#the family that adopted almost all one for all user into their family

[shankss-magnificent-ass]

Imagine meeting Rob Lucci again on Egghead Island

Warning: Contains spoilers! If you aren't caught up in the Egghead arc and don't want spoilers, don't read.

Rob: [tied up and unconscious on the floor of Vegapunk's lab]

You: [glaring at him from the other side of the room]

Stussy: Oh my, that's quite a scary look. It's almost like you know him.

You: I do know him, or at least I thought I did... A little over two years ago I lived on Water 7 where I worked for an engineering firm, and had a life, and a boyfriend.

Stussy: {looks shocked and points at Rob] Was he your boyfriend?

You: Yup, but I got transferred here shortly before he tried to kill Iceberg, who is my adoptive father. We used to exchange letters, and then one day they just stopped, and then three weeks later I got a letter from Iceberg that explained everything.

Stussy: That must have come as quite a shock.

Kaku: [wakes up] what the? [looks around, before cringing away when he notices you] oh dear.

You: [glares] Is that all you have to say to me?

Kaku: Listen, it was just a job, it wasn't personal.

You: Really? Because trying to murder members of my family feels really personal to me, buddy.

Kaku: [Nods to Robin] Technically, she shot Iceberg.

Robin: I shot him the first time, and I didn't feel I had another choice because you were threatening my friends and I didn't know what to do.

You: The second time was Blueno, and then you and Rob beat Paulie, and then left both Iceburg and Paulie tied up inside a burning building!

Kaku: we did do that, didn't we...

You: not to mention Rob played with my feelings by pretending to be a loving boyfriend.

Kaku: I swear that wasn't pretended Lucci really does love~

Rob: That's enough, Kaku.

You: You can talk! Why am I surprised, everything was a lie, wasn't it?

Rob: .... not everything [looks up at you, clearly pouting that he's being admonished]

You: I don't believe you.

Rob: ... can we discuss this in private, please?

You: no, we can't, I do not want to be alone with the World Noble's attack dog.

Rob: I'm a cat.

You: Excuse me?

Rob: I am a Zoan-type devil fruit user, the Neko Neko no Mi, Model: Leopard, specifically.

You: I don't care, because then you're just plain bad at being a cat.

Rob: Bad at being a cat!

You: yes, because if you knew a damn thing about cats, then you'd know you don't ever actually own a cat, you just live with one. They don't listen, they don't obey, and they most certainly don't respect you. So, I suppose, you were good at being a cat when it came to me, but bad when it comes to the world nobles.

Rob: That's not true...

You: save it, I don't want to hear your excuses.

Rob: [Takes a deep breath] They're not excuses, it's true I got close to you in the first place because of Iceberg, but I grew genuine feelings for you once I got to know you. I know I hurt you, it's why I stopped writing you after what happened in Water 7.

Nami: And because his ego was bruised because our captain whooped his ass.

Kaku: He was also in a coma for like a week afterward.

Rob: I figured by then you would have already had word from Water 7 of what happened, so I didn't want to rub salt into the wounds by trying to stay in your life, and that a clean cut was best for you.

You: [remembering that Iceberg had said he wouldn't be upset with you if you elected to stay with Rob] ... Where is Hattori?

Rob: what?

You: Where is Hattori?

Rob: He flew away when Stussy attacked.

You: I'll go get him...

Rob: [smirks[ thank you, I'm sure he'll be happy to see you again. Although he might not recognize you, you've glowed up since your Water 7 days. [winks]

You: [rolls your eyes] I know single life suits me, so save your smooth talk tough guy, it doesn't work on me [lying].

Rob: uh huh

You: [feels your cheeks heat up as your heart flutters, and you avoid eye contact with Lucci] Whatever, I'll go look for your bloody bird.

Rob: [eagerly watches the door slide shut behind you] It's still there

Stussy: What's still there?

Rob: I believe most people call it, "a spark between us'.

Nami: [dramatically gags]

Kaku: Dude, they always liked Hattori more than you, don't go getting a head of yourself.

Rob: [kicks him] zip it.

Stussy: [sighs] men are so stupid.

Robin: [nods in agreement]

Shaka: [judges in silence]

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[shadowsandshapes]

𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐈𝐓 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐘 | afab!Reader/Geto Suguru

◇ summary: Sometimes you forget Geto is just a guy. But then he shows a sense of vulnerability that surprises you. After a particularly emotionally draining battle, you run him a warm bath and take care of his aches. ◇ contains: Friends To Lovers, Pining, Reverse Comfort, Splish-Splash Water Activities, Casual Nudity, Fluff ◇ tag: @the-milk-anon ◇ wc: [4.1K] (Ao3)

Suguru Geto was just a man.

You tended to forget about that fact every once in a while. To most people, he was this mysterious, enigmatic Buddhist priest — a healer who never turned away a soul in need. A kind, smiling man who received the ill and distraught and cured their worries with a simple wave of a hand. It was a carefully crafted image that came almost naturally to Geto. You had to admire his acting skills. The truth was much, much darker than that. Geto was building an army of curses and those people were merely tools he used to achieve that, a means to an end. Their pain meant nothing to him. Only a select few people ever got to see the real Suguru Geto, the man behind the polite smiles and unparalleled poise — and they better pray to whatever god was listening they never crossed him in a bad way.

He was so kind, patient and understanding with fellow curse users. There was a deep, caring fondness in his eyes whenever Geto looked at you or the little girls he had adopted all those years ago. Every sorcerer under his wing had his seal of approval. More than just that, you were a family in Geto’s eyes — with him as your just but stern patriarch. He cared for you in his own way and built his entire philosophy on wanting to see his fellow curse users thrive in a world that had been cruel to their very existence.

A beautiful wish — in theory.

It was easy to forget that only a lucky few received such gentle treatment from him.

Each time Geto cut down a civilian, you were reminded of how monstrous he could truly be. They were ants beneath his boot. Inferior, useless beings not even worth keeping as a pet. He didn’t even blink as their blood tainted the earth beneath his feet, pooling toward him and staining the bottom edge of his robes. Their cries for mercy went unheard, morphing into a chilling scream as one of Geto’s many curses tore them limb from limb. No matter how often you witnessed the man’s cruelty manifesting like this — it never got any easier to digest. The crunching of bone and snapping of tendons sent a chill down your spine, each brutal rip of flesh echoing in your brain as you closed your eyes to the horrors. 

Curses were easy to kill — humans were not.

Geto’s eyes were cold, devoid of any emotion as their lifeless bodies slumped to the ground. He didn’t care. They weren’t people in his eyes. Dealing with them was as easy as snuffing out a candle or flipping a switch. You approached him, as you always did, and placed a hand on his shoulder. A subtle tension settled in his muscles as you touched him — like every inch of his body was on high alert, burning with adrenaline and subdued rage.

Those people, those insects, they were inferior to you and him in every way. Monkeys. Nothing but the scum of the earth.

But Suguru Geto was a man. And no matter how much he liked to pretend the faces of the people he killed didn’t haunt his dreams, he couldn’t lie to himself forever. You saw the emptiness in his eyes and knew it was difficult to distance himself from what he was doing to these people. Even if he genuinely believed it was necessary. 

“Let’s go home,” you offered, wanting nothing more than to take him away from the nightmare he had created. Geto nodded — the movement of his head was slow and sluggish like he wasn’t quite there, present in the moment with you. You couldn’t blame him. 

As soon as your soft fingers brushed against his palm, Geto blinked, regaining some of his senses. A smile returned to his face but you couldn’t help but notice how the shine didn’t quite reach his eyes. This was merely a feeble attempt at saving face — he wanted to show you how strong he was for you, for everyone, but you knew better. 

He followed you in silence, using the grasp of your hand as a tether to keep him grounded in reality. No matter how dark things got, Geto could always rely on you to bring him back to the light. How did you do it, he wondered, shuffling after you as you led him back home, staring at the back of your head while his mind came down from the mental paralysis brought about by his misdeeds. Killing the weak, shaping humanity for the next step of evolution — it was easy to get lost in his own head doing what he did. All for the greater good. Some days Geto wondered if and when he’d lose his mind. It was a grim prospect.

Perhaps he already had.

It wasn’t until you made it back to Geto’s borrowed estate that the man was able to come back to earth. His eyes locked onto his reflection in a hallway mirror as he passed by. The blood and sweat caked to his skin burned like a raging inferno as he caught sight of it. He looked — cursed. Monstrous and vile. It wasn’t right. Geto didn’t want to feel this way anymore — this soiled, broken image of a tyrant wasn’t how he wanted to be perceived. But even he couldn’t deny the truth the mirror was showing him. 

Something had to be done.

“Would you draw me a bath?” His voice was quiet, barely rising above a whisper. You almost thought your ears were deceiving you when he first asked the question.

Such an honest request — its simplicity caught you off guard for a second. When you looked at him now, you didn’t see your fearless leader or the enigmatic priest – Geto just seemed lost instead. His brow was furrowed, taut with concern and uneasiness. Deep lines, ones you had never noticed before, carved their way across his forehead, making the man look much older than he really was. Your hand tightened its grip on his palm and he smiled at the touch. It was a small and insignificant gesture, but it was enough for him. For once in his life, Geto was asking for help. He needed you.

Maybe not you, specifically, you told yourself. But you would not deny him this vulnerability.

“Of course.” You tugged the man along behind you as you headed for the bathroom without delay. Geto followed quietly, letting you be his guide both mentally and physically. You wouldn’t lead him astray, he trusted you in that and more. His sweet, loyal little sorcerer. The world was desperately yearning for more people like you. It was starved for the type of tenderness your touch could provide — Geto himself could relate to that sentiment, more than he would ever admit out loud. 

You sat on the edge of the bath, waiting for it to fill up and making sure the water's temperature was to his liking. Suguru came up behind you and gave you a pat on the back, a tired smile tugging at the edge of his lips. He was exhausted but your presence felt like a comforting blessing. This life would be miserable for a regular person but you were one of the few people able to understand his struggles.

From the corner of your eye, you spotted Suguru disrobing. Without another word, you left the tub to fill up and assisted in removing the layers upon layers of ceremonial garb. His eyes softened as he watched your deft hands loosening his robes. It was always such a hassle getting them on and off—you knew he tended to struggle with that. He didn’t even have to ask for help, you just appeared whenever he needed you. 

Your brow creased as you tugged at the silks, your frustration apparent in the soft huff that escaped your lips.

“I know, I know—why do I wear this thing in the first place?” Suguru asked, anticipating the question floating around in your head.

“I know why. Showmanship. It sells the whole holier-than-thou act.” You slid the first layer off his shoulders, carefully folding the garment so it wouldn't crumple. “Doesn't make it less annoying to take off, though.”

Suguru laughed. “It's a good thing you're here then. I can use the extra hands.”

You were so adorably meticulous as you helped him undress, Surugu couldn’t help but smile at the way you carefully folded and stowed away each layer of clothing. For all your complaining about his little priest get-up, you sure did show it a lot of respect. Even though you knew it was essentially just a prop, you moved his clothes onto the bathroom counter with the utmost care. Suguru noticed the way your fingers lingered against the fabric as you smoothed out any wrinkles.

So gentle. Soft. 

In contrast, Suguru was jagged. Marred with blemishes that would never truly heal. He was willing to risk life and limb for his cause and the evidence of that could be found within the deep, unsightly scars on both body and soul.

You caught sight of these marks as Suguru removed his hadajuban—laying himself bare. This wasn’t the first time you’d seen him naked and you knew better than to pry about his healed injuries. Sorcerers who could heal others were in short supply, doubly so for your little family of rogue curse users. As a result, any injury sustained in battle would have to heal the natural way—which left a myriad of scars behind. This time, he’d gotten away with just a few bumps and bruises but that didn’t mean Suguru would be as lucky next time around. You couldn’t help but release a sigh. He looked tired. Dried blood crusted his hair and trailed down the side of his neck and chest. You made a mental note to take care of that as soon as possible. 

When the bath was full, Suguru didn’t waste time sinking into the warm water and closed his eyes with a satisfied grunt.

"Do you want me to leave you in peace or should I wash your hair?" you asked, moving a little side table closer with all kinds of soaps and shampoos, brushes and sponges. If he wanted to be by himself, you would respect his wishes but a part of you really wanted to be there for Suguru. He didn’t seem quite himself tonight.

"You can stay, sweet girl," he replied simply and opened his eyes to meet you with a faint smile. As much as Suguru loved being alone, he was always comforted whenever you decided to stick around. "Your company is nice," he added as your eyes followed the movement of his hand as he splashed the bathwater, the realization of what Suguru was implying slowly setting in. “Why don’t you join me?”

Oh. Okay.

"Give me a minute," you said and scooched to the corner of the room to unrobe.

His eyes never left you—you could feel his gaze in the back of your head as you shed each and every layer of clothing until you were completely bare. Despite this sense of awareness, you felt comfortable. Suguru had that effect. Any other man laying eyes upon you like this would make your skin crawl, but not him. The bond of trust between the two of you was stronger than that. You didn't feel the need to hide from Suguru—there was a sense of respect to his gaze, an appreciation for your body as if it were a priceless artifact.

After safely stowing away your own garments, you climbed into the warm water right alongside him–leaning on the opposite side of the tub with a blissful sigh on your lips.

"You may be the prettiest sorcerer I've ever seen," Suguru commented, the heat of the bath and the exhaustion of the day making his voice raspier than normal. Damn–he was exhausted.

"You're just saying that."

"Am I?" Suguru questioned back, staring as you waved a hand, dismissing his compliment, and grabbed a sponge to lather your skin. “Am I lying?” he prompted again–pushing you to look at him and truly think about it.

This was not the first time the two of you had bathed together–and in that time he had always found a way to steal a glance or two whenever he could, discreetly admiring just how utterly breathtaking you were. But there was no hiding his appreciation this time. There was a raw honesty to his expression that took you by surprise, making your hands pause mid-scrub as you let out a quiet chuckle in response.

"You're not lying, you're being polite," you said. "Come here, you've got blood on you."

You leaned forward in the tub, placing the sponge on his chest and rubbing it in small circles to loosen up the grime stuck to his skin.

Each stroke and drag of the sponge had an almost ritualistic quality to it. With these gentle, careful touches you managed to banish all of Suguru’s burdens and aches. If he didn’t know any better, Suguru would have thought you were casting a spell on him. He let you clean him, his heart skipping a beat as he felt the gentle touch of your hands. In the midst of everything he does, this moment, this feeling was the closest thing he had had to being human in a very long time. You were careful and concentrated as you worked, taking care to clean and wash him properly. His chest, arms and stomach all got a gentle scrub. When the grime and dirt were all gone, you turned your attention to his injuries. Nothing too serious at first glance but your brow still furrowed with worry. Your focus then shifted to his older injuries, scars that told of many battles. Your fingers reached out and traced them gently, almost absentmindedly as you quietly admired his strength.

"You know, you deserve a little tenderness every now and then," you said. It almost sounded like you were scolding him for being so rough all the time but Suguru knew you didn't mean it that way.

"A little tenderness, huh?" he echoed—wondering if he truly qualified for such a luxury.

"Mhm," you hummed in agreement, placing the used sponge back on the side table. You would take care of yourself later—right now Suguru needed some attention. Something to wash away not just the literal grime of the day, but also soothe his mind and soul. If you could help with that, you would. You scooted a little closer into his arms, sitting on your knees. "Let me wash your hair...c'mon. Then we can get out of this tub."

He was surprised by your forwardness and your little maneuver to get into his arms in particular. Suguru did not mind it one bit. He had always been curious to see just how far you'd take things between the two of you. No matter how much he wanted to deny it, nothing made him feel as safe as letting you be near him.

"That sounds nice," he replied, smiling softly at the idea.

Your fingers gently massaged his scalp, running through his long hair to detangle it gently. Your eyes remained focused on Suguru as you worked, soaping up his hair and running your fingers along all the little pressure points you could find. The touch was soothing and relaxing, rubbing away the tension on his brow and scalp with each pass of the fingers.

The more you worked, the more his stress melted away. After a while, he couldn't help but let out a quiet moan from the satisfaction your hands provided. Your touch was different—it felt genuine. There was something almost otherworldly to it.

He let his eyes drift closed, allowing the sensations to overcome him as he leaned his head onto you for more comfort. Seeing him this blissful and happy did bring a smile to your face. When his hair was thoroughly shampooed, you took a small cup from the side table and filled it with bath water. One of your hands rested against Suguru's forehead, preventing water from cascading down his face as you rinsed the soap from his hair with the little cup.

"Feeling good?"

"Very," he replied with a smile, his eyes still closed in blissful relaxation. There were few people in the world who could make him feel like this. Few people he trusted so deeply that he'd ever put himself in a situation where he was truly relaxed, vulnerable and at your mercy. "What about you? Are you feeling well?" he added with a tilt of his head, his breathing slightly shaky from your touch.

You nodded quietly, fishing a bottle of leave-in conditioner from the side table. It was yours, but you didn't mind sharing it with Suguru for once. You spread the product between your fingers before gently running it through his hair. It smelled just like you.

"I'm just glad to see you finally relaxing a little," you said, massaging the leave-in conditioner onto his roots.

Normally he would be against the idea of someone taking care of him like this. He was the strong one—the protector, after all. But he decided to surrender his pride to you and let you be the one in charge for now. You were a special case. You were the one friend that he trusted so dearly.

"I was only able to relax because..." he trailed off, deciding to show his vulnerable and honest self for once and finally admitting the truth. "Because of you, sweet girl. You always go above and beyond for me," he added, letting out another satisfied sigh.

The gravity of those words made you halt your movements for a second. But only for a second. Suguru could see you took what he had said to heart—a small, genuine smile forming on your lips as you continued to pamper and care for him. As soon as you were satisfied with your work, you rinsed off your hands in the water.

"I'm glad I can bring you some peace," you whispered. 

"I'm glad too."

You were done. Bathed, pampered and cleaned from top to bottom, which meant it was time to get out of the tub. He watched as your smile flourished and found himself smiling back as well. You always managed to brighten up any room, just by being you. No matter what misery Suguru found himself in, you were a spark of hope. Of love. And if he were a braver man he’d tell you this.

Suguru took hold of your hands and helped you up, a warmth growing inside his chest when you took his hand. "Shall we get out of here?"

"Yeah," you said being careful not to slip and fall on the slippery surface as you rose from the tub. One of the racks on the wall held clean towels: you handed Suguru one and took another for yourself, then returned to the tub to drain the water and stow away all the things you had used. Suguru took the towel and started drying himself off. Once he was finished, he returned the towel to you and put on his robe before stepping over towards you.

"Come here. I have something I'd like to show you," he said in a low tone of voice. It felt different when he spoke to other people. He had such a way with words when it came to you, and it caught you off-guard every time.

You had retrieved one of the robes too, wrapping it around yourself and tying the ends of the waist shawl to keep it closed. Your eyes found Suguru's as he approached you: they widened ever so slightly when he placed a hand on the back of your neck.

"What is it, Geto?"

He continued to gaze at you quietly, a slight grin tugging on his lips.

"Close your eyes," he said after a small pause. His voice was soft and quiet. There was a different kind of warmth to it now, a hint of intimacy that he had yet to display with you. "I have...something I feel like showing to you." Suguru could feel your skepticism even as you obeyed this command, chuckling at the suspicious little pout on your lips. You were wary of him–but decided to place your trust in his hands regardless. "No funny business. I promise."

Suguru was being a little disingenuous right now, he knew that. All he really wanted in this moment was to admire you for a moment, to work up the courage to speak on what was in his heart. But it was hard. He'd faced countless horrors and consumed the rot of the world all for the sake of his unfathomable dream. In that pursuit, he'd felt lonely. And then you came along. You meant the world to him—and the fact that you weren't aware of this was a most unforgivable deception. 

What are dreams if they’re not shared with the one you love most?

He sighed. His hands moved to cradle your face, gently resting against your cheeks as his thumbs stroked the soft skin beneath his palm. You were so beautiful—Suguru could stall no longer. He should bury these feelings. Really. It was the safer bet, but it would kill him to keep lying to you.

"Open your eyes please." As soon as you did what he asked, a smile spread across his face and his eyes immediately locked with yours. "What do you see when you look at me?" he asked. The question carried something raw–a vulnerability you were not used to seeing from Suguru. You immediately knew this was serious. "Do you see someone worthy of your time? Worth your trust?"

"What–of course I do, Geto. You have my trust and time. Always."

You could hear the relief in his breath. The pure affection shining in his eyes was in such contrast to the coldness he normally expressed that it was difficult to grasp the truth. This wasn’t one of those fake, practiced smiles he had mastered in the name of manipulation—no. Suguru looked thoroughly smitten—almost miserably so.

"I just... wanted to make sure." His voice was shaky and unsteady. "I don't want to lose you."

"You're not going to lose me," you assured him.

"Promise me you won't leave me," he replied, his voice shaking with intensity. Too many people had let him down—too many souls had left his care.  "I don't have anything without you."

"I promise," you affirmed—voice steady and certain. The only thing you wanted was to make him happy. To bring him relief and peace when he needed it. Leaving him was the furthest thing from your mind. You were in this together.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"You have nothing to thank me for, Geto," you said, brushing your thumb against his cheek. This must have been difficult for him to do, you realized. Confessing one's true feelings and desires was never easy. For a man like Suguru, doubly so. "Now that your cards are on the table, what's next?"

"I...I want to kiss you more than anything," he replied quietly. "I want you and I need you. Is that too much to ask?"

How could you refuse him? You couldn't. Not when he was this vulnerable and real for once in his life. The hand on his cheek continued to gently caress his face, even as you leaned in to grant his wish. Your lips found his as you kissed him, answering his question in the only way you could.

Suguru Geto was just a man. And he would never be too much for you.

He wanted this more than anything, and the moment you felt his lips on yours, a wave of relief washed over him.

Suguru wasted no time pulling you closer as he let out a quiet moan into your mouth. It felt almost unreal that he was showing this much intimacy to you. All other thoughts were lost as you let the moment wash over you, allowing yourself to sink into his kiss. Suguru felt like he couldn't possibly get enough of you. This was love. It couldn't just be a passing fancy or lust. You meant so much to him that the very thought of anyone or anything taking you away from him made him sick.

Suguru allowed himself to be weak—just this once.

"...I want you," he said, breaking the kiss with a breathless sigh.

Hearing those words, that spontaneous admission of desire, made your heart skip a beat. Suguru, who was always so deliberate and collected, was desperate enough to say something like that in the heat of the moment.

"You already have me."

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[wilwheaton]

Elon's new blue-check subscription service was a massive flop, and the sudden removal of nearly half a million blue-checks suddenly made it crystal clear to Twitter's user base that the blue-check club going forward was going to be populated almost entirely by right-wing weirdos. There would be no hanging out with Stephen King or LeBron James; your fellow blue-checks would instead be a few notorious racists and jokes from (checks notes) influential wag "catturd." In fact, by so clearly labeling the worst of Twitter’s worst people, it spurred a genius #BlockTheBlue backlash, in which people gleefully banned the blue-check trolls that now populated the top of every single prominent Twitter thread (like those of actual celebrities announcing their refusal to pay for what was now a worthless mark). The visible unpopularity of the program wasn't just embarrassing for Musk. It's an existential threat to the program’s viability. Musk sold the subscription service as a way to become one of the site's Important People without merit; if all the Important People didn’t just stay off the program, but mocked it, only the most diehard of Musk loyalists would be eager to sign up for that. As the collapse of the program became self-evident, third parties had already begun working on automated #BlockTheBlue plugins that would systematically block all checkmarks. So Musk immediately set out to salvage the reputation and very existence of the $8 club—by forcing Important People to be in it whether they liked it or not. And by "immediately," we mean "by afternoon."

Elon Musk's Twitter Blue is a verified disaster

I was one of Twitter’s early adopters. I was one of those accounts they suggested you follow when it started to get big. I went from a few thousand followers to a hundred thousand in a matter of days, and was at 3 million when I closed my account.

I left Twitter long before Musk took over, but I kept the account to protect it and the branding it comes with from bad people.

Last year, before Musk bought it, I posted a couple of tweets to let those three million accounts know that my memoir had been published. It seemed silly not to. I turned replies off, and just let it be an announcement.

Then Musk took over, and I watched Twitter turn into 4Chan. When it started to become 8Chan, I deleted my entire archive, unfollowed everyone except family, and then made my account private. I figure I still need to protect the username.

I don’t look at my account, but someone told me the check was gone. (Oh, I was one of the earliest verified users, too). I was thrilled. I didn’t want anyone to think I gave that bozo my money.

Then the same person told me the check was back, shortly after I think all decent people had concluded that blue check = red flag (or red hat). So I signed back into my account and updated my bio to make sure nobody ever thinks I gave that dumbass any of my money.

I know I’m not alone. That check mark is now toxic, and I’m not the only longtime verified user who doesn’t want anything to do with it. I wonder if someone more famous than me, with more at stake, makes noise about the implied endorsement  / affiliation the blue check now carries with it, and the brand damage that comes with it?

[max-levchin]

Shamir Secret Sharing

It’s 3am. Paul, the head of PayPal database administration carefully enters his elaborate passphrase at a keyboard in a darkened cubicle of 1840 Embarcadero Road in East Palo Alto, for the fifth time. He hits Return. The green-on-black console window instantly displays one line of text: “Sorry, one or more wrong passphrases. Can’t reconstruct the key. Goodbye.” 

There is nerd pandemonium all around us. James, our recently promoted VP of Engineering, just climbed the desk at a nearby cubicle, screaming: “Guys, if we can’t get this key the right way, we gotta start brute-forcing it ASAP!” It’s gallows humor – he knows very well that brute-forcing such a key will take millions of years, and it’s already 6am on the East Coast – the first of many “Why is PayPal down today?” articles is undoubtedly going to hit CNET shortly. Our single-story cubicle-maze office is buzzing with nervous activity of PayPalians who know they can’t help but want to do something anyway. I poke my head up above the cubicle wall to catch a glimpse of someone trying to stay inside a giant otherwise empty recycling bin on wheels while a couple of Senior Software Engineers are attempting to accelerate the bin up to dangerous speeds in the front lobby. I lower my head and try to stay focused. “Let’s try it again, this time with three different people” is the best idea I can come up with, even though I am quite sure it will not work. 

It doesn’t. 

The key in question decrypts PayPal’s master payment credential table – also known as the giant store of credit card and bank account numbers. Without access to payment credentials, PayPal doesn’t really have a business per se, seeing how we are supposed to facilitate payments, and that’s really hard to do if we no longer have access to the 100+ million credit card numbers our users added over the last year of insane growth. 

This is the story of a catastrophic software bug I briefly introduced into the PayPal codebase that almost cost us the company (or so it seemed, in the moment.) I’ve told this story a handful of times, always swearing the listeners to secrecy, and surprisingly it does not appear to have ever been written down before. 20+ years since the incident, it now appears instructive and a little funny, rather than merely extremely embarrassing. 

Before we get back to that fateful night, we have to go back another decade. In the summer of 1991, my family and I moved to Chicago from Kyiv, Ukraine. While we had just a few hundred dollars between the five of us, we did have one secret advantage: science fiction fans. 

My dad was a highly active member of Zoryaniy Shlyah – Kyiv’s possibly first (and possibly only, at the time) sci-fi fan club – the name means “Star Trek” in Ukrainian, unsurprisingly. He translated some Stansilaw Lem (of Solaris and Futurological Congress fame) from Polish to Russian in the early 80s and was generally considered a coryphaeus at ZSh. 

While USSR was more or less informationally isolated behind the digital Iron Curtain until the late ‘80s, by 1990 or so, things like FidoNet wriggled their way into the Soviet computing world, and some members of ZSh were now exchanging electronic mail with sci-fi fans of the free world.

The vaguely exotic news of two Soviet refugee sci-fi fans arriving in Chicago was transmitted to the local fandom before we had even boarded the PanAm flight that took us across the Atlantic [1]. My dad (and I, by extension) was soon adopted by some kind Chicago science fiction geeks, a few of whom became close friends over the years, though that’s a story for another time. 

A year or so after the move to Chicago, our new sci-fi friends invited my dad to a birthday party for a rising star of the local fandom, one Bruce Schneier. We certainly did not know Bruce or really anyone at the party, but it promised good food, friendly people, and probably filk. My role was to translate, as my dad spoke limited English at the time. 

I had fallen desperately in love with secret codes and cryptography about a year before we left Ukraine. Walking into Bruce’s library during the house tour (this was a couple years before Applied Cryptography was published and he must have been deep in research) felt like walking into Narnia. 

I promptly abandoned my dad to fend for himself as far as small talk and canapés were concerned, and proceeded to make a complete ass out of myself by brazenly asking the host for a few sheets of paper and a pencil. Having been obliged, I pulled a half dozen cryptography books from the shelves and went to work trying to copy down some answers to a few long-held questions on the library floor. After about two hours of scribbling alone like a man possessed, I ran out of paper and decided to temporarily rejoin the party. 

On the living room table, Bruce had stacks of copies of his fanzine Ramblings. Thinking I could use the blank sides of the pages to take more notes, I grabbed a printout and was about to quietly return to copying the original S-box values for DES when my dad spotted me from across the room and demanded I help him socialize. The party wrapped soon, and our friends drove us home. 

The printout I grabbed was not a Ramblings issue. It was a short essay by Bruce titled Sharing Secrets Among Friends, essentially a humorous explanation of Shamir Secret Sharing. 

Say you want to make sure that something really really important and secret (a nuclear weapon launch code, a database encryption key, etc) cannot be known or used by a single (friendly) actor, but becomes available, if at least n people from a group of m choose to do it. Think two on-duty officers (from a cadre of say 5) turning keys together to get ready for a nuke launch. 

The idea (proposed by Adi Shamir – the S of RSA! – in 1979) is as simple as it is beautiful. 

Let’s call the secret we are trying to split among m people K. 

First, create a totally random polynomial that looks like: y(x) = C0 * x^(n-1) + C1 * x^(n-2) + C2 * x^(n-3) ….+ K. “Create” here just means generate random coefficients C. Now, for every person in your trusted group of m, evaluate the polynomial for some randomly chosen Xm and hand them their corresponding (Xm,Ym) each. 

If we have n of these points together, we can use Lagrange interpolating polynomial to reconstruct the coefficients – and evaluate the original polynomial at x=0, which conveniently gives us y(0) = K, the secret. Beautiful. I still had the printout with me, years later, in Palo Alto. 

It should come as no surprise that during my time as CTO PayPal engineering had an absolute obsession with security. No firewall was one too many, no multi-factor authentication scheme too onerous, etc. Anything that was worth anything at all was encrypted at rest. 

To decrypt, a service would get the needed data from its database table, transmit it to a special service named cryptoserv (an original SUN hardware running Solaris sitting on its own, especially tightly locked-down network) and a special service running only there would perform the decryption and send back the result. 

Decryption request rate was monitored externally and on cryptoserv, and if there were too many requests, the whole thing was to shut down and purge any sensitive data and keys from its memory until manually restarted. 

It was this manual restart that gnawed at me. At launch, a bunch of configuration files containing various critical decryption keys were read (decrypted by another key derived from one manually-entered passphrase) and loaded into the memory to perform future cryptographic services.

Four or five of us on the engineering team knew the passphrase and could restart cryptoserv if it crashed or simply had to have an upgrade. What if someone performed a little old-fashioned rubber-hose cryptanalysis and literally beat the passphrase out of one of us? The attacker could theoretically get access to these all-important master keys. Then stealing the encrypted-at-rest database of all our users’ secrets could prove useful – they could decrypt them in the comfort of their underground supervillain lair. 

I needed to eliminate this threat.

Shamir Secret Sharing was the obvious choice – beautiful, simple, perfect (you can in fact prove that if done right, it offers perfect secrecy.) I decided on a 3-of-8 scheme and implemented it in pure POSIX C for portability over a few days, and tested it for several weeks on my Linux desktop with other engineers. 

Step 1: generate the polynomial coefficients for 8 shard-holders.

Step 2: compute the key shards (x0, y0)  through (x7, y7)

Step 3: get each shard-holder to enter a long, secure passphrase to encrypt the shard

Step 4: write out the 8 shard files, encrypted with their respective passphrases.

And to reconstruct: 

Step 1: pick any 3 shard files. 

Step 2: ask each of the respective owners to enter their passphrases. 

Step 3: decrypt the shard files.

Step 4: reconstruct the polynomial, evaluate it for x=0 to get the key.

Step 5: launch cryptoserv with the key. 

One design detail here is that each shard file also stored a message authentication code (a keyed hash) of its passphrase to make sure we could identify when someone mistyped their passphrase. These tests ran hundreds and hundreds of times, on both Linux and Solaris, to make sure I did not screw up some big/little-endianness issue, etc. It all worked perfectly. 

A month or so later, the night of the key splitting party was upon us. We were finally going to close out the last vulnerability and be secure. Feeling as if I was about to turn my fellow shard-holders into cymeks, I gathered them around my desktop as PayPal’s front page began sporting the “We are down for maintenance and will be back soon” message around midnight.

The night before, I solemnly generated the new master key and securely copied it to cryptoserv. Now, while “Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa blared from someone’s desktop speakers, the automated deployment script copied shard files to their destination. 

While each of us took turns carefully entering our elaborate passphrases at a specially selected keyboard, Paul shut down the main database and decrypted the payment credentials table, then ran the script to re-encrypt with the new key. Some minutes later, the database was running smoothly again, with the newly encrypted table, without incident. 

All that was left was to restore the master key from its shards and launch the new, even more secure cryptographic service. 

The three of us entered our passphrases… to be met with the error message I haven’t seen in weeks: “Sorry, one or more wrong passphrases. Can’t reconstruct the key. Goodbye.” Surely one of us screwed up typing, no big deal, we’ll do it again. No dice. No dice – again and again, even after we tried numerous combinations of the three people necessary to decrypt. 

Minutes passed, confusion grew, tension rose rapidly. 

There was nothing to do, except to hit rewind – to grab the master key from the file still sitting on cryptoserv, split it again, generate new shards, choose passphrases, and get it done. Not a great feeling to have your first launch go wrong, but not a huge deal either. It will all be OK in a minute or two.

A cursory look at the master key file date told me that no, it wouldn’t be OK at all. The file sitting on cryptoserv wasn’t from last night, it was created just a few minutes ago. During the Salt-n-Pepa-themed push from stage, we overwrote the master key file with the stage version. Whatever key that was, it wasn’t the one I generated the day before: only one copy existed, the one I copied to cryptoserv from my computer the night before. Zero copies existed now. Not only that, the push script appears to have also wiped out the backup of the old key, so the database backups we have encrypted with the old key are likely useless. 

Sitrep: we have 8 shard files that we apparently cannot use to restore the master key and zero master key backups. The database is running but its secret data cannot be accessed. 

I will leave it to your imagination to conjure up what was going through my head that night as I stared into the black screen willing the shards to work. After half a decade of trying to make something of myself (instead of just going to work for Microsoft or IBM after graduation) I had just destroyed my first successful startup in the most spectacular fashion. 

Still, the idea of “what if we all just continuously screwed up our passphrases” swirled around my brain. It was an easy check to perform, thanks to the included MACs. I added a single printf() debug statement into the shard reconstruction code and instead of printing out a summary error of “one or more…” the code now showed if the passphrase entered matched the authentication code stored in the shard file. 

I compiled the new code directly on cryptoserv in direct contravention of all reasonable security practices – what did I have to lose? Entering my own passphrase, I promptly got “bad passphrase” error I just added to the code. Well, that’s just great – I knew my passphrase was correct, I had it written down on a post-it note I had planned to rip up hours ago. 

Another person, same error. Finally, the last person, JK, entered his passphrase. No error. The key still did not reconstruct correctly, I got the “Goodbye”, but something worked. I turned to the engineer and said, “what did you just type in that worked?”

After a second of embarrassed mumbling, he admitted to choosing “a$$word” as his passphrase. The gall! I asked everyone entrusted with the grave task of relaunching crytposerv to pick really hard to guess passphrases, and this guy…?! Still, this was something -- it worked. But why?!

I sprinted around the half-lit office grabbing the rest of the shard-holders demanding they tell me their passphrases. Everyone else had picked much lengthier passages of text and numbers. I manually tested each and none decrypted correctly. Except for the a$$word. What was it…

A lightning bolt hit me and I sprinted back to my own cubicle in the far corner, unlocked the screen and typed in “man getpass” on the command line, while logging into cryptoserv in another window and doing exactly the same thing there. I saw exactly what I needed to see. 

Today, should you try to read up the programmer’s manual (AKA the man page) on getpass, you will find it has been long declared obsolete and replaced with a more intelligent alternative in nearly all flavors of modern Unix.  

But back then, if you wanted to collect some information from the keyboard without printing what is being typed in onto the screen and remain POSIX-compliant, getpass did the trick. Other than a few standard file manipulation system calls, getpass was the only operating system service call I used, to ensure clean portability between Linux and Solaris. 

Except it wasn’t completely clean. 

Plain as day, there it was: the manual pages were identical, except Solaris had a “special feature”: any passphrase entered that was longer than 8 characters long was automatically reduced to that length anyway. (Who needs long passwords, amiright?!)

I screamed like a wounded animal. We generated the key on my Linux desktop and entered our novel-length passphrases right here. Attempting to restore them on a Solaris machine where they were being clipped down to 8 characters long would never work. Except, of course, for a$$word. That one was fine.

The rest was an exercise in high-speed coding and some entirely off-protocol file moving. We reconstructed the master key on my machine (all of our passphrases worked fine), copied the file to the Solaris-running cryptoserv, re-split it there (with very short passphrases), reconstructed it successfully, and PayPal was up and running again like nothing ever happened. 

By the time our unsuspecting colleagues rolled back into the office I was starting to doze on the floor of my cubicle and that was that. When someone asked me later that day why we took so long to bring the site back up, I’d simply respond with “eh, shoulda RTFM.” 

RTFM indeed. 

P.S. A few hours later, John, our General Counsel, stopped by my cubicle to ask me something. The day before I apparently gave him a sealed envelope and asked him to store it in his safe for 24 hours without explaining myself. He wanted to know what to do with it now that 24 hours have passed. 

Ha. I forgot all about it, but in a bout of “what if it doesn’t work” paranoia, I printed out the base64-encoded master key when we had generated it the night before, stuffed it into an envelope, and gave it to John for safekeeping. We shredded it together without opening and laughed about what would have never actually been a company-ending event. 

P.P.S. If you are thinking of all the ways this whole SSS design is horribly insecure (it had some real flaws for sure) and plan to poke around PayPal to see if it might still be there, don’t. While it served us well for a few years, this was the very first thing eBay required us to turn off after the acquisition. Pretty sure it’s back to a single passphrase now. 

Notes:

1: a member of Chicagoland sci-fi fan community let me know that the original news of our move to the US was delivered to them via a posted letter, snail mail, not FidoNet email! 

[selfaware-bungou-stray-dogs]

Could you write a small platonic imagine bout the bsd cast finding out that the user is a teen pls! (Also I am a fan of your work)

Thank you. I am glad, you like my works. There, hope, you enjoy it.

Finding out, that user are a teen

Platonic! Self-Aware! BSD characters x GN! Teen! Reader

Warning: OOC, Platonic Soft Yandere. English is my second language.

All of them have heard your voice. All of them have felt your emotions towards them. They don't have name or age, but it doesn't matter. The most important thing for them is that you are a good person. And they adored you because of that.

But, still, they want to learn more about you. And, one day, they got some of their answers.

When the purple moon shines above Yokohama once again, it could mean two things. First, someone will get a new outfit. Second, someone new, a ghost from the past, will appear.

When purple moon faded, Kirako Haruno finally become truly self-aware.

BSD cast heard the voice of Their Guiding Light.

"Yea! I got Haruno! All ADA team is there!"

Kirako blinked and laugh quietly.

"[Y/N], you are so energetic."

Everyone was quiet. [Y/N]? Fukuzawa was the one, who broke the silence.

"[Y/N]? Is that...?"

Kirako nodded.

"Yes. It's their name. I have learned it during my... stasis, let's call it that."

Yosano spoked next.

"Have you learned something else?"

Kirako nodded again.

"Yes. About their interests. And some bits about their school life."

"School life?" Echoed Yosano. Kirako looked around. Everyone was looking at her.

"Yes. [Y/N] are still going to school. They are a teen."

_______________________

🐾 Congratulations, you are now adopted by everyone.

🐾 For someone, you will be a sibling. For others, you will be their child. Someone will be an uncle or aunt. For others, you will be a grandchild.

🐾 They already love you as their own flesh and blood.

🐾 What they will do, when they got into your world? It depends.

🐾 If you have a good, loving family, they won't take you away, but they will become good friends to you.

🐾 If your family are terrible, they will take you away from them.

🐾 Not without teaching them a lesson.

🐾 If you are an orphan, they would adopt you immediately.

🐾 They will try their best to make your life happy. They will do anything to ensure your future.

Some more headcannons:

🐾 Fukuzawa, Mori, Fitzgerald and Oda almost fight, when they were figuring out, who will be your adopted father.

🐾 Fyodor is waiting for the right moment to join the competition for an 'adopted father' title.

🐾 Fukichi is still confused. Should he be considered your father or your grandfather?

🐾 Poe and Ranpo will compete with each other in "Who is the best Big Brother" competition. Ranpo has candies, Poe has Karl.

🐾 Lovecraft will let you climb all over his monster form. Same with Goncharov and his stone golems.

🐾 Someone bullies you? Kenji, Kyouka, Elise, Q and Gogol will show them not to mess with you.

🐾 Yosano and Kouyou are the ones, who is responsible for your wardrobe.

🐾 One time, Mori took you on a shopping trip. Chuuya accompanied you two. And Mori has decided to visit all shops to buy you as many cute clothes as he can. And he didn't have a car at that moment. At the end, Chuuya had to carry exhausted you and few dozen bags.

🐾 Kunikida will help you with math. Even if you don't like math, his explanations are easy to understand.

🐾 All of them are protective. No one will hurt you on their watch. They love you and cherish you.

[one-idea]

Master list

This is more for me so I have a record of all my Aus in one place but incase anyone is interested.

Dream Dream Masterlist

A devil fruit user with the ability to steal a persons dreams/ambitions steals Luffy’s dream to become the pirate king. This leaves a despondent Luffy who doesn’t believe in his or any of his crews dreams (their dreams have become part of his) the crew is left to get his dream back.

(Big family feels for all of the Strawhats and some Zolu)

Reverse Strawhats Masterlist

In a parallel universe where Ace meets Whitebeard early and much like Luffy and Shanks makes a promise (to one day surpass Whitebeard) when he sets out to sea he meets with Kuina, Nojiko, Kaya, Reiju, and many others. They go on the strawhat journey (with some twist and turns)

One day (maybe in the Wano fight maybe not) a devil fruit activates sending Luffy and the strawhats to this world. Allowing for Luffy and Ace to reunite, but also Robin and Olivia (her mom) Chopper and Dr. Hiriluk, Law and Rosinante and many more.

Official Fic

Zoro’s arc Masterlist

I really wanted a Zoro arc. Where his old sensei contacts him about needing Wado Ichimonji (to defeat an enemy that can only be cut by one of the 21 great grade blades) Zoro has to return but he hates leaving the crew. He tells Luffy (there’s no way he’s leaving without an explanation) and Luffy is not letting him go alone.

There are many twist including old memories and new knowledge (maybe Kuina’s death wasn’t an accident)

Big Zoro feels, his relationship with the crew and some Zolu (cause I can)

(Pleant of Zoro and crew feels but mainly Zolu)

Nika cult Masterlist

A Nika worshiping cult wants to bring Nika back to the world, to do this they have to kill Luffy. They almost succeed, Nika takes over to keep Luffy alive. Now it’s up to the crew to find away to save Luffy. But it’s so weird to travel with Nika. Who knows them, because Luffy loves his crew, but Nika is not Luffy. So it’s like hanging out with your loved ones friend you never met.

Big focus on the crews love for Luffy. (All the crew including Jinbei) big focus on Sanji (whole cake guilt) Robin (she adores her captain and crew) and Zolu

Wado’s POV Masterlist

A retelling of One Piece from Wado Ichimonji’s point of view

Her pride in her dumb son Zoro, her adoration of their captain and king, her love of the crew, and her absolute annoyance with Sandai Kitsune. (Also the relationships with Yubashiri, Shusui, and Enma)

Sun god and king of hell / madoka magica fusion

If you’ve watched Madoka Magica you know. But Luffy loses himself to Nika. Maybe to save the crew of maybe the whole fleet, but Luffy’s no longer in control. Zoro truly becomes the king of hell and uses his power as Asura to block Nika’s influence over Luffy, allowing Luffy to be Luffy. But every now and then Nika tries to break free.

Please just watch the end of madoka magica revolution

Part 1

An actually plot?

Who remembers and why Ace is a problem

Roger and Rouge live and raise Ace/Sabo/Luffy

Roger doesn’t die for his illness and lives with rouge and Ace. Shanks finds Luffy and adopts him, but leaves him in the east blue. Roger comes to meet Luffy and takes him a and Sabo (who Luffy befriended) with him

Part 1: main concept

Shanks raises ASL brother Masterlist

This involves a lot of rearranging of cannon events. But basically Shanks realizes that Luffy is living alone and promises him the next time he comes to Dawn island he’ll take Luffy with him. Crap finds out and take Luffy to Dadan, where he meets Ace and Sabo. Shanks returns just in time to stop the Bluejam pirates from separating the ASL brothers. He spends some time getting to know the other two boys and decides to take them with him.

Skyward Sword/Zelda au

Luffy remembers his past Life and Nika while separated from the crew. The crew is trying to find him while slowly remembering their own past lives. They are only finding bits and pieces but one memory stands out. The death of Nika at the hands of Asura.

The whole story follows the idea of Skyward sword. That Luffy is Nika reincarnated and needs to finish the job Nika set out to do before he past. Other people (the red hair pirates or the revolutionary’s) are helping him remember his past life while stoping the Strawhats from interfering.

The main idea

Who is guiding Luffy/who is taunting the crew

The Strawhats past lives and feelings

The Spade’s save Ace Masterlist

Masked Deuce, Mihar, and Skull the officers of the Soade pirates chase after Ace when he leaves the Moby. They catch up just in time to pull him out of his fight with Blackbeard. Hurray Ace is safe, but they have a new problem. Blackbeard is going after Luffy.

One shot ideas/asks

DnD Ace/Sabo character sheet

Acedeuce: cooking

Part 2 the cookie saga begins

Cookie saga 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Zolu: a devil fruit that forces you to obey orders hits Zoro and the resulting angst from our boys

Part 2

Fem Ace runs into Sabo pre-cannon leading to some fun assumptions by the Whitebeard crew.

Art of Fem Ace by @vulnonapix1234

More Fem Ace

More are of Fem Ace by @vulnonapix1234

Jail break au: the strawhats head straight for Ace after Thriller Bark

Will Sandai Kitsune break

[delulustateofmind]

Baked with Love (Geto x Reader) - Drabble/preview

Summary: You were a fresh out of college and happened to become roommates with one of the most dangerous curse user and his two adopted daughters. Could you cook your way into his heart? Takes place a couple years after the KFC breakup. 

a/n: There is not enough Geto fluff on this site :( Taking a break from writing ACOTAR fanfics! Also, not using Geto’s famous word because it makes me feel…weird..so I’m just using non-sorcerer a lot. Sorry! WC: 1.5k

****

After recently graduating from Tokyo University with a finance degree and landing a not-so-wonderful corporate job, you decided to splurge on a high-rise apartment with amazing views and a rooftop garden. Shortly after moving in, you occasionally heard two little girls playing in the apartment next door, either on the patio or through the thin walls. A nice family next door must mean a peaceful complex. Little did you know, the most dangerous curse user, who threatened the lives of non-sorcerers, lived in that quaint, peaceful apartment right next to yours.

A week goes by, and after starting your new corporate job, the nine-to-five lifestyle quickly begins to leave you stressed. To unwind from a dreaded day of spreadsheets and numbers, you picked up a new hobby: cooking and baking. However, one issue arose rather quickly. You end up making too much nearly every night, more than you can even bring to work. Sure, you could bring the dozens of muffins you made in five different flavors to the office, but what are the chances someone would actually grab a couple? You were new, after all, and didn’t have the proper work clique. Another thought: you could always drop some off for the peaceful family next door. With two small children, surely food wouldn’t go to waste.

So you decided to walk over, with a bag full of various breads and muffins. Tomorrow you wanted to try and make a cake so you needed the counter space. It was only eight in the evening, might be a little too late in the evening with little ones, but you knocked on the door regardless. After a few moments, a man with tired bags and gorgeous long inky black hair clad in a black shirt and sweats opened the door and gazed down at you with those soft violet eyes that reminded you of ube, perhaps you’ll make ube mochi later this week. 

“Can I help you?” His velvet-smooth voice, like honey, slipped through a polite smile that seemed almost trained. A voice that left your cheeks dusting the faintest shade of pink. Your eyes seemed to want to look everywhere but at him as he raised a brow.

Were you taking too long to speak? Why won’t words come out?

“Hi, I’m your neighbor… I just moved in next door. I happened to have baked too much, and I was wondering if you would like to take some bread and muffins off my hands.” Your words came out slightly stuttered, perhaps a little too fast, a little too loud, but the message got across.

That polite, trained smile tilted down for a second until he gave a shrug.

Suguru watched you stutter over your words, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. For a non-sorcerer, your nervousness was endearing.

“I see…” Suguru leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms across his broad chest, and looked down at you for a moment longer than necessary before shifting his gaze to the pink bag in your hands.

“Well, thank you. I’m sure my girls will appreciate that,” he said, the sweet, polite smile crossing his lips again, making your heart skip a beat.

“Of course, I just happened to have baked a little too much… wait, your girls?” The words slipped out of your mouth before you could catch them. You figured this was like an older brother or an uncle, but the dad? This man in front of you looked around your age… there’s no way he could possibly have children. He looked like a recent college grad. Who are you to judge, though? You swiftly chastised yourself.

Suguru chuckled softly, a light, amused sound slipping past his lips as he noticed your surprise. It was clear that you were probably expecting the girls' father to be some middle-aged family man, not a twenty-something. Yet, he found your surprise endearing, enjoying the way your cheeks dusted pink and how you seemed entranced by his every word. He had that effect on people, after all.

“Yup. Two little girls. Twins, actually—Nanako and Mimiko. Quite the handful, but they’re both sweethearts. I’m sure you’ve heard them from time to time.” Suguru spoke with a soft smile on his face. He wouldn’t dare reveal that they were adopted to a stranger; he might as well have you assuming that they were his legitimate children.

“Ah, yeah, that must be a lot of work… well, if you ever need any baked goods… I’m next door, so… yeah… feel free to knock,” you spoke softly, mentally cursing yourself for being so awkward. You work with people every day, how was this any different? How could you be fumbling over yourself this much?

Suguru enjoyed the way you stumbled over your words, amused by your bout of shyness. The way you seemed so awkward was kind of cute… no. Suguru had to remind himself that he hates non-sorcerers, that they are the reason why curses exist. That… this neighbor bringing him a giant bag of baked goods could create a curse. Suguru reminded himself to be polite, to play the role.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’m sure the girls would love for you to spoil them with sweets,” he said, his voice smooth and polite. After that, he bid you goodnight. You bowed slightly before he closed the door and you entered your apartment. After shutting the door, you sank to the floor, leaning against it. Wanting to scream at yourself for being so awkward.

As you sat there, replaying the conversation in your head, you couldn't help but smile a little. Despite your awkwardness, he was kind. Maybe this could be the start of a nice neighborly relationship. You took a deep breath and stood up, deciding to focus on the positive. You had done a nice thing, and that was what mattered.

**** 

Meanwhile, in Suguru’s apartment, he debated what to do with the bag of baked goods. Should he throw them away? The three different flavors of bread, including a rosemary-scented loaf he presumed to be sourdough, made his stomach almost growl. The blueberry muffins looked a little too perfect, and the milk bread seemed as soft as a cloud. He should throw these away; the food was tainted by a non-sorcerer, after all.

Suguru debated for a few moments, finally deciding to just leave them on the counter. The twins would eat them anyway. At eight years old, they were both eating quite a bit. He was only slightly tempted to partake but decided to leave them there for the night.

It was currently nine in the evening as he made his way to his own bedroom. He double-checked to find both girls sleeping soundly in their room, leaving the door just a crack before heading to his own. As he lay in bed, he read through any documents that needed to be signed for the organization that his assistant had sent over.

As he sifted through the paperwork, his mind kept drifting back to you. Your awkwardness, your genuine offer of kindness—it was disarming. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had approached him so openly, without any hidden agenda. It was a refreshing, albeit confusing, change from the norm.

He shook his head, focusing back on the documents. Relationships with non-sorcerers were complicated, dangerous even. He had to maintain his distance. Yet, a small part of him couldn’t deny the curiosity about his new neighbor.

The next morning, Suguru woke early as usual. He prepared breakfast for the twins, trying to ignore the tantalizing smell of the baked goods still sitting on the counter. When Nanako and Mimiko finally shuffled into the kitchen, their eyes lit up at the sight of the muffins and bread.

“Geto-sama, did you make these?” Nanako asked, her eyes wide with excitement.

“No, our new neighbor did,” Suguru replied, watching their faces for any reaction.

“Can we try them?” Mimiko asked, already reaching for a muffin.

Suguru hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Go ahead.”

The girls eagerly took bites of the muffins, their faces lighting up with delight.

“These are so good!” Nanako exclaimed, her mouth full of muffin.

“Yeah! Can we meet the neighbor and thank them?” Mimiko added, looking up at Suguru with hopeful eyes.

Suguru smiled softly, their enthusiasm infectious. “Maybe later. For now, enjoy your breakfast.”

As he watched the twins happily munch on the baked goods, Suguru couldn’t help but feel a small pang of guilt. Perhaps he had been too quick to judge. Maybe, just maybe, not all non-sorcerers were the same. Or maybe, you were the one that was different from the rest of them. He pondered for a moment, what would you think of his lifestyle, would you be afraid of the blood on his hands, would you still look up at him with that awkward shy smile of yours?

[powersurger]

MHA Headcanons!

(spoilers!)

Izuku Midoriya

Is Bisexual

Is diagnosed with anxiety and ADHD & has prescribed medication, but usually only takes his anxiety medication. (Projection lol)

To everyones surprise, be actually likes spicy food, but just CAN NOT handle any to save his life

Can cook, but gets distracted and almost burns it a lot.

Inspired by Uraraka, he works to help fellow quirkless people & their discrimination

Kota is his little brother, and Izuku loves to carry him, ruffle his hair and just lovingly mess with him in general

Still just as buff, if not more after the 8 year time skip

Is the reincarnation of the OFA user, Yoichi Shigaraki

All Might

Either AroAce or a gay man there is NO IN-BETWEEN

2000% is dekus adopted dad

Def had both David Shield and Nighteye crushing on him

Katsuki Bakugo

Gay, didn't realize people were actually attracted to women until he was eleven, which made him very confused and made him start questioning his sexuality.

Suffered from acid reflux since he was very little, which caused his esophageal stricture which made him very nauseous in the mornings, making him not a morning person until they were able to re-widen his esophageal stricture (more projection lmao)

Is the reincarnation of the OFA user, Kudo

Shoto Todoroki

Is a Chimera

Has his father's skin tone on his left side

Thinks he might be Ace/aro, but doesn't really care, just knows that he's Queer is some way.

Momo Yaoyorozu

Either the oldest or the only child

Her parents tend to be very distant from her, but do love her

Bisexual, has dated a girl in the past.

Later on, as inspiration from Fatgum, she puts on more weight to make her creations a bit easier on her.

Loves sweets and baking, but can't cook to save her life

Tomura Shigaraki

Pansexual

After he dies he is reincarnated with a loving family and lives happily :(((((((

Iidamomo

Actually knew each other before going to U.A. and were on friendly terms, but only became friends after going to U.A.

Iida had a crush on her before going to U.A. & Momo developed feelings working together as the reps, but only realized she liked him after he injured himself to protect her during Survival Training

Gets together in second year

After becoming pros, they are the first to have a kid (they have a whoops baby)

Both bisexual

KatsuDeku

Izuku fell first, Bakugo fell harder

Izuku developed feelings for him VERY young, but when he started bullying him, Izuku's feelings on him became super conflicted

Katsuki realized he loved izuku shortly before he died, Izuku realized he still loved him when he saw Bakugo's body.

Danced around each other till third year

Bakugo is clingy when he is jealous, Izuku gets a bit angry and possessive when he's jealous.

Izuku is 100% the possessive/protective one.

Both like cuddling bc it comforts them both (Deku can feel Bakugos heart, and Katsuki can feel izuku, so he knows he isn't leaving him again.)

When they get in fights Izuku pulls away but katsuki wants to solve it right there right now.

[scary-grace]

masterpost/faq/etc

**UPDATE: My fics on Ao3 are currently locked for registered users only. I have plenty of invites available, so let me know if you’re in need of one!**

I have been meaning to make one of these for probably a decade, but here we are. I'm Grace, I'm 28, and I'm a purveyor of weird fics and zero-note personal posts. I write exclusively for the Tolkienverse (with heavy emphasis on The Hobbit and heavier emphasis on Barduil) and for My Hero Academia (Erasermic, Shigaraki x reader, and probably other stuff if I stay in the fandom long enough). You can find me on Ao3 at BiSquared.

My askbox is always open! I'm basically always accepting prompts, but I'm bad about doing them with any consistency, so there's usually a backlog. That being said, when I do answer prompts, I answer them in the form of full one-shots (which for me are almost always 3k+), and if you're on Ao3 I'll gift them to you! I don't really do commissions, but I do have a Ko-fi.

My Fics (Greatest hits)

Tolkienverse:

seeking a friend - the Barduil zombie apocalypse AU you were probably not warned about. This is a series - the main fic, seeking a friend for the end of the world, is complete, and there's also a lot of bonus content, including an AU of the AU where there are no zombies. (280k+ words)

bring on your wrecking ball - the Bagginshield and Barduil band au nobody asked for. Come for the thought of Thorin singing lead in a country band, stay for the ridiculous bedtime stories, homemade song lyrics, and very slow burn. This is a series, involving the same events told from three different perspectives -- Thorin's, Bilbo's, and Bard's. (650k+ words and counting)

Kairos - a Barduil fic set in 1977, wherein Thranduil and his children move into an enormous house on a sprawling estate and Thranduil falls in love with the caretaker. This fic is a monster. I finished writing it in 2021, and it's 565k words long, so it'll be posting for a while. (243k+ words and counting)

soon you'll get better - a collection of thirty whump prompts featuring Bard and Thranduil, all written during February 2022. (90k+ words)

more than words can wield the matter - canon, post Battle of the Five Armies, featuring Bard receiving some rather inappropriate letters from a certain Elvenking. One-shot.

and many more...

My Hero Academia

one headlight - Erasermic hanahaki AU series, featuring both Aizawa's and Mic's POVs! (58k+ words and counting)

the rooftop gang's guide to finding a family - Erasermic no quirks AU series, featuring Jewish Present Mic (check out @corndog-patrol's art for the inspiration), adoption of various children and pets, and very awkward first meetings. (79k+ words and counting)

Ghost Tales - Shigaraki x reader ghost AU series, featuring ghost Shigaraki and a bunch of other characters. The main story is complete, with multiple spinoffs planned and an Erasermic spinoff already posted. (150k+ words and counting)

As Above, So Below - Erasermic AU based on Junji Ito's Uzumaki. In progress but close to completion! (72k+ words and counting)

promise i'll be the cure - Erasermic sex pollen fic, wherein Aizawa gets nailed with sex pollen and Mic finally gets the chance to take care of him. Warning: No sex. One-shot.

and many more...

If you have any questions, feel free to hit up my askbox or send me a message! I'm always happy to chat.

[silkieswift]

Post-canon Luffy/(temp) fem!Law AU

I thought of this about a week or so ago and been expanding on it ever since privately; also, I wanted something more feel-good/wholesome (a lot of fem!Law stuff I've glanced over involves dubcon/rape, which I don't like). Maybe a bit OOC, but whatever. Quite long, so behind the cut.

(Can also be “other-setting AU with powers” if you want.)

Luffy/Law have been married for a few years; sometimes they talk about raising children

Luffy's happy with adopting (in whatever way) but Law decides no, he wants biological children as the ultimate expression of their (romantic) love for each other; he knows Luffy's friendly with Ivankov and that the latter's powers can cause sex changes

So they and their crews travel to Kamabakka; after some discussion and debating, Iva agrees to turn Law into a woman, but (s)he must live as a woman for several years to fully appreciate the experience (for Luffy's sake, Iva makes sure the change doesn't affect Law negatively)

Reactions across the world are varied (some well-wishing, others mocking/insulting, still others jealous; no-one dares try to attack, preferring to be alive, not (as good as) dead), but almost all surprised; the couple doesn't really pay much heed, since what matters is that they both want this, no coercion involved

They eventually have three children (two daughters and a son), with the other Straw Hats and Hearts being their aunts and uncles and their friends being their extended family (Luffy greatly dotes on them and perhaps spoils them a bit, but teaches them how to fight and to survive in hostile environments; Law also dotes on them, but also makes sure they know proper manners and self-discipline); they're all taught to fight and be able to defend themselves according to their personal preferences and interests; each of them is taught about the sex-change situation when they're deemed able to understand (not in a lewd manner, though)

(Elder daughter is much like Luffy, but with above-average intelligence/common sense; younger daughter is more like Law - reserved and a bit standoffish, medical prodigy, polearm fighter, eventual snake-Zoan user; son is more even-tempered and is a natural at underwater activity)

Law spends (between 7-10) years as a woman, and changes back after talking with Iva about the experience; it was challenging and sometimes very difficult, but (s)he didn't regret it for a second

[picturejasper20]

I found a pretty good character analysis of Vlad's character on Danny Phantom subreddit from user RagnarDethkokk that summarizes his character pretty well and it mostly gets well the point of his tragedy as a villain in the show. (It is from around three years ago)

¨When I watched the show as a teenager back in the day, I didn't look too far past the cartoonishly evil figure that is Vlad in the show. But with the benefit of time, there's a lot I picked up on that I wasn't seeing before. Though Vlad is obsessed with Maddie, along with gaining power and control, at his core it seems what he really wants to be loved and to have a family. Throughout most of the show he shows this by wanting to adopt Danny as a surrogate son so he can teach him and shows genuine happiness the few times Danny pretends to accept him. Also with his surprisingly touching relationship with his cat Maddie. He primarily used his powers evilly, for selfish gain, but the strange thing is he really didn't need to (at least, not past maybe gaining some seed money for his own company.) Based on his lab, ghost portal, cloning experiments, and the equipment he provided to both Valerie and later the Masters' Blasters, he's clearly a genius and a highly competent inventor and engineer. When you take away the ghost powers, he's basically a more suave version of Elon Musk who really likes the Packers. He blames Jack for the accident that caused his powers, when he really should have been thanking him (something he finally does acknowledge in "Phantom Planet.") Obviously, it has more to do with the fact that Jack ended up with Maddie, whom Vlad deluded himself into thinking he had ever had a chance with, ghost accident or not. Thing is, I know what it's like to be in love with someone who doesn't love you back (sadly most of us do.) It really does poison you and the way you treat people (especially the one who "stole" them from you) but ultimately it's on you to move on and recognize that you have to look for happiness elsewhere. Therein lies the true tragedy. If he could have found it in himself to let go of the woman who didn't love him back, he would have had an amazing and fulfilling life. He's a silver fox billionaire, it's not like his dating prospects would have been lacking. He could have easily had a family and children of his own, if he so wanted. More to the point, he also would have been a welcome and happy part of the Fenton family as well. All Vlad ever had to do was be the guy Jack Fenton believed he was (right up until the final act of "Phantom Planet" anyway,) and he would have been so happy. He'd have had two best friends, and visits from "Uncle Vlad" would have been relished by both Jazz and Danny. He could have provided mentoring and positive role-modeling to both of them, for Jazz's school/career ambitions and Danny's superhero life. And he even acknowledges all of this (not in so many words) in "The Ultimate Enemy", where it's shown that both by losing his ghost powers (although personally I really think it was less about simply not having them and more about not using them to be a selfish asshole) and caring for a Danny who came to him willingly, Vlad realizes his mistake. I think this proves that the spark of "Vladdy", the guy who Jack Fenton thought the world of and would do almost anything for at the drop of a hat, was still buried deep in there the whole time. Side Note: Someday, I would love to see these characters revisited in a live-action adaptation, but with more adult tones. And if they did that, I personally, would prefer a genuine arc for Vlad that shows him coming to his senses and becoming a valuable and beloved member of the family rather than his megalomania and cheesy villainhood ultimately resulting in him ending up alone and adrift in space, hated by everyone on Earth including the people he cares about the most. It's a fitting ending for a tragic figure, but I think in general it'd be interesting to see a version of the show where all of the recurring ghost figures are less 1-dimensional generic evil props and more complex characters, with the chance to dive into their backstories and either eventually find a way they can co-exist with humans or be helped to move on intead of just repeatedly "getting banished to the ghost zone until next time, DANNY PHANTOM!" ¨

Link to the post:

[starskiff]

sundays ultimate role and disposal: a theory

major spoilers for 2.2 below

right of the bat, the thesis is sunday could be in preparation to be absorbed by dominicus in the upcoming charmony festival as planned by the dreammaster and the family.

user ghostlyinvestigator on reddit pointed out the possibility of sunday being appointed as the head of the oak family as a recent ordeal based on the wordings of the letter from oti, and if this were true, it would really make everything so blatantly orchestrated.

hes shoved in a position that limits his time to investigate about death further and would push the family's disapproval of his actions as mere askewed priority. it only gave sunday the illusion of having more access to things that could give him answers, but it only brought more traction to his name. attention.

furthermore, with the heavy emphasis on the need for the charmony festival to undergo smoothly because of the arrival of dominicus but also to appease xipe, its not a bit of stretch to say it almost seems like sunday is being prepped to accept and receive them perfectly. the charmony festival is a ritual after all.

dreammaster is described, as per the loading screen:

could it be that even the adoption of sunday & robin had all been part of his grand scheme, but why them specifically? because they're halovians who eerily resemble ena? how does this all connect?

wellllllll

an incarnation of xipe will bestow blessings to everyone. xipe who absorbed ena, xipe who has the harmonic strings as her embodiments which include dominicus. dominicus whos arrival at the charmony festival is constantly stressed. the harmonic strings, who most importantly, can assume any family member.

when you turn to the lyrics of the odes of harmony, a song of adoration to xipe written by The Family says this

The Family serves the harmonic strings due to the blessing of the gods, im guessing this lyric is why some people believe harmonic strings are emanators of xipe, but they're not. they're facets of xipe, a direct feature of the aeon, not a seperate being that can be graced. they can take on any family member when necessary.

when it says they serve, does it mean they let themselves be used by the harmonic strings in the ultimate form of servitude to the aeon xipe? when it says when necessary, does this include the charmony festival that merits one of them to visit? is the charmony festival itself the music that the harmonic strings will play to honor the great one?

further lyrics of the odes of harmony say this:

rejoice as one. all beings entwined.

the curio family ties could be my final verdict

i want to say this escapee walked into a charmony festival as it's happening but i have nothing else to back it up. but idk. The Family is fucked up, they're in shambles as we are shown in the story, not as united as we may think, but in desperate bids for survival, they unite to praise xipe. im stretching so far im gnna tear.

but why sunday? why him out of all people? out of all halovians? of The Family? why not robin?

aside from the fact that everything alluding sunday is plastered all over the 2.2 leaked boss i have no solid answer abt why sunday. im hoping this is what we would find out in the next update.

with robin, im guessing shes absent from the agenda of the family. she was never a concern. there is another harmonic string who resembles her, constantina the singer of the panacoustic theater, but because she would not be the one to visit, they're not too fussed about her disappearance. all they need is sunday.

ill pull a leg and say someone is aware of this to no ones surprise

gallaghers voiceline abt sunday says:

again, the odes of harmony is a song of adoration towards xipe, too much in fact when you read its lyrics it's too chummy. when gallagher says something real, does he mean to say this adoration does not translate on sunday. could it even be that he was chosen for such a role because of his lack of adoration?

but gallagher also says

this cruel joke fate is playing, could gallagher be pointing out sundays illusion of a family from his adoption to his given role?

probably not. it would mean gallagher is aware of everything and that is a whole new pond to tackle.

now i know how to write formidable essays but its 2 in the morning and i got excited and i just spewed take everything not even with a grain hut a full bucket of salt. that's it im spent

[brunossan]

SO, I SAW SOME PEOPLE TRYING TO READ THE SITH RESURGENCE FIC...

And i decided to help giving a resume about Aliana Beniko and the Beniko Clan for yall.

This is Part 1

So, in 2018, Lily talked about doing a star wars fanfic with a "Light Side Sith" character named Aliana Beniko, the only part about her changed being the fact that now she is full Dark Side Sith.

Aliana Beniko is the main character of Lily fantiction, and not only that but its her favourite oc, which is also one of the most disliked ocs for Star Wars fans.

As someone who read the 48 chapters of the Sith resurgence fanfic, and learned about the Lore of it, i will give to you a resume of the entire Beniko History

Lets begin with the past.

1-DARTH CAÍDA AND THE OLD REPUBLIC

The history of Aliana status even before she was born. In the Old Republic games its normal that players become the figure of Hero of Tython, an event of the game where you stop a warmongering Sith Lord on its mission to destroy the Galaxy. But what happens in this fic is basically that Lily character in the game is this said hero but not only that, she also marries one of the game main characters, a Sith named Lana Beniko. After the events of the Eternal War, a moment where both Jedi and Sith worked together to defeat the Eternal Empire, they decided to stay away from The drama and marry on another Planet. About Lily Character, her name is Darth Caída, wich means The Fallen Darth, because before becoming a Sith Lord she was a Jedi Knight.

After marrying eachother, both of them decided to form themselves an order of Sith called The Beniko Order. This would be a 100% female Group of Sith, where the members would be not united by blood, but other bonds. In another words, almost no one on this clan is blood related, but instead was adopted, was an apprentice or married a member of it. The clan also went into a more personal route, not focusing on becoming The strongest or The most Powerful Sith, but instead praising The love of a family and the low life.

This Sith Order stayed low for all of their lives, until the fall of the Sith Empire. So it happened the Rule of Two.

2-Darth Valee Beniko and Darth Bane

Darth Valee Beniko is a character that its only more mentioned in the Wikia than in the own fanfic, but its The one who built The ideals of the Order of Beniko after Darth Bane killed all the Sith and instated The Rule of Two. As i cant resume much without giving examples, there are some prints on both her vision of it and how the Beniko Order goes about certain themes

Yeah you read it right. Valee Beniko basically went the route of "Toxic Masculinity ruined the Sith". But after that nothing much is revealed about the Beniko clan, especially other members besides a very few ammount of them.

Like most of the Sith, the Beniko clan stayed in hiding. However, they didnt had easy lives, not only because of the Sith, but also because of a thing. A thing lily added to spite both the fans of Star Wars and the entire Star wars lore around.

A thing called "The Curse".

3-The Force hates them

Lily know that People dont like her oc, and specially her opinions about Star wars and the Force. Mostly of her opinions come from The game Knights of Old Republic 2, where we learn about the Nihilistic vision of the Force of Darth Thraya, who instead of seeing the Force as a mystical energy or a hidden power, sees it as an entity with will and preferences, who hates those who dont rely or worship them.

In this fic, The Force is treated as an evil entity who hates Dark Side users because they dont follow its will and even enslave it. Their hatred is more followed towards the Beniko Family, who follows a different path from other Sith, taking their powers from Passion instead of hate or fear, and being more focused on self-reflection than trying to be more powerful on the Force. Because of that, the Force kills them on purpose, putting dangers on their way to get rid of them. However, as this is a Lily fic we are talking about, The Force gets defeated by the ultimate powers of Mary Sueness of Aliana Beniko, but this is information for the next part.

Hope that i helped a bit, i will do part 2 soon enough

Bye bye

[haine-kleine]

My thoughts on the ending

The new chapter gave me some food for thought and some hope. Also, I'm writing this post from the perspective of the mysterious man wandering the city being Shigaraki.

One thing that never made much sense to me is Shigaraki Tomura being his preferred name. He was used, manipulated, brainwashed, went through body modifications and even mind-control all by the man who gave him his new name, and shared his own surname with Tenko, essentially adopting him. Shigaraki once his character development kicks in, doesn't exhibit much attachment to AFO, and his trauma bond to him is all but gone in the last arc, where they actively fight for control and are determined to destroy each other. He also doesn't express or ruminate on the regret associated with his happy childhood taken away from him by AFO, the way Dabi ruminates about his own constantly.

It started making sense to me once the story established narrative parallels between Midoriya and the first user of AFO and Shigaraki to OFA, and the Shigaraki twins' past was revealed to us.

Despite the horrible world-destroying actions and manipulations of AFO, his driving motivation, the essence of his character was revealed to be love for his brother. It was rejection by Yoichi that kickstarted his downfall, and in his quest of getting Yoichi back all for himself, he ended up destroying both himself and his brother.

Shigaraki is the same way, but in reverse. He started as a wild force of chaotical destruction going against the current of the hero's society and terrifying Izuku and all of his friends. Their first one-on-one interaction happened with Shigaraki purposefully isolating Deku from his friends and threatening him. He is a brat who throws a fit when the plans don't go his way, he needs Kurogiri to baby him, he attacks Toga and Dabi as soon as they don't immediately accept him as their new leader. This is the Shigaraki we get introduced to, and that's his starting point for growth. And wow, does his character develop beautifully. He takes responsibility, repeatedly and actively chooses to take responsibility simply because he wants to take care of the people by his side. He takes the power he is given, and he develops it into more power, constatly evolving. Both of his stated objectives: to destroy everything that stands against him and to support his teammates' wishes are fullfilled to a degree by the end of this story: he shaked the society to the core, and all remaining teams of LOV are hinted at to be alive, with both Dabi and Toga getting their wishes fullfilled by the end of their respective arcs: to be accepted as she is by the person she loves, and to be heard and aknowledged by his family.

Both of the aforementioned objectives connect Shigaraki and AFO: the desire to be close and protect another and the desire to destroy. The latter leads to both of them being destroyed, and the final moments of AFO show how his decision to commit to destruction took the chance of getting his other objective fulfilled away forever.

But what about Yoichi? He is a hero, a kind, noble and responsible weilder of the All For One ability, that stood up against his villain brother and protected society. How come the narrative leads both of them towards the same end? Unlike AFO, Yoichi doesn't even get to make his feelings known one last time. He's is just gone after the last battle.

Unlike both Shigaraki and AFO, Yoichi doesn't get a chance to exhibit love for another. He is all about responsibility, about the duty, protection, being a hero, and all of that only leads him to his ultimate destruction.

Being a hero is not about love, or sympathy, or helping others. Protection is the duty, but heroes' sympathy demands the victim to fulfill their conditions - to be a perfect victim, otherwise it all boils down to destruction. It's a two-way destruction: the villains get killed, harmed, abandoned, but the heroes also suffer the damage. Almost every single character we've seen in the war arc sustained serious and long-lasting, or permanent damage. That's pretty much the job description: you get to be as violent as you want, but you will get the same violence thrown back at you. You are supposed to give, give and keep on giving pieces of yourself until not even the embers of the memory of you are left. The perfect example of this is All Might - a living husk of a man giving out nothing but empty platitudes, only remembered by his hero name and the hero he used to be. He doesn't get to have an identity outside of his short past as a hero and all he gets for this is a life-long health problems that won't allow him to live for much longer.

To be a hero, you need to inspire hope, to appear to be kind, but being a hero doesn't allow you kidness, just a little amount of it. Everything is stricly controlled so that the civillians remain ignorant of just how wrong the picture-perfect image of the heroes truly is. To be a hero, you need to have the capacity to be cruel. Whether to promise something you can never fulfill, or to leave a teammate behind.

This is why Izuku Midoriya became the greatest hero. He is everything the hero system wants: an enthusiastic and willing bright-eyed hero who will destroy himself to make his quirk as useful to the chosen objective as possible, but is unable to look at anything past his perfect little circle of friends and mentors. He appears to be kind, and will give out motivating speeches for sure, but his words are empty and have nothing but the sinsere incapability to understand anything but his own privileged perspective behind them. He would never be able to save anyone but a perfect harmless victim, and obviously, to him saving Shigaraki Tomura equated to letting him die. He saw a crying little boy inside of the creepy villain he had first met, and decided to save him, except for Midoriya, saving that little boy meant forgetting and ignoring all the bad things he had done as an adult, and keeping the memory of his pure perfect victim child self alive.

He does not even spare the good, or 'better' victims! Aoyama, whom he had come to know as a friend, his classmate, whose parents were held hostage by AFO, who was forced against his will to be AFO's spy and expresses clear regret about it, is not given the slightest bit of empathy by Deku. Just looking at him is the greatest kidness he has to offer, and he does nothing to protect Aoyama afterwards. He is fully fine with Aoyama leaving his class, doesn't think to reach out, even moreso, all of the classmates barely care about Aoyama leaving, and don't take any action to convince him they don't hold what happened to him against his will against him.

This is also why Izuku is so lost and dissatisfied in the epilogue chapters. He didn't suceed in his goal of saving Shigaraki and whatever he tells himself or whatever his friends tell him to make him feel better, will not change that. All Izuku did was punch really hard, and the narrative rewarded him for it by taking his arms away for a chapter, and then taking his quirk, his greatest treasure, the tool that allowed him to become the focal point of this story, away for good. That's the end of the story for him, and to get a new beginning, he needs to learn and change, but the story doesn't have much time to fit that in. Either way, it's a dissatisfying conclusion, but one that makes sense. The first user of OFA loses himself for good, the last user of OFA loses the quirk for good. Both fail to connect with the people the narrative puts them against, and the ultimate choice they have is to connect and empathize or to destroy.

For the LOV it's another story though. All three of the main LOV characters succeed in their stated objectives. Their characters's arcs end in success, not a failure. Toga is finally not rejected by someone she loves, but embraced, and gets verbal confirmation of her affection being reciprocated. Touya is not avoided, ignored or shunned by his parents who feel guilt about what they did to him, and his siblings, who don't understand him. The entire family unites and makes the decision to take responsibility for what they did to him. They aknowledge his pain and his trauma, and they take whatever he throws at them, no matter how hot the flames, because they want to have him back. Even Enji doesn't run away anymore, and takes resposibility for everything he did to Touya, cries and apologizes for not coming to Sekoto peak and preventing everything that followed. Finally, he realizes that being a hero prevents him from having the relationship he desires to have with his family, and for the first time in his life, he chooses family over heroism.

Using these two points for reference, it makes no sense for Shigaraki's arc to end the way Horikoshi is trying to convince us it ended. He can't die because neither his goal to destroy the hero society completely or to protect and take care of his friends in the League was completed sucessfully. If you twist the angle a bit, though, it all starts making perfect sense. The butterfly imagery has been associated with Shigaraki for quite a while, and with Horikoshi being a superb user of visual storytelling, it is there for a reason. Butterflies are reborn from caterpillars and so far, Shigaraki's evolution has not been completed. The body modifications and quirk mutations might have tried to convince us otherwise, but if you look at Shigaraki as a human and not the final boss, all of that was pain, hurt and suffering he stood through and survived. The entire hero society uniting to defeat him alone, the brainwashing and manipulations he had been living in since he was a child, the loss of identity, he had stood through it all and survived. Now that Shigaraki-AFO-the villain had been killed, the rebirth follows. And his remaining objective - to be with the people he treasures, will be fulfilled, granting him peace and contentment.

That's the narrative reward for the villains - getting acceptance, comfort and content, while the heroes struggle to rebuild the remains of the society those same villains destroyed.

[princess-of-the-corner]

CC!Next Gen

Possible Himiko Kids

As always, all things are just ideas, which you can change, alter, or discard wholesale at your leisure.

(Note, I’m assuming Himiko wasn’t exactly ATTACHED to her family name, and has taken Tooru’s)

Kimiko Hagakure - first born. girl. Has Tooru’s rainbow hair. Made with Quirk. Parents Himiko (bio), Tooru (bio), Sato (adoptive dad). Tooru carried her.

Quirk: Mirage. Can utilize light refraction/manipulation to create illusions. They are the most effective from a distance, the closer you get, the more they seem to “haze” around the edges. Can create her own light. Could possibly, with practice, make the light solid (think Green Lantern), but her illusions wouldn’t have “realistic texture” even so.

Career: Wants to be a hero, but also wants to use her powers for performances/entertainment/special effects. 

Possible Hero Names: Mirage, Mirror Mirror, Opti-Kalli (Optical pun), Vision, In-Visional (invisible/vision pun), Oasis

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Kenichi Sato - second born. Boy. IVF assisted pregnancy. Parents Himiko (bio), Tooru (adoptive), and Sato (bio). Looks like his mom, but has his dad’s build (or will, eventually).

Quirk: Blood Drinker (Name only final till someone suggests a better one). Can “power-up” like Sato does, but by drinking blood, needs to be at least a tea spoon’s worth for Quirk to activate. More blood drunk means more power, but power can exceed physical limits if you aren’t careful. Any blood will work and have the same effect, but human blood makes the power-up last longer. 

Career: Wants to be a “First Responder Hero”, similar to Back Up! (Adult Eri). As a result of his Quirk, his blood seems to be a sort of type O, but better - he can donate to anyone, his blood seems to change to match their type once donated. Basically, he wants to be an EMT Hero.

Possible Hero Names: Dracula, Mosquito (sibling nickname), Leech Lord, Bloody Maurice

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Naomi Hagakure-Sato - “middle” kid. Adopted. Was accused of having a “villain’s Quirk” by her parents, who didn’t like Naomi using her Quirk, and would “punish” her for using it. Managed to catch Himiko after she took down a villain in the area, and asked if she could be a hero with a “villain’s Quirk”. She was adopted by the family less than a month later. Naomi was 6 at the time.

Quirk: Imitation. User can shift their body to appear as other things, animals, people, or inanimate objects. However, it isn’t “true shape-shifting” like Himiko does. Naomi can’t copy someone’s DNA, she merely changes herself to the closest visual approximation. It is also limited by what Naomi knows and can see about a thing - if someone has a birthmark, but Naomi doesn’t know about it, she won’t know to shift one, and unless she’s seen it, the mark won’t look exact. All of her shifts revert if she’s rendered unconscious … for the most part (Will explain below).

Looks: Because of her shifting abilities, Naomi often changes her own appearance, usually small tweaks to make herself more comfortable. She was born with black hair, grey-green eyes, and a bit of a tan, but often shifts to have Himiko’s hair and Tooru’s eyes. She also usually has a tail. Her favourite animals are cats, almost to the point of obsession, and when she gets to high school, the tail stays, even when knocked out. At that point, she’s had the tail so long, no one knows whether it’s a Quirk mutation, or if she’s shifted it so much it’s subconscious. Also enjoys having cat ears, claws, fangs, and slit pupils.

Career: Hero or bust. 

Possible Hero names: literally only have one, the Flattery Hero- Dupli-Cat! (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Duplicate pun on the fact she LOVES cats.)

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I LOVE THEM ACTUALLY

[thousand-winters]

Remember how Amity accidentally called a teacher mom? Imagine Hunter calling Alador Dad. Dad Darius overhears and is incredulously or jealous. He gets Hunter new gruby uniform cause he's worried Hunter likes Alador more.

It really doesn't help that both of them are abomination users, and frankly? Hunter is used to the one adult who listens to him and guides him gently being Darius, so that kind of mentor-ish attitude Alador is taking with him at the moment while showing him what he's working on (I picture Alador working not only on the sigil removal but on other projects to help overall on the Isles, especially to make up for the damage his creations made + the sort of ableism he was promoting when he and Odalia forbid Amity from being friends with Willow because she couldn't do magic well) threw him off a little.

He didn't even realize Darius had heard that one because he was a little too busy going all red and apologizing frantically to an increasingly confused Alador. He truly doesn't see him as a father figure, he just has a complicated relationship with actual kind adult figures in his life, considering the first one to be kind to him ended up becoming his dad, and then when he was in the Human Realm, he was sort of registering Camila's behaviors with Luz and Vee and the rest of them like "oh, so this is what a parent is supposed to act like" and while of course there's Camila herself, Eda, Raine, and other adults who are actually good and are not his parents, he's still adjusting to the reality of authority figures not acting abusive with their power.

So between that, and the reminders of his sewing lessons with Darius, when Alador picked up something to show him with abominations, the "dad" just sort of slipped out.

Alador is very understanding about the whole thing once he stops being all ??? and Hunter can go back to his normal life just a little more mortified than before, but it's all fine. Or so he assumes, anyway, until he notices that Darius is being increasingly doting and affectionate.

It wouldn't even be that weird; Darius was probably also holding back from being too affectionate at the very beginning because Hunter wasn't used to that kind of familiar dynamic and he got overwhelmed quickly with physical affection, mostly, plus feeling like he had to repay every single gift or thing Darius bought for him. It was progressive, and this almost could pass at that if Darius didn't seem slightly frantic about it.

Now, Darius truly does want what's best for Hunter, and he wouldn't have protested, even if it's not what he would have wanted, if Hunter had preferred to be taken in by another family (provided that they were good people, of course), but at this point, when they're officially a family? And the fact that it's Alador of all people? Please, that man is still trying to repair his mistakes with his own children, he's not well suited to adopt another kid out of nowhere. Darius is aware he might be letting a bit of bitterness slip in there but he's just a little panicky wondering what he did so wrong for Hunter to see Alador as his dad.

Eberwolf would probably be the one to call him out because if anyone knows Darius well, it's gonna be Eberwolf, but if he was absent for whatever reason, it would take a bit longer for the situation to come to a head, though probably not that long. Hunter, ultimately, did learn to read adults fairly well, or at least their emotions, as a survival mechanism, so he would eventually pick up on how Darius seems almost anxious whenever he offers him something these days. Again, it's not that Darius isn't doting usually, but to this extent that seems practically? Yeah, no, something's off.

He's very hesitant to bring it up because he's not the best still at confrontation with adults, let alone his parent since Darius is, in some sense, "above" him in his vision of things, but the question of what's going on might just be enough for Darius' facade of normalcy to just break.

Hunter wouldn't even think it's silly, he knows what he would feel if he heard Darius calling another kid his child, so he doesn't hesitate to explain the logic behind that whole thing, as sheepish as he is to also imply that Darius has enough similarities to Alador for his mind to get all jumbled up.

In the end it's an embarrassing event for everyone involved and they do NOT want to talk about it once they have solved it. They are swearing not to mention it once Eber gets back.