#its taken over my mind

[beebutadinosaur]

king x archmage on realms smp call that unbreakablefool

[lucabyte]

i feel like people are sleeping on the occam's razor situation of how buckwild it is to outright accuse a guy of being a clone of your friend even if you DO have a lot of circumstantial evidence. there's other options is what im saying. they could just be like. a guy. that's a sensible deduction. you should explore that deduction. ignore my shirt that reads I <3 RED HERRINGS.

i still think odile has the correct theory on lock but she's smart enough to know it needs like... a real smoking gun to be able to bring it up without sounding insane.

anyway. (mirabelle voice) i know its rude to speculate but has anyone else noticed the grieving? they seem to be grieving. does anyone have any thoughts on the grieving? i have some thoughts on the grieving.

[dirtytransmasc]

I find it deeply depressing that every adult in Spider's life had children, yet he was never anyone's priority. every adult he could and most likely attempted to match in to. the adults he remembered as the closest things he had to parents since birth (Jake and Norm, even if they weren't acting as his parents, because Spider, genuinely, would not know better). down to his actual foster family (the McCoskers). essentially went out of their way to de-prioritize him.

like I'm not faulting them for having kids, for having a family. but Spider was their first priority. he didn't need to be adopted by any of them, per say, but he was their responsibility. he was their orphan, Jake especially, considering he was the chief of his people, but Norm as well, seeing as he's a prominent figure head of the clan/Hellsgate.

the McCoskers took him in, but over the years, as they had their own children, he was more and more neglected. he was now no longer his actually appointed guardians priority. and that only gets worse and worse as he ages until they become outright abusive (Nash does anyway, cause thats what I'm gonna call violently kidnapping his, throwing him in a room and locking him there, and trying to kill all of them, him included, when they run away. as abuse. and I'll get back to the whole "you have to turn yourself in to the RDA" x2 speech from Jake in a second). they also didn't really accept his culture. with their resentment towards the Na'vi brewing, Spider most definitely faced some heat for being more of the forest than of humans, in terms of culture.

3 times over, Spider came first and was put last. put last by parents who know damn well how much love, time, care, and attention a child needs. who should be able to see when a kid is being neglected. who dialed to advocate and protect him from neglect (instead of calling him a stray).

he was a child and they were his advocates. all three parties failed in their duty as advocates, to protect Spider. to ensure he always had a loving home that made him their priority. that fulfilled all his needs, not just the physical ones. but all put their own families first, and abandoned Spider to the scraps of their love, time, and affection.

imagine being Spider, an orphan who can't even mention his birth parents and is always treated like he is the physical rebirth of his father's sins by half the people around him. every adult in your life has kids and seems like they're such a good parent. you watch their kids being loved and tended to and having a steady home. they receive love and affection constantly. but your fosters pay less and less attention to you as they have babies. and now your a stray to the man you look up to so much. and the man who probably taught you how to put an exopack on has less and less time for you. no one has time for you. you're no one's child. no one's priority. just a stray. a nuisance. and you don't truly belong anywhere.

no one was putting him first. children need to be someone's priority. psychology. they need it.

and then the RDA returns. the McCoskers leave, Spider is expected to leave everything he has ever known, to join the very people he hates and has been trying so hard since he could understand what it meant, to prove that he wasn't like them. Jake, the man he once looked up to, was telling him to leave. sending him away. stripping him of the little amount of family he could somewhatly claim, that being his siblings.

once again, Jake is his chief, should be looking out for him. not even as a father, per say, but as his duty to Spider as his chief. a chief should never be sending away his most vulnerable ward, a child he should consider his own (as all of his clans children should be one with his own children), to the opposing enemy force.

this happens again when they're running away, Jake tells him ever more directly to hide in the forest alone until the RDA stops shooting at everything that moves and then turn himself in so he can his own children could run. once again, putting him last, instead of protecting all of them.

then for a year, Spider has no family. no one. the McCoskers are gone and no one has stepped up to bat for him. he's 15/16 and alone. his the big sibling to the Sully's. those kids are all he has, but they aren't really looking out for him. he's looking out for them. cause he's the oldest. that's just how it is. he is one with the clan. lives with them. does chores. watches out for his siblings, the whole nine. but Jake isn't doing his duty of watching out for his ward. he is once again giving and giving and giving, and not receiving.

and then he is taken, he is taken, and while Jake may not have had the means to go back for Spider, or been able to take the risk of going back for him, he abandons him without a thought for his safety, and puts his children first. it's the language and attitude be poses towards the situation that is wild to me. he has every right to be worried about his children, but he could not spare Spider an ounce of concern, even knowing the danger he was in, and is more concerned about him spilling details then anything else. Spider is, once again, not his first, second, or even third priority. he is a means to an end. a necessary loss.

people only care about Spider when there's nothing else they can put before him.

[dukeofthomas]

"Jason just needs to see things from his family's perspective and understand how much they love him (despite them never actually communicating or showing him through their actions)" is out. "The batfamily putting a single bit of effort into understanding Jason and reconciling with him on his own terms" is in.

[heynhay]

let's drive out

[rameiixo]

a kissy i cant quite decide whether or not to color..

[feroluce]

So I spoke somewhat about my thoughts on Emanator Sampo here, but I never really thought of it from a design point of view or what kind of powers he would have until just recently. But I actually kind of love leaning into it from a "stage hand" perspective?

Because like. Aha's body in THEIR official art is completely black, giving attention to all the fun brightly colored things around THEM. And that's so fitting for Sampo! He usually prefers to be a side character. He likes to act from the shadows. His is a much more subtle hand.

So I wonder if as an Emanator, a lot of his clothes are actually very dark? Not necessarily plain, still extravagant and needlessly detailed in things like cut and quality with lots of different fabrics and textures and ornamentation, but dark. Or maybe even his skin itself becomes blackened further down his body; his hands in particular are dark, as a sort of sleight of hand reference.

The motif of a lot of straps wrapped around him like in his canon design is still present, but they're all loose and flowing off of him like paper streamers now instead of restraining him or holding him together. He is no longer contained! Or maybe they're still a bit more rigid/heavy, but just draped more like red stage curtains!

And this is like. Fully self-indulgent, but I love inhuman designs, and there's nothing in canon to say I can't do this, so screw it! Go for broke!! Maybe it's not visible to normal people, but Sampo having a second set of arms would be really cool, as further sleight of hand reference. One set is almost normal looking, but his hands are a bright, attention-drawing white, and the other is dark, set almost in the shadows of the first arms, to act less noticeably.

He also has something of a broken heart design to him in canon (the front of his black shirt with its jagged shape down the middle; his coat looks like a full heart shape in the back), and I actually like him keeping that element as an Emanator, because I think it suits him. Sampo says his taste in aesthetics and views on Elation involve human dignity,

and the story he helps create in Belobog involves the long and winding road of resistance and survival and eventual triumph in the face of some very adverse, oppressing odds. (I'm pretty sure I heard he once called Wildfire "artless" though, plus the man acts like he thinks Shame is some kind of dessert, so like ndkdjzjskkd) But the point being!!

I think Sampo is someone who can appreciate heartbreak and angst and tragedy in a story, because it makes the victory at the end all the sweeter. And this would be another thing he shares with Aha, because I think THEY did bless the Mourning Actors partly just to be a little shit, but also because Aha does recognize tragedy as part of THEIR Path, too, and you can see it in some of the game. So a broken heart motif can still suit him, and I like him having elements of both comedy and tragedy. Like his clothing having a happy sun/sad moon (like the moon in Aha's art) or him having both of the traditional comedy/tragedy masks in his design.

And as Emanator, Sampo can maybe play with the stage settings environment, too. Like lights sometimes behave strangely around him, appearing blindingly bright to someone or dramatically dark. Sampo wills it and suddenly there seems to be a metaphorical spotlight right where he wants everyone to look. And when he doesn't want to be noticed, his face seems to be cast in shadow, he seemingly just fades into the background, no one notices or recognizes him and he sneaks away easily. He can create smoke or fog literally out of thin air without his bombs now, too, the air will just suddenly thicken until his stage is obscured, and Sampo can set the scene as he pleases or disappear without a trace.

And in line with being a stage hand, Sampo can direct attention like no other. He was already extremely good at this as a normal mortal, and becoming an Emanator only took it up to 11, past human limits. Sampo points, and all present feel compelled to follow his fingertip. He looks away, and they all follow his gaze. He can even affect the mood of an audience; he can influence everyone to be calm and placid or he can whip them into a feverish frenzy. Sometimes a crowd will start to become unsettled, agitation stirring until it boils over, until it incites a full on violent mob.

And in the middle of all that chaos will stand one perfectly calm figure, face cast in shadow, until they quietly slip away out of sight.

[marragurl]

Saxaphone player Gallagher has not left my mind since the jazz night art dropped AND THEN Robin saying Halovian’s innately have good voices and Sunday used to hum lullabies to her as kids happened in the 2.2 special program, and I’m sure you guys can see where my unfortunate Galladay heart is going with this.

Whoever decided to make this art, I love you. I hope your pillow is cool every night, you’re never stuck in traffic, and your water is refreshing with every sip.

Also the art of Sunday with the White Gentlemen drink in the S.P.A.R.K.L.E jazz night event has also spiraled into me delusionally thinking that’s his go to drink. Which is hilarious since Robin has hinted before that he seems to have a massive sweet tooth in her letters.

(Sunday how do you even make holding a drink menacing, Sunday please get some therapy-)

So imagine this:

Pre 2.0 Galladay, where they’re both wary and suspicious of each other but didn’t do anything outright. Sunday slowly began to visit Gallagher’s bar whenever he had time to observe the Hound, initially on the down low just to get a sense of what he was working with and what to keep an eye on. He always gravitated to that one corner booth that every bar had with the most privacy, and just stalked there for a few hours before leaving. (Smol menacing birb in a tree vibes)

Gallagher obviously knew that Sunday was doing this (even though everyone else seemed to somehow completely miss him, Gallagher wouldn’t be surprised if Sunday was doing some weird Harmony mind tricks), and after the first few “stakeouts,” he bit the bullet and actually approached the table to engage with Sunday, on the off chance this was some weird “test of loyalty” by the Halovian to see if the Hound would swallow his pride to serve his so-called masters.

Nothing terrible happened, but he remained passive-aggressively polite when serving him, and Sunday remained passive-aggressively cool-headed in response. There was some snark of what dear “sweet-toothed” Sunday would want at a bar, and an icy reply of “aren’t you the master drink smith? Why don’t you show me those skills you boasted about?” which led to Gallagher being petty and giving Sunday the White Gentlemen drink, both for the story behind it being such a metaphor for Sunday, and because it was on the more bitter side of alcoholic drinks.

Sunday wasn’t too against the drink; it wasn’t something he would have ordered if it had been his choice, but it wasn’t a bad drink by any means. He couldn’t help but continue to drink it even after Gallagher left his little hidey booth to go back to the main bar, but he’d never stoop so low as to complement the Hound. Of course, he never ordered anything else from then on, only White Gentleman. In fact, over time it seemed to slowly get better, the flavors grew on him, and he couldn't help but look forward to it during difficult nights in the Dreamscape.

If Gallagher tried to needle him into a different drink, Sunday just bit back a “oh? Admitting defeat? I thought this was your best drink for me?” with a little smirk while Gallagher had to use every bit of self-control to not punch him in the face.

As time went on, the bar slowly became a place Sunday frequented to not quite relax, but to get away from the hustle and bustle of Penacony and his duties as one of its main faces. The stresses slowly started piling up, especially with the Charmony fast approaching in a few months and all that came with it.

Gallagher didn’t seem to loosen up regarding his attitude with Sunday, but he did get better at shoving down the visceral hatred he had for everything to do with The Family and Sunday as time went on. He didn’t get soft with Sunday per se, but he definitely kept an eye out for him, and definitely knew when to cut off his drinks on days where it seemed that Sunday wasn’t all that there for their usual veiled comments towards one another when he went to serve him his drink.

It started small, with Sunday staying later and later until sometimes he was the last one to leave the bar to return to reality. Gallagher wasn’t quite sure what to make of it, still wasn’t quite sure this wasn’t some weird long-term test Sunday was devising, especially since he still seemed to be the same ruthless Family member, the same Head of the Oak Family, when Gallagher was working as a Bloodhound outside the bar. For some reason though, within the enclosed space of this strange sanctuary, it was almost peaceful between the two.

One night, there was something wrong when Sunday entered the bar during Gallagher’s shift. He saw a bit of a crowd near the small stage that was within eyesight of his little hidey booth, it seemed some of the musicians of the live band were arguing? He watched as Gallagher came over, seemed to try to speak with the group before honing in on one of the musicians who had been making the most noise and seemed to be about to get physical with the rest. Sunday watched as Gallagher picked up the musician by the scruff of their suit with one hand and carried them towards the doors and lightly tossed them out.

(It was the first time Sunday had actually seen Gallagher perform anything resembling the actual duty of a Bloodhound. It only hit him that he’d only ever seen the other when giving reports, orders, or at the bar. Why was this so shocking to him, he’d seen the man’s arms before, hard not to with his slovenly dress and messy clothing style, as if he couldn’t bother to hide away his imperfections from the world, not like Sunday who refused to be seen by the world, to dare to show one thing off about himself despite his countless failings- he’s getting far too distracted by one meager showing of strength, focus Sunday)

There had always been a live music segment. Sunday was curious to see what would happen with the band missing a member, but was distracted by Gallagher placing his usual White Gentlemen in front of him before heading back to the musicians without a single word to him. Gallagher took a moment to speak with the rest of the band, who seemed to be coming out of their shock and took on worried looks. Sunday could only watch in muted shock as Gallagher went behind the bar and came back with a case, opening it to reveal a saxophone. He then went on stage with the rest of the group, positioned himself further to the side and in the back amongst the shadows within Sunday’s line of sight, and played with the band for the rest of the night.

Sunday couldn’t look away.

He was frozen as he watched Gallagher seamlessly transition from song to song, taking only small breaks to continue serving the other patrons before heading back in. Sunday only remembered about his own drink when his gloves began to get wet from the ice melting into condensation on his glass.

Something felt off within Sunday, and for the first time since Robin’s debut, he couldn't help humming to the music of the band, music that wasn’t of his own sister’s making. He couldn’t help but remember those little concerts the two would have, taking care of his little sister, his only world. He would do anything to keep the Harmony, to keep their family going. When was the last time they truly spent time together? Before he became the Head of the Oak Family? Before he couldn't recognize his own smile?

He was so lost in his thoughts, in memories he thought he buried, that he didn’t realize that it was once again closing time, and he was once again the last one left. He only snapped out of it when Gallagher came by to grab his empty glass, only quirking a questioning brow at him before heading back to the bar.

Gallagher had been keeping a quiet eye on the Halovian that night from the back of the band, in the shadows he felt the most comfort in when in the Dreamscape of Penacony. He had watched Sunday’s eyes glaze over, and the only reason he hadn’t felt offended by the seeming disinterest was the look in the other man’s eyes reminding him of his own when he looked in the mirror. The same look of shame, regret, loss, longing, of the wishes to regain everything he had lost. The same look he strove to hide under every bit of the facade he had crafted of this new self, but came back all too often with every reference of the Family found within his prison in the Dreamscape.

Maybe it was the shared nostalgia within his own heart, that little bit of his true self that he thought died when the Family tore out everything that made him who he was, that made him return behind the bar and begin making Sunday another White Gentlemen, giving Sunday a small nod to beckon him over. He wasn’t expecting anything from it, and he masked his own surprise when Sunday actually left his little shelter to come and take a seat in front of him at the bar. Even while out of it, Gallagher made note of the quiet confidence the other still carried himself. Nothing seemed wrong to anyone else looking at him, only for the lost look in his eyes.

The first time in the many months that they’ve been skirting around each other, and finally they seemed to be face to face.

It was quiet as Gallagher made Sunday his usual drink, a drink he had been slowly changing over the months to be sweeter and sweeter that Sunday never quite seemed to notice, or if he did, he never said anything, only seeming to savor it more each subsequent night. Maybe not even Gallagher noticed his own changes to the drink, subtle as they were.

It was quiet as Sunday took the finished drink, and it was quiet as his eyes slid over the bartop to see the saxophone case laying open with the instrument inside. It was quiet as Gallagher followed his eyes, as he came out from behind the bartop to take the saxophone out and take a seat in a chair only one seat down from Sunday’s. It was quiet as Gallagher began to play to his audience of one.

It was quiet as Sunday quietly hummed along.

It was quiet as they both knew that it would not last.

OK yea so this was all because I heard ‘La vie en rose’ at the end of the Jazz night event and went “Damn I wish that’s Gallagher playing on his Sax” and then we spiraled.

Uh. Idk what it is with me having a small ship moment which then spirals into a full blown writing session. My mind blanked out and as I came to I find out that I made a whole ass little one shot over here then completely forgot about it WHOOPS

So yea, hope my fellow Galladay enjoyers… enjoyed! I think I’ve slowly begun to crave… not domestic or fluff per se from these two, but after every AO3 fic being super dark between them (which I get! They are the toxic yaoi kings of Penacony as of writing this, no one is denying that!) I think I want to see them be explored in a more melancholic sense. Not quite the “forbidden” love angle, but in the “damn we kinda have some parallels, and maybe in another life we could have gotten along but there’s too much baggage and anger, both historically and currently to really even try anything”

I have this feeling this may not be the last time I write about these two… is Galladay going to be the ship that gets me to actually use my AO3 account?

[owlseider]

can I offer sapphic destiel in this trying time

[cent-scratchnsniff]

it was just going to be a few warmup doodles but then she infected the rest of the page like the ever eternal and spreading spores. hod!!! hod. hod :)

[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.

[wisteriasymphony]

would you guys call me crazy if i said archetype wise that marinette's status as a Plucky Girl-Next-Door takes priority over her status as an Aspirational Everywoman. cause i have thoughts about this

[leonardalphachurch]

GOOGLE SEARCH: HOW TO TALK TO OTHER DADS REDDIT

Lavernius Tucker and Oliver "North" Dakota are two single fathers forced to brave their most difficult challenge as a dad yet: making small talk with other parents. Not many survive this harrowing ordeal, but the bonds forged through this traumatic experience create lifelong friendships. Or, perhaps, even something more...?

A modern single dads Tucker/North AU written for @rvbrarepairweekdos Day 3: AUs. Warnings for discussions of sex/masturbation, but no actual sexual content.

I don't know why I wrote this, either. I don't even ship this. I suppose the wheel compelled me...

Also avaliable to read on Ao3.

***

“Sooo, uh, what do you… do with your time?"

“Oh, I’m a pediatric dentist.”

“No, I know that, I meant, uh,” This sucked. Tucker had zero things in common with these parents at this School for Gifted Children that had scouted Junior earlier this year. Most of them barely gave him the time of day, but this guy, Oliver Dakota, was insistent on staying the entire time his kid was hung out with Junior. After multiple false starts, Tucker shamefully ducked away for a second to look up ‘HOW TO TALK TO OTHER DADS REDDIT’ and found, “I meant, what do you do with your free time?”

“Oh,” North smiled warmly at the other man, then looked back to the door to Junior’s room. Left open a crack— he would have preferred it to be open all the way, but Lavernius had insisted the kids be given privacy. He seemed like a genuine and nice man, if a little awkward. North appreciated him and Theta being allowed into his home. Still, he wasn’t that interested in talking; compromising on the door meant he needed to keep a closer ear out for if Theta needed him. “I don’t really have much free time. With a kid and work, it’s like two full time jobs. But it’s all worth it for Theta.”

“Right.” God, this guy was giving Tucker nothing. Every single topic went back to Theta. And Tucker loved his kid, but being a single dad meant so much of his life was already dedicated to him. If he was talking to another adult he at least wanted to talk about something adult for once. “You gotta do something with your time, though. You into sports?”

“Haven’t really kept up with any lately. Theta was on the soccer team when they were younger, but we’ve decided to focus on academics in middle school.”

“Okay… Watched any good TV lately?”

“I mostly just catch snippets of whatever cartoon Theta has on.”

“……..Do you play games?”

“Oh, Theta had me join them in playing a little farm game— what’s it called, star, starting… ‘Starting Farming?’ No, no, it’s definitely ‘star’… ‘Starry Farmy?’”

“Stardew Valley?”

“That’s it! Do you play it? It’s very cute.”

“Yeah, uh, not, really my type of game. What about stuff you do without your kid?”

“Ah,” That was kind of a strange question. Most conversations North had with other parents were all about their kids— mostly trying to constantly one up the other’s accomplishments. To ask about things that he did without Theta? Why did he even care about that? “Well, I read alone?"

“Awesome! What are you reading?” Tucker didn’t give a shit about books, but he would grasp onto literally anything this dude was offering.

“Mostly child psychology books. Though lately it’s been a lot YA novels. I try to read things Theta is interested before they do so we can have discussions about them. And to make sure there’s nothing too inappropriate for their age.”

Tucker was stunned. This guy could not be serious. Was everything about his kid? “Don’t you do things with your friends?”

“Ahh,” North’s smile got a little tighter. “We had to move away from my hometown a few years ago; the schools there weren’t great for Theta, and then they got accepted here…”

“You haven’t had friends for years?”

“I have friends.” North was taken aback. What kind of person asked something like that so bluntly?

“But you don’t spend time with them.”

“I… see them often enough. When I visit home. For the holidays.” North didn’t know why he felt so defensive over this.

“Do you…” Tucker hesitated, not wanting to overstep with a guy he barely knew but also fucking floored at what this dude’s life seemed to be, “do anything for yourself that isn’t about your kid?”

North balked. “Of course I do! And, the- this question is flawed. Taking care of Theta is something I do for myself.”

“You can’t just only live for your kid, dude. There’s shit you gotta do without them.”

North twitched a little at the swear word. “There’s nothing I want to do that I would need to exclude Theta from.”

“What about sex?”

“SHHHHH!!” North panickedly looked over at the door, “Lower your voice if you’re talking about that!” He half yelled, half whispered.

“Dude. Does your kid not know about sex yet??” Tucker asked, not lowering his voice even slightly.

“Of course Theta knows what sex is!” North said, still whispering. “Teaching age appropriate sex education is incredibly important to a child’s understanding of their own body and safety. Theta knows exactly what leading child psychologists recommended an 11 year old knowing.”

“Okay.” Jesus Christ. This dude needed help bad.

North frowned. He could feel the judgement coming from Lavernius. Other parents always thought they could butt into situations that didn’t concern them. “I do not need your input on how I take care of my child.”

“I don’t care about how you take care of your kid, man, I care about how you take care of your you.”

“What?” North had no idea what he meant by that.

“Have you had sex a single time since Theta was born?”

“What?!” Seriously, how could he just ask something like that?

“You know what, not even sex. When was the last time you jerked off? Please tell me you’ve had an orgasm in the past decade.”

“This- this is a highly inappropriate conversation to be having with our kids in the other room” North had no idea how they ended up here, but he desperately wanted to move on.

“Not even once?”

“I don’t want Theta to overhear this conversation.”

“They’re playing a game, they’re not gonna hear, trust me. Kids don’t listen to their parents talking even when you want them to, they don’t give a shit what adults say to each other.”

“Theta listens to me.”

“Uh huh.” They needed to move away from the topic of their kids. Tucker needed to help this man. “Listen to me, man. I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

Tucker grabbed him by the shoulders and looked him in the eyes. Or at least, he tried to. God, this man was way too fucking tall. And actually looking into his eyes— Jesus, they were piercing. Tucker didn’t think this kind of blond hair blue-eyed motherfucker actually existed. Terrifying.

“Tonight, when you go home, once you do whatever weird nighttime ritual you do to put Theta to bed,” Oliver started to make a noise in disagreement but Tucker pushed past it, “I need you to go to your room. I need you to be alone. I need you to get comfortable. And I need you to jack off.”

North had no fucking idea how to respond to that.

“Trust me. I have a friend, his girlfriend died, right? And for like a year afterwards he was so fucking miserable. Until one day I was like, ‘You NEED to blow off some steam, if you know what I mean. Bow chicka bow wow.’ Next day he was like a new man.”

“I don’t. know.“ North thought there were probably some other reasons his friend may have been miserable, there.

“I know, you’ve been out of the game, you don’t know how to find good porn. I got you, I’ll send you some.”

“I wasn’t—“

“I got you.” Tucker was already pulling out his phone, thinking of some good beginner porn he could send Oli’s way. “What are you into? You seem kinda vanilla but sometimes vanilla looking chicks are into the weirdest shit, y’know?”

“That’s— I don’t— this isn’t— I’m. Gay.” That wasn’t really something North tended to share with other parents, but they were so far outside of the kinds of conversations he tended to have anyway, any normal ways to respond had completely left his brain.

“You’re—” Tucker looked him up and down. Huh. Maybe he should’ve been able to guess that. “Uh. That’s fine. I have gay shit I can send you.”

“You have gay shit.” Right. Okay. North was pretty sure he just swore for the first time in years. What the fuck was happening?

“Yeah, y’know, I’m… uh, it doesn’t matter what I am. But I can get whatever you want.”

“Okay.” Okay. North’s brain was starting to catch up to where they were. Was Lavernius… flirting with him? Was this what flirting was now? He was so lost.

He should probably set a boundary.

“I… do not want you to send me porn.”

“Okay,” Tucker said, putting his phone back in his pocket. “You got it handled yourself?”

“Yes, I,” North let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, “I can handle myself.”

“Good. ‘Cause the shit you were saying before was sad, man. I know we barely know each other but, c’mon, single dads gotta have each others backs, right?”

“Yeah, um. Thanks.”

“No problem.” Tucker smiled at him.

North liked his smile.

(continued in reblogs)

[chrollogy]

[walmartbrandwhatever]

I need to hear about WLW Marbit plssss

OKAY IM AWAKE NOW.

So last night me and some mutuals were yapping up a storm because someone had mentioned how a highschool production had a female two-bit and how marbit went crazy and since we all know I'm literally insane over wlw marbit we started yapping.

I fear I wrote SO much but I hope yall enjoy this because it's just me yapping and probably doesn't make sense.

So I believe @girlishwhimsies had mentioned soft butch two-bit x fem marcia and I fear I have NOT stopped thinking about it. Like godddd imagine all the events that happened.

Like Marcia a girl who has dated a lot of guys just praying to feel some sort of feeling back first talking to two-bit who is by far the coolest fucking girl she's ever seen and realizing something was different about this girl. Marcia who had learned very quickly in life that things were very "black and white" and there are rules she has to follow to stay with her collective group. Despite knowing that she still give this girl her number in hopes of... something.

Then Bob dies and her focus turns to Cherry and her boyfriend who's she's always just convinced herself she's liked him even though he sort of treats her like shit.

Two-Bit who the jokester still in her group full of boys and just having a blast is so silly to me. She's still a amazing fighter who's just pretty much doing whatever she wants without a care in the world. Her constantly getting in trouble at school for wearing pants and shorts at school. Two who stayed behind in order to watch over Johnny and ponyboy is actually so important to me (I believe @brunetteairhead said this at some point ‼️).

Two-Bit who has always seemed so brave and strong literally falling all over the place because of some soc girl who is prettier than anyone she's ever seen at the drive-in. She like tripping over herself trying to impress marcia because she's never met a soc girl like her before. She's quick-witted and confident and that takes two by surprise. And getting Marcia’s number was the highlight of her night. While walking home doubt settling and making her decide to toss the number assuming it was fake makes me so sick.

Then Johnny and pony run away and everything goes down from there. She see Marcia once in the week their two youngest are gone and it's at the police station. Marcia doesn't see her but two spots her almost immediately. Marcia is just staring off into space and the bag underneath her eyes are dark. Two was leaving after being questioned so they never got to talk again.

Then later that week two gets jumped. Marcia standing there with her back turned hurt her for more than any kick or punch she got from the socs pinning her down. Long after her torment two wasn't sure what she was going to do, she could barely walk let alone all the way to the curtis residence and that's when she sees someone coming towards her. Marcia coming back and helping Two and two finds herself in Marcia's house holding her side because it hurts like a bitch but she can't believe she's in Marcias house. The two of them practically losing it because they both sense there's something there but both know they can't act on it because Marcia still has a boyfriend and two still worried about her friends. (Marcia breaks things off with trip after this because she doesn't want to be with someone who thinks its okay to hurt others .)

Them meeting eachother after a few months post book and both of them just kicking their feet n shit because they are SO down right bad. Two-bit yapping to soda about marcia knowing she likes her so bad and Marcia yapping to Cherry about how two isn't like any boy she's ever met and how she really wants their friendship to be good and Cherry hesitantly pointing out how she thinks Marcia might want more than that and marcia freaking out because she knows that it's wrong to want to see herself with this girl. A girl who seems so impossibly strong and a girl who just seemed to understand her better than anyone she's ever known. She knows it's wrong but she can't find it in herself to care. She denys her feelings for awhile because she doesn't want to ruin everything she's worked so hard to build.

The two of them hanging out more and more until eventually they are hanging out at Marcias and two is allowing Marcia to paint her nails despite not necessarily caring too much about like having her nails being done etc but she can't find it in herself to say no to Marcia whenever she makes that face that looks like a puppy who just got kicked so she always agrees. Anyways the two of them are laughing and joking and Marcia like brushes a curl out of two-bit face and the both of them sort of freeze because they are so close together. Two-bit shockingly makes the first move and kisses Marcia (ofc with a bit of hesitation but Marcia meets her halfway) and the both of them just pull away both shocked that they just kissed.

Marcia in that moment does panic for a moment before realizing that she liked the kiss and that no kiss that she's ever shared with a boy ever felt like that. Part of her couldn't find it in her to care that this was "wrong." It felt right and she wanted more, she wanted to sit here and be happy with two.

Meanwhile two is panicking so bad because Marcia is just sitting there with this shocked expression and two-bit is frantically apologizing and trying so hard not to scream or cry she doesn't know herself bit then Marcia takes two-bits hands and tells her that it's alright and that she liked it which catches two completely off guard.

"Wait you did?"

"..yeah"

Anyways after that fact they just sort of just do not talk about it for the rest of the night because the both of them have no clue how to go about talking about what they are so they just wrap up their hangout and go about their week. Two-bit absolutely losing it the next day to soda and is practically screaming over how the kiss was and how she doesn't know what to do and marcia reluctantly yapping to cherry and cherry fully saying "I told you so" and marcia just going crazy because she wants to hold Two-bits hand and she wants to be able to kiss her again but not knowing if Two-Bit wants the same(she does) and they are just complete messes I fear.

ANYWAYS once they start dating they have sleep overs all the time. Two-bit will go to the curtis house and they immediately know she was at Marcias because her nails will be all nice and pretty and her hair will be all nicely braided and she is giving them the look of 'don't you dare talk about it'. Soda totally makes fun of her for it and they almost always end up fighting on the ground.

Anyways I have no clue if any of that makes sense but they've truly taken over my life I fear.

[angeliccynthious]

Oh yeah I SHOULD very much advertise the fic I’ve been working on—

It’s connected to the prior Vhad oneshot I wrote in the way that THAT ONESHOT WILL BE IN THE BIGGER FIC ITSELF AS A CHAPTER!!

Anyway it’s a human/vampire au because I can’t write robots for shit and the main ships present in it are Nuzi and Vhad :) because I’m totally not obsessed with those mfers

These designs I posted are for this au! I’m working on more designs for the REST of the relevant characters

And here’s the fic itself, currently I only have three chapters posted BUT I’m actively working on the fourth :D