#after they called asking for their help

[nelkcats]

My son wants to destroy the world, how do I stop him? - Search

It had been a few months since Phantom joined the League. Although he was more of an emergency contact they called in worse cases than a real member. According to the Justice League Dark, he was a ruler of another dimension so he couldn't be around all the time.

When Wonder Woman complained about his commitment to the team, Phantom frowned and called her hypocritical. Apparently Phantom watched over all the dimensions, so asking him to protect one in particular was stupid, or worse, selfish. Diana ended up very embarrassed after learning about it.

Then, it was strange for Phantom to stay beyond 5 minutes after providing his help, so Bruce was surprised to see the boy walking towards him looking extremely nervous and asking for a conversation. Bruce agreed out of curiosity.

The conversation took a strange turn when Phantom started praising his parenting skills (Bruce was proud of his kids clearly, but how the fuck did Phantom know his identity?), and complimented him on...Red Hood's self-control??? And what a good kid he was??

Apparently, Phantom had a son (Bruce was starting to believe in the "immortal" part that Constantine talked about), but he had a terrible temper and loved to destroy dimensions, for which he was often punished (Bruce was at a loss for words), Phantom assured him that no dimension that didn't deserve it was destroyed but he didn't know how to change Dan's approach.

The King insisted that he was fine with his son destroying dimensions as long as his grandfather authorized it, since they had forgiven him and those dimensions were finished anyway (Batman was grateful that his mask would not show his facial expression) but that destroying everyone would affect him in the long run and he was worried about him.

In the end, Bruce invited them to the mansion, or rather, invited Phantom to talk to Alfred and he told him he would bring his son. Bruce remembered that Jason would be visiting that day and wondered how badly the meeting would go.

[confused-wanderer]

Everyone gets terrified when they see Dick put on the Cape and go into downright brooding shadow death aura mode, capturing Bruce’s scowl and glare to an uncanny extent.

They don’t know that the real reason Nightwing had to get real good real fast at transforming into batman is because in his early batman days he accidentally smiled while trying to talk down this guy from blowing up a building.

They made eye contact for a split second, before the guy burst into tears. He then proceeded to rip off the bomb, throw up, faint, wake up, throw up again before immediately running for the window of the 45th floor of a building.

[kacievvbbbb]

This is so shanks coded to me. Like he just keeps losing people and he never learns how to deal with it. So much so that he becomes the abandoning parent. He literally knows nothing else all he has as a frame of reference is all the adult figures in his life leaving him and telling him it is for the best. So why exactly wouldn’t he believe that the best way to love someone is by letting go?

He does it to Luffy, he does it to Uta and in some ways he does it to Buggy and Mihawk too. Because he never just asks them to stay. He lets Buggy run out of his life even though it was pretty obvious that Buggy wanted Shanks to fight for this to take a stand a real one on a conviction for once and he…doesn’t, he just lets buggy leave.

And then he hitches his wagon to the most flighty (dude is literally a bird motif 😭) mother fucker he can find. he lets Mihawk wander in and out of his life as he pleases regardless of what is best for either of them. Because maybe Mihawk has nothing better to do 👀. Maybe he would say yes now if Shanks asks. but Shanks would rather die than ask, would cut off his other arm before he even attempted to “clip Mihawk’s wings”

And that’s like the truth of it. Shanks has been abandoned by every person that has ever loved him besides his crew and he knows they will never leave him. But Maybe he just wants someone to stay not because they call him captain.

[shadowtraveled]

In your Mithrun analysis, when you say “maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.” who is the ‘someone’ in your mind? Milsiril? Kabru and the canaries? I loved your analysis, so I’m curious

OH kabru absolutely

milsiril spared him and, decades later, helped him with his physical rehabilitation, but it seems like she more or less gave up on his personhood. no more desires -> no more mithrun as we knew him -> no more mithrun. she spared him because he wasn’t completely devoid of motivation to live, and she used the single motivator he had left to eventually get him to keep himself alive, and she briefly even seemed to want to try and instill some of his old mask (even with the understanding that that’s what it was) back into him, but that fell through immediately and i think with it went her optimism that mithrun would ever… be a person again. “too late now, i guess.”

then the canaries are on good enough terms with him, but they’re practically instructed to treat him like a weapon or a tool they’re maintaining. i believe it’s cithis that tells kabru to take care of mithrun but clarifies that really what that is is just making sure he eats. ensuring his baseline needs for survival are met. and really, that’s all she was ever tasked with. when it’s all over and mithrun is cataleptic, the canaries stay physically near him, but they seem to have accepted that he’s gone—without the demon to chase, he has nothing to live for. cithis, though, seems to be closer to mithrun than any of the others, and i don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s the one who calls lycion off and encourages kabru to try engaging with him when she hears the beginning of what he has to say.

this post caught a lot of my opinions regarding mithrun’s relationships (linking to my reblog of it because i dumped some thoughts in the tags) but tldr i do think milsiril and the canaries fall short of thinking of mithrun as a person, and that’s why their relationships with him fail him somewhat. i don’t think that’s their fault, because it seems like they were taught to think of losing your desires as a complete loss of self and humanity, but it does mean they see mithrun as someone who has already been lost. kabru is demonstrably different in that he’s able to help mithrun see a future beyond the demon, and he’s able to do it because he deals with mithrun like he’s human. because he is. and all of that stems from the specific aspect of kabru’s personality that is his obsession with people

[10thmusemoon]

Title for the ask game!

"Good Graces"

lmao prim why does this feel like I'm seeing beyonce at the grocery store??? i love your fics!

okay hm content warning for angst, major character death, bad end

Shenbros that grow up alongside YQY and that somehow makes everything worse.

YQY still makes the unforgivable mistake of saving Shi Wu, Shen Jiu still steps in, but now he has Shen Yuan attached to him too. The two get taken into the Qiu household, QJL still develops an obsession with torturing Shen Jiu but now uses Shen Yuan as collateral.. If he doesn't behave, if he isn't perfect, well then, QJL will just see how his little brother does instead. Throughout this all, the two grow even closer, SJ doesn't let the resentment fester because SY is the only thing he still has, the only thing that keeps his sane. SY bandages his wounds in the night, holds him close, brings him into QHT's circle of safety with clever words whenever possible. He is the only good thing in the world now that Qi-ge is gone. They just need to wait for him to come back, and things will be fine.

And surprisingly, he does! This universe smiles down on SJ for once and shows him mercy. YQY looks like a prince standing behind his shizun, regal in his fine robes, and handsome in the way that well fed nobles can be. SJ tries to focus on the negotiations, but his eyes keep drawing back him yqy's face, awe and hunger at war. It's because of this that he misses the way SY goes stiff, head swiveling between the cultivators in silently growing horror.

The negotiations are easier than SJ ever thought they would be, his and SY's lives are traded from one hand to another like any dirty coin. The only difference being now they are indentured servants, their contracts having an actual time limit, the conditions of which only require them to be CQMS disciples until YQY becomes the new peak lord.

Which is...fine. More than fine, even! SJ is convinced that if he really wanted to, he could convince YQY to runaway with them afterwards. When he tells this to SY he's shocked by his insistent refusal.

"No, we have to stay at CQMS. No matter what."

Whatever.

For 15 solid years, SJ's life is good. He stakes his claim on YQY as soon as he realizes there are people interested in him, shamelessly making himself at home by his side. SJ excels at QJP, determined to be the one YQY can rely on. If SY insists on staying at CQMS, then SY will just have to make it theirs.

(years down the line is experiences gleeful joy at seeing people's face twist when it's revealed he's yqy's spouse.)

SY in all of this, is living in crisis mode! His brother is the scum villain and is going to get qi-ge killed! Why the FUCK did Airplane never mention any of this!!??? No matter how badly he wants to fuck off to the beast peak, he doesn't! He stays firmly on QJP, taking on all the duties that deal with the new disciples to keep them as far as fuck as he can from Shen Jiu's clutches!! When YQY and SJ finally ascend as peak lords, naturally he continues handling any responsibilities of SJ's that deal with one-on-one contact with kids. And honestly? That's the ideal! SY's cultivation has never been as strong as SJ's, he's not the one meant to be the protagonists' narrative foil after all! He can coast by on teaching the fundamentals!

In SJ's eyes, SY continues to be his filial younger brother, taking on the burden of the tasks SJ hates. He spoils him, when possible, in the way only SY and YQY ever seem to understand. They are the only two good things that have been and always will be his. He doesn't need anyone else.

And then NYY arrives, and no one is more surprised than he is that he looks forward to teaching her the guqin, delights in how quickly she picks up the erhu. He doesn't understand why SY looms nervously whenever she's near, is irritated when he starts to suspect why. It's their first huge blow up.

And then the boy arrives.

He can't explain why this particular disciple is so repulsive. Why the dirt seems to stick to him, no matter how clean he is. Filthy fingerprints on grasping hands. Wretched thing has a certain look in his eye, a hunger SJ knows will be ruinous, insatiable. Just the way he trails after SY is enough to make him spit! And SY has always been a soft-hearted idiot, falling for the urchin's sob story! Just as obsessed! If they don't nip it in the bud now, they'll be rumors about them. The kind of things that pull righteous cultivators down from the heavens!

YQY listens to all of this indulgently, combing oil through SJ's hair and kissing his temple. As always, no matter how hard SJ tries to hold on, yqy always manages to pull him from his mood.

"What's wrong with having a favorite?" "It's not the same and you know it!" "He's just a child, if you let Liu-shidi back on QJP, it won't even be an issue."

Lots of grumbling about toads wanting swan's flesh. They both know the root of the issue is just that SJ can't let anything that's his slip out of his grasps. His love is all consuming, kept close to his chest in the fear that it will be stolen away.

LQG is not allowed on QJP, instead, SJ starts to teach more. Tries to test LBH relentlessly, waiting for him to fail so he can prove a point. This makes things worse between the brothers, more and more arguments come up until they resort to childhood tactics of wrestling across the floor of the Bamboo house and ripping out hair. SY breaks a hair pin he knows YQY gave him, SJ tears one of SY's manuscripts on abyssal fauna in half. The fallout is ugly enough that Binghe and NYY run all the way to QDP, breaking past the sect leader's chief of staff about the impending death of YQY's husband and/or brother in law.

Kneeling in front of an amused yqy, bruised and with bald spots, both brothers Shen explain their case, each threatening YQY not to show favoritism to the other. The proposed solution is to have LBH spend some time on Qiong Ding Peak, at least until he's qualified to go on night hunts on his own. SJ is fully convinced he's won, is ready to smugly denounce any comments about Qi-ge's blatant favoritism.

Neither expect SY's eyes go wide, for him to lean forward until he's crawling to yqy's side in excitement. Luo Binghe's praises fall from his mouth like honey. SY's running to his room for a brush and paper, outlining lesson plans and tasks LBH can take on to learn about all the good CQMS does for the realm. To SJ's revulsion, SY badgers YQY until he promises to include one on one lessons. QDP already has a head disciple, there's no harm in it, right?

In Shen Yuan's eyes, a light from the heaven's has shined down on him. Invisible to all, the system flashes an exclamation point above yqy's head, offering an alternative option to saving the sect.

[MISSION OBJECTIVE: SHIBOS GOOD GRACES]

[DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT? Y/N ?]

It's perfect! No matter how much SQQ hates LBH, the combined forces of SY and YQY will stand united against him! The sect will be saved and SY will never see his white lotus darken! Maybe, and he's nearly salivating at this point, LBH might even consider staying at the sect and becoming the next QJP lord! It will take, of course, years to soften up SJ to that point. But really, when has he ever said no to SY when it truly mattered? He just needs to suck up and live in Shen Jiu's pocket for a little, it's fine! This will be easier than the time he accidentaly came back with several short haired monsters after a mission with LQG and needed a place to keep them! And now they farm them for brushes!

SY sleeps soundly for the first night in years, comforted in the knowledge that LBH's work ethic and stubborn tendencies will surely endear himself to YQY eventually. And then, one day, he knows with certainty, that if he's not there to protect LBH, YQY surely will.

The Immortal Alliance Conference is as disastrous as it was always going to be. There is a countdown floating ahead of Shen Yuan that only he can see. Sweat is pouring down his face as he fights his way after demons he once dreamed about. SY lost track of his brother ages ago, the two separating to different crisis points to save as many disciples as possible. At the three minute mark, bright blue laughing kaomoji offer their congratulations, informing him that the inmun requirements for SHIBOS GOOD GRACES have been met.

SY nearly collapses with relief, his steps slowing down a fraction, just enough to catch his breath. Fuck teaching the fundamentals to scholars nerds did not help him retain cardio! The times is in it's final seconds when he makes it into a clearing, eyes blinking rapidly in disbelief when he passes Xiu Ya embedded into the forehead of a Black Moon Rhinoceros Python's skull. Then, just further ahead, Shen Yuan's heart falls nearly out of his chest.

There are tears streaming down Luo Binghe's face as he tips backward off the cliff. The huadian beneath his messy hair shines a bright red, the soft glow reflecting off Yue Qingyuan's black pauldron. The sect leader, his da-ge, is slumped against Luo Binghe, arms in a tight embrace, an unfamiliar sword piercing him in the back as the two tumble towards an abyssal rift.

The wail of a dying beast pierces through SY's stupor, SJ stands with a blackened hand outstretched, only steps away from following the only man he's ever loved. Shen Yuan moves faster than he ever has before, half blinded by notifications he's never seen before. Something about heartbreak points, swords, and narrative foils. He doesn't care! He doesn't care! SJ is writhing in his hold screaming like a madman, over his shoulder Luo Binghe is getting smaller and smaller, Yue Qingyuan's robes fluttering around them like broken wings. Screams echo through the clearing long after the rifts have closed.

"I'M SORRY I'M SO--"

"QI-GE YOU BASTARD! YOU PROMISED YOU WOULDN'T LEAV-"

-

Five years later, Luo Binghe returns to Cang Qiong Mountain Sect, notably missing the great Xin Mo sword. The protagonist kowtows in the bamboo house, forehead touching the floor and arms extended out to present a mahogany box of bones and a long sword with a plain scabbard before an alter. Shen Yuan kneels next to him, chest shaking with labored breaths, he follows suit with is forehead pressed to the floor. From his peripheral, he can see the way Binghe's shoulders have started to shake, a puddle of tears collecting just beneath his face. A tally of points starts to flash above the boy, Shen Yuan closes his eyes, another useless apology passes through his mind.

"Gege was right, Qi-ge came home."

[mcytegg]

i wanna post my yaps abt how the stickler-empire alliance is upheld by hopperclock and dualities friendships alone simply bc the empire only recognizes the sticklers as allies bc of minute and mapiccs individual alliances w jumper and ro—

like even that is tenuous at best bc mapicc doesnt care much for rek or jumper at all to the point that i think that theres most definitely a world where he kills them for a heart or smt if anything if he was caught while crashing tf out

while minute seems to mainly trust and want to work w jumper when given the chance while kind of seeing rek and ro be allies by proxy of them being her teammates. like even w ro offering to take pentars interest in him to help kill mane, minute still sees it as him helping mapicc SPECIFICALLY and not as him helping the empire as a whole (which is most likely true, in his defense!)

but like i cant articulate all of my thoughts and opinions in a satisfying way to MYSELF bc i have much to say and a few examples to help explain what i mean but the yap braincell isnt yap braincelling so all i can do is post this which is like...basically my yaps but on sale. discounted. not at full value.

[gingermintpepper]

Why did Apollo favor the trojans in the Illiad?

So, dear Anon, I've been thinking about how to answer this question since I got it a couple days ago and I think I kind of want to make something clear before I get into it.

The Iliad by itself as a poem only covers some of the events that occur in the final year of a long protracted conflict that had been brewing for at least two decades and was an active war for ten. Within the space of the Iliad itself, the motivations and affairs of the major players are often referenced but there are many, many parts of the story that are not there because they belong to a different story cycle that has been since lost or was never recorded with words. In the space of the Iliad Apollo's motivations are questioned a lot - his pride is questioned by Poseidon who thinks Apollo should be just as angry at the Trojans as he considering Apollo was treated equally as poorly by Laomedon while they worked together. His honour is questioned by Hera who chastises him for taking the Trojans' side when he'd proclaimed that Achilles would live a long life and prosper at Thetis and Peleus' wedding. His own sister calls him a coward for refusing to fight when Zeus gives permission for the gods to go wild on the battlefield. For all that there's this image of Apollo in the Iliad as some staunch and unwavering protector of the Trojans, believe it or not, I largely think of Apollo as neutral in the war.

Which, I suppose, comes back to the question - why did Apollo favour the Trojans? The truthful answer is that I don't know. The Iliad and all its connected stories isn't something I've done enough research on to have an answer or a reference to an answer off the top of my head. The reasoning I'm aware of is that Apollo was a Patron God of Troy and really a god doesn't need any reason besides that to protect his people but it's not like Apollo abandoned the Greeks either. Calchas is the biggest example of that I can point to - descended directly from a priest of Apollo and one who attributed his mantic power to the god, Calchas was pivotal in ensuring the Greeks even got to Troy in the first place.

From a personal perspective however, I think Apollo was more dedicated to the house of Priam than he was the city of Troy itself. Apollo's affection for that house and all its members ran deep - from his admiration of Hecuba and Hector to his love and attempted courtship of Cassandra to his blessings given to Helenus, Deiphobos, Cassandra, Troilus and even his partnership with Paris - Apollo loved the house of Priam. When you think about the times Apollo lashes out against the Greeks, it's generally because they've done some nonsense to earn his ire. The plague was caused by Agamemnon disrespecting his priest, his aid in the slaughter of Patroclus was because he didn't respect him, his minor grudge against Diomedes too was because he tried to test Apollo's mettle and well, the less said about Achilles the better. Apart from his obvious favouring of Hector in the skirmishes, Apollo doesn't really oppose the Greeks. He has a ton of reasons to by the time the Iliad rolls around, including avenging the death of two of his sons, but he remains mostly satisfied with conducting his father's business and overseeing the war from a somewhat professional perspective. To me, it's always been less about Apollo caring about the fate of Troy as a city itself and more about him just really wanting to protect the people in the city that he's come to love and respect.

Of course, I encourage you to take my words with a big tablespoon of salt - like I said, I don't really know enough about the facts in particular to give a solid, confident answer but I can give you my interpretation of it. Maybe consult someone like @littlesparklight for a more comprehensive and grounded response 🤔

[fluffypotatey]

hear me out, hear me out

Sharpwolf modern au except it’s practically just “Stacy’s mom”

you genius

and like, Antinous isn’t even friends with Telemachus either. just one of the neighbors, who also commutes to uni

AND!!!! AND!!!! Penelope is the dean of their department :0

which just adds to all of it

[danwhobrowses]

I have to say when it comes for episode 107 I'm on the camp of this feeling wrong. Like, two gods' plan is to just let Ludinus just have his way? And just assume that the vessel won't get them? The Wildmother showed Orym the time Predathos came to town, it took out two of them in a blink and the Titans did the heavy lifting, it chased them from Tengar to Exandria without concept of navigation so it's foolish to think they won't do the same this time around. Running forever isn't a life even the infinite should be pursuing. Corellon is cheeky and flirty but it's a mask for being deflective and honestly a little cowardly. What you're asking and trying to persuade with gifts requires the Hells to entertain sacrificing one of their own, which they shouldn't (and I'm hopeful they won't, because that'd be to me at least be a character betrayal since they have always prioritized each other over the gods) consider doing even for any kind of promise, and treating it like it's a necessity, as if leaving like you've decided you want to do now is your 'sacrifice'? Even if being a vessel and still being of sound mind was a viable option with proof that it can work that way, there are too many unknown factors that it seems not even the gods have answers for, so it should all trail back to the fact that this is STILL not a risk worth taking and Ludinus should not be having his way.

I guess part of this feeling comes down to the fact that this was not what I was hoping to get out of the episode; I'm always open to being surprised (because I often am) but it has to be in a good way, this was not a good way. But we'll have to see where it goes, this is a proposal of two gods against a majority yet to say their piece and could still be heard out, I still trust Matt's vision and Abu DM's like smooth butter, but the god debate admittedly continues to wear on me - we were already in a state where we were open to talk but now they're conspiring against one another too? Can we not just focus on Plan A: Unite to Stop Ludinus from releasing Predathos? Evoroa literally said Ludinus' plan is to divide why are we sowing more division? Couldn't just kill Zathuda and take his dragon for Fearne...this should've been Bell's Hells' big win to make up for Otohan but now for me at least it feels a little sour.

[cupophrogs]

Hey DD. How have you been. You’ve been quiet.

“Thankfully, most of the vending machines are intact and full, so we won’t be starving while Cherub’s leg heals. Thing has caught him trying to sneak out far too many times.”

[crouton-moons]

Zionist.

saying don't fall for scams does not make someone a zionist. tumblr asks are NOT actual calls for aid!

i was just going to delete this ask like i do all scam asks, but i figured id post it just in case other people are getting similar things for... not being gullible? for trying to stop other people from being scammed and sending their money to scammers instead of actual palestinians?

many people in palestine obviously need aid. an obvious bot sending thousands of messages to thousands of people asking for "aid" will not help those people. they aren't from actual victims. they're from random people who are weaponizing the kindness of strangers to make a buck. falling for it helps absolutely no one. critical thinking is even MORE important in a time like this, stop falling for this obvious shit! they're just like the ai porn bots. they're used by the same exact people for the same exact reasons, getting money off those who are gullible. they're scumbags who are weaponizing peoples empathy to make a buck off a genocide. stop. falling. for. it.

they're trying to take advantage of you. they're assuming you're too stupid to think critically about who you think you're helping. stop proving them right.

there are thousands of actual ways to donate to those in need that aren't tumblr ask scams!

[choccy-milky]

Their kids are so cute omg i'm gonna dir of adorableness

lewis: then die LMFAOO NO BUT FRR THANK UU IM GLAD U THINK SO🥹🥹💖💖💖all the love for them (esp lewis) gave me the idea to draw him deflecting all the attention so ty for giving me the excuse to post it....we luv our aloof distant boi🥰

its funny bc i was JUST talking about this recently, but i dont like pet names at all BAHAH, hence why seb and clora dont call each other anything, not even nicknames.... seb calls her the light/princess/a bird sometimes as playful and teasing jokes, but doesnt actually address her like that. and clora always calls sebastian by his full name as well, bc i was basing her dialogue/my writing off the game dialogue...bc for as close as anne and ominis are to seb, both of THEM call him sebastian in full, so maybe it was a victorian thing that nicknames werent really common? plus clora's so proper that it just feels like its in her personality to always call seb "sebastian"... i feel like if she ever DID call him "seb" he'd do a double take and be like ...HUH? who are you???......are you polyjuiced? LMAO. i do imagine seb calling clora "love" when they get older tho (not in hogwarts) bc i like how simple it is, and imagining him saying stuff like 'careful, love' makes me🫠🫠🫠🫠

aw TYY💖💖 honestly i didnt give the victorian setting TOO much thought, other than making clora more modest/not used to wearing trousers etc. like the actual victorian courting process was that youd ALWAYS be chaperoned by at least 1 other person and you wouldnt be able to kiss or anything, so the fact that our mcs are in a co-ed school with free reign already ruins that, so i wouldnt worry too much about it. a lot of it you can just wave off with the excuse that wizard society is more advanced than muggle society, which is true anyway LOL. i just kept the parts that i thought were fun/made it feel victorian ENOUGH but got rid of the stuff that was too annoying (one big example being the amount of clothing they wear....i said it in the notes for one of my chapters, but i wasnt about to make seb go through like 5 different layers just to touch cloras titty LMFAO) and no i didnt have 1 specific website i used, id just google "blank in victorian times" and look through all the articles and resources i could on that subject, and take little bits of it. SO YEA i wouldnt worry about it too much, just take what you want if you think it could enrich your story, and leave stuff out if its annoying to deal with BHAHA. and GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR WRITING!!💖💖

BAHAHA yeah sebs bark was defs bigger than his bite when it came to actually having kids/getting clora pregnant LOL. he defs loves the pregnancy part, but i feel like seeing her go through the actual labour was super hard on him/made him feel guilty bc he hates to see her in pain, let alone bc of HIM. not to mention that i imagine he would still work even once they have kids, so to leave clora with like 6 kids by herself isnt something he would have wanted to do LOL. once both lewis and celeste are in hogwarts tho i actually imagine seb and clora still doing curse breaking as well (albeit less dangerous jobs/not as far away) BUT YES having a third kid that looks like seb and is sassy like anne would be SO CUTEEE...a happy accident is a good idea too, tho i kinda like the idea of it being cloras idea.....like, she gets baby fever again now that the kids are kinda growing up and sebs like no i dont wanna put u through that again... but obvs seb wouldnt be able to resist if clora was begging seb to put a baby in her LMFAOOO its already as good as done at that point😇😇 AND THANK YOU, and im glad you liked it!!!🥹💖💖💖

@the-kcm-muggleborn AWWW ur right thats so pretty.....ty for showing me!!🥹and im glad it make you think of clora...SHE WOULD APPROVE OF THESE STUDIES👌⭐🌙

[stiffyck]

Can we talk about how Karen definitely has some sort of PTSD because you can't just wake up one day with a knife and bloody hands and a dead coworker on your carpet one and then be fine. You don't get arrested and then almost strangled to death while in custody and be fine. You don't get kidnapped and threatened and then kill someone in self defense and be fine.

Oh my god can we PLEASE talk about Karen and her trauma oh my GOD.

[lynxgriffin]

We've seen Eldritch!Susie and Eldritch!Noelle, but is the world ready for Eldritch!Ralsei?

I mentioned this in text a little earlier back, but rather than being another huge horror beast, I think Ralsei would instead be a completely shadowy, cloaked figure of unknown intentions from the dark realm that teaches Kris the power of friendship grants them the forbidden knowledge to find and command the huge horror beasts!

[blueskittlesart]

Do you have any theories/thoughts on why the last dragon tear is on the Rist Peninsula? Like..lore reason wise? Or did they just pick that spot cause it has a fancy spiral? This thought hasn't left my brain for weeks.

this question got me thinking, because there are quite a few spots on the totk map that are significant lore-wise in that they mention locations in other games and/or were significant in botw, but rist penninsula isn't one of them. of the locations that the geoglyphs and tears fall on, a few of their names appear to reference characters and locations in other games, which is a common theme among minor location names on the botw/totk map. aside from the naming conventions, though, none of these places share distinguishing features with any map locations in other games. there ARE certain locations on the botw/totk map that are very clearly meant to correspond to the maps of other games/cycles, but those locations will almost always have both a specific name referencing the other map's location AND distinguishing features which mirror the features of the other map very closely if not identically. the geoglyph locations pretty clearly aren't that, so the names are likely just easter eggs. these locations also don't have any significance on the BOTW map from what I can tell, aside from the occasional shrine location, which is less important to the point i'm trying to make here but this is already full of useless information bc i did the research so i might as well give you all of it. the important point here is that none of the dragon tear locations are present in any other map of hyrule aside from the botw/totk iteration.

why is this significant? because it means that botw/totk era-hyrule is the ONLY hyrule in which these locations exist. this fact, combined with the fact that certain locations seem almost designed with their respective geoglyphs in mind (the most prominent example is cape cresia's shape being perfectly fitted to the scimitar glyph, but to a lesser extent the tabantha snowfield ganondorf glyph and the NW eldin mountains master sword glyph both finding large, flat spaces suited to their respective shapes, and, of course, the final tear dropping perfectly in the center of rist penninsula's spiral, suggests that these geoglyphs and these memories were tied specifically to the version of hyrule that we see in botw/totk. Whether this has greater implications as to how the timeline of totk plays out or if it's just an indication that zelda was holding on to her memories of the version of hyrule she grew up in is up to you.

that's all i've got in terms of concrete lore, but on a more artistic level i think there is definitely a reason the last tear falls in the center of that spiral. totk continuously uses an ouroboros motif--a snakelike dragon eating itself in a continuous circle. the four dragons circle the map in continuous loops, repeating the same route endlessly, likely for thousands upon thousands of years. the spiral of rist is somewhat reminiscent of that repetition to me, but with one key difference--it ends. there is a concrete end point at the center of the spiral. once you go around it a certain number of times, the circular motion stops. you're free of the cycle. the final tear, in which zelda begs link to come to her, to find her, to SAVE her, falls at the center of that spiral, at the end of a repeating pattern of circular motions. zelda, like the other dragons, has been trapped in an ouroboros cycle for thousands of years. unable to speak, unable to remember, unable to do anything but follow her same circular path through the sky. but zelda's fate is not actually so bleak and unchangable--she's not in an ouroboros, she's in a SPIRAL. all she has to do is make it to the "center"--to wait it out until link can find her and save her, and she will be human again, and that circular motion will finally stop, and she'll be free to live her life again, to truly move forward. the act of journeying to the center of the spiral to get the last tear is forcing the player to adopt that same circular motion that zelda has been experiencing all these years, and to find the relief at the end--a microdose of the bigger battle zelda has been fighting, and which they will soon have to fight, to get her back once and for all.

[polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup]

did every hero really follow endeavor's plan during the jail break? I've never watched bnha, but I always figured there were more heros then Japan knew what do with. Was endeavor really just that worried about how the fight again AFO would go? and did AFO have the league with him? or other prison escapees? Given eraserhead was so entrenched?

As a preliminary matter--yes, it was way more than AfO. The League basically did what they did during the USJ arc and subcontracted their violent attacks. They needed a big force to first get AfO and everyone else out of Tartarus, and then they made it very clear (via loudspeaker and also fucking tweet) that they would all be very peacefully retreating while all those criminally insane and violent motherfuckers went that other direction. Ball's in your court as to how you want to tackle it.

AfO was the biggest threat, by fucking far, but it was far from isolated to him. It was the entire League of Villains + Their Very Special Friends. It was the kind of force that would be required to make the entirety of Tartarus fall for the first time in history. So the heroes had plenty to keep them busy.

And as to whether Endeavor was that scared about the next fight with AfO... Yeah.

I think bnha does a good job at establishing that All Might and AfO just exist at entirely different levels than every other person alive. Their fight leveled a decent chunk of Kamino. And I think that's kind of power and devastation is hard to conceptualize as like, people in a world where we don't have to worry about superhero fights. (as a side note--Sukuna's Big Fight in the Shibuya arc from JJK did better than any other fight in media to really capture the sheer cosmic horror of being caught as a bystander in one of those fights).

But endeavor saw it. He was there for AfO’s and All Might’s last fight. The gods were fighting. Everyone else was just an ant.

He is facing the villain that ultimately took down All Might. All Might won Kamino, sure. But he didn't get up again after. He was permanently and irreversibly taken out of play. And Endeavor has spent the last year feeling like he was struggling to be even half of what All Might was with two hours of productivity a day. He was so consistently voted to not be able to compare to All Might that he bought a wife and had four kids about it, all of whom hate him actively.

He does not think he is winning this fight. He is Japan's number one hero. The responsibility is going to fall to Midoriya Izuku to him. He is the best they have left, and the fight that would be coming was one that already nearly killed All Might, the one guy he has never ever been able to compare to. And when he really looked himself in the mirror and asked if he could stop AfO, the answer was no.

And it wouldn't just be AfO if he came back to power. It would be his followers--and he was liable to get more than just the current League of Villains roster. It would mean more Nomus. They could barely handle one Nomu--how could they possibly handle the Nomus, and the LoV, and AfO?

And the answer that he came to was that they couldn't. Not without All Might.

He thought he was sacrificing Yokohama for every single other city AfO was going to level if he had time to grow in strength again. He thought that if they threw absolutely everything they had at him while he was weak, then maybe they could contain him and the League before entire cities fell.

So. That's why he came to that decision. Why did every hero fall into line?

So what’s key to what happened here was it was this complete structural breakdown at exactly the wrong time.

Structural Flaw #1: Transportation

Was it every hero in Japan that responded to Endeavor’s order? No. But not every hero in Japan was available. Any heroes out of the immediate area were too far away to do shit.

But it's a massive crisis. Heroes would commute from all over if they could--but it's not about desire, it's about time and resources. With how imminently emergent the threat was, a lot of far-away heroes would need something like a jet to even conceivably get there in time.

Who is sending the jet?

Let's pin down what heroes could, conceivably, get there in time. Very few heroes are in walking distance. How do heroes typically get from Point A to Point B?

Hero society in bnha is an agency model. There is no communal pool of resources--you have what your agency has. You have a jet to transport you if your agency has the money for one, and I’m pretty sure only all might had that (he has since had it dismantled and the parts repurposed for the sake of the environment. He only had it to begin with so he could quickly respond to imminent threats. All Might thinks there's more than one way to save the world and saving the environment is part of it). Like. We even saw Endeavor flying fucking commercial.

But let's just assume, arguendo, that some agencies have jets. It would have to be the very top agencies to possibly afford it.

All of whom are shown in canon to mostly operate out of the same area. So they're going to have to send the jet somewhere else to get more heroes. Now any travel time is doubled. If they do send it out, how many people are they realistically getting? Are these heroes in multiple different cities? That's more travel time then. Maybe we just land the plane in Kyoto and whoever gets on in the twenty minute period while they're refueling is who is coming back. We'll hand them parachutes and kick them out the plane door over Yokohama. Okay. Good plan. Go team.

Who is sending the jet?

Like, who is physically making the call to send the jet? Who do they call? Do they just start ringing around their buddies and seeing if they have other plans? The city is on fucking fire and we need people fighting now, so the big name heroes don't have time to organize transport with other agencies. They’re not even thinking of that right now. Make it a sidekick's job.

They are all on fucking strike.

Fuck it. Fine. Make it an admin's job. There has to be some kind of office staff who can work a telephone who's available.

Who is thinking to send the jet?

Admins are not making strategic calls about where the company jets go. There would have to be some kind of protocol in place or someone with the authority to send the jet would have to think of it in the moment. And I guarantee you this would not be the case.

Because this is a society where they have canonically semi-privatized public safety and put people in direct competition with each other over it.

ASIDE: The Economic Structure of Heroics and Why It Sucks

I have an economic structure. You must listen to it. I promise it is relevant. This is why it takes me forever to do things it's because i get too deep into the weeds and have to explain the fucking economic structures underpinning the analysis for my nonsense to make sense.

How the fuck do heroes get paid?

I have no idea if canon ever tells us because to be so for real with you guys I have not watched this show in years. I haven’t cared about canon since the Shie Hassaikai arc. The fucking YouTuber arc broke me. I literally never watched it again. If they ever explain to us how heroes get paid I do not know and I do not care. I refuse to go back to canon. Everything I found out about canon after the Shie Hassaikai arc, I learned against my will. The ending to this story was so fucking stupid and I only have a scattered knowledge of the details but I’m still right. If canon ever tries to explain it then please do not tell me, I refuse to learn more things about this show.

But I still like poking around the potential economic structures based on the part of canon that doesn’t cause me psychic damage. So here’s the thought process for the economic underpinnings of hero society in the pez universe.

From canon, we know it can be an enormously lucrative profession, we know that it involves some degree of private interests (re: merch lines), and we know that there are some people who cannot have merch lines (Underground Heroes, e.g. Eraserhead), so there also must be some kind of public funding aspect to it as well. So. Who the fuck signs your paycheck?

Sources of Funding

a. Public Funding

There must be some kind of official governmental budget for heroics. Like. They are very much a public service. There would be no way to have a fully private heroics force without government funding. What else are you supposed to do, fucking Venmo heroes after they save you? Do they put your kitten back in the tree if you don’t have enough.

In my mind, there's public funds allocated to heroes as part of a city's budget. That funding is allotted based on the number of employees in a given entity balanced against the confirmed acts of heroics of that same given entity. There’s a base salary level and that can be increased based on how successful you are, but salary isn’t exclusively what this fund is for. The heroic entity (an individual hero or an Agency) is effectively receiving grant money from the government to run their agency. You put it into salaries, gear, office space, everything. The government is basically investing in heroes, and it’s investing more in heroes who are shown to have a greater positive impact on society.

It involves overly complex calculations regarding the scaled difficulty of a given bust/rescue/act and ranking of the villain (if there is one) and the overall public benefit for the service rendered. You get bonuses for having a lower average property damage, for contributing to community building projects, that kind of thing. It is Complex. There is a lot of paperwork that has to be submitted to strange and vaguely threatening government accountants. When Mirio and Izuku start their agency, they will burst into tears multiple times trying to figure it out once filing season rolls around, bundle all the paperwork in a Massive Tears And Shame Package, mail it off to the shadowy powers at be, and then get a perfunctory notice that they are getting a ludicrous amount of the city budget allotted to their dinky little agency for the upcoming fiscal year because they are Big Fucking Heroes and enormously good at what they do and it reflects in their stats. They will then lay on the ground of their haunted fucking office and stare at the ceiling for a very long period of time.

But this puts the heroes in competition with each other. Your public funding is chained to your stats under this model. There's only so many criminals out there--you've got to get the right numbers or it cuts into how much of a slush fund the agency is working with.

It's sort of an insane model for a public servant position, but I think it matches with what canon shows us. Imagine having firefighters pitted against each other. like, having a competitive model for public safety raises extreme concerns about how it incentivizes public servants to act.

But this isn't canon's model. It's my guess as to how canon works based on the hints i can remember and my own mental illness. So why do I think canon suggests a model like this?

It's because 1) canon does establish that heroes are in competition with one another and 2) this kind of model would likely be necessary due to the level of autonomy that heroes have.

The literal first fight we see involves heroes in competition with each other. Kamui Woods is doing a big Ultimate Move, and Mount Lady rushes in and steals the show. Like. that is crazy behavior if we are looking at this through the lens of a typical public servant. Imagine you're trying to get directions from a park ranger and a different park ranger kick flips in with a map and a desperate need for you to get your directions from them instead. You call poison control and they’re beating each other in the head over who gets to tell you you’re dying.

Still, on its own, the competition isn’t dispositive, because the private income streams (we'll get there) would incentivize competition even if public funding wasn't based on it. But the level of autonomy that hero offices exhibit also suggest some kind of competition model.

Heroics agencies are not run like a typical police force or fire station. With most entities that function as first responders, they respond to some kind of centralized force (like 911 call centers) and they have highly regulated resource distribution. Like, police forces are restricted to a specific jurisdiction. Within that jurisdiction they have multiple districts and officers typically stay in their district. They're not going to a different fucking city because they think the crime is cooler there.

But Endeavor does exactly that. He's like "hello, son who hates me. Let's go to Hosu because I want to fuck with the hero killer for street cred. won't you come along. It is non-optional" and todoroki says "i hate you father and will abandon you on our father son trip to set a serial killer on fire with my mind. it will be for mildly gay reasons."

These agencies aren't a centralized public service. They are all just off doing their own thing. They're not responding to specific areas as allotted to them by the city--they just fuck off and do whatever. Like, there's probably some coordination between agencies as to who is covering what patrol, but it likely would be more out of courtesy than formal requirement. People wouldn't step on each other's toes nearly as much if there was more of a structure to this.

Typical public agencies who receive funding in accordance with staffing and budgetary needs have more structure and formality than is exhibited in canon. Heroics Agencies act like they're all independent contractors. They probably function like grant money recipients, where they're all fighting for the same pool of funds. You have to write in and show why you deserve that money when that's the case. They're in competition with each other.

Like, is this definitively the structure in canon? No, of course not. I have no fucking idea what, if anything, canon has going on. But it definitely fits with canon.

b. Private Income Streams

We know from canon that it can't just be public funding. Izuku alone probably paid for the Mighty Agency private jet with how much fucking all might merch he bought. Canonically, heroes have merchandise lines, branding deals, commercials, everything. All Might had fucking movies made about him. Those are all extremely lucrative income streams--and likely where the richest heroes get the biggest brunt of their income.

In order to get this kind of income, you are necessarily in competition with your fellow hero.

Public attention, spending money, screen time, all of it--it's a limited resource. You have to be the person who gets to the fight first, who does the big move, who saves the day. If it's someone else? Then that's another kid buying their action figure instead of yours. Heroics is heavily commoditized in canon, and that inherently invites competition.

2. Distribution of Funds

So now that we have a theory as to where the money comes from, how does it get paid out? Based on canon, it comes down to a structure of (a) Independent/Underground Heroes and (b) Agencies.

a. Independent/Underground Heroes

I can't actually remember if the word "independent" is said in canon or if I came up with it, but I think canon implies its existence. It's basically the same thing as being an underground hero, but you're still a Spotlight hero. I also cannot remember if the underground/spotlight thing is canon or fanon or what I’m sorry I haven’t watched this show in years.

Independents are spotlight heroes without the backing of an agency. They just go out every day with the clothes on their back and a dream. They have no support staff, no back up, and no one to help them if things go sideways.

It is not a popular employment option.

Part of it is because it's that much harder to fund being an independent. Like. Say you're just out of high school and you decide to strike out on your own as independent. You're still spotlight, so you can have a merchandise line, and that'd be a nice income stream while you're just starting out.

How the fuck do you start your own t-shirt line?

How do you make contracts with the manufacturers? How do you make and copyright the design? how do you sell the stupid things? Do you try and get them in Walmart? Do you start an Etsy? Your own website? do you call your mom and cry when you have 500 ugly t-shirts with your face on them that no one wants to buy and they're taking up all the space in your studio apartment.

Agencies have preexisting structures in place to help launch these kinds of options, which is one of the reasons why they're so attractive for baby heroes just starting out. The only reason why Mirio has merchandise is because he decided that he didn't care and didn't need to make merch and Izuku came after him with feverish crack addict energy because he cared and he needed Lemillion merch like. yesterday. All Might ended up getting his agency to start a lemillion line. Mirio gets the profits with a reasonable fee to the Mighty Agency. To this day he suspects that Izuku is 70% of his sales but Izuku denies this fervently, like a liar (he actually has a small but very devoted fanbase who rabidly support him and buy all of his merch. he would cry if he knew this. Still. Izuku is his biggest fan and buys literally every single piece of new merch in triplicate.).

Underground heroes are in the same boat as independents but they don't even have the option of a merch line. They exclusively get public funding unless they're backed by an agency, which none of them are because agencies have a tendency to fuck them and their busts for the sake of the spotlight. All underground heroes are bitter and culturally opposed to agencies.

On that note:

b. Agencies.

This is where by far the most heroes would end up. But an agency is like thirty dudes with the same joint bank account. How does the money get there and get distributed out?

i. Public Funding in an Agency Context

Take the above model. How do you attribute public funds based on personal statistics if there's no single person? Does everyone get their own check? But that wouldn't make sense--this isn't just for salaries, it's for funding the actual heroics itself.

Everyone under the same agency would be counted together for the purposes of funding allotment. If Sidekick A managed 300 busts last year and Sidekick B man managed 350 busts, then congratulations, The Big Hero Hero Agency made 650 busts last year, here's a check made out to the agency, figure out what you want to do with it.

But what about incidents that involve multiple heroes from the same agency? Let's say that The Big Hero Hero Agency is involved in a big bust. It is Sidekick A's baby. They have spent months doing this. This has been blood, sweat, and tears. When the day comes, they are joined by Sidekick B, Sidekick C, and Big Hero himself. Sidekick B has been helping Sidekick A for the past three weeks on this case. Sidekick C got called in the day-of to help.

Big Hero showed up for the last twenty minutes of the fight when they were mostly done with everything.

So. You're filling out the post-arrest paperwork. For funding and for public statistics, you need to make sure to properly account for who gets credit for the bust. It has to be one person--if you had everyone individually credit themselves for the bust, then it looks like you've resolved four incidents instead of one under this financial model. it's artificially inflating your numbers for public funding. that's fraud. Who should get the credit: Sidekick A, Sidekick B, Sidekick C, or Big Hero?

Well, there's nothing stopping Big Hero from writing their own name. So let's go with Big Hero. He helped.

This was one of the big sources of the sidekick strikes: a lot of agencies had an absolute policy of attributing successes to the name hero if they touched the case at all, because there was no rule against it. It was better for the agency, after all--unrealistically high numbers on the biggest name meant the agency as a whole appeared more successful.

So there were a lot of heroes artificially inflating their stats with things that were more properly credited to their sidekicks. Which made it all the harder for sidekicks to leave because their stats were shit because their boss was taking credit for their work.

ii. Private Funding in an Agency Context

But that’s just public funding. How would agencies distribute private income streams?

Big Hero Agency is proud to announce its newest line of Big Hero Action Figures, featuring the Entire Big Hero Team, now retailing for $39.99. Get it now from a store near you.

So. An agency is selling an action figure line featuring Sidekicks A, B, and C, as well as Big Hero himself. We’ll round up to an even $40. How do we split up the cash?

You can’t give everyone each $10. You have to first pay the suppliers, the advertisers, the trucks that shipped the toys to the store, etc. Then you have to pay back into the agency to fund miscellaneous expenses—the stationary, the insurance, the coffee in the fucking break room. Everything. By the end, there’s only $4 of profit left over. Not great, but hey—they’re selling a lot of toys. So if they each get a $1, then it should add up quick.

Right. But. If you think about it, people are only really buying it for Big Hero. He’s the best hero of all of them—his name is on the agency, and just look at how much higher his stats are. So it’s only fair that he gets $3.70 a toy and the rest of them can get $.10 apiece. Don’t worry, it’ll add up quick.

Not all agencies would have been like this. But a lot of them would be. Money is a hell if an incentive to screw people.

END OF ASIDE.

With all that in mind—why would they feasibly have a structure to fly in help from other heroes far away? That’s their fucking competition. Sure, we have team ups, but they’re all either well in advance or in the heat of a moment. If they are in the heat of a moment, half the time the heroes resent it because they just stole their fight. They’re gonna what—pay the exorbitant jet fees to fly in someone who’s just going to steal their hard work in the eyes of the public?

Okay, but what about situations like this? Massive emergencies where you need more people?

Those haven’t ever happened before. They had All Might.

So. The heroes on the ground calling in help are out. What about the heroes who are close enough to make it there by ground transport? No one calls them, they just show up out of public need. How are they getting there?

Trains are out. All the trains into the area are shut the fuck down. We are not giving the freshly escaped villains a bullet train to the rest of the country. Same thing for buses. No fucking bus driver is making their regular route into a fucking battleground.

Private transportation it is. Anything more than a few hours out of the area is completely out of the question. Like, good ol’ Manuel from Hosu City and all his buddies? Not making it. The wild wild pussycats? Watched this on TV from their mountain home. Gran Torino? On FaceTime with All Might, who is watching the fight with Midoriya Inko’s hand gripped in his left and Bakugou Mitsuki’s hand gripped in his right. Gang Orca? Twelve hours away and on a fucking island so he needs a boat AND a car to get there. Or he just fucking swims.

But there has to be at least some hero that saw this happening and heroically climbed in their Mazda sedan to make the three hour car trip. Why didn’t they go to the fight in Yokohama instead of the one against AfO?

Frankly at that point those literal children were visibly doing way better than the actual heroes were faring and any heroes showing up went where they were most needed and uh. It wasn’t by the kids.

If we have the agency model as given to us by canon, then that means there is a decentralization of resources. If you want to utilize your public defense force in the case of emergencies, then you need a way to fucking get them to the emergency. Canon does not have that. This is a huge structural failing that only wasn’t a disaster sooner because most emergencies required one guy and he had his own private jet. So most heroes in the country never had to even consider if they would listen to Endeavor’s order because they were completely cut off and useless at the time.

So. Now the analysis has been narrowed from all of Japan’s heroes to just the ones in the immediate vicinity of the fight. That’s still a fuck ton of heroes. This is a heavily populated area with a bunch of heroes around. You can’t go outside without tripping over a hero.

Most of those guys were on fucking strike.

Structural Flaw #2: Over-Reliance on and Abuse of Sidekicks.

The vast majority of the workforce had to be sidekicks. Like, just from a business model perspective. Even the smallest agencies we saw had 2-3 sidekicks. Endeavor’s agency had at least double digits, and I think Idaten was at over a hundred or something. We were probably looking at, conservatively, a 1:10 ratio of heroes to sidekicks.

All those guys are on strike.

Okay. But not all of them, right? Idaten already settled and got their sidekicks back. That’s like a hundred guys.

Except the Strike was not isolated to the Tokyo/Mustufasa/Yokohama area. Idaten sent out a lot of their sidekicks to other regions to help alleviate some of the strains of the strike. (As a note, this was not the Idaten sidekicks crossing the picket line. Them picking up the slack for other sidekicks still striking would have helped minimize effects on the public. However, the agencies of the striking sidekicks would have reaped no benefit from this under the compensation structure outlined above. Idaten would have gotten the credit for everything their sidekicks did, so the other agencies would still be bleeding from this while risk to the public was slightly alleviated. Idaten’s entire function in this strike was to set an example for quick settlement and minimize public harm. There’s this entire sub-analysis on Idaten’s internal culture and how it intersects with broader heroics standards that I won’t get into now this is already way too long.)

Idaten is at 1/10 capacity. It has like, ten guys, all of whom have been working say, thirteen hour shifts (voluntarily—again, it was a decision made to try and minimize the public safety risks of the strike while still allowing their colleagues their best chance at improved conditions) daily for the past month.

All of those ten guys responded to Tartarus before Endeavor made the call.

To understand the exact nature of the breakdown, you really have to see the chaos of how exactly this unfolded.

The LoV and their merry band of criminals hit Tartarus. The heroes do not realize at this time that they intend to let everyone out, give them transportation, and point them straight towards the mainland. They think that they’re just there for AfO. That’s still a huge crisis that needs to be shut down immediately, so they call out all of their best. Endeavor responds. Hawks responds. Eraserhead responds. Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Miruko—everyone in the vicinity who could conceivably respond show up. For a second, it looks like it’s going to end here.

Once the LoV get AfO out of his cell, the entire tide of the battle turns against the heroes. Now everyone’s out. All of those horrible, terrible villains. Tartarus has fallen. They have to make hard decisions. The high ranking, very powerful heroes who are most likely to break the line on Endeavor’s decision? They’re already at the fight by the time he has to make it. It is chaos and something they cannot easily leave.

The LoV’s picked right now because they knew that the heroes were operating at less than a tenth of their regular capacity. They picked right now because they knew the system had structural faults, and if they hit them just right, it would all come down on the heroes’ heads.

But the sidekicks broke strike lines to respond, right? Why do they all go to endeavor’s side?

For one thing, it wasn’t all of them who showed up—maybe a third of them were not even in the area any more. It wasn’t malicious, or intentional, or anything like that—they were off visiting their families for the first time in a long time or taking vacation. All of them had spent the past few years being completely overworked and abused by their jobs. They just weren’t there.

So now we’re down to 2/3rds of them who can even try to show up.

A lot of it wasn’t actually made as a reasoned choice. For many of them, they ended up where they did because of all the chaos.

So you’re a sidekick. You’re on strike. The entire world has gone to shit. How do you normally find out about the world going to shit?

This is a competition model streamed through individual entities. There’s no central command structure. Your agency calls you.

Well, your agency either fucking fired you or they cut you off completely during strike negotiations. This time, you find out through the news when the story breaks. Now what?

You frantically try to get in touch with your (ex) agency. Who is picking up the phones?

No one. That was your fucking job before you went on strike.

I used to work at a government public-service type deal, and let me tell you, they abuse the fuck out of non-unionized workers. You are doing everyone’s job. No one ask why we don’t get more support staff because they have unions. Like. I had a law degree. I was hired to be a lawyer in that office. They had us all doing the jobs of four people, and by that I mean it would be the literal entire job description of another fucking position in that office and we were all expected to just do it too.

Unions incentivize treating workers right. The absence of them opens the door to the opposite.

Why the fuck would agencies hire more people to lighten the load on the sidekicks and let them focus on actual heroics? Just make the sidekicks do everything. What are they going do, complain? They’re a dime a dozen. Hire more of those fresh faced kids with no standards just out of school.

You know when you had a job where you’re like. This fucking place is going to fall apart without me. But they treat you as disposable and easily replaceable and you’re like “okay bet” and so you leave and you find out from the people left behind that it actually fucking fell apart without you and you’re just like :o

Yeah. So that happened.

There has been a massive break down in the function of heroics offices for the past month and change because the sidekicks were not there. They were the ones who actually did most of the day to day handling of the office. They were the ones coordinating transport and figuring out the actual mechanics of who would be deployed where in a crisis. All those things that would be super helpful now? Yeah, those guys aren’t there, and they’re locked out of the fucking offices and can’t get in to un-strike for the sake of societal crisis.

But they know where the fight is. It’s on the news. Why don’t they just show up?

Where’s their gear?

Who owns it?

Heroics support gear must be an enormously expensive thing. It would have to be provided by the agency itself. Literally the only reason why Mirio has gear is because 1) all might would NEVER let his pseudo step son run around without proper support so the man would have bankrolled it himself if needs must and 2) the UA support class has a stipend each year where they can make support gear for active heroes and those heroes get it for free in exchange for free advertising for the students trying to kick start their careers, so he is decked out in THE most experimental bullshit from Hatsume Mei Industries (I have this entire side plot where the support class this class year low key became a sort of religious cult haha not really it’s just a joke it’s not really a joke and power loader is afraid every single day when he comes to work he is afraid under the iron clad rule of Hatsume Mei’s weird girl energy and they all decided Mirio was the Tabula Rasa, a figure of prophecy, and I just cannot get into that right now it’s too long it’s too long already. But it’s so fun).

All those sidekicks on strike lost valuable time trying to get back into their agencies so they weren’t showing up to an S-class villain fight in their fucking jammies. Then, when some poor admins figured out what was going on and let some of them in, everyone was frantically gearing up and getting in whatever transport van they were pointed at. Some of them didn’t know they werent reporting to Yokohama until they were already at the other fight. There’s was so much chaos and confusion that very few people had a clear idea of what was happening.

With the sidekicks, some of them never made it, some of them just got in a van and went wherever it took them, and some of them chose to obey Endeavor’s orders. Some agreed with the decision. Some disagreed but deferred to his experience. With how the Sidekick Strike had left their infrastructure, very few sidekicks were able to respond fast enough to make any real difference.

Now for the last possible demographic: the heroes that weren’t on strike and weren’t initially deployed to the Tartarus Prison Break. Why didn’t any of them go to Yokohama?

Structural Flaw #3: All Might was that one kid doing the entire group project for like forty years and some of these people are having to be heroes for the very first time and realizing that they don’t actually want to risk their lives to save people they just sort of liked the idea of this job.

It may be a bit too specific to be a structural flaw but I’m counting it anyway.

So, just to give a bit of a recap: We consider every hero alive in Japan as a candidate for Endeavor’s order. The vast majority of them are too far away to do shit, and there’s no centralized transport network to get them there faster. Toss in those who are dealing with personal medical issues or are away on vacation or just can’t come for some reason or another, and you’ve lost most of the heroes in Japan as respondents. Probably ~80% of potential heroes are culled from this alone.

So we have, generously, 20% of Japan’s heroes left as potential people to respond. ~90% of those are sidekicks on strike. They’ve got hours before they make it to any fight, because of the aforementioned structural breakdowns.

Now we’re down to 2% of Japan’s total heroes.

Some of that 2% were first responders to the initial Tartarus prison break. All the big name heroes in the area. But there can’t be that many top heroes—so let’s say 0.2% of them were at the initial fight.

Now we only have the remaining 1.8% of heroes to analyze.

There have to be a percentage of those who agreed with Endeavor’s call as a tactical decision. If they show up to any fight, they’re going to be obeying his order.

So we only have the ones who disagreed with his call left to look at.

These are small-time heroes. All of the big names are already at the fight. So they are less likely to have flashy Quirks, be especially talented, or consider themselves to have an especially large effect in the grand scheme of things. They have likely spent their entire careers living in a world with All Might.

It has never actually been down to them.

Think of Uwabami. Momo did her work study with her.

Her hero outfit is a fucking evening gown. She spent the entire work study doing commercials and meeting with her fans. She explicitly invited the young heroes that she did because she thought they were cute enough to be in commercials with her.

Now, she’s had some good if minor moments helping rescue civilians. It’s not that she’s never saved anyone.

But all of the top heroes are already committed to the fight against AfO. The current Number One Hero just ordered all her colleagues to report there. And Yokohama has a lot of S-Class villains en route.

And what the fuck is she going to do to stop them? It’s just her. Half of those villains took All Might to stop the first time. She is not fucking all might.

Is this a hero likely to go to Yokohama completely on her own to fight *checks notes* literally the entire prison population minus one guy? The worst guy, albeit. But one guy.

These are all heroes who have never had to be the actual thing standing between society and destruction. There has always been someone more powerful or capable or heroic nearby. Until recently, there has always been all might.

This isn’t to malign them. A decent percentage of them are legitimately well meaning about being a hero. They do good. But when it came to the big, blowout fights, they have always, always, always been the heroes evacuating civilians in the background or performing rescue in the aftermath. It has never been them who had to stand up and do the fight itself.

Every single one of those villains represent a big, blowout fight. And this hero trying to decide if he’s going to obey Endeavor’s order? They are one guy. And they’re not sure if they could even beat one of those villains alone, let alone all.

The reason why no one disobeyed Endeavor’s order was because, frankly, at the end of the day, they did not want to die.

Endeavor’s order signaled to everyone that there was no guarantee anyone would show up to Yokohama. It actually put good odds to the opposite. If you decided “fuck that, I’m going to Yokohama” then you’d likely be doing it alone.

What Class 2-A did was considered a death sentence. People who didn’t know them and their bullshit were shocked that they all made it out alive. These were the worst villains their society had ever faced and it was all of them at once (minus that one guy).

The heroes who were in a position to disobey endeavor didn’t actually think it’d make a difference if they did. They’d just… lose.

Most if not all of these heroes made the decision to become heroes during all mights era of peace. Everything just had lower stakes. Crime was less frequent and less serious. The big fights always had someone there who could handle them, because All Might was there. They’d fight the odd mugger or purse snatcher and help put out fires and go home at the end of the night. They’re heroes. That doesn’t mean they’ve ever truly had to grapple with a life or death fight.

If they went to Yokohoma, they thought they’d die. So they might as well respond to a fight that has a chance. Even if they feel ashamed as they do it. Even if they think Endeavor made the wrong call and wanted to go to Yokohama instead. All Might wasn’t there anymore. And they were afraid.

But there is one thing that Class 2-A had going for them that gave them an advantage over these heroes. And that was the fact that they are all medically insane.

It’s that they were together.

It’s a decentralized heroics structure. If you have a large agency, you are necessarily a top hero because no one else would be able to get that many people to agree to work under them. So you’re already at Tartarus and this isn’t a decision you had to make.

Maybe you’re independent. Maybe you have a small agency with 2-3 people. There is no preexisting centralized line that you can use to try and gather more people to go to Yokohama with you. You’re stuck with your immediate colleagues and maybe a few other heroes you’re close enough with to have their number. You really don’t have time to try and ask around to see if anyone else wants to go to Yokohama instead—you need to pick a battle and get there yesterday.

What good is 2-3 people going to do in Yokohama? You’ll just get massacred and it won’t have made a difference. At least if you go to stop AfO, you’ll have a chance at doing something that mattered.

Maybe you disagree with Endeavor but you defer to his training and experience.

Maybe you don’t go at any fight at all. Maybe you’re afraid. Maybe you became a hero in a time where you had a symbol of peace, and you realize you can’t keep doing it in a time without one.

I think there’s a small subsection of heroes that quit in the aftermath of Yokohama. Because they wanted to disobey endeavor’s order, and they thought they’d just die and it wouldn’t matter, and then dawn came and a bunch of school kids had managed what they were too big of a coward to do. I think the fact that they fell into line when their hearts told them they shouldn’t made them seriously doubt whether they were good enough to be a hero.

But they were alone when Endeavor made the call. And it felt like certain death. And—yeah, it sort of felt that way to Class 2-A when they made the decision to respond. But they weren’t alone when they did it.

They were together. And they always felt braver when they were together. Together, they could make miracles happen.