from like the countryside or something.” 

“I thought you said we were supposed to be nice to her,” Bakugo snorted at his partner like you weren’t in the room, and he saw you frown at him out of the corner of his eye. 

“Oh, shit, no, that wasn’t what I meant!” Japan’s Number Three Hero immediately began waving his hands in front of his face, his mouth moving twice as fast. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I really think your accent sounds nice! It’s very cute!” 

Now, not only did your cheeks flush again, but the red hue traveled down your throat and across your collarbones, peeking out the stretched collar of your orange sweatshirt. 

Bakugo found himself half distracted by the sight, but the other half was wondering why he suddenly felt irritation flare up in his gut. 

“Okay, you don’t have to take her out on a date now,” the blond snapped, shifting his burden of fruit and plastic. 

“I-I think we might have gotten off track,” you stuttered as you clutched the bag of Dynamight and Red Riot merch to your chest. “You said something about your agency.” 

“Yes, right.” Kirishima cleared his throat. “We would have mentioned this in our follow up email after you sent in your insurance info, but—” 

“Oh, no, I’m so sorry!” you cut him off with a grimace, and you actually dipped your head and shoulders into a bow. “I meant to send that yesterday, but my laptop is broken, and my cell service isn’t great—” 

“No, no, it’s fine!” the redhead interrupted this time. “You obviously have a lot on your plate. I just meant that this might seem kind of sudden, but—” 

Fucking hell, this was taking too long. 

“You’re staying at our agency until we can pay for the repairs to your apartment and shop,” Bakugo said bluntly. If he didn’t step in, the two of you were just going to stammer circles around each other all day. “Starting tonight. We have rooms with beds and shit, so pack whatever clothes or crap you need.” 

Your mouth fell open as you gaped at Bakugo. “I… what?” 

“You deaf or something?” The words rocketed from his mouth before he could stop them, before he could even think about what he was saying, and he saw the way the question struck you like a physical blow. You flinched, your cheeks paling, and he saw dawning, guilty horror glint at the back of your eyes. 

He’d been right. You did do something to his ears. 

“Bro, you were just talking about being nice.” Kirishima frowned at Bakugo before he turned back to you. “Ignore him. We’re really sorry about the inconvenience this whole… incident has caused for you, but we’ll take care of everything you need until your shop’s grand reopening, so you don’t have to worry about a thing, okay?” 

You continued to stare at the two heroes in shocked silence, your wide eyes clicking back and forth between the two of them as you clutched the bags to your chest like a lifeline. 

“That is… all so generous,” you finally breathed, your tone rising in pitch like you were growing increasingly flustered. “It’s, um, a lot to take in.” 

“Of course.” Kirishima nodded fervently. “What else can we do to help?” 

“Could you leave?” 

Bakugo blinked in surprise and then had to stifle his snort. 

“Oh, no, I’m sorry!” you quickly followed up when you saw the redhead’s falling expression. “I didn’t mean… I just meant, could I have some time to process this? Um, alone? L-Like Dynamight said, I need to pack a few things, a-and there are some people I need to speak to before, uh… well, is it okay if I tell someone where I’ll be? Like, at your agency?” 

“Yessss?” Kirishima said with a confused frown. “Why wouldn’t that be okay?” 

“O-Oh, I just don’t really know how the whole hero and media thing works here,” you quickly lied, and Bakugo clocked the way you averted your eyes, the way your throat bobbed as you swallowed thickly. “I-I wasn’t going to post on social media or anything, I barely use that stuff anyway, but one of my customers, Mrs. Kojima, would be upset if I disappeared without saying anything.” 

“Aww, that’s sweet.” The redhead grinned before he glanced at the shadowed ruins around him. “What kind of shop is this by the way? I don’t think you mentioned.” 

“A-Alterations,” you said, ducking your face in embarrassment again. “My grandparents were a tailor and seamstress. I inherited this place from them.” 

“I thought you said you were American?” Kirishima asked, but not in an accusatory way. He was just too curious for his own good and didn’t possess much of a filter. 

Bakugo usually didn’t care for small talk, fucking waste of time if you asked him, but he found himself focusing intently on you, awaiting a response. 

“I am.” You nodded. “My parents were both born here, but they moved to the States after they married, and I was born there. After my grandparents passed, my dad was going to sell the shop, but I was looking for something… new, so I decided to move here instead about a year ago.” 

Bakugo pursed his lips at this new information. If you had a healing quirk, why were you patching up clothes in some little shop all the way across the world from your surviving family? Could it be because your quirk was dangerous? 

“Wow, that’s cool,” Kirishima said with an impressed expression that quickly turned sheepish. “Except about your grandparent’s passing. My condolences.” 

“Thank you,” you muttered, a small smile tugging at your lips, but then you quickly shook your head. “I-I’m sorry, didn’t mean to give you my whole life story, I tend to talk when I’m nervous.” 

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Red Riot laughed like he did when he was meeting shy little kids on the street, flashing his sharpened teeth jokingly and winking in an overexaggerated fashion. “I promise, we look scarier than we are.” 

“Speak for yourself, Shitty Hair,” Bakugo scoffed, which made you jump, like you’d forgotten he was there. 

And that rubbed him the wrong way for some reason. 

Kirishima merely smirked before he partially covered his mouth with his hand and lowered his voice into a stage whisper directed at you. “All bark, no bite, I’m telling you.” 

“Stop making me seem lame, you bastard!” the blond growled, but the effect was kind of ruined by the fruit basket crinkling in his hands again. 

This actually seemed to startle a giggle out of you, and the two heroes whipped around, one with a grin and the other a scowl. 

“See, you don’t need to be nervous,” Kirishima said before he slung an arm around Bakugo’s shoulders. “But we’ll get out of your hair for now so you can have some time to pack and everything. Don’t worry about picking up too much, though, we’ll have cleaning crews in here before we start the remodel, and we don’t want you to get hurt in here. If there’s stuff up in your apartment that you don’t want to bring with you to the agency but don’t want thrown out, make a list, and we’ll be sure to keep everything safe.” 

“O-Okay,” you said, still standing there with the hero merch clenched to your chest and a dumbstruck expression on your face. “T-Thank you again, Red--, erm, Kirishima.” 

“Of course!” He grinned. “I have patrol tonight, but we’ll send a car to pick you up—” 

“No,” Bakugo cut in as he locked eyes with you. “I’ll pick you up. What time?” 

The blond could see Kirishima shoot him a look in his peripherals—probably because they both had patrol tonight—but Bakugo ignored his partner, maintaining eye contact with you. 

You, meanwhile, squirmed under the explosive hero’s intense scrutiny, your face paling and flushing in turns. “I… no, you don’t have to do that, I can take the train—” 

“I insist,” he interrupted again, narrowing his eyes so you would realize he wasn’t going to back down. “Like Shitty Hair said, we caused this… inconvenience, so I’ll pick you up. What. Time?” 

You swallowed thickly, your throat audibly clicking. “S-Seven?” 

“I’ll be here at seven sharp,” Bakugo said. “And you better be out front or at least answer your phone this time.” 

You better not run, he didn’t say, but by the look on your face, you understood. 

“Seven sharp.” You nodded, biting your lip as a resigned expression settled over your features. “Got it.” 

“Great. See you then.” 

With that, Bakugo turned on heel and crunched his way out of your store, leaving Kirishima stuttering apologies in his wake. 

But that didn’t matter. 

All that mattered was, tonight, he’d finally get you alone and get to the bottom of your damn quirk.

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Is it wrong to lie to children?

A personal essay on reconciling with a shitty childhood and the question: is it wrong to lie to children?

It’s perplexing to have a shitty “unorthodox” childhood because initially I tried to throw out everything about It. Toss out the plumping and the rafters and the roofing, dispense of every single part of my upbringing I could get my hands on and not look back. Naturally, this approach didn’t work. It wasn’t even a real possibility. You’re still haunted by it, a ghost in the bones of a house, a foundation that remains long after the builders have left. That’s part of recovery too, to look at that ghost, to look at those bones, and keep saying: I see you, I see. I let you in. You sit with it and accept, accept, accept.

The really terrible part of this, the part where I don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater, is that you then have to raise the thing, deal with it. You have to do the hard work of parsing through the endless bits of self and placing them in “keep” piles and “discard” piles. I want to keep my mother’s kindness. I want to keep my father’s sense of humor. I want to discard the isolation. I want to discard the delusions.

But then there are these weird . . . “I don’t know” things. The things I am unsure if they helped me or hurt me. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten more and more of those “I don’t know” categories piling up. I’ve worked my way through most of the more obvious ones and now it’s all grey and mushy and as cloudy as a London winter. Recently, more than anything, I’ve been grappling with the fact my mother believed it was wrong to lie to children. She believed, in her flower-child way, that it was unethical in all forms.

I never believed in Santa Claus. I’m sorry to say I was a pretty obnoxious kid too because I would preach on the playground about how there was no Santa and there had never been any Santa. Which was a bit harsh, but in my defense I was under the impression these people were suffering from some sort of collective mass delusion. They were being lied to. And lying was wrong.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

I’ve known about sex since I was around 5 years old. I don’t remember why I asked, but it was something about where babies come from and so on. Most parents talk about a stork or love or some other abstract side-step. My mother described the anatomy to me and showed me a scientific diagram of the process. She told me that a sperm meets an egg and fertilizes it so the baby can grow. I learned most of this in scientific terms and was surprised when none of my middle school friends knew how a penis worked.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

When I was 9 or so our cat was eaten by a coyote. I asked my mom where he went and she said that he accidently got out the night before. She said they looked for him all morning, but it was too late. She didn’t use the word “gone” or “passed on” or “he’s in a better place now.”

She said he was dead. I said oh. She asked if I wanted to see him. I said yes. For the record, I am not actually sure if 9 year-olds should see corpses. That is neither here nor there. It was something that stuck with me though, the body of my cat with his tummy ripped out. I had never seen intestines before. His eyes were open.

But there was something cathartic about digging the grave. About helping pick up his little stiff body by the feet and placing him inside. There was something about piling on the red dirt as the sun set and letting the tears fall.

People on sitcoms hate talking about death. It’s understandable, it’s not funny, it makes for good dramatic irony when the kid asks “Where’s Socks?” and the parents go “Uuuuuh. He ran away.” I’ve never felt more alienated at those points. My cat died. He was eaten. I saw his body, and I buried it. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t want to be told he ran away-- that he had a choice in whether or not he left me.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

For a long time I thought the entirety of my childhood was wrong and bad, because I was miserable and broken at the end of it. I will assure you, my parents fucked up time and time again. But sometimes I have to stop and keep asking: Was this the wrong part? Was this the part where they fucked up? Was any part of this valuable? It’s a hard process to comb through an entire life and decide which bits are worth keeping, and if there are any silver linings.

So here is one: I am an honest person. I am a crooked person too, unsure of where to place my feet in social situations, picking my way through others normalcy. I do not readily share information, I am not forthcoming, and it’s a slow burn for me to open up about anything.

However, I notice time and time again that strangers will share personal things with me. I don’t mean for it to happen, but there’s just this pattern in my life. I once went on a car ride with a girl I barely know from my debate team. She described how she wanted to lose her virginity, she wanted it, but was scared God would be angry. That she’d be dirty afterwards. I told her that that was impossible, sex was just an act, it had no eyes, it had no priestly robes, or bearing on her soul. She cried. She said she hadn’t told me anyone this before.

I had a friend in high school who was struggling with an eating disorder, people had tried to get her to talk about it before, but I was the first person she admitted it to. In the hallway, sitting, just discussing nothing, and out it comes: I’m scared to eat sometimes. I was on a city bus and an old woman struck up a conversation with me. Over an hour or so, and she ended up telling me her fears for her own daughter going away to college. Her fear of growing old and passing on. Her problems with sleeping as she lay awake and dreaded it.

People have told me about their problems with substance abuse, their struggles with sexuality, and childhood trauma. People spill to me and I sit there thinking: Why? Sometimes I think it’s my gender or just how people are, but it always feels like I’m missing some part of the picture. Why do people open up to me, unprompted, all at once? Why me?

Is it wrong to lie to children?

Recently, I was reading a memoir set in 2001 where two young kids ask the narrator, their mother, about 9/11. They asked what happened to the people on television who were jumping off the building. Where did they go? The mother says this: They were caught. There are people-catchers that flew and saved them. Everyone is okay.

This story was meant to be heartfelt and lyrical, relatable. It ended like this: It is the job of mothers to offer gentle lies.

I had to stop reading because I was suddenly lost in a white-hot rage, unexpected, knee-jerk. How could she do that? I found myself frothing. They trusted her with answers and she lied. How could she? I knew it was irrational. It was silly even. This was a sweet story. It was meant to be heart-warming and framed in a way that suggested this is what all mothers do. This was what they needed to do. 

I felt my own mother, pumping through my veins, furious that these elementary school students were being betrayed. I stopped myself of course, I knew it wasn’t reasonable. I wasn’t raised “correctly.” I had no legs to stand on.

But still, is it alright to lie to children?

I am once again faced with that unending dilemma: how to throw-out those parts of myself that don’t work and keep the ones that do. It’s difficult to say, because in some ways I agree with my mom. How can I not? But death is cruel. Sex is weird. Santa Claus is a beautiful lie.

And what’s wrong with lying? I still don’t know. What’s wrong with letting them never hurt? Never knowing the pain or gross parts of the world? What’s the harm in letting them make-believe?

But sometimes I think about all those people who have cried to me. All these unprompted confessions come with an unspoken plea: I hurt. I am afraid. I am so scared. It’s all so heavy, these painful truths.

And some part of me stands there, the part my mother raised and says: there is nothing in this life that is too shameful. There is nothing in this world that is unnatural. There is nothing in this life to lie about, even to children.

Is death too painful? Is sex too gross? Would you tell an adult that a man lives in the North Pole and watches them?

I asked my mom, years later, when I was less furious and able to talk with her again without screaming, about why she believed all this. She had told me about it since I was very young, but I never asked why. She shrugged. She said: children are people, aren’t they?

I still don’t know what to do with this.

Children are people, but they are not adults. They shouldn’t be exposed to “adult” things, right? But is that line so concrete? Is the word “adult” just a mask for the greater word, the one we really mean? We all agree: honesty is good. Lying hurts. But it’s alright to lie to kids, because in many ways they aren’t people yet, they aren’t people yet, they don’t count.

I am admittedly an argumentative person. I was on the debate team, mock trial, United Nations, I studied political science in college and fought with every single one of my professors I thought was wrong. And I stood in that playground, age 6, and told every single one of my classmates Santa wasn’t real and I wouldn’t stop. The truth was important. And my mother, no matter what, thought I disserved it.

I often felt tiny and powerless as a kid. Terrified and holding myself together by shoestrings. I often felt there would be nothing better in the world than to be grown up. Not for the money or the dating or the job, I just wanted to feel like the hurricane would end. That one day I could stand on solid ground again. My friend often says: I wish I could be a kid again, ya know? No responsibilities. Just bliss. I want to be a kid again.

I can’t relate. I never have. I’ve been busy weeding through the pipes and lighting and the carpentry of my upbringing and asking myself: is any of this worth keeping? Is any part of me built correctly? There are no right answers.

But still, I am haunted. I sit and ask myself in circles: is it alright to lie to children?

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My book 🌟 Ko-fi 🌟 Patreon

[a-whole-tempest-in-a-teacup]

For zee stwanger fings ask game, 6, 11, 18, and 29 😎

So I just typed out a whole novel only for the page to crash -_- TUMBLR DIE CHALLENGE

Anyway thanks for the ask bestie <3 I’m now on a word document and I will post this IF IT IS THE LAST THING I DO

six. favourite episode of all time?

This is… really hard! I’m gonna go with the season 2 finale because it is EVERYTHING  to me! The El and Hopper car convo, Steve protecting the kids, Joyce and Jonathan and Nancy saving Will in the cabin, El closing the gate  O H G O D… But honourable mentions go to the season 1 finale when they save Will and it’s cut together with Hopper’s flashbacks and THAT SONG plays… iykyk 😭 and season 4 episode 4 purely for that incredible final sequence… if I could watch it every day I would

eleven. which season has the best ending?

I gotta go with season 2 again 😌 I didn’t think we’d ever get the Snow Ball after season 1 ended but it was the most satisfying pay-off after the first two seasons! The Mileven and Lumax kisses are cute, Will is happy and healthy for once in his life, the Dustin and Nancy scene is so soft it has me sobbing every time 🤗 Especially when you think about how far their friendship has come since she slammed the door on him in season 1, ugh such a queen moment from Nancy at that dance! And not to mention the jopper hug heuheuheuheuheu… yeah.

eighteen. what is your opinion on season 4 so far?

I’M LOVING IT! The new characters slap, everyone is acting their butts off, the story is epic… I have very few qualms 😇 I yam… very scared for the final two episodes… pls just let them all be happy! But also… get it in my eyeballs right now 😤

twenty nine. opinion on jopper?

🎶 BABYYYYYY, YOU ARE THE LOVE OF MY LIIIIIIIIFE 🎶 They’re my parents, they raised me, they’re the most beautiful people in the world, their power is unmatched, two middle-aged, kind of attractive people making out is something that can actually be so personal 😮‍💨 Listen, it’s about a grief-stricken, washed up cop who believes he’s cursed moving back to his home town to be the chief of police after the death of his daughter, losing himself in drugs and alcohol to forget his past… only to be thrown together with the woman he dated knew back in high school, an incredible woman who has always been smart, fierce, and intuitive, but the world has beaten her down and she’s been through a shitty marriage with a terrible guy who left her struggling to pay the bills and raise her two sons. And now her youngest has disappeared and she needs the chief to find him, and maybe the chief doesn’t seem capable, but he steps up because a kid is missing and he’ll do anything to get this kid back to his mother, and maybe part of the reason why he moved home again was to be closer to this kid’s mother. He’d do anything to protect her, not that she needs protecting because she’s so so strong and would go through hell and to another dimension to bring her son home. No, he looks out for her because she’s been through hell, and she deserves something good in her life, someone who loves her and keeps loving her. (If only he could realise how much he deserves that love as well.) But he knows just how far from perfect he is, too gruff and damaged, he’d just make her life miserable – he is cursed, after all. So instead he loves her quietly, doing what he can for her, too scared to draw her into the black hole that is his life. And maybe she’s scared too, because, let’s face it, she doesn’t have the best track record, and she has her boys to look after, and this man is far from perfect, and they bicker, and wouldn’t he just be another person to lose? Maybe she was never meant to have that kind of love in her life, and maybe she’s better off without it. But maybe he comes into her life anyway, without meaning to, maybe he was always there, sharing a cigarette with her under the bleachers between fifth and sixth period. They are part of each other, now and forever. And he doesn’t understand why this woman stays by his side, why she travels to another country to save him from hell, how he could ever deserve such a miracle. But she is fiercely protective over the people she loves, and she loves him, and that love makes her stronger. Even if it’s scary and uncertain and strange – maybe these two broken, lonely people can heal together… and find something that resembles peace.

I CAN’T WAIT FOR THEM TO MAKE OUTTTTTT. anyway.

Stranger Things ask game 👉👈

[bakugohoex]

I was rewatching death note and when L did his monster speech this request was born! So the idea is Bakugo and iida (separately ) with a s/o who has trust issues and is liar ,nothing extremely serious like betraying them! More like smaller stuff? They probably confront them asking why they lie so much!”

({and btw if you haven’t herd L’s monster speech you should for inspiration buts that’s your choice! Have a happy holiday!✨)

“y/n just tell me the fucking truth for once”

pairing: katsuki bakugo x female reader

cw: this long sorry, violence, language, some topics of abuse but it isn’t in detail, kissing and fluff 

word count: 5200+

a/n: hi sorry i don’t write for iida cause i find him really annoying and i don’t think i have the facilities to write him, but i do write bakugo so here it is, also i love the L speech sm and anything in italics is either a reference to the speech or directly incorporates the speech, have a happy rest of the holiday as well 

summary: in which you were raised by villains, by being saved by the heroes, the trust issues and lying you were brought upon reflects you now, bakugo grows ever more frustrated at your lying and all your truths come out

↞ back to my hero academia masterlist

The echo of the wind bashing against the windowsill roared through the commission, the white walls cascaded around you, it was painful and enduring at how you sat in the middle of the silent room. Waiting. No. Watching, you were listening and seeing those around you, a muzzle around your mouth to surpress your voice. Your wrists coated with the metal handcuffs, you were trapped, and you being stalked by those around you.

“Miss Y/l/n, we have found your family.” The voice is loud and monotone, you didn’t care, fuck your family, fuck what they did to you, fuck them.

Unable to move your hands to put a middle finger up at the camera, one movement causing an electrifying bolt run through your arms. You hated being here, you would rather fend for yourself on the streets than be involved in a hell hole like this.

“No words of happiness.” The sound of a certain pro hero caught your ears, the one who had captured you, held you against your will, locked you in this room. Number two pro hero Hawks.

“You can kill them for all I care.” Your voice dripped with malice not looking up at him.

Monsters who will not show themselves and will cause trouble.

You heard him say something quietly behind him before the jingle of keys were heard. He walked to the handcuffs undoing them, the muzzle clenched against your face, leaving sore marks, he grabbed at it making you face him. You were about to activate your quirk, but he quickly let go making you stop.

“We’re sending you to UA.” You eyes widened, what did a shitty school like UA need with a villain like you.

He looked at your sore wrists, before the signs of the bruises vanished underneath your thumb which you had been rubbing against the purple. He watched you touch your neck which had bruises from being pushed to the ground, all disappearing in a single touch. “A school like that doesn’t need me.”

“Of course it does, your quirk can be used for good.” He softly speaks sitting beside you on the white floor. The room was suffocating, and you wanted to leave it as soon as you could.

“I can’t, I know how to kill, I was raised to kill.” You put your hands to your face, getting rid of the cuts that erupted on your face, with an instance it was all gone. “If I touch you and activate my quirk, I could break you.”

He looks at your tired eyes, a child broken and used by your family to become a villain. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

It gains your attention and with an instance you look at the man, he holds his hand out you grab it with ease, his fingers were soft, you could imagine them breaking under your touch. He guides you out of the room, you walked past to where many other rooms which you assumed where blank and lifeless. Before seeing a window, it was to another room, you saw a woman in bed, she was bandaged up but the silver around her wrist made you in an instance know who it is.

“Your mother she’s dying, the families she ruined wont get proper justice, but I’ll let you go in, you can scream, shout hell you can kill her yourself, but you will join UA.” The sound of being able to kill her, kill the woman who had stolen you away.

“She’s not my mother, she found me.” They were never your family; they had seen you at such a young age and stolen you to indoctrinate.

Monsters who abduct children.

He nods already knowing, “we’ll lock the door.” All that flashed through your eyes was murder, she had taken it all from you, you never wanted to see her family, her stupid husband and her stupid son, you hated them all and you were going to kill her.

The sound of the door locking made you move towards her, she looked up thinking you were hear to save her. “My daughter.” The words were careless and made you angrier.

“I was never your daughter…” You pause her frail fingers had started to wrinkle and her face becoming grey and hair patchy.

“Y/n.” He breathing was rough, but you didn’t care, with an instant you went up to her exposed hands.

A smile formed on your lips, maybe you were a sadist, but you could do one last villainous action, make her fie even quicker, make her beg for forgiveness. Then you would go to UA, you would forget about the torture, forgot about them. You would become something a lot more than they had ever expected.

“I’m going to kill you.” It was comical but her face fell.

“You heartless bitch.” She shouted, “you fucking bitch, no wonder nobody loves you.” You didn’t care about her words smiling away.

The way her fingers cracked under your touch, each bone breaking the screams filling the room. You didn’t care touching even more of her before you moved directly to her heart. Hawks had heard the screams ignoring it maybe it was wrong of him to let you do this. But you deserved justice, your hand moved on top of her chest.

“Y/n…please.” She begged it was heaven in your ears, the woman who had tormented you was begging for you too stop and what else could you do but disagree. She had clinged onto your wrist, tightening her grip, unable to use her own quirk due to the medication, this was your only chance.

Hawks knew it was over, opening the door to see you walk out, he looked at you expecting some emotion but was brought with happiness, almost joy. “Where are the other two?” 

“You’ll see them again when they’re locked up, but that’s it, you cant kill them.” You nodded, you’d find a way, you’d find a way to kill them both, but you kept your composure.

The day flew past he explained how you’d have to lie, pretend your life was normal. But the main thing he wanted you to know was.

“If you kill any of them, I’ll be the one to kill you Y/n.” You nod, you had a straight face for most of his lecture, but you felt like he was trying to replace the adult figures you had had in your life. “If you get into any trouble, call me or just want to know how to act human, I know you haven’t been in the best education, but this is a fresh chance.”

“Okay.” It was simple and whilst sleeping in the commission in a much better area with colour and natural light. You watched the sky, watched how the stars danced around the moon, you admired it from a far but oh how you wished to see it up close.

The night was calming, and you were restless, but it wasn’t out of fear of going to UA, it was of fear they would find out who you were. Find out you were a villain, find out that you had caused deaths along the way. You were confident in your abilities, but they were new people, you had been surrounded by A rank and B rank villains all your life. Hell you had been classed as an A rank villain but now you would become something in life.

Hawks hadn’t bothered to tell you about your real parents, all that was known was you had been on the streets, you were a nobody and you would remain like that if you tried hard enough. The night had led to a lack of sleep with tossing and turning, the nightmares blaring through your head. The torment the way they would use your quirk at the tender age of five to kill and kill again.

Monsters who devour dreams.

The sound of coughing woke you up in your slumber, you hadn’t grown close to the winger hero. But he was trying, he gave you your new uniform, helped you pack a bag with everything and even gave encouraging words along the way.

The uniform was gross but after being trapped for weeks in solitude you were finally getting human contact, experiencing the world. “I’ll help you settle in; the teachers know your…past.” You nod, he was avoiding it and so were you, the drive being filled with silence.

Your gaze had been out the window, the hues of red and yellow cascaded through the sky, it was beautiful. A month ago the only thing you had seen was thick concrete walls, murder only occurring inside of the building you had called home for years.

“We’re here.” He whispers opening the door for you, taking your bags he watches you hit the air and feel the sun, “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile.”

Your surpress the smile looking down, “make friends Y/n.” You nod, you were able to make friends, of course you were it was the not sticking out like a sore thumb that bothered you.

These people will have known each other for a month’s now but you, you weren’t normal. Hawks gave a smile walking you inside the building, “I’ll go drop your bags off to your new room once you’ve settled in.”

You walked past the doors, before arriving in front of a humongous door, shrugging at how Hawks spoke about the class. “The league tried to get them.” You mutter out. “They had talked to Shigaraki about it prior, we were going to go with them but my bro…he got sick.”

It was a lie of course; it wasn’t that he had gotten sick. You had touched him; broken his arm and you had been punished in an instant. You were made to sleep in the rain, eat off the ground, it was torture and you had felt sucked to death.

Monsters who suck blood.

Hawks nods, you misspeaking made you nervous, this was the first time you would be talking and listening to people who you weren’t about to kill. The door opened and you didn’t dare face the class, the teacher who you assumed was Aizawa stood in a sleeping bag, you dismissed it knowing how powerful his quirk was.

“We’ve got a new student today, Y/n Y/l/n and pro hero Hawks is here.” The shock on there faces was something, but it felt more to Hawks than it was to you.

“I’ll be leaving I’ll call tonight.” You nod at Hawks watching him leave with your stuff, your bag hanged loosely on your shoulder. You analysed them all, scanning up and down before you saw the boy who you knew Shigaraki had captured, the Katsuki Bakugo and Izuku Midoriya who your ‘parents’ had told you about.

You stopped staring at them, Izuku looked down not meeting your gaze whilst Bakugo scowled at you, “why don’t you introduce yourself?”

“Oh umm…” You stuttered Hawks had made you practice a fake backstory but, in an instant, it was forgotten, “I’m Y/n Y/L/N, I moved here with my family a…and ugh.”

Monsters who always tell lies.

You didn’t know what else to say, refusing to meet their gazes as you looked out the window, the birds chirping, petals falling in the August heat, it was beautiful, how life spewed out into the world. But also how easily it was to destroy life, how in one touch everything could break and deteriorate, “Y/n.” Aizawa had been repeating your name but you hadn’t gotten out of your daze until the third time.

“Yes.” You whisper.

He points to a seat behind Bakugo and in front of Midoriya, “go sit behind Bakugo.” You nod, walking past them all, they seemed already accustom to their friends. This was going to be a lot harder; it wasn’t like you were infiltrating it to gain anything. You going against the indoctrination and being the opposite of what you had been brought up to be.

You felt someone tap your shoulder as Aizawa went to what looked like sleep, quickly turning around to meet the green haired boy. “I’m Izuku Midoriya.”

You pretended to not know him, smiling as you introduced yourself again, “Yeah I heard.”

“Why did your parents move?” A blonde boy shouted, you saw the black in his hair, it was a look, but you had seen a lot worse hairstyles.

“Oh, work.” It was an easy enough lie which nobody would be able to see through. “We move around a lot.”

He doesn’t say anymore, as some of the girls come around the table, all introducing themselves, you smile thinking this had become easier by the minute. As quickly as introductions had occurred between the whole class, the day had begin to conclude and all that was left was training.

You didn’t have a hero costume so remained in the UA uniform; it was easy enough. With the odd amount of people, Aizawa had made you stay beside him. “I want you to break all of their left legs.”

Was this a trick or a ploy? You were happy to accept knowing this to be an easy enough thing to do, you saw how they had all began to bunch together. It was paced easily, skimming through each and everyone of them, jumping onto the high buildings as you touched all their left legs with ease, even Midoriya whose quirk you had known to be superior had not been paying attention, you easily touched it before hiding it. Your last victim was Bakugo who seemed to be jumping around, you saw how he stood in front of Kirishima in the open area, well you were going to make this a show.

You already heard the screams of some of the class and whilst being distracted you touched the blond’s leg, having assumed it was the wind he ignored the feeling. Ready to attack just as you bounced back to Aizawa.

In an instance you saw the class cascade onto their left knees, the shouting and tears flowing from some of them. It was quick enough, and you almost felt the thrill of killing from doing this small action.

Even Bakugo who had tried to not become grounded was repressing growls at the pain, “What’s ha…” You heard Momo ask on the ground, even the boy you had known as Endeavor’s son had collapsed onto the floor.

“It’s good, and you can heal them as well.” Aizawa ignored the class taking it as an endurance test.

You nodded about to go reverse it, “no let them feel it.” He had stopped you, you spaced in and out watching them on the floor, you stood in silence, it was easy enough to be stealthy even the invisible girl was easy to get after seeing the gloves floating about.

Aizawa after a couple minutes let you touch there legs again, all regaining strength again. They were all a bit out of it but Bakugo seemed the most pissed at you, not understanding your quirk. The class stood in silence looking at you, you didn’t look at them, wanting to leave and just look out at the sky for a bit.

“Y/n, was that your quirk?” The questions cascaded out, but you refused to answer, you didn’t care if they knew but you felt anxious and untrustworthy of these people. They could end up using it against you, hell they might even try and cut your hands off, so you’re left quirk less.

You had heard it happened to Overhaul so what would make you think that these groups of future pro heroes wouldn’t do it you. “No.” Is all you say, it was a lie, and you were going to stick by it forever.

Lying monsters they are much more cunning than other monsters.

Look into the horizon and see hope, “can we go now?” You muttered to Aizawa, he nodded, you didn’t stop to talk to them instantly leaving.

You didn’t want to face the question and answers, you wanted to be alone. You understood after all these years of being isolated, making friends, being around other people had took a toll on you and you wanted to curl up into a ball.

You grabbed your bag changing as quick as you could, instantly walking past the class who had just arrived to change. You saw the message on the phone Hawks had given you a number and floor of where you assumed your room was.

Whilst walking towards where the dorms were you heard the shout of your name. Turning around you were met with Todoroki, “oh hi.”

“Your quirk its…” He trailed off not knowing the words.

He joined you in the walk to the dorms, “you can say villainous, I can kill people with it.”

“I wasn’t going to say that but at least you’re on our side.” He smiles out before talking about the class and how impressed they were with your quirk.

All you could think about were the words he had said though our side, what did it mean? Were there sides to this world, were you going to remain on the side of justice or go against Hawks and run and kill and be killed by him.

You had ignored everything else he had said, “I’m glad I’m on your side as well.” It was a blatant lie, but you were trying, trying to put on a façade. You tried to understand him, understand the emotions that were around you. But you didn’t understand it, didn’t understand how something has harmless as you had done had made them impressed. If they wanted to be impressed, you could kill someone. If they really wanted.

They pose as humans even though they have no understand of the human heart.

Todoroki talked about how meals worked and the works and before you knew it, he had dropped you off directly outside the dorm room. “I’ll come get you for dinner.” You nodded before sucking in a breath. You had your own room, your own sanctuary, you could make it look however you wanted.

You walked inside seeing your bags to the side, a desk and a bed it was normal and empty. Hell if you knew what to do with the room, you had no pictures to put up, no possessions only the new clothes Hawks had brought you. It was barren and you expected it would remain this way.

You laid on the bed, feeling the soft and warm covers, it was a new experience, the rags you had slept in prior being nothing compared to this. It was comfort that you had never experience, the few hours later bringing the half haired boy to your room.

You had put the clothes in the designated area and been waiting on the bed, staring out of the window. It was getting dull and wearing the clothes that fit too right, you opened the door to see Todoroki.

“We’re waiting downstairs.” You nod, pulling at the sleeves of the shirt as you followed the boy. He made conversation which you gave small yeah back too. You were eating for the sake of it, eating to fuel you it wasn’t to satisfy or pleasure you it was to make you stronger. That’s how you had been brought up and that’s how you seemed to remain.

You saw the class crowding a table, a confusion settling on your face. Even the angry Bakugo was perched on the table, Todoroki coughed, and everybody turned their backs. “She’s hear.” Mina squealed, “we got you a cake to celebrate you joining our class.”

Your face fell in confusion, why were they being nice? You had hurt them and now they had gotten you a cake, you had never had a cake, always being told it was bad for you and would ruin your quirk.

“A c…cake.” You stuttered.

“Yeah, a cake, look its got frosting.” Ururaka smiled moving to show you the cake.

It was Midoriya the next to speak, “we think your quirk is really cool and don’t want you to think we think it’s a villain quirk or something.”

Your eyes widened; the cake had blue frosting but the sound of Midoriya repeating what Todoroki spoke out too you. You took a deep breath before faking a smile, everybody seemed to believe it and your next words, “thank you guys so much it means a lot.”

Bakugo knew, Bakugo saw how your eyes were lying, how your face might have been smiling but inside you were dying. Those eyes of yours, the way your upper lip twitched whilst cutting the cake. He saw it all and, in the end, he saw how your fingers skimmed the knife, as if you were thinking about murder. But what did he know about an extra like you.

They eat even though they’ve never experienced hunger.

A couple weeks had passed, and you seemed to have settled in, well that’s what Hawks had assumed after every daily call with you. His words echoing in your head, one murder and you would die yourself. You had grown closer with all of them , specifically Mina and Kirishima, but Bakugo was another story, he was scowl every time you looked at him, everytime you tried to make conversation. You both hadn’t shared a single conversation only being around each other due to your mutual friends.

The day Mina had asked to study in your room had brought Kirishima, Sero, Denki and Bakugo to your room. You hadn’t expected all of them, but you put on a fake smile again, you didn’t need to revise, hell if it wasn’t for your quirk, you’d still be academically smarter then the rest of them.

You didn’t confess to this truth only accepting them inside the barren room, you hadn’t gotten time to print out the pictures you had taken with the class. As much as the villain inside of you hated to admit it you were enjoying your time. You had thought the first night at UA, that in a month you’d have killed them, the villain in you would come out and you’d stop all their hearts, but now, smiling with them maybe things were different.

Or maybe you were lying to yourself, because to Bakugo you still showed the lying nature, your eyes were filled with lies and could dare look at you. It was only for Kirishima who had dragged him alone, he wanted to ask why you lied, why you didn’t tell the truth? A true pro hero would never go to this extent, but he had no proof, it was in his head.

It was all true, you had continued this lie, making up about how your parents and you were distant, but you had a brother who you were close with. The brother who had stolen you had never been close with you, he hated you, resented your quirk and had killed anybody around you to prove he was the better child.

You imagined him locked up right now, locked away in the hell hole, it was callous, but you relished in his pain. Mina had begun asking questions which you ignored thinking, you zoned out looking out of the window. He was probably chained up, sobbing at how he regretted it all. Regretted hurting you, you bet he didn’t even know that you were the one to kill his mother.

It was comforting but you knew you would have to surpress these thoughts to seem normal. “Sorry, I spaced out, say that again?” You quickly spoke.

Bakugo had noticed you space out, noticed how your lips twitched upwards into a cruel face he had seen that face before. Seen it on every villain he had even encountered and the fear that filled him, startled you all as he knocked the books to the floor.

You continued helping Mina ignoring the boy who continued looking at you. He didn’t bother helping Kirishima, only glaring at you, it wasn’t like he cared if you trusted them or not. But you were no hero to him, even if Deku and Todoroki told you, you were a hero, you would always be something villainous. The night fell and they all left, Bakugo having glared the entire night, it was unnerving, and you were fearful he was catching on, but you dismissed it. It was easy to not overthink these types of stuff, you could always threaten the boy.

They study even though they have no interest in academics.

The late night was unnerving you could feel Bakugo’s presence surround the room, you jolted up. Looking around, feeling watched, before you noticed the hoodie Bakugo had been wearing draped over the chair. He might be awake, he could be, you didn’t care, you got up stretching before grabbing the hoodie and creeping out the door.

You were on the same floor as the boy, so in a quick few steps you arrived at his door. You knocked hesitantly, maybe you should’ve waited. You shook your head, knowing that the feeling of his hoodie in your room made you on edge. You knocked again, and on the third a sleep Bakugo opened the door.

They seek friendship even though they do not know how to love.

He rubbed his eyes before noticing who it was, “what the hell do you want?”

You scowled looking at him, “you left your hoodie in my room.”

You pushed it on him about to leave, but instead he grabs your wrist, “we need to talk.”

“We can talk in the morning.” You were fearful not of him but the threat he knew your secret, knew everything about you.

He ignored you dragging you inside and shutting the door, “sit down.” He mutters, you oblige sitting on the edge of his bed, he had been wearing a black shirt and shorts, you didn’t look at him, instead looing around his room. You see a picture of what looks to be his parents, he was the spitting image of his mother. He looked angry in it but even then, it was a family picture filled with love, something you would never have.

“Why do you lie?” He meets your gaze.

“L…lie, I haven’t.” You lie out.

“I see it in your eyes, you have this face and I’ve seen it on villains, who are you?” His voice had become harsher and you felt intimidated. Fuck, you had killed people and a rowdy blond boy was making you scared.

“I told you…”

He interrupts you, “Y/n just tell me the fucking truth for once.”

“Bakugo I don’t know what you’re on about.” You say acting dumb to leave this situation, “I’ve tried to be nice to you but you jus…”

He speaks over you to make you shut up, “you don’t want to be friends, what are you Y/n?”

His voice was eery and he continued to spew out the truth, “you’re a villain aren’t you.”

You take a deep breath the tears about to brim from your eyelids, “I’m the monster, parents tell their kids about.”

Bakugo watched the tears flow out, he didn’t know what to do, he brought his hand to your face wiping the tears with his thumb. “Y/n tell me the truth.”

You look a mess, but you didn’t care, and you confessed it all, you didn’t lie or skim over the truth. You told him from the moment you got taken to the moment you killed the woman who had made you call her mother.

You expected him to push you away, tell everybody instead he sat in silence. Before bringing you into his arms, “I shouldn’t have called you a villain.” It was a soft side to the boy who had been known for being aggressive, after hearing your sufferings he understood, and he wanted to make sure you were always safe and protected.

“I am a monster though.”

He makes you look up at him, holding your face in his hands, “you’re not, the monsters are those people.”

You don’t speak instead leaning your head against his shoulders, you had never been this vulnerable with anyone. He held your head onto his body, moving onto the pillow to let you lie down on him, he brought you comfort, let you cry on him. You weren’t a villain; you weren’t a villain and if Bakugo believed it then you weren’t a villain to the boy who had been surrounded by them just as much as you had.

After that night Bakugo and you had grown into a strong friendship, it was shocking to the class who had never seen you even talk. The way he would come and make you coffee in the morning, walk with you to each class. Sit beside you in at lunch, even go as far as it train with you just so you felt included.

But seeing how you both talked and smiled at each other, for the first time you had a genuine smile on your face, a genuine laugh that wasn’t filled with lies from your past. They watched how the two of you grew over the course of the next month, how the two of you grew closer and closer. It was unfathomable but you had made a true friend, a friendship that wasn’t based on lies, maybe one day you’d tell them all.

But at the time being you were content with having the angry boy be remotely nicer to you than anybody. It was Mina who had noticed how Bakugo would open the door for you or hold your bag occasionally. The unusual behaviour making everybody think he was sick, but all you saw from him was kindness that had evolved for you.

What they hadn’t realised was how at ease you both had gotten into a routine of sneaking into each other’s rooms. How you’d hold onto each other, talk and vent about the past in each other’s arms. Friends don’t do that; friends don’t hold and comfort each other like you both did.

On one of the many nights you both spent together, his arm around your waist, you looked at him. Looked at his fiery red eyes and fallen blond hair, he had become something more to you. Somebody who you could trust with your life.

“Stop looking at me, its creepy.” He scolds, you laugh at the boy bringing your hand to his hair.

You feel him stare down at your tiny figure, “I thought you were a real bitch the first time we met.”

“You don’t think that anymore.” You pout out nearing closer to his plump lips.

“I still think you’re a fucking bitch.” He laughs, cocking his head back before bringing it back to your face, the gap having narrowed and all you could see was his fiery eyes stare back at you. “You’re my bitch...though.”

You nod not making a remark as the gap closes between you. Your lips moving together in an instant, it was long awaited and seethed with love and hope. But most of all it proved the woman who you called mother wrong, you weren’t heartless, and you have the love she spoke about from Bakugo.

Monsters who always tell lies.

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