Welcome, welcome, welcomeeee—back!!
Yes, yes! He is indeed the homeless caterpillar man from the ever popular anime: My Hero Academia!!
Now, Why am I making a post about him? Whats with the sad blob? What're the weird fairy things? why is Aizawa sad, and whats the with the thing in the lower left corner?
Well, for the last question!—IGNORE IT!! It's not part of this topic!
Now for the other questions,
I'm in the process of making an AU! Specifically one that revolves around an Aizawa Shouta's torment!
Thats alot of take in, isn't it? Lemme explain!!
But first, a warning.
I've only done light research about the folklore and topics I've planted into this fantasy, quirkless world! I like it's premise as is, and it'll be kinda hard to make replacements since they're already so ingrained into the AU.
so don't expect it to be accurate on how the fantasy creatures actually are, I just based them off a few lines from google results and wikipedia!
That being said, lets continue!
"Aizawa Shouta, An orphan (probably, I haven't figured out his lineage yet) young adult man who lives "alone" in the forest. A group of 20 spirits of seelies and will-o-wisps that live in the surrounding forest, haunt and torment the tired adult from his first week at his tree-cabin, to recent times!
A toxic relationship between the 20 and Aizawa grows. Normalized and with nobody around or willing to help him, he never knew a different environment. Despite the constant torment and jabs being 'gifted' to him, he treats them as a parent would. Their remarks of his 'curse'? The seelies' laughs at his mistakes? The wisps' pitying looks sent to him every which way? Ah, he doesn't mind.
After all, it'd be rude to insult his guests."
...Wooh, quite the intro huh? Lemme break it down into bits to form somewhat of an overview.
Welcome, welcome! This is the Alternate Universe I often call: the Spirit Torment AU, or ST for short.
Keep in mind this is still a Work In Progress, so things are subject to change! But I'll explain what I have at the moment.
From that lil intro, we get our starting cast! With Aizawa as the main character! ..thrilling. And yes! that group of 20 seelies and will-o-wisps are, indeed, class 1A of this AU!
Don't fret, they won't be the only people that get the spotlight in here! I'm making progress on including some pro-heroes(mostly just the UA staff rn tbh), perhaps some villains, perhaps some 1Bs—and a possibility of a backstory substitute for the ever feared, ever loved: Nezu!
But that can wait 'till a future post. No, right now, lets focus on what I actually have for the ST AU!
(at the time of writing this, I've managed to gather 29 words that come from the meaning of Aizawa's full name, in kanji, in different languages to string together a foreign-sounding name--atleast to me)
Our protagonist used to live in a small town far from the country's capital, yet miles away from the boarder. A generic, isolated community with similar beliefs and traditions.
Enter our tired, black-haired, younger-than-present protagonist! Into a quirkless world set in somewhat of a medieval era, although—not all is as our history books!
Fantasy creatures, big and small, intelligent and feral. These are the creatures who are the only ones who are not bound by the rules of humans.
By the rules, of a magic-less body.
Yes, yes! Our magical fantasy creatures are able to use magic! Several factors depending on the species.
A cluster of several of theses fantasy creatures litter the forest that the town neighbours.
Unfortunate for Aizawa, he was born different from his peers. A bad kind of different.
From the creatures that scurry and survive in the forest, to our quaint town of magicless beings.
For a first in the town, when Shouta Aizawa was born, the small child with unique red eyes, instilled fear and uncertainty to those who knew of his trait.
With a word from a traveller on horse, The red eyed child became part of a town folklore:
On the days the wind was ever so slightly chiller, when an ominous sense of danger wafts through the town—It shall be a sign Theia's descendent came outside his abode.
'Theia, the titan goddess of sight and the shining ether of the bright, blue sky. She was also, by extension, the goddess who endowed gold and silver with their brilliance and intrinsic value' or, that's how the story goes.
The descendant's tell-tale sign of his linage by his other-worldly eyes. A color natural to no man, woman or child.
He wanders aimlessly around town, the people who the goddess so graciously gifted gold and silver to—yet only to be wasted on pubs, slaves and the like.
They say, to quell the descendant's growing fury: One must give back to the goddess by the descendant, must pay back a debt so long ago—no human would live to today, must graciously gift the descendant with shimmering blue hues of jewellery and gems of value, to the titan goddess of the sky's blue.
Breaking out of that rhyming fest! Yes yes, Aizawa's natural eye color here is red! Like how it turns when he uses his quirk?
And he got a town folklore made after him! Sure, it make him sound like some tyrant leader....but still! Also, now we know where he gets his income from! Sad he doesn't have much to actually do with it except buy groceries.
...what? Did you expect him to hunt the fantasy animals for food? or harm the forest for fruits? How rude!
Fun factoid! I actually came across that goddess while researching a bit for this AU!
Found the question 'what deities are associated with blue?'
The answer was given before! I'm not rewriting that just back scroll.
Yeah, I didn't really look into her outside of that one question...
I don't really think it matters much in this AU, since I just needed an excuse for why the townspeople are ostracizing him or basically begging to be spared instead of just executing Aizawa. And it gave me an excuse to give the lil boy a source of income.
I found it a pretty great coincidence how she's the titan goddess of SIGHT, ya know, something Aizawa is known to need to activate his quirk?
Anyway, thats pretty much the most detailed thing I've got rn.
Moving onto the seelies and will-o-wisps,
I read the seelies' wiki page, where a part caught my interest..
Appearently, in legend the seelies could be morally ambivalent and dangerous. Calling them 'seelie' similar to names such as 'good neighbors' could just be a euphemism to ward off their anger.
So just from that alone, I made the seelies in this AU more toxic and outspoken about it.
Now to will-o-wisps, I'll be honest...they weren't supposed to be added in originally until I thought that just having a roster of only toxic character would be a bad idea...
So I added in the wisps.
...until I made them toxic too
Reading from the wiki again, in Urban legends, folklore and superstition....
will-o-wisps are typically considered to be ghosts, fairies or elemental spirits.
This is getting a bit long and I have school so I'll try to wrap this up quickly.
On how these spirits are toxic to Aizawa? Well, you've seen some hints throughout this post but I'll explain a little more!
The seelies, they're more of the outspoken emotions out of the slightly opposing sides of seelie and wisp.
Emotions like anger or frustration, maybe mocks and taunts with laughter.
The wisps, while not meaning any bad intentions, still is toxic to an extent--or atleast not treating Aizawa properly.
They're more of the sadder, subtle and worried emotions.
Emotions like, as I said, sorrow and worry. Maybe with a hint of treating him like frail glass and underplaying most of what Aizawa does or dreams of.
I said before they're slightly opposing sides, not necessarily good and evil—its more of 'intent' or 'display' than that.
But there will be times where a side would agree with the other
Ex:
"The wisps are right, you cant even do [ ] correctly. You're so useless! Pathetic!"
"The seelies are right, you cant do a simple [ ] without getting hurt. You can't do [ ] or else you'd get yourself killed."
Anyway, I'm tired and maybe I'll make another post about ST!AU in the future
For now, have these bits of art as a thanks for reading this far!
blakekathryn
prguitarman
janainaart
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
stormborns
dededos
