#1 hero and queer icon

Enji Todoroki was just turning 3 years old when the first sparks of his quirk burned in his chest. The heat was bearable at first. Like warm embers left over from a campfire long abandoned, just hardly kissing his palms. Flames etched into his veins, powers foretold by the strength of his father. For years, that heat was his only company. Keeping him warm on nights he was otherwise alone. Comforting and calming the bitter, cold pain that gnawed away at him. His warmth was soft. Taking the form of curiosity, innocence, and hope.

Rage came later. Rage took the form of fire. A fire that started when he was 13 years old, growing and consuming him like an unforgiving inferno. Blistering his skin. Entombing his heart. Taking and destroying everything that was human. Leaving nothing but ash and coal. A fire kindled by insecurity. Loneliness. Disappointment. Years wasted growing in a bed of weeds unfit to support the growth of flowers. Choking out his own desires and replacing them with the will of his parents. Grow stronger. Become the best hero. Follow your destiny. He’d learned these lessons so completely, he’d forgotten what it was like to have a will of his own. To not live under the weight of expectations.

That fire burned in him for so many years, all that was left was fire. He felt it boiling the blood under his flesh, rendering him a monster incapable of feeling compassion. Incapable of feeling anything but that sweltering blaze in the core of his chest. He’d left the conflagration of his anger and quirk grow unchecked for so long, it was all he’d known. All he could ever hope to know.

Until that fire was snuffed out. Extinguished the day he watched the symbol of peace fall. Knowing then that the years spent calloused and cruel to the pain of others was meaningless. His efforts would never come to fruition. He was the number one hero ---- but it was a title given. Not earned. And on that day, he was left with no fire.

how did you take 2 inches off something that was only 1 inch to begin with