I posted it to AO3 here if you prefer to read it there, but I'm looking for advice and feedback to make sure people actually wanna read it. I've only posted the "first chapter" (read as drafted idea for the first chapter) and I plan to remake/edit the first chapter and write up the second chapter before I start posting anymore of the story. I just wanna give it a few days so I can get advice and critiques while I start brainstorming chapter 2.
Fic below the cut!
Dear Izuku,
I hope you understand and forgive me, but I think it's time we see other people. It's not you, it's me. I don't think I'll be able to face you for a while, so please don't be upset if I avoid you for a while and ask that you do the same until I'm comfortable again. I'll let you know when.
I hope you know that our time together was wonderful and that I will always cherish our memories together. I hope you do too.
Sincerely,
Uraraka Ochako
Izuku Midoriya was having a very bad week. This was only the latest of a long list of things not going his way as of Sunday and he wasn't sure if it was just him being unlucky or the universe conspiring against him.
Maybe there was some origin of this bad luck on his normal running path. The first incident had been the disappearance of his hero notebooks during his Sunday workout routine. He'd noticed as soon as he got back to his dorm, but nobody seemed to know where they'd gone and it wasn't like anyone would break into his dorm.
Then on Monday a power surge fried his phone. It didn't seem like any buildings lost power and Iida didn't remember there being one, but he was also uncomfortable and fidgety when asked so Izuku assumed there must have been a mishap with other electronics that caused it. Iida must have just felt guilty.
‘He does use a bunch of electricity without meaning to. It wouldn't surprise me if he caused the surge by accident.’
It wasn't too big of a deal anyways. As long as he had his old MP3 player and his computer he could keep in touch with anyone through messaging apps.
‘Unless the Wi-Fi goes down, at least.’
Tuesday saw Hagakure accidentally spill juice all over his homework and notes. He had to stay up late to redo all of them, but he'd refused to let her apologize. There was nothing to apologize for, after all. Accidents happen.
‘At least, I would have refused it if she'd tried to. Did I make her upset?’
The letter showed up in front of his door on Wednesday and he was devastated to say the least. He didn't know what he'd done wrong. She said she was happy. Told him she loved him for the first time on Saturday. Now she was leaving him. It didn't make sense.
‘Maybe she was just messing with me like the girls in middle school…no she's not like that. None of them would have kept it up this long or even showed up to our dates anyways.’
If he was less naively trusting, he may have suspected her of cheating, but as he spent his lonely lunches watching his friends chat from across the lunch room, Uraraka included, he just didn't get the vibe that she had been or was. They all just seemed uncomfortable and sad. Maybe the breakup was affecting their moods too.
So here Izuku was on Friday night, returning alone to a quiet dorm after working out. Recently, everyone seemed to deem the common area as taboo. They all hung out in their rooms or went out until curfew. Izuku hadn't had a real conversation with anyone outside of class activities and questions about his bad luck in days. Actually, it all seemed to begin not long after his notebooks disappeared.
‘What a weird coincidence.’
Fridays were supposed to be dorm movie night, but it looked to Izuku like that wouldn't be the case this week. He could always watch one on his own but he'd miss everybody's jokes and reactions and Uraraka’s cuddles. It'd taken months into their relationship for either to be so comfortable with any sort of PDA.
‘Now she can't even look me in the eyes when class makes us talk.’
Unlocking his door, Izuku prepared for a long night of studying alone when the floor suddenly froze over and the air almost directly in front of him let out a squeal of pain.
“That's enough, Hagakure,” came the monotone voice of Todoroki from behind. Izuku would have turned to look if his feet weren't also frozen to the carpet, though mercifully protected by his house slippers.
“What the hell, Todoroki!” Hagakure fumed, “Let me go! You're gonna give me frostbite!” Izuku had completely forgotten to question what Hagakure had been doing in his room.
“GUYS!” he barked, becoming anxious when they both (he assumed) turned towards him. “W-What's going on? Why are you in my room, Hagakure?”
“She's been spying on you and looking through your things,” Todoroki explained, beginning to look frustrated.
“WHAT?!”
“TODOROKI!!!”
“Shut up!” he commanded, quickly thawing and shoving both of them into Izuku’s room before anyone could notice the noise and come down from Momo’s room.
“You're not supposed to tell him about that!” Hagakure scolded Todoroki, shuffling awkwardly towards the window since both boys blocked her escape. Not that Izuku intended to. “And you touched my boob, you jerk…”
“I'll apologize when you apologize for stealing Midoriya’s notebook,” Todoroki countered darkly. “You're the reason everyone thinks he's the traitor!”
“They think I'm the WHAT?!”
“That was Bakugou’s idea, blame him! And blame Midoriya for being creepy and spying on all of us!” Hagakure cried.
Izuku had heard enough of their arguing, his head spinning as he placed a hand on the wall to steady himself.
“That's why everyone has been acting like that? Wait, the power surge, was that intentional?!” Izuku demanded.
“Uuuuugh, there wasn't a power surge….Kaminari just….decided to blow up your phone when we started investigating you…I told him not to,” Hagakure admitted.
“Investi-stop! Explain from the beginning. Why did you steal my notebooks? Why did Kacchan tell you to? Why does everyone think I'm the traitor? A-Also, here's one of my hoodies. I wanna at least be able to see who I'm talking to and I-I figure y-you don't wanna b-be n-n-naked in front of us…” Izuku could barely get the last part out above a whisper.
“You're too nice for someone being suspected of being a villain…but thank you,” Hagakure mumbled while taking the hoodie and sitting on the floor. “Might as well sit, this is gonna take a while.”
Izuku Midoriya was having a very bad week. This was only the latest of a long list of things not going his way as of Sunday and he wasn't sure if it was just him being unlucky or the universe conspiring against him. The next month was going to be much worse.
So I reworked it a whole FUCK TON and that's not chapter 1 anymore. Anyways, it's not posted yet since I was working on creating a backlog of chapters and getting them all beta read.
Needless to say, there's been a lot of changes. I've extended the chapters a little bit. I've been aiming for about 1500-3k words per chapter. I've averaged about 1.9k per chapter so that means I'm doing pretty well. Proud of myself.
Anyways, I'm planning to have it live on 10/12/25 with updates every 1-2 weeks. Keep an eye out on my AO3, but I'd be happy to post the new chapter 1 here too as a nice teaser. Maybe I could post the whole fic chapter by chapter here too idk. I'm happy to get feedback and stuff as I post it. Thanks to anyone that takes an interest.
First humans ever to leave the solar system suddenly drop out of communications and the ship can't be found with any equipment. After one month of no contact their home countries start reluctantly holding funerals for the space heroes only for them all to turn up, healthy, well fed and extremely disoriented, in the middle of Tokyo, talking about alien abduction. Turns out that aliens found the poor humans straying out of their solar system, presumably lost, and took them to Alien Wildlife Rehabilitation before dumping them back in the middle of their native habitat.
I’ll bet they have cool new tattoos that turn out to be tracking devices too. Just in case these spirited individuals try to make another break for it.
Literally the definition of imperialism and classism. Doesn’t matter how many peasants you sacrifice as long as the most powerful piece is left standing
If the system ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess! Accounting may not be the oldest profession, but someone had to keep the books for them.
I mean, in theory I know that Excel is based on the structure of earlier accounting technology that's been around for hundreds of years -- what do we think we did to track commerce before computers? -- but it still kind of blows my mind to, for example, look at my ancestor's journal from a whaling voyage in 1770 and see spreadsheets in the back.
According to the book I'm reading, proto-Cuneiform writing seems to have actually started as spreadsheets to keep track of resources rather than as a way to record language or express ideas.
The administrators of that extremely early city had to keep track of lots of things, and doing this by memory alone was a nightmare. These spreadsheets were devised as a solution to that as an evolution of an earlier system that used clay tokens and balls.
Spreadsheets are older than written language as we currently understand it.
"erm! actually! I'm not comfortable calling people it/its! it just makes me uncomfortable I feel dirty and icky and mean! why not just use they/them? sending love!" doesn't feel good reading once. reading it 12000 times on 4 different posts? fucking explode. leave it/it's users alone. you really don't have to share that someones chosen pronouns makes you uncomfortable. you sound like a transphobe.
Adrian and Grace are still getting used to each other, I like the idea of Rocky and Grace already having an established dynamic, one that Adrian is perfectly okay with of course but she’s still warming up to Grace themself. And unexpectedly they start to have interest in getting closer.
Game is structured using a calendar system where you try to make use of the precious free time you have in between Plot Events to progress character relationships. Doing everything in one playthrough is practically or literally impossible
Progressing the character relationships makes you more powerful in the gameplay sections
Cast of teenagers with deep-seated psychological issues that are utilized for drama or comic relief depending on the scene
Main protagonist is almost always male. One time we had a girl but it came with big asterisks
hey don't cry. on december 3, 1926, agatha christie went missing for eleven days and because the uk police didn't know what to do they recruited sir arthur conan doyle, creator of master detective sherlock holmes, but all he did was conduct a séance to try and contact her distressed spirit
What about the final version of the flag by the original creator?
Gilbert Baker added a 9th stripe shortly before his death, with the new stripe representing diversity. He added this stripe in reaction to the 2016 US election. It’s unfortunately not as well known as the 8 and 6 striped versions.
Here’s an image of him sewing together the 9 striped rainbow flag.
