Tony: Isn’t It Supposed To Be “you Saved My Life, Now I Owe You”? Peter: Nope. The Other Way Around.

When you are the person who worked in mostly of the parts of a project:

adjkfl; I love how Done Izuku is in the Pawns Game fix it. But now I’m imagining 30 year-old Midoriya Izuku, pro investigative hero, sent back in time to UA and coming to the horrifying realization that he’ll have to do it all over. Again.

There’s no way he’s dealing with that so, instead, he goes out of his way to make himself utterly innocuous. He still sics AfO on Nedzu but this time he stays anonymous. But now AfO and Nedzu are actually teaming up, trying to find this mysterious (intriguing) person who planned things so perfectly. Cue shenanigans with Izuku desperately trying to stay out of the way of these two demons, while  fixing everything and making it so he still gets a decent job post-graduation. 

Todoroki sees AfO and Nedzu in the same room and can’t help feeling there’s something familiar about their mannerisms. He comes up with a Very Cursed theory about Izuku’s parentage. (and now I can’t help thinking of Izuku sending AfO and Nedzu at each other as a blind date, but with villainy and plotting instead of romance) 

All Might possibilities: a) He spots AfO at UA and panics, jumping into the ‘investigating wtf is going on’ bandwagon. This causes problems for Izuku, who now has three different important people to avoid drawing the attention of. b) AfO wears obvious, and increasingly absurd, disguises just to see how long it takes All Might to notice. May or may not claim to be dating Nedzu just to make All Might run away in horror. c) They just never run into each other, out of sheer luck, with Izuku silently panicking each time they get close.

Izuku just can’t win, can he.

[insp]

You remember the scene were knights "pranked" Merlin by giving him endless chores so he didn't have time to it and pretending they didn't leave him some stew? Can we just have Lance rise from the dead for the sole reason to yell at them bc it's fucking not funny, the guy grew up in a village that didn't always have enough food. I just really needed someone to kick their arses in that moment. Especially in moments like that I wished that Lance was still there. I can't believe GWAINE went with it

ya know... that actually did not occur to me. I took it as more of an older siblings/little brother dynamic type prank, but you bring up some good points.

My guess is that 1) really only Arthur knew about Merlin’s upbringing. The others hadn’t been to Ealdor (I think... Gwen and Arthur were recently there at the end of s4 but i don’t... think... the knights were. That could be wrong tho) nor did Merlin ever talk about that stuff with anyone outside of Arthur that I remember and 2) the others probably thought since they (par Leon and a bit of Gwaine) had all been commoners at some point that they would have all shared that sort of thing in common. Since they might not have struggled with that as commoners they wouldn’t have realized Merlin did. Lastly, 3) since it has been some years since Merlin lived in Ealdor he certainly didn’t look scrawny and starving like he did in earlier seasons. Without the visual prompting it might not be something they considered.

All of that being said, I can still see how that might be an asshole move. I also can’t picture Lancelot going along with it. Honestly, my guess is the SECOND he saw what was happening he would have gotten up and given Merlin his bowl before taking over in chores lol. Then if anyone complained he would have brought up Ealdor and everyone would have shut tf up immediately.

Canonically he was probably in Avalon with Balinor...

Lancelot: no. I - damnit. Merlin, just... take some... damnit.

Balinor: do they always treat him like this?

Lancelot: um. well. they won’t ACTUALLY let him starve.

Balinor: they’ll just let him think he’ll starve?

Lancelot: ....i swear I raised them all better than that

Balinor: These assholes are on a quest to kill a dragon egg and now they’re trying to kill my son?!!?

Lancelot: this must be a stressful week for you, huh?

Balinor: i fucking hate Arthur Pendragon. He does not deserve the dragon in his name. Now he is just Arthur Pen. Actually. You know what? He makes my son write all his speeches so he doesn’t deserve the Pen either. He’s just Arthur. And nobody likes him.

Lancelot: huh... I suddenly see how you and Merlin are related so much more clearly 😧😧😧

Sometimes I like to think Midoriya would have a therapist license just so he could have an excuse to mother hen his classmates and his teachers and they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it

Izuku gets a therapist licence while in school so he can help villains and quickly realises his classmates are horrifically traumatized, fails to realise he is as well and proceeds to take care of them all with a single-minded determination.

other ppl on tumblr: have cliques groupchats @ each other all the time 

me: lonely hermit talks to myself reblogs memes

For @pocketramblr ‘s krakenverse(check it out here)! I don’t know the size of a baby seal so I don’t know if he would actually be able to carry Kuma like that, but I thought it was cute soooooo, artistic liberties were taken! 

Ok so Izuku is AFOs son, but in this au all might and him had the fight when Izuku was like 2years old or younger. AFO is presumed dead but no body is found and Izuku is found at AFOs base. Realising he’s AFOs son all might decides to raise him because the alternative is give him to the HPSC which he didn’t want to do because Izuku is just a kid and he didn’t deserve that. So he starts raising Izuku and at first it’s ok, it’s grounding and gives him something to come home to and stay alive for. But then as Izuku grows he starts showing mannerisms like AFO, not big things just the way he’ll look at things, the expression on his face when he’s thinking too hard, or his fascination with quirks. But it’s not Izuku’s fault; he’s a little boy and all might lives him like his own! Sometimes he’ll distance himself from him to make sure he doesn’t lash out at him, but that’s all might fault for being irrational, not Izuku’s. And then his quirk comes in. Izuku looks so innocent playing his own version of duck duck goose where he’d snatch his friends quirk and give it back when they catch him. All might starts homeschooling him. The two of them start training at home and Izuku is so excited because his dad is finally paying attention to him! It’s not that his dad never saw him before, but being the number 1 must be hard so it makes sense he never had time for Izuku, his dad loved him so of course it wasn’t his fault. The training gets intense sometimes and if all might were honest with himself he’d admit to sometimes letting his anger out on Izuku; he just looked and acted so much like that monster that killed nana, sometimes its easy to forget Izuku is a child. No one could blame all might if training got out of hand. Sure sometimes it ended with broken bones and a trip to recovery girl; but Izuku didn’t mind, he’d always blame himself and give all might that bright smile. That smile always made all might feel so guilty, he’d see it and remember this wasn’t AFO it was a little boy, it was HIS little boy. When Izuku is 13 all might decided to make up for it by giving him OFA. Izuku cries and clings to him for hours, he was so happy his dad cared for him that much. They keep training and Izuku’s bones break from OFAs strain, but he’s young and adjusts well to the power; reaching 30% by the time he starts UA. He aces the exam and the quirk apprehension test but it’s the first time he’s been around people in so long, he’s anxious and their are quirks everywhere but he can’t reach out for them, his dad taught him better and he has to be good, his dad has been so proud of him he can’t let him down. The usj happens and it’s almost the same, except he stops the noumu from landing that final hit on Aizawa, saving him from quirk damage. Izuku accidentally snatched the regen quirk from the noumu and all night defeats it. But Izuku can’t help but feel like tomura and kurogiri are familiar. He doesn’t tell his dad; and he doesn’t tell him about stealing the quirk. He’s good, and good boys don’t steal quirks. Eraser starts noticing Izuku’s skittish behaviour, and the way he’ll slingshot between following all might like an excited loyal dog, to suddenly acting like a kicked puppy at the slightest change in the number ones tone or expression. Somethings wrong there and he doesn’t like it. At the sports festival todoroki asks if midoriya is all mights love child, and Izuku admits it happily. He doesn’t see any similarities in endeavour and all mights treatment of their kids. Izuku wins the festival and makes all might proud. The year is going well, his teacher cares for him and is always asking if things are ok, how his home life is, he has friends who are so amazing. For the first time since his quirk came in he has people around him and he’s happy. And then the summer camp happens and it’s Izuku who’s captured. Shigaraki is so adamant that they are brothers, that all might had stolen him away and brainwashed him which is ridiculous! His dad loves him; he would never hurt him, he’s his dad! And then he meets AFO. He knows that voice. (Part 1 🌻)

(Part 2)

He used to have dreams about that voices, about being held safe in large arms while that voice hummed lullabies and nonsense stories. He’s crying. AFO shows him his quirk and tells him the truth. Izuku can’t believe it; his dad loves him, he would never do something like that! The heroes come to rescue him but it doesn’t go quite the same. All might and AFO stand off but neither attack first, not while Izuku’s in the way. He asks him. He’s has to know, he has to tell him that AFO is lying, at the very least he has to know that all might hadn’t known that AFO was Izuku’s dad. All might tells him the truth and it’s like his world shatters. He’s never been angry before in his life, but he’s actually shaking with rage. It’s like the scene in the first Thor where Loki finds out his parentage; he’s angry and accuses all might of keeping him as a battle trophy, finally accepts out loud that all the training all might have him wasn’t training it was abuse and calls him a coward for taking his grudge out on a child that depended on him and didn’t do anything wrong. All Izuku ever did was to try and make him proud but he was never going to be proud because he was just some conciliation prize for defeating all for one. All might tried to reason with him but nothing he says will fix this. AFO tries to lure Izuku to his side, to come home and have the chance of a family that was stolen from him. All might is a liar. AFO is a villain and a murderer. He is their combined legacy. He punches all might and runs. The kamino fight happens but Izuku isn’t there. He doesn’t know where to go. He wants to go home. He doesn’t have a home. He wanders. He hides from ua and the LOV. He acts as a vigilante and steals the quirks of villains. Finally he runs into overhaul and steals his quirk and saves eri. The raid happens right as he’s leaving. He sees Aizawa and he wants to go back to UA. He sees toga and twice and he wants to run. Eri’s clinging to him scared because he’s distressed. He doesn’t know what to do. 😭

Okay, self-indulging moment here and also serious thinking.

A call-out back to Midoriya just about to lose himself to his misery--

But what's happening here is this:

"Some hero..." not just any hero though, "Midoriya".

I'm going to point out once again how Horikoshi reverts characters to their child selves during honest moments--so we know that this moment really counts toward something.

If you follow my blog you know why I'm excited. But I also want to point out that in this post that I made back in March (when ch. 305 & 306 came out), I pointed something out that I thought and--this new chapter MAY have proven it right? We'll have to see how it's addressed later, but this is what I said back in March:

"I’ve been thinking about that for a long time now, because on more than one occasion, EARLY in the manga, Shigaraki had taken notice of Midoriya also:

I mean at first glance this can be taken as villainous. “I need to learn more about him so I can defeat him”. But to me, from the GET GO, this was always just sad. His first encounter with Midoriya he immediately got All Might vibes from him, which brings me back to Shigaraki truly wishing AM had saved him long ago. To me in this panel looking at baby All Might, he’s still wishing and hoping that he’ll somehow get saved-deep, DEEP down (like so deep down he isn’t even aware of this desire to be helped)".

So--the desire to be saved being in there was correct. Not that I ever doubted that. But what I had always wondered was if Shigaraki took notice of Midoriya's willingness to just jump into things head first to save someone. And now, well, obviously he did. Because I, for the life of me, cannot think of any other reason that Shigaraki would be saying Midoriya's name of all people at a time like this.

Midoriya--a complete stranger. A complete stranger who came across as just a fanboy of an overblown celebrity-hero, just like everybody else. A complete stranger who gave him a brutally honest opinion that probably stung a little, but ultimately gave him a conviction to go on with. A complete stranger who continued punching the shit out of him after spilling his guts out on the battle field, refusing to listen and failing to--once again--understand. Why would he think of somebody like that?

Well, idk. He was there to see Midoriya rescue Bakugo when he was kidnapped. He was there to see Midoriya jump in to save All Might at USJ (who--at the time, nobody thought AM needed saving because of the simple fact that he's AM, so that definitely stuck out to Tomura). He was there to see Midoriya rescue his friend from Stain. He was there to see Midoriya rescue Eri from Overhaul. And an example of a moment where Tomura saw Izuku saving somebody that I feel goes unnoticed, is Izuku vs. Shouto at the sports festival. And I have to give a shoutout to @/mettywiththenotes (I am not tagging her because she avoids spoilers until the chapter drops!!) who wrote the post I just linked to--talking about how Tomura was probably affected by watching Shouto change drastically throughout his fight with Midoriya. What he took from watching that fight.

After this chapter, I think it's fair to say that maybe some of what's said in those posts I linked to holds some water. Because again---after all the hurt Midoriya *contributed* to (not necessarily caused--because he didn't)--why would Shigaraki think of Midoriya of all people in a moment of desperation?

I think it's because he really did notice all this time.

I actually think Shigaraki noticed from the beginning. I think he noticed that if anybody in the world was going to be the one to turn the tide and reach for him and save him, it was going to be Izuku Midoriya.

Turning Red (2022) // Encanto (2021)