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erosiism · 5 months ago

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𝐏𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐘 | yan!priest x male!reader | nsfw

WARNINGS: extremely dubious consent, graphic and explicit smut. please do not read if you are not comfortable, or if you are triggered. In no way is this disgusting yandere behavior meant to be romanticised. This excerpt is taken from my fic on wattpad, twisted faith.

PAIRING: yandere!priest x male reader

SCENARIO: after one too many attempts of rebelling against him, the priest (anton) decides to punish you.

WORD COUNT: 4.2k

You knew. You knew the minute you were brought to Anton's home — you knew the minute you were washed and fed by several maids, and was brought right before the priest.

A sickening part of you knew.

You had always wondered when. When Anton's obvious desire for you would finally break, when the final straw would be until Anton would take you

And now you stood right before him, washed—your hair still a little damp—robed, trembling.

Shit. It was about to happen. It was about to happen. It was—

You didn't know what to do. You were utterly terrified, utterly helpless.

"To first cleanse your sins," Father Anton said quietly—his hands resting on your back, tracing circles, "you must purify the body." The motion was smooth, gentle, supposed to be comforting, but instead all you felt was an unwanted heat traveling up your spine, along with deep seated dread. Thick, sludgy dread.

This was part of the plan, you thought, swallowing. This is part of my plan.

Someone had already warned you, had they not? That with the priest, he was looking for something else with you. Something deeper. Something akin to lust, akin to desire.

"Yes, Father Anton..." you whispered. You wanted to close your eyes, but you feared the consequences that came with it. Instead, your own trembling (e/c) eyes were forced to stare at pools of liquid diamond—the color that belonged to the priest's eyes.

"You want this, don't you?" Anton purred, "you want this. You admitted it yourself. You needed purifying. And now I shall give it to you. Everything. I will purify your heart, your soul, your body..."

First, your shoulder. You found breaths shallow and quiet when Anton used one finger to slowly undo your clothes, starting from a simple slip of the shoulder, until your collar bone was exposed.

Exposed, for the priest to see.

You no longer felt like it was you. Your mind was growing hazy, your body was responding to Anton's touch in such a way that you were horrified by it. You could feel his own unwanted arousal slowly burning your insides, and before you knew it, you were pressed down onto the cool sheets of the bed, stripped of your clothes—Adam and Eve once roamed the Garden of Eden in their naked form freely, you recalled, before the serpent made them sin.

Was this what Anton meant? To return to the roots of mankind, before sin had existed?

It wasn't long before the priest started to undress himself, and you nearly wanted to kill yourself there and then when you saw just how—just how huge Anton was—because fuck, how the hell were you supposed to fit him inside?

You watched as Anton dipped his fingers in sweetly scented oil—perhaps even the liquid from a while back, in the confessions room—and coated it liberally on his own cock. The oil was costly, but perhaps, to Anton, there was no better purpose than to anoint one of heaven's own.

Fuck, you started to breathe heavily, feeling Anton's hands slowly grasping at your hips, his touch bruising, and lining his arousal up—you could feel it. Every inch of him.

Deep breaths. In and out...

"Ugh—" you let out a soft sound that was quickly muffled when you pressed your face down onto the pillow, ears burning with shame.

There was no greater pain and pleasure than this.

Anton pushed forward ruthlessly into your body. Anton did not stretch you out or give you advance warning. If the initial intrusion was painful, it was meant to be, as part of your penance.

"Cleansing," Anton purred, his voice sending shudders running down your spine, "punishment. This, my dear Y/n, is divine punishment."

Fuck, you teared up as you gripped the sheets, yes. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps this was an atonement of your sins, your crimes towards your own humanity. Perhaps you deserved this for spitting such cruel, careless words at your sister, for showing his weaknesses so blindly to your friend...

"Anton," you gasped out, the delicate flesh of your insides was battered and pried open by Anton's enormous girth, "I—I..."

Anton pressed into the hilt and then stopped, giving you time to adjust, and enjoying the trembling shudders of the bruised and violated muscles clenching around him.

"Give it all to me, turn everything over to the Lord and let me purge the sin from your flesh. Let me morph you; Y/n; let me purify you.”

"Slower," you begged him, tears starting to roll down your cheeks. You felt so utterly helpless—so pained, yet there was that deceitful pleasure crawling up in your insides, telling you this was what you wanted. This was what you asked for.

In a way, it was. In a viscerally twisted and distorted way...yes. You had planned this, did you not? You had orchestrated this plan to seduce the priest for your own survival, and you would fall down into the abyss with it.

There was no foreplay. Nothing. Nothing that could have told or prepared you of the pain that had shot up in your stomach—nothing that could have told you that you would be throbbing with pleasure, aching with sin. Your body felt filthy instead of pure, and the tears staining your face felt like they were burning. Anton kissed it all away—but that did nothing but to send feverish heat and silent hatred worming into your insides.

"Oh, Y/n," Anton cooed, his fingers trailing every inch of your skin, exploring every curve, every flat, "you were made for me. Made to be a vessel for me. You saved me, Y/n...you saved me."

Anton felt God would forgive the sin of his omission—after all, he was the closest being to godhood, and you were so beautiful and precious and pure. God's creation and the wonders of nature—from your mesmerising eyes, from how the arch of your back highlighted the delicate curve of your spine.

You made a strangled sound, biting back your moan that was about to slip past your lips. The pace remained brutal; relentless, and when you tried to grip on the sheets for some sort of stability to the madness, it failed.

"Confessing," Anton whispered, "is something you were never good at. But perhaps this gives you clarity. Perhaps this will help."

With suddenness, Anton stopped— instead, he pulled out, leaving your walls empty and clenching around for something. Just anything. Anton pressed one finger to the opening, almost like he was teasing you. Teasing you with inviting warmth, but not giving it to you. The priest was the one who reduced you to such a state, so how dare he? After stripping you of your innocence, claiming he would purify you…

You had never hated someone so much before. You hated him.

"C-Confess?" You managed to choke out, voice hoarse, "y-you want me to..."

Anton pressed the finger in deeper. More. You wanted more. It was not enough.

"Confess, yes." Anton tilted his head, his other hand pressed against your shoulder, the touch firm and gentle. It was strange how he seemed to treat you like you were so precious, like you were made of glass, but then his actions would contradict and you would feel the lower part of your body searing with deep, hot pain.

Blood. You could feel it trickle down your leg.

Anton waited until your breathless pants slowed and then spoke, "You may begin."

Your voice was thick with tears as you spoke, "Bless me father, for I have sinned."

The priest's hips began a slow and steady pace, pressing in deeply and then pulling out until the head of his cock caught on the thinly stretched rim. It kissed it slowly, slowly pushing until half way inside. You let out a strangled gasp, sobbing.

"Continue."

Oh, but how? You found it hard to find words scattered here and there, when your brain was a mush and you didn't even feel like you were you anymore. You weren’t yourself anymore—you weren’t innocent. Anton had ripped away any last remnants of sanity and purity that you had, claiming it for his own, marking you as a sinner.

Y/n...Y/n...who were you even, now? The feeling of derealization pierced your chest.

Anton's cock looked impossibly large as he pressed it against your gaping hole. It looked like it could split you open. You trembled from the stretch — you wanted more, in a horrible sense, and the only way you could get that was to atone. To confess all your sins to the greatest sinner in the world.

Your stunning (e/c) eyes went wet with tears, but it only made your submission sweeter and it only made the priest's cock throb harder as your body worked to accommodate him; flesh clinging and gripping deliciously as he pushed deeper with each second, but never quite hitting the end.

It was a tease, a long drawn punishment.

Anton's hot gaze dropped so he could watch your belly bulge each time he entered you fully. The evidence of his physical penetration into you— his innocent, innocent savior—only made the dark feelings in his stomach swirl, twist, knot.

"I'm sorry," you found yourself begging, "I'm sorry, Father Anton—I shouldn't have—I shouldn't have—"

I shouldn't have existed.

"I shouldn't have went outside the church walls," You sobbed, "I shouldn't have met anyone else, I shouldn't have—"

"Don't even say that." Anton's voice was serene yet so damned. "What else?"

"I shouldn't have murdered the man." You babbled on like your mind was shattered; broken beyond repair.

"I shouldn't have talked to her—"

You felt another sharp pain crawl up your spine when Anton rammed inside you. The priest's hands went to cover your mouth, stifling your moans that threatened to slip out.

"Ah, no," Anton whispered, his voice sultry and deep, "we can't have you making such noises, can we?"

"Just—just..." You felt the tears roll down your cheek, felt the way your chest heaved and your hips ached — all this felt too much; too overstimulated.

You released; arching your back and feeling your fingers grip on the sheets with reckless abandon. Your thoughts were pounding in your head and so was the slow, subsiding heat: what have I done? You thought with misery, with fuzziness and dazed eyes, what have I done?

Anton smiled and leaned forward.

"You have been purified."

The second time, it was because you had disobeyed him. You ran away — at least, you attempted to. But it had been foolish, and now you had to face the consequences of your actions. You willed your trembling form to straighten, choking down a sob.

“I’m sorry.”

"That's what I thought." Anton smiled in amusement. "Here I was praising you, darling," Anton tipped your chin up and you swallowed, fear started to flood within you. "But it seems that once again my trust in you has been misplaced."

"I'm sorry," you started to say—to beg—"don't put me back there. Don't!"

Fear rotted between your teeth and gave you that toothache feeling: the slow thudding of realization, the slow ache of cavities worming into your insides, staining your mouth. The sweetness had been too much. Too painful.

"I won't."

"...Then..."

What will you do?

"It's been long since you were purified."

Inwardly you shattered once again.

"Slow down," you gasped, feeling Anton's cock enter in, unrelenting, brutal, merciless—you dug your fingers into the expanse of his back, taking it down, causing a soft sigh to elicit from Anton. "Please," your voice took on a begging note. "Please."

Anton paused for a while. His fingers cupped your cheek, and his eyes were almost dazed with pleasure.. But they still held a certain maddening clarity that you were afraid of.

"You wanted this, didn't you?" Anton tilted his head. You felt the cock inside you press further still, your walls squeezing it, your body welcoming it, with pleasure spilling in your gut. Unwanted pleasure. "You wanted this, darling. And so I give it to you."

How long had it been? The tears were running down your face but your body betrayed yourself. For there was your own answering arousal between your legs, the way your hips lifted and responded to Anton's fast, full thrusts, the way moans slipped off your mouth like nothing. You wiggled your body a little, squirming, trying to find a better position—but another ram into you, another buckle of your hips and a sharp cry—stopped you from being able to do so.

"Slower," you repeated once again— begging him, before Anton shoved his fingers down your throat, causing the yoo choke on your words. Saliva coated the priests's fingers but he did not seem to care. Kisses were planted on your bare form—the shoulders, the nose, the lips—Anton seemed satisfied, actually. More than that. Darkness was twisting in his eyes. Anton loved it—loved ravaging your, loved having sex with you. He pulled those fingers out and your mouth felt empty.

"You're doing such a good job," his voice was so gentle, so sweet—you could have cried. Yes, there was the constant pleasure in your body that Anton managed to induce—the kind of pleasure that made you yearn for more, the kind of pleasure that made you moan into the kisses that Anton provided, obscene and all, but oh, it betrayed your mind. "Continue on. You have barely managed to take me yet."

I'm disgusting, you wept, oh, someone save me. I'm so disgusted with myself.

"I can't," you panted, your fists gripping the sheets. "Anton...I really can't."

The only answer was a push that pressed you flush against the bed. Anton's fingers wrapped around your jaw slowly and turned your face to the side, peppering kisses on it. It was a soothing gesture—Anton was marvelous at what he did. He would torture you mentally, sexually, but treat you like porcelain physically, treating you with such tenderness and gentleness at times that you werebdazed by it. And it worked now.

"Good job, darling." Anton cooed, almost relishing in the soft moans that you were desperately trying to keep down your throat. You felt tears roll down your cheeks slowly, you felt the pain down there, swollen and overstimulated. You knew the sheets were stained with your earlier releases, and now would be what, the third? Fourth? Fifth? Anton was brutal in his pace.

How far had you fallen, already?

Behind Anton you could make out through your teary vision, a small cross. And now that cross taunted you. Watched you ws your purity was slipping away from you.

Tears rolled down your cheek, and you felt yourself slipping into darkness.

To feel anything would make you deranged.

After Anton had…purified you — you had scrubbed endlessly at your skin, hoping to remove any memory of him. But with that purification, also came a change of treatment. Anton grew gentler, kinder, and you grew more tired, more willing to be deceived.

Simply put, you didn’t know how to place your rage anymore: there was the rage that was simply rotten, incurable love—there was the rage which were all the tainted truths and desires—and then there was the rage that was like a unanswered prayer, rattling in your mind, ricocheting off the walls.

You had learnt a long time ago that your body betrayed your mind. That your mind betrayed your heart. You feared that you had grown to love Anton, in some sickening, undeniable way: but was that not inevitable? A human will crave fire, though deadly, in the light of cold. And in this case Anton had stripped you of everything you ever had, and now you were craving warmth.

And Anton. He was that very warmth. You wanted his embrace — you wanted it so desperately, the feeling of being loved, cared for, tender and sweet. After all, Anton had never hurt you before, did he? Everything earlier had been some sick farce, some disgusting aversion to all things good. But it was alright. You had learned your lesson.

You needed only Anton, and yet Anton seemed to withhold from sex, like he was dragging it on. You wanted it carnally, biblically. You could feel the sins and evil swarming under the layer of your skin. You wanted it. You wanted to be made pure again, you wanted that sin purged from your flesh. You wanted it eviscerated. You wanted it to be painful, almost.

But as luck had it, Your purification this time was not one of pain. Anton was always tender with you —but the purifications were always painful, rightfully so, as penance.

The sheets were soft and silky, as luxurious as you remembered. It was the same bed that you had laid in during your first time. Oh, how rebellious you had been. How unwilling. But now you are older, wiser. You knew to behave—you knew this was for your greater good.

You have made life miserable for yourself. Why did you bother trying to resist? It had taken coaxing—and you had been so delightfully and wonderfully patient with you. Anton had already been so sweet even when you had been feisty and sharp-tongued, but the priest treated you with honeyed, saccharine sweetness. See, Anton seemed to tell him. See, you should have obeyed me earlier. This way, no one would have died. You could have carved out your own ending.

And now Anton bit at your lip until you could only groan. Supple, strong hands removed whatever clothes you had on— you were kissed until you were lightheaded and breathless, until the only thought that remained was the priest. Anton, Anton, Anton—until those thoughts flooded your mind, strong and vicious.

The priest’s hands were warm as they trailed down your bare skin. You wanted to lean into the warmth: you wanted to tattoo it on your flesh, you wanted it imprinted, made permanent. You could have said that these desires were ignominious, even, humiliating, hideous. But you were no longer blind by the evil that had blinded you. This was good. This was good for you. You had utter faith in Anton.

Your feelings once had been raw and ambivalent. And now they carried on within you, strong, unwavering, comforting.

Anton pressed onto your chest, tapping at where your heart was. “This, Y/n,” Anton’s voice was heavy and commanding. “This belongs to me.”

You took a hitching breath, swallowing.

Anton moved to kiss your neck. “Only I can purge your sinful urges. And only I, my darling, can consecrate you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” you whispered, “yes, I do.”

Anton smiled. His gaze was heavy, like his words: shadowed, dark, dangerous. It was clouded with haziness, and his arousal was pressed against your thighs, his arms spreading your legs apart. You whimpered, but offered no protest. Your muscles shook from the stretch, but you remained obedient. Sweet, darling lamb. Yes. You would be a sweet, darling, obedient, loving lamb.

“You have been so good lately,” Anton purred, “and there are no more lies. You have changed—I was right, wasn’t I? Around you there was only a plethora of distractions. And now it’s just…” He pressed his forehead against yours. “You and I. You have morphed, Y/n, you have become perfect.”

Hell was a man’s own creation, so was heaven. And you were a piece of heaven that had been carved out for himself. You were his, fully his — you were no longer anyone else’s. His, his, his.

Anton pressed his fingers against the wetness of your hole, slowly slipping into it. You gave a startled pant: where was it? Where was the pain you were expecting? This was no penance, this was—

“See,” Anton said softly, pressing further until you gave another strangled sound, breathier this time, when his fingers brushed against your prostate. “See, Y/n? Your sins have been absolved. By submitting yourself to me, there is no pain. No penance.”

“Please,” you panted—the fingers were not enough. Where were you? You were still so impure, so dirtied— you wanted it.The pained ecstasy. The purification. The Anointment. “Why won’t…why won’t you give it to me?”

Anton tilted his head, smiling. “I thought you wanted this. I remember you begging me last time: to be gentler, to be tender. What’s wrong, Y/n?”

You could not even place it in words. Breathless moans left as your throat when Anton pressed deeper still: you swallowed, before you shook his head. “I…don’t…know,” was all you managed to choke out, “I don’t know.”

“Hm,” Anton murmured. “Very well,” he brushed a loose strand of hair from your face. “you are loose, Y/n—you are so loose. Were you thinking about me? Were you waiting anxiously for this? Did you want this?”

“Yes, Anton,” you managed out in between your breaths, quick and dirty. “Yes.”

Anton pulled his fingers out abruptly, and you were left trembling. Your eyes were watery, almost: your back arched, your fingers fisted around the sheets. You almost caught your breath before you felt the same feeling again: the feeling you wanted, of origination and sin and purification—You could feel the delicate flesh battered and pried open again. You gave a soft moan—Anton pressed to the hilt, and thrusted. You started to scream—but it was of pained ecstasy.

It was nowhere as painful as the first time. This time was more mellow. Anton’s touch was bruising against your hips, leaving behind imprints of blue and black. The thrust pinched everything from you, all your breaths and your thoughts and all that horrifying, twisted doubt—all those reservations.

Anton continued. That same feeling plunged all the way up to your gut—it crushed your prostate entirely. You felt yourself start to release guttural, muffled sounds: you tried to swallow back your sobs, unable to discern between the wretched desire and pleasure that kept pulling, yanking at you—and the pain. Anton was still certainly gentler than last time. And this time round, Anton had prepared you.

You screamed, your hands flying out to claw at Anton’s back. You could feel yourself nearing your first orgasm; so painful, so soon, and tears flowed freely down your fever red cheeks. Your hole stretched painfully around the girth of Anton’s cock—Anton continued this pace, but oh—he was so gentle with you.. It was almost like the priest was praising you.

Good job, Anton seemed to be telling you, with the kisses peppered on your face, with the gentle, supple tugs of your hair whenever you started to wobble—good job.

“You are doing so beautifully,” Anton cooed, “so, so well.”

You could barely think through the hazy pleasure. Anton set up a rhythm like this, Anton sliding out just right to see you clinging almost whorishly to his cock—then pressing, pushing, spreading you open with a force that made your throat raw from the obscene sounds you made. Anton’s voice was calm and soothing, low, almost menacing, a juxtaposition to the violence below. But it wasn’t his fault. Anton had wanted to be gentle, you had refused. You wanted the pain, it was your punishment. You would claw Anton’s back, Anton’s lips would capture your own with each cry you wanted to release. His kiss was always breathtaking—literally, in a sense that all coherent thoughts and all your breaths were ripped away from you; and then Anton would chew on your bottom lip, biting it, allowing a stream of crimson to bleed out.

“Anton,” you moaned out feverishly, “Anton.”

The priest continued to fuck you with a blind frenzy, eyes dark and hooded and the grip on your hips so tight—so that you wouldn’t dare to even crawl away. So that you wouldn’t even dream of it. So that you would remain pilant and soft and warm and obedient.

“I’m sorry,” you started to say, your words punctuated by sobs, “I’m sorry I was so…”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Punish me all you like. I deserved all of it. I deserved every single bit of it. Every inch. Everything. Everything Anton did—was it not what you were practically begging for? Anton had given you so many chances, but you had failed him each and every time.

“There is nothing to apologize for,” His voice was calm and soothing, not matching the violence below. “You have repented. And that, Y/n, is the most important.”

Anton pushed again—and this time the sound you made was almost inhuman: when you finally, finally—felt the warmth flooding into you, when you finally felt your insides being filled, your sin being washed away. And you were filled so completely, so much of it that some spilled from your hole, that you felt like you were choking on it. You released at the same time—the electrifying heat spread all the way to the tips of your fingers, enveloping you whole, leaving you dazed and weightless from the ecstasy of it.

Anton kissed your tears away, and his face was one of pride when he touched your forehead gently.

“Good job,” Anton whispered, his voice lilting and insidious. “Good job, Y/n.”

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#male reader insert #yandere x male reader #male reader #yandere male #x male reader #dark yandere #mlm smut #yaoi bl #bl smut #x bottom male reader #male reader smut #eroswrites

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yaksha-lover · 1 year ago

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The two of them were practically insatiable, the way they vied for your attention.

Malleus was more possessive, insisting and outright demanding every possible shred of affection he could squeeze from you. He wasn’t one to care about the fleeting fancies of others; they were certainly no threat to him. The only wandering eye he concerned himself with was your own, entreating you to fixate yourself on him. He didn’t desire so much to keep you locked away from others, only to keep you nearby. He trusted you, perhaps much more than Rollo did.

Rollo was more jealous. He preferred you to remain a pretty, untouched doll for him to gaze upon, and he became very angry when anyone wished to remind him that they could do the same. It was as though he feared if someone had even a drop of desire for you, you would be snatched from his arms into theirs. No matter how much reassurance you gave, his mistrust of the world never seemed to waver. So he clung firmly and fiercely to every scrap of you that he could manage.

Anything that could shatter Rollo’s illusion of what he believed you to be, virtuous and pure, was deeply unsettling to him - that included Malleus.

Unfortunately for him, he had no choice in sharing.

They both seemed to take a remarkable delight in your magicless status. Malleus saw it as another justification for your being perfectly created for each other - he was surely made so powerful in order to protect you. Rollo felt instead that you were something special, something to be preserved. Something he was lucky enough to stumble upon, with him being the only one worthy to touch you without tainting you.

He was especially bothered by Malleus’ influence on you, but there was naught for him to do but seethe and bide his time until the two of you could be alone. He would insist on ‘cleansing’ you after you’ve spent time with the fae, which just happened to include time spent on his lap, arms encircling you and forcing you to lay back against his chest as he murmurs quiet prayers. Were his hands to wander, it would only be spiritual guidance telling him where you’ve been debased and dirtied by that fae, where he needs to purify you with his own righteous touch.

When it came time for Malleus to find you again, Rollo was loathe to let you go. Malleus was unbothered by the other man’s temper tantrum, only focusing on you. He, too, was not keen on sharing, but knew it was for the best, at least temporarily.

In a way, the two needed each other. Rollo didn’t have Malleus’ magic power or status, as repugnant as it was to admit, and could not always guarantee your safety and closeness as he wished. Malleus had everything except for the charisma and acceptance that Rollo seemed to earn from others. A small enough obstacle, but one Malleus did not feel sure enough about to risk you over. Rollo was able to talk himself out of situations in a way that Malleus lacked, but you preferred it if he didn’t use his powers for such things. No, trusting Rollo to keep anyone from taking you away was an unpleasant but necessary choice for Malleus.

Malleus and Rollo were each biding the days before they could steal you away from the other, but for now, they seemed to exist in a temporary peace.

Keeping you safe and with them was perhaps the one thing they could agree upon.

#twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #malleus draconia x reader #rollo flamme x reader #malleus x reader #rollo x reader #malleus draconia #rollo flamme #rollo flamm #twst #twisted wonderland #k.concepts

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mourningliliesmorningglories · 7 months ago

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"A boy would be the son of the France, but you, Marie Thérèse, shall be mine."

A Black Brothers microfic. Inspired by this line, from Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette. 345 words.

"You ruin everything you touch. Everything. You were the favorite son. You were always loved more. You made it in to Slytherin. They wanted you." Sirius was heaving, chest panting like he'd flown a hundred laps of the pitch. It couldn't be like this. Sirius had left and no one asked him to stay - not even his brother.

"It was never supposed to be like this." Regulus never knew how to uphold himself around his brother. He couldn't run because Sirius would follow. He couldn't hide because Sirius would find him. But that was then. And this was now.

Regulus didn't know why he sought out his brother. Why two years after being abandoned by the only person he truly believed loved him, he needed to see him. His guilt did not purify him. He hoped the mark to be gained would.

"You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?" Sirius' voice was dry, biting even.

"I was five. Mother had just crucio'd me for the first time." Regulus' eyes were dark and glazed over. "You told me something and I held on to it with two hands." Even after you left. Even after you left me. It goes unspoken.

Sirius stopped pacing. He stood so still, he might have stopped breathing.

Regulus wondered why of all the things to say, he chose this. Of all the arguments and the promises and words left unsaid, he chose to drip his blood into his brother's hands. He would've bathed Sirius in his blood if that cleansed them.

Regulus set his jaw. He wouldn't falter. His voice would not shake. "I will be the Son of the House of Black, but you, Regulus Arcturus…"

"…Shall be mine." Sirius' whisper was wet and shaky. "You, Regulus Arcturus shall be mine."

Regulus reached out to his brother's bowed head, cradled his jaw in hand, felt that shared warmth one final time. He dragged his thumb over his brother's temple. This was their goodbye. I worship in your temple, Sirius Black.

Regulus' footsteps echoed down the corridor. He did not look back.

#harry potter #marauders #marauders era #sirius black #regulus black #black brothers #black brothers angst #angst #micro fics

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harryssweatcreaturee · 1 year ago

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Petals and Promises

you guyssssss, i'm bacckkkkk (((':

a/n: here's something a little sweet and heart warming with soft harry being the sweet little baby he is, i hope this fluff blurb makes you happy. love you guys <3

wc: 1695

warnings: mentions of deceased parent

Days like this were Harry’s favorite.

The smell of the fresh rain drizzling down to water the trees, humidity that anyone else might complain about but Harry loved. Sure, it meant sadness for most people but for Harry, it meant growth and serenity. Each raindrop seemed to cleanse the very atmosphere, purifying it from worries and accumulated dust, washing away the problems from moments before the nature’s symphony. The air that was once stifling and heavy, now felt light, crisp, and cool.

He walked from the parking lot to head towards his flower shop. Sidewalk sprinkled with some people like him – under their umbrellas and coats coddling them away from the slight chill the rain invited.

“Excuse me!”

Harry kept walking, admittedly a bit distracted with the sound of the pitter patter from the rain hitting the pavement, not realizing the woman behind him was trying to call his attention.

“Sir! Excuse me!”

This time, Harry turned his head, finding a young woman with her hands wrapped around her body and drenched pointing to his umbrella.

“Do you mind? Just until I reach the flower shop. I parked too far and forgot my umbrella. Sorry just – it’s cold. Wet, very wet.” She rambled on, an apologetic smile on her face as if she was burdening Harry for wanting momentary shelter from the curtains of rain.

Harry smiled as he moved closer to her, “Don’t mind at all. M’actually headed to the flower shop too. What are you looking for? We have new shipments today and I ordered some new flowers that are in season.”

Harry’s always been so friendly and kind, not leaning into finding any harm in anyone’s intention of speaking to him or approaching him. Maybe it was a bit much for some people but hey, sharing his umbrella with a person and how could he not make conversation when they’re just inches away?

(Y/N) on the other hand, hated the rain. It meant sadness. It meant another day where the skies cried with her over how much she missed her mum. Her best friend. Her confidant. The world seemed to be just as sad as her from how often the skies cried with her – dreadful and muddy as it made every step a battle against the sucking muck.

It didn’t help that she left her umbrella today and she needed those flowers before she went to go visit her mum. But she wouldn’t miss it for the world. No matter the shine, the rain, the wind. She’d sit on that grave as the rain fell in a relentless downpour if she had to.

To make it worse, she wanted to try this new flower shop and the parking she found felt like it was miles and miles away from her car as the rain trickled down her dry body and making her a proper soaked towel.

God bless the man that allowed her to hide away from the rain until they reached the shop. He seemed so kind and genuine, giving her a smile that was so graceful – a delicate curve that carried with it elegance and joy. It was sweet and it made (Y/N) feel warm inside unlike the rain’s cold drips that made her body shiver.

“I usually get her a bouquet of sulfur and pink cosmos, if you have any.”

She stayed by the door, cautiously looking around the shop riddled in concentric shelves holding beautiful flowers and arrangements. It smelled so nice, soft yet alive. (Y/N) didn’t want to wet the wood floor any more than she already had, keeping her body at a close distance to the exit door.

Harry noticed and immediately walked over to her with a coat he usually left under the register, handing it to her with a soft smile, “Don’t worry about that. Walk around and look as you please. I’ll mop up after. M’Harry, by the way. Let me know if you need anything.”

She wasn’t sure if he even responded to her as to what flowers she wanted but he seemed busy at work with the yellow and pink puffs she asked for, working on a bouquet behind the counter.

(Y/N) could tell he took care of his flowers. Not a single wilted petal or a dead flower. They looked beautiful and full of life, ready to illuminate any room or bring a smile to anyone’s face. She hoped it did the same to her mum in heaven every time she showed up with her favorite flowers.

“May I ask who these are for? These are special flowers – beautiful and harmonious. Special person you’re getting them for.”

A smile perked the commissure of her lips, not realizing that her mother’s favorite flowers meant something so sweet and so in sync with what their relationship was – still is and forever will be.

(Y/N) walked closer to the counter, eyes now focused on his hand cutting the stems at an angle before perfectly arranging them at a height where they bloomed so generously.

“They’re for my mum. I visit her every Sunday with her favorite flowers, even if the ones from the week before are still perfect and blossoming.”

He had long, slender fingers. A cross tattoo etched on the back of his palm, a pastel yellow chipping away from his fingernails. It matched him, she thought. Tender and refreshing like the smile he gave her when he allowed her to hide away under his umbrella.

Harry didn’t need more explanation to understand what the flowers were for. And though his mum was alive and well, thank God, it resonated deep in him because cosmos happened to be his mum’s favorite flower too.

“Cosmos are my mum’s favorite too.”

A soothing silence fell over them as he finished up the bouquet, wrapping the stems with a rubber band, then the brown kraft paper, then the cellophane.

“This one’s on the house today. I hope you have a good visit with your mum and take my umbrella. The weather won’t get any better until later in the evening.”

His generosity made (Y/N)’s eyes water. He didn’t know her, didn’t know her name, yet his kindness wrapped her up in the warmest, tightest hug of sweetness that squeezed tears out of her. There was sincerity in his kindness that was unmistakable, a genuine desire to help others that radiated from him, and anyone can see that.

“Thank you.” She croaked out, holding in a sob that she thought would come later when she sat atop her mother’s grave but instead, this sweet stranger was nearly pulling it out of her.

Harry couldn’t seem to get the woman out of his head days after. He could remember seeing her eyes welled up in unshed tears, her lips trembling a sad testament to the emotions churning behind the surface. Harry just wanted to hold her, feeling compelled to promise her that everything will be okay and that one day things will get better.

He hoped she’d come by again this Sunday, maybe talk to her some more and try to make her smile again in any way he could. But luckily, he didn’t have to wait until Sunday.

The last thing he expected was for her to show up in his shop again on this Thursday afternoon, a basket of muffins and his umbrella filling her hands. She looked happier today, sporting that same apologetic smile as she nearly struggled with the door as she stumbled in, a silly little giggle leaving her lips as she tripped on the way to the counter towards Harry.

“This is my proper thank you for your kindness – and your umbrella. You don’t know me, don’t know my name, if I’m a good person, or a bad person. Yet you unhesitatingly treated me with such generosity and-and some sort of empathy that just nearly cured my sadness,” she giggled with a soft sigh following, scooting the basket of muffins closer to him.

“I don’t need to know a person for me to be kind. And besides, I knew in the bottom of my heart that you needed it and it was no problem for me to give you what my heart is full of. Thank you for the muffins, petal.”

(Y/N) huffed out a small laugh, softly shaking her head in disbelief that someone so perfect could exist. Someone so soft and emotionally intelligent, so beautiful and cautious. “You’re unbelievable, y’know that? I’ve never met someone so polite from the second I’ve met them and really, it warms my heart more than I can say. I –“ It was like the woman had a drank a truth serum before she came to see him.

“I left here on Sunday even seeing the rain in a whole different way. I told my mum about you – about the stranger that gave me his umbrella and gifted me flowers because I looked like a sad, wet mess. And I just knew you didn’t do all that out of pity. It means a lot to me.”

Harry could only smile at her. She was so cute, honestly rambling off again about whatever she felt with no filter on her mouth. It was sweet and it made Harry feel good that his kindness meant so much to her. It reminded Harry of the exact reason why he was the way he was.

“Well, I do hope you come by here often and I promise I’ll always be just as kind and sweet, petal.”

(Y/N) felt her cheeks warming up, her heart racing at that nickname again, finding it even a little funny given that he sold flowers. She wanted a different reason to come by the flower shop, perhaps to see him more often than just Sundays where she’d usually be a mess and crying again.

Before (Y/N) could respond, Harry disappeared behind the small hallway that led to the back, then returning with a beautiful chocolate cherry sunflower, Harry handing it to her with a hopeful smile.

“Every petal of this flowers will leave with a promise of your return. Come see me again, petal. I’ll be happily waiting to see you.”

#harry styles #harry styles one shot #harry styles x reader #harry styles fan fics #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles blurb #harry styles au #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harrystyles #harry styles x yn #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harrystyles fic #harrystyles fanfic #hslot #harrys house #harry styles fic

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auspicioustidings · 1 year ago

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The Eyes of God

Summary: You are a researcher separated from your group and hypothermic in the mountains. It would be better you had died than be taken into the remote Monastery nearby.

Words: 1.7k

CW: Catholic horror, non-con (for context there is oral sex that is very much unwanted, starts with reader unconscious so somnophilia), exploitation, non-con medical procedure, mentions of cannibalism.

He sends out his command to the earth; his word runs swiftly. He gives snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes. He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs; who can stand before his cold? Psalm 147:15-17

The blizzard had come without warning to steal away all of your senses. There was no sight but for the white in front of you, no sound but for the howling cold, no smell but that of ice, no taste but your own dry fear on your tongue and no feeling at all. How long had it been since you had been separated from your group? Seconds, days?

You knew the signs of hypothermia, had trained for the harsh conditions of this unexplored mountain, but your memories of it all scattered to the corners of your feebled mind as you shuffled slowly and aimlessly forward. Every step was a fight against an impossible foe, God like it it's strength. There was something in the white, a glow. You needed to reach it, you needed to reach it more than you needed oxygen.

Everything is too hot, you are burning.

Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one. Isaiah 47:3

"What have you brought before the eyes of God?" Alejandro asked of the man holding a naked figure tight to his chest.

"Wis hunting Father, as ye had asked" Soap replied, "found this woman naked in the snow."

Soap had found you as you started to tear at your clothes. He had watched. The temptations of the flesh had come unbidden to him, blood thickening his cock as your pale flesh met the deathly cold skin to air. It was kindness in the Lord's name to save you; at the Monastery they could cleanse you of this sin, of your whoredom. Make you clean so you could meet your end in a state of Grace. That was what he had told himself as he held you tight to his body, thinking if he could make you one flesh to save you from this cold he would.

"You've brought us something sinful Brother" Rudy said, emerging from the shadows and gazing hatefully at your nakedness.

"He has been righteous no Rudolfo? Something sinful is ripe for purification of the flesh and soul" Alejandro said, coming closer to run a hand up your arm and delighting in the coldness of your skin. A challenge from above he thought, sent to them on the brink of death to bring back and make whole.

"Of course Alejandro. Leave her here then, that we may make her well first."

Soap did not want to leave you with them. He knew that the Fathers could be cruel to sinners, they were so very cruel to him. He knew it was to serve a greater purpose. The unworthy and sinful must endure mortification of the flesh. But you were so soft and delicate in his arms, so decidedly feminine in comparison to everyone here. Did Adam feel like this when he willingly ate the sin offered by Eve?

"By one man's disobedience the many were made sinners. Is this pride Brother? Alejandro, perhaps we should call upon Ghost, ensure this is not able to spread as a sickness."

Soap felt the holy fear of God then. He loved Ghost as David had loved Jonathan, the covenant between them unselfish and everlasting. He felt at his most tested when he was called to watch him be purified. The last time Soap had disobeyed, the Fathers had hung Ghost on a hook and in the end taken a rib as God had taken Adam's rib. Only Ghost had not been deeply asleep as Adam had. His anguish had been loud and still tormented Soap even now after the place had been closed up with flesh.

He looked down at you, your eyes slowly blinking now that there was heat infusing into your skin. Perhaps this is what the Fathers had done with that rib, created another test for him. He laid you gently, reverently, on the alter.

"There now, it is not pride Rudolfo, merely care. By one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. You may go Soap, go to Ghost and pray."

Soap bowed his head in thanks before leaving. Ghost would be preparing his catch by now, no doubt he would have followed orders exactly and hunted down your group properly unlike him in his weakness for you. The Fathers had been diligent in teaching Ghost Genesis 9:2-3 after all.

So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire. James 3:5

The first thing you felt was pain, followed swiftly by panic. You blinked rapidly then slowly, willing your brain to connect properly to your optic nerve and process where you were.

Staring at the ceiling. You felt your body on a hard surface, you were laying down. There was an unbearable pain in your chest and as you tipped your head forward to look you started to whine on each of your quick exhales, terrified. There was a tube piercing into your flesh, liquid flowing through it. The pain was dull and throbbing. You were completely naked, your skin illuminated and glowing from the hundreds of candles surrounding the alter you were laid on.

And then the true horror of it, two men dressed in the garb of priests, lapping languidly between your legs.

The third feeling was the perverse pleasure that came from their tongues on you. The animalistic sounds of wet lapping against slick folds. Your body did not feel like your own, your movements sluggish and heavy against your commands. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope and trying to see the original image, a sickly feeling of futility. Still, you stubbornly willed your panic to aid you and focused on lifting a hand to push away the men.

One of them lifted his head, chin dripping with you. In your delirium you swore his eyes were fully black, his teeth sharp and oozing ichor. Perhaps in any other scenario he would be handsome, a young man looking at you from between your legs. But not this one, not in the scenario where your hand finally reached his head to give a weak and pathetic push. Not in the scenario where he grabbed your wrist and twisted so hard it made you forget the pain in your chest.

"And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off" he said, his voice ricocheting off of your skull and echoing there. It was too loud, too quiet, too soft, too rough. "Is that you yearn for? For me to relief you of your sin?"

You cried then, knowing deep inside you from his smooth grin that he would cut pieces off of you and consider it holy.

You are in a nightmare and you cannot wake up.

The hand dropped away to your side, terrified into submission. He went back to his task and now that you were conscious the rough texture against your clit made you want to throw up. You hated that it distracted from everything, that it felt good. Perhaps it was because the two of them were so close to one another in their efforts, but it felt like something wet and forked against you.

Maybe you could see salvation if you looked around, something to focus on other than the twisted flesh of your body and the twisted pleasure given by those pressed against it. Instead your eyes only landed on figures in the shadows.

Two men. One older and one younger. Looking on with something between horror and eroticism. The younger of them set his eyes to the ground when you caught them and sobbed out for some sort of help. The other took him by the scruff of the neck, pressing a forehead to his and mumbling something about Peter 5:8. After a moment they both returned to watching in silence. You could see it in them, the same fear you felt. The fear of something judging and all powerful bearing down.

It was as if the men lapping at you knew of your fear, as if they took pleasure in those who feared them. Their clever tongues were all at once precise and messy, forcing your body to ascend to a peak your mind found repulsive.

You came like it was written in scripture that you must; inevitable, horrific and erotic all the same.

"There now, warmed by the light of the Lord" came a voice. You felt your eyes move to the source against your will, seeing the second man now and feeling a primal fear at his face, blacked out with a golden painted skull catching the light. Below his chin was smudged obscenely.

He reached up and for a moment you thought he might caress you gently. In your state, you felt greed for such a gesture. The noise that left you was inhuman as he pulled the tube from your chest.

"Brother Price, fix up our guest and take her to her cell won't you?"

Price did as he was told, Gaz in tow. He wondered what name they would give a thing like you. You would be quick to learn the ways of this place he thought, not like him or the others. It had taken so much to redeem them into something that might see the Grace of the Almighty one day. He did not want that for you. He knew with certainty that Gaz did not either, the man had nearly went into a state of sin watching you. Price knew better than to feel anything like Pride, but at the very least he was pleased that he had been able to stop him from going to you for comfort.

It was such a wicked thought, but in his heart he felt it would have been better for you had Soap taken you for meat rather than for saving. It was a difficult and painful thing, being saved by the Fathers here.

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Peter 5:8

But the one who endures to the end will be saved. Matthew 24:13

#cod #cod au #fanfic #dark fic #alejandro vagas x reader #rudolfo parra x reader #catholic horror #cw religion #los vaqueros x reader #I have had a bottle of red wine and am unhinged this evening #like I am not expected anyone to vibe with this but just let me be feral for a minute #please read the cws #I am being so serious #read the cws #mhairiwrites

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diamondheartyux · 4 months ago

Text

Purify Me

Pt. 3 of The Cumanent: Sinful Sacraments

A little holy water cleanses everything,...except this

Genre: Smut 18+ Only

Word Count: 5.5K

Warnings: religious themes, blasphemy, aggression (hella), foreign object play, pet names, brief mention of pregnancy, anal, dominant\submissive dynamic, no HEA, possibly toeing the line of dubcon\noncon

Note: These are stand alone and can be read in any order :)

Read Part One Here!

Read Part Two Here!

Check out the playlist on Spotify here!

I watch with full interest as the priest before me dives deeply into his Sunday morning sermon. Normally service was tame but today he was passionate, driven, dare I say, consumed by his words. His hands connect with the pulpit as he speaks, his voice rising in volume gradually until he is all but screaming the word he was so desperate to teach. His enthusiasm was as attractive as he was. He was of average height, clad in the heavy, standard Catholic robes. His deep chestnut brown hair falls perfectly around his face as it stops just above the top of his ears, curling under so the ends graze his face with every movement of his head. His onyx colored eyes were ablaze as he leaned over the pulpit to convey his point. He was driven and it was driving the type of thoughts I shouldn't be thinking in the middle of church into my mind.

My eyes never left him and occasionally, he would lock his with mine. The small action sent my stomach fluttering each time. I bit my bottom lip as I imagined what it would be like to be the sole target of that gaze. I shook my head slightly, hoping to clear the blasphemous thoughts like an etch-a-sketch to no avail. With every passing second, the sight of him fueled my reprehensible daydreams even further. I squeeze my legs tightly in an attempt to alleviate the ever growing ache building between my thighs.

Service ended in what felt like mere seconds, my mind dancing merrily in fantasy. I stood, smoothing my dress before slinging my purse strap over my shoulder. I took one long last glance at him, watching him smile and converse with his patrons. I turned to make my way down the aisle, making it halfway between the rows of pews when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned slowly, not expecting to find the priest standing there, hands tucked behind his back while smiling brightly at me.

“Excuse me, miss. Could I possibly talk with you for a moment?” He asks, eyes gleaming. I lift a hand to my chest, slightly confused. “Oh, me?” I ask in response. He nods in confirmation before I agree. He gestures for me to follow him as he makes his way to the front of the old Catholic church before exiting through a side door. I follow as we glide through an ornate hallway before stopping before an old, wooden door. He pushes against it and it opens with a groan before he gestures for me to enter.

I take small, timid steps inside as my confusion for my reasoning for being here is painted plainly across my face. He turns, pushing against the door once more and it latches in place with a thick thud. I clutch my purse against me out of the anxiety of it all, my mind tumbling possibilities as to why he invited me into his office. I watch him carefully, studying his angelic features, noticing as his eyes take me in intensely. They fall slowly from my lips down, hovering over my breasts before sliding down to my thighs. They begin their ascent and I see a flash of hunger behind them before he blinks, realizing my eyes were on him.

“No need to be alarmed.” He holds his hands up in front of him slightly to show he was not a threat then continues. “ I just noticed you in the front today. I've never seen you here before. I'm sure I would remember you if you attended previously.” He grins slyly, a hint of something snaking over his words. My body shudders slightly, his implications not lost on me. He knew he was attractive. He knew his position put him in a place to be considered forbidden, He knew how easily swayed most people were by a pretty face and the right words. It was evident in the way he was carrying himself. He holds himself upright with perfect posture but his body language was lax and non threatening. His voice was calm and reassuring, his hands hanging gently at his side yet he was so inviting as he reached out to touch my upper arm softly.

His fingers dance across my skin before he steps in closer. My heart flutters in my chest at the action that gradually puts him in a closer proximity. My eyes survey his face, spending too long on his plush, rouge lips. He curls them upward into a smile before leaning forward, stopping close enough that his breath billows softly on my cheek. “Like what you see?” He whispers in my ear. “I saw the way you were focused on me today. It was distracting, honestly. Those pretty little eyes on me yet so far away at the same time. I could barely think about what I was preaching because I couldn’t stop creating possibilities of what you were so obviously focused on. Just imagine how much better my sermon could have been without you practically eye fucking me from the front row?” He smirks and my stomach lurches, flipping wildly in my abdomen. His hand comes up and he wraps his slender fingers around my arm, squeezing softly.

He leans in more, now close enough his lips almost brush my ear. “Luckily, I was still able to resist the temptation. Very grateful for these thick robes as they are able to hide the effects of your undeniably sinful thoughts. But, precious, I have so much pent up energy from it all. The excitement of everything, you know? Today’s message…and then, of course, you.” He brings his face to look at me, stopping a breath away from my lips, his gaze holding them. “ Would you be my rest for I am so, so weary. I just need somewhere to lie my head.” His eyes flit to mine, burning with desire and the sight sends little prickles of electricity through me.” So, tell me. Will you be my friend?”

My breath hitches in my chest at his words, my heart pounding violently in my rib cage like a rabid animal. I don't have time to respond before he pulls me flush against him and presses those luscious lips against mine. My body relaxes at the contact despite my brain screaming at me for it all. My hands come between us to fist his robes as he brings his hands to rest on my waist, squeezing forcefully before pulling my body rough against his own. His mouth is eager, nipping at my lips before his tongue comes to flick over them. He catches my bottom lip between his teeth causing me to gasp. He takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into my mouth, allowing it to dance with mine as he explores my oral cavity. I tug at his robes to press myself against him more and he brings both hands to cup my cheeks momentarily before they fall to cradle my neck.

His lips crash faster into mine and his breathing turns rapid. The sound of his panting as well as feeling his chest heave rapidly under my clenched fist sends another sudder through me and it reignites the warmth between my thighs. I knew I should stop but I simply could not. His lips felt better than I ever could have imagined and I was curious to know how his body felt now. I knew this was wrong on many levels but he was just so goddamn intoxicating. My lips clashed against his in effort to devour every bit of his taste. My mind was hazy, already clouded with lust, so when he pulled away from me, my mouth reached out to reconnect immediately. Only instead of finding his lips again, I was shoved roughly downward. The force causes my legs to buckle at the knees and I crash into a chair behind me, my heart pounding wildly in my chest.

“Fa-father Kim.” I mumble between breaths, startled by his actions. “W-wha-..” was all I could get out before he reached down to grab my neck, squeezing his fingers around it tightly. “Shut up.” He bellowed. “Do not speak unless you're spoken to.” He squeezes my neck once more before roughly shoving away, my head snapping back at the force. “The only thing I want to hear from these luscious lips is those pretty little whimpers you're going to be making soon enough.” A small moan echoes in my throat and my heart threatens to beat right out of my chest. He circles the chair slowly, studying me like a predator studying their next meal. A hunger flashes across his dark eyes and he runs a hand across my chest before circling back around to stand behind me. He slides his hand at a snail’s pace to my arm, resting it there.

“Hands” he commands. I sit for a moment, not really sure of what he’s demanding of me. When I don’t obey quickly enough, he grabs a fist full of my hair and yanks my head back, forcing me to look up at him. “I said, hands,” he spits through gritted teeth. I lift my arms out in front of me, staring up at him. “No,” he growls, “Behind you. Now.” I cautiously slide my arm around behind me as he shoves my head forward forcefully. He reaches down to grab the hand and I twist my other hand behind me as well, feeling as he gathers them into one of his own before turning to grab something behind him. He makes no sound and soon I feel something silky soft wrapping around my wrists before my arms jerk slightly. I can hear the soft sound of fabric rubbing against itself before there's a gentle tug. He stands back to admire his creation.

He sighs in satisfaction, a puff of air escaping through his nose before he comes to stand in front of me. His eyes roam my body before landing between my legs. Another flick of hunger dances across them momentarily. “Spread your legs” he demands, looking up to meet my eyes. Hesitantly, I spread them slowly causing the hem of my dress to rise over my knees. He groans under his breath before leaning forward, cupping my cheek with his soft hand. He begins to run it down to my chin, my neck, and over my chest before stopping to cup the small bump protruding at the bottom of my belly. A shiver works through me as I watch him caress my stomach softly, chewing on the bottom of his lip. I wasn't obviously pregnant. I was still small enough to hide behind loose clothing but present enough to protrude almost cutely. My dress wasn't form fitting but it accented my natural curves, the fabric draping in just the right way around my breasts, hips, and stomach. The only giveaway to my condition was the subconscious need to cradle my belly constantly. It was no surprise he knew about it.

“Look at you.“ His voice is low in volume but his words are laced with a venomous tone. “Sitting in my church, in these revealing clothes…” His hands continue downwards, stopping to stroke the front of my lace panties. “... taunting me with the seed of another man growing in your womb.” He lifts his eyes to mine. The intensity burning in his jet black gaze sends chills through me causing my stomach to jump and a tingle to burn between my thighs.

He drops his hands, turning to walk away from me. I watch as far as I can as he makes his way back towards an armoire nestled in the far end of the room. The doors creak as it opens. I hear the sound of items rustling as he rummages through its contents. Moments later, the doors shut with a heavy click and I hear rosary beads clacking gently before I hear his footsteps again. He’s behind me again quickly. I can hear items as they’re set down before something cold is wrapped around my neck and pulled taut, cutting off my airway. My arms strain against the binding on my wrists, my hands desperate to claw at whatever is on my throat. My head is pulled back and I stare wide eyed at the priest hovering above me.

A maniacal grin graces his face and his eyes flicker with animalistic need. Fear courses through me as I instinctively struggle, the lack of air causing my head to feel light and vision to spot. He stares down at me, tugging tighter, before licking his lips. His tongue darts across his dark pink bottom lip before he brings his teeth into them. I squirm in the chair, terrified, my eyes never leaving his, tears beginning to well at my water line. “It's funny, don't you think?” he says, tugging at the rosary once more. "You don't fear the lord, even inside his house knowing the weight of your transgressions, yet you fear for the life he gave you?"

The edges of my vision are solid black, what's left is a hazy blur, clouded further by the tears gathered there. I feel one more rough tug at the rosary before it's pulled away. I gasp as air rushes into my lungs so fast it causes me to choke. I cough violently, the tears that were being held at bay now cascading down my face. I tug at the binding that keeps my hands behind me. He wraps the rosary tightly around my mouth. It cuts into the corners of my lips before he ties it behind my head somehow. He disappears once more, leaving me to my recovery, the armoire door creaking and clicking in the distance,only to reappear with something wrapped in purple velvet in his hands.

I watch as he slowly pulls the corners of the fabric back, opening his item as if it were a present. He lifts it slowly, the fabric tossed to the side, to reveal a rather large crucifix. He turns towards me and grins that maniacal grin again before he stalks back over, standing in front of me again. His hand roams over me once more before stopping between my legs. With another grin, he sticks his fingers into the delicate lacing of my panties and pulls, ripping a wide hole in the front of them.

His fingers immediately find me dripping and he runs his slim digits up and down between my folds before he brings the crucifix to rest against my entrance. My body trembles in a mix of adrenaline from the previous lack of oxygen as well from the violent gleam that was burning in his eyes. With no warning, he thrusts the longer end of the crucifix inside me, causing me to cry out. It was wider than anything I'd ever taken before. the squared edges pressed against me as it stretched me wide and the feeling paired with the cool sensation of the metal figurine nailed to it. It was overwhelming, bordering on painful, and fresh tears welled in my eyes.

He began to ram the cross in and out of me, his pace ruthless. The overwhelming feeling soon morphed into something more pleasurable and his thumb came up to rub rough circles on my clit. My hips rolled upward to grind against the crucifix, small whimpers billowing over the rosary nestled between my parted lips. He watches me as he pumps it harder and faster, a tightening in my stomach already on the verge of snapping. I buck against the wooden cross, matching his pace before I feel the tension that was brewing in me snap. My orgasm hits me harder than I expect, surprising me as my body jerks hard. My legs squeeze his hand, clamping tightly around the foreign object as my head lolls back. My eyes flutter before closing and I launch a soft cry into the room as my body is racked by wave after wave of release that slams into me before it subsides.

I pant rapidly as new tears paint my cheeks. I bring my head upright and open my eyes to find him watching me intensely. The hand that had been assaulting my clit was now under his robes, faint movements rippling through the fabric. A tingle forms in my stomach and shoots down between my legs at the sight of him touching himself despite the orgasm that just ravaged my body.

I watch as he stands leaving the crucifix in me to bunch his robes up revealing himself pulled through the zipper of his dress pants. He strokes himself slowly before standing in front of me again, placing a leg on each side of the chair. I was at the perfect height for my face to line up with his groin in this position. He reaches around to remove the rosary from my face before putting his tip against my lips, rubbing it against them softly. A hand meets my cheek, patting twice. “Open” he demands. I part my lips slightly and he pushes himself between them forcefully. I groan around him before I begin to suck softly. His hand twists into my hair before he thrusts aggressively into my mouth entirely. His cock hits the back of my throat causing me to gag and I try to pull back but he holds my head in place.

What felt like an eternity later, he pulls out of my mouth before he plunges right back in. This time he pumps in and out violently, his cock jamming the back of my throat each time. He stops, holding my head against him, my nose flush against his pelvic area. He rocks against me, his cock jabbing into my throat as I gag sharply around him. Tears flow down my face as he continues to fuck my mouth, each stroke harder than the last. My stomach turns and my pussy tingles at the entire thing, despite the trails of water that leaked down my cheeks. I squeeze my thighs together and thrust softly against the crucifix still buried inside me. His tempo quickens, his thrusts erratic yet still just as ruthless. My throat throbs from the repeated assault and burns from the force of every gag he's caused.

With one final thrust, he forces my head onto him again, his hands using all his strength to hold me in place. He pulls at the roots of my hair as I gag on him before he pulls out of me as quickly as he slammed into my mouth. I sputter a cough, grateful for the air as I watch through cloudy, teary eyes as he moves from me to his desk to the left of me. He grabs a few bottles of holy water, twisting the top off one single handedly while stroking himself with the other. He returns to stand in front of me, tossing the end of his robes over his shoulder before he releases himself from his hand. “Look at me” he commands.

Disappointment flows through me, deep down having wanted to watch as he got himself off but I turn my eyes to his obediently. I watch as he strokes himself faster, fast enough to bring himself to his own conclusion. He lifts the open bottle of water, cradling it over his tip. A groan rumbles in his throat as he jerks lightly. His eyes never leave mine as his cock twitches before shooting his sticky load into the holy water, save a few drops that end on his fingers. He flicks his robes down, covering himself and a whimper almost leaves my lips.

He swivels the bottle around before approaching me, sliding his sticky, cum covered fingers into my mouth. I suck on them greedily, savoring his taste before he removes them quickly. This time I allow myself to whimper out loud, eliciting a smirk from him. He reaches up and grabs my chin, squeezing hard. “Open up, precious. I have something to help purify you.” I shiver at his words, parting my lips obediently. He brings the cum filled holy water to my lips, tilting it to where all of it rushes into my mouth at once. I choke, sputtering slightly as I begin to gulp the unholy cocktail as fast as I can.

Once empty, he drops the bottle and it clatters loudly on the floor. He walks behind me, untangling the tie holding my hands. It falls gently as he finishes releasing my wrists. I bring my arms around to my front, rotating them to combat the ache in them. Father Kim brings his hands to my shoulders, lowering his mouth to my ear before he whispers in it. “I hope you didn't think we were done yet, precious.” His tongue flicks against my earlobe, sending a shiver through me, before he shoves me hard, propelling me forward. I reach out, catching myself with my hands as I meet the floor.

He kicks the chair to the side with his foot before he sinks to his knees behind me, pulling me up onto my knees. His hands caress my ass before his fingers dig roughly into the supple flesh. Aggression leaches from his touch paired with his deep, panting breaths. My stomach jolts again as he runs his hands along my backside once more before his hand lifts only to come back down against my skin harshly. I jump at the action, a yelp coming from me. His hand caresses the spot before lifting to come down on it again, this time a little harder.

This coaxes a small moan from me, the pain once again morphing into pleasure and I found myself wanting more of it. His hands grasp my ass again before skillfully ripping my underwear down to expose me completely. He grips my ass again, squeezing roughly as he spreads my cheeks apart. Another strike lands against my ass before he stands, disappearing momentarily. He returns, kneeling behind me once again.

He runs his hands over my ass to the small of my back then up to my shoulder before running his hands into my hair. In one violent motion, he shoves me down, my face meeting the floor. He shoves me against the floor, holding me there the same way he held my face against his cock earlier. A small thrill races through my body as I feel him pressing against my bare lower body, my ass high in the air. In between my thighs was slick with my own moisture and it dripped down the inside of them slowly. He keeps the force on my head and I hear the sound of a top opening.

Moments later, something cold runs against my ass, dripping between my cheeks. My eyes widen in realization as I feel his head rub against my hole after. He presses further, working to gain entrance. Another trickle of cold hits me before he pushes again, pressing his head in completely before resting momentarily. I gasp loudly, the intrusion of him in my ass paired with his girth was foreign. The few seconds he gave me to adjust were the only ones I was allowed. In one swift movement, he forced the rest of him inside me, burying himself to the hilt. It was uncomfortable and painful and more tears welled in my eyes as he reared back to plunge into me again. I yelped loudly, a sob nearly escaping my lips. My cry of pain only seemed to excite him more. His fingers clasp my hair tighter as he adds more force against my head. The floor pressed into my face painfully while his other hand dug equally as painful into the soft flesh of my ass. I just knew I would have bruises the following morning.

The idea of him marking me caused my stomach to flutter again despite everything. Tears still ran from my face as he fucked my ass rough, sliding out of me to slam back into me as hard as he could. My body rocked with every thrust and at some point, the pain began to grow softer and pleasure bloomed in its wake.. My pussy ached to be touched as he buried his cock into my asshole over and over. My yelps turned to uncontrollable moans. A tension built in my stomach with every guttural groan that flowed off his lips. His hand released my hair, moving to grip the opposite side of my bottom, digging his fingers into my skin there as well. My pleasure crested and I found myself eager to match his pace. I rocked against him as he slammed into me, each thrust coaxing the storm brewing inside.

“Look at yourself.” He commands before leaning forward to grasp my hair in his hands, whipping my head up to stare at myself in a mirror propped against the wall mere feet from us. “Look at your face, the blissed out look in your eyes. The tears fall as freely from your eyes as the moans flow from your lips.” I stare at myself in the mirror, taking in my reflection.I barely recognized myself. My eyes were hazy, glazed with lust. My mascara was streaked in black rivulets down both of my cheeks all the way to my chin. A few tears streak the dried flakes on my face. My lipstick had smeared across my lips, half of it missing. I was truly a mess but I did not care. I craved the pleasure he was giving no matter how forbidden it was supposed to be. He released my hair with a shove, pushing my head forward before he thrust into me again.

I cried out, bringing my head up to lock eyes with his reflection in the mirror. My insides trembled at the sight. His robes were tossed aside and his pants had been pushed down to reveal more skin than I'd ever seen on him. His eyes were glazed over as well, a flicker of mania behind them. The corners of his lips curled up in an equal maniacal grin. The primal rage brewing inside him evident in his gaze as well as the way he fucked me like he absolutely hated me. The sight alone almost sent me over the edge.

His eyes found mine in the reflection, holding my gaze as he ran a hand up to caress my stomach softly before snaking a hand around in between my legs. His fingers circled my clit softly, a stark contrast to the way he slammed in and out of me. The feather light touch caused my eyes to roll back as I sighed. I bit my lip to suppress a loud moan and was met with a hand across my ass.

“Let it out. I told you the only thing I want to hear from you is the sounds I cause you to make.” Another command I immediately obeyed. A loud moan flows across my lips, the storm ready to roll in. He rams into me faster, sending steady beats of pleasure through me. Sounds fall from my lips uncontrollably as I reach my second orgasm. One final rough thrust sends the storm inside on a rampage. It claps hard and I all but scream as it rips through me. My body begins to seize, shaking almost violently as he never loses his rhythm.

A deep growl reverberates in his throat before he pulls out of my ass, his hands coming to squeeze my cheeks roughly once again. He dips his head down, pressing it between my legs. His tongue flicks forward, sliding between my folds on its way to my clit. I moan once more as he shoves his face into my further. He pulls me back as his tongue darts lazily over my sensitive bud. I arch back, stretching my top half to lie flat against the floor. He continues his teasing, pulling back to slide two fingers deep inside of me. He pumps them slowly at first, the softness in his motions foreign to me and I whimper, aching for more than what he was giving. I hear a deep chuckle from behind me before he removes his fingers and buries his face into me from behind. He laps greedily at me and I rock myself against his face. My body hums excitedly as another murmur of pleasure begins to rise inside me.

All too soon, he pulls back from me and I voice my protest to the action with a loud whine. A hand comes down sternly against my ass and I jolt at the unexpected contact. His hand rubs my ass briskly before it lifts again. He brings his hand back against me in three consecutive slaps, his strike growing in intensity each time his hand connects to my tender flesh. I made a noise that was as much a moan as a cry out, the sting left on my skin burning pleasantly.

I feel him pressing his cock against my ass once more before he shoves himself deep back inside me again. My body trembles beneath him as he fucks me relentlessly. Grunts and moans pour from him freely now, the carnal need within him possessing his actions. He rams into me over and over, chasing his own ecstasy and I expel my own sounds into the room to mix with the Lord is with thee.his as freely as he does. The room is a symphony of the sounds of our bodies clashing, the music of it dancing across the walls around us.

Without breaking stride, he leans forward to grab my hair, wrenching my head up forcefully. My eyes focus back on the mirror, watching him as he drives into me mercilessly. He releases my hair, the look in his eyes commanding me to keep mine on him. “It’s time for ceremony, precious” He grunts between each roll of his hips. “Allow me to pray for you. Eyes on me.” he commands.

I don’t lower my gaze from his reflection as he lifts his right hand and brings it up to his forehead before dropping to his heart then crossing it from right to left. His eyes move to capture mine in the mirror and his rhythm never slows as he begins to speak. “Hail Mary full of Grace…” he pulls back and crashes into me harder, grunting through his teeth. “the Lord is with thee.” Another violent thrust rocks me forward. “Blessed are thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus…” I moan loudly, my body beginning to shake under the assault. “Holy Mary Mother of God,..” My eyes flutter, fighting to close. My stomach tightens, the ticking time bomb inside threatening to explode once again. His hand rises again, coming down with as much force as he could muster without breaking his rhythmic assault on my ass. I moan wildly as I begin to teeter off the edge. “...pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” He growls, a guttural sound that sets the fuse inside me on blaze, burning it down almost immediately. “Amen!” he barely gets out as he pounds into me one final time, growling primitively. His fingers dig painfully into my hips as he releases into me.

My body convulses violently, the explosion of pleasure sending me into another realm. I scream out, barely able to hold myself up as the fallout arrives in segments, coursing through me with almost as much force as he fucked me with. My eyes roll back and flutter before closing, sparks dancing in my vision. My arms buckle and I let my upper body fall against the floor, waiting for the calm after the storm. He pulls out of me and I hear his clothing rustle as he adjusts himself. I lie a crumpled mess on the floor still trying to catch my breath when I hear his footsteps recede before returning.

He drops my purse and my torn up panties next to me. He squats down, fisting my hair once more and yanks my head up to look at him. He flashes a fake smile at me. “I’m sure you remember the way we came in, right precious?” He shoves my head away, releasing my hair before standing again. I push myself upright, my legs curled up to my side, an embarrassment flooding my body coaxing a pink tint to color my cheeks. He turns and begins walking to the door before stopping, swiveling back around to me. “Ah, yes. One more thing. If I ever catch you in my church again, there’ll be hell to pay. A lot like today but much, much worse.” He smirks once more, something sinister flashing in his eyes, before he continues to make his way back to the door. He pulls it open and slips out, leaving me on the floor as the door closes behind him.

#kpop fanfic #kpop smut #smut #hongjoong #hongjoong smut #ateez fanfic #ateez smut #ateez #kim hongjoong #kim hongjoong smut #smut series #one shot #female reader

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crookedkryptonitebeliever · 11 months ago

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Best and worst of both worlds (part 35)

Tw: not that i know of for now, short chapter its basically just fluff between Yves and you

Part 36

You woke up to hushed whispers. You deduced that it was between your nurse and someone else.

Your arm moving up to rub your eyes silenced them. Soon after, a shadow loomed over you. The mattress dipped as he sat on the edge of your bed.

Only when your bleary eyes opened did he say something.

"Hello, my beloved (name)."

Yves's ethereal countenance appeared before you. His raven black hair received a refreshed blowout, looking healthier, shinier, silkier and bouncier than ever. He was donning an adoring smile while he had his arms stretched out, his nails weren't painted crimson, but it was neutral pink with ivory french tips.

You blinked multiple times before shooting up to give him a big squeeze. You buried your head in his hair, greedily taking in his scent that now smelled of lavender. Not overpoweringly so, but undeniably pleasant and comforting.

"Oh, how I missed you..." He murmured in your neck before giving it a light kiss. His almond nails carded your hair, sending tingles down your spine.

Yves is gentle. So gentle. His touch is nothing like that monster's, it felt... purifying, cleansing and safe. You know that you will never cry out of pain and agony from his love.

But you're shedding tears onto his expensive, cashmere blouse. Sobs were muffled by his shoulder as you pour your gratitude out through your eyes. You're happy that he's back, you missed him too.

Your fingers gripped onto him tightly, causing temporary wrinkles and twists. Yves didn't mind, all he did was hold you tighter and soothingly rubbed your back.

Yves lets a stray tear slip out of his eye and no more. It landed onto your hospital gown and left a small stain that spread for a bit. He's elated to kiss you, to smell you, to hold you again.

You kept shuffling deeper and deeper into him as if you were trying to merge flesh. Yves understands that you're subconsciously trying to hide from the world, his heart skipped a beat when he realized that your brain sees him as a safe haven to do so. That is why, he wasn't bothered in the slightest that you were suffocating him. He can handle it, he needs you not to worry.

However, he had to pull away momentarily when your crying wasn't showing signs of stopping or slowing down. He held your puffy, blubbering face in both of his soft hands. You're now hiccuping and hyperventilating due to overwhelm.

"(Name), that's enough now. I will not be leaving anytime soon." He wiped the tears away from your eyes with his thumb. "You will suffer from a headache if you cry too much."

His tranquility wasn't enough to stop you from bawling, you gripped onto his sleeve tightly. Yves scoots a bit closer and pressed a kiss on your forehead.

He cupped your right eye, blinding it while he left your other one uncovered. You were caught off guard by this strange move, your heart rate slowed and you eventually breathed normally without tears dripping down your chin. There were a few sniffles here and there, but the warmth of his palm onto your eyelid miraculously calmed you down immediately.

He released his hands from your head and went ahead to retrieve a packet of facial tissues from his brand new opulent handbag. It's of course, black in colour. But it has a different structure, gold accents and material.

You looked at him quizzingly, wondering what he just did to hack your brain. All Yves did was smile and praised you.

"Well done, my love." He lovingly dried your face with the tissue. You had no idea what he was praising you for, but you're not complaining because it made you feel fluttery inside.

You noticed the nurse has given you and him privacy, allowing you to be as shameless with him.

You basked in his rapid shower of kisses, enjoying the unconditional attention and affection while he covered you in his rouge lipstick prints. You closed your eyes and smiled as he did all the work, your body slightly rocking back and forth for every kiss he gave.

In the end, Yves had to forcefully restrain himself from giving more. He wouldn't want history repeating itself again. However, his anxieties were quelled when he saw that you were glowing in contentment once he's done.

"M-my apologies, dear. Y-you look..." He tried to contain it, but he laughed gleefully in the end. You looked absolutely adorable with thirty-two pairs of lip prints on you. Yves couldn't even complete his original sentence, he could only pull you into another hug and nuzzle his nose into your hair.

He lets out an extremely hushed, almost inaudible squeal before pressing one last kiss on the crown of your head.

You let yourself jellify in his arms, taking in all the love, affection and attention that you've been owed for the past five days.

"I brought you souvenirs." He mumbled lowly on your head.

You waited for him to present it to you.

"...But I want to hold you for longer. Will you please grant me the pleasure?"

You said yes. To which he replied with another kiss on the temple.

"Thank you, (name)."

Yves slipped his feet out of his black heels before laying on the bed with you, tucking himself under your blanket and trapping you with him. He was careful not to affect your leg cast and bandages.

You snuggle into his chest as he envelopes you in his warmth, creating a bubble of protection. You felt safe, secured and most importantly, at peace.

His unyielding embrace reminded you that there is someone that you could always retreat to in times of need. And that is Yves.

"I love you."

He whispered before resting his chin on the top of your head. He ran his nimble fingers through your hair.

You grinned and relaxed into him, feeling unburdened with the events that happened over the past week.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere concept #oc yves #tw yandere #yandere x you #yandere oc x reader #male yandere oc x reader #oc Montgomery #oc evangeline

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thrashkink-coven · 7 months ago

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Being a Luciferian that originated on the right side and still works with Archangel Michael and others is such a trip sometimes. Michael is so fucking intimidating all the time. Like, I know we’re cool, but lord forfuckingbid we ever aren’t. He’s extremely kind and gentle but oh so fucking authoritative and powerful. Like you can just feel it stinging off of his eyes, you know how much strength he has and how willing he is to use it if necessary. The thing i love so much about the myth of Michael and Satan is that he was said to have been far weaker than Satan in fighting prowess, but his loyalty to God made him the victor in the end. So fucking cool and scary and COOL. The idea of a soldier so fucking committed to his crown that he will fight until death to honour his God is amazing.

(my) Lucifer and Michael have absolutely no problems with each other, although Michael is always very disciplined, committed to his purpose and doesn’t entertain any none sense, he still seems to appreciate something about Lucifer. He is a guardian of truth and light, regardless of what name it holds. He appreciates Lucifer’s affinity for knowledge, but knows very well that his knowledge can be used for destruction and “evil”. He knows that Lucifer has an incredibly important role to play, but that doesn’t mean he’ll entertain any of the shenanigans that come with it. In fact, he’s dedicated to managing those shenanigans so we can all enjoy the positive aspects of Lucifer’s light. Thanks, Michael.

I only really call upon Michael if I need some serious help with cleansing or protection. He’s the guy to call if you need to be kicked in the ass, staring a new and daunting project, trying to get fit. He is damn efficient at what he does and he doesn’t stop short. If you call upon Michael you better be damn prepared to get what you asked for.

As a Luciferian that embraces the left hand path I’ve always felt as though Michael looked at me as someone he always wants the best for, but he also may disagree with some of my methods. He’s never considered or treated me like I was one of those evils to be vanquished, but rather, he knows very well what ways I could improve myself and would purify me if he was given the opportunity. But he’s also aware of the inherent flaws of humanity and doesn’t force us to improve unless we ask him to.

In some hypothetical scenario where Lucifer and I broke up (don’t tell him I said this) Michael would definitely be the guy I’d call on for help. i appreciate him a lot and I am very grateful for all that he has ever helped me with. I love the role he plays as the ultimate older brother of all the other angels. He watches over them and ensures that they’re safe at all times. Ready and happy to lead his family towards truth and light.

I’m very happy he doesn’t hate me lol. It’s something I worried about a lot as a kid, but when I finally got the opportunity to get to know him I learned that he doesn’t really hate anyone. He’s so much more than just an angel to carry out violence against his unjust siblings, in fact I’d say that’s one of his least proud roles, something he doesn’t really enjoy doing. He is a protector of children and a reminder that strength should always be used to help those without it.

plus, in one of the only dreams I’ve ever had about him, his armor was magnificent. Michael is probably one of those dudes that you absolutely should not lust over but… he looked real good just saying.

#archangel michael #lucifer devotee #witchcraft #magick #pagan

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stillness-in-green · 1 year ago

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On Heteromorphs and Heteromorphobia (Arc XXI-B + Conclusion, Final War-B: The Hospital Attack)

To preface before I start documenting these final four chapters, there’s been a lot said (not least by me) about how wildly out of touch the resolution to this plotline is. While I didn't set out to rehash all of that again, it turns out I can't actually talk about how the series portrays heteromorphobia without talking about how it resolves it—if I'd wanted to do that, the place to stop would have been with the last post. This whole piece is also destined for AO3 eventually, so it needs to be readable for those who don't follow me on tumblr. Therefore, if you've been following my #heteromorph discrimination plot posts for a while, there are portions of this post that will be pretty familiar territory!

If you're new and want my full breakdowns, you can find them in my Chapter Thoughts posts or in this pair of posts rounding up the asks I’d gotten on the topic. Here, I will simply say that I don’t think Horikoshi’s fumbling of the plot can be read to mean that all the stuff I’ve documented thus far was just me reaching too hard, reading stuff into the manga where nothing was intended. While I’m sure some of it is—I definitely went out on a few limbs!—I think the main answer to, “How can heteromorphobia be such a well-thought-out depiction of a logically foreseeable form of discrimination while also having such a terrible resolution?” is, “Because the mainstream opinion about how best to handle discrimination is wildly different in Japan than it is in progressive American circles.”

That doesn’t mean I’m willing to wave the wand of Cultural Differences over this resolution and forgive everything—there were plenty of Japanese fans critiquing it as well![1]—but it does somewhat modulate my feelings about it. In any case, let’s get to it.

1: Most of what I saw was on Twitter, but there’s a Japanese site called bookmeter that’s kinda goodreads-esque, and which had several critical reviews posted for the volume, including one that felt like every point laid out was something I’d complained about as well. Super validating, but a shame it was necessary!

(I'll be changing up my formatting just a bit in hopes that I can find a way to present sub-sub-bullet points that tumblr won't choke on in this 13K post. Pray for me.)

Chapter 370:

O We open with a scene which we’re led to believe is about Spinner but which the end of the chapter will reveal to be about Shouji. It’s shockingly open about the extent of the discrimination Shouji faced, and there’s worse yet to come, but here we find people throwing stones at him, telling him to die, saying he has dirty blood that will defile the land, that he should stay inside the house, and that no matter how much time passes,[2] they will never accept “his kind.”

2: Viz renders this as “no matter how much society progresses,” but the word jidai means something more like “the times”/”the age,” and the progression term used can mean improvement, but in the circumstances, probably just means forward movement. I think the intention is more like, “No matter how much the times march on,” if only because it would be very odd for the people yelling this vitriol to frame it as themselves resisting progression. After all, bigots don’t typically think of themselves as “regressive” compared to everyone else’s progressiveness; they think of themselves as normal or valuing tradition compared to everyone else’s moral laxity/perversity.

So, remember how I talked about the spiritual/religious charge to the language the CRC used to talk about their “sanctuary” and the League/Spinner’s presence in it? Here’s the full scope of that. It’s about kegare, a Shinto concept of uncleanliness associated particularly with blood and death, and while that’s normally something that can be purified simply by undergoing the proper ritual cleansings, when something is, in itself, intrinsically unclean, no amount of purification will fix it; you can only keep it sealed away. Hence the yelling at Shouji not to leave the house.

The spirituality-based discrimination calls to mind the burakumin, originally an outcaste group of people who made their living working with all the aspects of life Shinto considered kegare—butchers, tanners, executioners and the like. They were made to dress and cut their hair in ways that identified them on sight, barred from entering temples or schools, and lived in their own villages. The laws mandating much of this were abolished in 1871[3] and urban sprawl gradually rolled over burakumin villages, turning them into slum areas. While today it’s not uncommon for people to not even know they’re descended from burakumin lineage unless they’re specifically told,[4] more subtle discrimination does endure. While it’s clearly not the only inspiration, there’s a lot about anti-burakumin bias that’s reflected in heteromorphobia.

3: Albeit not without considerable and violent protests against the liberation of the burakumin/the idea that they were henceforth to be allowed to hold other occupations and become ordinary citizens. Arson, destruction of villages, attacks and deaths—all things considered, the anti-Kaihourei riots are probably a decent place to look for inspiration on the historical massacres Spinner’s #2 will be talking about shortly.

4: Or find out because someone who knows the significance of those old neighborhoods finds out first and they’re suddenly on the bad end of some discriminatory act or another.

O We find out that the group Spinner’s leading consists of fifteen thousand people, that number split between PLF remnants and ordinary civilians who support the PLF’s cause. It’s unknown exactly how that split breaks down, but based on how the rest of the attack goes, I think it’s probable that the group is mostly civilians—if it were more PLF, it probably wouldn’t be so wholly defanged by Shouji’s big plea for peace. So that’s what we might call a “bad look,” that fifteen thousand ordinary civilians feel so incredibly hard done-by that they not only flock to join a known terrorist, but that they do so for the purpose of attacking a hospital.

O They’re opposed by about two hundred police and heroes, the relevant of whom for our purposes are Present Mic, Rock Lock, Officer Gori, Shouji, and Koda. With the exception of Present Mic, who will in any case be heading inside very shortly, they’re all minorities of some sort, with Rock Lock being very visibly, obviously Black, and the others being heteromorphs. None of them are immediately thinking about the composition of the crowd, but rather about how difficult the crowd is being to handle.

O Rock Lock yells out that the rioters are too organized to be some random mob, a dismissiveness that gets him shouted at by the Spinner fanboys—tragically their only appearance in all of this!—that, “Folks with human faces just don’t get it!” I have to assume that putting Rock Lock in this scene is no accident, but rather is there to make the rioters come off as short-sighted, so deep in their own pain that they lash out at someone who, if HeroAca!Japan is anything like present day Japan, almost certainly understands better than they think!

The phrasing, in any case, points towards the dehumanization that heteromorphs, especially animal-associated ones, are subject to. After all, as Re-Destro might point out, in the post-Advent world, isn’t it the case that any given heteromorphic human’s face, no matter how strange it may be, is de facto a “human face”? Yet the vitriol from the Spinner fans clearly reflects how internalized it’s become for them, that they don’t look “human,” despite the fact that “looking human” means nothing at all in the time of quirks.

O Koda gets called a traitor by an elderly beaked heteromorph from, apparently, a rural area, underscoring what’s been alluded to a few times prior to this, and which will be laid out explicitly in a few pages, that heteromorphobia is far, far worse in the countryside than it is in the cities. Mr. Beak assumes—correctly, it seems[5]—that Koda’s a city kid, because why else other than ignorance would a fellow heteromorph stand against them?

5: Koda’s from Iwate Prefecture, which is only above Hokkaido in terms of population density; a bit of research suggests that its largest city, Morioka, is considered to be a mid-sized city. So that’s definitely the hard upper limit on exactly how “big city” Koda could reasonably be. That said, Shouji also identifies Koda as someone who grew up in a city, for which I assume he must have at least some basis.

O Spinner’s #2 fulfills the promise of his early shorthanded characterization of being a fiery, well-spoken zealot by standing on top of a building over the mob and exhorting them onward with revolutionary, inflammatory rhetoric. And boy, does he bring up a lot to talk about!

Demagoguery for Fun & Profit

O Quirk counselling and quirk education? Phony nonsense, he says. That’s a fairly confusing grievance to bring up in this context, so let’s consider what he might have in mind.

• For quirk education, I would contend that BNHA has shown very little of it, in spite of having Academia right there in the title. The academics in question are about Heroics, after all, not quirks in and of themselves. Here’s the complete list of what I would say the reader has seen that could be qualified as actual education about quirks:

Aizawa telling the kids(/low tier villains at USJ) some broad generalities, things like a very basic explanation of how quirks work on the genetic level or how they’re classified. Most of this is delivered in the context of how his quirk works; the only outlier that immediately comes to mind for me is his explanation of how quirks are like muscles, and can be strengthened via training.

Mirio and Tamaki’s middle school class doing “quirk training,” which is framed as a P.E. class and is specifically aimed at finding ways for each kid to be “useful to society,” not about them learning anything about quirks in a broader sense.

Endeavor’s recent reference to Nedzu’s alleged “quirk morality education,” about which I have already registered my skepticism.

The bit in Re-Destro’s monologue to Shigaraki where he mentions he was taught not to judge others by their quirks. It’s hard to judge how applicable this is to normal society because Re-Destro was raised in a cult, and the book shown during this sequence was released by Curious’s publisher.

So of those options, what is #2 talking about? I’d say the last one is probably closest to what he means: don’t judge others by their quirks. But of course, people judge others by their quirks all the time. Family, classmates, teachers, people in the same neighborhood, heroes and police—we see examples from literally the first page of characters who are being judged by their quirks or lack thereof. While that judgement doesn’t apply only to heteromorphs, they are, by dint of their visibility, going to face it everywhere they go, regardless of whether any given situation—say, going to the grocery store or on a date—involves quirks or not. So, whatever lessons people in this society are getting about quirks and judgement, they clearly aren’t absorbing them.

It also bears pointing out, of course, that #2’s personal affiliation is with the Metahuman Liberation Army, and he definitely shows signs—as I’ll get to in a bit—of the quirk supremacism that group is so unanimously painted with in the endgame. So while the supremacy he’s preaching is about heteromorphs rather than quirks more generally, he could well be saying quirk education is phony because he’s all for judging people on their quirks! However, his criteria for that judgement differs from both forms of judgement taught by the society he’s railing against—what they practice and what they preach.

• Then there’s quirk counseling, a practice the story most prominently associates with Toga, who’s barely a twitch of the needle away from baseline (though her abuse is not wholly without reference to her appearance, in that her natural smile is repeatedly branded as scary or deviant). So why bring it up in association with heteromorphs? My suspicion is that a heteromorph—especially a heteromorph with an animal-associated quirk!—being visibly “different” in some way makes the people around them hyper-sensitive to behavioral “deviations.”

For a start, you see that hyper-sensitivity brought to bear against Toga. Curious contends that Toga’s sense of “admiration” was a perfectly normal thing, but it was the tie to blood that made it wholly unacceptable. It’s notable that, before she snapped, Toga was never shown to actually want to hurt people: the bird was already injured when she found it, her friend got a scrape the way any child might, Saito was involved in a fight Toga had no hand in. She hurts people now because a lifetime of rejection and dehumanization, but Toga’s admiration of blood was not intrinsically indicative that she’d grow up to be violent; people treated it that way because of cultural attitudes towards blood and blood-attraction.

So, might the same sort of thing be true of e.g. animal-associated heteromorphs? That they might exhibit behaviors which would, in different circumstances, be totally fine, but which they’re judged for unduly harshly because of cultural beliefs about the animal they resemble? Let me just spitball a few possibilities:

A cat heteromorph who, as a child, showed affection by nuzzling. That’s fine when a literal kitten is doing it, and funny and cute when a baseline child sees a cat doing it and imitates it for fun, but when the cat heteromorph does it, he makes people uncomfortable, makes them wonder if he lacks self-control, comes off as weird and too-forward. So his parents rebuke him and bring him to a quirk counsellor to break him of the habit, leading him to feel ashamed and alienated from a harmless natural impulse.

A snake-headed girl is the first heteromorph in her family line and the way she stares at people so fixedly, never blinking, creeps them out, makes them feel like she’s dangerous. She isn’t and has no intention of being so, but she’s sent to quirk counselling anyway and the lesson she learns is to just never look people in the eye at all.

A condor heteromorph develops a morbid interest in corpses in middle school. He doesn’t want to eat them, he’s not some kind of cannibalistic animal—at least that’s what he told himself before quirk counselling, where his counsellor, like his teachers, assumed that his interest had to be tied to animal instincts. He wanted to be a mortician, or join the police and get into crime scene investigation, but when he told people that they just looked at him like he was already holding a fork and knife. (He ends up getting into photography, and just has to live with the fact that now people have two excuses to call him a vulture.)

Two children—one with a plant-based emitter quirk, the other an eight-eyed spider heteromorph—are caught in the act of killing some insects by a local police officer. It’s the sort of innocent childhood cruelty you might find anywhere, and, indeed, when the officer calls their school about it, that’s what gets decided about the emitter—he was just a child who didn’t know any better. But the heteromorph gets recommended for quirk counselling instead—after all, spiders kill insects. What if this is an early warning sign for instincts towards predatory behavior? It’s important to nip these things in the bud.

That’s all off the top of my head or taken from some conversation with friends on the topic, and maybe it’s a reach, but it’s also a very plausible explanation for why a heteromorphic idealogue might bring up quirk counselling as a specific grievance—because, like the Villain-designation for criminals, it’s unevenly and unfairly applied.

O The next point #2 makes, and definitely the one that made the biggest splash in fandom at the time, is his invocation of a pair of historical incidents, possibly both but at least one of which was a mass murder targeting heteromorphs, carried out by a bunch of baseline types. He names them as the 6/6 Incident and the Great Jeda Purge. These are both stealth Star Wars references, though the former is disguised a bit better by being in the same format that Japan sometimes uses for naming events like attempted coups.[6] Given the image we see, it’s fair to assume the event in BNHA was similar.

6: See for example the May 15 Incident or the February 26 Incident, called the 5・15 Incident and the 2・26 Incident respectively in Japan. You see this in China as well, with the Tiananmen Square massacre being referred to there as the 6/4 Incident.

Notice that the perpetrators here are mostly holding weapons. Were they quirkless themselves, or were they avoiding using quirks such that they couldn’t be branded as Villains? Knowing the answer to that would give us a timeframe for this.

He goes on to declaim, on the basis of these events, that the history of the paranormal is one of persecution and oppression of those with “differing forms.”[7] The term in Japanese there is kotonaru katachi, 異なる形, which uses a different reading of the kanji in igyou (異形) and muscles in a verb conjugation, which has the effect of softening the harshness of 異 somewhat.[8] This would be a great catch-all term for those with heteromorphic bodies who might or might not have heteromorphic quirks[9] if it weren’t for the fact that literally the only person we ever hear using it is an anti-social zealot. No one on Team Hero ever makes this kind of distinguishment.

In any case, #2 is obviously over-simplifying to play to his audience—recall the baseline woman we saw back in that shot of Persecuted Early Quirk-Havers back in Chapter 59—but, as I’ve discussed extensively, being more visible does make one a more ready target. Also, of course, the presence of the CRC in the story lays the groundwork for this sort of historical horror story even long after the worst days of the Advent.

7: I provide my own translation here because the Viz one, “those who don’t fit the mold,” is vague to the point of uselessness.

8: The koto reading, as best I can tell, seems to be pretty rare, often tagged as archaic in words including it. The i reading is far more common, in words that denote wrongness, divergence, abnormality, and so on. But it may be less about the reading and more about the fact that adding the verb conjugation makes the term more of a descriptive phrase than a direct noun. As ever, take my talk about Japanese language minutiae with a grain of salt.

9: “Differing forms” is broad enough, however, that it could also be read as covering, say, people with amputations, congenital anomalies, or other sorts of non-quirk-related disfigurements from accidents or disease. As in real life, navigating the linguistic space between specificity and Othering can be tricky.

O Next, #2 rhetorically demands what excuse was given by those who perpetrated these slaughters? He answers his own question with the quote, “They give me the creeps.” Note how this ties in with my earlier suppositions about the likelihood of discrimination worsening the farther one is from baseline, as well as those about the necessity of putting up a good, positive, appealing front. It’s a perfectly intuitive leap, that more extreme variants of heteromorphy, or those who evoke negative associations—animals tied to rot or bad luck, people made wholly out of green ooze—are going to be more likely to be found “creepy” than those who look like e.g. sexy bunny girls or straight-laced guys who just happen to have pipes jutting out of their calves. Of course, that’s on something of a sliding scale; the more biased an area is against heteromorphs in general, the easier it will be to find oneself on the wrong side of that line.

O #2 presents the idea that society has reflected on their actions and made amends, or at least that’s how society’s narrative goes. Illustrating this, we see two of the three heteromorphs in the police force, as well as Nedzu. Interestingly, the panel does not include any heteromorphic heroes! I might guess that this is because heroes are meant to use their quirks to serve others; they’re really just enforcement tools, lacking any particular authority beyond a quirk-use license and some admittedly broad soft power courtesy of the social contract.[10] Conversely, a school principal and a police chief (Gori remaining the outlier here) have actual authority, such that the average heteromorphobia-denier can point to them as evidence that heteromorphobia doesn’t exist anymore.

10: Which is to say, I don’t get the impression civilians are required to take orders from heroes, such that they would actually get in legal trouble for disobeying. The fact that people do typically follow those orders speaks more to the power heroes wield via their association with the police force, as well as the general tendency of people to assume that someone in a uniform giving orders during an emergency is probably a professional whose orders it would be safe and wise to follow.

In the same panel, we also see a baseline guy palling around with a vaguely murine heteromorph dude (he looks more like a mascot suit mouse than an actual mouse, but he’s certainly nowhere close to baseline!), illustrating another way society wants to pretend it’s moved past heteromorphic discrimination. I can’t help but note, in regards to this specific pair, that the manga uses faces the readers know to illustrate the point about heteromorphs in positions of authority, whereas to make the point about baseline/heteromorph friendships, it has to make up a new pair to show us because the series hasn’t made the time to actually build any (heroic) relationships that actually look like that!

Now, one could argue that using familiar faces to underscore #2’s speech would imply that he’s aware of those faces, and while that’s fine for figures of authority, there’s no reason for him to be aware of e.g. Natsuo and his mousey girlfriend. However, the same would apply to anyone placed to demonstrate a random urban friendship crossing the “differing forms” line, including those two strangers. Who are those two, after all, that #2 is any more familiar with them than he would be of Natsuo and mouse gal?

Honestly, I think the best relationship candidate we have—a pair who would both communicate what the panel needs to communicate to the reader and who would feasibly be enough in the public eye to get pointed at for rhetorical purposes by an in-universe speaker—would be Kamui Woods and Mount Lady. Unfortunately, they don’t work because Horikoshi has never seen fit to actually reveal Kamui Woods’ real face, so they’re much less visibly “a baseline person being emotionally close with a heteromorph” than the random two Horikoshi made up.

O The oratory continues into discussing the divide between city versus rural views on heteromorphs, and this is, to me, the first clear sign that the series is beginning to lose the thread of this plot. Taking #2 at his word asks us to concede the heteromorphobia has been completely wiped out in cities, eradicated with that wonderful antidote called “education.” But discrimination very much does exist in cities! It may be less violent, less extreme, less vocal, but in the form of things like law enforcement bias, housing discrimination, microaggressions, the quirk counselling #2 himself brought up, it’s very much still there! Now, it could be that he’s just downplaying that discrimination to focus on the really ugly stuff you don’t see in cities, but I don’t know what his reasons for doing so would be? Not when there’s so much else he could say that would be equally inflammatory without alienating urban heteromorphs by dismissing their still very much present, modern suffering.

O He then brings up the talk of “light”—echoing Skeptic’s earlier rhetoric—and it not reaching those gathered at the hospital, so they must make their own, for people who’ve never once regretted the quirks they were born with can never be their heroes. What this primarily puts me in mind of is Hawks’s background with heroes prior to his father’s arrest—that heroes were only on TV, not present to save him in his actual life. Keep that in mind for Shouji’s response later on.

O Towards the end, #2’s speech finally tips over the line from what could plausibly be read as protesting unequal treatment to an outright call for supremacy. Notably, he doesn’t call for quirk supremacy, but rather for heteromorph supremacy—for the tables to be turned, the cards reversed, for them to not merely be equal, but rather to be superior.

It’s unclear how much of this he’s sincere about and how much is just convenient rhetoric disguising views that are more quirk supremacist in actuality. For many reasons, I want to read him in good faith: because the MLA originally struck me as being written in good faith throughout MVA and the first war arc; because #2 never once uses his quirk in this mini-arc, casting doubt on him having such an amazing quirk that he’d benefit overmuch from quirk supremacy anyway; and especially because it would be incredibly bad faith on Horikoshi’s part to make a character delivering a speech like this a total bad faith, manipulative outsider. Unfortunately, #2’s inner monologue in later chapters will make a good faith read all but impossible to sustain.

O Halfway through his speech, #2 unmasks himself, revealing both his face—dominated by four pairs of pedipalp-esque mouthparts, though the markings on his head are pretty eye-catching, too—and his scar. We’re never told how he got it, but the implication is certainly that he was attacked for his appearance. That may just be a conclusion it serves him to let people make, given his bad faith elsewhere, but thankfully the manga doesn’t go so far as to say that explicitly. In any case, his deliberate reveal turns his wound into a form of performance art, drawing attention to it, forcing it to be a part of the conversation—the polar opposite of Shouji covering his scars because he doesn’t want them to be a part of the conversation about him, and those scars being revealed because his mask is torn off against his will.[11]

11: This also fits a larger pattern of villains, by and large, choosing their expressions of vulnerability, making deliberate shows of agency in how their weakness is perceived by the broader world—Shigaraki taking his hand off for the first time, Dabi’s video, Toga approaching heroes with genuine questions, and so on. There are certainly exceptions, but generally if a villain shows his “true face,” it’s because they’re making a conscious decision to do so, and may be actively manipulating how that reveal is going to land. Conversely, heroes want to present a powerful, confident, untarnished image to the public, so their shows of vulnerability all have to be forced out of them after pitched battles or acts of violence. Heroes don’t make themselves vulnerable to the public on purpose, which feeds into the way the public then treats them when they are forced into vulnerable positions.

O Spinner’s a mess at this point, and the reason he’s a mess is all tied up in his faith in/desire to help Shigaraki. It’s not explicitly about heteromorphobia, but on the other hand, given that the thing that drove Spinner to be here at all was his horrifically low self-esteem caused by heteromorphobia, maybe it’s not so irrelevant after all. It may have taken Spinner longer than the Tenkos, Touyas, and Chisaki Kais of the world to reach the “fall victim to a dark influence due to the neglect and abuse you faced at the hands of Hero Society” plot, but he certainly got there in the end![12]

12: I call this The Sekoto Peak Problem, and it’s a big criticism of mine about how the final arc is framing all these conflicts as being solely brought about because Bad Faith Villain Men like AFO are scooping up vulnerable people and driving them towards violence, without acknowledging the much worse circumstances those vulnerable people might be in if they were just left to their fates. Touya, for example, if not for AFO’s timely rescue, would likely have simply died on the mountain long before Endeavor was able to find him.

O Shouji takes the mob to task for attacking a hospital without ensuring the safety of the uninvolved innocents within, a laughable bit of sophistry[13] that accurately foreshadows how disastrous his reasoning will be throughout the rest of these chapters.

13: It’s laughable sophistry firstly because the heroes knew this mob was coming but chose to leave Kurogiri at a hospital anyway; one can mount a very reasonable argument that Kurogiri’s teleportation power qualifies him as a military objective, which would make stashing him at a hospital an actual war crime in an international conflict, as well as negating the hospital’s protected status as a civilian object. It’s laughable sophistry secondly because it criticizes a Villain-led mob for failing to evacuate the building, as if said mob had exactly the same social cachet possessed by heroes, that they could freely walk in the front door of a hospital and start shouting evacuation orders with reasonable confidence that they’d be obeyed. Finally, it’s laughable sophistry because Shouji is quite simply wrong about the order of the actions he’s describing—the heroes’ evacuation of Ujiko’s hospital was concurrent with their invasion of said hospital, not precedent to it.

Chapter 371:

O Shouji accuses Spinner of taking actions that will set them back thirty years, which is just a really egregiously victim blamey sort of thing to say, placing the responsibility on heteromorphs for the crimes of those who hate them.

O Koda’s perspective gives us a flashback to Shouji telling his classmates about his history—his town and his scars and his reason for wanting to be a hero. It’s all material that works in the context of all the set-up we’ve gotten—the CRC and the religious inflection of their specific brand of hatred, the rural heteromorphobia, the hints about Shouji’s own discrimination, the attack on the Ordinary Woman, and so on—but that would have been far better served to have been integrated into the story more naturally. Koda has no specifically established relationship with Shouji (seriously, there is absolutely nothing; it’s shocking how out of nowhere his sudden deep dedication to Shouji is), nor does the scene he remembers have any specific flags for when it might take place,[14] leaving the memory feeling less like a natural extension of their arc than it is a graceless sequence muscled in to attempt to rouse some emotion in the audience when Koda has a quirk awakening he is not otherwise remotely in dire enough straits to have rightfully earned.[15]

14: Shouto and Bakugou being missing might suggest that they’re off at their remedial license course, which would put the scene somewhere in late September up through December (stretching from the aftermath of Overhaul to the introduction of the MLA), save that there are several other students missing as well—Sero, Iida, Sato, and Aoyama, none of whom where in the remedial course.

15: Nearly every other inarguable quirk awakening[※] we know of in the series has as a chief component serious physical injury: Bakugou, Ochaco, Toga. Geten’s is the only exception, and his is tied to the strength of his feelings for Re-Destro, which are clearly and overridingly his most significant character trait! Shouji is not anywhere near that central to Koda’s life, and he sure as hell isn’t injured enough to have gotten it that way.

※: By which measure I exclude stuff like the change in Shigaraki’s Decay or Mina’s acid attack against Gigantomachia. Shigaraki was explicitly just breaking through a mental block to access power he already had. Meanwhile, if Mina’s Plus Ultra moment had been a sudden quirk evolution, she wouldn’t already have an attack name picked out for it, nor would her horns have gone back to normal after it. Acidman: ALMA is an Ultimate Move, not Mina having a quirk awakening.

O The flashback itself calls for another subsection.

Ignoring the Difference Between the Personal and the Systemic for Fun & Profit

O The big thing here the description of the whole town coming out for a “blood cleansing” whenever Shouji touched someone. This is depicted as Shouji, probably a preteen in this sequence,[16] being savagely attacked with farming tools, the most visible of which is a pitchfork. This visual, as well as #2’s invocation of historical slaughters, is the darkest heart of heteromorphobia: a child being ritualistically assaulted in the open street as a matter of course, as a consequence for touching someone. This is the image you should hold in your mind as The Problem through all of the potential answers and responses that get trotted out through the rest of these chapters.

16: Visibly older/bigger than, say, Kouta, but also visibly younger/smaller than middle school Deku.

Before moving on, I do want to examine this image in just a bit more depth.

This is, firstly, the moment that Shouji got those scars, and it’s very important to note that what we’re being shown is likely not a random, representative sample of what the town “coming out in force for a blood cleansing” looks like. The strong implication is that this is in the immediate aftermath of the sequence we’ll see shortly of Shouji saving the girl from the river: he’s wearing the same clothes and shoes,[17] he’s the same size, and there’s a spray of blood from where he’s being struck across the mouth where he didn’t have his distinctive scars when he saved the girl. Does that mean the blood cleansings were typically not this violent? That’s hard to say. On the one hand, we don’t see any other scars on Shouji, and he wears his arms pretty bare! On the other hand, we never see any part of his body bare except his neck and arms, and since he can regrow his arms,[18] they’re not exactly conclusive evidence that he’s never been scarred there. Also, he does say talk about his situation—the scars he bears—as something other children in the country have to bear, suggesting that the norm is rather worse than a little symbolic gash across the palm or something! 17: In fairness, he may not own very much different, as I’ll discuss shortly. 18: The duplicated ones, at least. I seem to recall reading once that he could regrow the base set as well, but I’m still working on tracking down a citation on that.

Secondly, as was the case with the image of the historical massacres, the adults here are using tools/weapons in the assault, not quirks. As I mentioned in a footnote last time, them not using quirks to carry out this attack makes them merely criminals, not Villains, and therefore not nominally a Hero’s job to deal with. While I can’t imagine any Hero in the manga these days would stand back and let this go on, the absence still stands out—no Hero is participating in this, nor observing from the sidelines, nor trying to intervene. Heroes simply don’t figure into this picture at all.

Thirdly, we can see a few children in the background, both there with adults, I assume their parents. The child on the right is a passive observer, clinging close to their mother and simply watching; their father has one hand supportively on their shoulder. Neither parent seems distressed, insomuch as we can tell from their somewhat indistinct features and rather clearer body language. The child on the left is being actively held back by their mother, who’s standing with her back to the violence, her body interposed between it and her child. The kid is reaching out towards the scene, but it’s unclear what the intent is. Are they trying to intervene or do they want to join in? Neither child appears to be the little girl Shouji saved—the one on the right is dark-haired, and the one on the left—the more likely prospect just going by the body language!—is wearing a long, dark T-shirt instead of the little girl’s overalls. I suppose the left one could be the little girl if we assume she was hustled out of what she’d been wearing by her parents, eager to get her out of now-tainted (and also soaking wet) clothes and into something dry and warm and, in more ways than one, clean. However, that seems like the sort of thing that would take longer than what looks to have been a pretty impromptu, disorganized bloodletting, unless everyone just held off on assaulting Shouji right out on the street until the “victim” could be present.

Finally, there’s the pair of adults right at the center of the background. If anyone in this picture is actually related to Shouji, I’d put money on them being here, watching but not attempting to intercede. I don’t think it’s conclusive, though; the woman is thin and hunched, making her look older—I’d guess Shouji’s grandmother before Shouji’s mother. That hunched posture and her hands being raised to her mouth do give her the most obviously distressed appearance of any of the adult, though, to the extent that the person with her is focused on supporting her rather than watching what’s going on in the foreground—and forward attention is what I’d expect if the dark-haired figure is related to Shouji.

So that’s the image we have of the crowd—actively taking part or observing with varying degrees of reaction running from distress to indifference to, potentially, enthusiasm.

O Next, let’s talk about Shouji’s parents. He implies they were baseline—at the least they were significantly more baseline than Shouji himself, as they lacked arms “like his.” That makes it quite telling that Shouji’s parents are nowhere to be seen in his story beyond the simple mention of how they were different than him.

Now, I don’t want to suggest here that Shouji’s parents are completely irredeemable people. While I would imagine that—at least initially—they shared their town’s bigotry, having a heteromorphic child themselves would have exponentially increased the hardship of their own lives. In a town like that, I’m sure that many if not all of their neighbors must have come to regard them with suspicion of wrongdoing or transgression—recall the first page of the last chapter, where Shouji is accused of tricking the town in his having brought dirty blood to it. Hie parents almost certainly lost friends and likely became ostracized themselves, and ostracization in a small Japanese town can be a horrifying thing to deal with.

And yet, even with all that being the case, they didn’t abandon Shouji or give him up; they didn’t commit family suicide with him.[19] Assuming he wasn’t removed from their custody after the incident, they’re presumably paying his school and living costs;[20] likewise, unless he just ran away from home or is carrying out an incredibly elaborate deception about what school he’s attending, they almost had to support his desire to attend a hero school to begin with. In his situation, parents who support his desire to be a Hero is a big fucking deal. After all, between the winning and the saving, heroes will de facto be touching people all the time! If Shouji’s parents still live in his hometown, how do you think those people will take it when someone first realizes the Shouji family sent their kegare-riddled monster off to be a Hero?

19: The history of honorable suicide in Japan casts a very long shadow, and when it’s combined with the meiwaku culture, you get an underreported epidemic of things like parents who can’t see their way out of a bad situation taking their lives and their children’s as well, so as not to leave messy loose ends that others will have to bear the burden of dealing with.

20: I won’t get into whether or not the U.A. students’ parents are paying for any given thing on the following list, but here are some potential costs to consider, assuming that Shouji, like Uraraka, was commuting from an apartment prior to the dorms being implemented: tuition, school uniforms, textbooks, school supplies, school meal plan, food not served at school (e.g. breakfast and dinner or meals when the school is on break), non-uniform attire, personal care and hygiene, housing and transportation costs, a measure of spending money for unanticipated expenses or culturally expected gift-giving, etc.

All that being said, it’s obviously not a glowingly loving relationship, either. Think back to Shouji’s absolutely barren room in Chapter 99 and consider it in the context of the information we get in this chapter. Is he really so ascetic by inclination, or is he just used to making do with as little as possible? After all, it goes without saying that if him coming into contact with someone called for blood purification, anything he himself was in regular contact with was also to be considered incredibly impure. That includes his clothes, personal belongings and living space; even setting aside his parents’ view on it, who in his hometown would even want to provide or sell things to the family that they think will go to the child with the dirty blood that’s defiling their land?

Shouji’s parents’ absence is also glaring in other ways. For example:

They’re either not in the beating scene image above at all or they’re that central background couple hanging back and just watching; whichever is the case, what they’re assuredly not doing while their son is being beaten so badly he will still have glaringly visible scars years later is “trying to stop the violence or take the blows themselves.”

Shouji says he has one single good memory about his body, but his parents are nowhere to be found in that memory. Ergo, his parents have not given him a single moment of positivity about his heteromorphic form.

Parents of U.A. students were evacuated to U.A.—not just the ones near it, but even ones like Uraraka’s parents, who live at least a two hour drive away, in a wholly different prefecture with a third prefecture in between them and U.A. Every student we see in the departure scene in Chapter 342 is shown with their parents except Shouji.

To sum all that up, Shouji’s family situation is not maximally bad, but it’s certainly proximally bad.

O Next, we get Shouji alleging ignorance on the part of heteromorphs raised in cities, that there are still parts of the country in the modern day where stories like his happen.[21] It’s a milder version of the same assertions made by #2 and the beaky heteromorph last chapter, in that Shouji doesn’t suggest heteromorphobia doesn’t exist at all in cities, simply that there are extremes of violence that can only be found in the country. It still feels off, however, to suggest that absolutely no one else in Shouji’s class might ever have heard of this through any channel at all: being from similarly small towns, reading about an attack in the news, reading about factors that impact the public approval ratings for Heroes, going through a morbid phase in middle school and researching it, being talked to about it by their parents, etc.

21: The suggestion of the Viz translation of this suggests that city-raised heteromorphs do know this, but only because they’re read about it in textbooks. My sister-in-law, who does professional translation, tells me this was a subtle mistranslation of the original text, however; the textbook framing is supposed to imply a remove of time, not merely of distance.

It’s not as unrealistic a story beat here as it would be in an American comic, as Japan does tend more towards using silence as a weapon against bigotry—children won’t learn what they aren’t taught, and similar reasoning. Still, to portray the class as so unanimously ignorant reflects a deep incuriosity, be that in the kids themselves about the world around them or in their author about how the knowledge/perpetuation of discrimination spreads.

This is particularly the case when you consider the story’s handling of the Ordinary Woman—attacked in her own town because people were suspicious of a heteromorph out after dark, turned away from multiple shelters because of her heteromorph status. It’s certainly true that things got worse for heteromorphs after the first war arc, but for discrimination in that specific form to emerge, there needed to be something for it to draw on. The fear of villains and the association of villains with heteromorphs are the foundation for the upswelling in anti-heteromorph sentiments in cities.

O Mina’s reaction to all this is one of rather theatrical anger. That is, no one around her takes her broad declarations—that the world would be better off without the people who hurt Shouji—as anything more serious than hyperbole. This is, it would seem, the only sort of anger that’s acceptable to show in response to hearing a story like Shouji’s—empathy to the wronged, sure, but no real intent to confront the wrongdoers.

O Mineta stares into space for a second before emphatically apologizing for calling Shouji an octopus once—a call all the way back to his microaggression in Chapter 6!—and asserting that it wasn’t his intention to say Shouji was gross or anything. Shouji responds gracefully, saying it’s “only natural” that his arms would make people think of octopus.

He doesn’t go on to say, “But that doesn’t mean people have to say it out loud,” but it’s possible that Mineta’s apology is meant to suggest that regardless. At least, one certainly hopes this isn’t the author’s way of quietly absolving his more popular characters of all the times they’ve done the same thing! It’s notable, however, that none of the other Class 1-A kids that have done this are in the scene. Shouto and Bakugou, who have both used that kind of language in anger (and in the latter’s case, also just with no provocation whatsoever) are the missing elephants in the room, and even Sero, who was the actual person to call Shouji an octopus, is, in his absence, Sir Letting The Gag Character Handle This Apology So I A More Serious Character Don’t Have To.

O Shouji brings up the Heroes Who Look Like Villains rankings. We know the Number 1 on that list is actually Endeavor, per a movie bonus booklet, but bringing it up in this context does implicitly confirm that said rankings have an unseemly slant towards heteromorphs, and what did Skeptic say about Villains and heteromorphs again…?

O Shouji says he wears the mask because he knows that if people see his scars, they’ll wonder about them, and fear he’s out for revenge. He doesn’t want people to think that, so he covers them up. He’s praised for this by Tokoyami, and the narrative pretty clearly also thinks it’s admirable and cool. I have serious issues with this—chiefly that it’s prioritizing the oblivious comfort of the baseline citizens over the fellow feeling and affirmation of other persecuted heteromorphs—but I’m also curious to see if the mask will come back now that its meta-narrative purpose of hiding Shouji’s scars from the reader has been fulfilled. I note, for example, that Shouji is not wearing the mask in the color spread for Chapter 394, and the color art does have some precedent for being an early predictor of stuff in the body of the manga.[22]

Incidentally, while I’m talking about Shouji’s mask, I do wonder how effective it would even be for him to cover his scars up? I have my doubts for two reasons. First and most obviously, heroes are such celebrities, all over the news all the time, such that if Shouji really does get as popular as he intends to, there will be people who want to know what he looks like.[23]

22: The big one is Aizawa’s eyepatch. It showed up in two pieces of color art (the popularity poll results spread for Chapter 293 and the new art announcing the BNHA Drawing Smash Exhibition) before it was revealed in the manga. Both pieces released within days of each other in early December, 2020, three months after Shigaraki raked his hand down Aizawa’s face during the war and almost two months before the latter showed up in bandages in the hospital, with another two months to go beyond that before the eyepatch itself made it to the manga in late March. In a more stealth spoiler, the same popularity spread revealed Shigaraki’s blackened, burned face-hand two chapters prior to Spinner digging it out of Shigaraki’s pants. The 394 spread is also my basis for asserting that Mina’s horns have gone back to normal after her attack against Gigantomachia, compared to Shouji lacking his mask and Koda having his new horn in the same spread.

23: Edgeshot’s character profile page notes that his fans are split into two factions: those who’re mad to see his real face and those who think the mask is what makes him cool.

O More importantly, though, heroes have to be licensed, and Hero Licenses are photo IDs. Photo IDs don’t typically allow face coverage because not being able to provide a visual reference to what the bearer looks like defeats the whole purpose. While we don’t know what full-fledged hero licenses look like to say if they’re taken in or out of costume, we do know the provisional licenses the students carry showed them in their school uniforms, despite the fact that they definitely had working costumes by then:

Pardon the sudden screenshot. The manga has this shot, too, but the anime fills in the details of the text a bit more.

It seems probable to me that the photo on a Hero License must show the bearer’s face, so that if they’re tooling around a crime scene and a cop who hasn’t seen them around before asks for their license, it can reliably be used as a form of identification. (I wonder how Hagakure manages?)

Also, think back to the press conferences we’ve seen in the story, most recently the one post-war: at every one, the heroes are in serious, solemn black suits, not their costumes. So at any press conferences Shouji ever has to speak at in the future, he’ll have to show his face there, as well.

O We see a direct flashback to Shouji saving a little girl from drowning in a choppy, swift-flowing river as he says in voiceover that he’d rather cling to the single good memory related to his body than dwell on the bad memories. He very much uses his quirk to do it, with his right set of limbs used to hold onto the bank while his left ones reach out to the girl, extending out another few “nodes” of arm-length when he at first can’t keep hold of her fingers. As they sit and catch their breath afterward, the girl clings to one of his tentacles and cries. This is not quite what his entry in the Ultra Analysis databook was hinting at[24] when it said he wears the mask due to his scary face making a little girl cry; that’ll be next chapter.

24: My apologies for not bringing this up before; it’ll be covered on AO3. The gist is as detailed above; the databook came out circa the Endeavor Agency arc, so this was a known factoid about Shouji by the time this chapter came out three years later.

O Wrapping up the flashback, we’re left with Koda’s memory of Shouji saying that he knows it’ll take longer than a generation to tear down a wall that’s stood for over a century, so, just as previous generations have done, he’ll keep paying it forward, being the coolest hero the world’s ever seen, “to give good memories to generations to come.” Which sounds really nice when he says it that way, as opposed to the broader implication that people whose children have been or are in danger of being maimed by bigots should just keep their heads down and “keep paying it forward.”

The whole “be a cool hero and give good memories” bit is particularly egregious to my eye, for a few reasons.

How much good did cool heroes do for Takami Keigo when they were just on TV? Which is where Shouji will be, because in order to be “the coolest hero the world’s ever seen,” he’s going to have to be at the top of the rankings, and being at the top of the rankings means prioritizing cities, which means all those heteromorphs out in rural areas are never going to see him in person. And anyway, what’s stopping all those bigots from just changing the channel or going on a rant about Woke Mutie Agendas every time a heteromorphic hero crops up on TV?

How much did the visibility of previous generations’ cool heroes do for Spinner? Does Shouji think Spinner was super inspired and uplifted by seeing e.g. Gang Orca on TV using the emitter-like hypersonic waves his quirk gives him to beat up Villains, an undue percentage of whom are also heteromorphs?

It’s certainly nice that Shouji was inspired enough by heroes on TV to want to emulate them, but he is demonstrably not the norm when it comes to wildly disadvantaged and victimized heteromorphs. Also, I have to wonder how much his admiration of TV heroes would have done him if he’d gotten to the girl just a little later—say, in time to get her out of the river, but too late to be able to save her life without knowing CPR. As bad as it was for him when he saved a little girl but had to touch her to do it, can you imagine how much worse it would have been if he’d touched her and then failed to save her, being found or having to walk back into town with her body?

I realize that's incredibly dark, but it's the kind of question that presents itself when the story is so insistent on Shouji's exemplary behavior being the model for heteromorphs to follow in their own lives.

O Exiting the flashback, when Shouji calls out to the heteromorphs, we finally get a straight-out look at how disastrous this conclusion is going to be in the way he shouts that no, the people who hurt them weren’t justified, but that there has to be a better way, that they should think about how to use their rage—but offers exactly zero suggestions himself for what that better way might be, or what they should be using their rage to do instead.[25]

25: I have seen the argument put forth that Shouji is one (1) teenager, and one (1) teenager cannot fairly be asked to Solve Bigotry. To this, I would counter that if Shouji doesn’t have even one (1) single idea to offer, why is the camera lens holding him up as the hero who quelled a fifteen-thousand-strong mob with only words? He doesn’t have to Solve Bigotry, but if he’s going to be used as a counter for other peoples’ misguided but at least active attempts to address the problem, he needed to be better than a mere white knight for the status quo.

Spinner’s #2 calls Shouji out on this directly, saying that if the situation were that easy to resolve, it wouldn’t have come down to this, and accusing Shouji of having no feasible solution to offer, just childish and naïve egotism. And call me a hopeless MLA Stan and you’d be right, but truly, where’s the lie?

His efforts in this regard, however, wind up pushing Koda to what certainly has all the markings of a quirk awakening because it upsets Koda to see Shouji being “mocked.” Man, sure is a good thing quirk awakenings are just a dime a dozen and definitely don’t require life-threatening injuries and/or incredibly severe emotional distress over someone who means more to you than your own life, right?

O In a last little stroke of ugliness for the chapter, Spinner calls Shouji gross. Just to, you know, make it really obvious that the villains are all totally bad faith representation for this cause and thus can be safely dismissed. (Christ, I hate these chapters.)

Chapter 372:

O We get the flashback of Shouji and Koda asking All Might to assign them to the hospital defense group. Points of note:

Neither Shouji nor All Might can be bothered to use the Ordinary Woman’s real name, instead just referring to her by her size. Seriously, I get the intent behind insisting that she’s just an ordinary woman, that there’s nothing in particular stand-out about her in the current age; it’s pretty much the same deal as Shinomori saying that OFA can no longer be wielded by an “ordinary” person, with that phrasing being used to ironically emphasize that quirks are now seen as ordinary, while those without quirks are the unusual ones. However, it obviously wouldn’t work in-universe for characters trying to specify who they’re talking about to say, “That ordinary woman,” with the end result being that they have to grab for what stands out about her if they want to be understood—in this case, her obviously unusual height. In trying to emphasize that she’s normal, Horikoshi forces his characters to define her by what makes her stand out.

Koda says that if Shouji’s going, he is too, a moment that would really land much better if they’d had literally any interactions of note at literally any point prior to this exact moment. Frankly, even last chapter’s flashback is pretty thin on that front, since Koda is not one of the students who gets speaking lines when cuddling up to Shouji to comfort him. (I’m not even convinced it’s very in character for Koda to be one of the kids diving in for cuddles—he’s usually pretty shy!)

Shouji says that he could never call himself a hero if he were to stand back while the hospital attack plays out, implicitly emphasizing the role his reaction to his own oppression plays in his heroic motivation.

O Another flashback[26] gives us Koda’s mother discussing the possibility that he might get horns like hers someday, and what those horns can do, as well as mentioning that she used to have to put up with considerable mistreatment herself, and, lastly, telling her son to grow up into a man who gets angry when people mock those dear to him.

26: The sheer number of them crammed into this mini-arc really says a lot for how rushed it is, but complaining about the structural problems of the last few arcs would be a different essay.

Breaking those down, we’ve got:

The fact that Koda’s mom says he might grow in horns like hers suggests to me pretty strongly that her own horns are a quirk evolution she just doesn’t have the language to name as such. If it were just a matter of maturation, something that came in with puberty, there’d be no “maybe” about it. Given what we know about the context of quirk evolutions elsewhere, this in turn suggests that she did not exactly get her horns under peaceful, wholesome, uplifting circumstances!

This is backed up by her mention of the “real cruelty” she faced. Interestingly, this kind of raises some questions in relation to Shouji’s assertion last chapter that people like Koda who grew up in cities lack an understanding of the extremes of heteromorphobic violence that endure elsewhere. Did Koda’s parents move to the city from the country at some point when Koda was young/before he was born, and the “real cruelty” was out in the country? That might track with the overalls she was wearing. And of course, Koda’s mother was a younger woman then, so maybe it’s just the fact that heteromorphic discrimination was worse at the time. Either way, Koda’s mother is clearly open with him about the fact that she was mistreated because of her appearance, though she may have downplayed the severity of it.

The idea of Shouji being “dear to Koda” is immensely frustrating for how utterly groundless it is, based on absolutely no prior grounding within the story other than the general bond among the 1-A students. That’s just me complaining, though—more pertinent for this essay is the problem with how this moment frames anger. Like, the whole mini-arc has the same problem, but this chapter is particularly rotten with it. To preview: Koda’s anger is portrayed as righteous, as was his father’s, because their anger is about protection, about defensive reaction, about intervening with harm currently in progress—basically all the stuff Heroes are supposed to do. It is notably not about action based on past harm or proactive attempts to prevent future harm.

O Koda’s bird attack knocks Spinner’s #2 off the roof in one of the most egregious examples of, “I can’t come up with an actual counterpoint for his arguments, so I’ll just shut him up through force,” I’ve ever seen. Sure, there’s something to be said for not engaging bad faith parties in good faith arguments, but like… That guy already had a platform of his arguments—he was standing on the roof of a tall building! The author gave him several pages to make his pitch; the argument’s already out there in the readers’ minds! The only thing getting rid of him does is guarantee that the person the taciturn Shouji actually has to argue with is…Spinner. Who is not exactly a born orator at the best of times, and he’s very far from even that level here.

Now, #2 will get a few more lines next chapter, but they’re against one of the people on his own side. No heroic character has to argue #2 down; instead, they get to match wits with the literally drooling Spin-zilla. Which is a bit like stepping into the wrestling ring with someone who’s had a bag thrown over his head and his hands zip-tied behind his back.

This confrontation is, woefully, not the only place in the endgame where a heroic character gets all the time and freedom in the world to make their big pronunciations while their opponent gets shut down by some outside factor—interference from other villains, psychological decay, literal possession—but it’s in particularly stark relief here.

O Shouji contends that the crowd is letting their pain be exploited, which is a fair cop, but will become difficult to square with his praise of them next chapter.

O He says that these peoples’ children might be the next targets, presumably because of their actions here today. This is particularly maddening because it’s coming from someone who was, himself, already targeted as a child! Not because of anything his parents did, and certainly not because of anything bad he did, but simply because of the bigoted, backwards views of his town. Children already and still are being targeted! Shouji’s backstory is all wrong for this stand, and there’ll be another angle on that next chapter as well.

O Here we finally fulfill the promise of Shouji’s databook entry and see the Little Girl Crying Because His Face Was Scary. She wasn’t crying because she was just scared of his face in isolation, but rather because she sees his face being scary as her fault, directly correlating his wounds to her rescue.[27] Those wounds stand in marked contrast to what happens when other people save small helpless children from danger, and underlines the biggest problem with this whole resolution: the idea that simply Being An Hero will create change.

27: My big question is, “Given that him being in contact with her was so bad it got him scarred for life, how did she even sneak out to see him again to give him this tearful apology? Did young Shouji even want this apology, or would he have preferred she not risk the two of them being seen together again for both their sakes?

Now, it’s certainly likely in Horikoshi’s world that this little girl will, herself, grow up to be different from the people around her, that she won’t think heteromorphs are tainted. And like, that’s at least one less person being awful, right? And doesn’t every one count?

Sure, of course—but what happens when she runs up against that prejudice herself? Will she try to intervene the next time she sees a blood cleansing? Will she simply abstain from such action and teach equality in her own household without trying to change the village around her? Will she simply move away and leave her hometown worse for her absence? If she does stay in that town, will she herself become an outcast for her views—a form of silent, passive harassment that can be absolutely life-wrecking in those small Japanese villages? If she gets married and has children, will her husband have her back in trying to raise those kids free of hatred?

For that matter, isn’t there a chance that, being surrounded in people who think heteromorphs are tainted, that she’ll just internalize something like, “It was my carelessness that got that poor heteromorph boy beaten so badly. He was trying to help, and it only got us both hurt—him for the beatings, me for being in contact with his filth.” Like, she’s so young in that scene; she’s got a whole lotta years of having the anti-heteromorph narrative reaffirmed at her before she’s old enough to do anything different herself. It feels to me like the kind of thing that she could easily fall back into as she grows up, only to have a huge spiritual crisis about it once she hits her late teens to early twenties.

In any case, it's just a lot to put on a single child—on her and Shouji both!

O Spinner rallies enough to yell out a message of his own, but it’s just a quote of what he told his followers when he first sent out the call, not anything new to rally them, nor tailored to respond to what Shouji’s saying. This has been the danger of the plotline all along, and here it comes to fruition: in putting bad faith villains with ulterior motives[28] up against an underdeveloped character who’s hidden the evidence of his mistreatment from Day 1, someone with no apparent intention to ever speak up for others like himself, no one comes out looking good. Truly, heteromorphs deserve better rep.

28: #2 is the obvious one, but Spinner’s here in bad faith, too. While I’m sure he’s not totally indifferent to the matter of heteromorph rights, it’s self-admittedly not his current priority.

O That said, if what Spinner says is old hat to the crowd, it is new to the audience, and it serves to sharply up the ante on from what we knew previously about the persecution he faced in his hometown!

But it would have gotten better if he’d just put on a mask and dealt with it, amirite?

Recall that Spinner has previously only said that people in his town called him names—this is self-evidently many steps worse. Note, though, that it’s another example of the violence heteromorphs face not involving anyone using quirks—that is to say, nothing that’s a hero’s jurisdiction to deal with. That being the case, how much could Spinner get away with fighting back or running before the “it’s okay to use quirks in self-defense” stops holding? After all, is it still self-defense if biased cops[29] can accuse him of “escalating” the conflict? How far away can he get by climbing on walls before it becomes, to some small-town local Hero, unlicensed public quirk use?

29: If policing in HeroAca Japan still works basically the same as it does in IRL Japan, then in truly backwater areas, ones too small to afford the upkeep of a police department, an officer would be sent in from another area to live in a home attached to the police box. That being the case, it’s not a given that the officer would share the locals’ bigotry. That’s where we come back to the whole “what percentage of Villain-designated criminals are heteromorphs” statement and what it implies about bias in the law enforcement system. Also too, building a strong relationship with the community is absolutely essential to rural policing, and there are, oh, so many stories about what happens when someone new in a small Japanese town gets between the inhabitants and their “traditional spiritual practices.”

O Pig Nose Guy starts making an impression by noticing the doctors—most prominently Dr. Yoshi, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a baseline nurse—forming a human chain in front of the hallway leading to the Inpatient Ward. This drama is undercut on both fronts by the fact that Spinner is not looking for the Inpatient Ward, and in fact barrels right on past that hallway without even glancing in its direction. So, the mob stops because they’re struck to hesitation by a group of people protecting a part of the hospital that the mob was not even intending to assault in the first place.

O As part of stopping, Pig Nose Guy seems to have some sort of flashback to a time he saw Dr. Toad caring for an elderly baseline man. This raises a lot of questions to my by-this-time hyper-critical eyes.

What past circumstance brought Pig Nose Guy—presumably fairly rural, as most of this crowd is implied to be—to Central Hospital, the most technologically advanced hospital in the entire country? • If Pig Nose Guy is not rural, but was still so fired up about heteromorphobia that he joined a terrorist-led mob to attack a hospital, wouldn’t that suggest that a lot of people in the story have been misleading us about the extent of anti-heteromorph sentiment in cities?

If the person in the bed is someone related to Pig Nose Guy—perhaps someone with a rare illness that requires specialized treatment?—why is the guy entirely baseline? If it’s just a friend, then they must be very close, given that PNG was willing to take a trip to the Tokyo metropolitan area to visit him. But if PNG is that close to a baseline guy, why did he ever believe that baseline folks are such a lost cause that he, again, joined a terrorist-led mob to attack a hospital?

Why is this important, impactful memory one of a heteromorph in a caretaker role instead of being taken care of? To elaborate on why that question matters, a common issue you’ll see minority groups raise when talking about representation in media is the role any given minority character performs in their narrative—the gay best friend there to give the straight female lead advice, the Black person there to help a white person self-actualize, that sort of thing. This is not so much a critique of any given, specific character as it is criticizing the restrictions on of what demographics are allowed to be portrayed as full, rounded individuals in popular media versus which are relegated to stock stereotypes or supporting cast. This isn’t something BNHA addresses explicitly, but I do think we have some precedent for suspecting heteromorphs in this world have similar problems—think of the image for Class B’s play in Chapter 173, Gang Orca playing the Villain at the license exam, and, most egregiously, the Hug Me Corporation and its all-baseline-all-the-time image of bystanders and victims. That being the case, it really gets to me that Pig Nose Guy’s memory here has the man in the hospital bed being baseline while it’s the doctor who’s the heteromorph. Like, what does that communicate about his mindset, exactly? “Oh, I remember this time I saw a heteromorph who’d managed to actually kind of Make It in society and he was nice to the baseline guy in his care. But the spider guy leading us, he didn’t sound like he wanted us to be very nice at all. Is that what I am? Not nice?” On the other hand, if the whole point of this memory is to remind PNG that there can be peace and support between heteromorphs and “people with human faces,” why in heaven’s name isn’t this a memory of a heteromorph being cared for and supported by a baseline person? Why does the person doing the labor in this picture have to be of the oppressed class?

I hate this panel so much.

Chapter 373:

O The last conversation plays out between Pig Nose Guy, #2, and Shouji, revealing #2 to be a bad faith idealogue who thinks of Shouji with microaggressions and his followers as meatshield patsies. It’s real bad.

O Shouji says that the feelings that led the mob to come today are neither useless nor wrong, and that their willingness to keep thinking about everything makes them look like a bright and shining light to his eyes. However, he carefully does not engage with the fact that those feelings, which were previously aimless and directionless, were only stirred up and stoked to the point of “coming today” by the villains. It’s the same sort of thing the villains always get told, really—you may have a point, you have suffered, but when you act on that point, that suffering, then you’ve gone too far. All you’re really supposed to do with that pain is—what, exactly? Thinka bout it and choose to Nobly Endure?

O The last little bit of insult to this chapter, to my eye, is #2 getting an apology from some anonymous hero we’ve never seen in our lives, who says, “We’ve heard your voices loud and clear today. Sorry for not realizing sooner.”

Remember the bit where the person who apologizes to Shouji for the octopus comment is Mineta, the gag character, instead of Sero, the serious character who brought it up in the first place? Remember the conspicuous absence of Bakugou and Todoroki, who have actually used that language with conscious demeaning intent? This apology is the systemic version of that absolute unwillingness on Horikoshi’s part to let his sympathetic/popular/important characters look bad. It’s the same thing that led to none of the heroes who retired after the war being heroes the readers know and care about, the same thing behind the total collapse of the series’ critique of All Might. Heroes are allowed to be ignorant, but they are not allowed to be complicit.

Notice, too, what this random hero does not say, what Shouji does not offer, the absence that damns this resolution: any promises of concrete change. We’ve finally gotten to the crux of Horikoshi’s point, as delivered by Shouji, and it really does all boil down to this:

And I can’t overstate enough what a terrible resolution this is, especially given how Shouji’s own experience puts the lie to it. Remember, Shouji saved a child from drowning, one of the absolute most prototypical actions someone can do and get called a Hero by the bystanders/victims/evening news. The only thing he could have done that would have been more stereotyped would have been saving her from a burning building! He saved that little girl from drowning and the townsfolk attacked him with farming tools for it.

How much more heroic would he have needed to be? How much more of a shining light could he possibly have been? In what universe could someone with that backstory possibly think that the answer to systemic bigotry—violence that goes wholly accepted by the community and wholly unpunished by the broader society—could be this Model Minority bullshit?

Ultimately, for Shouji’s backstory to realistically have given him the motivation he professes, his actions needed to have changed the people in his village for the better. If the reader is meant to believe that Shouji’s “answer”—the premise that selfless heroism can change the hearts of bigots—then we have to see it. And, you know, even if that had been what we got, there would still be grounds to criticize it! It would still be a perhaps-too-idealistic depiction of fighting oppression; it would still put too much responsibility on the victims! But at least it would justify Shouji’s own stance.

As it is, we have Shouji choosing to believe in the changeability of people who specifically shouted while throwing rocks at him that, no matter how much the times advanced, they would never accept him. His answer does not entail a single non-heteromorph working to bring heteromorphs living in the darkness a light; it entails them kindling their own. As with Pig Nose Guy shutting down in the face of a memory of a heteromorph doctor, this resolution asserts the life-changing power of…being told that heteromorphs have to do all the work to make baseline people feel better.

Conclusion

Do I think that this terrible resolution means heteromorphobia was poorly set up or retconned? No, I don’t. I just think it means that Horikoshi is a Japanese man writing a Japanese story from a position of demographic privilege in Japanese society. I think he’s fully capable of setting up a detailed, intelligent, thoughtful discrimination allegory, a logical, internally consistent extension of the discrimination in the world around him to the alternate future he’s created—and then coming to a completely different resolution than I would because his context led him to different answers than I wanted or found acceptable. Compared to the U.S., Japan as a culture is more communal, more collectivist; they have less history with successful protest movements, more history with protest movements turning violently extremist or just being ignored by those in power. The idea of “not making trouble for others” is an incredibly deeply engrained value.

I have a decent idea why this resolution is what it is. I can try to make myself view it through the more generous, forgiving lens of Cultural Differences; I can fail to do so and instead conclude that this is portrayal is much less about Cultural Differences than it is yet another in a long chain of Well-Meaning Majority-Culture Author Writes Discrimination Allegory, Fucks It All Up Because of His Well-Meaning Majority-Culture Centrism. That doesn’t mean I believe heteromorphobia came out of nowhere, and I hope this essay has at least demonstrated that much, whatever you might think of its resolution.

——————————

Thank you so much for taking this journey with me, all! At 42,000 words and 93 pages in Word, there's definitely more I'd like to do with this, chiefly taking a spin through the Vigilantes spinoff, which I've always found to be very good at grappling with practical questions and concerns BNHA Core largely ignores. The character of Kamayan is particularly relevant to this topic.

However, for now, I'm going to take a break on this subject and turn my attention to something else. I'm not sure what it'll be quite yet, but meta projects that have moved towards the top of my list concern the ridiculous series of nerfs Toga has been subjected to in this endgame, arc thoughts on everything I hate about the stupid, stupid All Mech fight, and an organized argument for the endgame being chock-full of retcons that are obvious if you look at them for more than the five minutes it takes to read a chapter each week.

You may notice that all of those are pretty negative-sounding, and you would be right. Given that the whole reason I stopped doing my chapter posts is that I was weary of the constant negativity, the actual next thing I do will probably be to get back to one of my neglected MLA fanfic projects.

'Til next time, all!

#bnha #bnha meta #bnha worldbuilding #heteromorph discrimination plot #on heteromorphobia #octolad #plf advisors #my writing #preview for Vigilantes:#Kamayan is a crank and that distracts everyone #from realizing that Kamayan is also right

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