#deprive

Soundtrack insert / liner notes for the anthology film "Robot Carnival." 1987 / 1991, JVC. This includes a small treasury of comments & info from the directors and composer. What's your favorite short?

INTERESTING section pick. also i love the hunger games au, i think it’s some of my best recent work, so... thanks. 

v.

After Izuku’s interview, Aizawa is waiting for him by the elevator. Kacchan is already gone.

“Sensei,” Izuku says; they’ve taken to calling him that, and Aizawa, for some reason, has let them. “My- my interview wasn’t too good, huh.”

“It was fine.”

So.. this scene. Interviews. At first during writing I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to write the actual interview, but I thought it would be more interesting to simply suggest what happened instead. The interview itself isn’t important.

Also: Izuku and Bakugou calling Aizawa sensei... Aizawa’s softening to them, even though he tries not to. 

Aizawa is a quiet man. Eri said once, proudly, that he used to sing to her; Izuku has not heard a single note.

If you read white sails and you hadn’t read draw and quarter, I genuinely think you’re missing out on Aizawa’s story. (And I know some people didn’t!)

Song, and Aizawa singing, is really important to him. It’s a sign of hope. As Aizawa healed from coming out of the Hunger Games alive, he sang to Eri. And now he’s lost hope again, and is back to being bitter and in pain.

They step into the elevator, and the doors shut behind them. They pass one floor, then another, in complete silence.

When they reach the right floor, Aizawa steps forward and holds a button. The doors stay closed.

Aizawa holding the elevator closed, keeping them somewhere private. So they can talk.

“I never thanked you,” Aizawa says. He’s not looking at Izuku, but in the glossy metal of the elevator Izuku can still see his reflection. “For volunteering.”

Izuku swallows hard. “She- she’s only twelve.”

“I know.”

“I— just couldn’t let her.”

“She means a lot to me,” Aizawa tells him. “Eri is all I have.”

Aizawa... he has to thank Izuku for volunteering. Eri is twelve. She’s so young, she’s a child, and Aizawa knows she probably would have died had she gone into the Hunger Games. 

He doesn’t want Izuku to die. He doesn’t want to say, “I would rather you die than her” or “I would rather you go to the Hunger Games than her.” But that’s the sort of thing that the Hunger Games forces, that’s terrible. Aizawa spends this scene thinking about that, because he doesn’t want Eri in the Hunger Games... but that means having to watch another person die in her place. So he feels indebted to Izuku, and has to thank him. 

And he’s not lying. Eri is all Aizawa has. Everything. After being a victor, he was completely alone (see: end of draw and quarter) until he has Eri. He also has Mic, but Mic doesn’t count even though they’re friends and trust each other because Mic is still bound to the Capitol, and they don’t see each other that often.

Izuku looks at Aizawa’s reflection and sees a lonely sixteen-year-old, defeat in his shoulders as he is declared the victor. Dying is a loss. Living is, perhaps, even more so.  

There’s no true answer, but... dying is a loss of life, yes. But what this line references is that Aizawa living is him facing everything he’s lost: Oboro, his childhood, his innocence, his happiness. He lives, and suffers.

“Why did you volunteer?”

“Like I said,” Izuku musters, “she’s only a child.”

“So are you.” Aizawa tilts his head.

Aizawa doesn’t really know what to expect at this point. He’s grappling with that question, with his gratefulness. And the thing that makes it the most difficult is that both Eri and Izuku are children. Everyone is a child! Everyone is being sent to their deaths! 

“Do you really think I have a chance?”

“Giving up is easier,” Aizawa admits, and sighs. “Midoriya. You understand that for you to win, Bakugou will have to die.”

Aizawa tells the truth that he’s been saying since the beginning when the two volunteered. If one of them wins, the other has to die. He knows it. He’s lived it. He hates it, but he’s resigned to this truth and the system. So he says “Giving up is easier,” or else Izuku will have to become like Aizawa... and Aizawa doesn’t wish that fate on anyone, really.

No rushes forward, with the same fire that made Izuku volunteer. He won’t let that happen.

“We can be different,” Izuku challenges, and Aizawa flinches hard. Aizawa doesn’t flinch.

Another miss if anyone didn’t read draw and quarter. Something that Oboro tells Aizawa that really makes them friends, that makes Aizawa let down his walls is:

“We don’t have to be friends,” Shirakumo says, voice low. They stand, waiting, as chariot after chariot lines up and a row of tributes begins to parade in front of a cheering crowd. “But—can we at least pretend to be allies?”

“Why?”

Shirakumo tilts his head to the side. He has a draw to him that Shouta lacks, a sort of natural magnetism. His blue eyes gleam.

“Everyone is out for blood,” Shirakumo replies, nodding towards the ring as District Ten is called. “Isn’t there power in being different?”

Aizawa flinches hard, followed by a fact: Aizawa doesn’t flinch. What I’m conveying with this is that what Izuku says hits Aizawa in just the right spot. It’s so similar to what Oboro told him... and Oboro failed, and died. Aizawa never forgot that.

But it makes him think.

“You say that to anyone else and you’ll find a noose around your neck,” Aizawa threatens. Then he lowers his voice, so soft Izuku almost misses his words. “But maybe you can prove me wrong.”

This is Aizawa warning Izuku more than threatening him. That if he makes himself too different right now, then something bad will happen. 

But... here’s the first moment that Aizawa truly considers that maybe Izuku and Bakugou can be different. That they can succeed where he didn’t. 

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."